What the Heart Remembers

by Bette Lee Crosby

  “Hotel Baltimore,” the clerk answers.

  “May I speak with Andrew Steen?” Max asks.

  For a moment there is nothing; then the clerk says, “Mister Steen has already checked out.”

  Max’s heart drops into her stomach.

  ~ ~ ~

  When the taxicab pulls away from the curb Andrew leans back in the seat. If Max wants to be with Julien then so be it, he tells himself. A voice in the back of his head asks, Seriously?

  “Yes, seriously,” he says aloud.

  “Pardon?” the taxi driver replies.

  “Oh, it was nothing,” Andrew says. “I was just thinking out loud.” He hesitates then adds, “Trying to make a decision.” He discounts the fact that ten minutes earlier he’d already done so.

  Although he’s decided to go home and forget about her, Andrew is still thinking about Max. The truth is he really likes her. Loves her maybe. Isn’t something like that worth fighting for? the voice asks.

  Andrew thinks back to the first case he ever argued in a courtroom. Everyone said it was a case that was all but impossible to win, and yet he’d won it. He’d believed in Tom Crystal’s innocence, and he’d fought for it tooth and nail. He runs the movie reel through his mind again, picturing the way Max looped her arm through his as they walked side by side, the way her body fit so perfectly into his when they slept together, the way she lifted her face to his and offered a kiss. He didn’t just take it; she gave it.

  Yeah, a relationship like this is worth fighting for.

  He taps the driver on the shoulder. “I’ve changed my mind. Take me to the Hotel Vendome.”

  ~ ~ ~

  After Max hangs up the telephone, she brushes back a tear then pulls her suitcase from the closet and hurriedly begins to pack. Last night it was after midnight when Andrew turned his back and walked away. The first flight going to anywhere in America doesn’t leave until seven-thirty, which means he might still be at the airport.

  As she slams the suitcase shut, the telephone rings. Leaping across the bed she grabs the receiver and says, “Andrew?”

  “No,” the caller answers icily. “It’s Julien.”

  “Oh.” The disappointment in her voice is obvious.

  He ignores it. “I meant what I said last night. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive a foolish man who—”

  “Enough,” she cuts in. “You are who you are, Julien. No one is ever going to change you, and I have no interest in trying. We were wrong from the start—”

  “Maxine, wait!” The timbre of his voice changes; it becomes arrogant and commanding. “You’re making a mistake. A big mistake!”

  “My only mistake would be letting you back into my life.” When she hangs up, it is as if a huge boulder has been lifted from her shoulders. She shrugs on her jacket and heads for the elevator. As she waits she hears the telephone start to ring again, but when the doors whoosh open, she steps in and pushes “Lobby”.

  The Vendome is a small hotel on a side street. It is not a place where taxicabs park and wait for passengers to happen by. When Max stops at the desk to check out, she asks the clerk to call for a taxi.

  “I’m in a hurry,” she says, “so ask if they can get here as soon as possible.”

  He makes the call then says, “Five minutes or less.”

  Max gives an appreciative nod. “I’ll wait out front.” She takes her bag and walks outside.

  It is early and there is very little traffic. It is less than a minute until Max sees the taxi speeding down Rue d’Arris. She glances at her watch: 6:45. It is going to be close, very close, but hopefully she’ll make it. When the taxi comes to a stop in front of the hotel, she already has her suitcase in hand.

  She reaches for the door, but it pops open before she touches the handle. A long leg steps out just as she bends to get in. She gasps.

  “Andrew?”

  Without giving her a chance to say anything more, he pulls her into his arms and presses her to his chest. He leans down, his cheek touching hers, the sweet sound of his breath in her ear.

  “Any man dumb enough to let you get away the first time doesn’t deserve a second chance,” he says.

  She lifts her face to his, and he kisses her full on the mouth. It is a kiss such as Max has never before known. It is both tender and passionate. It is filled with the warm memories of what they have shared for the past six days, and it is also a promise of all that is to come.

  Going Home

  “Do you want me to wait?” the taxi driver asks.

  “Yes,” Andrew answers; then he turns to Max. “I came here looking for you,” he says softly. “Where were you going?”

  She smiles. “To try and find you. When I called your hotel they said you’d already checked out, so I thought I might be able to catch you at the airport.”

  “I called you too,” Andrew says. “Twice. When there was no answer I thought you’d gone off with—”

  “Why didn’t you leave a message?”

  Andrew gives a sheepish grin. “It was two-thirty in the morning. I figured you were still with him, and that ticked me off.”

  “I wasn’t,” Max says. “I was in the breakfast room having a cup of tea.”

  “Tea? At two-thirty in the morning?”

  “It’s a long story,” Max says. “Someday I’ll tell you all about it.”

  When Andrew folds Max into his arms for a second time, the taxi driver gives his horn a short blast.

  “The meter’s still running,” he says. “You want me to keep waiting?”

  “We’re through waiting,” Andrew replies. “We’re going to the airport. Pop the trunk, and I’ll put the lady’s suitcase in.”

  After the bags are checked, Andrew goes to the service desk and upgrades both tickets to first class. He smiles and tells the attendant at the desk they are celebrating. What he doesn’t say.

  The Air France clerk watches them walk away, his arm curled around her waist, her head tilted toward his shoulder. She picks up the gray phone and buzzes the boarding gate agent.

  “I think you’ve got a pair of newlyweds on board,” she says. “Seats Six A and B.”

  It is three hours until flight time so they go to breakfast and talk, partly about the future and partly of the past. Max tells him she no longer has any feelings for Julien.

  “What the heart remembers isn’t always a true picture of what was,” she says. “I doubt I ever really loved Julien; I was simply in love with the thought of love.” She hesitates then gives an easy smile. “It was Paris. He was a free-spirited artist rebelling against society, and I was a very impressionable young architect.”

  Andrew stretches his arm across the table and takes her hand in his.

  “What about now?” he says. It is a question about both past and present.

  “Well, I’m still an architect,” she says laughingly; then her words take on a more serious tone. “But I’ve learned love isn’t the flourishes and fancy ironwork that decorate a facade, it’s the foundation of a building. It’s what forever is built on.”

  Andrew squeezes her hand affectionately. “I’ve heard lawyers make a very good cornerstone.”

  She gives him a smile. “Funny, I’ve heard that very same thing.”

  Max suspects the dream was more than just a dream. She believes the tea enabled her to peek into their future, but she says nothing. There is plenty of time. Some rainy evening when the baby is sleeping and they are snuggled in front of the fireplace, she will tell him of the dream. He will laugh and claim it is her vivid imagination just as Oliver does with Annie. Like Oliver he will say there is no such thing as a magic tea, but Max knows better.

  It has been a night of worry and sleeplessness so despite the three cups of coffee they’ve downed, they are both yawning when the loudspeaker crackles that Air France Flight 687 is now loading at Gate B11. They pull themselves out of the booth and head down the long corridor that leads to the gates, walking slowly and leaning into one another as if this
is a prediction of the years to come.

  Once they are seated on the plane, the stewardess brings them glasses of champagne. After only a few sips Max and Andrew are both sound asleep. He has his legs stretched out and his head laid back; she is cuddled next to him, her head resting on his chest.

  The next time Max opens her eyes, Flight 687 is crossing Nova Scotia. She taps Andrew’s arm and he wakes. “Do you have your car at the airport?”

  He gives a sleepy nod.

  “Annie was going to meet me; should I call her and say don’t bother?”

  Another nod. “Tell her we’ll meet them at their house, but don’t explain.”

  Max laughs. She loves the thought of such a surprise. She calls Annie from the plane.

  “Don’t come to the airport,” she says. “We’ll stop by your house.”

  Annie hears the happiness in Max’s voice, and she likes the sound of the word “we”; obviously Ophelia was right. Max is coming home happy and in love.

  “You two better plan on staying for dinner,” she says.

  Max looks across at Andrew. “Dinner?”

  He gives a grin and nods his approval.

  When Annie hangs up the telephone, she turns to Oliver and says, “Max is coming for dinner, and she’s with Julien!”

  Oliver raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Did she say that?”

  “Well, she didn’t specifically say Julien, but who else would it be?”

  Oliver shrugs and turns back to his newspaper.

  Annie, too excited to contain herself, calls Ophelia.

  “You were right,” she says. “Max is coming home with Julien.”

  “Julien? The French lad?” Ophelia sounds a bit puzzled.

  “Yes,” Annie answers, “and she’s as happy as you thought she’d be.”

  “That’s odd,” Ophelia muses. “You’re sure he’s the one with her?”

  “Yes. She called from the plane and said they’d come for dinner.”

  Again Ophelia questions that it’s Julien, and again Annie says she is almost positive of it.

  “Strange,” Ophelia says. “That’s not the way I saw it.”

  “But you said—”

  “I knew Max would come home happy and in love, but I didn’t figure it to be the French lad. Did you give her the special traveler’s tea?”

  “Of course. I put it in a box with the silver infuser just as you said.”

  “Maybe she didn’t use it,” Ophelia replies. In her mind, this is the only logical explanation for things going awry.

  By the time they hang up, Annie is beginning to have her doubts. Ophelia is almost never wrong. She has an uncanny ability to know what will happen and who it will happen to. And yet…

  Three hours later Annie hears the car pull into the driveway. She runs to the door, and as she steps out onto the front porch Andrew climbs from the car. Seconds later Max steps out of the other side.

  For a moment Annie just stands there, dumbfounded.

  “Aren’t you going to welcome us home?” Max asks with a huge grin.

  “Us?” Annie replies. “You and Andrew?”

  They both nod happily.

  That evening over dinner Max tells the story of all that happened. She leaves out the fact that Julien was one of the thieves. It is still too shameful a story to share. Someday she will tell Annie and Andrew both, but not now. Not when there is so much happiness to be celebrated.

  It is almost eleven when Max and Andrew stand to leave. As Max hugs Annie to her chest she whispers, “Last year when you invited Andrew and me to the dinner party it was supposed to be a fix-up, wasn’t it?”

  Holding back a smug grin, Annie replies, “Why on earth would you think a thing like that?”

  Ophelia

  Well, I guess by now you know everything happened as I said it would. Max went through a rough time but came home happy and very much in love. I’ll admit, I was a tad surprised when Annie first told me she was with the French fellow. I’ve never known traveler’s tea to fail, but Max is a spitfire and nearly as unpredictable as that storm so I wasn’t sure she’d used it. Overcoming unrealistic expectations is almost impossible without some sort of help, but that’s something people need to find out for themselves.

  Now that the situation has come full circle, I should confess to one small fib: traveler’s tea is actually the tea of truth. It’s not magic, but it sharpens a person’s mind so that they can see the truth of the situation they’re in. It works quite well for affairs of the heart, but it’s not terribly effective in financial matters.

  I seldom use this tea, because truth is something most people would rather not know about. They go through life with a boatload of pie-in-the-sky expectations, and truth simply gets in the way.

  Like everyone else, I’ve got my own expectations and perhaps that’s a good thing. It gives me something to pray about. The night of the storm I half-expected Edward to come for me, but I asked the Lord to wait a while. I said before leaving this earth, I wanted to experience the joy of being a grandma.

  The blessed event happened, but not exactly as I thought it would. In late May Annie did have a beautiful little girl with eyes as violet as her own, but she also had a boy. Twins. The boy they named Ethan after Oliver’s daddy. Annie said she was going to name the girl Ophelia after me, and I told her, Don’t you dare! Ophelia is no name for a sweet little baby.

  Two days later they named the child Starr. I like to think Annie picked that name because of my Edward. She knows I find him up there in the stars. One day he’ll come for me, I know that, but until then I’m just going to enjoy being a grandma and watching these little ones grow up. I won’t be here for the whole of their life but I’ve peeked into the future, and I can tell you the boy will be true to his namesake and the girl will have powers way past Annie’s or mine. Her touch will cause a wilted flower to bloom again and an angry animal to grow calm. But all that’s in the future; years after Edward and I have been reunited.

  This morning the babies were christened, and afterward there was a party at Memory House. Every living soul in Burnsville was there, and Baylor Towers had to hire an extra car to cart the lot of us over and back.

  Max and Andrew are godparents for both babies. A good choice, I must say. Seeing how they fussed over those babies, I bet it won’t be too long before they start a family of their own. Max is already wearing a diamond engagement ring, and she’s drawing up plans for a house that she says came to her in a dream.

  On the ride home I told Lillian it was good to see Memory House alive and bustling again. People with love to share are what give the place its special magic.

  God knows I searched long and hard before Annie happened along, but the first time I laid eyes on her I suspected she was the one. I was right. She’s brought new life to the house in more ways than I could have ever imagined. This summer the garden is chock full of herbs and spices, and there are flowers every color of the rainbow. The apothecary has never been busier. Now customers are in and out of the shop all day long.

  At the party Ida Tallmadge said her daughter Cynthia was at long last engaged, thanks to Annie’s tonic. And Elmer Grimes claims his gout is cured—completely and utterly cured.

  I also saw Cheryl Ann Ferguson looking at those babies of Annie’s, and I knew exactly what she was thinking. It happens every year at just about the same time. My heart aches for the poor girl, but there’s nothing anyone can do. What’s done is done, and there’s no turning back.

  I still remember that awful year and all the heartache Cheryl Ann went through. Back then she was barely nineteen and faced with the most painful decision of her life. She did what she had to do, but the memory of it still haunts her.

  This year will be the worst one ever. Before the winter is out, she’ll come into the apothecary asking for Annie’s help. But Cheryl Ann’s story is another tale, and I can’t go into it right now. You’ll learn the details soon enough…

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  A HOME IN HOPEFUL

  http://betteleecrosby.com

  What the Heart Remembers is Book Three in the Memory House Series.

  Other books in this series include:

  MEMORY HOUSE

  Book One in the Memory House Series

  Click Here to download a free sample or buy the book.

  ~ ~ ~

  THE LOFT

  Book Two in the Memory House Series

  Click Here to download a free sample or buy the book.

  ~ ~ ~

  For more heartwarming stories

  check out these books:

  SPARE CHANGE

  The Wyattsville Series, Book One

  JUBILEE’S JOURNEY

  The Wyattsville Series, Book Two

  PASSING THROUGH PERFECT

  The Wyattsville Series, Book Three

  THE TWELFTH CHILD

  The Serendipity Series, Book One

  PREVIOUSLY LOVED TREASURES

  The Serendipity Series, Book Two

  WISHING FOR WONDERFUL

  The Serendipity Series, Book Three