Moments In Time

by Mariah Stewart

  “Of course, it is. We’re all going to die someday, you know, Rick. Even you.”

  “Everyone except me,” he quipped, trying to lighten the suddenly gloomy mood. “The rest of you may be willing to throw in the towel when the time comes, but not me.”

  “I refuse to engage in a heavy conversation tonight,” Maggie announced and left the room. She returned with a bottle of Perrier and some tall glasses filled with shaved ice and bits of lime. “It’s been so long since we’ve been together, the four of us, and I refuse to not enjoy this reunion. Lindy, if you have any other unpleasant thoughts, I’ll thank you to keep them to yourself.”

  She filled the glasses and passed them around. “Here’s to us,” she said, “and to those who will come after us. To Rick’s million-selling album and to Jamey’s, which hopefully will do as well. To our friendship.”

  “And to the past five years,” Rick proposed.

  “And to the next five,” added Maggie.

  Only Lindy did not raise her glass.

  Maggie got the call from Rick on a day in late February. Lindy had delivered a baby girl, Sophia Margaret, the night before. Lindy had expressed no interest in the baby, Rick told her unhappily, not even wanting Sophie brought into her room at feeding times. She was fed in the nursery by the staff or by Rick in the dayroom.

  “She’s a pretty little thing, Maggie. Golden hair, pretty little features,” he told her, awed by the child, “and so tiny.”

  “Any baby of Lindy’s would be a beauty, Rick.”

  “Right now she doesn’t really look much like her mother.”

  “Who does she look like?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she wanted to bite her tongue.

  There was a long pause on the phone.

  “I don’t know. I wish I did,” he said. “I’ve never met anyone in Lindy’s family, and I’ve no idea what my parents looked like. That’s assuming, of course, that she’s my daughter.”

  “Rick, you know, if it bothers you, you can have a blood test done—”

  “No. I don’t want to do that,” he said, cutting her off abruptly.

  “Why not? At least you’d know.”

  “Part of me doesn’t want to know, Maggie. This way, there’s a chance she’s mine. And my name is on her birth certificate. That’s all she’ll ever need to know, do you understand? At least she’ll have one parent around for her.”

  “Where do you think Lindy’s going?”

  “After this dies down, I don’t know where she’ll go or what she’ll end up doing.”

  “You sound as if you expect Lindy to abandon her.”

  “Don’t you?” he snapped gruffly.

  “Give her a chance, Rick.”

  “I’ll give her all the chances she needs. But you have to admit that her track record is extremely poor, Maggie.”

  “Look, Rick, I’ve told Lindy that if she has problems or needs some help, to bring the baby here for a while. The offer still stands. Anytime.”

  She repeated the conversation to J.D. later that night while they lay in bed.

  “I just can’t get over Rick’s concern for this child. It’s almost unnatural. I mean, considering the fact that she may not be his and considering the fact that Rick has always been one of the most irresponsible people I’ve ever known, I just can’t understand it,” he said.

  “Well, maybe he doesn’t want history to repeat itself. If there’s any chance at all that Sophie is his, I think he wants to protect her from going through what he went through. Or, maybe he just feels guilty about getting Lindy involved with the drug thing. I told him he could bring the baby here if he had to.”

  “Did you also tell him the stork would be paying us another visit in a few months?”

  “No. If he really needed help, he wouldn’t come if he knew I was pregnant. But it’ll be okay if he shows up with her. Having Mrs. Price here all the time has been a godsend. I didn’t realize how desperately I needed live-in help until I got it. I don’t know how I functioned without her. And besides, Sophie could be a playmate for the little girl-to-be,” she said.

  “Ah, yes. Emma,” he mused.

  “Emma Kate,” she corrected him and repositioned herself inside the circle of his left arm. “You know, this time you didn’t say ‘If you’re wrong, can I name the baby?’ like you always do.”

  “I’ve given up. You’ve not been wrong one time. That’s a hell of an average, you know.”

  Emma Kate was born just one short hour before the televised music awards show announced that Shadows on the Moon had been selected as Album of the Year. The baby’s father watched with one eye as his manager accepted for him, the other eye focused on Emma, who was, at the moment his name was announced, anxiously awaiting her first meal.

  “It’ll only be for three days, Maggie, I promise,” Rick was saying, “just until I finish these three shows in New York and can find someone to watch Sophie full-time.”

  “You’ve found someone. You can leave her here.”

  “Thanks, Maggie, but the last thing you need right now is another baby on your hands.”

  “She’ll be no problem. Mrs. Price is here so I have extra hands.”

  “Do you think Mrs. Price might like to go on tour with me?”

  “No. And I’m not certain Sophie should either.”

  “She’ll be fine. As soon as we find a nanny who likes to travel, Sophie will learn to love it.”

  “Well, just make sure the references you check on this nanny are specifics other than her measurements.”

  “Not to worry, Maggie,” he laughed, “when it comes to Sophie, it’s strictly business. I don’t want some bimbo looking after her. She’s such a good little girl, Maggie, she really is. She looks more and more like her mother—”

  “Who is where, Rick?”

  He was silent for a moment or two, then said, “The last time I saw her was at the house. I told you I’d bought a house just outside of London? It was right before the tour started at the end of November. The last few times I called home she wasn’t there and the housekeeper wasn’t sure where she’d gone.”

  “I’m so sorry, Rick,” Maggie said softly.

  “I’m sorry for Sophie. You know, I’ve always tried to understand Lindy, always tried to just go along with her antics and let her just go her own way when she needed to and let her come back when she wanted to. I’ve never judged her. But I simply can’t understand how she could be so disinterested in her own child.”

  “If it helps, I think Lindy really wanted to love her. Deep inside, maybe she does. I don’t think she’d know how to express it if she did. And maybe she’s scared.”

  “Well, that’s fine for Lindy to keep herself safely locked away, but how do you think Sophie will feel when she gets older and realizes that her mother flat out wants nothing to do with her? I know that feeling very well, Maggie. It can come very close to destroying you. Sophie doesn’t deserve that.”

  “At least she has you, Rick. And I can’t wait to see her. We’ll see you tomorrow night.” Maggie hung up the phone.

  She went into the kitchen and made herself some coffee. The house was gloriously quiet. The three oldest children were at school, Jess a big first grader, Tyler in kindergarten, Lucy at nursery school for another hour. Emma was napping, and Mrs. Price was upstairs watching her morning television shows. Maggie took her cup into the sunroom.

  She shook her head, reflecting on the irony of it all. There’s Caroline, who’d give the world to be able to go back in time and have that baby she’d aborted three years ago and it’s breaking her heart. And here’s Lindy, with a child she can’t bring herself to look at and that she’d never wanted. And then there’s Rick, who has to be the world’s most unlikely candidate for father of the year, trying hard to protect the tiny girl from the pain he’d known as a child, changing his life to raise a baby that may not even be his.

  Sophie was an angel, with a golden halo of curls and the biggest blue eyes Maggie had ever seen.
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  “She’s a darling, Rick. I’m so happy you brought her to us,” Maggie told him as she lifted the child from his arms the next evening. The child adored her father, and it was clear that the love was greatly returned.

  “Well, I promise not to impose on you any longer than I need to,” he assured her. “An agency I contacted in New York has several potential nannies lined up for me to meet this week. If all goes well, I can come back for her by Thursday or Friday.”

  “No way are you taking her from us with her birthday just a week away,” Maggie protested. “She has to have a proper first birthday with all the requisite hoopla.”

  Rick had been a little late getting in from the airport the night of the party and had been pleased to walk into the house in time to see the entire group gathered in the dining room. Miss Sophia Margaret Daily sat regally in the high chair, reveling in the attention, not understanding the nature of it, but fully aware that she was at its center. Caroline walked in behind Maggie, carrying Sophie’s birthday cake. She set it down on the table and hugged Rick, happy to see him again.

  “I’m absolutely in love with Sophie,” she told him. “If I’d known you were looking for a nanny, I’d have applied for the job myself. She’s a doll, Rick.”

  “Well, had I known you’d be interested,” he laughed, “I’d have been more than happy to hire you on.”

  At the sound of her father’s voice, the guest of honor clamored to be released from her high chair. Rick lifted Sophie out and planted a loud kiss on her face. She wrapped her pudgy arms around his neck and pulled his hair so that they were nose to nose. Maggie looked carefully, but try as she might, could see no resemblance between the two.

  As the party began to wind down, a sleepy birthday girl climbed into Caroline’s lap, a cloth doll dressed in gingham, a gift from Lucy, clutched in her arms. She lay her golden head against Caro’s shoulder and closed her eyes as Caroline lovingly stroked her back. Rick had watched, a wistful expression on his face, as Caroline gently rocked his tiny daughter to sleep. The three of them appeared, Maggie thought, as pieces of the same puzzle.

  21

  MAGGIE COULD SEE THE IMAGE STILL, CAROLINE’S black hair spilling over her face as she had helped the little girl with the cornsilk curls onto her lap, Sophie snuggling into her body, eyes closing sleepily. Rick had stood ten feet away, though the smile he had exchanged with the dark-haired woman who cradled his child seemed to lessen the distance. A casual observer would have thought them a family, Maggie recalled.

  She had always wondered about them, Caroline and Rick, so easy with each other on the occasions they were together at Maggie’s house. They had always seemed to fit somehow, and yet Rick had been caught up with Lindy and all the complications of that relationship, and Caroline over the years had been involved with one man or another. It was, she thought, as if fate had brought the wrong people together. Two more opposite women were unlikely to be found, Caroline so full of love and warmth, so gentle in her nature, and Lindy, so much drawn to the darkness, so dominated by her own needs.

  Maggie’s head shook involuntarily, recalling the roller coaster Lindy had kept them on for so long…

  * * * * *

  As soon as the school year concluded, Maggie and J.D. packed up their brood and left for ten weeks in London with Luke. But the crowded quarters soon wore on J.D.’s nerves, and so Luke suggested they hire an architect to design an addition that would expand the living quarters to accommodate the expanding family. The plans for the new addition kept the style of the old section of the house and included a new, much larger living room and sitting room downstairs along with an extension of the kitchen and three additional bedrooms and two bathrooms on the second floor. With luck, it would be completed by the time Maggie and J.D. returned for the Christmas holiday.

  They visited with Rick and Sophie for a few days, but Lindy was nowhere to be seen.

  “I don’t think she can face you, Maggie,” Rick had told her. “Truthfully, there are days when she can’t face herself. Or me. She spends very little time here.”

  “Where does she stay?”

  “In London. With friends.” He looked away. “She’s into the junk again, Maggie.”

  “Oh, God, no…”

  “I’m sorry. I debated telling you about it. But there’s little reason not to at this point. I kept hoping, you know, that she’d straighten out”—his voice held a sadness deeper than anything she’d ever heard—“but it won’t happen. The last time she was here, she kept out of my way and out of Sophie’s sight.”

  “What’s she living on? What’s she using for money?”

  “I guess the money she got when her mother’s paintings were sold last year,” he said with a shrug. “They sold them all off, she and her brother. They made a small fortune.”

  “Any chance I might catch up with her this trip?”

  “You don’t want to.”

  “Yes, I do.” Maggie was angry to her soul that Lindy had so carelessly tossed aside the people in her life who’d truly cared for her.

  She tried her best to track Lindy down, but even Judith's circle of friends and acquaintances could not locate her. It wasn’t until they’d returned for Christmas that their paths crossed.

  She and J.D. had gone to a holiday party at a hotel in London given by J.D.’s record company, delighted to find Hobie and Aden in attendance. Maggie and Aden stood at the bar and watched Glory Fielding flit through the crowd, flirting with all the men. It was amusing until Glory had pulled J.D. onto the dance floor and wrapped her arms around his neck. J.D. made light of the situation by making faces behind Glory’s back to his wife, who was watching him like a hawk. She and Aden giggled behind their hands like schoolgirls along with the others at the bar who were entertained by J.D.’s antics at the expense of his unsuspecting dance partner. When the song had ended, Glory had turned to give Maggie a smug smile, unaware she’d been mocked by the man she was stubbornly determined to win.

  The large room soon grew crowded and hot, and Maggie, five months’ pregnant and not nearly as unaffected by Glory’s proximity to J.D. as she had pretended to be, excused herself and sought the ladies’ room.

  As she opened the door, a tall, lanky figure stepped past her. Maggie smiled absentmindedly, then turned in shock.

  “Lindy.” The name escaped unconsciously from her lips in a whisper, then again, “Lindy.”

  The woman did not turn around, but had simply kept walking down the hallway. Maggie turned rapidly, caught up with her, grabbed her by the arm, and spun her around.

  The two women stood and stared at each other for a very long minute. Lindy looked terrible, her cheeks sunken in, her once beautiful face devoid of expression.

  “Why’d you walk away from me?” Maggie demanded.

  After a long pause came the reply. “Because there’s nothing I can say to you, Maggie.”

  “Why not?”

  “Maggie, please.” She attempted to turn to walk away, but Maggie refused to let her pass.

  “Don’t you walk away from me, damn you,” Maggie hissed. “How could you, Lindy, how could you do this again?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it, Maggie.”

  “Well, that’s just too damned bad.” Maggie forced the thin frame against the wall as a group of people from the party passed by, glancing with curiosity at the scene. “I have plenty to say, and you’re going to listen to every word.”

  “Okay, Maggie, go ahead. Tell me how spoiled and selfish I am. Tell me what a terrible person I am for leaving my baby. Tell me what a fool I am and that I deserve the worst out of this. Tell me how disappointed you are in me, how you always believed there was something better in me… Does that about cover it?” She looked at Maggie with hollow eyes that had not a spark of light left in them.

  “That’s pretty damn close. You are the most self-centered, unfeeling, uncaring, stupid person I’ve ever known. And yes, let’s start with your baby.”

  Lindy turned her face. �
��I told you I didn’t want that baby, Maggie. I told you what would happen.”

  “Lindy, Sophie is a darling baby, she deserves—”

  “A mother whose head is screwed on tightly,” Lindy shot back with more emotion than her tired face had appeared to be capable of. “A mother who can love her. A mother who can read her stories and braid her hair and patch up her wounds. That’s not me, Mags. I can’t patch up my own wounds.”

  “Then let’s talk about Rick.”

  “I’ve nothing to say about Rick,” she said, turning her head.

  “Lindy, that man’s done more for you than anyone should ever be expected to do for anyone.”

  “I know that, Maggie. I just can’t face him anymore. I’ve let him down so many times. He looks at me, and I see the resentment and the disappointment and I know he’s disgusted with me and with what I am. But I can’t change it, Maggie.”

  “For God’s sake, Lindy, you could get help.”

  “There’s no help for me.” Lindy looked her in the eyes for the first time. “It only works when you’re committed to it, when you believe in yourself and know there’s something better for you than the next hit. Now me, I know that’s not true, Maggie. I know it’s too late.”

  “Why is it too late?”

  “Because I know that this is all there is for me. Sophie’s better off not knowing me, and Rick’s doing a better job with her than I could ever do. He does love her,” she said, adding casually, “He’s not her father, by the way.”

  “You knew?” Maggie’s jaw dropped.

  “Of course, I knew.”

  “Why did you let him think he could be?”

  “Because I was desperate and needed him to help me,” she replied bluntly.

  “This is the worst thing you’ve ever done in your life, Lindy.” Maggie backed away from her slowly, horrified at such despicable an act. “Letting him think Sophie’s his, telling him she could be when you know he’s not…”

  “Why? It’s worked out perfectly for both of them. He gets a chance to make things right for her, and somehow he’s releasing himself in the process. Don’t tell me you haven’t seen the change in him. And she gets to grow up loved and cared for and secure. She’s Rick Daily’s daughter, Maggie. She’ll have everything. She’ll have a chance to be happy. Much happier than if she’d been raised by her junkie mother and her pusher father.”