Mark of the Loon (Gen Delacourt Mystery Book 1)

by Molly Greene

  Cole released the chair and signed. “Taegan, this is Madison Boone. She owns the house now. She did not understand you were deaf and was confused. She wants you to know you’re welcome here. She has invited you to stay for dinner tonight.

  “Madison, this is the sign for hello.” He demonstrated.

  Madison looked at Taegan and smiled, then awkwardly mirrored the motion. “Hello, Taegan.” Then to Cole, she said, “Ask him how so many Irish ended up here?”

  Cole’s fingers flew.

  Taegan’s eyes dropped. He signed briefly.

  “He says it’s a lucky coincidence. For him, anyway. Mallory was like his grandmother. He still misses her.”

  Madison touched his arm. “I’d love to hear about the Blackburnes. I can still feel her in this house. Would you tell Cole everything you can remember? We’d like to know them better.”

  Taegan’s eyes softened with sadness. He ducked his head and nodded. Then, half-turning, he brushed his hand across the kitchen table and stared out the window.

  What was he looking for?

  “Cole, ask him what he knows about Ryan Kavanaugh,” Gen said.

  Cole asked the question when Taegan turned back. A dark look passed across the boy’s face. He shook his head and signed.

  “He says they don’t cross paths much.”

  He was, however, eager to share his memories and shed his shyness over dinner. He signed about the couple and the two years he spent at their kitchen table eating scones. He told Cole of Edward and Mallory’s love for one another and their compassion for the illiterate Irish orphan.

  Taegan had come to America when he was eight, only able to sign in the language of the deaf in his native country. Mallory had learned American Sign Language with him, then taught the boy to write and speak English.

  She’d passed when he was ten. Taegan now worked as a caretaker and handyman at the hillside Christian retreat that had given him a home.

  * * *

  The boy left with a borrowed flashlight just after nine o’clock that night. Gen said goodnight and retired to her room, closing the door behind her. Madison and Cole were alone in the living room by the fire.

  “How do you know sign language?”

  “My brother Nash was born nine months after me,” Coleman said. “We were inseparable, like twins. We knew each other’s thoughts, finished the other’s sentences. He was brilliant, though. It was a challenge to keep up. I was always protective of my brother.”

  “Was?”

  “At fifteen, he caught meningitis and nearly died. He survived, but lost his hearing. It was devastating for him. He struggled to adjust, but he couldn’t resign himself to the silence.”

  “That’s when you learned?”

  Cole nodded. “He tried cochlear implants, but they didn’t work well for him. The doctors couldn’t do any more. So we all learned ASL, but it was a poor replacement for someone with a musical gift like his. Nash was an accomplished pianist. A prodigy, really.”

  “That must have been difficult for your family.”

  “It was hardest for us to watch his despair. He fell into a deep depression. But he would stay close to me when I played the clarinet. He’d touch it while I practiced. He could feel the vibration of the notes.”

  “That explains your connection to it.”

  “I didn’t have his aptitude, but I would play for hours. We would both forget about everything and lose ourselves in the music. Then I took up the piano, hoping it would encourage him to play.”

  “Did it work?”

  “No, he never touched the keys again. But he would sit with me while I butchered Chopin. I decided to go to medical school, become a doctor and go into research. Make his condition my focus.”

  “What happened?”

  “He died in our senior year of high school.”

  “Oh, Cole. How?”

  Cole’s voice caught. “He killed himself.”

  Madison’s chest constricted, as though a rope was knotted around her heart. She blinked back the prickle of tears and steadied her breathing. She spoke when she trusted her voice again.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you. The day he left us, I took the clarinet out in the rain and chucked it in a puddle. I figured the music should die with him. But my mother saw. She pulled it out of the mud and cleaned it up. Put it away. She was a music teacher. She understood how I felt, but she knew I’d want it someday.”

  “Your parents must have been destroyed.”

  “My father is an optimistic, loving human being. It was the only time in my life I have ever seen him without hope.” He paused and lowered his head.

  “My mom grieved by losing herself in her own music. I grieved by shutting down. Anyway, after a few months, when we were learning how to live again, she left that damn clarinet on my bed. I finally picked it up and started to play because it brought Nash back, if only for a while.”

  “You decided against medical school?”

  “I didn’t have the will. Sometimes we’re so struck by tragedy we can’t breathe, much less look forward to a future. I imagine that’s how you felt when you lost your parents.”

  “Close.”

  “I ended up in counseling and a lot of college psych classes. I tried to figure out how to deal with the loss, and my feelings about why he wanted to die more than he wanted to be with me. He was my best friend. We were almost one person.”

  “And how did you resolve that?”

  “I wondered for years if I could have done anything different, said anything that would have kept him here. Maybe if I’d been with him in that moment he would have made another choice. But after a helluva long time, I came to the obvious conclusion.”

  “What was that?”

  “I never had the power to change the outcome. I only had the power to choose how I was going to cope with it.”

  Madison took his hand.

  “I cherish his memory,” Cole continued. “But I had to let him go. I had to be okay with his decision before I could get on with my life. And I knew that ultimately, I wanted to be happy. I wanted to find someone I could share myself with, love the way I loved him.”

  “You’re brave.”

  “I struggled to make sense of it all. My wife was part of that struggle. I hadn’t quite figured it all out yet.”

  “What was that?”

  “That no one can make you happy. You have to do it for yourself.”

  “Sometimes you have to do it by yourself, too.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why was your wife part of the struggle?”

  “She was full of life. I fooled myself into thinking she could ignite that spark in me again. But it’s up to me to strike the match.”

  “How did you bear it, losing another person you loved?” Madison’s voice caught. “How do you have the strength to keep reaching out?”

  “I read somewhere long ago that you can use your pain to grow bitter, or better. Every loss reveals what’s important.”

  “What?”

  “The value of appreciating what we have.”

  “I still don’t understand how you were able to get past it.”

  “I choose to believe that in spite of my shortcomings there is an awesome person inside me who will speak to the wonder of another when the time is right.”

  “How do you know?” Madison fought to hold them back, but her eyes brimmed with tears. She wiped them away with a jerk of her hand. “You don’t have a crystal ball.”

  “I don’t need one,” he said. “Thoughts are powerful things.”

  She shot up from her seat and started to walk away, but he stood and put his arms around her. After a moment, she hooked her hands around his waist, then leaned into him.

  “Thou shalt not fall apart and cry on the first date,” she said.

  He rested his cheek against her hair. She felt the rumble of laughter in his chest. “This isn’t our first date. That was months ago. The house on Lake Road. I�
��ve been waiting ever since that afternoon for you to wake up and smell the coffee.”

  “Speaking of sleep.” She lifted her head to look at him. “I had this vivid dream about birds. Maybe it’s me, trying to run away.”

  “It could have been your subconscious telling you to fly toward the possibilities. Did you ever think of that?”

  She smiled and stepped back, then held out her hand. “Friends?”

  “We’re already friends.” He raised her fingers to his lips. “If you mean you’d like to go slow, I think we’re already doing that, too.”

  “I’m just saying.”

  He laughed. “Would it be moving too quickly for you if I asked to help with the gardening around here?”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  That weekend, Cole flew to Connecticut to spend Christmas with his parents. They agreed not to exchange gifts, but an envelope appeared in her mailbox a few days later.

  When she opened the packet and popped the CD into the stereo, she heard a haunting tune played by a solitary clarinet. The piece opened with a sigh from a sweet, low note and rose into a sensuous melody that filled her with lust. It had been so long since she felt passion, she barely recognized the feeling.

  A card was included. Cole wrote that the composition had been written in her honor. The CD contained both piano and clarinet tunes, works that were his and Nash’s favorites, with a few thrown in he hoped she would like.

  He closed with the wish that her holiday be as fabulous as she was, and a request that she join him for dinner December 31. She was impressed with his words and his gift.

  Not an easy thing to do.

  That evening, she played the recording for Gen as she attempted, for the hundredth time, to open the box from the sitting room safe.

  When it was over, Gen looked at Madison.

  “He’s a good man. Don’t screw it up.”

  * * *

  Taegan had agreed to teach them sign language several afternoons a week. They watched as the young man revealed his wit and intelligence. He was a smart old soul and a pleasure to be around, and grew more at ease in their company, until, during one session, their awkward attempts made him laugh aloud.

  Madison considered it a victory.

  They taught him to sign LOL, email slang for “laugh out loud.” They communicated with notes and lips carefully read and, slowly, with signs for simple things.

  One afternoon, Madison walked out onto the patio and found him sitting on the edge of the pond, rocking Finn in his arms and crooning aloud. His words must have been an Irish lullaby. Finn held one paw against Tae’s cheek. Jack was fast asleep, curled between his feet with his head on his boot.

  Family isn’t always something you’re born into.

  * * *

  Gen and Madison planned their private Christmas to be a quiet affair. Pierre was rehearsing for a play, and Gabrielle’s agent had booked her into a Los Angeles audition days before the holiday. Gen insisted that the Delacourts stay in Southern California. She and Madison would be fine alone.

  Several days before the big day, she asked Taegan to accompany her on a surprise mission. They picked out a fir tree, stuffed it into the 4Runner, and maneuvered it through the back door while Genny was napping.

  The tree was up and the lights strung when she emerged from her room. The look on Gen’s face told Madison she’d done the right thing.

  The Blackburne’s celebration came alive as the trio hung ornaments and decorations from the garage. Soon the tinsel was in place, Gen in charge of the bottom tier. The house looked like a holiday card, complete with porcelain angels and a snow globe.

  More wrapped gifts magically appeared, leaving Madison to wonder how her immobile housemate had pulled it off. She suspected Tae had been involved in more than one secret mission.

  * * *

  Early Christmas morning, Madison made coffee and put homemade cinnamon rolls in a low oven to warm. She emerged from the kitchen to find Gen wearing reindeer antlers and sprinkling fairy dust around the room.

  They lit a fire and listened to The Nutcracker, then spilled Finn and Jack’s stockings on the floor for their companions to snuffle through. Madison sank down beside the sofa and put her arms around Gen.

  “Merry Christmas,” Madison whispered. “I wish I could give you a gift that could somehow show you how much you mean to me.”

  “What would that be, a ticket to Miami to get me out of your hair?”

  “I’m serious. I’d be a different person if I hadn’t had you guys.”

  “Snarkier, maybe. We haven’t let you swallow the bitter pill.”

  Madison laughed. “I’m trying to be serious here.”

  “Madison, we know how you feel. We’re all lucky to have this bond. We’ve our own group of sisters to hang out with, gossip, gesture inappropriately while no one else is looking.”

  Gen smiled. “You’ve filled an empty space for me, too, you know. Mom and Dad were pretty busy when we were young. And how grateful am I that you’ve tolerated me and this chair? Okay, that’s enough.” Gen dug out her laptop. “Time to Skype and see the bling Pep bought for Mom. She’s on a mission to equal Liz Taylor’s old collection.”

  They connected with Los Angeles and dove into packages, tearing paper and chatting with the Delacourts. Gabrielle, Emily, and her grandparents took turns showing off gifts, each one beaming and cheerful.

  “Life is good,” Pierre said, toasting them with a Mimosa. “Merry Christmas, my daughters. May the blessings of the Child be upon you, and may you each live a life filled with love and joy.”

  “Yeah, Daddy, ditto,” Gen said, raising her glass. “And wow, thanks for the swag.”

  Taegan arrived, stopping in the mudroom to shuck his ancient mackintosh. Genny gave him a Santa hat to wear and he dutifully donned it, looking sheepish but catching the mood.

  Madison tuned the radio to carols and sang along as she prepared a quiche. She stopped humming as she was slicing fresh fruit.

  “Man, I wish I could sing.”

  “Me, too,” Genevieve replied, then signed, LOL.

  They brought out Taegan’s gifts after breakfast. He opened them slowly. His eyes lit with pleasure when he discovered two handheld computer games in the first.

  “Do you know what they are?” Gen asked.

  “I play video games in town,” he replied aloud, then signed, Thank you so much, now I can save my quarters. I will be rich soon.

  Madison’s present was a new down jacket and a high-powered flashlight. “So you’ll be warm and safe as you come and go,” she said.

  His tried on the coat. Perfect fit, he signed. I’ve never owned something so warm. I am speechless.

  Gen and Madison laughed. The boy hugged them both, then left the room and came back bearing his own wrapped packages.

  Madison opened hers to find a whimsical bird feeder made of wood. “I love it,” she said, delighted. “Did you make it?” Taegan nodded.

  Genevieve’s was a well-worn book about sign language.

  The card said, Mallory gave it to me. I can tell you will need the most help.

  Genny giggled merrily and flipped through the photos showing the hand positions for each letter. Thank you, she signed. He leaned down, and Genny kissed him on the cheek.

  “I promise to be a better student,” she said aloud.

  LOL, he signed.

  That evening, Cole phoned to wish them Merry Christmas and confirm their plans for New Year’s Eve.

  “I would love to celebrate with you,” she said. “But we couldn’t leave Gen home alone. How about we stay in and make a big dinner and splurge on some really good champagne? We can ask Taegan to join us. And we can celebrate Gen’s cast removal. If things stay on course, it’s coming off after the first of the year.”

  “Sounds perfect,” he said.

  “Cole, the CD was great. I can’t stop listening.”

  “I’m glad. Just a little glimpse into my world.”

  “I’d like to s
ee more.”

  “That’s encouraging,” he replied. “I’ll call you when I get home. Merry Christmas, Madison Boone.”

  “Merry Christmas, Coleman Welles.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The holidays came and went as they always do, initiated by a glut of frenzied activity and followed by needles quietly falling from the tree.

  Madison dealt with the aftermath by preparing meals. One morning, she was in the kitchen leafing through a stack of old cook books. A tattered bit of lined paper fluttered to the floor, loosened from the pages of a tome dedicated to different kinds of bread.

  She unfolded it. Prep instructions for scones, written in Mallory’s hand. She smiled and scanned the ingredients. What a great gift for Taegan. She would pick up whatever she needed at the store and make them as a surprise.

  At the bottom was a line of writing in tiny, nearly illegible text. She grabbed a magnifying glass from the junk drawer and held it over the paper.

  MB: Many elements are included in the recipe for a marvelous life. Do you have them?

  Madison dropped the note as if it had burned her hand. How could Mallory have known she would find this?

  Seconds later, she laughed and shook her head.

  “Our initials are the same. Why haven’t I noticed before? She wrote this as a reminder to herself. I wonder what the heck it has to do with scones.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  A storm blew in on the last day of the year, pushing cold before it with an icy hand and threatening a gully washer. The tedious weather had little effect on the Boone residence. The kitchen was festive, filled with classical music and the delicious aroma of baking bread.

  Taegan knocked on the back door just before dusk. Madison hustled him out of the drizzle and into the mudroom with a flurry of unreadable signs.

  He grinned and peeled off his new jacket, then stamped his boots to knock off the damp and stowed the flashlight on a shelf near the door.