Moments In Time (8 page)

7

“
I
T’S NOT EASY TO ESTABLISH A RELATIONSHIP WHEN
you’re traveling around so much, you know,” J.D.’s voice cut through her reverie, “but I was determined not to lose her. We’d gone from Philadelphia to Charlotte, then to Louisville, all in three or four days. It was exhausting. When we finally got to Baltimore for two nights, I called her and asked her to drive down for the weekend—we were only two hours away. It had been almost a week since I’d seen her, and I’d been thinking about her every day and every night. And after the weekend in Baltimore I knew that she was the only woman in this world for me.”

Maggie rolled her eyes at the statement, and he continued as if he hadn’t seen.

“We spent almost every weekend together after that,” he continued. “Maggie’d fly to whatever city we were playing in or I’d fly back to Philadelphia whenever we got a break. The more time I spent with her, the more I needed to be with her.”

“That must have been very exciting, Maggie, all the travel, being part of the entourage,” Hilary commented.

“I hate to fly,” Maggie snapped peevishly, “and I was never part of his ‘entourage.’ ”

Hilary leaned back with a smile, watching Maggie’s tension build, hoping she might crack soon and do something crazy. The show needed something to spice it up.

“Maggie means we spent very little time with the band,” he interjected smoothly. “Most weekends we spent investigating whatever city we were in, checking out the tourist sites. We were still getting to know each other. We’d come from very different backgrounds, you see, and
there was so much to learn…
”

T
he weekend in Baltimore had been wonderful, and so he invited her to join him in New York on the following Friday. His shows had been scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday evenings, and he was there at the train station waiting for her when she arrived.

They’d spent the next two days and nights exploring the city and sampling its offerings. It had been years since Maggie had been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and she begged him to take her on Saturday afternoon. He did so reluctantly, not being in the mood to play the tourist but later had grudgingly admitted he’d enjoyed the exhibits they’d waited in line to see. They spent one night in the Village, seeking out the small jazz clubs, another night uptown, enjoying the glitz and glitter.

He found that she was slipping quietly into his heart and was unable to let her board the train that would take her back to Philadelphia without knowing when he would see her again. So he had asked her to fly to St. Louis the following weekend. After St. Louis, there was a three-day trip to Kansas City.

The band had played next in Richmond, and Rick had surprised everyone by unexpectantly inviting Lindy to accompany Maggie on the trip. They’d split up after the concert, Rick and Lindy in search of a party, J.D. and Maggie quietly retiring to their hotel room.

“How long were you married?” he’d asked her later that night as they lay close together.

“About eight months,” she replied.

“That’s all?”

“It wasn’t a very good match,” she explained.

“What happened?” He leaned up onto one elbow, curious. He’d been curious for weeks and had resisted asking her about it, half afraid he’d find out she still had feelings for her ex-husband.

“Nothing ‘happened.’ It was just something I never should have done in the first place.”

“Then why’d you do it?”

“It’s a very long, involved, and not very interesting story,” she sighed.

“Do you ever see him?”

“Mace? No, not really. He calls once in a while to see how I’m doing when he’s in the city and feeling nostalgic, I guess. He’s a sports writer for a magazine and travels around a lot. But I don’t really see him if I can avoid it.”

“Bad feelings?”

“No, not at all,” she told him, then added, “at least, not as far as I’m concerned.”

“Then why do you avoid him?”

“You’re a persistent bugger,” she laughed. “I feel guilty when I see him, okay? He didn’t want the divorce, but I did, so he agreed to it. He wasn’t happy about it, but he went through with it because I wanted it.”

“Why’d you want a divorce? Did you fall in love with someone else?” he couldn’t help but inquire.

“No, I didn’t fall in love with someone else.” She was becoming tired of the subject. “I just didn’t love him.”

“Then why did you marry him?”

“Aarrgghh
…”
She pretended to strangle him, and they both laughed.

“Come on, Maggie, I want to know.”

“Look, I met Mace when I first got to college. He was a year ahead of me. He was very handsome and bright and sweet, and he was the first guy who ever fell head over heels in love with me—”

“I find that hard to believe,” he interrupted with a smile.

“
Mace was from a town about thirty minutes north of
where I grew up. I caught a ride home with him for Thanksgiving my freshman year. My parents adored him. He was polite and well mannered and didn’t have long hair”—J.D. grimaced self-consciously and she laughed— “and he was very, very Catholic. My father immediately opened our home to him. Invited him back over the weekend to go to a football game with him—my dad teaches history at the college in the town where I grew up.”

“Why didn’t you go there? Why’d you go away to school?”

“And be under Frank Callahan’s watchful eye every minute of every day?” she asked, wide-eyed at the very thought.

“I see.” He grinned.

“You’d have to know my father to really ‘see.’ Anyway, to make a long story short, I dated Mace pretty much exclusively for the next three years. Everytime I stopped seeing him, he and my father would gang up on me until I went back with him. Then he graduated, and I guess I took advantage of the fact that he wasn’t there and I started dating someone else. Mace waited very patiently, and when this other guy dumped me and broke my heart, Mace was there to put me back together again. He acted like nothing ever happened, just picked up where we’d left off. That’s when I knew how much he really loved me. I didn’t think that anyone would ever love me that much again. And I figured I owed it to him to try to love him, too. Unfortunately, I never really did. And my family was really upset about the whole thing. No one’d ever been divorced in our family. It was a hard pill for them to swallow.”

“Why? Divorce isn’t such a big deal these days.”

“Well, you know, I was the first child, and I’ve always been close to my parents. Particularly my father.”

“Daddy’s little girl,” J.D. teased.

“More or less,” she admitted.

“And it’s not as if you’re the only child, you know, what with a brother and three sisters. And you’re the only person I know who has a sister ‘sister.’ ”

“Oh, you mean Frankie?” She grinned. “That’s Sister Mary Frances Joanna to you. And she’s not the only
member of the family to take Holy Orders, you know. There’s Aunt Cecilia, my mother’s oldest sister—she’s been a nun for thirty-five years or so. And my cousin Agnes and my cousin Mary Rose—they’re both nuns, too. Now, as far as priests go, we have—”

“Enough,” he laughed. “I’m thoroughly intimidated by a vision of a heaven peppered with Calla
h
ans, one in holy garb crouched behind every cloud. My family simply isn’t in the same league with that ecclesiastic lineup.”

“That’s because there are so few of you and so many of us,” she laughed. “It’s just you and your sister, isn’t it?” He nodded.

“You never mention your father,” she said, straightening the pillows and making a nest for herself.

“He died when I was seven.”

“I’m sorry. That must have been rough.”

“It was,” he admitted. “It took my mom a long time to recover. It was maybe a bit easier on me, in some ways, because I didn’t understand what it all meant. All I knew was that he’d left for work one day and never came back.”

“What happened to him?”

“Heart attack. He was only thirty-eight. I remember how confusing it all was. They let me see him in the casket—I suppose so that I’d understand that he was dead. But
dead
didn’t mean anything to me, and the man in the coffin didn’t appear at all like my father.”

She looked at him quizzically.

“My dad was always so lively, so animated,” he explained patiently, speaking slowly, the emotion in his voice very evident. “Always moving, always talking, singing, laughing
…
The man in the box was silent and still. I didn’t recognize him at all. So I guess I kept waiting for him to come back, and I grew more and more angry with him as time passed and he didn’t return. I didn’t really understand what
dead
mea
nt until I was about twelve…
” His voice faded.

“What happened then?” she asked in a near whisper, caught up in his tale.

“Went out one morning to feed my dog and couldn’t find
him. So I went looking for him, up over the hills behind my mom’s house. I found him laying on the ground, his eyes open, but he was so
still
…
It was just a bundle of fur there on the ground. And I knew he was gone. And that’s when I understood what being dead meant. And that’s when I stopped being angry with my father and finally began to mourn him.”

He sat silently for a minute or two, a pillow propped behind his back, the vision of his father’s face suddenly vivid in his mind’s eye. He stared long and wistfully at the image. He still missed him, still had times when he wished he could sit and talk to him, like he did when he was a very small boy. Other than Judith, his sister, he’d never discussed this painful subject with anyone, avoiding any mention of his father for years. Yet tonight the words had come to him freely, and Maggie had listened to every one. She seemed to understand his silences, and he knew that he had found in her someone who would always listen, would always understand.

He looked at her and smiled wryly. “Poor Dash, he’d just gotten caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Dash? Was that your dog?” she asked.

He nodded.

“What do you mean?”

“
There’s a man who lives up the road; he goes a bit batty every once in a while. See, years ago, oh, maybe it’s been close to twenty-five years now, his wife took off with another man. Never came back. And from time to time, old George just sort of loses it, I guess, and goes out looking for them.”

“Looking for them where?”

“Up in the hills. Supposedly he’d found them together in a very compromising situation. He’d gone back to his house to get his gun, was going to do them in right then and there apparently. But by the time he got back, they were gone. Every now and again he goes out looking for them, where he’d found them before. I guess he takes his gun with him thinking next time he finds them, he’ll be ready. Only, of course, he never will find them, they’ll not be back—”

“You mean he goes out looking for his wife to kill her?”
Maggie leaned forward, incredulous. “I can’t believe he’s allowed to roam around like that, Jamey. He sounds really dangerous.”

“Only to the occasional sheep that crosses his path at night. Or a dog now and then—that’s what happened to Dash.”

“It would give me the creeps to think someone was roaming around outside my house in the dark with a gun.” She shivered. “Don’t you worry about your mother or your
sister?”

“Of course not. We’ve all known him all our lives. He’d not harm any of us. It’s his wife he’s looking for—”

“Jamey, anybody who would mistake a sheep or a dog for his wife probably can’t be relied upon to be discriminate when he’s got a gun in his hands.”

“Well, for the most part, we just feel sorry
for him. It’s sad, in a way…
I’d have thought you’d have more compassion.”

“I’d be more inclined toward compassion if he was locked away someplace. The guy obviously needs help.”

“And we obviously need to spend a little less time talking here.” He reached for her, pulling her to him. “You know, I never realized just how long a week c
ould be…
”

The weekend had passed with incredible speed, and all too soon he found himself standing alone in the parking lot watching her drive away, feeling more lost than he’d ever felt before. Everything that made sense to him in this life, everything that made the sun warm to his skin and made food taste good and made the music come alive was behind the wheel of that car.

He walked through the lobby and took the elevator up to his floor, pushed the door open with the key, and turned on the light. He stood at the window and watched the lights from the cars in the parking lot trace bright patterns with long glowing tails in the darkness. The room was so quiet now, and he felt very much alone. He lay on the bed and felt a sadness spread through him—a sadness stronger than he’d ever experienced. He knew it was more than just missing her physical presence. It was everything that Maggie brought
with her, everything she took of him when she left, that filled him with an overwhelming sense of desolation. He could not have known that night that it would be a feeling he’d come to know well over the years, one that would be with him every night he’d spend without her for the rest of his life.