A Sea Change (36 page)

“And what if someone else sees it and recognizes you?”

“You don’t need to put my name in it, Maddy.”

I said, “Don’t you want to talk to Dad? Tell him how you feel? Get it out in the open?”

Danny didn’t even stop to think about it. He just said, “Let him know it didn’t work. Let him know you know the whole story now. Make him sweat, Maddy.”

I was watching him while he talked. His face turned to stone, and his eyes were so distant that I reached over and put my hand on his arm. And then he suddenly switched on again. Became the charming Danny he lets everyone see. He smiled at me. It was a startling transformation.

Chapter
Forty-Two

Maddy watched as Nick tied down the tarp.

“You really do travel light,” she said.

His possessions fit neatly in the truck bed, with room to spare. They hadn’t even had to use the
QVII
. On this Friday morning their friends each carried one box up the two-hundred steps. They’d moved Nick out in one trip. It had been their farewell present to him. The only things left in Number 74 were his suitcase and a few odds and ends he’d need for his last night down on the beach.

There had been a party the night before. The outpouring of friendship and gratitude had left Nick feeling humbled. Sleep had been almost impossible. He’d gotten out of Maddy’s bed, and under the cover of darkness sat in the living room with his eyes and throat burning. So many emotions fought their way to the surface that the tears finally came. When he’d crawled back into bed, Nick wrapped himself around a sleeping Maddy and breathed in deeply, her familiar scent consoling him.

Now, Nick looked at his watch.

“We need to hit the road if we’re gonna get everything done and back down here before traffic reaches critical mass.”

Maddy tossed her purse on the seat and climbed in. “Have you got the directions?”

Nick fished a scrap of paper out of his wallet and handed it to her. “The plan is: keys, unload, lunch, and Becky.” He started up the winding road out of the parking area.

“What about the bed?” she asked.

The electronic gate eventually swung wide enough to let them out.

“I don’t think we have time for that, babe.”

Maddy eyed his preoccupied face and smiled to herself. “I mean, when are they delivering it?”

“Oh.” He grinned. “Sorry. The mattresses’ll be there tomorrow between ten and noon. The antique place isn’t delivering the bed until Wednesday. I forgot to tell you.”

“Doesn’t matter. I probably won’t be up there until then anyway.”

“Five nights apart?” Nick stopped at the red light and gave her a sidelong glance. “If I’d remembered that I would’ve done things a little differently last night.”

“Don’t worry. The things you did were just fine.” Maddy pushed open the vent window. “God, it’s hot for October,” she muttered. “And besides, you’ve got Becky for two of those nights. And I’ve got a lot of work to do, and you’re very distracting.”

She silently waited for him to notice the light had changed, then said, “It doesn’t get any greener.”

“And she says
I’m
distracting,” he said, putting the truck in first. “Who’s really bad idea was it for you to move in gradually?” Nick commented, knowing full well it had been his own.

*****

From inside Mary Delfino’s bone-crushing hug, Nick whispered, “I’ll ask you one more time – come stay with me.”

“You know my answer.” Mary pushed him away. “Where’s that daughter of yours?”

“She went to say goodbye to the mermaid. She woke me up at six-thirty to tell me that was her plan for the morning.”

“Yes, she was over here at seven. We said our goodbyes.” She paused. “She tried to talk me into moving in with you, too.”

“C’mon, Mary – this just doesn’t feel right. You’d be better off up there.”

“I’ll be happier here.”

“How can you be happier without me? Who would you boss around?”

“Hopefully, no one.” She smiled then placed her cool palm on his cheek and gazed into his eyes. “I’ll miss you, despite all your annoying ways.” The tease left her voice. “I love you very much, Nick. I’m so grateful for the unfortunate circumstances that brought you here, that I feel a little guilty. You’re a very good man.”

“It was easy with you around,” he said.

“Get out of here before I start crying.”

“Yeah.” Nick took a step backward. “I’d better go round up Becky.”

Mary could see his reluctance to leave. “Bellevue isn’t Outer Mongolia, Nick. We’ll be seeing each other often enough.”

He nodded.

“Be good to each other,” Mary said. “Remember how priceless love is.”

“I will. I promise.” He turned away.

*****

Danny sat on a water-polished log in the dappled sunlight. A heron stood in the shallow water of the tiny inlet, posing for him as he sketched. Indian summer brought the temperature into the seventies, but here in the woods it was still cool. And very quiet.

With the commotion over Nick’s move, he’d purposely stayed away from the housing area. He was surprised McKay was actually moving. But more than that, Danny was glad. Things had settled down nicely for him. He was doing more jobs for the residents with plenty of time left over to work on his drawing. And with Nick gone, he’d have more time with Maddy.

A movement caught his eye. He watched two Stellars jays land on an old tire swing that hung from the branch of a leaning madrona tree. One of the jays hopped into the center of the tire while his mate stayed perched on top, and Danny turned his pad over. As he quickly sketched the scene, the two birds suddenly took off as they heard the sound of Becky’s footfall just seconds before Danny.

He put a finger to his lips and pointing at the heron with his pencil, quietly said, “Looks like we both found his secret place.”

She tip-toed the rest of the way and sat next to Danny.

“What’s up?” he asked.

She shrugged.

“Are you gonna miss coming to the beach?”

“Yeah. But Daddy’s new house is pretty neat. It has a big tree in the backyard and he said he’d build me a tree house.”

He set aside the pad. “Is he almost done packing up?”

“I guess. He went over to Mary’s to say ‘bye.” She bent to pick up a piece of driftwood. “Look – it looks like a duck.”

Danny took it from her and turned it over. “Now it looks like a kangaroo.”

She giggled as he handed back the smooth wood. “Do you wanna know a secret?”

“If you tell me, it won’t be a secret.”

Becky thought about that for a moment, then said, “If you promise not to tell anyone, would it still be a secret?”

“Sort of.”

“Okay. Maddy and Chloe are gonna live with Daddy at his new house.” Uncontrolled excitement filled her voice. “Daddy’s gonna ask Maddy to marry him and he’s gonna give her the ring real soon. He showed it to me, and it’s really pretty.”

Becky’s guileless words suddenly immobilized him. Up until that moment he’d believed only what he’d seen. And what Danny had seen was Nick packing up and moving, and Maddy staying behind. There was no evidence she intended to go away – to leave him alone again.

“Can you push me?”

Danny hadn’t noticed Becky get up. She stood in front of the tire swing and he stared at her, uncomprehending. She repeated her question and he finally said, “Later, okay?”

Danny desperately wanted to be alone. To think. To understand why Maddy would keep something like this from him.

“But I won’t be here later.”

What he really wanted to do was go back to his cabin to sort this out, but he rose from the log in a stupor made up of equal parts self-pity and puzzlement, and walked toward Becky.

She smiled at him as she settled herself in the tractor tire. He must have smiled back, because her grin widened. He stepped behind the homemade swing.

“Push,” she said, and he did.

The heavy tire moved only a few feet. When it swung backward, Becky said, “Push harder, Phil!”

He obeyed, and the tire swing moved forward another few feet. He heard the weather-beaten rope creak, but didn’t take it as a warning.

Becky shrieked with laughter.

“Higher!”

As the tire came back toward Danny, he heard another – male – voice, calling her name. It was Nick, and he backed away from the swing. He didn’t want to see him. And remembering his warning, didn’t want Nick to find him with Becky.

Danny took another step back and  ̶  convincing himself she’d be alright for the few seconds it would take Nick to find her  ̶  he began to run.

He heard the rope snap. It sounded like a gunshot, stopping him in his tracks. But panic overtook him when he understood what had happened, because this time Becky’s shrieks were of fear.

Danny began moving again, away from what he knew would bring reprisals despite his innocence.

Her screams mingled with the Great Blue Heron’s, as it flapped its huge wings and lifted itself out of the inlet, following Danny’s flight.

Chapter Fo
rty-Three

“You’re doing great, Becks.”

Nick held his daughter’s right hand while the x-ray technician developed the film of her left arm. She nodded, the only reminder of her tears a series of streaky trails down her cheeks.

“It only hurts a little now,” she said, staring down at the temporary splint.

“That’s good, sweetie.”

The bruise on her left thigh was the size of a softball. The abrasion on her knee had been cleaned and bandaged. He sent up a silent word of thanks that nothing worse had happened, and he’d thought of plenty of those worse things in the time it took to get her up the two hundred steps and to the hospital.

Nick’s heart had come to an absolute stop when he heard her scream, and didn’t start beating again until he’d knelt next to her and she’d opened her eyes. They’d checked her head carefully, even though Becky told everyone in the E.R. she hadn’t hit it. And her labored breath right after the fall, just as Nick stepped through the brush and saw his daughter land in the shallow water and hit the log that had washed into the inlet – a moment he would never forget – her labored breath had only been the wind knocked out of her. Her ribs were intact. A lung hadn’t been punctured.

The on-call orthopedic surgeon came toward them, smiling and flapping the x-ray. “You’re a pretty lucky young lady.” He stuck the film on the light box and pointed. “It’s an incomplete fracture just above the wrist.”

Becky looked at the picture, fascinated. “That’s my arm?”

The surgeon nodded. “Yep. See where it’s broken?”

“Do I get to wear a cast?”

“You sure do.” He motioned for the technician. “Melissa is going to take you to a special room where you can pick out the color you want. Is that okay with you?”

Becky nodded, and Nick squeezed her hand before letting go. “I’ll be there in a sec.” He bent to kiss her cheek. “Don’t go anywhere without me.”

“Daddy,” she said seriously. “Where would I go?”

Nick turned back to the doctor. “So, everything’s okay?”

“She’s fine. Nothing to worry about. She’ll probably heal up so fast you’ll forget it ever happened.”

Nick shook the man’s hand and went to join his daughter, but he knew this was something he’d never erase from his mind. Or forgive. And one of the main reasons was because he knew Janet never would, either.

Nick stood at the pay phone, his hand on the receiver, weighing the pros and cons of giving Janet a warning call. Either way, the shit was going to hit the fan. It was just a matter of how many miles it was going to fly. He couldn’t fault her for that. But he knew, without a doubt, not only would she blame him for the accident, but she’d find some way to use it against him.

“Excuse me. Are you using that phone?”

Nick came to, surprised. A very young pregnant woman looked at him expectantly. The hospital corridor teemed with workers. Life was going on around him while he pondered his fate.

He shook his head. “No. It’s all yours.” Then he walked back into the room, where Becky’s neon-green cast was the focus of attention.

“Is there any point in my saying accidents happen?”

Janet had her arms around Becky, but the ugly set of her mouth was directed at Nick.

“It wasn’t Daddy’s fault,” Becky said, trying to wriggle out of her mother’s grasp. “The rope was old, and I was swinging really high and it just broke.”

“How did you swing that high, Becky? You said it was a big tire.”

Nick winced at Janet’s question, but couldn’t stop Becky’s proud reply.

“Phil got me started, but I did it myself.”

Nick held his breath.
Please don’t ask – don’t ask…

Janet’s eyes narrowed. “Who’s Phil?”

Shit.

But before he had a chance to get a single word out, Becky was already talking.

“He’s Maddy’s brother, and he’s really nice. He’s teaching me to draw better, and…”

“Becky, I think you need to go up to your room and rest,” Janet said.

“I’m not tired, Mommy. And I can rest at Daddy’s house.”

“There’ll be no going to your dad’s. Not with a broken arm.”

Becky’s face crumpled with disappointment, and she tearfully said, “But I’m okay. An’ I want to stay at Daddy’s new house.”

“Becks, do what your mom says. I’ll come up in a couple of minutes, and we’ll talk.”

She pulled away from Janet and ran up the staircase, the volume of her sobs diminishing, but not their intensity.

Janet got to her feet. Her palm connected with his cheek so swiftly, and so hard, he staggered.

“Your girlfriend’s brother?! Where the hell were
you
, Patrick? Or do I even have to ask?”

His face burned no worse than his rage. “I hope you got everything there was to get out of that, because you’ll never have the chance to do it again.”

“This is unbelievable! You left my daughter in the care of some stranger, while you were having a quickie with that woman?”

“
Our
daughter, Janet! And get your mind out of the sewer. Christ! I was saying goodbye to a friend. Becky wandered off, the way she always does. She’s a
kid
, Janet. She was playing and she got hurt.”

“That’s all you can say? She got hurt? She could’ve been killed!”

All his fear and anger coalesced into this one moment.

“Don’t you think I know that!” he roared. “Don’t you think I almost died seeing her fall?! Jesus fucking Christ, Janet – you
know
how much I love her! If I could’ve broken my arm instead, I’d have done it.” He paused and took a deep breath. “But it happened, and she’ll be all right, so let’s think about
that
instead. She’s up there crying her eyes out because her weekend turned to crap. Not because she broke her arm.”

One look at Janet’s frigid gaze and Nick knew his uphill battle for joint custody had just become a full-fledged war. She had all the ammunition and would use every last bit of it.

“Janet, I know you don’t give a rat’s ass about me. You never did. But I’m begging you to think about Becky. Don’t rip apart what little family she has left.”

“Oh, I
am
thinking about Becky,” she replied. “You’d better go up and say goodbye to your daughter.”

Nick squeezed his eyes shut in frustration. His fingers went to his temple. There was no way to make her understand the hell he was going through.

“All I’m asking is for you to be reasonable about this,” he finally said. “That’s all.”

He turned and headed up the stairs to his daughter’s bedroom.

Nick strode into Maddy’s house without knocking. He found her on the deck, the phone sitting on the arm of the chair she sat in. When she saw him, Maddy sprang to her feet.

“How is she? I called the hospital, but they wouldn’t tell me anything…”

The concern on her face wasn’t enough – and his love for her wasn’t enough – to erase the one thought he’d obsessed over the entire drive back to the beach.

“Where is he?”

“Nick, tell me Becky’s all right!”

“I mean it, Maddy.”

“I don’t know where he is.” She tentatively touched his arm then gripped his hand. “Nick, please talk to me.”

He pulled away. “Her arm’s broken.”

Maddy’s hands flew to her mouth.

“Now tell me where that chicken-shit brother of yours is, Maddy, or I swear I’ll tear this beach apart. I’ll turn over every rock until I find that particular worm!”