My Heart Can't Tell You No (39 page)

“What are you doing here?” she hissed.

“Maddie. Stop it!” Sarah scolded.

“No. I don’t want you here. I don’t want to ever lay eyes on you again! My husband is dead! It’s your fault! Don’t you realize that?!”

“I didn’t put that bottle to his mouth, Maddie.” Joe’s voice held traces of anger.

“Didn’t you? Think about it, Joe. Now get out!”

Joe sighed heavily, looking at her for only a moment. How she had managed to turn her husband’s death on him, he wasn’t sure. But the fact that she did left little doubt of what she felt toward him. The anger and near-hatred seethed from her.

“Goodbye, Maddie.”

“Joey, no,” Sarah called after him, but he kept going down the hall and out the doors.

He had planned on stopping to see the baby that day, but after hearing it was a small replica of Bob, he changed his mind. He went to his truck and started home. He had carried his love for Madelyn Baker with him for seven and a half years. Her powerful reaction to him convinced him it was time to go on without her. He wouldn’t think about the fact that his chest felt as if it were being torn apart. He would just go home and go on.

July 1984

Joe smoked his Camel, remembering how he had tried to forget about Maddie, but, after the second year, he had known he could no more get her out of his blood than he could stop eating or stop breathing. He put in for a transfer at work even though he was due for a promotion. He had to come home, and, when his cousin moved out of the house, it was the perfect opportunity. In a few years, if the supervisory position opened up down here, he would put in for it again.

He didn’t expect it to be easy when he got back, but
damn
, she was making it extremely difficult. He knew she still wanted him. Sometimes when he’d catch her looking at him, the desire in her eyes made him start to reach for her, but she quickly masked it with a coldness he had never seen the likeness of; a mask she wore from head to toe with her hair worn up and those dark framed glasses, tailored suits and formal heels. The most recent incident had been when he held her as they looked at her children. Everything was fine until he told her that if he could, he’d take her and the boys away so they’d never be bothered by anyone again.

The other week when he saw her with her hair down and wearing nothing but a robe, he had known that he had never loved anyone in his life as much as he loved Madelyn Baker Green, and, he never would again. Her comical response as she found the chaos in the bathroom, looking like a small child who had let things get beyond her control; her shock at the sight of her mischievous sons before motherhood bloomed through her, giving orders and false threats with a love as authentic and generous as her own mother was capable of; the sight of her on hands and knees, sopping up water with towels, made him want to hug her to him and tell her how very much he loved her. But he had done that before. The words seemed to have little meaning to her. But there were times when he had seen that special closeness in her eyes, fleeting moments when they were with Lew or the boys, and sometimes with Jack and Sarah.

Sarah was puzzling him lately as well. He’d catch her watching him with Robby and Jackie, and there was something in her eyes close to sadness. Sometimes she would open her mouth to speak, but stop herself; other times she would simply get up and leave the room.

Joe started back inside. How many times had he wondered about the coincidence between his times with Maddie and the births of her children? How many times had he wished and hoped that someday she would come to him and tell him they were
his
children? But through the years he had come to terms with the fact that he had made love to her before she became pregnant with Jackie and while she was pregnant with Robby. The second set of circumstances he didn’t feel easy with. She probably didn’t know she was pregnant at the time either, but it still didn’t sit right with him. And he knew Maddie. He knew that, although she had a temper, she wasn’t capable of cruelty. If they were his kids she’d have told him long since. If not after Jackie’s birth, then certainly after Bob’s death. He had accepted that they were Bob’s sons. Fine boys. Bob would have been proud of them both if he hadn’t bitten the bottle and felt it bite back.

CHAPTER XIX
 

July 1984

“M
addie, what are you doing up here?” Rodney stopped in the hall outside of Lew’s room. “Hello, Mrs. Baker. How are you feeling? When I saw Maddie I thought maybe you were back in. Then I saw you sitting here, thank God.”

“Hi, Rodney. No, not me this time. My baby brother.”

“The one with the birthday a few weeks ago? I’m sorry. Is he ill?”

“Well, why don’t you come in and look for yourself?” Lew said, his bed concealed from the doorway by the bathroom wall.

“Come in, Rodney,” Maddie laughed, holding out her hand to him. She knew he would come over and take it anyway. He was always touching someone.

“Okay. I’ll visit with Uncle Lew a while.” Rodney smiled at the man as he walked over to Maddie, pulled a chair close to hers, then sat and took her hand. “So? What are you in for?”

“Damn foot won’t heal.” Lew’s answer brought a smile to Maddie and Sarah. Rodney and Lew both had the same open, friendly personalities. It only made sense that they could talk to one another quickly, having only met a moment ago. “I stepped on a nail last winter, now my toes are turning black.”

“Is it infected? What caused it?”

“I’m diabetic. It’s gangrenous.”

“It’s what?!” Maddie sat up. She hadn’t known.

“What are you doing up here, Rodney?” Sarah was quick to change the subject, and, from Rodney’s expression, he was eager for that change too.

“My mother. She had gall bladder surgery. She’s fine. Cranky, but fine.”

Maddie leaned back in her chair. Damn, nothing good comes out of this hospital. Only one thing ever happened here that might have been joyous, and even Robby’s birth had its drawbacks.

December 1980/January 1981

Maddie was released from the hospital in less than a week. Her recuperation was speedy, due mainly to pure determination and stubbornness. Lew said she was too nosey to stay in bed for long. Her first glimpse of her tiny son brought tears to her eyes. He was already eight days old and gaining weight rapidly. He eventually gained the extra pound that would have been required to bring him home, but the underdevelopment of his lungs kept him in an incubator for a few weeks. Only her doctor and the doctors at this hospital knew Maddie’s secret; the boy wasn’t born two months premature. He was only a six-month baby; dangerous but surviving with flying colors. Her mother had voiced her suspicions to Maddie only that one time, and Maddie didn’t intend to volunteer the truth. She had a feeling Sarah wouldn’t hesitate telling Joe.

Joe was a mystery to Maddie. She remembered little of her first days out of unconsciousness. She remembered her mother telling her of Bob’s death. She remembered Sarah saying the new baby looked just like its father, (The baby was born with every feature matching his father indeed. Joe’s son would not hide behind anyone else’s features this time.) then she remembered looking up and seeing Joe’s angry eyes. Then he was gone. If he was angry with her, then why had he come in the first place?

John told her he had talked to Joe earlier that morning, and that Joe had mentioned he was going to see the baby. If he had heard what Sarah told her, then he knew he was the father. So she quietly waited. The last time she had seen him he had threatened to take his children if they were kept from him. But he never came back.

She was torn between the need to have him there and hold her through the funeral coming that day; two days after Christmas and her release from the hospital, and the need to protect and keep her children. She was torn between the knowledge that her need for him stemmed from a deep-rooted love, and the knowledge that her best friend had turned on her and was now dead, because of Joe and her.

Her family didn’t talk about the events of her first days in the hospital, and she didn’t ask. She knew who was there, Sarah, Jack, Lew, John and Beth. Tom had stayed home to take care of Jackie. It irritated her that Joe had showed up after she was well on her way to recovery, then only staying long enough to show her that he was still angry with her.

She didn’t cry much for Bob. She wasn’t in shock. The doctors told her that. It was a shame her last memories of him included his punching her in the face before she woke long enough to see his glazed eyes staring at her and his chest crushed. The memory of his punch was outweighing the memory of his friendship. It wasn’t until she walked up to his coffin and looked down at his still-boyish face that the tears came along with the memory of the years before, as well as the first years of their marriage. If it hadn’t been for her and Joe, he would be alive. He was only two months away from his twenty-ninth birthday. All she would have left of him was the large insurance policy she would use to build a future for her sons. In her last moment before leaving his casket, she removed her wedding ring and placed it in his uniform pocket.

Jackie was slow to recuperate, but once she got home with him, it lifted a lot of his anxiety. Sometimes in his dreams he could still see Bob in the front seat of the car. His dreams of Maddie would take her into the ground with her husband. It was only her soothing as she cradled him in her arms and rocked him, that would make him realize she was still safe and here with him.

When the hospital asked for information on the new baby’s birth certificate Maddie followed the rules her husband had set for the birth of Jackie. She named him Robert, as they always said they would, but the middle name was Joe’s, making the full name Robert Daniel Green. The father’s name was given as Joseph Daniel McNier.

It was a tense time that day in January when Maddie brought Robby home. She had no idea how Jackie would react. On the ride from the hospital Jackie remained in the back seat, showing no interest in the new brother in the infant seat next to his mother. It wasn’t until she put Robby on the couch and went to the kitchen for a bottle of formula that she knew how her almost four-year-old son reacted to his one-month-old brother.

“Your name is Robert. That was my daddy’s name. Did you know that? That means you’re special. Just like he was. But he had yellow hair. You have black, like Mommy’s. I’m your brother Jackie.
HEY
!”

Maddie looked at them. Jackie was leaning on the cushion next to the baby, his exclamation came when Robby’s fingers curled around one of Jackie’s. There was a look of excitement and pride in Jackie’s eyes, showing Maddie she had nothing to worry about.

July 1984

Maddie rode home from her visit with Lew in silence. Lew looked better than she felt. She knew he had trouble healing, but she hadn’t known his foot had gone that far. Thank God they would be getting rid of the gangrene in a few days. For once she saw the other side of Lew. His problems were bothering him greatly and the amputation of either his toes or his foot and half of his shin was dragging him down. They didn’t know yet how much they would have to take off, and he wouldn’t know until he awoke from the surgery. It was torture for him, not knowing and it was torture for her and Sarah, watching him like that.

Joe had been gone for more than half of their lengthy visit, coming back with two candy bars stuffed in his T-shirt pocket, well after Rodney had left. She had forgotten the importance of their silent argument concerning his gifts for the children. He knew Lew was facing an amputation, but he didn’t seem to notice Lew’s depression. It didn’t take long after his return to have Lew joking again, bringing back the smile that made Maddie feel better. By the time she got home she knew Lew would pull through this surgery. Lew had too much spunk to let his disability stop him. He’d have an artificial leg; if not this year, then the next. And she would take that time off from the store and go to the football games with him.