“I remember when a very loving man took control when I needed it,” she continued. “He made me realize that I was sick and that I needed immediate help. And I promised myself that I would do the same for him—if his time of need ever arose. It’s here, Drew. And I’m not letting you out of my sight today. Now, where can I find your lawyer’s number?”
Stunned and shaking, Drew wanted to rebut her every word and fight her persistence. Dominance wasn’t Maxine’s role to play. He needed to maintain the upper hand at all times. He needed to be the strong partner—the one who always held their relationship together in times of struggles. He didn’t want Maxine to have to worry about him and his fucking issues with his past. She didn’t deserve to have this gargantuan tragedy dropped into her lap. He wanted her to live in the bubble of some happy little world that he knew didn’t really exist.
“Your lawyer, Drew?” she prompted. “You know, I might be small, but I can be pretty damn fierce when I need to be…”
“Last number dialed on my phone,” he said at last. “You already know my PIN…”
# # #
Distraction was the name of the game that morning. In the kitchen, a radio played softly in the background. Fiona Findlay stood at the sink, her back turned to the door. She’d washed two cups before Maxine finally spoke up.
“Nanny Fi, it’s just me,” she said gently.
Still, the older woman refused to turn around. “Let me get some coffee going. My apologies, Max. Running a little late this morning and—”
“It’s okay,” Maxine reached out to pull her close, only to discover immediately that Nanny herself had been crying. “We’re just trying our best right now…”
Knowing that Nanny had been there for Drew not so long after his return home brought this ugly reality to full circle for Maxine. She’d watched him as he recovered and learned how to trust. Eventually, she became one of the first adults in his tiny world whom he came to count on. She witnessed first-hand the trauma he suffered, and she offered him a delicate comfort when he needed assurance.
In so many ways, Nanny Fi still considered both McKenzie boys to be extensions of her own family. While she could still put Adam in his place and shame him into minding his manners like no one else, she could also see that child hiding within Drew, yearning to escape his own terrors. Sometimes, she wished she could just rock him and sing him an old Scottish lullaby like she did when he was a boy—just to temporarily make him forget everything.
This whole reopening of his wounds that might never heal just gutted her. Without question, she knew that the road ahead would be a long one not just for Drew but for Maxine, and Nanny hoped she would stick it out in the long-haul for his sake.
“What can I get you? Get for Drew? What do you need?”
“How about I make you a cup of tea, and you sit down for a few?” Maxine suggested. Before Nanny could protest, Maxine had the kettle filled, and she had no choice but to take a seat at the island.
“Max…?”
“Yes, Nanny Fi?”
“You’ll take care of him? You’ll make sure that he’ll be safe?”
Maxine’s legs couldn’t carry her fast enough around the countertop, and she pulled Nanny into a hug. “I will do everything in my power to keep him safe, and to make sure that he takes care of himself,” Maxine vowed. “He’s not going to endure this alone.”
“You’re a good lady, Maxine,” Nanny said, her tears falling as she blinked. “And he needs you right now. He needs you so much.”
While she held on to Nanny, her phone vibrated with incoming texts. She knew the messages were from the McKenzies, and Maxine couldn’t ignore Declan and Adam. She had to excuse herself but made Nanny promise to take it easy before she left her alone. For Drew’s sake, her responses would be short, telling his family only what they needed to know.
Maxine obliged Drew his time alone with his attorney, but while he sat behind the closed den door discussing this entire horrible mess, the seconds seemed to pass like days.
An anxious energy raced through her veins, quickening her heartbeat and exacerbating her dread. She’d cleaned up their mess from the previous evening and put her clothes away, but nothing could sidetrack her anxieties. She was sure that she’d worn a path on the hardwood floors as she paced the length of that long great room; however, she tired herself in her efforts to figure out what to do next.
Drained by her own worst suspicions—by her own agony for that man she so completely loved—she couldn't stand. How she longed to take his pain over everything that troubled his soul and make it all her own. Never in her life had she felt so fiercely protective of anyone. All she wanted to do was lock him inside that apartment, convince him that everything would be alright...and do whatever it took to force this anguish to disappear—once and for all—from his life.
Slumping down on the couch, she reached for her iPad. She knew it was going to be a very long afternoon. However, her fingers only led her toward the forbidden—that which Drew had specifically warned her not to seek out.
As Maxine began to weed through article after article, digging deeply into archives that spanned over three decades, a portrait of this unknown woman began to emerge.
Louise Reynolds, by all accounts of those who knew her before she retreated to her reclusive sphere, was simply just the average, middle-class New Yorker. In the countless photos that had appeared in the press over the years, there was an obvious distinction between “before” and “after” in her life.
She was a pretty woman with sleek raven hair and warm brown eyes. No one would have ever considered her to be overweight, but she was a tall woman with a large frame. She’d always dressed well and took extra time with her appearance every day. Even if she just walked around the corner to the deli, Louise had to look presentable.
Single, she lived in the apartment above her mother in a two-family home in Brooklyn, which was owned by an uncle. They were responsible for the taxes and the upkeep since her uncle retired to Florida, but he wanted to keep the house as an investment for his children one day. Louise and her mother did their very best to maintain a pristine home.
Louise was paid well for her work as a paralegal at a globally renowned law firm. In her late twenties at the time, she dated but she never managed to find the right one. She enjoyed her time with her friends outside work—friendships she’d built since her childhood on those same streets where she lived. She occasionally traveled. She loved to shop for both herself and for those she loved. And she lived a full life…until her mother began to show the early signs of dementia.
Bit by bit, Louise’s life began to unravel.
Initially, she missed a day here or there at work, citing her own ailments as an excuse. However, life seemed to come to a complete stop the day that the police phoned her while she sat in her cubicle eating her lunch. The officer informed her that her mother had been found meandering through traffic on a busy Brooklyn street not far from the on-ramp to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
Since her father passed away fifteen years before, her mother had only Louise to rely on. That same day, Louise made the decision that would ultimately be her doom, and she took a family emergency sabbatical.
Throughout her lifetime, Louise exhibited strong maternal instincts, often misguided, with her friends and family. She always wanted to be the one that everyone went to with their problems. In fact, she seemed to thrive in tragedy. While she wanted children, that dream never came to fruition. Instead, she played the mother to whomever needed her most at the moment.
Caring for her own parent, in many ways, fed that need that she’d never fulfilled by having a family of her own.
All the while, however, she upheld the hope that she could take a few weeks off to prepare her mother’s affairs, then return to a somewhat normal life. That dream of normalcy, though, dwindled with each day.
As one month passed into two—then three—she began to wonder when and if she’d ever return to the firm. Long-ter
m care facilities proved too costly, and the cheaper options were just too far away for Louise to visit. All she could manage to secure with her limited finances and her mother’s healthcare insurance was the occasional stopover from a visiting nurse service.
With her mother’s mind deteriorating every passing day, Louise couldn’t just leave her alone and return to the office. She had only one choice, and that was to quit her job to care for her mother full-time.
The house that her mother once kept so meticulously fell slowly into a state of disrepair with paint chipping, the roof leaking and aging appliances breaking down. Once the winter arrived, the furnace worked intermittently, and in the summer, she didn’t have the extra funds to support an air conditioner. As the bills began to mount, Louise found herself drowning in debt, and the credit cards she’d worked so hard to pay down each month became an increasing issue.
Soon, her friends started to disappear. Occasionally, someone from the block would drop in, but most of the people she knew were busy with their own families at that point. They had time to socialize when it was fun for them, but lending a helping hand proved far too encompassing.
Eventually, Louise had a bit of a breakdown of her own, buckling under the stress of caring for her mother. She needed help, but she was far too busy chasing after her elderly charge to seek out someone to talk to. The progression of her mother’s dementia eroded her core as she watched that soft-spoken nurturing woman she loved fall into a state of constant decline. Louise did everything—from the basics of cooking and housework to cleaning up after her mother when she soiled her clothes—and her exhaustion caught up with her.
When she’d awakened one morning to find her mother unresponsive in her rented hospital bed, Louise almost sighed with relief. Two hours later, however, she sat in an empty waiting room at the hospital and wondered how she’d even cover the costs of a funeral without completely obliterating her credit line. What little money her mother had left her wouldn’t even pay for a proper casket. Her problems were far from over. In fact, they hadn’t even yet begun.
Within a short time, Louise became a shell of her former self. She’d long stopped wasting time on make-up and clothes in the mornings. In truth, she considered herself lucky if she even made it out of bed before noon. When she went out, it was only to circle the block to the grocery store or to stop by to see her elderly neighbor in whom she’d taken an interest since her mother died.
Perhaps she could have asked for her old job back or applied for something part-time, but in the span of the years that she’d spent taking care of her mother, business transactions transcended into the digital age. With the computer revolution taking over the global economy, new sets of skills had to be developed. Louise had none of that training, and she couldn’t afford to go back to school for a refresher course.
Nor could she muster the strength. On most days, she only made it to the mailbox. She bought only necessities and socked every penny that she could away to cover the taxes on the house. Often, a week passed when she ate nothing but a peanut butter sandwich a day, and if she was lucky, a Styrofoam cup of ramen noodles.
Every now and then, she began to see a familiar face on her way to the grocery store. Had she returned to her old self, she would have recognized that this man she often spotted on the corner, smoking a cigarette or sipping coffee, had taken notice of her. When at last he finally struck up a conversation, Louise was stunned.
Fred Drum was a rather well-dressed man, maybe a few years her senior, with a shady smile that wouldn’t have fooled others. He was a rather tall man, standing around six feet. With slick black hair and moody brown eyes, Fred was a handsome man, barring the scar on his chin from the cut of a broken beer bottle in a barroom brawl. To Louise, he would say that he’d fallen and cut himself as a child rather than risk having to explain that he often cheated at poker. He kept himself rather well, considering the life he led, but Fred never worried. He always had Plan B tucked up his sleeve.
Beneath his spiffy clothes and charming demeanor, however, he disguised his real persona. In fact, Fred wasn’t even his real name.
Louise had no idea, of course, that he’d actually been watching her for days, choosing her carefully and deciding when to make his move. He’d been squatting in a nearby apartment that had been empty for months, abandoned by the family of a former tenant who had passed away. A grifter, he’d swindled his way across the United States, always running away just seconds before his luck ran out.
It didn’t take long for Fred to win her trust, and soon Louise found herself inviting him over for dinner. She would have a mess of a house to clean before their date, but Fred was a bright speck on the horizon of her otherwise miserable landscape.
However, Fred needed a place to live and a steady piece of ass. He’d chatted with some folks in the neighborhood and discovered that her mother had recently died and that Louise lived alone in their two-family home. This woman could accommodate all of his needs.
In the beginning, he wooed her with flowers, chocolates, wine…every obvious romantic detail that could make a girl smile. Louise fell hard and fast for every false move he made, and Fred could smell a sucker from a mile away. He saw the sadness in her eyes. He knew that, as she dragged herself along those Brooklyn streets, she just wanted to crawl back into bed and feed upon her own depression.
Fred always had money, though he lied about how much and where it came from. He’d pick up an occasional odd job here and there, but mostly he earned his income from ill-gotten gains. While he’d told Louise that he worked in real estate, he’d actually used that empty apartment where he’d been staying to generate cash. He promised unknowing tenants that the studio was available the next month—only to have them show up and discover they’d been taken for a ride.
He was also quite adept at swiping wallets from handbags and pockets on the subway during rush hour. Fred always made sure to take the Number 6 train, as many of its daily commuters lived on the opulent Upper East Side. In fact, he’d grown rather obsessed with that neighborhood and often stopped along his way to visit a bar in that neck of the woods just to mingle with the locals.
Sooner rather than later, he’d made noises about the owner of his supposed “sublet” threatening to sell the apartment. Fred even went as far as to say that he’d likely leave New York since he wouldn’t have a place to stay, and Louise fell prey to yet another lie. He’d move in with her, she insisted. She had plenty of space, and she certainly welcomed his company.
Fred had always exhibited a bit of a controlling nature. Nearly every time they left the house, he’d tell Louise to change her clothes, to put on more make-up, to do something different with her hair. So desperate for the companionship and attention—negative or otherwise—that he provided, Louise took his comments in stride, and she followed his wishes.
Once in a while, Fred grabbed her by the arm and gave her a bit of a rough shove or pulled her hair a little too hard in his effort to capture her attention. If Louise dared to cry out, even in shock, she would only infuriate him, so she suffered in silence.
Louise received her first bloody nose the night that she’d made spaghetti for dinner when Fred wanted meatloaf. Two nights later, he’d split her lip, requiring her to get stitches, when she’d laughed a little too loudly during her favorite television program. At the emergency room, Louise would tell the doctor that she’d slipped in the kitchen and bumped her mouth against the corner of the table.
When they’d first met, Fred did love his whiskey, but he was a social drinker. As the weeks passed on, however, Louise noticed that he seemed to collect more empty bottles every week. Sometimes, he’d disappear for a day, and when he finally arrived home, alcohol always lingered on his breath. And she didn’t dare question him.
In fact, getting personal with Fred always landed Louise in trouble. A black eye resulted when she’d asked about his family, and he’d cracked her rib with a shove against the wall when she’d wondered where he grew up.
Not long after he’d moved in with Louise, Fred struck up a friendship with one of the bartenders at his usual haunt on Second Avenue in the East 70s. She was all of twenty-three, hadn’t yet finished her degree and was struggling to pay her way through one of the city’s community colleges. She’d taken a liking to Fred, and he always made sure to hold himself in check when she was working. Never hurt to have someone on the back burner, he reasoned. He liked her. She was young. Maybe one day, they’d take it further. Fred was always in search of something.
A little glitch was thrown into those plans one night, though, when the young woman rather tearfully confided in Fred that she was pregnant and had no idea who the father was.
Always ready with a story for anyone, Fred told her that his niece was looking to adopt a baby. Perhaps they could discuss the matter further. He wasn’t sure how much his niece could actually pay for the child—and likely couldn’t cover her medical bills—but the young woman seemed so desperate to find the baby a home where he or she would be loved that she considered his offer. Giving a child a life rather than jumping to have an abortion she might regret later was certainly a valid option. And Fred Drum told her that he was an attorney. Lawyers wouldn’t lie, or so she believed…
WRAPPED: The Manhattan Bound Series, Book Two Page 35