Home Again

  The pain twisted, turned into fire, and exploded in his heart.

  Chapter Twelve

  Rain drummed on the city streets, splashed on the asphalt roof of the building next door, and formed murky puddles in the loose gravel. Madelaine stood at the window, staring at the misty gray city two floors below her. Down there, it was such an ordinary October day. Nothing different, nothing new.

  The Madison Street stoplight blipped from red to green to yellow. Multicolored umbrellas moved down the slick sidewalks, weaving in and out among each other. Cars started and stopped and turned down corners, disappearing beneath green canopies of the neighborhood trees.

  Life went on.

  But not for Madelaine. Even now, as she stood there, looking at the sights she’d seen a million times, she saw things she’d never seen before. She noticed how the pigeons that perched on the windowsill stuck together, cooing softly to one another; how the leaves that every so often blew from the trees and stuck to the glass were steeped in color—red, gold, green, and brown—how the sunlight could break through the clouds in a spear of butter-yellow light that seemed to shoot from Heaven itself.

  Slowly she turned away from the window and moved toward the bed.

  Angel lay as still as death, his skin ashen, his lips pale as chalk. He was breathing—finally—without the help of a ventilator. Beside him, the cardiac monitor clicked away, spewing out a second-by-second account of the heart that was failing.

  Failing. Had failed.

  She plucked up the seamless, narrow sheet of paper and studied the graphlike analysis of his heartbeat, then she leaned over him, brushed the damp hair from his forehead. Her fingers lingered against his warm, sweaty skin. Come on, Angel. Come on.

  His eyelids fluttered, but he didn’t waken.

  She pressed her hand to the side of his face and closed her eyes. Quietly the memories tiptoed into her mind. She remembered the day she’d met Angel DeMarco. The mousy candy striper and the hell-raiser.

  That first day, she meant nothing to him; she’d known that, of course. She could see the falseness in his smile—the way it was just a fraction too calculated to be truly welcoming.

  Yes, she saw from the beginning that it was a lie, but she didn’t care. Even a fake smile was so much more than she was used to, and if she closed her eyes and listened only to his words, it was all so painfully sweet….

  With the distance of time, she knew what had happened in that moment when he’d first smiled at her. She’d been desperately lonely, and it had never occurred to her that someone would smile at her with genuine affection. Her father had trampled her fragile girl’s self-esteem until she expected much too little.

  Angel had come to her when he was discharged, come to her and held out his hand and whispered, “Come with me….

  Even now, all these years later, the memory was a current of electricity. She’d been afraid to reach out, but more afraid not to, and so she’d stood there, paralyzed by her own inability to decide.

  Come with me….

  The second time he said it, it was like a gift. She felt herself go hot, then cold. Words bubbled in her throat and slipped out, unspoken, on a giggling laugh.

  She knew he would turn away then in disgust and blow out of her life on the same wind that had brought him, and the panic of that realization made her heart hammer in her chest and her throat go dry. But he didn’t move, he just stood there, his hand reaching toward her. He looked at her, really looked this time, and for a split second the false smile faded and a real one took its place. She knew then, in that instant, that she would do anything—anything—to see him smile at her like that again….

  Angel coughed, and the sound caught Madelaine’s attention. She looked down at him.

  He blinked, coughed again. She waited for him to waken, and when he didn’t, she pulled up a chair and sat beside him, quietly reading aloud a passage from The Hobbit, which she’d begun an hour ago.

  Halfway into the second chapter, he opened his eyes. She waited, not even realizing that she was holding her breath. She closed the book and set it on the bedside table.

  “I’m gonna die, aren’t I?” He gave her a quirky, fleeting smile, and for a second he was the old Angel again, and she was the girl who’d loved him with all her heart.

  “I’m not going to stop believing in a miracle,” she answered quietly, knowing it wasn’t the answer he wanted, knowing, too, that there was nothing else to say.

  “Tell me about this miracle,” he said, “tell me about life with another man’s heart. What will it be like?”

  He said the words easily, as if he were asking for a bedtime story, but she saw the truth in his eyes, the fear he was asking her to assuage. He did want a bedtime story, something to cling to in the darkness of his pain, a reason to keep believing.

  She moved closer to the bed. “I had this patient once, his name was Robert, and he came to us as broken as you are. He waited four months for a donor, and when finally one was found, he almost wouldn’t go through with it. He probably wouldn’t have, except that his wife insisted.” She smiled softly. “Afterward, he moved back to his small Oregon town, and I didn’t hear from him for two years. Then, one day, he came by to see me—and he brought his newborn baby girl with him. They’d named her Madelaine Allenford Hartfort.”

  It was a minute before Angel spoke, and when he did, his voice was ragged and hoarse. “How will it really be?”

  The simple question hurt. He’d known that it was a fairy tale, that endings like that were for people who believed in them. “You’ll be on medication for the rest of your life. You’ll have to eat a heart-healthy diet and you’ll have to exercise. Millions of Californians live that way by choice.” She tried to smile, but found that she couldn’t. She leaned closer, allowed herself to stroke the damp, sweaty hair from his eyes. “But you’ll be alive, Angel. You can still act in movies, still throw temper tantrums, still be your larger-than-life self. Everything that matters in life will still be yours for the asking.”

  “What about children?”

  It took her a second to respond. “Did you want children, Angel?”

  He gave her a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Please don’t talk about me in the past tense. I’m particularly sensitive.” He allowed a silence to slip between them before he finally answered. “Yeah, I wanted kids … once. I used to wonder sometimes … used to see myself playin” ball on an autumn evening with a blond-haired little boy. Course, now …”

  Madelaine couldn’t breathe. The silence stretched between them, lengthening. Madelaine finally said, “Don’t do that to yourself.”

  He turned his head slightly, stared at a place just to the left of her head. “Next time.” His voice fell to a harsh whisper. “Next time don’t save me. I don’t want to …” He squeezed his eyes shut, but not before she saw the glistening of tears. “Not like this …”

  And in that moment, so many things fell into place. She gazed down at him, remembering and forgetting everything in the space of a single breath. This man she once loved was hurting, and though he didn’t know it, wouldn’t admit it, he was reaching out to her just like she’d always secretly prayed he would. Some part of him was counting on the candy striper girl to care about him again.

  He was the old Angel, the boy who’d taken her hand and showed her a whole new world, the boy who’d cried when he told her he loved her.

  This man, with his secret dreams of a lost son and his quiet admission of defeat, this man maybe she could trust….

  She lurched to her feet and turned away from the bed. Chewing on her thumbnail, she walked over to the window and stared outside, watching the silver rain fall.

  She was afraid of her own emotions right now, afraid she was feeling instead of thinking and every time she’d done that in her life, it had cost her dearly.

  “You know, Mad …” His voice drifted softly toward her. Almost against her will, she turned back to face him.

  He lay there, looking w
eak and broken. “You haunted me,” he whispered, trying to give her a smile.

  She saw the wrenching emotion in his eyes, the regret and the sorrow, and she realized that her own fear was nothing compared to his. He needed her now, needed her more than he’d ever needed that sixteen-year-old candy striper—and she needed to be strong. To face her fear of abandonment and do the right thing.

  “You can’t die, Angel,” she said softly, so softly she wondered if he could even hear her. She swallowed thickly, feeling as if she were walking out on a narrow, shaky ledge, but there was no turning back. She couldn’t let Angel die without giving him the one gift that might make him believe in the fairy tale.

  He gave her a shadow of that famous grin. “Watch me.”

  She drew her hand back and gazed down at him. “If you died, your daughter would never forgive you.”

  It had to be the drugs. He couldn’t have heard what he’d thought he heard.

  Your daughter.

  The words twisted deep. For a split second he felt a flash of pure, white-hot hope. “Sorry, Mad. I lost track of what we were talking about.”

  “I said you had a daughter.”

  “Is this a joke?” he whispered.

  He thought he saw a sparkle of tears in her eyes, then they were gone. She shook her head slowly. “You think I’d be that cruel?”

  “No. But…” He stopped, not knowing what to say or what to feel. “A daughter,” he said slowly, trying to make it sink in.

  A daughter. He squeezed his eyes shut.

  Madelaine had kept her from him, hidden his child away as if he had no right to even know of her existence. She knew he’d thought she had an abortion, and she’d let him go on thinking that, let him live his life without ever knowing he was a father. “You bitch,” he hissed. Anger was a black, bitter taste in his mouth, and he wanted to hurl curse words at her, wanted to make her feel as betrayed and hurt as he felt right now.

  He was glad when she flinched. Then, wordlessly, she reached into her purse and pulled out a black leather wallet. Flipping it open, she withdrew a picture and handed it to him.

  For a second his hands shook so hard, he couldn’t focus on the picture. He closed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing, ignoring the stuttering misbeats of his ragged heart. Then, very slowly, he opened his eyes.

  The girl who stared back at him was a mirror.

  His daughter.

  She looked young, with electric blue eyes and jet-black hair. The smile she wore was familiar—big and bright and mesmerizing. She was dressed in black, a man’s tuxedo vest over a T-shirt, and several black loops hanging from each ear. There was a cocky defiance in her gaze that made Angel feel as if he knew her.

  He couldn’t release the picture. He held it, stroking the porous surface, as if by touching the photograph he could somehow get to know the girl. His daughter.

  Slowly, the anger in him bled away, congealed into the cold hard rock of regret. Of course Madelaine had kept this secret from him—what else could she do? What choice had he given her?

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I have no right…”

  “No,” she said in a steely voice, “you don’t.”

  “I thought…” He found he couldn’t say the words.

  She nodded. “I know. You thought I had an abortion. My father couldn’t wait to tell me of your reaction.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  She looked away from him, covering her mouth with one hand for a long time. He knew how much this moment was hurting her. He wished he could touch her, tell her it was okay, that he understood, but he couldn’t do it. He didn’t understand a damned thing.

  “It was a long time ago,” Madelaine said at last. “After you left, Alex threw a fit.” She gave a tired laugh. “You will not have that greasy little wop’s child, do you understand me?” she said in a perfect imitation of Alex’s blustering voice. “He locked me in my room for three days. I waited for you….” She gave him a practiced smile. “When I saw the Harley, I knew what you’d done.”

  “Mad—”

  She pushed a nonexistent lock of hair from her forehead and went on without looking at him. “Alex decreed that I would have an abortion and there would be no more talk of this disgrace.” She drew in a shaking breath. “I agreed. What else could I do, where else could I go?”

  She swallowed hard and stared at her own hands. “I got in the limousine and let the driver take me to the doctor’s office where Alex had set up the appointment. I was going to do what he asked, just let him decide what was best for me.” She shook her head. “I didn’t care about anything.”

  He watched as she slumped forward, saying nothing for a long time. Then slowly she straightened, her chin came up. He knew that she was waging a painful battle and she was fighting the only way she knew, the way Alex had taught her.

  After a few more seconds, she went on and her voice was flat. “Everything changed when I got to the clinic.” She shuddered, stared blankly at the gray wall. “That cold brick building … the yellow sofas filled with girls just like me. I remember when they called my name, I jumped. I followed the nurse to the examination room and took my clothes off. I put on that flimsy cotton hospital gown and climbed onto that paper-covered table.”

  She shuddered again. “I stared at those stirrups and thought about what they were going to do to me, to my baby … to our baby, and I couldn’t do it.”

  Her pain knifed through him, hurt like hell. “Jesus, Mad…”

  “I got dressed and sneaked outside. The limo was waiting at the curb, but I knew there was no going back. Alex had made that very clear. I could only please him—the great, unpleasable Alexander Hillyard—by having the abortion. So I called the only person I could think of.”

  Angel knew before she said it.

  “Francis.” She smiled when she said his name. “You remember what he was like back then. Eighteen. Shy, bookish. He had just started at the seminary and he was on his way to becoming a priest. But he came for me that day, and the next day and the next. He saved us both.” She gave a breathy little laugh. “He didn’t ask any questions, didn’t say anything except Hey, Maddy-girl, you’re in the wrong part of town. He set me up in a halfway house for pregnant teenagers, and I loved it. I’d never known other kids my age, never had any friends except you, and I learned a lot. I’d already gotten my high school diploma, so I started college at sixteen. Thank God my mother left me a trust fund to cover expenses. I busted my ass to get through med school in a hurry.”

  Angel closed his eyes. He could envision every moment of her life, the way Francis was always there to help out, a shelter from every storm. Not like Angel, who’d never stuck around for anything or anyone.

  “Her name is Angelina Francesca Hillyard. I call her Lina.”

  I call her Lina. Suddenly she was a person, this girl in the picture who had his face. Not some imaginary word or image, but a real live person. A daughter who would want something from her father. Want a lot of things.

  Panic sneaked up on him, twisted him into knots. “Does she know about me?”

  “No.”

  He sighed in relief. “Thank God.”

  “You said you dreamed about a little boy….”

  “Dreams,” he said dully, staring up at the ceiling. He could feel himself going down the wrong path, doing the wrong thing, but as always, he couldn’t change it. Didn’t really want to. He felt empty inside, eviscerated by her revelation and his own fear. “I said I’d wondered about a baby, but…” For a second he couldn’t go on, his throat was so full. Finally he swallowed hard and looked at her. He could see the pain in her eyes, knew what he was doing to her right now, and though he regretted it, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to change it. “A dying man’s talk, Mad. That’s not a real dream. It’s self-pity, regret. Pretend. It’s like turning Catholic at the end just in case. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  She was pale. “What are you saying?”

  God, it
hurt to let her down like this, to let himself down. But he wasn’t worthy of being a father. He didn’t deserve a gift like that. “Why did you tell me about her, Mad? Why?”

  “I thought you needed a reason to live. I thought Lina might make a difference.”

  “No,” he said, realizing midword that he was shouting. “What am I supposed to do, Mad, play daddy on a deathbed for some sixteen-year-old girl I’ve never met? Is that what you thought—that you could waltz some strange kid into my room and I’d hug and kiss her and die a happy man? That she could watch my last gasping breath and feel better for having known me?”

  “No.” The word was a croak of sound, broken. “I thought…” She shook her head. “I don’t know what I thought.”

  “You were right not to contact me all those years.” He sighed, knowing suddenly the truth about himself, hating it. “She wouldn’t have made a difference, Mad. I would have walked from her just like I walked from you. It’s what I do.”

  “But now—”

  “I don’t want to meet her, Mad.”

  She drew in a sharp breath. “Don’t say that. She needs you.”

  “That’s exactly why I don’t want to meet her.” His gaze pleaded with hers for understanding. “You know me, Mad. Even if I live—which I won’t—I have nothing to offer the kid. I’ll be infatuated with her for a few days, maybe a month, and then the glow will wear off. My feet’ll get itchy, I’ll start drinking again, and I’ll start resenting her for keeping me here.” Bitterness tightened his voice. “And then one day I’ll be gone.”

  “But—”

  He reached out, touched her. She leaned into his hand, let his fingers curl around her chin. He gave her the only thing of value, the only truth he knew. “I’ll break her heart, Mad. Whether I live or die, it doesn’t matter—either way, I’ll let her down. If you love her, protect her from me.”

  She looked at him, and in the depths of her eyes he saw the pain he’d caused, and something else, something he couldn’t name. She kept staring at him, saying nothing, and as the clock ticked past the minutes, he began to feel uncomfortable. There was an expectancy in her gaze that nibbled at his self-confidence, confused him. “Don’t look at me that way,” he said.