Member-only story
An Unexpected Love
A lifetime with Margie
My hands were splayed on the cold granite of the kitchen counter. I noticed my slim gold wedding band and unadorned fingernails. I felt the cold. It steadied me somehow to focus on that bodily sensation and the sight of my hands, as I waited for my husband to come in from his bike ride.
I thought it’s not real to him yet. Until I tell him, it’s not real. It wasn’t real to me until my sister uttered the words over the phone. Even before she said those words, I tried to stave off that reality by saying, “No . . . no.” She quietly replied, “Yes. Margie is gone. She died on Friday.”
Margie came into my life when I was 11, more than a half-century ago. She was all of 19. She was Mexican-American — the daughter of our neighbor's housekeeper, newly married, and following in her mother’s footsteps. She was a quiet presence, barely speaking a word as she went about her work in our house on Potowatami Street.
My dad had started his own medical practice and, being short on money, my mom went to work as his office manager/nursing assistant. With five girls at home, my mom needed help. My dad’s practice took off and within a couple of years, he and several other doctors formed their own surgical group, thus putting my mom out of a job.
However, Margie stayed.
