Chapter 13
Peter lay on his hotel bed talking on the phone. “I blew it, Jake. I messed things up—bad.”
“I know. Amanda told me.”
“What are you talking about? I mean with Maddy.”
“Maddy? Didn’t you know? Tara was a wreck last night after you left. She called Amanda; one of those girl conversations where all they do is cry. Amanda went to sit with her later, and she said Tara was so stressed she was throwing up. I have to be honest, buddy. This puts me in a bad position.”
“I’m so sorry. Oh, man. I love you guys. I’d never want to hurt either one of you. I don’t want to hurt Tara, either.” Peter sat up and put his head in his hands. He took a deep breath. “What have I done, Jake? Jake—her father showed up.”
“Tom Marsden? He saw you?”
“It was terrible. I thought I was going to have a heart attack watching Maddy panic and clutch his arm. She’s blind, Jake. That’s what happened to her, why she left, and I knew she couldn’t see me, and—I lied to her about who I was.” Peter tried to muffle his voice over the phone. “You had to see her face when he told her. How she trusted me, how happy she was, and in the blink of an eye she was just a terrified little girl.”
“She’s blind? What the—Peter—”
“It was as if I’d destroyed every ounce of hope and happiness in her life all over again.”
“What do you mean ‘all over again’? You’re not the one that left her.”
“To them it looks like I didn’t try to find her.”
“They left without telling you anything. They just disappeared. Not a word! In twenty years! It’s tragic, I know, but you have to come home now. You did your thing—you went and got your answers. What else do you want?”
“Do you believe in signs, Jake? I mean, seriously?”
“I don’t know. I believe there are things that are meant to be and things simply out of our control. Obviously, Madeline’s blindness was out of anyone’s control.”
“But what if I wasn’t supposed to be with her when that happened? What if this is when I’m supposed to find her? Jake, that shoebox you found, getting information about Maddy at my engagement party, getting help from the journalist to find the school where Maddy works—don’t you think it’s strange that all the unanswered questions are suddenly being answered now, only a few weeks before I’m supposed to get married?”
“You’re back in the zone again. Oh, dude. I remember going through this with you all those years ago. After all this time and all that work, you’re right back where you were then.”
“I’m serious.”
“You don’t think I know you’re serious? I know how impulsive you can be.”
“This has nothing to do with being impulsive. What I’m thinking about now—what I’m feeling—it’s not based on impulse. Maddy and I were in love.”
“Bear with me. Peter. I just want to understand. You spent an hour with Madeline and didn’t so much as tell her who you were—”
“I didn’t have to touch her. I didn’t have to kiss her. It was as if we’d never been apart. As if everything—the air, the time, the place, everything we’ve suffered and worried about and wondered—they all were for the same goal, the same moment, that moment.”
“Brother, you’re not rational—”
“Since when are you the rational one? You’ve always been crazy when it came to Amanda—”
“Madeline doesn’t want to see you, Peter.”
“She didn’t say that.” Peter’s voice was abrupt.
“You can’t stay. You just won the Library Restoration Project yesterday—yesterday, pal—and Tara’s going to pieces here.”
“I know. My flights at eleven tomorrow and before I go, I have to try to explain myself to Maddy. I can’t leave without doing that. I owe it to her. I promise that when I get home, I’ll take care of things with Tara.”
“I don’t know,” said Jake. “I don’t know if you’re going to be able to fix this one, Peter.”
After Peter hung up, he stretched out on his stomach on the bed, his head in the pillow and his arms over his head. He turned his face to the wall. He smelled again the sea salt and the ocean breeze and the warmth of Maddy’s body as she laughed with him in the sunshine.
For a long time he lay with his face in the pillow and cried.