by Wendy Wax
“This is all way too coincidental to be a coincidence,” Kyra said.
“It is pretty compelling but everything’s circumstantial,” Avery felt the need to point out.
“It’s not like we have to prove anything in a court of law,” Nicole said. “And there’s always DNA testing if anyone needs that.”
“So who do you want me to call in Chicago?” Deirdre asked.
“I was thinking about how Jacob Madsen said that his father was only in his fifties when he died a year ago,” Madeline said.
“Aaron Golden would have been fifty-four,” Avery said, her excitement beginning to match Maddie’s. “And we know he was a Valentine’s Day baby.”
“Exactly,” Maddie said. “Aaron was born in 1958. He was three when he disappeared in 1961. Even if Pamela had been pregnant when she left and gave birth in Chicago, her biological son would have been at least four years younger than Aaron.”
Deirdre pulled out her phone. “So we’re calling Jacob Madsen?”
“Yes,” Maddie said. “All we want to know is when his father was born. Let’s just ask. I guess there’s always the chance I’ve got this all wrong.”
They practically held their breaths while Deirdre placed the call and asked for the interior designer. They forced themselves to breathe normally when Deirdre covered the phone and said, “He just arrived. The receptionist is putting the call through to his office.”
A few moments later Deirdre was saying hello. “Yes,” she said. “The chandelier arrived safe and sound. It looks absolutely fabulous. Yes.” A pause. “Yes, I will.” She listened intently for a few moments while the rest of them leaned forward, trying to follow the one-sided conversation.
Avery got Deirdre’s attention and pointed to all of them and then her ear.
“Oh!” Deirdre said. “We’re all here together, Jacob, would you mind if I put you on speakerphone?…Thanks,” she said, and then they were all hearing Jacob Madsen ask, “You’re not all in the pool again, are you?”
“No,” Deirdre replied. “And we just have one, kind of odd question for you.”
“Okay,” he said tentatively.
“You said your father was in his fifties when he died,” Deirdre said.
“Yes.” They could hear the surprise in Madsen’s voice.
“Do you mind telling us his birth date?”
There was no hesitation this time. “February fourteenth, 1958. He was a Valentine’s baby.”
There was a silence in The Millicent kitchen as they all heard Aaron Golden’s birth date echo in the room.
“But didn’t your parents meet in Chicago?” Deirdre asked carefully.
“Yes,” Jacob Madsen said, “they met here in 1963 and married in 1965.”
All of them sat there doing the math.
“But that was my grandmother’s second marriage. My father was three when he and my grandmother moved here. My biological grandfather died down in Miami not too long after my father was born.”
They all crowded into the hospital room wanting to share the news with Max, all of them imagining, Maddie knew, that finally knowing what had happened to Aaron would prove to be that magic elixir that would revive the old man and have him sitting up and telling jokes again. But Max didn’t rouse enough for them to tell him anything.
For two days the nurses walked in and out with worried looks on their faces. The doctor shook his head as he read Max’s vital signs and moved a stethoscope over his chest. They didn’t need a medical person to tell them what they could all see: Max was tethered to life by the slimmest of threads. No one knew when he might let go.
“Max?” Maddie said when the others had gone to the hospital cafeteria. “Max, can you hear me?”
With what looked like great effort, he opened his eyes, then expended considerable energy attempting to focus them. He blinked and Maddie was afraid that his eyes wouldn’t open again.
She watched his chest rise and then fall. His breathing seemed shallow, not enough to keep anything going. The beep of the heart monitor seemed hesitant, the sounds as weak as the man whose heart produced them.
She needed to tell him the news. Even if it didn’t revive him, he had to know before he died. She glanced up at the clock and then back down at Max. They were running out of time in every possible way.
“We know what happened, Max,” she said. “We know what happened to Aaron.”
She held her breath at the sight of movement beneath his eyelids. The hand she held in hers curled slightly. “Pamela Gentry took him to Chicago to get back at you and Millie,” she said. “She changed his name to Ethan and she raised him as her own.”
His hand was dry and cold, the papery skin bruised from the IVs. His lips were cracked and peeling. When he opened his eyes, they were weary, but interested. She felt him present in a way he hadn’t been since he’d arrived in the hospital.
His eyes cut to the cup of water on the tray table and she lifted it and positioned the straw between his lips, then watched his Adam’s apple move in the thin column of his throat as he drank.
“Yur shure?” His words were slightly slurred and she had to lean close to hear them.
“Yes,” Maddie said. She held up the photo of Ethan Madsen so that Max could see it. With great effort he opened his hand and she placed the photo between his fingers.
“Looks like me.” He drew a breath to continue. “And Millie.”
“Yes.”
“But…how…” He wasn’t able to finish the sentence.
“She arrived in Chicago as a widow with a small son. It wouldn’t have been all that difficult to get a birth certificate for him back then. Everyone assumed he was hers.”
He closed his eyes tightly and a tear seeped out from the corner of one eye.
“I know it doesn’t make up for the loss in any way, but he does seem to have been raised in a loving home.”
“So wrong,” he said. “Never thought…”
She saw the effort it took for Max to open his eyes again. But when he did, some of the old Max burned inside. “Want to see him.”
Maddie squeezed his hand gently, wondering why she’d thought this was a good idea. “He died, Max. A year ago, in a car accident.”
He closed his eyes again and his lips pulled tight in a grimace of pain. He let go of her hand.
“But he had children. Two of them. Twins. And they’re on their way to see you.”
He didn’t open his eyes but he nodded slightly.
When she thought he’d gone back to sleep, he said, “Want…see.” And then after another long breath, “Hurry.”
Avery, Nicole, Madeline, Kyra, and Deirdre rotated in and out of Max’s room and the waiting room, each of them taking a turn to tell him just how much he meant to them and whispering to him to hold on as the time, Max’s time, ticked away. Andrew brought Dustin in for a few minutes and Max shuddered awake when the little boy cried “Gax!” and put his arms around the old man and buried his face in his neck.
Kyra shot video of their good-bye, and not even the video camera could hide the tears that streamed down her cheeks.
It was late and Maddie was once again sitting with Max when Giraldi and Nicole got back from the airport. The old man had been sleeping. Several times she’d leaned her head against his chest to make sure he was still breathing. Now she leaned forward to rouse him, shaking him gently by the shoulder when the two young people appeared in the doorway.
“Wake up, Max. They’re here.”
She watched as the two walked into the hospital room and moved toward the bed. When she looked down at Max, he too was watching their approach. If there’d been any doubt at all about their blood connection, it disappeared when the twins drew closer. Max’s eyes widened in wonder; his smile was filled with happiness.
His grandson leaned over and took Max’s hand in his. “I’m Jacob,” he said. “I’m almost thirty and I always wondered where I got this nose.” His face split in a fair facsimile of Max’s megawatt smile.
“And this is my sister,” he said as his twin stepped out from behind him.
“Hello,” she said in the warm, breathy voice they’d all heard on Max’s movies. Her blue eyes shone with intelligence, and although she was petite and fine-boned like her grandmother, there was something larger than life about her. “I’m Pamela Millicent Madsen,” she said, leaning forward to place a kiss on Max’s cheek. “But everyone calls me Millie.”
Epilogue
Max Golden’s funeral played to a packed house. The rabbi who had married Max and Millie came out of retirement to officiate and did an impressive stand-up routine of his own, a performance that elicited both tears and laughter. Max’s grandchildren sat with Avery, Nicole, Maddie, Kyra, and Deirdre in the front row.
At the cemetery, Max was finally laid to rest next to his Millie, but Maddie had no doubt that Millie had been there the day that their grandchildren arrived and that she’d been waiting for her husband when he’d finally smiled and let go. She imagined them on some heavenly version of a backstage, Millie in one of her fabulous gowns and Max fiddling with his cigar, eager to go on.
She could feel their essence in The Millicent as they showed Jake and Millie the home that now belonged to them. She and Nicole smiled at the twins’ enthusiasm while Deirdre and Avery basked in their praise. If ever there had been perfect recipients for this particular gift, it was these two interior designers. Max had “built it” and they had, indeed, come.
Before the twins left for the airport, Kyra presented them with a videotape of their grandparents’ favorite performances, which she’d labeled simply The Best of M&M.
“Not to be confused with Eminem,” Avery quipped as she presented them with a key to The Millicent and promised to drop the second in the mail the following morning on her way out of town.
The farewell with the network crew was less emotionally fraught. In the foyer Troy pulled out a videotape and handed it to Kyra. “These are the outtakes,” he said gruffly. “The footage I don’t think Lisa Hogan or the network really need to see.”
Kyra looked down at the list of video cuts. “‘Avery’s Chest’?” she read aloud.
“It’s mostly from the premiere party,” Troy explained at Avery’s strangled gasp. “Lisa Hogan made me shoot it, but I don’t really see how it’s germane to the series.”
Avery blew out a sigh of relief along with a kiss.
“‘Deranian in Drag and Custody Conversation’?” Kyra read, looking at the cameraman in surprise. “You’re not giving them footage of Daniel?”
Troy shrugged. “I thought you might want to hold on to it. You know, just in case he or Potty Mouth forgets what they agreed to.”
“But won’t the network be upset that you don’t have anything of him?” Deirdre asked.
“I’m not worried about it,” Troy said. “The footage I got of the Amherst thing makes me pretty much golden as far as the network is concerned. I’ve already been offered some primo projects to choose from.” He looked down for a moment before looking into Kyra’s eyes again. “If you want, you could sit in with me when we do the final editing of the shows. I think that would help us create a better balance between our footage and yours.”
Kyra smiled with pleasure. “I’d like that,” she said. “I still can’t believe I didn’t realize why you’d left the camera sitting on the piano. Or notice that it was recording. I must have been off my game.”
“Well, there was a madman with a gun threatening your child,” Troy said. “It’s understandable.”
Madeline looked over Kyra’s shoulder at the list as Kyra read the last entry aloud. It was “Kitchen Catfight.”
Maddie sighed in relief. “You’re good boys,” she said, giving Troy and Anthony a hug. “Thank you for everything.”
“Ditto,” said Avery, going up on tiptoe to give both crew members a hug.
“Yes, it’s very reassuring to know that we’ll only look marginally ridiculous,” Nicole said drily.
“Your tackle of Amherst was pretty impressive,” Anthony said.
“I agree,” Deirdre teased. “You’re a natural.”
“Great,” Nicole said. “If Do Over doesn’t get picked up, maybe I’ll give the NFL a go.”
“Rise and shine!” It was still dark the next morning when Avery felt a hand on her shoulder and heard Deirdre’s too-cheery voice.
“No. Not yet. I—”
“Come on, sleepyhead.” Maddie’s voice joined Deirdre’s. The smell of freshly brewed coffee tickled her nostrils. Her eyes, the traitors, sprang open and she was staring into the lens of Kyra’s video camera.
“Jeez, really?” Avery groaned. “I thought the shooting was over.” She sat up and Madeline placed the cup of coffee in her hands. Dustin, who stood with one arm wrapped around his mother’s leg, offered her a sunny smile and watched her raise the cup to her lips.
“It’s not over until we lock the front door behind us,” Kyra said. “I’m not prepared to witness what may be my last sunrise on Miami Beach without a camera in my hand.”
“Just a few more sips,” Maddie said in her best mother voice. “I’ll add whatever’s left to a to-go cup. We’ve only got about twenty minutes before the sun comes up.”
“Have I mentioned that I think sunsets are far more civilized than sunrises?” Avery asked as she put a hand up to block the camera lens and climbed out of bed.
“Yes, I think you’ve made that clear,” Deirdre said. “And you’ll see plenty of them when we get to Bella Flora. I believe Chase already had a case of Cheez Doodles delivered. In a way it’s lucky that offer on Bella Flora fell through. It’s good to have a place to stay while we wait to hear what’s happening with the show. Seeing as how some of us are somewhat…homeless…at the moment.”
They left Andrew sleeping for one last hour and walked to the beach, where they settled on a blanket just in time to see the first exploratory rays of the sun ease up out of the ocean. Dustin toddled happily on the sand, plopping down occasionally before clambering back up again.
“There is something life affirming about witnessing the very beginnings of a new day,” Madeline said, her gaze fixed on the golden ball rising in front of them. “It makes almost anything seem possible.” Although she spoke of hope, they could all hear the sadness in her voice.
“Maybe we should stop at Bella Flora for a while before we go home,” Kyra said. “How long will you and Deirdre be there, Avery?”
“I don’t know,” Avery said. “Chase and Jeff have invited us to work on the new development they’re building. I can help design the spec homes and Deirdre’s offered to handle the interior design. I’m not sure where Chase and I are really headed—he’s got so many other commitments—but it’ll be nice to be in the same place at least for a while. And there’s something kind of comforting about the idea of working with him in the business our fathers built.”
She looked at Deirdre. The fact that she was actually looking forward to being there with her mother was the oddest part of all.
“It’ll be great,” Deirdre said. “There’s a certain symmetry to being involved in the company that Peter started. I did my first design work on his starter homes.”
Avery suppressed the automatic remark about how easily Deirdre had left that with a long sip of coffee, and was rewarded with a smile of approval from Maddie. Maybe it was time to sign up for a course in daughter-hood.
“Why don’t you stop over in Pass-a-Grille for a while?” Avery asked Maddie, noting the resignation in her eyes and the resolute set of her mouth.
“No, we need to get back. I’ll have to get Andrew ready to go back to college. And there are things that need to be settled.”
They all knew she was referring to the absent Steve, but her tone made it clear that she was not ready to discuss it.
“Fine,” Nicole said, never one to be stopped by something as insubstantial as a tone of voice. “But once you kick his butt, I say you should take at least a vacation at Bella Flora while it still belo
ngs to us.” She looked up at the sky, which had lightened to a pale watercolor blue. The ocean glittered with golden bits of sun. “Giraldi invited me to stay with him for a while.”
Avery saw her blush and had to bite back a laugh.
“But then I thought I’d head up to Bella Flora,” Nikki continued. “Maybe if it hasn’t sold yet, we could do Thanksgiving or Christmas there. I wouldn’t mind some moral support when we hear whether Do Over is going to continue.”
“I didn’t think the west coast of Florida was your style,” Kyra said.
“I’m not sure I have a style anymore,” Nicole replied.
Avery smiled again. Maybe this whole sunrise thing wasn’t so bad after all. “I must say, for a group of people who need money as badly as we all do, no one seems in any big hurry to see Bella Flora sell.”
There was laughter and the mood lightened. Together they’d helped Max fulfill his Millie’s dying wish, brought another spectacular house back to life, and in the process once again shored up their own lives. They sipped their coffees and turned their attention to the sky, watching it turn bright with promise. Like their friendship, the glowing sun warmed them.
Together they breathed in the new day.
READERS GUIDE
OCEAN BEACH
by Wendy Wax
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. During Madeline and Steve’s twenty-six-year wedding anniversary celebration, Madeline recalls how the past year and a half had been difficult and that “it had reframed an entire lifetime of memories.” Do you think that difficult moments in life can completely change how you remember the past? Are the difficulties something you work to forget or are they something that affects your future as well?
2. What do you think about Max and Millie’s relationship? How did the emotional prologue set the tone of the novel?