says he can’t get the idea of these other boys out of his head. He hates that she has been with more people than he has. He makes her feel she’s not virtuous enough. Conversely, she feels his number is perfect. Two women, and one of them is his wife. Maggie has had three lovers and she’s not even eighteen. One of them was a one-night stand, another one was basically a statutory rape. Had she known that she and Aaron would fall into this all-encompassing love, she would have saved herself for him. She tries to find the words to tell him.
At the height of the passion, her parents send her to a weekend church retreat. There is an art project to complete; she’s to write down a commitment she wants to make. The nuns tell her nobody will see it. This project is for her eyes only, to be graded by God. On a few pieces of colored construction paper with rudimentary hands holding prayer candles Maggie writes that she wants to commit herself to unconditional love. She writes that she knows it’s wrong to love Aaron but she also wonders how love can be wrong. She says that she wants to commit herself to him and give up all the bad habits that he wants her to give up. For example, he suspects that she smokes but she willfully denies it because he will not be with a smoker. One time he said she smelled of cigarettes and she told him her parents smoked around her and swore up and down that she herself did not.
The church smells of myrrh. She kneels in a pew, alone. She feels bad about lying to him and prays to God to help her give it up for him. She commits to pray the rosary once a week and to write a letter to Aaron once a week to tell him how she feels. She intends to find multiple ways to demonstrate her unfailing love.
All she wants to do, in fact, is talk about how she feels about him, and hear from him about how he thinks of her. The things he loves about her are so interesting to her. They seem like faraway ideas that her brain can hardly grasp. For example, in one of his letters to her he wrote how he loves the way she sits on the table in his classroom and swings her legs back and forth with childlike zeal.
The week of Aaron’s thirtieth birthday arrives and Maggie is so excited, even though she isn’t a part of any of the several celebrations. The first happens on the seventh, the Saturday two days before his actual birthday. It’s a surprise party at Spitfire Bar & Grill, where baked potatoes are served with ramekins of sour cream on beige plates of prime rib. Everything has chives or hoary scallions sprinkled on top.
It’s hard to know how surprised he is at his surprise party. Maggie knows the most intimate things about him but she was not invited to the party. She didn’t even know there was going to be one.
He sneaks into the bathroom every so often to text her because he misses her so much. It’s terrible, he says, that everyone he knows is at this party with the exception of the woman he loves. He says that he is mad at Marie because he told her he didn’t want a party. He is annoyed by the presence of Mrs. Joyce, a fellow teacher, who is staring at him the whole time and acting peculiar.
The evening ends tamely. Aaron and Marie pile some balloons in the car to bring to their children, who have been with a sitter. Aaron texts Maggie when he gets home. He says he feels closer to her when he’s in his house.
On Monday, Aaron’s actual birthday, there is a big snowstorm. Prettily, it whitewashes Fargo and makes the roads and the trees look clean.
Sometime in the seven A.M. hour, Maggie texts him. She is terrifically excited about seeing him and giving him his present. She doesn’t know if she’s supposed to come to school early and meet him in his classroom. She writes, Happy Birthday!!! and, Am I supposed to come in early?
What Maggie doesn’t know, just as she didn’t know about the Spitfire party until it was under way, is that at the moment the text is sent Aaron is in the shower. She didn’t think about the rules, because a