Ms. Bigelow smiled, as polite and icy as a glass of frozen lemonade. “Then I suggest you find out if Mr. and Mrs. Firelli documented their wishes to that effect, Ms. Henry. Otherwise it will be up to the court to determine the best caregivers and environment for the children.”
Ms. Bigelow rose, tucking her pen into the clipboard. “The State prefers to know the wishes of the parents in matters pertaining to children. If that information is provided, the court will in most cases honor the parents’ request. Quite simply, if you are able to locate any documentation whatsoever stating Mr. and Mrs. Firelli’s choice for the guardianship of their children, it would be in the children’s best interest that you do so immediately.” She gave them both another tight smile, signaling that the interview was over.
While Ellen saw Ms. Bigelow out, Maggie excused herself, taking the dirty dishes and coffee cups to the kitchen. She bent over the sink and ran hot water on full blast to mask her outrage as she swore silently and repeatedly, pounding her closed fist against the cold ceramic of the sink until she calmed down. She looked at the back of the children’s heads as they watched the nature program. How small and vulnerable they looked, completely unaware of just how precarious their lives had become.
Maggie straightened, shutting off the flow of water. She couldn’t leave them like this, not until she knew they were safe. It’s what Lena had asked of her. It’s what Marco would have wanted. At the very least she had to see if Marco and Lena had thought to make any provision for their children’s future. If there was paperwork naming a legal guardian, she and Ellen had to find it. Maggie sighed heavily, dreading what this new turn of events might cost her. If nothing else, it would certainly cost her more time. And time was the one thing she did not have to spare.
When she heard the mudroom door slam, she went back into the parlor. Ellen was sitting in the prim floral armchair, looking dazed.
“Well, that does beat all,” Ellen said slowly. “How do you think they found out?”
Maggie crossed her arms and shrugged, too agitated to sit. “Probably someone at the hospital. Or the police. Maybe they have to report anything involving minors.”
“I just don’t think it’s right, making the children have to up and move somewhere else when they’ve lost so much already.” Ellen shook her head. “But I guess what we think doesn’t matter since we’re not next of kin. But to think of them having to go to that man in Florida. Have they even met him before?”
Maggie stood by the sofa at the front window, looking out at the long sweep of lawn. “The boys did once when they all went to Italy to visit Marco’s family. I think Anthony was there too. He and Marco didn’t get along at all, though. They haven’t spoken in years. Lena and Marco wouldn’t want him to have any say in their kids’ lives.”
“Well, maybe Anthony won’t want to take them,” Ellen said comfortingly. “It’s a big responsibility, after all.”
Maggie set her jaw and shook her head. It felt like too big of a risk to take.
“Is there anything we can do?” Ellen asked.
“We can start looking for documents,” Maggie said grimly, “and hope Marco and Lena wrote down what they wanted for the kids.”
“Well, all right, let’s get to it.” Ellen sighed and started to rise but stopped as a thought struck her. “But you’re leaving in the morning.”
Maggie shook her head. “Not now. Not until I know the kids are safe. I’ll stay until we get things sorted out.”
“But what about your competition?” Ellen asked. “Don’t you have to get back?”
Maggie nodded, feeling the tension in every muscle of her body. The truth was that, yes, she did have to get back. Every second she delayed was costing her, possibly more than she could calculate. But she couldn’t leave Ellen and the children in such a precarious situation. It was unthinkable. She had no other choice. “A couple more days won’t make much difference,” she lied. “Now, let’s get to work.”
Chapter Sixteen
THEY STARTED THE SEARCH AS SOON AS THE children were in bed.
“What if the papers are in New York?” Ellen asked, voicing a concern Maggie had considered as well.
“I don’t know. I don’t know who their lawyers are. I don’t know how we would even find any of that information. I don’t even know how to get into their house in Brooklyn,” Maggie confessed. In truth, she was surprised to realize how little she knew about their life eleven months out of the year. “I’ll call Marco’s old firm on Monday and see if they can give me any information, although I’m guessing they won’t know much about this situation. Maybe they’d know the name of the attorney he used, though.”
“I’ll look through all the cards people sent with the flowers,” Ellen offered, “just to see if a law office sent anything.”
Maggie nodded. “Good idea. Let’s do anything we can think of and see what turns up. Hopefully we’ll find something helpful.”
“Let’s look here first and worry about New York on Monday if we haven’t found what we need by then,” Ellen said practically. “Maybe the documents are right under our noses.”
Maggie made them both a double-shot espresso and then they split up. Ellen began in the small office where she was sleeping. It seemed like a likely spot. Maggie volunteered to search Marco’s third-floor studio. Besides a drafting table, it had a filing cabinet and a desk with several deep drawers. She liked spending time in the studio. She felt Marco’s presence in that room.
Maggie had forgotten the sheer amount of time required to look through personal papers. It had taken her weeks to sort through her mother’s. Lena said Marco, along with George, managed their finances, so Maggie wasn’t surprised to find the filing cabinet filled with copies of utility bills, magazine subscription renewal forms, and credit card statements, as well as a stack of newspaper clippings for Marco’s designs and assorted files and folders pertaining to his work. But no legal documents.
Maggie sat back on her heels, discouraged. She still had a drawer of the filing cabinet and the desk drawers left to go through, but so far had found nothing of use. At a quarter to one, she looked in on Ellen and they called a halt for the night.
“Let’s get some sleep,” Ellen suggested, yawning. “We’ll start again in the morning. I’ve found household and medical records, quilting patterns, and about a hundred recipes in this desk. Lena is very organized, but so far she doesn’t seem to have any legal documents.”
The next day, as soon as they could, they set the kids down in front of a Disney movie and resumed the search. Still nothing. They ate lunch in discouraged silence as the children chattered on about the movie, a modern-day Swiss Family Robinson.
“They made clothes out of coconuts and leaves, and they made traps for pirates, and they had a pet monkey,” Luca said, summarizing the entire plot in one sentence. Maggie looked at each of them—Jonah silently eating a turkey sandwich, Luca picking all the grapes off the stem one by one, Gabby asking if they could get a monkey to keep Sammy company. Maggie was trying to be stoic, but she was worried. What if no papers existed? What then?
We’ll just keep looking, she told herself, gulping the last bites of her sandwich. Surely Lena and Marco wouldn’t have left something this important to chance? But then she remembered the misstep with the life insurance and didn’t feel so confident. They hadn’t expected Marco to die so young or Lena to have her accident, one tragedy on the heels of another. Maybe Lena and Marco had been careless with the issue of guardianship for their children as well, banking on their youth, health, and good fortune. Maggie sincerely hoped not.
Late in the afternoon Maggie found it. She was alone in the house, sifting through the last desk drawer in Marco’s studio. Ellen had finished her search and taken the children into Friday Harbor to buy some groceries and pay a visit to the harbor to watch the ferry come in.
Maggie had just stopped for a quick break and stretch, going through a couple of yoga positions. She eased into Downward Dog and then the Cobra
pose, trying to lessen the tension in her shoulders and soothe her frustration at their search turning up nothing useful. She made another espresso and kept looking. There had to be something there. She refused to give up until she’d turned over every scrap of paper.
Halfway through the final desk drawer, Maggie found a folder labeled “Winters & Cline.” Her heart skipped a beat. That sounded like the name of a law firm.
“Oh, please be something good,” she murmured, leaning forward in Marco’s black leather office chair and opening the folder. It was filled with copies of legal documents. She flipped through the pages, barely registering them, glancing only long enough to assure herself they were not about guardianship for the kids. And then she found them, two documents. “Last Will and Testament of Marco Firelli” and “Last Will and Testament of Lena Irene Lindstrom Firelli.” And within those documents a paragraph naming a guardian for the children.
She skimmed Lena’s will quickly, mouthing the words, elated by the discovery. “If it should be necessary to appoint a guardian of a child of mine, I designate the following persons, in order of preference and succession, to serve as guardian of the estates and persons of such child, if the child’s other parent cannot so serve: (i) my dear friend, Magdalena Margaret Henry.”
Maggie stared at her own name for a moment in shock. My dear friend, Magdalena Margaret Henry. Lena had given Maggie her children. Somehow, even though she had hoped to find this document, she had not considered what it would mean if her own name were on it. She bit her lip, rereading the paragraph a third time, stunned by the discovery. She flipped through Marco’s will, but the paragraph was the same. He had also named her guardian. What had they been thinking, giving her care of their three children, she who barely saw her own bed more than two nights in a row? There had to be people far more qualified. Ellen, for instance.
Maggie shrank back in the chair, holding the paper away from her as though it contained some dangerous secret. It did. She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling a rush of relief that the children would not be taken from their home, that they would be safe, that they wouldn’t have to live with ill-suited relatives or strangers. But on the heels of that relief came panic at the thought of becoming a mother to three children all at once. It was terrifying.
She dropped the will, rubbing her forehead, suddenly aware of the weight of those few sentences. Lena’s and Marco’s last wishes had just effectively sealed her fate. She was not going anywhere, not for a long time.
Numbly, Maggie called Ellen with the news.
“Oh my lands, what a relief,” Ellen confessed. “I was getting so worried.”
Maggie agreed, although she couldn’t summon the older woman’s enthusiasm. “I’ll call Jane Bigelow and let her know we’ve found the wills,” she promised Ellen. After hanging up, she read the paragraph once more. She touched her name on the paper, trying to make it real. What did it mean for her future? She dared not think about it, not yet.
Carefully laying the documents on Marco’s desk, making sure all the pages were together, she quickly flipped through the rest of the documents in the legal file. If she were to be the children’s guardian, she reasoned, it was probably good for her to know as much as she could about Lena and Marco’s life from a legal perspective. It didn’t feel like prying now. They had named her as guardian for their children. They trusted her with what they loved most in life. Surely that gave her the right to know as much as possible about their circumstances.
Toward the bottom of the stack she came across a letter addressed to the same law office. She unfolded the single sheet of paper. It was a copy of a letter sent from Marco and Lena to their lawyer, a Mr. Calvin Winters. She scanned it quickly. A line partway down jumped out at her.
It is still our desire to continue with the course of action we spoke with you about in New York at our last meeting in May. Mr. Winters, we are instructing you to please proceed with the legal separation of Marco Firelli and Lena Irene Lindstrom Firelli.
Maggie stared at the words for a long moment. Legal separation? There must be some mistake. She read it again, starting from the beginning this time. It was dated the third of June, just before Marco’s accident. She scanned the few lines that seemed most pertinent.
As you know, Mr. Winters, we recently approached you regarding our decision to obtain a legal separation. It is still our desire to continue with the course of action we spoke with you about in New York at our last meeting in May. Mr. Winters, we are instructing you to please proceed with the legal separation of Marco Firelli and Lena Irene Lindstrom Firelli. We wish to proceed with this legal separation as a matter of irreconcilable differences. Please verify that you have received these instructions. We will await further correspondence from you about how to proceed with this matter.
And then both of their signatures. She recognized the handwriting—Lena’s feminine, looping script and Marco’s bold, unintelligible scrawl. Maggie set the paper down very carefully, as though it could explode in her hand. She didn’t want to touch it. She stared at the single sheet of paper uncomprehendingly. What did it mean? “. . . We are instructing you to please proceed with the legal separation of Marco Firelli and Lena Irene Lindstrom Firelli. We wish to proceed with this legal separation as a matter of irreconcilable differences.”
Maggie stared at the words hard, willing the single sheet of paper to reveal more, to somehow prove that those few lines did not mean what they seemed to say. It had to be a mistake. It simply could not be what it seemed to be. It was impossible. She pressed her hand to her chest, trying and failing to draw a full breath. It felt as though the world were falling completely apart, the pieces settling one by one on top of her, crushing her. There had to be some explanation for the letter, but there were only two people in the world who knew the truth, and neither of them could give an answer.
“That’s done,” Maggie said on Monday, disconnecting the call. She had scanned and e-mailed the wills to Ms. Bigelow and had just received the confirmation call from Child Protective Services. “She said they will be in touch about the process of having the guardianship legally approved, but there shouldn’t be any problem. And the children are to stay here with us while they walk me through the paperwork process.”
Ellen stood at the sink, rinsing lettuce for Cobb salad. She looked relieved. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t found those papers.”
“Me neither,” Maggie said grimly. She hadn’t mentioned Marco and Lena’s letter to their attorney to anyone, not even to Ellen. She had hidden it back in the folder, afraid to take it out again. It felt like a shameful secret. She couldn’t concentrate on it now. Too many other things were pressing first. Like Alistair, and what the guardianship meant for her entry into the Regent competition. There was no way she could enter now, not if she had to stay on the island and shoulder the care of the children. She was their legal guardian. She couldn’t simply jet off to Chicago for several months. It was unthinkable. And there was no way she could manage to create a strong and compelling entry with the myriad of responsibilities and questions clamoring for her time and attention. She had no time or space to do what she needed to do for the competition.
“I have to make a call,” she said reluctantly, picking up her cell phone and heading for the bluffs, dreading the conversation she was about to have. She was supposed to be in Chicago right now.
Alistair was not amused.
“Have you lost your mind?” he demanded, his clipped tone sharper than she could ever remember it. “Magdalena, this will not do. You must be on a plane tomorrow, today if you can manage it. Have you forgotten the opportunity I’ve given you? You can’t simply waltz in and out of this profession whenever you feel like it!”
“Waltz?” Maggie was speechless. “Waltz, Alistair? That’s ridiculous. I work harder than anyone in the office except you. How many times have you said it yourself? And not just for a few weeks or months. For years. I’ve been doing it for years. So don’t make it s
ound like I don’t care. And don’t think for one second I don’t understand what giving up this opportunity means for my career.”
She took a deep breath, the words bubbling up from some deep place of frustration. “I can’t get on a plane and leave three children I’ve been asked to protect. I’m their legal guardian, Alistair. I didn’t ask for it or sign up for it. Lena and Marco never even asked me, but I’m not going to refuse it. What’s the alternative? For Child Protective Services to put them in State care? I saw a lot of that growing up. I know you might not understand what that means, with your Swedish au pairs and your prep school, but I do. And I will not let that happen. Not when there’s someone who knows them and loves them. Not when they can stay in their home. So no, I’m not waltzing anywhere. I am very conscious of what this is costing me.” She dropped her voice, trying to deescalate, to reason with him so he would understand.
“Alistair, I know I’ll never have this chance again. I know exactly what I’m giving up. And I have no choice.” Saying the words felt like someone was stabbing her in the heart. She gritted her teeth against the pain and disappointment, willing herself not to give in, not to just pack up and leave. It was so very tempting.
A long pause, and then Alistair’s voice, measured and calm. “There is always a choice, my dear. And you have made yours.” And then a moment later, a click. He was gone.
Maggie stood for a long moment, staring out at the water, not thinking, just letting the weight of what she had done sink in slowly. She had just given up the greatest opportunity of her life. And there was no going back. She slipped the phone into the pocket of her jacket and sat down on a nearby rocky promontory, wrapping her arms around herself, trying by force of will to keep from falling to pieces. But it was no use. She could hear her heart beginning to rip in two, the threads of hard work and ambition and opportunity giving way to the inexorable pull of necessity and loss. It was a rending that felt like the end of the world.
Ascension of Larks Page 17
