A Charmed Place

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  Overwhelmed with emotion, Maddie sat on the fence without moving, a mute witness to his intensely personal confession. It was not for her to forgive him, she knew. She thought of saying something, but nothing seemed adequate. A long moment passed. And then she saw a tear roll down his cheek.

  She'd seen him angry and she'd seen him icy. But she'd never seen him cry.

  She bowed her head to give him privacy and said in a whisper, "Can you forgive me for sending you away?"

  He turned his dark, brooding gaze on her, and then he gathered her to him, cradling her head to his chest. And there they stood, in the bright sunshine of silence, while God sorted out which of his creatures would live, and which of them would have to die.

  ****

  Not too long afterward, they found out that the mutt with the trusting eyes was going to live. He had a broken leg, broken ribs, bruises all over and a few less teeth—but he would live. Maddie was delighted. Dan was ecstatic. He wrote a check and left instructions that if no one answered the found ad in the local papers, he would adopt the dog himself.

  "I've never had a pet before," he told Maddie as they walked back to his Jeep. "Now that I'm settling down, though ... gee, this feels good. Ready for that lunch now?"

  She laughed and said, "Are you kidding? You're as dead on your feet as I am."

  "Doesn't matter," he said, smiling through a yawn. "I have to make up for lost time."

  "Not without becoming a vampire." Unable to suppress a yawn of her own that turned into a sigh, Maddie slipped her arm through his and said, "I'm calling this weekend a day, my friend. Let's each go home, crash for a few hours, and then—"

  "And then what?" he asked, holding the car door open for her.

  Her smile was wistful. "What, indeed," she said on a sigh. "I wish I knew."

  He grinned and said, "That was not a deep, philosophical question, m'am. I meant, maybe a pizza?"

  "That'd be great." Immediately she checked herself. "I can't," she said, disappointed. "I have to take Tracey to Junior League volleyball."

  "Can't your mother do it?"

  "I suppose; but I'd have to—"

  "Tell her you're with me."

  It wasn't posed as a question; he expected Maddie to come clean with her family. "Well ... eventually."

  "You can't expect to keep us secret this time, too," he said seriously. "Your mother will find out from someone else if not from you."

  "Oh, I don't know. My mother doesn't go out much anymore. She stays in touch with a few friends, but—"

  "Maddie, tell her the truth. The sooner the better. Anything else gets real tricky, real fast."

  "Yes. You're absolutely right. And I will. Only—"

  "Not right away," he finished quietly for her. His face showed his disappointment.

  "Because I'm so tired, that's all. I can't even think straight. Oh, Dan, this time I want to do it right. I don't want the mess that we had the first time. You don't know my mother—"

  "You're right. I haven't had that honor yet," he said dryly.

  "She's still so very ... raw. I can't hurt her more than she's already been hurt. And she can be very unforgiving. I have to take all of it in account and do this right."

  "Just tell her the truth, Maddie," he said.

  "The truth can hurt, Dan." She knew that from experience. Daunted by his take-no-prisoners approach, she added, "Didn't you ever slant a story to suit your needs? Maybe played up an injustice or skipped an awkward fact so that you could drive your point home to your viewers? I know that your motives would've been completely honorable—they could never be anything else—but ... didn't you?"

  He grimaced, then sighed and said, "Okay. You win. Tell your mother about us when you see fit. But, Maddie, tell her soon."

  "Oh, definitely. A little sleep first; that's all I ask. And then I'll be my persuasive, soothing best."

  Dan dropped Maddie off at Hollyhocks, where she reclaimed her car and drove home in a trance, physically aching for her bed. Despite her weariness, her spirits were up. She felt closer to Dan, closer to her daughter. Now if only her mother would let herself get to know Dan and embrace him ....

  Was it really such a big "if"? It occurred to Maddie that Dan had a genuine shot at being accepted into the family. After all, he was everything—nowadays—that his mother admired in a man: confident, well-off, accomplished, successful, admired, and much, much more than presentable. Heck, he'd even stopped smoking; no more cigarettes stowed in the sleeve of his T-shirt. What more could any mother ask for?

  If only.

  ****

  When Maddie arrived at Rosedale she found the front door wide open and the screen door unhooked. After a quick check of the first floor and a call up the stairs, she discovered her daughter sunbathing in the back yard, undoubtedly without lotion. The girl was listening to music through earbuds, so she couldn't hear Maddie calling her, and she had sunbathing cups over her eyes, so she couldn't see Maddie when she stood in front of the chaise and waved her arms.

  To Maddie she looked completely vulnerable, a teenage sitting duck.

  The village is safe, the village is safe, Maddie had to tell herself. Don't go to war over this.

  She got her daughter's attention by nudging the chaise, but not without startling her as she did it. Tracey sat up, well on the way to yet another peeling nose. Her arms and the fronts of her shins were pink as well.

  "Where is everyone?" Maddie asked her, taking a seat on the edge of the chaise.

  "Aunt Claire's shopping in town, and Grandma's still at lunch with the countess," Tracey said. "I knew you'd freak if I went to the beach unsupervised, so I stuck around here."

  "Did you really!" It was a moment to be savored, but Maddie was—literally—dog tired. She said, "I think I'll lie down for a bit; I have a splitting headache." It was a lie but it would have to do.

  "And ... Trace?" she added as she picked up the empty glass by the chaise. "I appreciate that you stayed around the house. I know the grounding is hard on you. Why don't you call Julie and have her come over? You'll have the place to yourselves until people start wandering back. You can order a pizza for the two of you. Maybe later on I'll take you both to—"

  Wait. She had her own pizza planned.

  "Well, we'll see how it goes," she finished up vaguely.

  So this is what it would be like until she told them about Dan: an ongoing conflict of loyalties.

  She touched a forefinger to her lips and planted it on the tip of Tracey's nose. "Think about lotion there."

  "Mom! I did!"

  "Uh-huh."

  Maddie stood up. She could practically feel the soft down pillow under her cheek, feel the joy of having a breeze blow over her as she drifted off to sleep on cool cotton sheets.

  Pleased about the cease-fire between Tracey and her, Maddie went back into the house, stopping at the fridge for a glass of cold lemonade. She was gulping it down thirstily when she heard a car pull up on the crunchy quahog shells. Seconds later she heard Sarah Timmons's voice saying a brief goodbye, and then a car door slam.

  Maddie wandered into the hall, pressing the icy glass to her cheek. Smiling, she said to her mother, "How's the countess? Any good dirt?"

  For the rest of her life, Maddie remembered the look on her mother's face: a mix of shock and loathing, the kind of look she reserved for grisly murders on the six o'clock news.

  Sarah looped her handbag over the hall clothes tree with a vicious downward jerk, then turned to Maddie. Her voice was pinched with well-bred rage. "How did you dare?"

  Something inside of Maddie took a dive. "Dare? Dare what?" she asked with forced ignorance.

  "Cavort naked on the town beach with a murderer—can you possibly be my daughter?"

  Floored by the double blow, Maddie could only say, "Mom—please—don't talk like that."

  "Do you deny it? Do you?"

  "Yes, I deny it! Of course I deny it!"

  "How can you deny it? Lillian saw the two of you when she
was walking her dogs!"

  The woman in the cowled sweatshirt, walking two terriers. "Oh my God. That was Lillian?"

  "What difference would it make, if it was Lillian or the fire chief? Everyone in town knows us. Someone was bound to recognize you. If not you, then certainly a CNN correspondent. What were you thinking? What were you doing? I'm not a prude, Maddie. God knows, I've tried to move with the times," Sarah said, her chin beginning to tremble. "I looked the other way when your brother brought women guests here and then crept across the hall to them at night. I sent Suzette and that awful Armand a coffee mill when they decided to move in together on the West Bank. I even forgave your father the one ti—but this! It's insulting. It's hurtful and cruel and beyond my comprehension. You! Of all people, you! The one person in the family who was always above reproach, behaving like some—some tabloid tart! With him!"

  "It wasn't like that, Mom!" Maddie cried. "Don't say things you'll later regret—"

  "I'll say what I want! I'm sick of having to seem blasé about morals. I'm sick of having to believe that times are more difficult now, that people are more stressed, that morality is relative. Times are always difficult! People are always stressed! And morality is not relative! When Daniel Hawke led those students into taking over that building, he was wrong. When they set fire to it, it was wrong. And when you ignored his past and the harm he'd done to us and went prancing around in the water with him buck naked, you were wrongl"

  Maddie's head was spinning. All she could say was, "We were not buck naked. We were wearing sweatshirts."

  The defense, such as it was, left her mother speechless. Sarah settled for a snort of contempt, then said, "Spare me the rest of that rebuttal. You've dazzled me enough for one day."

  She brushed past Maddie on her way to her room, but Maddie rallied and grabbed her mother's arm and swung her around to face her. "He is not a murderer and he had nothing to do with the fire! He told me!"

  Her mother jerked her arm from Maddie's grip. In an icy fury, she said, "He started the chain of events that's left me a widow. He's a murderer until someone proves otherwise. Now please—get away from me. I have to pack."

  Hot tears of shame and anger burned Maddie's eyes as she watched her mother march off with head held high. "Go ahead!" she shouted to her mother's back. "Run! Run away and hide! It's so much easier than forgiving someone and giving that person another chance. That would be work, wouldn't it, Mom? That would take an effort! And we know you have to save your strength for golf and bridge and tennis, and lunches with small-minded friends!"

  Maddie was shouting at a closed door. In a rage of her own now, she lunged at the doorknob, but the door was locked. She slammed her hand against the panels and called out, "Listen to me! I love him, and nothing you say or do will change that! I refuse to fall for your power play, and I refuse to feel guilty about it. I've loved Dan Hawke since Lowell College! Do you hear me? He's the only man I've ever truly loved! Everything else has been a sham! My life has been a sham! Do you hear me, Mom? Can you hear me? A sham! And I won't live that way anymore! I won't! Open this door! Deal with this!"

  Silence.

  Maddie let out an exasperated cry and kicked the door in fury, then turned around and sank, exhausted and with her eyes closed, against it. Suddenly all of it—the fireworks, the fund-raiser, the first confrontation, the escape, the beach, the dog, the relief, the happiness and now this—caught up with her. She was utterly, totally spent of emotion. She felt dead inside. She felt like a woman looking down at her own dead body.

  But God or the devil had other plans for her.

  When she opened her eyes she found herself staring into yet another pair of shocked and contemptuous blue eyes: Tracey, still in her bathing suit, was standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the hall, watching the drama play out.

  Like a fool, Maddie said, "How much did you hear?"

  It was Tracey's cue to burst into tears. "All of it," she wailed, and ran up the stairs sobbing hysterically.

  "God in heaven," Maddie whispered.

  With head bowed low and shoulders sagging, she dragged herself up the stairs after her daughter, but that door, too, was closed to her. She knocked as gently as she had pounded fiercely on the door downstairs, but heard only muffled sobbing in return.

  We need a time out, she told herself. All three of us need a time out. Her room at the end of the hall beckoned. She let herself be lured by it, like Ulysses to Calypso's island, and lay down fully clothed on the white quilted coverlet of her bed. She had little thought of falling asleep. All she meant to do was to fashion a strategy, and her body could no longer do that while standing up. She had to lie down in order to think.

  That was all.

  Chapter 19

  The harsh jangle of the phone sent Maddie bolting from her bed.

  She hovered in confusion, wondering why they were having a school fire drill in the middle of the night, until she realized that she wasn't in school, there was no drill, and it was the middle of the day.

  The caller was Detective Bailey, sounding polite and sympathetic—and oddly excited, for Detective Bailey.

  "I was curious to know whether you had a chance to look for your father's address book," he asked after an opening pleasantry.

  "Oh, I'm sorry ... no." She made some excuse about her mother being indisposed.

  "Look, Mrs. Regan ... I have another reason for calling. We may have been given a break in the case. God knows, it's the first one we've had."

  No need to ask which case he meant. Fully awake now, Maddie said, "Tell me."

  "Okay, here's the deal: we ran your father's plates again, on the odd chance that something would turn up in the computer that wasn't there when we discovered the car. And lo and behold, there it sat: a parking ticket, still unpaid, from April 6. I'm surprised you didn't get dunned about it."

  "I'm not sure my mother would've noticed something like that in the mail, not in the state she's been in. Besides, she's ruthless about tossing anything that doesn't have either her lawyer's or her accountant's name on it," Maddie said. Her blood was racing with the thought that finally—finally—something might be happening to move them forward. "Where was the ticket issued?" she asked.

  "Good for you. It was issued out of Natick. Do you know if your father would have any reason to go there?"

  "Nothing comes to mind. I could ask my mother." But probably not today.

  "You ever been to Natick?"

  "Oh, yes, to a mall there."

  "Then you know it's not a small town—but it's not Boston, either. I have hopes. I've just got off the phone with the ticketing officer. The officer was a woman, another big break. They tend to take scofflaws personally."

  "But my father wasn't a scofflaw! Just the opposite," Maddie felt bound to say.

  "Yes, yes, I know that. I meant, a woman officer tends to remember every little ... a male officer would write the ticket, all right, but his mind would be on the Celts game from the night before. Not that I'm saying women are vindictive, mind you. Only that—oh hell, it's a break. Okay?"

  Maddie had another thought. "What made you think of running the plates a second time?''

  "Truth? Dan Hawke."

  "Dan! I don't believe it! How? Why?"

  "You tell me. He got in touch a little while ago. Says he's a friend of the family. Says he's been apprised of the case—apprised, hell; he knew as much about it as I did."

  "But I haven't told him a—"

  "Yeah. I figured. It doesn't matter. Guys like him are networked. He did have one name wrong, which means he's also read accounts in the papers; he wouldn't have got that from us."

  Reeling from the news, Maddie nonetheless had the sense to say with conviction, "You can trust him completely. He's a friend from way back. But he's been abroad ...."

  "I know who he is," the detective answered dryly. "Cops watch shows besides 'Baywatch'. "

  "No, I didn't mean to imply—anyway, he has only our interests at heart. And
I guarantee that he doesn't have an agenda. He's not going to do an exposé or anything."

  "Exposé?" Bailey asked with an edge. "Of what?"

  "I don't know," Maddie said, flustered. "Whatever reporters expose. Corruption or ineptitude—but that's what I'm saying he's not trying to do." Flustered, she explained, "I'm just trying to say that he'll be totally discreet."

  "Oh, good. Then he won't blab about the Ferrari in my garage. I can sleep easy now."

  "Please tell me you're just teasing, Detective Bailey. If I've offended you in any way, it's the opposite of what I intended. You're the most honorable, upright—"

  "Mrs. Regan, I was pullin' your chain," he said, a little wearily. "The fact is, I wouldn't be working my off-hours if—it's your mother, I guess. I ran into her after the fireworks. She's doesn't seem to be bouncing back so good. I have a mother her age. If something happened to my pop, well, I don't even want to think about the effect it'd have on her."

  In a lighter vein he said, "As for your celebrity pal—we don't let those types get too cozy. Still, it was a damn good idea to run the plates again, and he's the one who had it, and I'm not ashamed to say it."

  He took a breath and said, "Anyhoo, getting back to my point: the on-duty officer remembers clearly the day she ticketed your father's car, because she also issued tickets for every other car on the block.

  "The street had been slated for a sweeping," he explained, "and signs were posted banning parking. Some kids upped and swiped the signs and figured they were being cute, putting 'em back after cars parked in all the banned spaces. Along comes Officer Geary and tickets the whole street, naturally. That much she remembers. We're looking into the records for the registrations on all the other cars that got nailed that morning. Might be something useful there."