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the reason she couldn’t hear the sound of her boots hitting the
cement.
    A light was burning in the front window of
the apartment. Brigit paused long enough to determine that Maggie
was still home and most likely pissed off to no end. Quickly,
Brigit rushed up the stoop and through the opened door, taking the
stairs two at a time to the second floor. She skidded to a stop in
front of their door and began to pat herself for her keys. A
desperate fear began to rise up in her as she realized they weren’t
in her pockets. They were in the briefcase. Rachel had the
briefcase. Brigit cursed loudly and kicked the door.
    “Mags, honey, let me in. I know I’m late,”
Brigit pleaded as she pressed her forehead against the door. “I’ve
lost my keys. Please, Mags….”
    Her hand fell to the door knob and, on a
whim, she turned it. Slowly, the door opened. Hesitant, Brigit
stepped in and scanned the room. It was empty. The lamp next to
Maggie’s reading chair by the bay window had been left on. A note
lay on top of the book Maggie had been reading the weekend
before.

    “ Bree,
    We’ve gone to the shelter. Come as soon as
you can. Yes, you are in trouble.
    Maggie”
    Brigit sighed heavily and looked around
again. The clock on the wall read eight-thirty. She was an hour
late. Even if she left now, she would get to the shelter just as
the festivities would be wrapping up. By then, the adult celebrants
of the neighborhood would fill the streets in costumes more
imaginative and risqué than children should see. That was life in
the city, though.
    Slowly, Brigit sank into Maggie’s reading
chair. She had to think of a good explanation. Maggie would expect
the truth, but, would she believe it? Brigit’s gaze fell on to the
picture frame resting against the small lamp on the table.
    It was an old picture, taken during the first
year they were together. It was a day at the beach, their smiles
revealing their happiness at finding each other and being together.
They had met by chance, having mutual friends of friends. Their
connection had been immediate, their chemistry enigmatic and their
passion all-consuming. Brigit smiled at that last thought. The fire
between them had barely died down during the last ten years. They
had never spent a night apart. They had never slept in separate
beds. It was only during the day, when they were fulfilling their
required hours at work that they were ever not in the same room.
Maggie was her one and only and Brigit couldn’t imagine ever being
without her.
    Her life prior to the moment of meeting
Maggie Devon had been such a patchwork of scenes. Her earliest
memories of her childhood were fragments overshadowed by dramatic
moments involving her mother and the various men that had been
brought into Brigit’s life. Brigit couldn’t remember her father. He
had left the scene long before his only daughter could form any
kind of attachment to him aside from bearing his last name. She had
once rescued a shredded image of him from the trash can after her
mother had gone through one of her ‘purifying’ episodes. Carefully,
Brigit had pieced the photograph together as best she could with
glue and paper; but it was never right. The image remained broken
and, eventually, Brigit lost it after leaving her broken childhood
behind. Her life had been like that picture, pieced together as
best she could until the moment she had met Maggie. After that,
Brigit had found herself suddenly whole and the past was nothing
more than a hazy memory hidden in the furthest shadows of her
mind.
    Her gaze focused on Maggie’s face in the
photo. Her sandy brown hair had been cropped short that fall – a
mistake Maggie admitted to when the first cold day set in and she
found herself purchasing a knit cap to keep her head warm. Maggie
let it grow out again, revealing a head of natural curls that
Brigit loved to bury her face in as they were falling asleep at
night. A light shined in Maggie’s dark brown eyes as they