Now and Then and Always

by Melissa Tagg

  “Good. Then I don’t have to drink it.” He pulled a pillow free and lobbed it onto the floor.

  “You’re an awfully stubborn patient.”

  “I’m not sick, Mara. It was a migraine.”

  “With a fever.”

  “I get fevers with the migraines sometimes. It’s not that big of a deal.”

  “You passed out on the bathroom floor!” And it’d scared her more than she was willing to admit. She held a dainty teacup toward him. “Now drink up. It’s chamomile.”

  “Can’t I just have a glass of water?”

  “Yes. After the tea.”

  He accepted the cup with a roll of his eyes, the handle much too small for his hand. “And you call me stubborn.” He downed the whole thing in two long swallows. “There. Happy now?”

  She plucked the cup from his fingers and set it onto the bedside table. “Tea is the best remedy around. That’s what Lenora always used to say. I used to hate tea too, but if someone keeps pouring it down your throat, eventually your taste buds adjust.”

  “If you think you’re going to pour any more of that stuff down my throat, you’ve got another thing coming, Miss Bristol.” He closed his eyes again, his long lashes resting against his cheek as he leaned against the pillows.

  This close to him, she could make out the faint lines of his face—tiny etches near his eyes she’d found herself memorizing while he slept, albeit fitfully. There was a scar near his hairline, hidden, save for when she’d swept his damp, disheveled hair from his forehead while his fever raged.

  The man needed a haircut.

  A shiver trickled through her, and she wished for one of the blankets off Marshall’s bed. Moonlight filtered through lacy patches of frost over the room’s lone window and beyond, snow whirled in the wind. The flurries had started hours ago, eventually turning to a thick blanket of snowfall. Such wintry weather this far into spring.

  “Hey, Marsh?”

  “Hmm?” His chest moved up and down now, slowly, peacefully.

  “This happens regularly? Migraines that make you this sick? I’ve never heard of people getting fevers with migraines.” They weren’t the questions she’d wanted to ask, and really, she should let him sleep.

  “They’re not usually this bad. And fevers aren’t a common symptom for most people with migraines. But lucky me, once every few years I get the full shebang.”

  “Is there medicine—”

  “No.” His eyes had snapped open and one fist curled at his side.

  Okay.

  “Sorry. I just mean . . .” He ran his tongue across his lips. She should get him that glass of water he’d asked for. “No need for medicine. The worst of it is over.”

  Maybe this was why he was on leave from his job. Let him sleep. But she had to ask. Not about the job but . . . “Who’s Laney?”

  Though he didn’t move a muscle, the question had barely slipped free before the tempest in his gray eyes rose to match the blustering snow outside.

  “You said her name a few times.”

  Seconds dragged before he tore his gaze from the window. He reached behind to rearrange his pillows again. “Laney was my daughter.”

  It was all he said, but oh, it told her so very much. Was. “Laney—what a pretty name.”

  “Nickname for Elaine. She was named after her grandmother—Penny’s mom.”

  That almost answered another question. Marshall’s phone had blared twice in the hours he’d wrestled with his fever. Both times, Mara had seen the name on the screen. After the second time, she’d stuffed the phone into a dresser drawer.

  So Penny must be . . . an ex-wife? Current wife? Although, he didn’t wear a ring.

  Marshall turned away from Mara. A line of pale skin circled one wrist. Where he’d worn a watch while out in the sun? The span of his shoulders took up much of the bed.

  The same man who’d pulled a door off its hinges that first night, who’d carved up a tree and chopped it into enough firewood to last a winter, had uttered his daughter’s name with such a gentle love, even in the throes of a fever. A father’s love, she knew now.

  Had she ever once heard her father say her name in such a way?

  “How long has it been?” Would he know what she meant?

  “Two years. Six days.”

  She’d felt his pain burrow under her skin seconds ago, and it bled into the marrow of her bones now. She didn’t even have to ask her next question.

  “Leukemia.” As if the word snuffed the last vestige of energy from him, he sunk into the mattress, closed his eyes.

  A tree branch rapped against the window and the creaks of aging floors cut into the silence. Reminded her of nights awake in her own room, listening to Lenora move about the attic.

  It must’ve been the thought of the attic that made her do it, reach for Marshall’s hand the way he had hers last night.

  She didn’t know how much time passed as she sat there, holding Marshall’s limp hand, muscles cramping from her refusal to move. Eventually his breathing settled into a rhythm. She glanced at the clock on the bedside table—1:24 a.m. Gently, she slid her hand free and rose, bending to retrieve the teacup from his nightstand. But her focus hooked on a paper sticking out from underneath the saucer.

  She lifted the page. A magazine ad for a construction company? It was old and faded, lines of white evidence of how many times it’d been unfolded and folded again. The company it advertised was out of Maine. So why . . .

  The house.

  She held the page closer to her face, tilted into the light of the alarm clock. The house on the full-page ad wasn’t the Everwood, but it could’ve been. Decades ago, before so many weathering seasons, so many years of neglect. Blue door, blue shutters . . .

  It felt somehow telling, this piece of paper. Something he’d saved, kept near on the nightstand.

  She looked to the man in the bed again, to the slow rise and fall of his chest. Marshall Hawkins. Thirty-five. Milwaukee.

  A father with a broken heart.

  11

  He should’ve awoken feeling half-dead. His body should ache from the fever and his head still throb. His mind should be a dark room, windowless and empty except for the memories that had propelled him there in the first place.

  Instead, he was upright. Freshly showered and shaved. And his mind felt as crystal clear as the icicles hanging from a tree branch just outside his window.

  “Say something, Beth.”

  Marshall buttoned up his plaid shirt, stopping at the second one from the top, watching himself in the mirror. His cell phone lay on the dresser in front of him, set to speakerphone—pointless considering his sister’s extended silence.

  Until finally, “I don’t get it. You had a migraine so bad you passed out. You had a fever on and off all night. Yet you’re ‘doing fine.’”

  That’s what he’d said. That’s what he’d meant.

  And if anyone should understand, shouldn’t it be Beth? She’d been on his case about the sleeping pills and painkillers for months. He’d made it through his first migraine since she’d declared war on his dependence on the meds. She should be proud.

  He plucked his phone from the dresser and tapped out of the speakerphone before lifting it to his ear. “I didn’t take anything. I didn’t throw up. Twenty-four hours later I’m on my feet again.”

  To be fair, it’d been a little longer than that. It was past noon now, the sun mounted high in the sky and the landscape completely transformed since he’d blacked out in the bathroom. Had it snowed all night? White blanketed the hills and entwined tree branches.

  “This is good, Beth. This is progress. You were right about the pills. ”

  “I’d feel a lot better if you were here.”

  “Yeah, but if I hadn’t left Milwaukee when I did . . .” His reflection stared at him still. He looked for the storm in his eyes and couldn’t find it. “I was losing myself. A little more every day.”

  “And now you’re finding yourself?” Beth
asked. “In Iowa, of all places? At a B&B you’re helping fix up?”

  “I’m finding . . . something.” He turned from the mirror and reached for the glass of water on his bedside table.

  What would his sister say if he told her he’d sort of, well, prayed last night? She’d long ago given up trying to talk him into joining her family for church. Alex hadn’t asked him to come to the precinct Bible study in forever—the one Marshall used to lead.

  Since the day Laney died, he’d done all he could to shun the faith he’d once depended upon. But last night on the bathroom floor, he’d called out to God. Maybe it was nothing more than impulse on his part. But what if God was still listening?

  What else could account for the fact that today, for the first time in so long, when he’d woken up from dreams of Laney, it wasn’t anguish he’d felt but instead something warm and honey-sweet? In those first lucid moments, laying on his back, gaze on the whirring ceiling fan, he’d let himself remember his little girl. Let his memory wander to a day not so different from this, the two of them stretched out on Laney’s daybed, his arm behind her shoulder and a book propped against his bent knee.

  Yesterday, all it had taken was a glimpse of a girl—Sam’s daughter, apparently—and he’d nearly fallen apart.

  But it was different today. He didn’t know why but it was. And maybe, maybe he could allow himself to at least consider that God hadn’t entirely left him to his own mess. That He’d heard Marshall’s desperate prayer last night. That perhaps He’d even led Marshall to the Everwood in the first place.

  “Beth, do you think . . . if something ever happened to one of your kids, do you think you’d still hold on to your faith?”

  “Marsh—”

  “I know it’s horrible to even think about it. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “Yes, it’s awful to think about. I don’t think I can even let my mind go there. And I can’t pretend to know what it must feel like to try to keep believing, to keep having faith in God’s love when facing the kind of loss you have. But what I do know is that if you’re asking a question like that, then probably somewhere deep down there’s still a piece of you that wants to believe.”

  He lowered his water glass to the bedside table. An untouched cup of cold tea sat next to it. He vaguely remembered downing one cup of the stuff. Had Mara brought another sometime in the night?

  They’d talked at some point too, hadn’t they? She’d asked about Laney. Maybe the biggest miracle of the night was that he’d answered.

  “Did I say too much?” Beth’s voice had softened.

  “No.”

  “God cares, Marshall. You can trust Him with your broken pieces.” When he didn’t respond, she went on. “Are you sure you’re feeling better?”

  “I’m feeling better. Promise.” He swallowed a long gulp of water and moved into the hallway. Huh, it was lunchtime but it smelled like breakfast. “Can I let you go? I missed out on most of a day’s work yesterday and it’s already noon.”

  “I have to ask you something first. And please don’t bite my head off.”

  It didn’t take a genius to know what was coming. “On second thought, maybe I’m not feeling better. Maybe it’s best to spare me from whatever it is you’re about to say about Penny.” He’d found his phone in a drawer—Mara’s doing? He’d seen the missed calls.

  “She texted me. She still has friends on the force. She heard through the grapevine.”

  About his administrative leave? “Glad to know the Milwaukee PD’s ongoing effort to keep criminals off the street isn’t impeding the spread of gossip.”

  “She said she tried to call you. Is it that hard to believe she might still care about you? Can’t you at least—”

  “Penny walked out of my life when I was at my lowest. She doesn’t get to play the concerned partner now.” End of subject. His steps pounded on the stairs until he hit the landing.

  “Marsh—”

  “Gotta go, Beth. Love ya.” Not nice, perhaps, to end the call so abruptly, but this day had started out so good. Why ruin it with talk of Penny? Besides, he smelled food and heard voices and . . .

  He paused with his hand on the banister, the truth sailing through him: He was happy. Plain and simple and surprising as that. He’d forgotten what it felt like to wake up eager for the day.

  Tantalizing scents—maple and cinnamon and coffee—filled his nostrils, and a contentment he couldn’t explain filled all the rest of him.

  He reached the kitchen in time to see Mara plop a platter of pancakes onto the center of the table, where Lucas, Jenessa, and Sam all sat with plates and steaming mugs of coffee in front of them. Mara wore a frilly pink and white apron with streaks of batter on the front. Not the tidiest cook, it seemed.

  Was it his growling stomach that alerted her to his presence? “Marshall, you’re up?”

  Everyone else was looking up now too, and it struck him that he should probably feel embarrassed. Sam and Jenessa had been at the house yesterday when he’d blacked out. Lucas had surely heard about it. But he couldn’t seem to muster up the chagrin. Not with such foreign gratitude grabbing hold of him.

  Nearly all of it directed at Mara. “I thought it was about time. I can’t remember the last time I slept so late.” Not without the aid of a couple capsules of Ambien, anyway.

  Mara was staring at him. Trying to figure out if he was well enough to be up? Or maybe shocked that he’d actually shaved, combed his too-long hair over to the side.

  “Do you want some pancakes?” she finally asked.

  “Sure, I’m starving.”

  “Breakfast,” Lucas said. “It’s what’s for lunch.” Might be the very first time Marshall had seen the guy smile.

  “With a side of mystery,” Jenessa added. That’s when Marshall noticed the papers spread out in front of them. Yellowed newspapers, faxed sheets he recognized as background check returns, old photos of the Everwood.

  Mara was already turning back to the cupboards, probably to grab Marshall a plate. He angled around the table to step up beside her. “I’ve got it.”

  “Thanks. ‘Cause I need to flip more pancakes.”

  He found a plate, retrieved a mug from the dishwasher full of clean dishes, plucked a fork from the silverware drawer. Mara flipped her pancakes, the sizzle and smell enticing his appetite all the more. “No cereal?” he asked.

  “Don’t be crazy. I had a bowl hours ago.” She turned to him, scrutinizing him all over again. “Are you feeling okay? You look okay. You look great. I mean, better. You look . . .”

  “Go on.” That pretty blush of hers could warm a man clear through. Seriously, he could probably go stand out in the fresh snow and be just fine and dandy. “You were saying?”

  She reached for the nearest hot pad and chucked it at him. “Sit down, Marsh.”

  “Um, first.” He lowered his voice. “Thank you. For last night. For everything.”

  Simple words and probably not enough to convey the depth of what he felt right now. But they needed to be said and so he’d said them.

  “You’re welcome.” Her soft whisper was nearly as entrancing as her radiant cerulean eyes. But then she lightened, her freckles bunching the way they did whenever she grinned. “But I don’t think you’re thankful for everything.”

  “No?”

  “You were a big baby about drinking that tea. Like a five-year-old refusing to swallow his cough syrup.” She pointed him to a chair across from Sam. He obeyed and a moment later, a stack of pancakes sat in front of him.

  And instantly, the memories flooded in. Sunday mornings before church. Laney standing on a stool beside him. Pancakes in the shape of a smiley face, a Christmas stocking, a puppy. Her giggles, her sticky hands, syrup always somehow winding up in her hair or on her dress, and Penny’s good-natured griping about how they’d be late for Sunday school again . . .

  “Marshall?” Mara stood at his side with a syrup bottle in her hand. It was a collision—his old happiness with his new. Still
tentative. Perhaps still fragile. Because those might actually be tears he felt at the backs of his eyes.

  He blinked, accepted the syrup from Mara, smothered his pancakes.

  And thankfully, when that distraction ended, Sam provided another. “So, here’s what you missed, Hawkins. We’re still waiting on phone records and such, but we did a computer sweep yesterday. Turns out Lenora was in contact with an art history professor in Minneapolis late last year. We know she took a trip to Minnesota in December, so logic says maybe she went to talk to this dude.”

  He swallowed a gulp then reached for the mug Mara had set in front of him. “I assume you’ve contacted him?”

  “Voicemail. Waiting on a return call.” Sam gestured to the mess of papers in front of him. “In the meantime, we’re trying to dissect the mystery of Kenneth and Sherrie Rayleen. Jen had it right. No record of them before the mid-fifties. Nothing after 1962.”

  “Everybody take note of this day,” Jenessa said, spreading butter over her pancakes. “Sam Ross just said I was right.”

  “And here’s something extra interesting.” Sam slid a copy of a newspaper to Marshall. “Lenora Worthington’s wedding announcement from 1973. No picture, but look at her maiden name—Fry. And her parents’ names—Aric and Alice Fry. Same people, new names.”

  “Wait, what makes you think they are the same people?”

  Jen jumped in before Sam could. “Because there’s no record of an Aric and Alice Fry that matches up to these people before 1962.” Her eyes were alight with intrigue. “And because I looked up every single owner of the Everwood from way back when to now. Most of the others didn’t have kids and if they did, none of them matched Lenora’s age.”

  Marshall looked at Sam. “So. Witness protection?”

  “Yeah, my mind went there too, but federal authorities are more thorough than that. When they give you a new identity, they go all the way. We would’ve found medical and dental records, employment history from before they bought the Everwood, degrees, you name it for Kenneth and Sherrie.” Sam scraped his plate clean. “My best guess? We’re looking at a couple who had just enough money and resources to start over when they needed to, but it all happened under the table.”