THE BEGINNING

Chapter Three

She's never been quite the same. For Darry and Soda, she's made her way back to being her loving, motherly self, thank God. For everyone on the outside, she's made a recovery and returned to normal. But not for me.

If I had a dollar for every time I held her eyes and told her, "Nothing bad's gonna happen to us, Maggie," I'd be a rich man. But she can't shake this feeling in her bones, and whenever my soothing words happen to hold the magic that bring her back to me, I know it's all gonna start up again tomorrow. The constant worry over Ponyboy, this obsessive overprotection, the fear of a punishing God.

And in the moments she's rational, she assures me it's probably just them baby blues she read about somewhere. That it won't last much longer. I hold on to that, but in the meantime, I feel like I'm fighting a battle blind and unarmed, and I'm still trying to hold my own against this ghost that's got my fun spirited, cute little barefoot girl so spooked.

When I reach out in the night to find her gone, I know already where she is, what she's doing bent over Pony's cradle. Her hand sits lightly on his chest, just to make sure she feels the rise of it. Her other hand hovers just above his mouth and nose, to make certain his breath comes rhythmic and easy. "C'mon back to bed Maggie, there ain't nothin' wrong with that baby."

She slides back in her cold side of our bed, but not cause I told her to. She only comes back to me because her compulsive worry was satisfied for this moment, when she checked to see that Ponyboy's alive. But what matters is she's back beside me and I hold her close, finding comfort in my wife that can't seem to find comfort in me.

I want what we've always had.

Two Years Later

"I'm in the bathroom!" I call out harsher than I'd like to. The pounding of the door stops for a second, and then I hear the sound of loud breathing projecting through the narrow crack between the door and its frame. Rolling my eyes I wonder what it's like anymore to go to the bathroom in peace.

"Momma, can you hear me?" Soda asks in a voice far louder than it needs to be and the doorknob starts rattling. Just then I see the room's invaded by Pony's small fingers slipping in from underneath the door as I finish up and wash my hands. I make the mistake of catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror and I'm reminded I haven't brushed my hair out today, or changed since lunch. The remnants of Pony's applesauce is spread across my chest from where he used me as his napkin.

I swing open the door to find my two youngest looking up at me, Pony sprawled out on his stomach on the floor of the hallway and Soda standing, hands on hips, gearing up to tell me the latest crime Darry must've committed. I try and count out how many weeks till school starts.

They both follow me to the kitchen, Soda talking a mile a minute, explaining how Darry knocked him away from the TV, his hands off in all directions expressing his emotions as much as his face does. When I start shuffling through the drawers, not giving Soda the reaction he wants, he adds the fact that Darry was awfully rude to Ponyboy too, hoping this will be enough to convince me they've both been wronged by their big brother. I find my pack of cigarettes and I'm off to search for Darrel's lighter. Pony never says a word, trailing the both of us, taking everything in, just like he always does.

I'm in the bedroom going through dresser drawers and finally find a matchbook in one of Darrel's jean pockets in the laundry basket. I just want Soda to stop moving that wild mouth of his, so I call firmly, "Darry, get in here right now."

He knew it was only a matter of time and I hear him dragging his feet down the hallway and to my room, not stepping all the way in.

"Yes ma'am?" He's playing his cards right with that, and I ask for his side of the story. He lays it out as he always does, methodically and to the point. Giving the play by play, leaving everything out but the facts. At only eight, I already depend on him to give it to me straight. I trust him. With far too many things.

My inner judge doles out her verdict, if tiredly. "Soda, you can't just block the tv when you don't like the show someone's already watching. And Darry, don't hit your brother." They stand there, neither of them winners, Darry's hands jammed in his pockets wanting this to be over and Soda still carrying on.

"And what about Ponyboy? Darry can't talk to Pony like he did," Soda reminds me. Oh, I forgot about Pony. I see he's off wrapping himself up in my curtains. I warn him for the third time today he better stop doing that before he pulls the whole damn thing down on top of himself. He spins in circles to twirl himself out, and he's left dizzy and stumbling.

"Mom," Darry whines, "All I said was 'move it squirt.' Is that a crime?" I want to both laugh and cry at Darry, his gorgeous face always so tangled up in frustration, because I realize I'm clenching my jaw in the exact same way. We're both fed up with trying to survive these long summer afternoons of their back and forth battles.

But I can't just always line up on his side. I'm the mother. So I tell him, "Yes Darry, it's a crime in this house to call someone names, especially Ponyboy who can't defend himself." I can tell he's missing the sympathetic look I'm trying to pair with my scolding.

Pony just stands there, still off balance from spinning, awkwardly leaning a little to the left, his thumb in his mouth, and staring at us all with big green eyes, too young to care about the drama. But Soda's satisfied with the outcome now that Darry's been reprimanded, and I see him give his big brother a gloating grin. Soda, my child who one minute only wants to give out hugs and the next minute can't help but stir the pot, so easily bored and plagued with the constant craving of all that boiling heat.

"Wipe that smirk off your face Soda or you'll find yourself a spot in the corner," I threaten, and I watch Soda suck in his cheeks like a fish, taking me literally as he brings his hand to physically wipe at his mouth, trying his hardest to rein in his grin. Asking Soda to stop smiling is asking the impossible and I know it's a little unfair to expect of my expressive boy.

But I don't take too long to feel bad about it. It's only one o'clock on a hot August afternoon, and I need to hang on several more hours for Darrel to come home and save me before I disappear inside myself and all my dark. "Boys, watch Ponyboy and I don't wanna hear a peep out of y'all," and I'm out the screen door before they can even say Momma.

It doesn't matter it feels like the devil's kitchen out on this steamy porch. I curl up on the swing and light my smoke between anxious fingers, suck in the nicotine that spreads like a bath over frayed nerves. I say a silent prayer the boys will listen this time and not come hunt me down, begging for popsicles or all my attention. And I immediately chide myself for having such a request. I make a mental note to pray extra hard for forgiveness tonight. And I suck harder on the cigarette when my heart speeds up, all my annoyances replaced completely by the crippling fear of knowing how easily God can take them away. I want to slap myself for complaining about something as precious as my children.

I can hear the boys are fighting through the screen.

I can hear them fighting through the screen where I sit on my porch, smoothing my skirt, rubbing its cloth between two fingers. Darrel told me to wait here while he talks to Daddy. "I'll handle him," he said and I've no doubt he will.

I wince when I hear their voices escalate. When I hear Daddy's hateful words rain down on the boy I love. It doesn't feel much better when Darrel's respectful tones give way to aggression, and he tells the man who raised me, my own flesh and blood, "Well, she's mine now. She ain't yours to knock around no more."

And I watch him walk right out to the porch, walk right through all of that venom my Daddy's spewing at him, that Darrel ain't worth shit, that he'll never amount to nothing, that I'm throwing my life, my eternal salvation away for poor, white trash, that we're both on our way to Hell and so is our unborn, bastard baby. And Darrel walks toward me with his powerful confidence, unscathed, untouched, and takes my hand in his, my suitcase in the other and looks deep in my eyes, and smiles, throwing me the only lifeline I'll ever need.

Even while I stand in the middle of devastation as my childhood gasps on its dying breath. Somehow I know we're gonna be okay.

But that was then. And now I know life isn't some fairy tale. That children die and sinners can be marked, their families cursed. I guess you can take a girl out of her home, but not the home out of the girl, and all that I've been taught still sits like oozing lava in the pit of my soul. Darrel knows how I sit in front of my crucifix and pray the Rosary, hoping all the Hail Marys I can give might make up for both of our misdeeds. But he doesn't know the extent, the time on my knees, cause I quit telling him when I saw the look on his face. Like his wife's gone off the deep end.

And I can't lose Darrel Curtis. She's mine he told my father that night. And I've always found comfort in his declaration. I was found once I let Darrel take me for himself, and I don't want to belong to anyone else. He's the only thing keeping me alive, even while he's the very thing that damned us all.

My blood goes cold when Pony ambles out to the porch, because I can't stop thinking how I couldn't go on if something happened to him. He holds his arms up and I sweep him into my lap, holding tight with a powerful, awful, fearful love. I squeeze him and my eyes shut against the storm, and try to get my mind off of the train that's thundering nearby, blasting out its power to run over Ponyboy if he ever found his way too close to the tracks. I feel dizzy with the countless things that could go so wrong, and it's going to be too long before Darrel comes home and talks me down, and I need help right now.

I throw Ponyboy on my hip and head in for the only relief available this endless afternoon. I balance Pony and manage to pour out a glass of Darrel's whiskey.

I've come home to a storm that is Maggie Curtis. I hate myself for ever giving her that first glass of whiskey, only meant to calm her on a particularly hard day, never meant to use as medicine. And I can't believe this is my Maggie. But tonight, I assure myself, it stops.

She's in only a slip, one of her straps has fallen down her shoulder, revealing the bra that's underneath. Her cheeks are flushed, and her words are slurred. She managed through dinner and bedtime, but now that it's just the two of us in the living room, she's pouring another and I take her glass and she doesn't take kindly to the harsh way I rip it from her hand.

My voice remains calm but firm. "I don't want you doing this no more. I won't have it." And her eyes narrow in on me, and I can't help but see her daddy in them.

"You ain't the boss of me Darrel Curtis," she says in a voice I hardly recognize, and she's itching for a fight and knows how to push every button I've got. Doesn't help I'm exhausted from work and from her bullshit. And I can't have her doing this, not in front of the boys.

"Maggie, don't do this with the boys right down the hall," I plead as her voice is getting louder, as she's going off on some hysterical tangent. Bringing up all the ways I've fucked up in the past, taking all the anger she has for her father out on me. "It's your Daddy you're mad at, Maggie," I remind her. "I ain't the one who did them things to you."

This doesn't sit well with her cause maybe I'm making sense, and she starts blaming me for damning her. For not doing everything the right way. For taking her innocence. For being a heathen. For putting us out of God's favor, and I don't point out our three beautiful children were the result of this wrong way she speaks about.

She's so drunk I should just let it go in one ear and out the other. But I'm the one who corrupted her. I've gotta finish what I started. I love her too much to let her fall to this.

Any sliver of remaining peace is shattered, and tonight our house becomes just like all the other crappy houses in this neighborhood when I go for her jugular. "You better not keep this up or I'll take the boys away from you, Maggie. I won't have them being raised by some crazy ass drunk."

She's so mad I can see her shaking where she stands. I just threatened her with her babies, so I'm not surprised she's starting towards me, like a fired up bull ready to rip me to shreds. And the slap she fires across my face stings, and this is my breaking point. I'm dangerously close to losing it all over her, and I'm not proud when I grab her arms and try to shake her out of all her fury. I easily shove her on the couch and hold her down while she kicks at me and tries to claw my face and I never hit her, but God do I want to.

She's not calming down and it feels way too easy to drag her back up, my mind too fogged with anger to care whose little eyes are peeking to watch when I force her down the hall. She's fighting me the whole way into the bathroom and I roughly grab her waist and pick her up and swing her into the tub, force her down while I turn the knob to cold and let the freezing shower become the million slaps all over her body that I refuse to give. "Pull your shit together and cool off," I say hatefully through clenched teeth and she's finally shut that mouth, shocked by the assault from the icy spray.

I leave her in the bathroom to check on the kids and I'm sick to find them standing there, horrified. Soda's got his hands over his ears and Darry's weighted stare looks to me for answers. Pony's wailing in the other room and I say, "Darry, I need you to take care of Ponyboy for me alright," and he's glad for something to do. But he walks off with heavy shoulders, my boy who holds too much.

"Momma needed a cold shower," I tell Soda who finally takes his hands away from his ears. "Run along to bed now," and I'm mad at myself that's the best I can give him.

I return to Maggie, she's calmed so I turn off the water. I kneel beside her, lying there weak, like all the life in her body's escaped down the drain of this bathtub.

She rolls her head slowly to the side to look up at me, and I see she's realizing this low place we're finding ourselves in, and her face scrunches up in pain and silent sobs. "I'm so sorry," she chokes out and she doesn't even need to say it. All is forgiven.

I wipe her wet hair off her forehead. Her mascara is smudged down her face and she's still devastatingly beautiful. "Don't leave me Darrel," she whispers. "Am I still yours?"

"Shh, you're all mine, " I assure her. "Nobody else can have you."

And I feel her body relax at the words I've said to her since the beginning of us, and the whiskey is drawing her eyes closed, as she's on her way to passing out. "It's okay, it's all over," and I don't need to look behind to know Soda's watching this all from the doorway, and I'm too tired to even begin to worry about how deep those scars are gonna run.

"It's okay, it's all over," I repeat this time to him, standing up and blocking his view of Maggie.

Soda asks with hope in his voice, "Did Momma get all clean?"

"Your Momma's always been clean," I tell him and guide him back to his room.

I make sure all doors are closed before I go back and get Maggie. I can't afford for the boys to see their mother passed out and slung over my shoulder like this, and I make my way down the hall, feeling like the poor white trash her father accused me of being, as her thin arms I've bruised are limp and dangling down my back.

And I don't miss the click of another door being closed down the hall as I carry my wife across the threshold.

A/N: The Outsiders by SE Hinton