The Patchwork Hearts

Chapter ONE

Maya

"Ma'am?"

  I hear him, but it doesn't register that the man is talking to me, for a few too many seconds. I am not a ma'am. I'm twenty-three. Surely that is too young to be called ma'am.

   I turn back and smile at the older man. He's likely in his fifties and is wearing a vest with the Amtrak logo and his name tag. John. His gray beard is well kept and I notice his blue eyes. I always notice features on people like that.

  "Yes, sorry. One one way ticket to Portland, Maine," I say to him.

  He nods and punches it into the computer. "We have just one train going there, it leaves at midnight."

  "Midnight?" I repeat. It's a bit after 6P.M. but I really just want to get out of there. I left my apartment with a backpack of personal items and went right to the train station. "Okay, one ticket please."

  He nods again and prints the ticket and then takes my credit card. With the ticket in my hand, I thank him and turn away again.

  I have no where to go while I wait for the train, so I cross the station and sit down on a chair, at the end of long row. There are other people in the station - it's actually pretty busy. I look around, wondering where everyone else is going. I shut my eyes, remembering that no one knows I'm there. They won't find me. I have to make some phone calls. Like, a lot. But I can't call my friends while I'm still in town. Lindsey and Tamara would get here as fast as they could and try to convince me to stay. They wouldn't understand why I'm leaving. I can't stay, even though it feels so wrong to be going back to Maine. I know I should call my sister, to tell her that I'm coming. My dad, too. But it all feels so wrong, so I just sit there staring at the huge clock hanging from the ceiling, watching the minutes and hours go by. 

~~

  My sister's house is the type of house you'd see on TV. It's small but perfectly magazine-esque. Her husband is a landscaper, so the exterior of the house is gorgeous. I've never been here before. I've never been in my own sister's house.

  Nella is seventeen months older than me, and everyone thought we were twins, growing up. We were the Becker Sisters, even up until high school. We grew up in Booth Bay, Maine, were everyone knows everyone. Our dad was a lawyer, and our mom was a preschool teacher. We had a nice, easy life. Until we didn't.

  I have Nella's address, because she sent me birthday and Christmas cards the last three years. She had emailed me a photo of her house when she and her husband bought it, six months after they got married. The Christmas card that showed up at my apartment just three months ago included an adorable photo of her daughter, Willow, wearing Christmas pajamas, sitting under their tree, in their perfect living room. Willow is just two, and Nella is pregnant again, due this coming summer.

  But I am not a part of  my sister's life. I've been gone too long. I haven't visited. I knew better than to expect her to be happy to see me.

  I knock anyway. I have no other choice.

  I should have called Nella, on the train. I should have given her a head's up.

  "Hello."

  The guy that answers the door is of course George, Nella's husband. We've never met, but I have seen him on her Instagram. Of course I used to follow my sister and her perfect life, online.

  George is tall and dark and has a big afro, and a bigger smile.

  "Hi, I'm-"

  "Maya," George answers, surprised. "Um, wow, was Nell expecting you?"