Million Dollar Baby

by Amy Patricia Meade

  It was not that the concept of death was beyond her comprehension; she had a vague understanding, from what she had been told about her mother, that grown-ups very often left home and never returned. Nor was she not sorry that her father had to leave, for, indeed, she would miss him very much. Yet, the simple fact of the matter was that she was having too much fun to cry. Her few years on earth had been spent in virtual solitude, and now, suddenly, around every corner, were people to smother her with attention. She and Mrs. Patterson had spent the morning baking cookies, Mrs. Schutt had made her favorite chocolate cake, and Dr. Russell brought her a wooden horse he had whittled.

  And that was only the daytime. Nighttime brought its own rewards: the handsome policeman who stayed for dinner gave her a piggyback ride around the house, the tall man who talked funny told her a silly made-up bedtime story, and Marjorie tucked her into bed without making her take a bath. It was like her birthday, but better.

  Yet, if Mary’s heart was light, Marjorie’s was heavy. The death of John Stafford had taken a grievous toll upon her mind. She walked about in a fog, her face tense and pale. As soon as Marjorie had put Mary to bed, Mrs. Patterson drew the young woman a hot bath, fixed her a cup of chamomile tea and ordered her to her room. Marjorie, too exhausted to argue, staggered up to the second floor and stayed there all evening, emerging only once to inquire about borrowing a bathrobe. Soon after, Mrs. Patterson retired, leaving Creighton alone in the front parlor.

  Surprisingly enough, the Englishman was not at all sleepy. However, finding the front parlor cold and drafty, he nonetheless withdrew to his bedroom. There, he rolled up his shirtsleeves, removed his shoes and reclined on the bed to give Death in Denmark a more in-depth perusal. Upon the completion the first chapter, he heard the creaking of floorboards and a soft, tentative tap on his bedroom door.

  He placed the book facedown on the nightstand and went to investigate. Opening the door, he peered out into the dark to see a figure retreating down the hallway. When the light from his bedroom fell upon the figure, it jumped. “I’m sorry, Creighton,” Marjorie whispered. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “Don’t worry, I was awake.” He opened the door fully to reveal that he was dressed. “What are you doing up? I thought you went to bed hours ago.”

  “I did, but I can’t sleep.” She stepped closer to the bedroom door allowing the light to fall upon her face and torso. Her eyes were tinged with red, her hair was slightly mussed and she was wrapped in an overly large bathrobe in a familiar plaid pattern.

  “Is that my dressing gown?” he asked.

  She glanced down at her waist as if she had just realized what she was wearing. “Yes, I forgot mine, and Mrs. Patterson is much shorter than I am, so she gave me yours to wear. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all. You do it more justice than I do. Maybe I’ll give it to you to keep.” Normally she would have smiled at such a comment, but instead she stared at him blankly, her eyes glassy from an evening’s worth of tears. He stepped back from the door. “Do you want to come in and talk?”

  She glanced at the bed. “No, I don’t think so.”

  He followed her gaze and realized how his invitation might have sounded. “How about joining me in the kitchen for some brandy, then? It’s good for the nerves.”

  “I’ve never had brandy.”

  “Then I’ll give you just a little, to help you sleep.”

  “All right,” she capitulated, “to help me sleep.”

  “Good girl.” He went back into his bedroom, grabbed a flask from his suitcase, and followed Marjorie downstairs and into the kitchen.

  Marjorie flipped on the light switch and sat down at the table. Creighton retrieved two glasses from the cabinet over the sink, filled them halfway and then placed them and the flask on the table before taking the chair opposite Marjorie. “Drink up. It’ll do you good.”

  She picked up the glass and took a sip, and then another, before putting it down again.

  “At least you didn’t gulp it down like the sherry,” he teased.

  She smiled faintly, and Creighton could see that she was starting to relax. “So tell me what’s troubling you. Is it Stafford? Or Mary?”

  “Both,” she answered with a sigh. “I feel so awful about the whole thing. That poor man, the way he was lying there, and now that little girl upstairs is left all alone.”

  “She’s not totally alone. Her grandmother has been notified and she wants to take Mary back to Nutley. In the meantime, she has all of us to watch over her.”

  “I know that, and she’s luckier than most children who lose their parents, but her grandmother isn’t going to live forever. Someday she’s going to be entirely on her own, with no family to depend upon. Do you know how lonely that is? Well, I do. It’s been seven years since my father died, and there are still times when I feel like an orphan.”

  “I expect every child who loses a parent feels that way. It’s been twenty-six years since my mother died. Sometimes it feels like yesterday.”

  “When does it stop hurting, Creighton?” she begged. “When?”

  He frowned. “I don’t know that it ever does.”

  A tear slid down her cheek. “At least we each had one parent to raise us into adulthood. But Mary isn’t even five years old yet. What’s going to happen to her? How is she going to feel, seeing her friends with their mothers and fathers, when she has none? And what will she do when her grandmother is gone? I have Mrs. Patterson, but who else does she have?”

  “She has you, Marjorie,” he replied. “She has you.”

  “Me?” She laughed bitterly. “I’m the one who did this to her. If it weren’t for my horning in, her father might still be alive.”

  “And if you had it to do all over again, what would you do differently? Ignore Victor Bartorelli’s body? Pretend you never found it? I don’t consider reporting a dead body to the police as ‘horning in.’”

  “No, but I pressured Robert to reopen the Van Allen case. And because he did, William was nearly poisoned and Stafford was killed.”

  “Jameson didn’t make detective for nothing, Marjorie. He’s a smart fellow. With or without us, he would have eventually reopened the case and uncovered the embezzling scheme. It might have taken him a little longer, but he would have ended up in the same place we are now. And, need I remind you, I did my fair share of pressuring, too. As for William Van Allen, if you weren’t at the party, he would have shot his mouth off to some other good-looking woman and gotten himself poisoned anyway. And Stafford, well, I hate to say it, but he was well on his way to drinking himself to death.”

  “But he didn’t drink himself to death. He fell, and if I were at home last night instead of at the party, I might have heard something. I might have been able to help him.”

  “You might also have gotten yourself killed. What good would you be to Mary then?”

  “What good am I to her now?” she cried. “I can’t put her life back together again. I can’t take her hurt away. If I had just been home last night, I could have saved him. But like always, I’m never around when I’m really needed. It happened with my father and now it’s happened again.” She began to weep.

  He handed her a handkerchief and poured some more brandy. “Talk to me, sweetheart. Tell me what happened to your father.”

  “He was sick. He had suffered a stroke that left him very weak. He had difficulty walking without a cane, and his handwriting was very shaky. When he came home from the hospital, I took care of him. He could do a lot on his own, but I made him his meals, cleaned the house and did the laundry. I also took dictation from him, so that he could still pursue his writing. We lived that way for almost a year—just the two of us. Then, one night in February, they had a dance over at St. Agnes. I didn’t want to go, but my father insisted. He said I was too young to be at home taking care of a sick man.” She took a sip of brandy. “I went to the dance, and when I came home he was dead. If I hadn’t gone, I might have been able to save him
, or at least say goodbye.” Tears streamed down her face.

  Creighton rose from his chair and knelt down on the floor in front of her. “Marjorie, don’t you see? He didn’t want you there; he didn’t want you to see him die. He wanted you to go on with your life, to be young and happy. My mother had a phrase she always told to my brother and me, but I never understood it until now. She said, ‘If I could give you just two things, the first would be to give you roots, the last to give you wings.’ Your father raised you. He gave you your roots and that night, he gave you your wings—your freedom. It was his last act as a father, to protect you. You didn’t fail him. You could never have failed him. Nor could you possibly fail Mary. You’re too beautiful a person. Not just your face, but your heart. Your dear, dear heart . . .”

  He brushed her tears away and, taking her face in his hands, kissed her, softly, slowly at first and then, finding his lips met no resistance, with a gradually increasing intensity. “Marjorie,” he sighed, tasting the salt of her tears upon his mouth.

  She slid her arms around his neck and pulled him closer to her. He kissed her again—this time harder, more passionately than he had ever kissed any woman. She reciprocated at first but then, with a sudden capriciousness, pushed him away gently.

  She rose from her chair and, as if Creighton had done more than kiss her, smoothed the plaid dressing gown about her hips. “It’s late. We should try to get some sleep. We’ve been awake for more than thirty-six hours now.” She cleared her throat, “I’m sorry to have burdened you with my problems. I didn’t intend to go on the way I did.”

  Creighton, still crouched upon the kitchen floor, reached up and took her hand in his. “You didn’t burden me.”

  Like that first day in the drugstore, she gently removed her fingers from his grasp. “What I mean is that I got a bit carried away. I think, perhaps, the brandy went to my head.”

  In other words, the kiss had been a mistake. Creighton turned his head away in desolation. “Yes,” he replied mechanically, “alcohol has a tendency to do that if you’re not careful.”

  Having gotten her point across, she made her way towards the door, and then, apparently deeming it necessary to make some sort of parting gesture, returned to Creighton, placed a hand on his shoulder and grazed his forehead with her lips. “Thank you Creighton. You’re a good friend.”

  At the word “friend,” any flicker of hope in his heart was swiftly extinguished, replaced by a profound feeling of emptiness. He swallowed, hard. “Goodnight, Marjorie,” were the only words he could bring himself to utter. He listened to the swinging of the kitchen door and the slapping of Marjorie’s slippers on the hardwood floor as she walked away from the kitchen and down the hallway.

  Creighton returned to his place at the table and pushed aside his flask and brandy glass. No amount of alcohol would assuage his longing, no level of intoxication high enough to numb his pain.

  Marjorie was back in her room now, for he could hear the creaking of the floorboards above his head. The sound was faint, haunting, as if it were made not by a flesh and blood woman, but a spirit, a ghost.

  He smiled weakly and wondered if this description didn’t suit her. He recalled the feeling of her lips as they brushed against his forehead: fleeting, transitory. Certainly, there was nothing tangible about her, nothing to grab hold of and stake claim to as his own. She came to him in turns, alighting suddenly upon his soul and then disappearing as quickly as she had come.

  Yes, he thought, perhaps she was nothing more than a phantom, a dream, a vision. And for him, it seemed, that was all she was ever destined to be.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Marjorie was slicing bread on the kitchen counter when Creighton entered the kitchen the next morning. He greeted the young girl seated at the table eating oatmeal. “Good morning, Mary.” Upon her lap was the same ragged doll she had been carrying the first time he saw her. “And friend.”

  “Good morning,” he bade Marjorie softly.

  “Good morning,” she rejoined.

  “Where’s Mrs. Patterson?”

  “She went to church. From there she’s catching a bus to Hartford. A friend of hers isn’t feeling well, so she’s paying her a visit. She’ll be back this evening.”

  “I guess we’re left to fend for ourselves this morning,” he surmised.

  “Not entirely.” She pulled a face. “Mrs. Patterson left a pot of oatmeal on the stove for us.”

  “Lovely,” he replied facetiously.

  “I take it you’ll be joining me for toast?” she asked, gesturing to the loaf of bread.

  “Yes, I believe I will, thank you.”

  A small voice came from the kitchen table. “May I be excused?”

  Marjorie craned her neck to peer into the little girl’s bowl. “Did you and Florence eat all your oatmeal?”

  “Florence?” Creighton asked.

  “Her doll,” Marjorie whispered.

  Mary nodded earnestly.

  “Okay,” Marjorie permitted. “Go upstairs and get dressed.”

  The little girl scampered out of the kitchen. Now that he and Marjorie were alone, Creighton decided to broach the subject of their kiss. “I’m sorry about last night.”

  “That’s all right, I’m as much to blame as you are. After all, I didn’t fight you off, did I?” She gave a quick smile. “Let’s just put it down to sheer exhaustion and leave it at that.”

  “So you forgive me?”

  “Yes, I forgive you.”

  “And you won’t hold a grudge?”

  “Why should I hold a grudge?”

  “Because I had a bad experience when I was a lad. I kissed a girl, Edwina Niedersachsen, without her permission. I apologized afterward and she said she forgave me, but apparently she didn’t, because the next day she told the entire upper form what a horrible kisser I was. I couldn’t get another date until I went off to university.”

  “How horrible for you,” she exclaimed with more than just a hint of mock pity. “Well, you needn’t worry. I promise I won’t spread a lie like that around town.”

  His ears pricked up, “A lie? Are you saying that I’m not a horrible kisser?”

  “No, you’re not a horrible kisser,” she admitted grudgingly.

  “Would you go so far as to say that I’m a good kisser?”

  “You do all right,” she allowed sparingly.

  “Just all right? Maybe I can improve. Why don’t we have another go then?” He puckered his lips and leaned closer.

  “No,” she exclaimed, laughing.

  “Suit yourself,” he shrugged.

  She pulled a slice of browned bread from the toaster and thrust it at him. “Here. Go eat your toast.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he teased and took a seat at the table. Marjorie grabbed her own slice of toast and joined him. “Did you tell Mary that she’ll be moving in with her grandmother?” he asked as he poured out their coffee.

  “Yes,” she replied, smearing some strawberry preserves onto her toast with the back of a spoon.

  “How did she take it?”

  “She liked the idea. Her only concern was that I wouldn’t be able to see her for her birthday. Mrs. Patterson and I were going to throw her a big fifth birthday party this August.”

  “No reason you still can’t. You and Mrs. Patterson can get the balloons and cake together, and I’ll drive the both of you down there. As long as her grandmother approves, of course.”

  Marjorie smiled. “Mary would like that.”

  Creighton smiled back. “So what’s on schedule for today?”

  “Nothing,” she took a sip of coffee. “Robert put a rush on Stafford’s postmortem and the forensic analysis of William’s revolver, but, since it’s Sunday, he might not get those reports until tomorrow. However, on the off chance he does hear something, he’ll let us know.”

  “Then it looks like it’s just the three of us. What would you like to do? Go into town and see a movie, perhaps?”

  “No, if it’s all the
same to you, Creighton, I’d like to work on my book. My notes are hopelessly out of date.”

  “So you’re planning to stay here all day?”

  She hedged a bit before answering him. “Umm, no, actually I was planning on working back at my place.”

  Creighton shook his head. “I thought we discussed this yesterday. Jameson and I told you we didn’t like the idea of you staying at your house alone.”

  “I’m not staying there. I’ll spend the day and come back here in time for supper.”

  “Why can’t you work here?”

  “Because I left all my notes at my house.”

  “Then I’ll pick them up for you.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Creighton, I’m just not comfortable working here. I’m a creature of habit when it comes to writing. I need all my things about me—my desk, my chair, my typewriter. Besides, someone has to go back and feed Sam.”

  Creighton still had misgivings.

  “Don’t you have anything better to do than to babysit me all day? What about your house? Isn’t there something you could do there?”

  “I did receive a shipment of wine yesterday afternoon. I could try to clean up the wine cellar and stock the bottles away, but I don’t have to be alone to do that. Why don’t you and Mary join me?”

  “I’m sure Mary would just love to spend her day in a cold, damp cellar with nothing to play with but bottles of wine,” she quipped. “Let me take her to my house. She’d be a lot more comfortable there. She can spread out on the rug with her paper dolls and blocks and coloring books, and if she gets bored, she can always play with Sam.”

  “She could do those things here,” he argued.

  “Please, Creighton. I need to work, to help me get my mind off of things.”

  “Okay,” he caved, “but no gallivanting around town.”

  “I won’t.”

  “And make sure to lock all your windows and doors.”

  “I will.”

  “And if you need me I’ll be at Kensington House.”