Home Again Page 10

Francis could feel the heat crawling up his cheeks. He saw Lina’s wicked grin and knew she saw his blush. “I miss the days when I could wash your mouth out with soap.”

  “You never did that.”

  “No, I missed my chance, and now it’s too late.”

  “I’ll rinse with tequila, how’s that?”

  He stopped suddenly and turned to her. “That’s not funny.” He knew he should say more, but things were going well—she didn’t seem to be angry at him for siding with Madelaine on her birthday. He didn’t want to rock the boat. Coward, he thought, cringing inwardly, but still he didn’t say more. “What do you say we get something to eat and rent a movie?”

  Lina sighed. “Mom tied up in the paperwork of sainthood again?”

  He put an arm around her shoulder and drew her close. “You’re acting like a snot-nose teenager.”

  “I am a teenager.”

  “I know, I know, but allow me my little fantasies. I like to remember you as you were … when you didn’t wear combat boots and your favorite four-letter word was mama.” He was laughing and so was she as they made their way down the sidewalk.

  Beside his car, Lina stopped and looked up at him. “What was I like … you know, when I was a kid? Was I so different from her then?”

  Francis heard the pain in her voice, the uncertainty. He led her toward a wooden bench at the corner and they sat down. She huddled close to him, and suddenly she didn’t look nearly so cocky. She looked like a thin young girl in big, ugly clothes—a child eagerly wanting to find a way to womanhood.

  He drew her close. Together they leaned back into the bench and stared up at the crisp autumn sky. “I remember your first day of school like it was yesterday. You and your mom lived in that gross apartment building in the U District. Those were the days when she was doing her residency at the UW hospital and she was working around the clock. You spent your days in the pediatric wing—hanging with the post-op kids in the recreational therapy room. Your mom never slept. She worked and studied, and every spare second she was with you, reading to you, playing with you, loving you like I’d never seen anyone loved before.”

  “Fairy tales,” Lina murmured. “She used to read me fairy tales.”

  “Even back then, you were a fiery, independent little thing. On the first day of kindergarten, your mom took the day off from work. She dressed and re-dressed you until you looked like a doll with your shiny black shoes and pink hair ribbons and your Sesame Street lunch box. It was set up that parents could ride the bus in with the kids on the first day—and Maddy was so excited. She’d never ridden a school bus before, and she couldn’t wait.

  “But when you got to the bus stop, you turned to her and said you wanted to ride all by yourself.”

  Lina frowned. “I don’t remember that.”

  “Well, I do. Your mom almost burst into tears, but she wouldn’t let you see how hurt she was. Instead, she let go of your little hand and let you get on that big bus all by yourself. You didn’t even wave good-bye, just marched to an empty seat and sat down. When the doors shut, Maddy raced home, jumped in that junker of a car she had, and followed the bus to school. Crying all the way there and back.” He turned to her, touched her cheek. “She was so proud of you … and so scared.”

  “I know she loves me,” Lina said, staring off into the distance. “And I love her. It’s just… hard sometimes. I feel like I don’t really belong with her. It’s like some alien accidentally left me behind.”

  He tightened his hold. “That’s part of growing up. None of us know where we belong. We spend a lifetime trying to find out.”

  “Easy for you to say. You love Mom and me, but you belong to God.”

  He found himself unable to answer her. But he wished—Lord, how he wished—that it seemed as simple to him. “Yes,” he said slowly. “That pretty much sums up my life.”

  “Did you know Mom promised to contact my dad?”

  For a second, Francis couldn’t draw a decent breath. Finally he answered, “No, I didn’t know that.”

  Lina flashed him a grin. “Yeah. I’m sorta nervous, but mostly I’m excited. Pretty soon I’ll get to meet him.”

  Francis felt the fear returning, and on the heels of it came the shame. God forgive him, he didn’t want Lina to know her father. “Well,” he said at last. “What do you say we go get some pizza?”

  “You’re going to offer pizza to a cardiologist’s kid?”

  He laughed and it felt good, as if for a second everything in his world was normal. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

  Long after she’d left him alone in his room, long after the nurses had finished poking and prodding him, long after Hilda had fired off her litany of rules for the soon-to-be-eviscerated, Angel still couldn’t sleep. He’d asked for more drugs to help him sleep and been denied, so he lay there, wide awake.

  Thinking was the last thing he wanted to do in this godforsaken place. But he couldn’t force the images from his mind. Francis and Madelaine humping wildly in a four-poster bed, twelve kids asleep in the bedroom next door. A white picket fence around a sparkling clean jungle gym.

  He closed his eyes and knew instantly that it was a mistake. The memory came to him, sharp and clear and in heartbreaking focus….

  It had been daylight, a sunny summer day, and Angel had been confined to a hospital bed. Francis was beside him, talking. But Angel was seventeen and too angry to listen—angry that he was sick, angry at the stupid doctors who told him he’d have to change his life, that he could die if he didn’t take care of himself. He didn’t know what the hell myocarditis was—and he didn’t give a damn. All he knew was that he felt too good to be hospitalized. He didn’t want to be trapped in a bed his mother wasted no time in telling him they couldn’t afford.

  The summer stretched out before him, long and boring, and the diagnosis—viral infection affecting the heart—battered him. The stupid doctors kept telling him he could die if he wasn’t careful, that he had to quit smoking and drinking, but he felt perfectly healthy. There was nothing wrong with his heart.

  The hospital door opened, but Angel didn’t bother to move. He was too busy feeling sorry for himself. Francis leaned close, whispered an awestruck, “Jeez.”

  For a second Angel hadn’t known what his brother was talking about. Then he turned his head and saw her. A thin wisp of a girl—candy striper volunteer—standing in the doorway, her eyes wide and unblinking, her teeth nipping ever so softly at her full bottom lip. She had pale ivory skin and dark eyebrows that looked like they’d been slashed on with a marking pen. She was clutching a pile of Heartbeat and Tiger Beat magazines to her chest.

  Angel had thought she was pretty enough, in a bland, private schoolgirl sort of way, but then he’d seen her reflected in his brother’s clear blue eyes, and suddenly she’d become more, so much more. The first girl Francis had ever looked at twice.

  “Jeez Louise,” Francis whispered again.

  Angel made his move without even thinking about it. He flashed the quiet candy striper his trademark grin, the one he’d used mercilessly on the girls in his low-rent neighborhood. He knew he was good-looking—a tanned, dark-haired Italian-Irish kid with rebellion in his green eyes.

  She smiled back, slowly at first, and then more broadly. The smile transformed her features, tilted the corners of her eyes, and made her look exotic and Gypsy-like. Waves of light brown hair, streaked in places to the color of sand, shimmered in the artificial light.

  “I wouldn’t mind some company,” Angel said.

  Her eyes widened, and he saw for the first time that they were a soft silver-green. “You wouldn’t?”

  Francis sighed—a deep, tired sound of defeat, then scooted back in his chair and got to his feet, a tall, awkward blond kid, looking at her like a puppy dog, begging her silently to see him.

  Angel felt a stab of regret, but it was too late to remedy what he’d done, and he didn’t want to anyway. It was the first time in his life he’d gotten something Francis
wanted, and it felt good.

  The girl—he’d learned later that her name was Madelaine Hillyard—looked up at Francis as he left the room, gave him a pretty white smile, and whispered good-bye. She hadn’t looked at Francis again, not then and not in the magical months that followed. Months that changed all their lives.

  At first, Angel had wanted Madelaine because Francis wanted her; plain, unvarnished selfishness, made all the more ignoble and painful because of what was to follow.

  Quite simply, Angel fell in love with her. Head, heart, body and soul, he fell in love for the first—perhaps the only—time in his life. The quiet, unassuming teenager with the huge, haunting eyes had become his world for a brief, heart-wrenching summer. She saw something in him that no one had ever seen before—she believed in him—and when he held her in his arms he almost learned to believe in himself. But not enough; he hadn’t believed in himself enough….

  And though he’d left her, he’d never been able to exorcise her from his soul. That was the tragedy in all of it. He’d abandoned her, broken all of their hearts, and for what? For a life spent drifting aimlessly from seedy bar to seedier hotel room, telling and retelling the same tired stories to dozens of overly made-up eyes, whispering the same worn lines against a hundred pairs of lips. But never the right lips, never the right words.

  And here he was again, back in the hospital.

  Only this time, maybe Francis had come out the winner, maybe it was Francis who slept with Madelaine now, Francis who sucked her pale, pink nipples and kissed her full lips.

  He winced.

  Jealousy sluiced through him, twisting his stomach, making him suddenly angry.

  He didn’t want Francis to have Madelaine.

  “Christ,” he whispered, wishing that it were a prayer and knowing that it was too late for that. It had always been too late.

  Chapter Eight

  Madelaine sat at the edge of the couch, her bare feet pressed together, her cold hands locked in her lap. It was Saturday morning, and she’d gotten up early to fix a good, healthy breakfast. She’d dressed carefully in baggy sweats and an oversized T-shirt. She looked as casual as she knew how.

  But inside, she felt jittery and afraid.

  I promise I’ll contact your father….

  She heard the toilet flush down the hall and she jumped to her feet. Scrambling into the kitchen, she whisked out the cutting board and started busily cutting carrots.

  It wasn’t until she’d peeled and cut three of them that she realized she didn’t need carrots for breakfast.

  She pushed the vegetables aside and stared at the closed door. Her anxiety hitched up a notch. What if she couldn’t pull it off—what if she couldn’t lie well enough to protect her daughter?

  The bathroom knob turned, the door swung open. Lina stood in the doorway, wearing a tight-fitting ribbed sweater and a pair of pants that an NFL linebacker couldn’t have filled out. The crotch hung between her knees, and the frayed, cut-off hem dragged on the floor.

  “Hey, Mom,” she said, slamming the door shut with an army-booted foot. Dragging a backpack, she headed down the hall toward the living room. “I’m going to the mall.”

  Madelaine’s throat went dry. “Wait until you eat something.”

  Lina stopped dead. “You’re cooking?”

  “I-I am. Ham and cheese omelet and toast.”

  “Made with fake eggs and turkey ham? Yum, yum.”

  “You used to love turkey ham.”

  Lina rolled her eyes. “Get real, Mom. I was too young to know the difference.”

  “Well … you can eat the toast.”

  Lina tossed her backpack on the couch and shrugged. “Whatever.” She started to head back into her bedroom.

  Madelaine wanted to breathe a sigh of relief and let Lina go, but she refused to give in so easily. It was exactly that kind of cowardice that had broken their relationship—it would take a little bravery to bring it back.

  Rules. She reacts well to discipline.

  “I’d like you to set the table,” she called out to her daughter’s back.

  Lina slowly turned around. “You want me to what?”

  Madelaine wet her lips. “Set the table.”

  Lina eyed her. Ramming her hands in her baggy pockets, she crossed the room. “Mom?”

  Madelaine forced herself to stand still for the scrutiny. “Yes?”

  “Did we move to Stepford?”

  Madelaine burst out laughing. “Go on, set the table.”

  Lina didn’t move, just stood there, staring. Finally Madelaine couldn’t help herself, she started to squirm. It was a mistake to try to pretend to be a family, to pretend that a little thing like Saturday brunch could fix what was wrong between her and Lina.

  “Did you call my dad yesterday?”

  Madelaine flinched. There it was, the question she’d wanted to avoid, thrown down on the table like a gauntlet. “Father,” she snapped. She cleared her throat and tried to sound more rational. “He’s your father. A dad is … different.”

  “Yeah, whatever. Did you call him?”

  Madelaine’s gaze fell. She stared down at the carrots, little bits of orange against the jade-green tile counter.

  “Mom?”

  Madelaine forced herself to meet her daughter’s suspicious eyes. She tried to smile, tried and failed. A tiny headache pricked behind her eyes. “What?”

  “Did you call him?”

  “Did I call him?”

  Lina bit nervously on her lower lip. “Don’t do this to me, Mom.” Her voice broke, and for a second Madelaine saw her daughter’s stark, painful desperation.

  It was more than who is he? It was who am I?

  She set the knife down and walked around the edge of the counter. Looking steadily at Lina, she forced herself to reach out. Lina stared at her mother’s hand, then her gaze lifted and their eyes locked.

  Madelaine felt a rush of emotion in that single heartbeat. It had been so long since they’d looked at each other, really looked at each other. They’d spent months looking past, around, beyond.

  Her eyes pleaded with Lina for a chance. She tried to answer, but found that she couldn’t.

  “You didn’t contact him,” Lina said dully. “Why?”

  Madelaine maintained eye contact for as long as she could, until her guilt became a strangling hand around her throat. “I had such a busy day. This new patient is really—”

  Lina lurched to her feet. She started laughing—or was it crying? Madelaine couldn’t tell until Lina turned around, and she saw that her daughter was laughing through her tears. “Priceless, Mom. You were too busy to call my dad.” She grabbed her backpack and slung it over her shoulder. Sniffing hard, she ran for the front door and wrenched it open. At the last second she stopped and turned back around, giving Madelaine a look that was drenched in hurt. “I don’t know why I believed you.”

  Then she ran.

  Francis leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Later, he had to go see Ilya Fiorelli, but he didn’t want to think about that yet. And so he sat quietly, listening to Phantom of the Opera,

  Music filled the rectory’s common room, pulsed and pounded and then fell silent again. Slowly the next song started. “Music of the Night.”

  He sighed in anticipation. The music began leisurely, deftly, rolling in around him, drawing him into the world of the phantom. A lonely place, that world, filled with heartache and longing and unrequited love.

  He remembered—as he always did—the first time he’d heard this music. He and Madelaine had gone to the theater together. Sitting beside her, feeling her presence, seeing the sparkle of the floodlights reflected in her eyes, he’d felt close to Heaven.

  Let your fantasies unwind in this darkness which you know you cannot fight….

  Francis sang the words loudly, pretending for a second that he had talent. That he had a lot of things. The music built again, swirling, gathering power. High, pure notes as quivering and sweet as the song of a bird
perched in the air, then they dove and tangled and became melancholy.

  And the sadness came, as it always did, twisted in the midst of the glorious chords. Francis understood the pain in the phantom’s song, the agony of living in the shadow of the woman you loved.

  Ah, Madelaine, he thought with another sigh.

  “Francis?”

  He jerked upright, blinking at the sudden glare of sunlight that spilled through the rectory’s open front door.

  Lina stood in the doorway, backlit by the morning’s golden glow. She looked impossibly young and fragile, dwarfed in her baggy pants and army jacket. But it was her eyes that drew his attention, made him frown in sudden concern.

  He kicked down the La-Z-Boy’s velour footrest and shot to his feet. “Lina, honey, what is it?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Lina?” He moved closer, and as he approached, he saw the little things the sunlight had blurred. The way she stood, hooked to one side, half in and half out of his doorway, the swollen redness of her eyes, the cheeks stained blue-black by mascara and tears.

  And he knew. Lord help him, he knew why she was here, looking broken and lost. Madelaine had told her the truth.

  Oh, Lord… He felt almost sick to his stomach at the thought. Unsteadily he flicked off the stereo and moved toward her.

  And still she stood in the doorway, motionless. Pale, so pale, her bloodshot eyes filled with sadness. He remembered a hundred other visits. Times she’d come to him, laughing, bounding through his door, launching herself into his waiting arms.

  “I didn’t know where else to go,” she said, biting her thumbnail, watching him through those sad, sad eyes.

  He reached out for her and she seized his hand, squeezed hard. He saw a glimmer of fresh tears glaze her eyes.

  He shut the door and led her to the brown and gold sofa. Sitting beside her, he slipped an arm around her shoulders and drew her close. She pressed her cheek against his chest. He felt her shuddering, indrawn breaths. “Shh,” he murmured.

  He wanted to make everything better for her, the way he’d done a thousand times in her life.