By the time they sat down to dinner that night, Aden and Paul were fast friends, and he felt as though he’d been there forever. The water fight Paul organized had been great. Aden had talked to several of the crew, who were mostly young and very personable, and very well behaved while on duty. Paul asked Aden questions about his trip, and school, over dinner. Aden shyly asked him about racing. Maggie was surprised how much Aden knew about it, and had obviously studied Paul’s history. Paul was touched by that too.
“I understand you’re a hockey player,” Paul said as they ate the steaks Maggie had ordered for them. The one Aden put away was huge. She knew how much he ate, and it never showed. He was tall and slim with huge shoulders.
“Yeah, I love it,” Aden said, “but I don’t want to play pro hockey after I graduate. I want to do something else, but I haven’t figured out what yet. Maybe sports management, or sportscasting for a network.” Maggie was relieved he didn’t want to do anything more dangerous. “I want to take flying lessons too,” he added. She didn’t like hearing that.
“I think you’re smart not to want to join the NHL,” Paul commented. “You’ll end up with no teeth and bad knees by the time you’re twenty-five.” Aden laughed and agreed with him.
“How did you start racing cars?” he asked Paul.
“I raced motorcycles first, when I knew your mom, when we were in high school. I did it in Mexico for a few years after that, and then I got some lucky breaks and started racing cars. It just happened, and one thing led to another. I won some important races and got the sponsor I still have now. Racing has been good to me. But I just have to warn you, your mom will kill me if you start racing cars,” he said half seriously, and Aden laughed.
“I know. She’s not so keen on planes either,” he said, and they all knew why. “I’d like to try hang gliding. I have some friends who do it in Vermont. It looks cool.”
“And dangerous,” Paul said. Aden nodded but seemed undaunted.
“Could I go up the mast tomorrow?” Aden asked him. “One of the deckhands said you have a seat that goes to the top.”
“You can if your mom says it’s okay.” He looked at Maggie then. “It’s safe. I do it all the time. He can’t fall out.” She hesitated and then nodded.
After dinner, they motored back into port. They showered and dressed, and after a glass of champagne, which Maggie didn’t object to, they headed for the casino, and Aden loved it.
Paul sat down at a blackjack table, with Aden and Maggie standing behind him, and Aden watched avidly. Paul won ten thousand euros in a few minutes, doubled it and then got up before he got too serious about it. He didn’t want Maggie to think he was corrupting her son, but Paul could see that Aden was a good boy, bright and full of life and eager to discover the world. He wasn’t as wild and fearless as Maggie had said, but he wasn’t meek either. He seemed sensible to Paul, and was exactly the kind of son he would have wanted if he had one. He had his mother’s integrity and values. He spoke respectfully of his father, and he thoroughly enjoyed being with Paul.
After the casino, they went to the disco, but didn’t stay long. Paul quickly spotted several very pretty young hookers, who in turn spotted Aden, and Paul decided not to let things get started, so they left after a short time. It was almost three in the morning by then, and was late enough. He knew the disco would go till five or six a.m. It had been a fun evening for all of them.
The next morning, Aden and Paul were up early, and Maggie had just gotten to the breakfast table when they hoisted Aden smoothly up the mast, and he loved it. When he came down, he said the view was fantastic. They sailed out to swim after that, and Paul and Aden went out on the new Jet Skis, and then went fishing that afternoon.
In the end, Aden stayed almost three weeks and said it was the best time he’d ever had. He hated to leave, and would have stayed, but he didn’t want to disappoint his friends, who wanted to finish the trip with him.
They had a massive water war on the last day, with full-on water balloons flying, and all the Super Soakers and water guns that Paul had bought in use. Everyone got drenched, including the captain and first officer, and even Maggie, and both sides claimed victory.
Aden looked genuinely sad when he had to leave, and he and Paul hugged each other. “Come back soon with your mom,” Paul said in a gruff voice. “It’s going to be damn dull around here without you. And take care of her when I’m not around. I have a race coming up in September, and she gets mad when I get banged up. You’ll have to come see a race sometime, if she’ll let you.” But he doubted that she would.
“I’d like that,” Aden said, and looked like he was about to cry. Maggie hadn’t realized how acutely he missed male companionship, and Paul was everyone’s dream father, the perfect hero to look up to. They’d played with every toy on the boat, watched movies at night, swam, sailed, fished. Aden had gone parasailing behind the boat and water-skied, and so had Paul. They had had several long talks about Aden’s future, and Paul’s philosophies about life. Paul told him that he had some regrets about not settling down, but it wasn’t in his nature, and he was lucky to have run into Maggie again. A more settled life wasn’t a bad thing, if you found the right woman. He hadn’t at the right times, and now he was just enjoying his life and playing it out until the end.
“Be careful,” Aden had said to him, and they hugged one last time before Aden left the boat and waved from the dock. Maggie rode to the airport with him, and was sad when she came back.
“He loves you,” she told Paul in a tender voice. “I mean really loves you. Thank you for being so good to him.”
“I love him too. He’s a great kid. He misses his dad a lot. I could never take his place. I’m not that kind of guy. You two brought up a wonderful boy and taught him all the right things. But I can be his friend now. I’d be honored to.”
“He thinks you’re the greatest thing that ever lived.” She smiled at him. “And I kind of agree with him,” she said and leaned over and kissed him. He pulled her onto his lap and hugged her as they watched the sun set over Monaco. They were setting sail for Corsica that night. He liked sailing at night, and she had come to love it too. They would motor part of the way because it usually got rough in Corsica on the way to Sardinia.
“You’re an incredible woman, Maggie,” he whispered and then kissed her. “I understand better now why you don’t like crazy risks. Aden needs you. And so do I.”
“I need you too…try to remember that,” she said in a serious voice, and he nodded. But he made no promises. He never did. He knew that the forces that drove him were stronger than he was, maybe even stronger than his love for her.
Chapter 13
Maggie left Paul in Monaco in mid-August to fly back to the States and meet Aden at home. He was spending two weeks there before going back to Boston for school. He talked a lot about Paul. The rest of his trip had been anticlimactic after his time on the boat. Nothing measured up to that, but more than the boat, he respected the man. He saw Paul as a brave warrior and a valiant person, who had lived by what he believed in, and had been true to himself all his life. Maggie didn’t disagree, but she also saw what it had cost him and that, except for her, he was alone. His skill as a driver was undeniable, and he was said to have the best eye and the best reflexes in racing, and nerves of steel to go with them.
Paul raced in Italy in September, had another lucky race, and won first place this time, uninjured. Every time he finished a race alive, she felt as though he had returned from the dead. She didn’t care if he won or lost, she just wanted him to survive it. That was her only prayer for him.
She spent a week in Chicago and a week in New York, visiting galleries, trying to get ideas for the gallery she wanted to open online. She had a list of artists now that she wanted to represent, and little by little she was getting closer. She attended parents’ weekend again at BU, and then flew to Paris
to meet Paul. His debacle with the IRS still wasn’t over, but they were getting closer to a settlement with him. They were going to take a huge financial bite out of him, but no more than he had expected, or was willing to give up. And finally at the end of October, they arrived at a number that satisfied both Paul and the government. He had adjusted his international corporations and investments sufficiently to satisfy them, without crippling himself completely. Both sides had a healthy respect for each other when it was over. He was able to come to the States again without fear of a warrant being issued for his arrest for tax evasion, and Maggie invited him to spend Thanksgiving with them in Lake Forest. He accepted. He and Aden couldn’t wait to see each other. Maggie loved the idea of his joining them there at last. He had never seen her home, and she wanted him to, even though it was simple and not as grand as any of his. She wanted him to meet Helen and Jeff, who was dying to meet him. Helen was too, for other reasons, since Maggie had been with him for almost a year by then.
Before they returned to the States, after the settlement with the IRS, they flew to London from Paris, and Paul bought another apartment. It wasn’t as grand as the penthouse he had lost, but it was warm and beautifully done, and Maggie loved it. He bought it for her as much as for himself, and there was a suite for Aden that Paul said he would love. He could visit them whenever he wanted to.
Maggie was going to furnish it after the holidays. Paul said he wanted a pied-à-terre in New York too, since he had business there. Maggie thought she would base her online gallery in New York and London, possibly with a rep in each city who could meet with clients to show them art they were considering. She still had some things to figure out, but wanted to open in the new year. She was going to show the work from slides, it was all by emerging artists she had discovered. She was planning to set the prices in the mid to lower price range, to make valid art by talented artists available to collectors who didn’t have a fortune to spend on it. She wasn’t sure if she’d make money, but she liked the concept of matchmaking new artists with young collectors. She’d have to see how the geography worked. Paul had encouraged her all along and was proud of her for wanting to launch a business of her own, with an original concept. He liked the work she had been considering, and the artists, and had even seen a photo of a piece he wanted to buy from her. And if they had a client in Chicago, Helen was happy to pitch in. Maggie had already registered the name of M. M. Mackenzie for her new business.
After he bought the apartment in London, Paul planned to spend a week there, while Maggie flew home to Lake Forest to get the house ready for Paul and Aden. She’d thought seriously about how strange it would be to share her bedroom with him, but Brad had been gone for two years, and she felt ready to have Paul stay with her there.
The night before she left him in London, Paul reminded her that he was going skiing in Canada right after Thanksgiving. He had mentioned it before in passing, and she hadn’t paid close attention. It was a trip he took annually with the same four friends and a guide he met up with once a year, and she frowned when he reminded her. He was planning to leave the day after Thanksgiving, and would be gone a week.
“Why then?” she asked, disappointed that he wouldn’t stay through the Thanksgiving weekend.
“It works best for everyone, and our guide.”
“Where in Canada?” He hadn’t invited her to go with him, and had said that the trip was all men, all expert skiers. It was an arduous trip and they loved it. Two of them had climbed Everest with him, which was how he had met them.
“British Columbia. Revelstoke. We’ll take the plane up to Kelowna near Vancouver, and from there we take a helicopter to our ski drop-offs at the Selkirk and Monashee Mountains.” The only way into the area was by helicopter. “The lodge is at the base of the mountains. They drop us off on the mountains by helicopter every day, and we ski out. It’s rugged terrain but fantastic skiing. The best there is.” She was silent for a moment, thinking about it, and looked at him.
“And the most dangerous skiing there is, if I remember correctly.”
“It doesn’t have to be. We’re all good skiers. Our lead guide is a member of the International Federation of Mountain Guides, and we have a tail guide this time too. We carry radios and avalanche equipment. We each wear a transceiver, and carry a shovel and probe. We’ve got everything we need. Our lead guide knows the area, and the pilot has been doing this for years. This is our tenth year going.” She wanted to ask him not to do it, but didn’t see how. She couldn’t ask him to change all the things he loved about his life, so she said nothing. He saw in her eyes that she was frightened. He held her for a moment and she was stiff in his arms. “It’ll be fine, Maggie. I promise.”
“You terrify me,” she whispered to him. “Why does everything you love have to be dangerous?” It was who he was, and she had known it since he was eighteen, but it didn’t make it easier to live with. The more she loved him, the harder it got. Other people died in freak accidents, or on the freeway, in plane crashes like Brad, or had heart attacks when they went jogging, which no one could foresee, but Paul had to put his life on the line at every opportunity, whether playing or racing. He had to steal his life back from the angel of death every time. And what if he lost? She had known it was a possibility since the beginning.
They didn’t talk about it again that night, or the next morning, when she took a commercial flight from London to Chicago. There was no point bringing up the ski trip again. It was just something she had to live with, like his racing. His recent win had made him cockier than ever. He needed danger like other people needed air. She thought about it on the flight back to Chicago and tried to make her peace with his helicopter skiing trip with his friends. She felt as though she would be nagging if she brought it up again. He had survived it nine times before this, so presumably he would again. He was a man’s man, and she told herself that this was what they did.
She was busy once she got home to Lake Forest. As it always did now, her house felt tired and deserted to her when she saw it again. For the past year she had been commuting to the luxurious spaces in Paul’s life, the Lady Luck, with its fabulous crew that waited on her hand and foot, the Ritz in Paris and his suite there in the opulence and glamour of the venerable hotel, his penthouse apartment before he lost it to British taxes, the new one he had just bought in a lovely building in one of the best neighborhoods. Coming home to Lake Forest, and their modest home there, was a reminder of the realities of her life, and how she had lived with Brad for nearly twenty years. They had a very comfortable home and she loved it, but she realized now that she had gotten spoiled, and she wondered how it would look to Paul when he saw it.
She tried to spruce it up as best she could, threw away some tired old decorative cushions on the couch, bought new plants and fresh flowers. She tried to fluff things up, and moved a few things around in her bedroom, but the house looked sad now, whatever she did. She realized now how little charm it had, even if they had been happy there. Her life was in a different place now with Paul, and she wondered if it looked shabby to Aden when he came home too, or maybe at his age he didn’t notice, and it was just home to him. Without meaning to, they had quietly outgrown it, and it seemed so small to her after the bigger spaces she had gotten used to.
She did her best, and Aden seemed happy to come home. He didn’t even see the few improvements she’d made. He liked it the way it was, and never wanted her to change anything in his room.
When Paul arrived, the only thing he saw was her, waiting in the doorway to welcome him to her home. It was a major step for them, and made their relationship seem more real.
Aden took charge of Paul immediately, and drove him to all his old haunts: the pond where he had learned to skate, both his old schools, the main street in town where all the shops were, the grocery store where he and his friends had conned someone into buying them beer when they were sixteen. All the landmarks that
were important to him, and Paul loved it. He felt as though he was reliving Aden’s childhood with him, which reminded him of a better version of his own, since he didn’t have a stable family and Aden did. For a moment, he envied Aden how he had grown up, with a mother and father who loved him and each other, in a safe home where no harm could come to him, going to a normal school where kids grew up and went to college and then married and had kids. Paul hadn’t had any of that, had to fend for himself as a kid, without a father, and was on his own as soon as he graduated from high school and headed to Southern California and then Mexico to seek his fate and his fortune. It had turned out all right for him, better than that, but he would never have the happy memories that Aden did and was sharing with him now. Aden had had everything Paul had ever dreamed of and never had. Instead, Paul’s whole life had been a search for something he had never found, and it was all here with Maggie and Aden. It made him want to stay here forever with them and try to turn back the clock and start again. He was deeply moved by the tour, and told Maggie that after they got back, when she and Paul were alone. He had tears in his eyes when he told her about it.
“Aden doesn’t know how lucky he is,” he said softly, as she remembered the terrible shack Paul had lived in, in the town where they grew up, and the mother who had barely managed to make enough to feed him, and the father who abandoned them and disappeared. He had more than made up for it, but he had been struggling all his life, fighting his own demons, battling to stay alive, seeking every challenge, climbing every mountain, winning every race, and he still was. She put her arms around him and he rested his head against her as he basked in the warmth of the love and stability she gave him, which he had never had until then. For an instant, he almost wanted to tell her that he wouldn’t go on the ski trip with his friends, but they would think he was an idiot if he did that. All he wanted was to stay there with her. He didn’t say anything, but she felt the bond between them without words.
Nine Lives Page 17