by Ann McMan
David continued to stand there. “Is there someplace in particular you’d like for me to leave these? I don’t want to just set this box down here. It’s kinda heavy.”
Gladys waved a hand. “Follow me out back, and we’ll put them in the shed.” She turned around and walked off without waiting for him to follow.
He rolled his eyes, then picked his way down the steps and walked toward the back of the house. Gladys was already halfway to the shed, which really was like a freestanding garage. It had a big, rolling bay door that was partially pushed back, and there was an overhead light on inside. He could see shelves stacked high with flowerpots and pyramids of spongy, green blocks of Oasis. There were bags of soil and tins of plant fertilizer all over the place.
Gladys stood to the side when he entered the shed. Half of the space was set up as a man’s workshop. There was an impressive-looking, rolling toolbox that was at least five feet high, and a banged-up auto creeper. Cans of motor oil and fuel injector cleaner were stacked on every surface. He also noticed a pretty raunchy-looking pinup calendar tacked to a support beam, and he wondered why Gladys had left that hanging there. David was no prude, but judging by the content of the photo, it was pretty clear that Beau’s tastes ran to the exotic.
Whatever car Beau had been working on sat there, too—buried beneath a pile of grimy-looking canvas tarps.
Gladys gestured toward a big, beat-up table that sat on the opposite side of the space. It was shoved up against a sidewall, beneath a dirty window that had several cracked panes. The surface of the table was littered with every imaginable kind of gardening tool, and about two-dozen spools of florist’s wire.
“Just put them down there,” she said. “I’ll deal with them later.”
Judging by the look of things, David doubted that Gladys would be dealing with much of anything later. He followed orders and deposited the box where she had indicated. Then he turned around to face her.
Gladys stood wrapped in a beam of light that poured down from the naked bulb above her head. Her small frame cast comically-large shadows across the canvas-covered car behind her. The yellow light made her skin look like parchment.
Part of the tarp was torn near the back bumper, and David could see a swath of bright red metal. It looked like it belonged to some kind of muscle car. He thought something about the lines of the car looked familiar, and he took a step toward it for a closer look.
“What car is this?” he asked.
She shrugged. “That’s Beau’s old Chevy. He never did get the dern thing running—even though he worked on it pretty much day and night.”
“It doesn’t run?” David asked. He walked to it and lifted up part of the tarp to get a closer look at it.
Gladys shook her head. “He towed it out to Junior’s, but Junior said it would cost about twenty-five hundred dollars to fix whatever was wrong with it. Beau was tryin’ to save the money for it.” She dropped her gaze to the floor. “I wish I’d a known how he was tryin’ to save the money, I maybe could’ve helped him out some.”
David looked at her. “None of that was your fault, Gladys. Beau had an addiction. He couldn’t really control what he was doing.”
“I don’t know if that’s true or not,” she said. “He really could’ve hurt those two girls.”
“But he didn’t. That’s what you have to remember. He didn’t.”
She looked at him with her small, sad eyes. “I just wish I knew how to make it up to them—up to everyone.”
David laid a tentative hand on her shoulder. Through the thin fabric of her jacket, it felt like there was no flesh on top of the bone. “Gladys—believe me. No one blames you for what happened. And no one expects you to atone for it, either. It’s all in the past.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze. “You need to move on. Syd has. Lizzy has. The town has. It’s time for you to try, too.”
“I just wish I knew how.”
David didn’t know what else to say to her, so he didn’t say anything. They stood there in silence, with his hand resting on her shoulder. After a minute, she looked up at him.
“Do you wanna see Beau’s car?”
He nodded. “I’d really like that.”
Together, they folded the canvas back to uncover it. What David saw took his breath away. Beneath all those grime-covered tarps sat a vintage, perfectly reconditioned, bright red, ’68 Chevy Camaro.
He gazed at Gladys in amazement.
“If you’re interested,” he said, “I think I have an idea about something you can do that will benefit the entire community.”
She gave him a surprised look. “What’s that?”
“Let’s just say that it involves this car, and about twenty-five hundred dollars.”
“I don’t have twenty-five hundred dollars,” she said.
He smiled. “You leave that part to me.” He ran his hand along the shallow trunk line of the car. “If we play our cards right, this little beauty can heal a whole slew of wounds, and bring an entire town back together again.”
Gladys didn’t seem to understand a word he was saying. She stared at him for so long that David was afraid she’d lapsed into some kind of trance. Then she nodded.
“Okay,” she said, releasing the tarp. It dropped to the floor with a thud, and a cloud of dust rose up around it. “It’s yours.”
Chapter 7
THE CAB RIDE to the UVA Medical Center from the small, Charlottesville Airport took less than ten minutes. She was meeting with the ER Chief at noon, then heading straight back to the airport for the short return flight to Baltimore.
She asked the driver just to wait on her—she wouldn’t be long.
Her decision to come here was a last-minute thing, and she didn’t normally operate that way. In, fact, she never operated that way. But this was different. A lot of things in her life were different now, and it was time to tie off some loose ends. Too much time had already been lost—by all of them.
In her view, enough was enough.
She knew that Maddie could argue—convincingly and with great eloquence—that this was none of her business. And she’d be right about that—to a point. But for too many years, she had allowed Maddie to call the shots in determining what roles they played in each other’s lives. And she had paid a hefty price for that. Now? Now she had an opportunity to try and clean up part of a mess she had helped to create, or, at least, perpetuate. And she was going to try and do it—regardless of the fallout.
She didn’t know what kind of reception to expect, but she didn’t really care.
She made her way to Dr. Leavitt’s private office, and was shown inside to wait on him. The receptionist assured her that he would only be a few more minutes. She had taken pains to arrange the appointment ahead of time, but she had used her assistant’s name, to preserve her anonymity.
She didn’t have to wait long. She was standing near a window that overlooked a grassy courtyard area of the medical campus when the door opened, and he entered.
“Miss Alvarez?” he said. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.”
She turned around. “Hello, Art.”
He stared at her for a moment without saying anything. She could tell that he was trying to make sense out of what he was seeing.
“Celine?” He looked and sounded confused—as if he couldn’t take in who was standing before him.
She nodded. The years had been kind to him. He was grayer and a bit thicker through the middle, but still robust and handsome.
“How long has it been, now?” she asked. “Twenty years?”
“Nearly twenty-six,” he said, in a quiet voice.
She nodded slowly. “I apologize for the subterfuge, but, frankly, I wasn’t certain that you would consent to meet with me.”
He slowly shook his head. “I’m sorry, Celine.”
His apology just hung there in the air between them. He could have been apologizing for keeping her waiting, or for having an affair with her husband more than thirty years ago, or for climate change.
<
br /> “I’m just so surprised to see you. Please.” He gestured toward a chair. “Sit down.”
She complied. Art sat down in a chair facing hers.
“I heard about your accident, of course. I’m so grateful that you survived, Celine. You look . . . wonderful.”
“Thank you. That was a seminal experience for me, as I’m sure you can imagine.”
He nodded.
“As tragic as those events were, Maddie and I managed to make use of them to find our way back to each other.”
“I know that,” he said. “And I’m happy for you both.”
“Unfortunately, one of the casualties of that experience seems to be your relationship with Maddie, and I take responsibility for that. I’m sure you know that I told her about your . . . about you and Davis. But I don’t know if you fully understand why I felt I had to do so.”
He reached out to touch her on the arm, then quickly withdrew his hand. “You don’t owe me any explanation for that, Celine.”
“Yes I do, Art. You’re important to Maddie, and I know how much you love her.”
“That’s always been true.”
“I know it has. And she needs you, Art—especially now.”
He sighed. “I got a letter from her last year. She wasn’t exactly angry, but she was hurt and confused.” He met her eyes. “I tried to contact her numerous times, but she said she wasn’t ready to see me yet.” He shrugged. “I didn’t really know what to do, so I just gave up. I hoped that in time, she’d relent, and we’d be able to talk about things.”
“Her father meant everything to her. Finding out that he withheld so much of who he really was to her was a devastating blow. It was like she lost him twice. I felt that I had to tell her the truth. She was shrewd enough to figure out that there were some missing pieces that explained why our marriage fell apart. And I didn’t help matters by my delusional insistence that none of my life with Davis ever happened.” She sighed. “I lay there for two days in that ICU ward, promising any god who was listening that if I got another chance to make things right with my daughter, I wouldn’t waste it.” She met his eyes. “So I didn’t.” She took hold of one of his hands. “And I don’t think you should, either.”
His eyes filled with tears.
“She needs you, Art. She needs us both.”
He raised his free hand to wipe at his eyes. “I don’t know what to do.”
Celine smiled at him. “Seriously? You manage an ER in one of the best level III trauma centers in the country, and you don’t know what to do about a stubborn internist who’s acting like a first-year medical student?”
He gave her an embarrassed smile. “I guess you’re right.”
“I usually am.”
He laughed. “God, Celine. I really have missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too.” She stood up, and he followed suit.
“The past is the past, Art. Let’s leave it there, where it belongs. What matters now is Maddie. I’d like for her to have a shot at being a better parent than I was.”
He looked confused.
“I’ll let her explain that one to you. We’ll consider it an incentive.” She glanced at her watch. “Now I have to go, or I’ll need to refinance my house to pay the cab driver who’s waiting on me.”
“Where are you headed?” He asked.
“Back to Hopkins. I’m participating in a seminar at the Kimmel Center.”
“May I walk you out?” For a second, he looked just like the shy resident she first met more than thirty-five years ago.
She smiled at him. “I’d like that.”
They started toward the door. “Celine?” He touched her arm to stop her.
She turned around.
“Davis really loved you,” he said.
She stared at him for a moment. “I know. I loved him, too.”
“For what it’s worth. I’m eternally sorry for the way everything fell apart.”
She nodded. “Me, too.”
They left the office and headed for the bank of elevators at the end of the hall.
TWO HUNDRED MILES away, Maddie walked into their makeshift, downstairs bedroom, and held out a rolled-up paper bag.
“Guess what I finally found?”
Syd was already in bed for the night, and lay propped up on pillows, reading. She lowered her book and studied the bag for a moment. “Your lost virtue?”
“Very funny.” Maddie tossed the bag onto the bed. “I suppose I should be insulted that you’d think my virtue would fit into a bag this small.”
“No,” Syd smiled at her sweetly, “only the part you lost.”
Maddie looked perplexed. “Is that a compliment?”
“Of course it is, darling. You’re so damn cute when you’re literal.” She hauled the bag over and looked inside.
“Oh, good god. I can’t believe you brought that thing in here.” She smashed the bag closed and pushed it away in disgust.
“Well, what did you expect me to do with it?”
“I don’t know? Bury it in the yard?”
“Now there’s an idea. Imagine the fun anthropologists will have when they unearth this relic in about five hundred years.”
“Well,” Syd said thoughtfully. “If they’re digging around here, it might be a nice break from all the Camaro parts they’re certain to find.”
“Who knows?” Maddie picked up the bag. “Maybe they’ll think this is a piece of the car?”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’m dead serious.” Maddie sat down on the edge of the bed. “It could easily have a direct relationship to any of those uber trendy, midlife crisis cars.”
“Like your Lexus?” Syd asked.
Maddie looked at her in disbelief.
“Oh, don’t look so offended. You know it’s true.”
“Hey . . . if memory serves, you’re the one who turned into a puddle of drool when you first saw my car.”
Syd rolled her eyes. “That wasn’t because of the car, you nimrod.”
“It wasn’t?”
“Of course not. It was because of you, inside the car.”
Maddie squinted at her. “Wouldn’t that seem to suggest the same thing?”
“What? That you bought the Lexus to ratchet up your waning hotness factor?”
Maddie crawled across the bed to hover just above her. “Are you suggesting that my hotness is waning?”
Syd took a moment to consider Maddie’s hotness. It was pretty impressive—especially when viewed from a distance of about six inches.
“Nuh uh.” She ran her hands up under Maddie’s t-shirt. “We’re not talking about tonight.”
“We’re not?” Maddie closed the distance and kissed her.
Syd moaned and pulled her down so she was lying on top of her.
“Hey . . .” Maddie tried to lift herself back up, but Syd held her in place. “What about your foot?”
“Screw my foot,” Syd muttered into her neck.
“Right idea—wrong body part.”
“Come on, honey, you’re brilliant.” Syd kissed along her jaw. “Figure something out.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Maddie whispered.
“This from the woman who ‘stabilized’ my damaged foot without anesthetic?” Syd used her hands to try and close the deal. Her strategy seemed to be working.
“That was different,” Maddie managed to gasp. “It was an emergency.”
Well. Her strategy mostly seemed to be working.
In desperation, she bit down on Maddie’s ear. “Believe me, Dr. Strangelove. This is an emergency, too.”
Maddie drew back and kissed her again—hard.
“You really wanna do this?” she whispered against her lips.
“Do you really have to ask?” Syd threaded her hands into Maddie’s long hair and pulled her closer.
“Well, then,” Maddie said, seductively. “I know just what we need.”
“You do?” Syd was pretty far-gone, but she still kn
ew how to smell a rat.
“Sure.” Maddie winked at her. “It’s in the bag, baby.”
Syd dropped her hands.
“You come anywhere near me with the contents of that bag, and you’ll be trying to figure out how to maneuver around two broken body parts—mine and yours.”
Maddie sighed. She grabbed the paper bag in question and gave it a good heave. It went flying across the room and landed with a thud behind a large, potted ficus tree.