Abide with Me

by Delia Parr

  Bill smiled and waited for her to realize what she had just said and change her reply.

  She just smiled back.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  By midnight, Andrea’s first date with Bill stretched beyond the boundaries of unforgettable and ended on the same note as the beginning.

  The Jeep died a block after they got back underway again. The engine just stopped and they coasted silently back to the side of the road. After thirty minutes, he finally gave up trying to find the problem. By midnight, a sleepy road-service attendant arrived to tow the Jeep to a local garage.

  When the tow truck disappeared around a corner, Bill shoved his hands into his pockets and looked up at the sky. Andrea waited, more tired than annoyed, and followed his gaze. “Looking through the Angel’s Window? I think there’s a Do Not Disturb sign. See it?”

  He chuckled and shook his head. “I’m sorry. If I had known that the Jeep was a disaster waiting to happen, I never would have borrowed it.” He turned and looked down the road. “I think there’s a motel back a ways. It’s off season, so it shouldn’t be a problem for us to get a couple of rooms for the night. Unless you know somewhere we could rent a car? I know you’ve got to be at work in the morning.”

  “Even if there was a car-rental agency, which there isn’t, it wouldn’t be open this late.” She yawned. “The Pink Flamingo is probably the closest motel, but that’s got to be a good two miles away.” She hesitated, reluctant to suggest another alternative for fear he might misinterpret her meaning. “My sister’s house is a lot closer, but there’s only one problem. I don’t have a key.”

  “No problem there. I can get you inside,” he suggested.

  “It’s a large house. I mean, if you can get us inside, I could take one of the bedrooms on one floor. There’d be plenty of room for you in another. Under the circumstances—”

  “Under the circumstances, I think it’s a better idea if I get you to your sister’s. I’ll get a room at the motel and check in with the garage first thing in the morning. Welleswood’s a small town, remember? Thanks to me, everyone knows we went out tonight. If I stayed at your sister’s, sooner or later, someone would find out we spent the night under the same roof. That’s a problem neither one of us needs.”

  “You’re sure? I feel rather foolish, asking you to do that.”

  He chuckled. “Sorry. I get to keep all the ‘foolish’ to myself on this date.”

  They walked the six blocks to Madge’s house and made plans for Bill to call Andrea on her cell phone by seven-thirty, after he spoke with the mechanic. With any luck, the problem could be easily fixed. If not, the garage might have a loaner vehicle that Bill could borrow long enough to take Andrea to the office by nine.

  The house, of course, was dark. Jenny had said both Madge and Russell still weren’t feeling well. Andrea felt comfortable they were both home in Welleswood and the beach house was empty, until they reached the back of the house and Andrea saw a light in the kitchen. She reached out and put her hand on Bill’s arm. “I can’t believe it, but they’re here! Madge and Russell must have decided to recuperate at the beach house.”

  When she started toward the patio to cross to the kitchen door, he hesitated. “It’s probably better to go around front and ring the bell. They’ll be surprised enough to have visitors at this hour, let alone having someone knock at the back door.”

  “Don’t be silly,” she insisted. “The back door has a window, and there’s no curtain on it to block the view. They’ll see it’s me right away.” When he remained unconvinced, she compromised. “I’ll look in first. If I don’t see anyone, then we’ll use the front door.”

  Without further protest, he followed her to the kitchen door. She looked inside and saw Russell. He was standing at the counter near the stove, stirring something in a small pot. He had his other hand on the lap of a small child, a little girl, holding her still as she sat on the countertop.

  Andrea blinked hard while her mind tried to make sense out of what she was seeing. Her first reaction was that she had gotten confused in the dark and gone to the wrong house. She studied the man again. Even with his back to her, she knew it was Russell. He had been part of her family for over twenty-five years—a big part, especially since he had no family of his own.

  She switched her attention to the little girl. She was a pretty little thing, even though her face was red and puffy from crying. She must have had a nightmare, but what was she doing here? Who was she? And where was Madge? Was she here at the beach house or home in Welleswood?

  The mystery of the child’s car seat suddenly seemed to have a very different solution than the one Andrea had suggested to Jenny earlier that afternoon, but the mystery had gotten even more complicated. The car seat, according to Jenny, had been in Russell’s car, not Madge’s. The little girl was in the kitchen now with Russell, not Madge.

  From deep within, a primal urge to protect her sister rose, and Andrea knew she would have to unravel the mystery herself. She knocked on the window glass, oblivious to the man behind her.

  Russell stiffened. He dropped the spoon and it sank into the pot. He wrapped his hands around the child’s waist and lifted her to his chest before he turned around. When he saw Andrea, the element of surprise did not leave his eyes, but deepened into fear, and the blood literally drained from his face. Almost instinctively, at least to Andrea’s eyes, he put his hand to the girl’s back and held her even closer.

  Russell set his shoulders and walked toward the door. His features were grim, his lips set. When he opened the door, he did not speak. He just stepped back and motioned for Andrea to come inside. The little girl, however, stared at Andrea with big blue eyes and a smile.

  Andrea was not sure how she got inside. Her legs were shaking and her heart was pounding, even as her mind reeled. “I—I’m sorry to barge in so late,” she managed. “We were headed home when the Jeep broke down.” She quickly introduced Bill to her brother-in-law. “I didn’t have a key, but I was hoping to find a way inside for the night. Bill was going to the Pink Flamingo,” she explained. Mystery or no mystery, Andrea did not want Russell to think she was going to use his home for anything improper. “I had no idea you and Madge would be here.”

  The color rushed back into Russell’s cheeks. “I think she left you a message, about eight or so.”

  “We’d left by then,” Andrea murmured.

  Bill rushed past both of them and shut off the burner beneath the pot. The smell of scalded chocolate filled the air, and when Andrea looked at the stove, she saw that the hot chocolate Russell had been heating had boiled over. She did not know whether or not Bill had any notion of the mystery she had stumbled into, but he must have felt the tension in the air.

  “Look, I’d better get moving. I’ll call you in the morning?” he said.

  She nodded, but kept her focus on Russell as Bill slipped out the back door. Her brother-in-law looked, well, he looked terrible. He had dark circles under his eyes, and his color was pasty. He certainly looked like he had been sick. When he seemed at a loss for words, Andrea turned her attention to the little girl. “Hi, sweetie. Did you have a bad dream?”

  “Bad, bad, bad! Poppy come!” she announced, and snuggled closer to Russell.

  “I was making Sarah some…hot chocolate,” he explained. He took a deep breath. “Sarah is…Sarah is my daughter.”

  “No. That’s not true. Sarah is our daughter.”

  At the sound of her sister’s voice, Andrea spun around, but Madge walked past Andrea to stand next to Russell and Sarah.

  “You have a…a daughter? I don’t understand. Do you mean to tell me you’ve adopted a child?” she asked. She was not opposed to adoption, but she could not believe her sister would be considering adoption. Not at her age.

  “We…that is…” Madge looked up at her husband. When he nodded, she let out a heavy sigh. “We need to talk.”

  “I’ll take Sarah back upstairs,” he murmured. He looked at the mess on the s
tove, filled a child’s cup with apple juice and left the kitchen.

  Before the silence between Andrea and her sister grew awkward, Andrea nodded toward the stove. “I can clean that up while you make a pot of coffee for yourself. I’ve got a bottle of iced tea in my bag.”

  For the next hour, Andrea sat with her sister. She listened to a tale that seemed to have come straight from the front page of one of those smarmy supermarket tabloids that screamed impossible headlines at shoppers, even those who tried to ignore them. The two sisters cried together as Andrea held Madge’s hand. They even laughed together once or twice, a trait that some people might have misinterpreted as bizarre. Not every family could laugh in the midst of tragedy, but the Longs did.

  By the time Madge had finished, the coffeepot was empty, Andrea’s iced-tea bottle was ready for the recycle bin, and a ton of soggy tissues littered the table. They sat together, hand in hand, emotionally drained but strengthened by a bond of sisterhood that did not allow for anything but love.

  “What are you going to do?” Andrea whispered.

  “I’m fifty-five years old. I’ve been looking forward to playing with my grandchildren. I never planned on starting over and raising another child of my own, not at this stage of my life.” Madge shook her head. “I’ll do what I have to do. I love him. We’ve been married for twenty-six years. I can’t throw that away. We’ll both do what we have to do and raise Sarah together as our daughter.”

  “Are you sure you can? Are you sure you even want to?” Andrea asked. “After what Russell did, no one could expect you to stay married to him, let alone raise a child he had with another woman, even if she is gone.”

  Madge squeezed Andrea’s hand. “Vows are forever.”

  “But he broke those vows,” Andrea countered, remembering how often she’d been jealous of Madge. She was not jealous anymore.

  “Yes, he did.” Madge took several long breaths. “I haven’t had a lot of time to think this through yet. I’ve been too angry. I haven’t to talked to Russell about it, but I think one of the first things we’ve got to do is start marriage counseling. If it takes two people to make a marriage work, then two people must have some degree of responsibility when it doesn’t. We need to find out how that happened to us so we know how to make sure it never happens again. I know we can, with God’s help. Will you…will you tell Jenny for me? I don’t think I’ll be home for a while, and it’s not something I want to tell her over the telephone.”

  Andrea nodded. Madge had always been so helpless when it came to handling trouble of any kind. How she had found the strength and the wisdom to deal with this crisis was a surprise to Andrea, unless Madge really had had the strength all along and only discovered it now, when her whole world was threatening to collapse. “I’ll tell Jenny after she gets back,” Andrea promised. “Michael took them all away for the weekend. I would think Pastor Staggart would be able to recommend a good counselor.”

  “Maybe,” Madge responded. “I’ll have to talk to Russell about it before I call anyone.”

  “Have you told the boys about Sarah?”

  “Not yet. Russell and I still have a lot of things to settle between us.”

  “Settle?”

  Madge bowed her head for a moment. “I don’t have a clue about what we’re going to do to try to put this marriage back together, and I’m not sure how we’re going to explain about Sarah.” When she looked up at Andrea, fresh tears welled and threatened to spill again. “She’s such an innocent. I’m so worried what people will think about her.” She found a fresh tissue and dabbed at her tears. “I can’t bear to think that once everyone knows what really happened, she’ll be…branded. For the rest of her life, people will see her and say, ‘Oh, that’s Sarah Stephens. She’s really Russell’s love child. He had an affair and then brought that child back to Madge to raise.’ Sarah didn’t do anything wrong. She doesn’t deserve that kind of stigma. No child does, and I can’t take her home until I make sure that won’t happen to her. I won’t let that happen,” she vowed. “They can say what they want about Russell or me, but not Sarah.”

  Andrea squeezed her sister’s hand again. “No one has to know what really happened. You and Russell can just surprise everyone and tell them you both decided to adopt a child.”

  “You mean lie?”

  “It’s not a bad lie. It’s a good one,” Andrea argued.

  Madge squared her shoulders. “A lie is a lie, and lies always come home to roost.”

  “Now you sound like Grandmother Poore.”

  Madge chuckled. “She was a stinker sometimes, but she also knew what she was talking about. I can’t spend the rest of my life being afraid that someone, someday, will find out. Russell and I want to tell Sarah everything when she’s older, of course, but I’d be afraid to let her out of my sight, just in case someone would find out and tell her before we did.”

  “Find out from whom? You and Russell aren’t going to tell anyone. I’m never going to break your confidence, and Sarah’s mother is dead. How could anyone find out?”

  “She has a birth certificate, Andrea. My name isn’t on it, but Russell’s is. I won’t be able to register her for school without it. That gives us two years. What do I do then?”

  “But they’ll know she’s been adopted.”

  “You’re not listening to me. Russell’s name is on her birth certificate! They’ll see his name alongside another woman’s name. Got it?” She sighed.

  “Oh. Got it. But you have two years before you have to worry about that. Right now, you need…you need to stop worrying. Come on. Get up, and come outside with me. I want to show you something.”

  “Now? Why?”

  “Come on.” Andrea tugged her sister to her feet. “There’s something I’ve got to show you. Have you ever heard of the Angel’s Window? Of course you haven’t, but just wait till I show it to you….”

  Chapter Thirty

  With no loaner car available, Bill and Andrea would have been forced to stay in Sea Gate until Monday, when the new computer module for the Jeep was expected to arrive. Instead, they had borrowed Russell’s car, minus the car seat, and made it back to Welleswood in time for Andrea to make a quick change and get to the office by nine-thirty. They planned to return to Sea Gate Monday night, to return Russell’s car and pick up the Jeep.

  Andrea was half an hour late for her clients, probably the only couple in the mid-Atlantic region who did not have an answering machine so that Andrea could have left a message and told them she was running late. Fortunately—or unfortunately—Doris was scheduled to open the office on Saturday. Doris had many traits that annoyed Andrea, but she was always punctual, and she had an answering machine, too! She would be there to meet the Wilmots, and assuming she had retrieved Andrea’s message, she would keep them occupied until Andrea arrived.

  With a date set for Monday night for Andrea to drive Russell’s car back to Sea Gate, with Bill following her to bring her back home again, they had parted company, but not before he had given his word not to discuss Sarah with anyone. He had been beyond patient and considerate and never once questioned her for an explanation.

  Andrea parked her own car at the back door and rushed into the office. She slowed the moment she realized she had forgotten the keys to the credenza. When she reached the front office, her frown deepened. Her clients were not there. There was no sign of Doris, either, but one look at the mess on top of both desks, not to mention the broken lock on the credenza, told Andrea Doris had been there. Andrea could not decide whether to cry with frustration or run outside and scream for help.

  Then she saw a note stapled to one of the outrageous peacock feathers in the arrangement on Doris’s desk. She approached it with apprehension. She almost cried when she recognized Doris’s handwriting and read:

  The Wilmot’s insisted on seeing the Locust Street property.

  Now! (You did mention they were cash buyers in your message.) Rather than upset them, I got the file, but please don’t ge
t mad. I called the locksmith.

  He’ll be here by ten to fix the lock on the credenza.

  Doris

  Andrea read the note again and surveyed the damage to the credenza and the desks for a second time. Yesterday, she would have been horrified by the woman’s gall and disregard for office property. Today, she simply marveled at the woman’s tenacity and her refusal to let a client like the Wilmots slip away because Andrea had been late. She had had the listing for that house on Locust Street for months, but there were so many repairs that had to be made, there wasn’t a bank or mortgage company willing to take the risk of holding a note for more than half the asking price, which was just over six figures.

  “Maybe I needed a little bit of a hurricane in my life to shake things up right,” she mumbled, but cheerfully set both desks back to right and made a call to Jamie Martin before the locksmith arrived. He did not show up until eleven, but when he left an hour later, he was no sooner out the door than Doris walked in without her clients.

  Actually, Doris did not walk into the office. She just poked her head around the door. “Is it safe to come in or should I go to The Diner, have a cup of coffee and try again later?”

  Andrea waved her inside. “It’s more than safe.”

  When Doris walked in, she was carrying a white cardboard bakery box that she put on top of Andrea’s desk.

  “You didn’t have to bring a peace offering.” Andrea told her. “It’s my fault I was late in the first place. I forgot the keys to the credenza anyway, so I probably would have done the same thing. The locksmith’s already taken care of the repairs.” With her stomach growling, reminding her that she had not had time for breakfast, Andrea fiddled with the knot in the string holding the box closed.

  Doris glanced over Andrea’s shoulder and grimaced. “What happened? He promised me he’d be able to put a new locking mechanism on today.”