“You cook?” Maddy had cried with excitement when Peter offered to cook her dinner. “I had forgotten! Oh and Sam bought my favorite cut of beef just today.”
Sam had winked at Peter as he had gone out the front door to spend the evening with his family. “ By the way, she likes them medium-rare and don’t worry if you don’t see me until morning. Sometimes I nod off over television and wake up in the spare room.”
“Daddy, of course!” Madeline had said when she had called. “How can she know it’s really you if you don’t remind her what a great cook you are? I’ll be at my hotel all evening if you need me. Love you!”
“I love you too.” Peter had pressed the phone to his cheek with gratitude.
Now he hunted through Maddy’s kitchen cabinets until he found a nice bottle of Chardonnay, and he was opening it to let it breathe when he heard the shower water turn off.
“Everything has to be perfect.” He didn’t realize he was whispering to himself as he lifted a pan from the sink. He opened and closed drawers, searching for tongs. He marveled at how precisely everything was stored and then realized why.
He gently lifted the seared fillets off the grill and laid them on a platter alongside his special oven-roasted potatoes. He shook his head as he lifted the spoon to his mouth, checking the béarnaise sauce one last time, then turned at the sound of Maddy’s voice.
“Peter, the bathroom’s free.” Maddy called from the bedroom.
“Okay.” Peter took one last look around. “But don’t come into the kitchen until I’m out of the shower. I need to organize everything.”
Peter laughed at how giddy he felt. It was high school all over again! He set his overnight bag on the bathroom sink and closed the bathroom door. He hadn’t felt this alive in years. He had brought his bag inside with him in hopes of something like this but he never truly thought it would happen.
He unbuttoned his shirt and stepped out of his jeans, leaning with one hand on the towel rack for balance. As he turned on the shower and stepped inside, he thought of Maddy. Just moments before she had been there, naked and beautiful. He prayed that they would be together that night the way he had imagined in his mind so many times.
The last time they had been intimate they had been just kids. He was a man now. He was older, yes, but now wiser and stronger and experienced and Maddy, she was a woman. He closed his eyes at the thought and put his hand to his chest. Maddy was a woman.
When he stepped out of the shower, he wiped the mirror with his towel. Steam had completely filled the small bathroom. He took a look at himself.
“Not bad.” He patted his stomach. “For an old dude.”
He dried his back and pulled his razor and toiletries from his bag—cologne, aftershave, and hair gel. He chuckled as he realized he owned more amenities than Maddy did. He lifted his chin in the mirror to shave his neck and noticed her medicine cabinet ajar. As he reached to close it he glanced briefly inside. Three prescription bottles stood on the bottom shelf along with Robitussin, Tylenol, Motrin, and a low-dose generic aspirin. He opened the cabinet wider to check the name on the prescription bottles: Madeline Marsden. He was careful not to alter any of their positions, realizing she probably had every placement memorized.
Procardia, Vitorin, and Toprol. He recognized Toprol as a heart medicine. A chill ran down his back, and he closed the cabinet quickly.
When Peter came into the kitchen a few minutes later, running his fingers through his damp hair, he called out. “Maddy?”
“I’m here.” She stood quietly in the bedroom doorway behind him. He turned and paused, his breath caught in his throat.
She had changed into a print silk chiffon dress, a simple design that flowed against her body, outlining her figure. Her thick, brown hair lay loose over her shoulders, the grey at her temples almost lost in the rich waves, and she had touched-up with a bit of lipstick and blush. There was the tiny mole on her neck. How many times had he kissed in memory that tiny mole?
“Maddy.” Peter cleared his throat. “You’re like a rose.”
She laughed and blushed, just as she had that first day on the dock in the light of falling sunset across the sparkling water.
Peter held her chair as she sat. He set the platters on the table in front of her. “So, you’re going to have to teach me how things are done. Sam warned me you were high-maintenance.”
Maddy laughed. “Peter Michaels, I am not high-maintenance! I can’t help it if my sight is gone.”
It warmed Peter’s heart to hear the laughter he remembered so clearly. “I know, I know.” His eyes shone as he lifted a fillet mignon with care onto her plate. “But nevertheless I am here to serve you.”
“Picture a clock. Meat at twelve o’clock—”
Peter hastily turned her plate.
“Vegetables at three and six. Pasta at nine.”
Peter smiled. “Where does your beverage go? Salad perhaps?”
“Sam places my drink at the top right and my salad or bread on the top left.”
“I should be taking notes.”
Maddy crinkled her nose at him. “Don’t worry. I’ll remind you.”
They laughed as he served her and then pulled out his own chair across from her. He filled his plate, watching from the corner of his eye as she tidily unfolded her napkin and tucked it into the collar of her dress. She was so precise and un-self-conscious. He wanted to reach across the table and grasp her hand to kiss it.
“To the evening.” Peter tapped his glass lightly against hers.
Maddy lifted her glass back. “To the years.”
When their glasses met again, a delicate note hung in the air. “To us.”
Maddy ate slowly, savoring every bite. It was hard for Peter to concentrate on his own food. Every movement, every gesture she made filled his heart. She was his Maddy. Here, across from the table from him, in this room, in this moment, she was his again.
They spoke about their lives and of the loss of their parents. Peter explained about Tara and her cancer, how he had devoted himself to taking care of her in friendship and partnership, out of gratitude to her for their daughter, even without the passion of marriage. Maddy listened attentively. It was important for him that she really see who he was.
Maddy spoke about Sam and the care he had given her over the years. “He’s a wonderful man.” She finished her last bite of fillet and wiped her mouth neatly with the tip of her napkin. “Even if—correct me if I’m mistaken—not Chatham’s youngest living gentleman.”
“I seem to remember somebody was.” Peter smiled, the long dimples in his cheeks deepening. “How quickly we forget.”
She laughed out loud. “Superman.”
The dishes were washed and put away, and Maddy brought coffee to Peter on the brown velvet couch in the cozy living room. She had drawn the curtains against the night, and the lamplight glowed on their shadowy folds.
“Peter, can I ask you something?” Maddy made her way across the room with the ease of practice and sat beside him on the couch, tucking her skirt around her knees. “You have to promise you’ll give me an honest answer.”
“I am an open book to you.”
She sighed and paused. “If you didn’t know me, and you saw me for the first time, not knowing what I looked like years ago—” Her clouded hazel eyes rose tentatively, although they couldn’t find his face, and her hair caught golden lights out of the deep brown. “If you saw me and didn’t know I’d lost my sight, would you, do you think, find me attractive?”
Peter leaned back on the couch with his arms behind his head. He didn’t know whether to laugh or take her in his arms and cry. She was so precious, so pure of heart. Years of pain and bitterness, and yet nothing could spoil her innocence.
Her eyebrows creased anxiously. “Peter?”
“Maddy.” He leaned forward on his knees and took her h
and gently in both his own. “How can I help you truly understand? If I had never met you before in my life—sight or no sight, blindness or no blindness—I’d still be smitten. You’ve never changed. When I saw you on the dock that day dropping your art supplies everywhere and sticking the heel of your shoe between the planks so you couldn’t walk, when you came through the door at Frani’s in your flip-flops to the sound of the little, tinkling bell, when I saw you cross the office at your school that day and met you later at the café at sunset with your loyal Boxer at your side.” He stopped to squeeze her fingers, and she covered their clasped hands with her free hand, waiting. “Well—” He laughed. “I’m afraid I’m about to destroy my reputation as the last living gentleman in Chatham.”
She blushed. “Do you remember,” she whispered, “how you hid my bathing suit bottom?”
Peter was on his feet in a moment, her hands in his. She turned her face up to follow his motion.
“Maddy, I want to lift you in my arms and sweep you off your feet. I want to wrap you in my Superman cape and carry you into the sky.”
She laughed up at him. Her laugh had always been contagious. Peter bent to touch her hair, kissing her forehead and cheeks, the mole on her neck. He sank into the couch with her in his arms, holding her close, cradling her against his chest.
She murmured into him. “I just thought of something.”
“Tell me.” He lifted her face to his, his fingers under her chin.
She blinked and paused. “Do you remember that day when I wanted you to read our future? And you said we’d have a little yacht, a home of our own, three children—” Her voice broke.
Peter looked into her eyes, the sorrow in her face cutting through him. With difficulty, he straightened one leg and reached into his pocket. “I brought you something.” He opened a small velvet box and pulled out the little silver necklace with the diamond heart. It glittered faintly as it hung from his fingers.
He took her hand and turned the palm up, letting the necklace settle into it.
Her mouth opened. “Peter. Is it? It can’t be! Oh.” Her face changed tenderly. “My necklace. I made my father take it back to you. I missed it so much all these years. I’ve never worn any other.” She touched her bare throat tentatively, her fist closed tightly over the silver chain and tiny diamonds.
“I’ve kept it safe for you all this time,” Peter said quietly. “And I want you to know that you matter as much or more to me now than you did that snowy New Year’s Eve when I first gave this to you. I love you, Maddy. I have never stopped.”
“Peter.” Tears came to Maddy’s eyes.
“May I?” Gently he loosened her fist, took the silver necklace, and put the ends around her neck. There was a pause, and the tiny clasp closed, the diamond heart against her collarbone. “I want you to marry me, Maddy. I want you to have what I wish I could have given you so many years ago, when we were young and had all our lives ahead of us yet.” He almost laughed. “I’ve never wanted anything more than to hear you say now that you’ll be my wife.”
Maddy sat touching the diamond heart against her chest. Suddenly, she leaned forward and kissed Peter’s lips. She kissed him all over his face as he laughed, and her tears cascaded down her cheeks. “Yes, I will be your wife. I have always been yours and only yours. You must have known that.”
Peter stood carefully, bent down, and lifted her in his arms. He braced his weight against the side of the couch.
Maddy laughed through her tears, her arms around his neck. “Peter, you don’t have to do this. There’s nothing wrong with my feet.”
“I know, but I want to. This is how it played out in my head.”
“And the fact that your knees are shot?”
He pressed his nose to hers, breathing in the sweet scent of her. “Don’t you worry about that, Mrs. Michaels.” Peter took a moment to adjust his balance and then turned and carried her, limping slightly, toward the bedroom doorway.
Maddy whispered into his ear as they crossed the room as though crossing the years. “I love you.” Her breath was warm against his neck.
Peter laid her across the bed and stretched out by her side, her arms still around his neck, her body pressed against his. He leaned over her face and kissed her passionately. He allowed himself, for the first time in forty years, to surrender completely to his heart.
There was the faint sound of sea gulls in their ears, the distant crash of waves. There was the warmth of the sun on their shoulders as their clothes came off, the roughness of Peter’s calloused fingers on her skin like the grit of beach sand. Then there was nothing but their bodies together as though they had never been apart, the rhythm unique to them, two hearts beating in perfect sync.
In that moment, in that room, they became whole again.
Later, Peter lay on his back in the dim light of a small lamp in the corner that gave the room a golden hue. He lifted Maddy to rest her head against his chest. They held hands and listened to one another’s hearts in the silence of the evening.
“Maddy,” he said after a moment, “I want you to come home with me now, right away.”
Maddy laughed.
“What’s so funny?” He raised his head to look at her face.
“You are. You sound like a teenager.”
“That’s how I feel when I’m with you. Don’t you feel it too?”
Maddy lifted herself and put her lips close to his ear, whispering. “You are the love of my life, and I will follow you anywhere.” She smiled. “Yes, right away. Tomorrow. I’ll pack a few things and talk to Sam. I don’t own much. He’ll be happy to send anything else on after me later.”
“He can come visit us whenever he wants. You don’t think he’ll be too lonely here without you?”
“I think—” She touched his chin thoughtfully with a finger. “— He’s been wanting to move into that spare room at his son’s house for awhile, but he couldn’t leave me on my own. This house reminds him too much of Katie. I think he wants to be done grieving.”
“That makes sense.” Peter nodded. “And I have one more thing that I want to do as well.”
“Mr. Michaels, you are a man of many mysteries.” Maddy propped herself on her elbows and brushed the hair from her face. “It’ll be like living with a magician.”
They laughed together as Peter reached out a bare arm to the night table and lifted the small velvet box from which he had taken the silver necklace. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, and Maddy sat against the pillows and pulled up the sheet.
“I know we should do this in front of family and friends— “
Maddy began to giggle. “I don’t really think we should do what we’re doing here in front of family and friends.”
Peter opened the box in his hand and took out between his fingers a pair of gold wedding rings. He held one in his hand and, turning up her palm again, laid the other ring in hers.
“I, Peter Michaels,” he whispered, “take you, Madeline Marsden, to be my wife for the rest of my life. I want you to be my partner and lover, my companion and my best friend. I shall love you and honor you all of my days.” Peter slid the ring in his hand tenderly onto Maddy’s ring finger.
“Oh, Peter! What on earth?”
He opened his fingers so she could feel them to take in her own hand. He nudged her and she smiled.
“I, Madeline Marsden,” she whispered as she found his hand and slid his ring onto his ring finger, “take you, Peter Michaels, to be my husband for the rest of my life. I want to be your partner and lover, companion and best friend once more. I shall love you and honor you all of my days, until death—”
“Wait!” Peter interjected. “Nothing can part us ever again. Remember Plato. Even beyond death may we find our way back to one another again.”
“Even beyond death,” she said softly, “may we find our way back to one another again
.” Maddy leaned into him and kissed him. “Thank you, my own Peter, for saving me one last time.”
Chapter 46
Passing
It was a little after seven the next morning when Peter tiptoed out of the bedroom dressed only in his striped pajama pants. A few minutes in the bathroom, and then he was in the kitchen watching the tips of the mountains over Denver turn pink in the sunrise as he whisked a bowl of batter and shook a few drops of water onto the heating griddle.
He opened the refrigerator and nodded. Trust Sam to know Maddy. He pulled out a basket of fresh blueberries and emptied them into a bowl to rinse them in the sink as the mountaintops outside the window began to turn gold.
He stood over the skillet watching for bubbles to rise through the pancakes, but in his mind he was reliving the night before, a fluttering acceleration in his chest. He and Maddy were married. In their hearts, they had always been married. He wanted to call Madeline and cry with joy, he wanted to dial Jake’s number and try to shake him through the phone. Peter wanted to shout out to the universe that he and Maddy were together and would be forever.
He found himself laughing like a fool as he flipped the pancakes, crisp at the edges and buttery brown. This was his life now. He would be the most wonderful husband in the world to her, the best, all that Maddy deserved. Peter slipped the steaming blueberry pancakes onto a platter and set the table just as Maddy had shown him. He washed his hands and carefully wiped his face and chest. He smoothed his hair.
He paused in the bedroom doorway at the sight of Maddy’s body under the covers, her dark hair spread across the pillows, one hand curled by her cheek with a shadow on one finger, a glimmer that he knew was a small, new gold band.
“Maddy! Hey, sweetheart.” He crossed the floor softly on his bare feet, whispering her name so as not to startle her from her deep sleep. She was so beautiful. Peter sat at the edge of the bed and touched the little diamond heart where it lay on the pillow by the tiny mole on her neck. He leaned down to kiss the mole where the silver chain crossed it.
The Shoebox Page 29