Heavenly Stranger Page 2

  Mom grabbed Maddie’s chin and asked, “You okay, Sugar Baby?”

  Maddie had heard this question all through her growing up years. For every cough, every sniffle. During the last year, she always answered, “I’m okay,” but couldn’t help the one-shouldered shrug that said, Not okay.

  “My poor Baby, you just let your Mom make it all right.” When the kitchen timer went off, she asked, “Would you like a banana pecan muffin?”

  “No, thanks,” Maddie answered as Mom went into the kitchen to bring one anyway. Maddie would pick at it until it kind of looked like she’d eaten it.

  Mom sailed out of the kitchen bearing the muffin and a mug of coffee for Colleen. “Chocolate raspberry this week,” she said to Colleen before heading back to the kitchen.

  Mom changed the flavor of coffee every week to add excitement to the old routine. Dad complained every morning, but she swore he’d come to like it. She’d been doing it for three years. Maddie happened to know that he dumped out his coffee in the front yard (which was why the gardenias were all brown by the mailbox).

  Colleen kept running her fingers through her hair as she stared out the window. She had the hair Maddie didn’t, loads of it that fell just past her shoulders. It was, however, the same drab shade of blonde Maddie had. Colleen denied to the moon that she highlighted it, but they all knew she did. It was all Maddie could do to muster the energy to wash her hair, which she just had, thank you very much, Colleen. She just hadn’t brushed it since her shower last night.

  Colleen took after Mom, with slanted eyes and a sharp nose. Maddie wasn’t sure who she’d taken after. She got her square face from Dad, but her small frame? The doctor had once told them asthma could postpone the onset of puberty; he’d never mentioned that puberty might never catch up.

  Colleen was still looking out the window.

  “Bobby go to work early again?” Maddie asked.

  “Yep. Hard-working man, he is.” There wasn’t any real pride in those words. “He’s been going in at six for the last few months. Then he gets off early and goes out to the workshop and makes furniture ‘til late.”

  “He still talking about quitting Schaeffer Cabinets and starting his own business?”

  “He wants to. I told him our finances are just the way we want, down to the dime. In three more years we might be able to afford the down payment on a pool, unless I win the Publisher’s Sweepstakes this year.” She opened the front door. “Have a good day at school, Quigley!”

  He waved, rather sullenly Maddie thought, and got on the bus as though his feet weighed ten pounds apiece.

  “He wants to be called Q,” Maddie said after Colleen closed the door.

  “What?”

  When the bus dropped Quigley off, he came over and babysat Maddie, though it was portrayed the other way around. “He wants to be called ‘Q.’ He says it’s cooler. The kids are starting to tease him, calling him Quiggles and Quig Pig.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Six-year-olds aren’t cool.”

  Just like when they were kids, Colleen gave her the vulture look: hair pulled back, shoulders hunched and face thrust forward. “Playing Nintendo with him for a few hours a day doesn’t qualify you to tell me how to raise my son.”

  Maddie crossed her arms over her chest. “We do more than play Nintendo. We play Scrabble sometimes, too.”

  “Don’t put thoughts in Quigley’s head, all right? It’s just a phase. And unlike you, he’ll get over it. Unlike you, he’s not waiting for some stupid angel to fix his problems.”

  That again. Every day Colleen managed to bring it up with some dig. Maddie pulled the comforter up to her chin. Colleen didn’t know anything about getting over things. She’d never lost one of the most important people in her life. And she’d never had to wait day after day for a promise to be fulfilled.

  “Someday I’d like to sit you down and tell you what you look like, moping like a rag doll,” Colleen said. “But you’d go running to Mom.”

  As Colleen headed to the door, Maddie said, “Q hates the trolls at your house, too.”

  Colleen’s shoulders stiffened. “What?”

  “They creep him out.”

  The quaint exterior of Colleen’s house belied a cave-like interior filled with trolls. She had Bobby build a wall unit that looked like a tree, with little caves and even a working waterfall. Their furniture was made of lacquered cypress, the walls were covered in dark paneling, and the sculptured carpet was moss green.

  Colleen narrowed her eyes. “My home is the only place where I don’t have to defer to your wishes. All my life it was no, you can’t have a dog, or you can’t do this or that, because it’ll make Baby sick, or give in just this once because Baby had a rough night. Between Mom and a husband who spoiled you rotten, no one has ever let you grow up. I’m sorry he died, Baby, I really am. I’m sorry he left, I mean,” she added, because no one was supposed to say the D-word around Maddie. “But just because you’re miserable doesn’t mean everyone else is miserable, too. Just once I’d like to see some evidence that you’re growing up and moving on with your life.”

  Colleen waited for a response. Maddie could have come up with some biting reply if she’d had the motivation. Instead she stuck out her tongue.

  Mom had turned her big, square kitchen into a bit of country heaven over the years. The floor was covered in a flat, flowery carpet. Dad had scavenged the heavy oak table at a barn sale in Georgia. Bobby had built two open cabinets that were now crammed with plates and pitchers and hanging teacups and all the things that reminded Mom of the farmhouse she’d grown up in.

  Ever since Bobby started working late, Colleen and Q ate dinner with the rest of the Danburys. Q’s mouth was in a pout, and his blue eyes were downcast as he picked through his mashed taters for the lumps. Lumps were his favorite. His curls were the color of the copper gelatin molds on the brick wall behind him. His skin was pale as cream except for the spray of copper freckles, just like his daddy.

  “How come Dad don’t eat with us no more?” Q asked.

  “He’s working hard so we can have a pool someday.”

  Q traded a look with Maddie, then went back to spearing lumps. She noticed the flush on her sister’s face. Something wasn’t right. She wasn’t meeting anyone’s eyes. Is everything all right? The words hung in Maddie’s throat. Of course, it was. At least Colleen had a husband to spoon with at night.

  Maddie picked at her drumstick, but her appetite disintegrated when she took in the two empty chairs in the dining area. Bobby’s at the table…and Wayne’s, which had been set by the phone, like she wasn’t supposed to notice. If he were there, he’d be tipping his chair way back and making Mom nervous. He’d be telling some joke he’d heard and laughing harder than anyone else at the punch line.

  Colleen stopped mid-cut, elbows out at her sides. “Oh, I ran into Wendy today. Darcy told her about a guy who came to town in response to Barnie’s ad. Darcy checked him out, of course. He’s in his late twenties maybe, dark hair. He’s going to be working on that sailboat Barnie started before hurting himself.”

  “He crushed his nuts,” Q said. “Nuts isn’t a bad word.”

  “I swear he’s proud of it. Anyway, the guy doesn’t even have enough money to stay at Marylou’s, so Barnie’s letting him sleep on his sailboat. I’m only telling you so you won’t get your hopes up.”

  That’s how Maddie figured the angel would make her, or his, appearance, a stranger wandering into town. Some of the strangers who stayed at Marylou’s bed and breakfast (Maddie checked every week) were nice enough, but they usually had earthly ties like spouses or children. She was sure one older lady was her angel until she stole Marylou’s jewelry and even the quarters in her coffee tin.

  Maddie leaned forward, then realized she’d dipped her elbows in her gravy. “Why?”

  “An angel’s supposed to be…angelic. This guy sounds too hot to be angelic.”

  “Nicholas Cage played an angel in that movie, and he’s hot,” Madd
ie said.

  “Not really.”

  “What about John Travolta? He played a cool angel. A cool, good-looking angel.”

  “That was a movie, made up, fantasy. Then again, so is your whole angel infatuation.”

  Maddie wiped the gravy off her elbow. “There was an angel in my hospital room that night I almost died.”

  “It was a visiting doctor,” Colleen said.

  “Then why couldn’t anyone say who she was?” Maddie leaned on the table. “Tell me more about the guy.”.

  “Darcy said he had a tattoo on his arm. No angel is going to have a tattoo.”

  Despite Colleen’s negativity, excitement surged through Maddie. “An angel can be disguised as anyone. Most of the stories I’ve read—”

  “We know,” Colleen said. “We’ve heard them all.”

  “If it makes her happy to believe in angels, then let her,” Mom said, then turned to Dad. “Isn’t that right, dear?”

  “I don’t think she should—”

  “You’re right, she shouldn’t be thwarted by someone else’s cynicism.” Mom gave him and Colleen a pointed look.

  Colleen buttered a roll with jerky movements. “But she’s not happy. She hardly ever leaves the house, doesn’t help at the Humane Society, doesn’t go to the marina, or anywhere.”

  “She’s as happy as she can be having lost the love of her life,” Mom said, that shrill tone creeping in. “She tried going back to the Humane Society, but the thought of those dogs and cats being put down was just too much to bear. And how can she go to the place where that awful thing happened?”

  “She owns it! The Schaeffers have taken it over just like they’ve taken over everything in this town.”

  Maddie slid into her own thoughts, but this time those thoughts weren’t never-ending bleak days that rolled one to another without joy. This time she thought about the stranger. It was too late to see him tonight. Her throat tightened at the mere thought of going to the marina.

  Mom said, “I haven’t seen that much life in her eyes since…well, since the last time she thought a transient was her angel.”

  Dad said, “I don’t think—”

  “Of course you don’t think there’s anything wrong with her looking for that angel,” Mom cut in. “What kind of father would you be if you did?”

  “Tell me more about him,” Maddie asked Colleen. “What kind of tattoo does he have?”

  Colleen rolled her eyes. “It’s a tattoo of…a naked woman. When he flexes his muscle, she dances. And he has long hair. And he has…an eye patch. He’s missing some teeth. And he walks with a limp.”

  “I thought you said he was good-looking.”

  “Well, you know Darcy. Anything male is good-looking to her.”

  Maddie tried to put the items together in the picture of her mind: John Travolta with a tattoo, eye patch, missing teeth, and a limp. “I don’t care what he looks like. I’m going to go check him out tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Colleen walked into the house and stopped. “Oh my gawd, I can’t believe it. The lump on the couch isn’t there.” Baby wasn’t sitting there swaddled in blankets and her too-large PJs staring at the television with those enormous doe eyes. She wasn’t there at all.

  Saturday mornings were for family breakfasts, and Mom’s bacon filled the air with the promise of crisp edges and too many fat grams to contemplate. Colleen should have been home making pancakes and bacon for her own family, but Bobby was already in his workshop.

  Mom moved effortlessly in the kitchen as she put breakfast together.

  “Morning, Mom.” She snatched a piece of bacon off the platter instead of going for the bowl of cherries.

  “Having breakfast with us?”

  “Quigley and I had cereal.”

  “Doesn’t Bobby eat with you anymore?”

  “He had to get working on Marylou’s bookcase. Said if he could make furniture full-time, he’d be able to spend more time at home.”

  “Your father went through that too, wanting to open his own shop. I told him he didn’t really want to, it was just a phase. We’ve got to keep our men in line. Maddie’s the only one who let her husband run wild, and look what happened. Bobby’ll get over it just like your dad did.”

  Colleen’s mouth dropped open. Mom had taken her side over Maddie’s. She had the strangest urge to curl up against her and cry. She wanted to tell Mom how alone she felt in her own house and how long it had been since she and Bobby had kissed, much less made love. She swallowed back the thickness in her throat and asked, “Where’s Maddie?” instead.

  “Upstairs getting ready to see if this guy is her angel.”

  “I wish I hadn’t said anything.”

  Several strands of Mom’s strawberry hair escaped her ponytail. She looked young and carefree. “She would have found out anyway. It’s making her happy for a few hours, and that’s all that matters.”

  “Mom, does she know yet? About you and—”

  “Shh!” Mom looked at the doorway. “We just keep on keeping on for Maddie.”

  “You can’t—”

  Mom shushed her again.

  There was no point in arguing. The world had revolved around Maddie since the day she was born and always would.

  Maddie sat in Wayne’s Sunbird convertible in the marina’s parking lot. Just as she’d been doing for almost two hours. Why did the guy have to be staying at the marina? Marylou’s was easy to infiltrate with an offering of Mom’s muffins.

  She couldn’t breathe every time she started to open the car door, making her wonder if her asthma was returning. The last time she’d been in that parking lot, she’d been about to see Wayne’s new toy. Even the prospect of finally meeting her angel couldn’t quite nudge her out of the car. She was a ten on the anxiety meter.

  Rain drizzled out of a gray sky and made everything wavy through the glass. Not much had changed over the last year. The row of shops still had the old fisherman’s village look, with weathered blue walls and a welcoming front porch. The marina was in back facing Sugar Bay. Where all the boats sat bobbing in their slips. Where Wayne had left.

  Her thumb brushed over the rubber disk on the key fob and covered the words, World’s Greatest Husband! She squeezed her eyes shut, and a tear rolled down her cheek and splashed on her wedding band. Maybe her heart was too shattered for even an angel to heal. She envisioned herself as an old lady still sleeping with a picture of Wayne every night. Mom and Dad would be down the hall, Colleen would still live across the street, and Q would be married with kids of his own. She wondered if they’d still call her Baby.

  She looked across the main drag and thought about going to the 7-11 to get a hot cocoa. Most of Sugar Bay’s businesses were clustered along the strip that ran between the coastline and the rest of the small town. Beyond the businesses was the network of streets where most of Sugar Bay’s population lived, including her parents.

  She jumped out of the car and slammed the door shut before she could have second thoughts. A hundred-pound rock settled in her chest as she faced the marina. “You can do this.”

  She nearly chickened out at the entrance. To make matters worse, Mr. Barber walked out and said, “Why, Baby, it’s good to see you out again. Surprised to see you here, though.”

  “Me, too.” She forced a smile she knew was as phony as any clown’s smile before slipping inside the marina’s store.

  “Hey, Baby,” Dave Trumbel said from behind the long counter. “Good seeing you again.”

  “Hey.” Her smile felt a little less tense. “Where’s Barnie keep his boat nowadays?”

  “At the end of the new dock on the north side of the bay.”

  She nodded like she knew what he was talking about. That’s right, she’d signed papers the Schaeffers brought over to make the bad place go away. The old pilings had been removed and a new dock had been added.

  She looked out the steamy, rain-drizzled glass and prepared herself for the sight of the docks. Her throat ti
ghtened, and her legs felt as rubbery as they had that horrible day. Maybe this was a test to see if she was worthy of the angel’s help. She took a breath and stepped out into the damp air.

  Before looking at the bad place, she focused on what was different. A huge boat storage facility hogged the south shore of the half-moon bay. The center of the bay had been dredged with a straight, safe channel to the Gulf. The new dock, tucked against the northern curve, had been added for boats coming into Sugar’s Eats, the restaurant at the north end of the building. To encourage business, Alma had added an octagon deck out back where people could sit beneath umbrellas, sip drinks, and look out over the area where Wayne had…left. They could just laugh and enjoy life without ever knowing something so tragic had happened. Unless they saw the etched piling in memoriam of Wayne that she’d heard his parents had had made.

  Maddie started down the walkway that curved along the shoreline, passing Cuppa Joe’s coffee shop, the nautical gift store and then Sugar’s. Thunder rumbling in the distance drew her gaze to the sky. Her feet skidded to a stop and so did her heart. The miracle of it stole her breath away. Hanging above and to the west of an endless sheet of gray metal sky was one incredible, spellbinding, miraculous thing: a double rainbow. The second rainbow wasn’t as vivid, but it was there, so it counted.

  And at the end of the rainbow was Barnie’s boat.

  It was the first time she’d really smiled in a year. Her muscles felt tight, but it was wonderful to smile again. “Wayne, you came through. You came through.” Her eyes watered. “You sent me a tattooed, one-eyed, gap-toothed angel!”

  She was pretty sure she floated down the rest of the pathway. Up ahead was the big metal building that used to be the marina. Now it was just a warehouse where Barnie built his boats and where he was living while his broken leg and other injured parts healed.