by Dani Wade
“Hard?”
She glanced back up at him, her teeth worrying her lower lip.
“I know it’s hard, Madison. And I just want to help.” He held up hands that had no callouses or signs of manual labor. “I can’t paint. I could get up on the roof, but I wouldn’t know what to do when I got there.”
He was encouraged by her small smile.
“But this, I can help with. I just want to lighten the load a little bit.”
To his surprise, she covered her face with her hands. Panic whittled its way through him as her shoulders shook. No. Not crying. That was the last thing he knew how to handle.
He stood awkwardly for a couple of seconds, unsure what to do as her sobs got louder. Was he totally out of line?
In the end, he just couldn’t bear to see her standing there, sobbing and holding herself upright on her own. It seemed to be the epitome of Madison’s life. That she handle every emotion, every circumstance alone. So he stepped forward and put his arms around her shoulders. He didn’t know if it was the right move, he only knew he had to do it.
She leaned into him, her body seeking him out. Her hands dropped from her face and encircled his back. She buried her face against his chest, and the noise slowly subsided. With no other direction, Blake simply rested his hand on the back of her neck and held her. All too soon she pulled away, keeping her face averted as she walked over to grab a paper towel and blow her nose.
“Well, that was attractive,” she said.
Blake appreciated her desire to brush off the whole emotional episode. But he felt he had to say, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
She turned back around to face him, revealing red-rimmed eyes. “No one has offered to help me with anything in this house. Even my friends. I don’t know if they just don’t feel like I would want them here, which I probably wouldn’t. Or if they just don’t want to be involved in such a morbid task. But I’ve done it all on my own.”
She cleared her throat, then went on. “I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you would offer, especially since you probably expected me to refuse.”
“I had a feeling it might go that way.”
“That’s because you’re a smart man.”
Yeah...not. “I don’t know about that, but I am persistent.”
The laughter they shared broke the tension for a moment, but Blake wasn’t about to let this go. “So you might as well tell me, what do you want to do with it?”
She swallowed. “I want to donate it. There’s a nearby resident facility that assists elderly, end-of-life patients. I’ve wanted to donate it to them since my father died, but I have no way of moving it.”
“I do believe I can handle that.”
“Then maybe you can climb up on the roof for me,” she teased.
“Only if there’s an ambulance nearby.”
It made Blake feel really good that he could help her smile through this task. He did his best clown impression while they packed everything up, and the two guys he called showed up with a truck to move it all. Madison only tensed up when they had to come into the house, but he was proud to say that she pushed through. She really wanted this to happen, and he felt sad that it had taken all this time for her to find a solution to this problem. That even though she had friends to help her, she didn’t feel like she could call on them for that help.
The director of the facility knew her well, and was grateful beyond measure for her donation. They had a recently renovated room but hadn’t managed to afford the furniture for it yet. Before he left, Blake slipped the director a check for a couple of thousand dollars to cover the rest of the furnishings. Now they could open the room for a new patient.
The fact that Madison thought to help someone during this time of grief humbled him beyond measure.
“You’re my hero,” she murmured against his lips as the truck pulled out of the driveway.
But Blake wasn’t a hero. He was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. She just didn’t know it yet.
* * *
I love my husband so much. I would do anything for him, and even though I know his decision is stubborn and hurtful, I don’t understand where he’s coming from. He wants no part of my past. He wants to give no more power to a man who valued me only for my face and social graces. But I look at how much we need, how much we’re hurting, and I know that selling that ring would make it all better. Why are men so stubborn?
Out of respect for him I’ve never mentioned this. Never so much as thought about it. Never wrote about my previous engagement in my journals and never talked about it with my daughter. I wish I could sometimes. Talk to her about the hard choices I made, how I knew my husband was the right one for me, how I chose love instead of money.
But I’d hate for her to know that my choice left our family ruined.
Madison reread the passage in confusion, burrowing down against the cushions of the chair in her bedroom. At first, it didn’t even register what her mother was talking about. What previous engagement? But as she read through the passage once more, she realized the important part. Her mother had never spoken to her about this. Never spoken to anyone. The reason Madison couldn’t find any hint of her previous life in these journals was because her mother chose not to talk about it out of respect for her husband.
Something had happened. Something that made her mother have to choose, and while she knew that her father had been over the moon for his wife, that choice must have caused this traumatic thing that he’d never wanted to remember.
Selling her ring? What ring was she talking about? Madison couldn’t remember her mother having any kind of ring except her wedding band set. It was the only thing of value that Madison had refused to sell. Despite how hard times became, she’d never sold them, even though it would’ve brought a modest amount. But it was her mother’s wedding and tenth anniversary bands. Money could never replace that.
Had her mother kept a ring from a previous engagement? It had to be pretty substantial to be worth agonizing over the selling of it. Why had her mother not just given it back?
She scanned the entries right before that and found nothing relating to the ring. In the entry for the day before she mentioned it, she had lamented over the struggle to pay her husband’s never-ending medical bills. Her father had recently been diagnosed with MS, she believed. At least the date looked close.
Then farther down in the entry for the same day, her mother wrote, My husband says it will get better, but I fear the damage is permanent. He told me he would have his revenge, and he did. My husband’s business will never be the same. My husband will never be the same. I hope the sacrifice was worth it for him, now and always. It would kill me to have my husband resent me in the end.
So yeah, whatever happened was really bad. Madison felt a burning curiosity to know what it was. All this time her mother had written about daily life, the joys of motherhood, her love for her husband, and some of her deepest thoughts. But she’d never written or spoken of this matter and it was obviously a huge deal for her.
For them all.
Madison stood up and paced around her room. She wanted to talk about this, to tell someone. Her normal go-to would be her girlfriends. But Trinity’s life was upside down enough already right now. She didn’t need anyone butting in. And a glance at the clock told her that Tamika was still at work.
So who could she... How much would this kind of speculation annoy Blake?
She felt like they’d grown much closer, and his help the day before had touched her on a level that nothing else ever had. No one had ever helped her like that. Who else would see beyond a superficial need for food or companionship and go out of their way to help with something that she hadn’t asked for? Frankly, she’d been floored.
Heck, he could have simply focused on the attraction between them and Madison would have been none the wiser.
>
But she’d done her best not to cry over him again, because he’d been obviously uncomfortable with her appreciation. She smiled. Her father had always been the same way. Tears made him panic. So she’d kept a stoic facade the entire time she’d known she was losing him.
Madison glanced back at the journal. But this was something fun, something mysterious. Something that intrigued her.
What could be the hurt in calling?
“Hey there,” Blake said when he answered the phone.
The sound of that huskiness in his voice, so similar to the way he sounded when they were together, sent shivers down her spine. “Hey to you, too.”
“What’s up? You having a quiet day today?”
“Too quiet. I had to find ways to occupy myself, since you weren’t coming over today.”
“Well, if you’re that desperate...”
She laughed at his teasing. “I got tired of sanding, so I’ve been reading my mother’s journals, and you won’t believe what I found out.”
“Wait a minute. Your mother’s journals?”
“Yes. She kept them for as long as I can remember. Although the oldest one I can find dates back to the first year of her and Dad’s marriage.”
The connection between them went oddly silent: no words and no breathing. Madison just figured it was a technical glitch and continued on.
“Anyway, today I was reading a passage from right after my dad got sick, and my mom talked about being engaged before.”
Blake cleared his throat. “Engaged?”
“Yes! She said she was engaged and something terrible happened and my dad forbade her to ever talk about it.”
“So that would mean...”
Again one of those weird silences, so she asked, “Are you there?”
“Hold on just a moment.” She waited, until he finally said, “So do you think she left this guy for your dad? Do you know who he is?”
“She never says his name. She just says that she could sell the ring to help pay their medical bills, but my dad wanted nothing to do with it. Mysterious, right?”
Madison got excited just thinking about it. Who had the man been? What kind of ring was it? She started asking all these questions out loud to Blake, then realized after a few minutes that he hadn’t responded. She paused.
“Blake?”
“Listen, Maddie, I need to go. Can I call you back in a little while?”
Disappointment had her dropping back into the chair in her bedroom. “Sure. Just whenever you’re ready.”
“I’ll call you soon.” Click.
Madison stared at her phone in consternation. That had been strange, and a tingling feeling of unease rippled through her once more. Even though Blake had said he wasn’t keeping anything else to himself, she still felt like there were a lot of things about him that she had no clue about. Was this one of them? She didn’t know what it could be... He could be conducting business. Seeing someone about his art. He never told her how that worked. But New Orleans was filled with some very prestigious art galleries.
Was Abby okay? Madison bit her lip. It could have just been he was in a place that didn’t have good reception. There was no sense worrying about this. And she knew she shouldn’t, but that didn’t stop her mind from running down the rabbit hole.
He would call her back. She just had to remember that.
Still, she was disappointed that he hadn’t seemed too interested in what she found out about her mother. Maybe to other people it wasn’t interesting, and Blake had never had strong familial connections. So it wasn’t surprising.
But Madison had loved her mother to death, and been old enough to be really close to her before she passed away in a car accident. It was so unexpected, and Madison had grieved at night in private, but by day she had to continue on the work that she helped her mother with. She was still going to school, because her father had been functional enough that he could be left alone at that point. But the rest of her waking hours had been spent taking care of him or finding ways to financially support their family.
The ring sparked her curiosity. It seemed so tangible, this link to her mother’s past. But she’d never seen one. Would her mother have hidden it? Gotten rid of it some other way? Sold it and just not told her dad where the money came from?
Madison’s curiosity got the better of her, and she walked down the hall to her mother’s room. Though her parents had shared a bed for a long time, the need for extra equipment and furniture for her dad, to accommodate his disability, had necessitated her mother moving her stuff into a separate room. In this big house there were plenty to choose from. They had gotten rid of a lot of things over the years after her mother passed away. That included most of her casual clothes, a few odds and ends other than those Madison had appropriated through the years, like her brush. All that had been left of her jewelry was costume pieces and her wedding set. Other than a few quilts her mother had made, the only things Madison had left were contained inside her mother’s old chifforobe. She opened the doors, and was immediately met with the smell of lavender. It had been her mother’s favorite scent. She’d often kept lavender sachets around the house.
Oddly, even after ten years, the scent still lingered on her clothes. Madison had chosen to keep some of her mother’s more elaborate formal clothes. Dresses made from expensive materials. Her mother’s favorite dressing gown—she would never call the beautiful piece of lace and satin a robe. A few pairs of heels that now fit Madison, but she’d never had occasion to wear them until recently. Madison searched through the clothes, though very few of them had pockets. Then she pressed against the back of the chifforobe, checking for any drawers or hidden compartments she might not have been aware of.
Finally she sat down in front of it and pulled out her mother’s jewelry box. It was a gorgeous piece that her father had actually made, using beautiful cured maple and mother-of-pearl inlay. She could remember the Mother’s Day he had given it to her. Madison was maybe ten or eleven? Her mother had been so happy. And genuinely shocked because he’d managed to keep the secret so well.
Her father had been a builder. He’d come from a modestly wealthy family himself, and he’d multiplied his fortune doing custom builds for the rich and famous of Louisiana. Madison had seen pictures of some of his houses, but he hadn’t been able to keep it up and then he got sick. Losing his ability to work had eventually muted her father’s love for life.
What had her mother meant about revenge and her husband’s business? Madison had so many questions and so few answers.
But the beautiful box held nothing more than what Madison had seen over and over. A few costume pieces that her mother had let Madison try on through the years. But no true jewels. This used to surprise Madison, but now that she was an adult and knew just how much her father’s illness had cost them, it didn’t surprise her as much. She just assumed that whatever true jewels her mother’s parents had given her had been sold through the years. Her mother had always been way more attached to people than things.
She set the jewelry box back into the bottom of the chifforobe and closed the doors.
As much as the mystery intrigued her, she would probably have to face the fact that her mother’s secret had gone with her to her grave. Unless there was something later on in her journals. Madison thought she only had about six more months’ worth to read.
She raced back down the hallway to pull the next journal from the box in her room. Money didn’t matter. But her mother did. She might not find anything, but it was exciting to think the mystery could be solved.
Twelve
Blake watched nervously as the housekeeper settled the booster seat into the back of his car. Then she strapped Abigail in and turned to him.
“All ready,” she said with a smile. “I know Abigail was looking forward to this. Thank you for taking her.”
Blake just smile
d and walked around to the passenger side. The smile masked a pool of unease in his gut. His father hadn’t blinked when Blake had mentioned taking Abigail out with Madison. Instead he’d given simple consent.
Blake didn’t trust that for one minute, but he couldn’t divine any hidden motives and he didn’t want to disappoint Abigail by going back on his word.
He hoped she would have a good time, because he had absolutely no clue what he was doing. Which was why he’d broken down and asked Madison to help him. He felt guilty about terminating their call the day before, but he simply hadn’t known what to say. He let her think that he had something else going on, because knowing that she’d been in the dark about her mother’s previous engagement, and had no clue what kind of ring she was looking for, made him sick to his stomach.
He had no idea what to do and no idea what to say. Which was becoming a theme in his life right now. But he’d promised Abigail when he brought her home from the hospital that he would take her to do something fun. Why he had done that he wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t going to let her down. He refused to make her beg like her father did. He remembered what it was like to live the life that she had, where promises had been few and far between, and often broken.
He wasn’t going to do that to her.
In the meantime, he hoped he could sidetrack any conversations about Madison’s mother. His current plan was to just nod and say uh-huh. And offer absolutely no information whatsoever.
He could do that, right?
“Ready, kiddio?” he asked as he pulled out onto the highway.
He caught Abigail’s nod in the rearview mirror, her grin infectious, her excitement palpable in the way she swung her little legs.
They stopped by to pick up Madison on their way to City Park. “Are you excited, Abigail?” she asked as she buckled herself in.
Abigail nodded enthusiastically.
“I think you’ll have fun. There’s lots of stuff to do at City Park.”
“But only until lunch,” Blake cautioned. If it was one complaint he’d heard about kids, it was that they expected to do something forever. He didn’t think he was up to a marathon on his first outing with her. Nor was she after her recent hospital stay...especially in the summer heat.
