“Something like that.” Peter stuttered. “ I’m—Madeline, I’m—”
Boxer stood and began to bark with his tail wagging, and Maddy held his leash tighter and patted his back.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing. He’s just happy to see my father.”
Peter looked up instantly, but it was already too late. Tom Marsden came through the tables to where they sat, bent to greet Boxer, and kissed Maddy’s forehead.
“Madeline, I just have to tell you—”
“Hi, Daddy. I want you to meet someone.” She was smiling.
Tom raised his head and turned, and Peter stopped breathing. “What is this?” Tom’s voice was stern.
“Please let me tell you—”
“Daddy, this is Bill Torres. He’s interviewing me for—”
“What do you think you’re doing here? Is this a game you’re playing?”
“No, sir. I—” Peter stammered.
“What is it, Daddy? What’s wrong?”
“His name is not Bill. I know exactly who this is. Would you like to tell her, or shall I?”
“Daddy, you’re scaring me. What’s wrong?” Their voices were drawing attention from nearby tables.
Peter stood and tried to explain. “I only wanted to talk to you. I wanted to tell you—”
“Madeline, it seems you’ve been taken for a fool. Listen, you: just because my daughter is blind doesn’t mean she’s stupid.”
“Daddy!”
“Madeline, it’s Peter. Peter Michaels.”
Peter turned to Maddy, but she snatched her hand away from him with a gasp. She took her father’s hand in both of hers, her cheeks drawn and white beneath her sunglasses.
“Maddy, let me explain. Please.”
She put her hand to his face slowly and immediately withdrew it. “Maddy?” she repeated. “I knew, somehow, when you called me that before—the way you said it. But I don’t understand, why? Peter, what were you thinking? Why would you do this to me?” She began to cry.
“I was going to tell you. I swear it. I didn’t know you were blind, it’s been twenty years, and when I saw you I panicked. Then we were laughing, and just as I was about to tell you your father came, and—”
“How long did this go on? Where did you meet my daughter?”
Maddy took her father’s arm and leaned in. “I don’t feel well, Daddy. I need to go.”
Tom motioned to Boxer.
‘Wait, Maddy, don’t go. Please listen. You never told me.”
“That’s enough, Peter.”
“Maddy, wait!”
She stood, holding Tom’s hand, and followed Boxer away. She looked so frail now, almost broken. Peter watched as Tom put Boxer in the back of a car and helped Maddy into the passenger side, closing the door carefully.
Before he got in, Tom returned to where Peter stood paralyzed. “It has taken my daughter a very long time to get back on her feet and feel strong again. I don’t need you coming here to destroy everything we’ve worked so hard for.”
“You’re not hearing me out.” Peter raised his voice. “I came to find the truth—”
“I’m not interested in why you’re here. You’ve already abandoned her once. You’re not going to abandon her again.”
“But that’s why I came!”
“You just stay the hell away from her, Peter.” Tom turned and walked back to his car, and Peter stood, motionless, until the car pulled away from the curb.
Chapter 13
Broken
Peter lay on his hotel bed talking on the phone. “I blew it, Jake. I messed things up—bad.”
“I know. Amanda told me.”
“What are you talking about? I mean with Maddy.”
“Maddy? Didn’t you know? Tara was a wreck last night after you left. She called Amanda; one of those girl conversations where all they do is cry. Amanda went to sit with her later, and she said Tara was so stressed she was throwing up. I have to be honest, buddy. This puts me in a bad position.”
“I’m so sorry. Oh, man. I love you guys. I’d never want to hurt either one of you. I don’t want to hurt Tara, either.” Peter sat up and put his head in his hands. He took a deep breath. “What have I done, Jake? Jake—her father showed up.”
“Tom Marsden? He saw you?”
“It was terrible. I thought I was going to have a heart attack watching Maddy panic and clutch his arm. She’s blind, Jake. That’s what happened to her, why she left, and I knew she couldn’t see me, and—I lied to her about who I was.” Peter tried to muffle his voice over the phone. “You had to see her face when he told her. How she trusted me, how happy she was, and in the blink of an eye she was just a terrified little girl.”
“She’s blind? What the—Peter—”
“It was as if I’d destroyed every ounce of hope and happiness in her life all over again.”
“What do you mean ‘all over again’? You’re not the one that left her.”
“To them it looks like I didn’t try to find her.”
“They left without telling you anything. They just disappeared. Not a word! In twenty years! It’s tragic, I know, but you have to come home now. You did your thing—you went and got your answers. What else do you want?”
“Do you believe in signs, Jake? I mean, seriously?”
“I don’t know. I believe there are things that are meant to be and things simply out of our control. Obviously, Madeline’s blindness was out of anyone’s control.”
“But what if I wasn’t supposed to be with her when that happened? What if this is when I’m supposed to find her? Jake, that shoebox you found, getting information about Maddy at my engagement party, getting help from the journalist to find the school where Maddy works—don’t you think it’s strange that all the unanswered questions are suddenly being answered now, only a few weeks before I’m supposed to get married?”
“You’re back in the zone again. Oh, dude. I remember going through this with you all those years ago. After all this time and all that work, you’re right back where you were then.”
“I’m serious.”
“You don’t think I know you’re serious? I know how impulsive you can be.”
“This has nothing to do with being impulsive. What I’m thinking about now—what I’m feeling—it’s not based on impulse. Maddy and I were in love.”
“Bear with me. Peter. I just want to understand. You spent an hour with Madeline and didn’t so much as tell her who you were—”
“I didn’t have to touch her. I didn’t have to kiss her. It was as if we’d never been apart. As if everything—the air, the time, the place, everything we’ve suffered and worried about and wondered—they all were for the same goal, the same moment, that moment.”
“Brother, you’re not rational—”
“Since when are you the rational one? You’ve always been crazy when it came to Amanda—”
“Madeline doesn’t want to see you, Peter.”
“She didn’t say that.” Peter’s voice was abrupt.
“You can’t stay. You just won the Library Restoration Project yesterday—yesterday, pal—and Tara’s going to pieces here.”
“I know. My flights at eleven tomorrow and before I go, I have to try to explain myself to Maddy. I can’t leave without doing that. I owe it to her. I promise that when I get home, I’ll take care of things with Tara.”
“I don’t know,” said Jake. “I don’t know if you’re going to be able to fix this one, Peter.”
After Peter hung up, he stretched out on his stomach on the bed, his head in the pillow and his arms over his head. He turned his face to the wall. He smelled again the sea salt and the ocean breeze and the warmth of Maddy’s body as she laughed with him in the sunshine.
For a long time he lay with his fac
e in the pillow and cried.
Chapter 14
Immersed
1965
Maddy stood up from the blanket in the hot summer sun and whipped her towel at Peter. “I want to go in for a swim,” she begged. “Come with me.”
He put down his guitar. “I want to watch you go in. I love watching you.” He stretched his head up toward her.
She leaned down and kissed him. “Okay, but you’re going to miss some great waves.” She smiled and dropped her towel over his head.
Peter pulled the towel off and watched her run.
Maddy jumped fearlessly into the water, the waves slammed her, and he laughed out loud when she had to stop to adjust her bikini top.
He picked up his guitar and began picking a melody. He must have been playing for only a few minutes when he realized he couldn’t see her anymore. He looked up and out, but she was nowhere in sight. He set down his guitar and stood. He still couldn’t see her. Had she come out, and he hadn’t noticed? He ran into the water and called at the top of his lungs. His heart began beating against his ribs.
He dove, and as soon as he lifted his head he saw her, waving her arms frantically. Four butterfly strokes, and he had her.
She gasped for air, crying.
“You’re okay, Maddy. I got you. You’re safe.”
He swam powerfully to shore, carrying her. Before their feet touched the sand, he had her tight in his arms, kissing her head and face, holding her close.
“I was fine. I was.” She managed a few words as she cried. “Then I felt the waves pulling me—I’d never felt that before. I tried to swim out, but the undertow kept dragging me under. I swallowed water and couldn’t scream. Peter, I was so scared!”
“I’m so sorry, Maddy.” He kissed her forehead, her cheeks and lips, and tears. She leaned into his chest and sobbed, and he took her face in his hands. “The idea of something happening to you makes me insane.”
She gasped for breath. “I thought I was never going to see you again. I’ve never been so terrified in my entire life. I couldn’t get to you, and you couldn’t hear me.”
“I’ll never let anything bad happen to you. I promise. Do you hear me?”
“You can’t promise that. Things happen. My grandmother died of heart disease when she was only sixty. She didn’t even know she had it. I was so close to my grandmother. She was too young to die. Peter, I’m scared. What if something ever happens to one of us?”
He wrapped her closer into his arms, and they stood without speaking. Then he pulled back so she could see his face and he could see hers.
She looked up and tried to smile, her face was wet.
His eyes filled with tears. “Maddy, my soul has been waiting for you. We were meant for one another—I believe that with all my heart—we were destined to be together. Nothing can tear us apart.”
She reached up and touched his face with her fingers as though she couldn’t see him, tracing his nose, the line of his jaw, his eyelids. When she came to the shape of his lips, he leaned down and kissed her deeply, while the wind blew their hair around their heads and the tide came in.
Chapter 15
Reparation
1985
The next morning Peter was woken early at his hotel by a phone call from the office. The Historical Society required documentation verified by an attorney stating the Zoning Adjustor had approved his variance and alterations to include the annex. Peter couldn’t believe such an oversight by his office—by him. He spent the next hour on the phone contacting his firm’s attorney and his assistant at home. He organized a meeting between his assistant and attorney so the Zoning Adjustor’s documentation could be authorized and validated, and then he arranged for it to be delivered by messenger to the Mayor’s office.
“Had to happen today, right?” Peter said into the phone to Jake just before he left the hotel.
“Did you get everything done?”
“Hopefully. By this time the attorney should be ready to sign, and the papers will be sent out immediately. Is Tara okay?”
“Amanda’s going over there in a bit.”
Peter sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “I’ve got to go, Jake.”
“Good luck, okay? I hope you get things straight with Maddy.”
“Thanks,” Peter said. “My time is running out.” He looked at his watch and calculated how many hours he needed. His flight was at eleven, and he had to be there an hour early.
He dropped his keys and wallet into his jacket pocket and hurried down the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator. He was relieved to see he was the only one in line to check out. At the entrance he stopped and ran back to the concierge, asked for a phone book, and thumbed through the M’s. There were eleven Marsdens, two T Marsdens, one Thomas Marsden, and the rest with no initials. He asked the concierge for a scrap of paper and wrote down the addresses and numbers of the three fairly close to Madeline’s school.
Once behind the steering wheel, he spread out the rental car map. His hotel was at least twenty minutes away from any of the addresses. He checked his watch again.
The first address was tricky, and it took him the full twenty minutes to get there, a new, clean neighborhood in a development where the homes all resembled one another. He pulled into the driveway, jumped out of the car, and ran to the door. He checked his watch as he rang the doorbell. After three attempts, he was turning back to his car when a woman he had never seen before answered the door, and barely a minute later he was in his car and accelerating back to the main road.
He ruffled his hair, approaching a busy intersection, and leaned in to read the cross street signs. “Sycamore Street.”
At the next light he stopped and laid the map directly on the steering wheel, fingered through a few cross streets, and finally located Sycamore. He checked his location and glanced at his watch again. He was easily ten minutes away, and with morning traffic he knew he’d never make it in time. When he was startled by horns, he realized the light had changed, and he tossed the map aside and stepped on the gas, opening his window to air out his shirt, stains growing under his arms and down his back.
Driving by St. Bartholomew’s School only a few minutes later gave him a jolt. “Maddy, you’re so close.” He pulled up and parallel-parked along the side of the school, got out, and ran to the gatehouse.
Before he reached the gate, Henry called out to him. “You’re back again, Mr. Michaels?”
The friendliness in his voice brought a smile to Peter’s face. “I am, Henry. I was wondering if you could help me.”
“I’ll try. You know the school is closed on Saturdays, right? What can I do for you?”
“I have to reach Ms. Marsden. Do you happen to have her address?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Michaels. I wish I could help you, truly, I do. But we’re not allowed to give out personal information. I could lose my job.”
“I’m sorry I had to ask. I’m just in a bind and have to make my flight.”
“Would have liked to help. I think the world of Ms. Marsden. You have a great flight, you hear?”
Peter was about to cross the street when he heard a voice.
“Lancelot! Come back here!”
He whirled to see the gentleman with the German Shepherd, pipe in hand, waiting for his dog to sniff the base of a tree. “Excuse me, sir.”
“Yes? Do I know you?”
“You gave me directions through the school grounds the other day. I was looking for Ms. Marsden.”
“I remember. You’d been directed the long route to the office. Henry means well, but he’s set in his ways.” He laughed as he puffed on his pipe. “Did you find her?”
“Yes, I did, thank you. We talked for a long time. You wouldn’t happen to have any idea where she is today, would you?”
“I’m sorry, son. I know Ms. Marsden well
, but not that well.”
“Sorry to bother you.” Peter turned, checked his watch, and cursed under his breath.
“Son, she can’t be far. She walks to school every morning with Boxer, and I heard her say her parents are walking distance from her as well.”
Peter exhaled and smiled toward the sky. “Thank you so much, sir.” Before the man had gotten Lancelot’s leash back on his neck, Peter was already in his car.
He slipped off his jacket. “Please be the right house.” The next address on his list was the closest to the school. After two stop signs, the road turned into a quiet neighborhood, and he parked across the street from a narrow two-story house that reminded him of the old brownstones of Boston, geraniums spilling from the window boxes.
He ran up the stairs and leaned in to ring the doorbell.
Ann Marsden appeared at the door. “Peter!”
Peter’s heart leaped. He hadn’t realized what it would mean to him to see her face again after so long. She had aged, but gracefully, easily mistaken for a woman in her early forties rather than approaching sixty. “I’m sorry to show up like this without warning. I need to speak to Madeline, Mrs. Marsden. Is she here?”
“I thought you might be coming. Why don’t you come in?”
Peter checked his watch. He had barely an hour.
Ann Marsden resembled Maddy in so many ways. Her hair was dark brown and shoulder length, her eyes pale green. She was elegant and self-possessed, her voice low, cautious, and controlled. Every cuff was turned, every crease ironed. Peter’s mother and father had often remarked on Ann Marsden and her signature pearls.
“Would you like a cup of tea? Coffee? I was just putting the kettle on.” Ann led him into the kitchen.
“I would love a glass of water.”
“Make yourself at home.”
He sat alongside a massive island, his head barely missing the copper pots that hung above. As she poured herself tea, she and Peter attempted to speak at the same time.
The Shoebox Page 10