Chapter 23 #2
“I called his sister, Marion, asking if she could help me get in touch with him so we could take care of the divorce. Yesterday, he um . . . He . . .”
“He’s here,” Ned said. “He’s on the island, and he wants to see you.”
“Absolutely not!” Mac’s face flushed with color. “She just had a baby! The last thing she needs is a confrontation with that son of a bitch.”
“I really don’t want to see him,” Maddie said, reaching for Mac’s hand.
“You don’t have to, honey,” Mac said. “Of course you don’t.”
Francine swiped at a tear that rolled down her cheek. “I’m so sorry to have to ask you this . . . I hope you know I never would, not in a million years, but he, um . . .”
Maddie’s eyes widened with disbelief. “Oh my God. Is he demanding to see me before he’ll give you the divorce?”
“Yes,” Francine said, humiliation coming from her in waves that infuriated Ned.
Maddie handed the baby to her husband and stood slowly and carefully. “Then let’s go.”
“Maddie, wait a minute.” Mac stood with the baby propped on his shoulder. With her diaper changed and her belly full, Hailey slept blissfully.
Thomas watched them from the floor, where he was playing with his cars.
“You don’t have to do this, babe,” Mac said.
“Yes, I do. If it’ll free us from the past, then I’ll give him a minute of my life and then get on with it.” She flashed them a winning smile that anyone who knew her well would recognize as forced. “Besides, I want to dance at my mother’s wedding.”
Francine stood to face her daughter. “I’m so sorry, honey.” Tears made her eyes bright and shiny.
Ned’s heart broke for them as they embraced. “I’ll take you there and bring you right back,” he said.
“That’d be great, Ned. Thank you.”
“I should be there with you,” Mac said, concern etched into his face.
Maddie went to him and gave him a kiss. “Stay here with my babies, and I’ll be right back, okay?”
“If you’re sure.”
She nodded and kissed him again before turning to her mother and Ned. “Let’s go.”
They rode the short distance to the Beachcomber in silence.
Ned had never experienced such tension. He couldn’t imagine how Maddie and Francine must be feeling.
Inside the hotel, they were about to ask for Bobby at the front desk when Ned spotted him having breakfast on the deck. He pointed him out, and Maddie made a beeline across the crowded lobby to where her father sat enjoying his eggs sunny-side up.
Ned and Francine were right behind her.
“You’re Bobby Chester?” Maddie said.
Bobby looked up with a smarmy smile that Ned wanted to smack off his face. “Who wants to know?”
“Your daughter. The one you left decades ago? The one who sat in the window for weeks after you left watching every ferry, hoping you might come back? Remember me?”
Maddie made no effort to keep her voice down, so she soon had the attention of everyone on the deck. Everything stopped, and silence descended upon them.
“You sure are a pretty thing,” Bobby said.
“That’s it? Nearly thirty years and that’s all you’ve got to say to me?”
“I understand you have kids.”
“Yes, I do. Not that you’ll ever meet them.” Her voice broke ever so slightly, but Ned heard it. Apparently, Francine did, too, because she stepped forward to place a hand on her daughter’s shoulder.
“Now that you’ve seen Maddie,” Francine said, “I assume I’ll hear from your attorney within the week?”
Bobby made them wait a good long time before he nodded ever so slightly.
“Let’s go, honey.” Francine took Maddie by the arm. “There’s nothing for us here.”
Maddie managed to hold it together until she got home. At the first sight of the big, beautiful house she shared with Mac and their children, tears burned her eyes.
“You don’t have to come in,” she said to her mom and Ned, struggling to maintain her composure for their sakes. “I’m okay. I promise.”
Her mother turned in her seat and took Maddie’s hand. “Thank you so much. I’m so sorry you had to do that.”
“Whatever it takes to be rid of him once and for all.”
“Let’s hope we’re rid of him now.”
Even as her mother said the words, a niggle of doubt settled in Maddie’s belly. “Try not to worry. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
“I’ll be here to help in the morning,” Francine said.
Maddie patted Ned on the shoulder. “Thanks for the ride, Ned.”
“Any time, honey.”
She watched them drive off before she trudged up the stairs.
Mac met her at the sliding door.
She stepped into his arms and broke down.
“Aww, baby.” He ran a hand over her hair. “I knew you shouldn’t have seen him. Was it awful?”
Shaking her head, she held on tight to him.
“Then what happened?”
Maddie drew back from him and wiped the dampness from her face. “Ned pointed him out to me. He was sitting on the deck of the Beachcomber having breakfast. I walked over to his table, and he looked up at me. Except he never got past my chest. Only when I told him who I was did he look at my face.”
“Son of a bitch,” Mac muttered as a furious expression settled on his face.
“He’s nothing to me. I’m nothing to him. So why does it matter so much that he looked at me the same way every other lecherous jerk in the world has looked at me for most of my life?”
“Because once upon a time, a long, long time ago, he was your daddy, and the little girl you used to be was hoping he’d recognize you.”
How did he know? How did he always know? “Yes.” His understanding somehow made it hurt a little less. Maddie sighed and relaxed into his embrace. “What’ve you done with our children?”
“Hailey is napping in her bassinet, and I asked Thomas to play in his room for a little while.”
“And he just did that?”
“I might’ve bribed him with ice cream for lunch if he did.”
Maddie snorted out a laugh and reached up to frame her husband’s face. “Thank you.”
“For what, babe?”
“For being the best daddy my children ever could’ve hoped to have.”
He kissed her and then hugged her tight against him. “My pleasure, love.”