Chapter 28
“So,” Rex said as he rubbed his hand—the one not attached to the IV drip—over his bald head, “what do you think? Do you want to get married?”
She supposed the question was inevitable.
“What I want is to not rush into anything.” Her voice stayed steady, her conviction strong. Because she was being truthful. “Especially now, with the baby coming, and with our even more immediate priority being for you to get well.” She paused. “Okay?”
“Okay. But for the record, I think marrying you would be great.”
She knew if she spoke then, her voice would waver.
So she closed her eyes and rested her head on his hand.
It wasn’t the right time to tell him she’d already thought about it; it wasn’t the right time to remind him that she was about to open a business, and that he would soon have to catch up with his.
It wasn’t the right time to talk about logistics, like where they should live.
It wasn’t the right time to talk about marriage.
He needed to let the news sink in. Until then, he was home, and that was what mattered. For now.
“You’re okay with waiting to decide?” she finally asked.
“I’m okay with whatever you’re okay with. But beware … the patience I’m showing right now might only be the pain meds talking.” He laughed and squeezed her hand. “I love you, Maddie Clarke.”
She thought about the card she’d found in his chest of drawers; she gulped. “And I love you, Rex Winsted.”
“And I love that we’re having a baby together.”
“Me, too. Very much.”
Upon hearing that, he fell asleep, the corners of his mouth turned up in a smile.
“Your mother would be so happy,” Grandma said, as she dished up their dinner—a thick stew made with locally raised chicken and a mix of root vegetables harvested last autumn that she and Maddie had canned. And more of Grandma’s rosemary bread.
Maddie ate everything because it tasted so good, but, in truth, she was exhausted and would have preferred going straight to bed.
She’d stayed at the hospital all day, dozing while Rex napped, only leaving his bedside in late afternoon to pick up an “on-the-go” sandwich at the Black Dog Bakery down the street because the hospital café had closed at two o’clock.
She was tired then, too, and only had eaten half of the sandwich.
Her visit had been interrupted intermittently by nurses checking Rex’s vitals while others brought IV fluids and the pain meds he’d referred to.
Also, Francine stuck her head in quickly “just to make sure,” she said, that he was in one piece; an aide stopped by with a message that Kevin and Taylor would return that evening.
In spite of the busyness of the place, the people closest to Rex had given them privacy, for which Maddie was grateful.
She knew that would change once the news of the baby became public, because many others would want to join in their fun.
Life would be hectic, but it would be wonderful, because their baby would come to know love before she (or he) was even born.
“Tomorrow, Joe’s going to bring me to see Rex,” Grandma announced now, her voice startling Maddie, who was so tired she’d been eating in silence.
“And, by the way,” Grandma went on, “I hope you don’t mind, but I told Joe about the baby.
I thought he should hear it from one of us rather than at the post office or the dump. ”
Maddie swallowed.
“Did you hear me?” Grandma asked.
“Sorry, Grandma. It was a long day. But, yes, I heard you. You’re going to see Rex tomorrow. And Joe knows I’m pregnant. It’s fine. I told Rex.”
“And?”
Maddie set down her spoon. “And he’s elated, Grandma. He really is.”
“Good.” She twittered a little and grinned a little, as if she was elated, too.
“I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you. But can you wait until after lunch? Visiting hours start at eleven. I’ll be there by then, but his physical therapy is at eleven thirty and takes an hour. He’ll be tired after that, but you won’t stay too long and wear him out, will you?”
“I’m ninety years old, Madelyn. I’m not stupid. I never stay long if someone is infirmed.”
Maddie closed her eyes. “Sorry, Grandma. I’m afraid this day has done me in. Go whenever it works best for you and for Joe. It’ll be fine. Rex will be fine. So will I.”
“Apology accepted. But be careful not to take on the personality of your soon-to-be sister-in-law.”
It took a few seconds for Maddie to realize Grandma was talking about Taylor. “She won’t be my sister-in-law if Rex and I don’t get married.”
Grandma sat back and folded her hands in her lap. “Rex won’t marry you?”
“We won’t marry each other, Grandma. Not yet. We both have too much on our plates—especially him right now with his recuperation—to make such a major commitment too fast.”
“But …”
Maddie took a deep breath. “Please, Grandma? We need you to give us some space on this, okay? And some time?”
Grandma sighed. “Oh, you kids. Well, all right. But I always suspected that’s what happened to Taylor.
Believe it or not, she was a happy little girl, a pretty one, too, with her big mane of red hair.
The story goes that her boyfriend died in a boat accident right before she found out she was pregnant with Jonas.
That could have been when she got so … strange.
Standoffish. By now you know how she can be.
Years later I wondered if it happened way before that.
” She shrugged. “Some things I can’t remember. ”
Standoffish felt like the right word for Rex’s sister. “If it’s any consolation, I think my personality has already been formed, so I don’t expect I’ll turn into Taylor, whether or not Rex and I get married.”
“All I know,” Grandma continued, on a roll now, “is at some point, the girl totally changed, which was probably thanks to her mother, who never acted happy. Anyway, they lived on Chappy, so we didn’t know each other very well.
Except Rex, of course. Once his dad built the cabin—his getaway, he liked to call it, and who could blame him for wanting one?
—well, his boy Rex was a fixture at Fuller’s ice cream stand, like you were.
Hey! Maybe you two met way back then but forgot!
Maybe this baby has been karma all along.
Oh! We’ll have to tell Rafe about that. Speaking of your son, have you told him yet? ”
“That I’m pregnant, yes. Like everyone else, he’s thrilled.
But did I tell him that Rex and I won’t be getting married?
No. And you might be surprised, but he didn’t ask.
His generation knows that people should get married when and if they’re ready.
But they can’t always have babies when they want. ”
“Times change.” Her voice was sad now. “But you’ll miss out on the fun I had when your mother was born. Your grandfather and I … well, I suppose part of it was because we were young.”
Maddie smiled. “Rex and I aren’t young, Grandma.
We don’t need to play house to be happy.
And our baby will be fine because so many people are going to love her.
Or him.” She stood up. “And I’m sorry I haven’t been a better dinner companion, but I’m really tired.
The stew and the bread were terrific. Thank you.
But I have to get some sleep. I’ll clean up the kitchen in the morning. ”
Grandma said not to worry, that she’d clean up. Which indicated that, despite the lack of marriage protocol, she must really be happy. Maybe the baby would trigger some nice memories for her of when Hannah had been born.
After crawling into bed, Maddie quickly fell asleep, and sensed her mother beside her, cheering her on.
“I need to tell you something,” Rex said shortly after Maddie arrived the next day. “But first, you need to know I had the strangest dream last night.”
“Care to share?”
“Oh, yes. You were in it.” He was sitting in a high-back chair, his neck unencumbered as part of the “weaning off” stage. “And though I’d love to tell you the details, you might think my concussion was worse than it appears.”
She dragged the visitor’s chair closer to him and set it away from the now only IV pole so she could face him. She took his hand. “So tell me! It’s not nice to tease a pregnant lady.”
“There. You see? I must still be dreaming. In my dream I heard you say you were going to have a baby. Our baby. So please, don’t pinch me and make me wake up.”
One of the many wonderful things about Rex that Maddie loved was how often he made her laugh. How he stripped away her serious side and gave her happiness for no concrete reason.
“I’d bat you over the head with your pillow if you weren’t already physically vulnerable,” she said.
He smirked, an expression of pure innocence sweeping across his face.
“Stop that,” she said. “If you make this pregnant lady laugh too hard she’ll have to pee, which is already an issue.”
“Oh, great. Now you’re going to have mood swings, right?”
“Be grateful. You pretty much missed those. And, anyway, now that you’re here I’m too happy to be moody. So please tell me what you need to tell me. As long as it’s not that you want to move to California.”
“No way. If I never see a palm tree or an orange again it’ll be too soon. No. It’s something else. Kind of a secret.” His voice grew somber, as if he’d shifted from his “fun Rex” persona to his all-business side. He paused another moment, then looked her in the eyes.
“Her name was Raejean,” he said.
Maddie’s heart flip-flopped a little.
He paused again. “It was back in Boston, when I had my restaurant there. She did the books. All the financials. And we lived together.”
He waited for Maddie to digest that, as if she thought he was a man without a past. As if she was na?ve and didn’t know he was a human over fifty.
“I started to tell you this, when we had our picnic on the beach.”
She remembered. Apparently, he was ready to share the rest of the story. She tried not to brace herself, but did so, anyway.
“I remember,” she said with a soft smile of support because she sensed she needed to hear this.
“Okay. Here goes.” He smiled back at her.
“One day, the cops showed up at the restaurant and hung a sign on the front door: CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. I had no idea what was happening. Then they arrested me for a pile of crimes including writing bogus checks, embezzlement, tax evasion, and a few financial things I’d never heard of.
It was a Friday. Our busiest night. I figured they’d realize their mistake, and I’d be back in time for the dinner rush. ”
Maddie was stunned. This was hardly another tale of when he’d been a boy on Chappy and was “arrested” for shooting squirrels.
“I had a great lawyer, a regular at the restaurant,” he continued.
“He put up bail for me and started digging around. Turned out, Raejean did it. All of it. In the process, she’d set up the books to make it look like I’d done it.
Me. Not her.” He rubbed his chin. “When I got home, she wasn’t there and her stuff was gone.
I remember sitting on the couch with no clue what to do.
Raejean and I were together seven years.
I trusted her, so I stayed out of the financial end of things. Stupid me.”
It felt like something from a bad movie. With a lousy plot. And no way for a happy ending. Maddie kept listening.
“I tried calling her a million times. I left messages. Finally, she called me back. I asked her what the hell was going on.”
He closed his eyes as if to regain his balance.
“She whined. She said she screwed up but hadn’t meant to.
She was going to go to the police and tell them everything, but decided not to.
She said, ‘I’m sorry, Rexy’—she called me that, which I detested—‘but I couldn’t do it.
’ I asked her why not. She said, ‘Because I’m pregnant, Rexy. I’m going to have our baby.’”
In that moment, everything Maddie had thought was going to be her wonderful new life started to crumble.
She’d been wrong to think that Rex was perfect.
So wrong to think their relationship could work, that having a baby with him would be an amazing experience based on love and trust. The bottom line was that she didn’t know him, after all.
He already has a child.
A small thing he’d failed to mention long before Maddie was pregnant.
She wanted to stand up, excuse herself, and leave the room. She wanted to go outside, climb into Orson, and try and figure out what in God’s name she should do.
She got as far as standing up.
“No,” he said. “Please don’t go.”
“I think I know the rest,” she said. “You took the blame because you didn’t want her to go to prison and have your baby born there.”
“My feelings for her were gone. But I wanted the baby to be safe. I should have handled things differently. Instead, I had to be a macho man, a martyr for his kid.”
Maddie headed for the door.
“No, don’t …” was the last thing she heard him say.