Not everyone can say they’ve been to the Big Apple, but MARGARET 'MAGGIE' SHAW, a FIFTY-ONE year-old CIS FEMALE has lived in MANHATTAN for TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. This is the city of dreams and SHE knows it, because they came to NYC to be a THERAPIST. Well, that and as a THERAPIST to NIA TINDEL. Living in the city means they meet all kinds of people, but everyone always seems to think they look like RACHEL WEISZ. They even got away with free cab fare once because of it!
tw: mentions of stillbirth/loss of pregnancy, gaslighting
can you even become a therapist in this day and age without needing at least a little bit of therapy yourself? probably not -- and maggie is fully on team ‘everybody can benefit from therapy’. hell, she knows she did. so, what happened in her life then, you ask? time for a story, i suppose.
born as the second (and last) child to robert and diane shaw, money had always been a thing their family hadn’t needed to worry about. while her roots are in scotland and most of her family still resides over there, maggie’s parents immigrated to the us in the late 1950s, pregnant with her older brother robert junior. robert was to take over a branch of the family business, while diane took care of their new family.
let it be known that maggie wasn’t planned, exactly. she’s much younger than her older brother, and the fact that she was a ‘surprise’ was something her mother would hold against her. diane would make sure she’d make it very known to her daughter, especially during fights, that she had never asked for her. i guess you could say maggie and her mother had a bit of a ... strained relationship. this caused maggie to act out starting from age 17, but only just so much that her mother would catch wind of it. read: she’d act up at parties and dinners with family friends -- eventually having a little bit too much fun in college at 19 and getting knocked up by one of those dear family friends.
this, obviously, didn’t fit into the life plan her parents had thought up for her, and it would quickly be swept under the rug. the family friends’ son would just continue his studies, while maggie got shipped off to scotland for a ‘year off’. she stayed with one of her aunts during this, staying inside most of the time so that she wouldn’t be spotted with her big, pregnant belly. when the time rolled around for maggie to have her baby, she was so excited to become a mom. she’d show her parents -- actually, no. she wouldn’t show them at all. she’d break with them, never see them again; never let them meet her little bundle of joy.
but that dream never became a reality. whilst in labour, maggie lost her baby - or so she thought. her parents had arranged for her to give birth at a private clinic, paying off the doctors and midwife. they told her she wasn’t allowed to see her baby, that it was too late. in reality, robert and diane had arranged for the baby to be adopted by a nice scottish family -- very discreetly. maggie was to never catch wind of the fact that her baby girl was still alive.
inconsolable and grief-stricken, maggie returned to the us, the plan of breaking with her parents now off the table. she completely dedicated herself to her studies, getting her bachelor’s in psychology before moving on to medical school and becoming a licensed pyschiatrist. she has her own practice now - determined to help people wherever and however she can. having gone through much counselling after her miscarriage, she realized how important good help was.
as for the big family secret... it remained hidden for over 30 years, until about two weeks ago. maggie’s mother had been sick for a while, and doctors told her she didn’t have much longer to live. maggie travelled up to maine, where the couple now resided, to see her mother one last time before she passed. that night turned out to be much more than maggie had bargained for; her parents were both in the room, mom in bed, dad next to it... and then they told her. diane felt like this wasn’t a secret she could take to the grave, or else she wouldn’t go to heaven ( of course, the reason for telling her was extremely selfish -- at least, that’s how maggie felt about it ).
currently, maggie is still in a state of shock over learning that her daughter is very much still alive. her parents didn’t give her much information to work with other than the contact of the adoptive parents, but once the initial shock wears off -- maggie is determined to find her baby.
closed starter for @rylanpratt
location: rylan’s apartment
to say she was a little worried as she made her way towards rylan’s apartment was an understatement. maggie had been the girl - sorry, woman’s therapist for quite some time now, so she’d gotten to know her quite well, in her opinion. because of this, she knew rylan usually didn’t skip out on their sessions, and yet, she’d missed two already. walking up to the apartment door, maggie knocked. “rylan? -- it’s margaret.”
Misery loved company. Often overused, often used as a tool to wreck another person’s life, but possibly had some truth in it. Something about hearing the other woman also struggling brought a warm smile to Sloane’s face. How quickly her tune had changed, though the same could have been said about herself earlier in the day. “In a way we should be grateful to have been served hot coffee rather than lukewarm, but it’s not really seeming to benefit us.” At least there was still coffee in the other woman’s cup, even if it was too hot to drink. “I can relate to that.” More so than the other woman realized. “I can do a cookie and I’m still willing to pay your dry cleaning, it’s a cute coat, I hate to be the one to wreck it.” At this point, maybe she deserved a cookie herself, at least she liked the idea of one.
honestly, someone else might’ve read the other woman’s smile as them somehow making fun of maggie’s situation, but not her -- somehow, it didn’t feel like a malicious smile. “ha, no, you’d be right about that. trust me, usually i like my coffee to be piping hot, so i guess they got my order right... maybe i wasn’t expecting them to, somehow. probably because this isn’t my usual place.” with a shrug, maggie almost took another sip before shaking her head. “no. nope. shouldn’t make the same mistake twice. i’d be an idiot.” with a small laugh, she then smiled at the other woman. “it is a cute coat, you’re right -- but we all have our clumsy days. hell, i know i do. i don’t want to give you a 50 dollar dry cleaning bill. no, a cookie will do just fine.”
lexi didn’t consider a lot of people her friends ― but over the past few months, she came damn close to call maggie exactly that. a friend. something the woman rarely admitted because with her job and always the risk of having to leave again, growing attached to someone wasn’t good. and yet, here she was, sitting in a little café in downtown manhattan, catching up with her after this horrible halloween event.
❝ i didn’t even see you there. ❞ a slight frown was visible on her lips while she held the warm coffee mug in her hands. though she didn’t exactly blame maggie for that. lexi didn’t want to be seen at the party. ❝ were you even there ? did you have to give an interview, too ? ❞
the whole event was still fresh on everyone’s minds -- which wasn’t hard, seeing as the night had ended on a pretty grim note. maggie had not been one of the people to stick around to sleep at the hotel, hell no -- with a killer on the loose? absolutely not. she’d rushed straight home. now, here she was, having a little hot chocolate for a change -- she figured it may be better for her heart than her usual highly caffeinated beverage of choice.
“you didn’t? darn, you’re the second person to tell me that -- maybe i shouldn’t have lurked in the shadows so much.” she was joking, obviously. “i’m sad i didn’t see you there either, would have at least made it a bit more fun. i’m honestly not even sure why i went.” maggie shrugged before taking a sip, nodding at lexi’s last question. “yeah, i did. didn’t last long, though. they just wanted to know if i saw anything and where i was at the moment of the murder. think they figured out pretty soon i had nothing to do with it. what about you?”
Sloane was convinced time had chosen to pick a fight with her today. Time or life, she hadn’t decided which one was holding a grudge but she wasn’t a fan either way. Her own appointment had made her late to see her first patient early in the morning, who had rightfully been cranky. As expected for anyone in pain. Normally, she would be understanding, it was hard not to be, but lack of decent sleep and running on whatever adrenaline she could muster, made sympathy less available. Now, was a well earned break, one that had mostly been spent in traffic, cutting short her ability to run errands. Still, she decided to treat herself; a coffee to get through the day. And maybe it would’ve but she would never know. Not now, not when she had spilled it. On someone else. Life, it was life picking a fight with her. Why wouldn’t it be life when her first non-work social interaction was her making someone else look like a mess. Sloane let a frustrated sigh slip through her lips as she bunched napkins to hand over to the other person. “I’m so sorry, really.” She took a deep breath, “let me repay you, maybe not now but later?” Or never, she would be fine with never too. There just wasn’t enough time today. “Ah or just send me the dry cleaning bill.”
shit. shit, shit, shit. this was about the last thing maggie needed in between appointments; getting extremely hot coffee poured down the front of her coat. her new coat, that was. sure, she’d gotten it on sale, but damn it, it had still been 250 smackeroonis she had worked hard for, and now with one swift move, she’d had to get it dry cleaned ALREADY. what a way to start her morning. suppressing a very deep sigh and settling for a softer one, she slightly shook her head. “no, it’s fine -- i can’t really stand around for too long. clients to see, coffee to drink.” holding up her own cup before taking a sip, she nearly spat it out again. “ah, fuck. that’s hot. damn it.” finally letting out the long sigh she’d been holding in, maggie looked up at the other woman in front of her. “guess this is not my morning. maybe i will let you repay me -- i think i’ve deserved a cookie.”
