The Mischievous Mrs. Maxfield

by Ninya Tippett

  Simone didn’t look like she’d aged in the last near-decade, and her beauty would always be undisputed, but while I still treated her like the old friend she’d been to me, I couldn’t recall much of our relationship, if one could even call it that. It wasn’t a surprise because my thoughts were constantly filled with wild blonde hair of sunshine and eyes the deep blue-green color of the ocean.

  “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear you call him hunky,” Jason muttered wryly to Anna who just giggled.

  “I could describe my favorite parts of your anatomy right now but I doubt anyone will want to live through that,” she said before we all groaned loudly and Jason had to lower his reddening face.

  As embarrassing as my sister’s blunt and dirty comment was, I was glad to see her happy. She didn’t get her happy ending right after Jason’s speedy divorce from his first wife. Anna made the painful decision to move to London where she finished her studies while Jason tried to get his life back together. It was probably three years later that Jason came after Anna just as she was graduating, and after a year-long engagement, they married and soon had little Gabriel.

  “You may want to save that when there aren’t kids around, you know,” Francis said in a mock-reprimand, a teasing smile tilting up one side of his mouth. He wasn’t really complaining. If anyone had applied himself more religiously in his marital duties, it would be Francis who was now a proud father of five. Apparently, when he decided to embrace what could be left of his life, he decided to go all out. He had another health scare a few years ago, causing family-wide anxiety, but he pulled through stubbornly, telling everyone he wasn’t quite ready to quit just yet. Charlotte told him firmly that she’d kick his butt if he didn’t put up a good fight.

  As I sat and silently observed our large group of family and friends talking and laughing around the table, I decided that despite all the obstacles most of us had to overcome, we were a lucky and happy bunch. And for many of these good things, we had Charlotte to thank, because in a way, she was the force that brought most of us together and kept us there.

  A strong female voice rang out on the speakers and we all turned to the stage where the dean of the faculty of law now stood at the podium, about to finally proceed with the commencement exercises in this beautiful and sunny spring day.

  We all sat and watched attentively as the degrees were conferred, waiting in nervous excitement for one name to be announced.

  I couldn’t see her from all the bobbing black grad caps up front but I knew she was there, probably just as much of a nervous, excited mess as I was.

  “Charlotte Maxfield,” the dean called out just as my wife skipped her way up to the stage from the side stairs, a big, radiant smile on her face as she threw her arms around the older, silver-haired woman who chuckled heartily along with the audience.

  Charlotte released her and accepted her diploma, clutching it to her heart before turning to us in the audience, waving at everyone even as her eyes locked in with mine as if she knew exactly where I was in this sea of people.

  I grinned and waved at her, my chest tightening with a swirl of emotions I should really be used to by now, as I took in each of my lovely wife’s features—that honey-gold hair as wildly untamed as her spirit, those rosy cheeks that only darken into a deep berry shade when I show her just how much I wanted her, that defiant chin that dared whatever came her way, that full mouth that drove me a little crazy with both the words that come out of it and the maddening kisses it was more than capable of, and finally those deep blue-green eyes that sparkled with life and laughter and softened with love and kindness in the same heartbeat.

  It had been many years but I had a nagging suspicion that my fascination with Charlotte was nowhere near being cured. I didn’t want it to be cured anyway.

  Charlotte Maxfield is the kind of affliction that leaves something good where your defenses used to be before she obliterated them all.

  Many years ago, my father saw in her a brave, lovely girl who needed at least one shot at happiness.

  When I met her, I saw more than that, even though my resentment at being cornered had first clouded everything that probably rung loud and clear the moment Charlotte opened her mouth and knocked me off my very sure feet with her first witty swipe at me.

  “I want to go to Mommy!” Sky suddenly blurted out, turning to us with a pout that gave anyone a little cardiac arrest because hearts just weren’t made to resist a face like that.

  “Not yet, sweetie,” I told her with a soft smile. “Mommy still has to finish graduating.”

  “Will they give her cake?” Sam asked with such serious eyes. “Or maybe ice cream?”

  “We’ll have lots of cake and ice cream for her at her party later,” Mattie promised with a mischievous wiggle of his brows. “But you promised not to tell her so it would be a surprise.”

  Sky turned to my father, squeezing his lined face in her hands and pleading at him with large, watery eyes. “Grampa, will you take me to Mommy?”

  Dad shared a knowing look with the rest of us adults who were watching in amusement and wondering if Martin Maxfield could indeed be taken down by a mere six-year-old blue-green-eyed elf who knew her charms too well.

  “I swear, it’s illegal for daughters and granddaughters to have this much power over grown men,” Jake muttered with a small groan, reminding me of his own battles with his little girl, Lily, who had him wrapped around her finger almost as tightly as Tessa did. Since she was a miniature version of my youngest sister, it was no surprise really.

  But Dad, like always, was the kind of parent some of us could only ever aspire to.

  He placed a light hand on Sky’s head and leaned in to gently tell her, “You know that princesses wear their crowns because they have responsibilities, right? Well, your Mommy is one of the best princesses I’ve ever known and one reason for that is because she takes her responsibilities seriously. Mommy has to make a speech first to all those who look up to her, and then she can come and see you, alright? Someday, you’ll do the same and be just as great a princess as she is.”

  “But she’s not very tall,” Sam bluntly pointed out.

  Sky glared at him. “Princesses will get taller as they grow up, Sam. Mommy always says so.”

  We all chuckled at that, myself included, but I leaned down as Sam murmured a question to me.

  “Do heroes get taller too?”

  I smiled and clapped his shoulder firmly. “They do. Even if they don’t, they can be still heroes at heart.”

  A smile broke out on my young son’s face, his eyes shining with relief.

  What a blank canvas children could be. And what a selection of colours and paints their parents could offer them to make something of themselves.

  Thankfully, the parade of graduates through the stage didn’t last too long.

  A half hour later, after settling another debate between the twins about why dogs were better than bunnies for pets, the dean came back up on the podium.

  “This year’s elected class speaker has a long list of accomplishments that would make her sound very impressive to any of you,” the woman said, beaming proudly. “And normally, I would recite that list, as I always have during the commencement ceremonies in the last ten years I’ve been dean of this faculty. But today, I’m taking a page off this graduate’s book, and doing it differently this time—a philosophy she has exemplified from the first day she showed up at my door. You can call this a tribute—and perhaps it is—for this year’s class speaker deserves more than a tidy summary of how much she’s accomplished. She deserves our open minds as much as this world does. Without further ado, because she honestly doesn’t care to be attributed a few dozen important-sounding things, I present to you, Charlotte Maxfield.”

  I smiled and slowly shook my head as I watched my wife ascend the stage a little more gracefully this time.

  Trust Charlotte to win over even the most fearsome law professor in the university’s history.

  “Hello ever
yone,” she said, smiling broadly at the audience and waiting until the applause subsided. After several years of public speeches, social events and press interviews, Charlotte had gotten good at handling a crowd, but that may have more to do with the fact that she was just being herself more than the fact that she had just gotten a lot of practice.

  “First of all, I want to thank you, Dean Winslow, for not kicking me out the first day of class when I argued with you for half an hour about the rule of law,” she said, glancing back at the woman. “And for proving to me the many points you made that day in the last three years I’d spent under your guidance.”

  She turned back to the audience and grinned.

  “Many of you have listened to me talk so much in the last few years that the last thing you probably want today is do it some more just when you’re about to be rid of me.” She winked when the audience cracked up. “Don’t worry, I understand. I certainly hope that after all these years of your arduous study of law and the system that protects and promotes it, you can finally get out there and start serving those who need us because that list is never short. So I won’t hold you up much today. All that I really have to say is thank you—for making the choice you did and putting in all that time and heart into pursuing a purpose that demands not just the long years and money spent in law school, but the burning desire to make a difference that I hope would never die in you. People ask me all the time why I decided to become a lawyer when I could have done so many other things, and maybe the reason for me would never be specifically one thing or another. Occasionally, I just tell people that I love arguing with my husband and if I were to become a lawyer, I could insist I’m more right and win more often.”

  Charlotte’s gaze settled on me, warm and adoring, and a breath loosened in my chest as I gave her a small wave. She smiled, her gaze moving over to the twins who sat still and quietly paid all their attention to their mother as she continued to speak.

  “Other times, I tell them that I want a better world for my children, where they could grow up safe and happy. And I do want the best for them, but I can only do so much to make this world a better place.” She turned her gaze to my father, her smile turning wistful. “And sometimes, my reason is just that I want to be a hero in the sense that I’m willing to take up arms, metaphorically speaking, and fight in the best way I know how. There’s nothing wrong with that. As a wise man once told me, when I was just an angsty fourteen-year-old undecided whether I loved or hated life, heroes aren’t heroes because they worship the light, but because they know the darkness all too well to stand down and live in it.”

  As the crowd rose in applause, my heart clenched with a bittersweet ache.

  No matter how many lifetimes I spent loving Charlotte, I would never be able to erase the scars from her heart. Even if I could, I knew her well enough that she would probably refuse because they were badges of her strength, reminders of all that she’d lived through. The fact that they no longer hurt her would never fully satisfy me—I was selfish in that way where I wanted her to be completely untouched by pain from the past, present and the future. But like she’d taught me many years ago, when I let myself go too far to see to her happiness by bringing her mother back, the best thing we could do to make someone happy was just to love them as much as we were able.

  So in the last eight years, that was what I did—love her—every single day and every way I knew how.

  I drove her to school on her first day as a freshman, stayed up late with her on nights when she had to study for exams, and attended college parties with her so she wouldn’t miss out on the full experience. I drove out in the middle of the night to get her the dim sum she constantly craved during her pregnancy, kept telling her every day that she looked beautiful even as she stubbornly insisted that she was as big as a whale, and held her hand tight as she laid on the hospital bed with a brave but fragile smile on her face even though she refused to look down past the blanket as she was given a C-section to deliver the twins. I threw her a party when she passed her LSATs, worked at home a few weeks to look after the twins when she had to travel out of town for conferences and seminars, gathered her in my arms, kissed her and made love with her last night when she couldn’t sit still with the excitement of finally graduating.

  Several more lifetimes like this and still, I would never love her as much as she deserved, but if she was happy, then I was happy, too.

  Later that evening in our townhouse, just a few minutes away from midnight, when the twins were finally sound asleep in their bed after joining the adults and the other kids in the grad party, my wife and I sat cross-legged by the large sofa just across from the unlit fireplace, smiling at each other as we enjoyed our mini-picnic of cheeseburgers and fries that we had delivered.

  “The food at the party was excellent but I like this better,” she said, waiting as I dipped a fry into some of the ketchup and popped it into her mouth. “It might have something to do with the fact that I’m being hand-fed french fries by a gorgeous man like you.”

  I grinned and leaned forward to kiss her slightly salty lips. “You might like it more when I give you your dessert later.”

  She laughed and wrapped her arms around my neck, shifting herself up and over the small spread of food we had between us so she could straddle my hips. “What about giving it to me now?”

  I didn’t care if the french fries went diving to the floor or there was now ketchup on my leg.

  I circled my arms around Charlotte’s waist, finding the desire glittering in her eyes, and surrendering myself to the sultry heat of her soft, smooth curves.

  "I love you, Charlotte."

  She smiled. "I love you, too, Brandon—in this world and the next. Fate will just have to go with that."

  Cupping the back of her head, I gently pulled her down for a kiss, my arms tightening around her like I planned to never let her go. And I wouldn’t.

  Charlotte Maxfield was mine, and mine forever.