Binding Arbitration (45 page)

I struck a match, relighting the candle. I pulled a red box with gold embossed fretwork out of my pocket and placed it in her hands. “Does it look like I’m messing around?” I dropped to my knees in front of her.

She looked down for long minutes. “Where’d you get it?” The vein in her throat was pumping blood faster, flooding her face.

“Cartier, in Chicago.”

Her eyes, which had been staring at the box shot to mine. “You bought it before we left, before you knew what Cass wanted for Christmas.”

“I bought it on black Friday before ‘all of it’ happened.”

“But why?”

“Because I was absolutely certain that you were supposed to be my wife from the day we played pool in McCreary’s, through all the hours in the library, through all the food you fed me from the diner.” I squeezed her hands. “From the first night you let me know your body, and through all the times I’ve loved it with such desperation since ‘all of it’ happened. Even during all the time we spent apart, I knew that you were the one.”

“If that was true, why didn’t you come looking for me?”

“I was afraid. I didn’t think you would forgive me for forcing you to give your child away. I thought I’d lost you and our child. It wasn’t as if all the time we were apart I realized something was missing, it was just that there was pain and longing, when I thought of you. It hurt, and it made me mad. But once I saw you again, I knew something was missing, something very important, and I wanted it back. I love you, Libby, and I don’t want to live without you.”

She swiped away a tear.

“Will you make me the happiest man in the world, Libby?”

Her eyes found mine again before she shrugged. “I don’t know. It depends on how big your surprise is.”

“If you want a bigger one…” I tore the box open.

“You must really love me.” Tears started down her cheeks, she backhanded them away. “I’m tired of fighting loving you, it’s exhausting.” She looked me in the eye. “I’ve loved you, Aidan, from the first time you kissed me.” She laughed. “When you fell in the pile of books, you thought I laughed because you knocked over the bookcase, I laughed because I thought it was senseless to love someone who would never love me back.”

I slid the ring onto her finger, and her eyes came alive. “And now?”

“Now, I hope I can love you as much as you love me.”

I smiled. “I don’t mind showing you the way every day.”

She fell into my arms and my stomach settled for the first time in months. I had everything and more a man could want. And I knew the tranquility of peace.

* * *

Chicago Closer Closes a Lifetime Contract
By Winslow Davis

Ladies of the City you might need hankies because Band-Aid
PALOWSKI
is off the market, and as promised, you heard it here first. I spent New Year’s Eve on the west coast, where the
NUPTIALS
took place at St. John of God Catholic Church in San Francisco. The small church isn’t much larger than a chapel, but its stucco exterior, heavy carved wooden doors, and rose window over the entrance mark it as one of the quaintest sanctuaries in California.

The bride arrived in a horse-drawn carriage in a Vera Wang gown, which inspired thoughts of elegant movie stars of the forties. The groom wore an Armani tux. The groomsmen were the couple’s son, Cass, who is looking healthy, the groom’s brother, Avery Palowski (lookout, ladies, there’s another heartthrob in the making), agent Cyrus Fletcher, and Aidan’s old college friend David Allen. The
RESPLENDENT
bridesmaids were Madi Dubrowski (Cass’ sweetheart of a friend), Vicki Davis, and Jenny McQuire, the brides close friends, and her niece Olivia Rodgers.

The interior of the church was spectacular, illuminated by candles and overflowing with California wildflowers. The ceremony and Mass were among the most touching I’ve had the honor of attending, and the love flowing through the sanctuary and its fifty-odd guests was apparent.

The reception took place in the Marina District at the Palace of Fine Arts. The bride and groom arrived via gondola from the lagoon flanked by two white swans as they glided across the glassy expanse of calm water, as if their feathered choice of lifetime commitment guarded the other pair to their destination. Monterey cypresses and Austrian eucalyptus trees fringed the path to the towering Corinthian colonnade walkways which led to the single remaining Romanesque rotunda dome, where dinner was served by candlelight.

A quartet serenaded guests to beautiful classic ballads which seemed in perfect harmony with the purely romantic Roman ruin, overgrown, mutilated, and moody like a Piranesi engraving. One couldn’t help but notice the freely interpreted sculptured frieze and allegorical figures that dance around the outside of the structure seeming to support the dome. The weeping ladies represent Contemplation, Wonderment, and Meditation, which the groom’s father, Mr. Palowski mentioned in his toast as tools worthy of consideration of any groom throughout the course of his marriage.

As to plans for a honeymoon, they were not disclosed. What more could have been demonstrated about the depth of their love for each other and their child than the sweet embraces and whispered words that only they shared as they left the grounds hand-in-hand-in-hand.

We’d stayed longer than expected in California, with the wedding, and we were all eager to return home to start our new lives together. Dr. Seuss gave us clearance to fly back, and now I was in first class with Libby asleep leaning into me and Cass draped over part of her lap lulled by the hum of the engines.

I had made to-do lists and arrangements for Libby’s apartment to be packed and moved into my house. We had talked about putting Cass back in school and opted to continue with the private tutor, who could come to spring training with us. I had already promised Cass he could come, as long as he received a clean bill of health from Dr. Seuss at next month’s check up. He hadn’t seen any obstacles, when he examined Cass at our wedding, he’d come as Libby’s mother’s guest.

Libby was barely speaking to her, in time, it would align itself. Jeanne wasn’t about to give up trying to show her daughter how much she loved her.

That was the thing children didn’t realize until they were adults. A parent shows love in the way that makes the most sense. If the child interrupts that form of love as too demanding and interfering, they reject it as not love at all. But I was learning that love was a lot more about showing and listening, than telling and demanding, and Libby would learn that lesson in her own time.

With nothing but time on my hands, I flipped through the pages of the book about The Palace of Fine Art, which my father had given to us as a wedding present, along with some of the most incredible wedding photos I’d ever seen. My father had selected the photographer, and he had captured the emotion of the day in a way I wouldn’t think a stranger could.

The page I flipped open in the book was about the architect Bernard R. Maybeck who was fifty years old when he’d designed and built the Palace. When asked later in life what should happen to his masterpiece, which had fallen prey to vandalism and decay in the sixties. Maybeck said, “I think the main building should be torn down and redwoods planted around—completely around—the rotunda. Redwoods grow fast, you know. And as they grow, the columns of the rotunda would slowly crumble, at approximately the same speed. Then I would like to design an altar, with a figure of a maiden praying, to install in that grove of redwoods. I should like my Palace to die behind those great trees of its own accord, and become its own cemetery.” But by the time of his death at ninety-five, he had changed his mind and was enthusiastic about the palace becoming a tourist attraction.

Maybe Maybeck had decided it was all about his legacy.

I was happy it hadn’t taken me ninety-five years to realize the importance of legacy, when I was young enough to change what I had thought mine was. It wasn’t statistics crunched into a book somewhere, but memories created by those I loved stamped indelibly across every cell of my consciousness.

The ump made a call.
Finally! He stripped off his mask. You got your dame, now I can retire this game.

32

GOING TO A HIGHER COURT

First-Chill-then Stupor-then letting go- Emily Dickinson

Libby

January had bled into February with my heart overflowing, and I didn’t think I could love any two people more. Cass grew stronger and more like his childish self. Aidan was my constant companion, and our lives melded with sweet simplicity. I was happier than I’d ever been.

But around the distant fringes of my mind, I sensed that nothing this fine could last long, and now I knew I was being summoned to a reckoning of accounts as old as my birthright.

It was a glaringly bright day with a sky so blue it reminded me of Aidan’s eyes when he was especially mischievous. The sun reflected off the piles of glistening white February snow as I rushed across the garage. The parking lot caution yellow lines vibrated against the asphalt. In the covered bay, an ambulance’s lights were throbbing red and white in warning.

Once inside, the intense florescent lighting reflected off the slick tile floor of the emergency room. The walls were glaring white but dotted with red, pint size hearts for Valentine’s Day. My vision blurred as I rushed onward, the hearts smeared becoming bloody streaks down the walls.

A doctor stopped me, refusing to let me go further. The splattering of blood on her lab coat reminded me of a spider’s web, perfectly proportioned, but abstract. The chaos of instructions and instruments as their sounds collided against the walls, added to the symphony of noise accelerating the tempo of my panic.

The doctor caught the attention of a nurse, who dragged me to a waiting area. My heart was beating in the piercing rhythm of a siren, so that my eardrums refused any other sound. Aidan started toward me, speaking words I couldn’t comprehend, because my muffled, erratic heartbeat was thrumming in my head with the urgency of a code red. I saw the rising welt on the side of his face and reached out to him. My eyes rolled back in my head and my world went blank.

When I came to, I was in Aidan’s lap in an ugly burlap chair. “Sweetheart, you’re scaring the death out of me.”

“Where’s Cass?” I looked around frantic.

“They took him to the OR.”

I tried to calm my breathing, I was certain I was going to throw up, but I swallowed down, willing myself to pose a coherent question. “What happened?”

Aidan ran his scraped hand down his face. “It happened so fast, I’m still not sure.” He looked at me. “We were done with Cass’ check-up and got the all clear. I promised him and Manny that I would take them to McDonald’s for ice cream, if the doc said it was okay. We came out of the building heading toward Michigan Avenue. An Escalade plowed down the sidewalk right at us. I barely pulled the kids out of the way, when the car corralled us against the building; two guys stormed out of the vehicle. One of them he hit me in the side of the head with a gun, and I went to my knees. They took off with the boys at full speed, and I started running after them. In the next block, one of the passenger doors opened and they tossed Cass into the street without slowing down.”

I started shaking and raised my hand to the welt on his temple, as I searched his face for answers. “They took Manny?”

“Yeah, the cops are looking for the car.” His hand shook as he ran it over his chin. “They were Hispanic, and I don’t know much about guns, but I’m pretty sure it was an automatic rifle.”

Two police detectives came into the waiting area. Deahl had his badge hanging around his neck over a sloppy sweat shirt, and the second officer flashed his badge before slipping it back into his tailored suit pocket. Aidan extended his hand, making the introductions.

“Wait a minute, one of the guys, I’ve seen him before.” He held up his hand, as if tabulating. I willed him to remember. He looked up wide eyed. “The bartender at my Halloween party.”

“You’re certain?” The officer asked.

“I’m positive.”

“Espinoza?” I mumbled.

“The son of a bitch has been watching us all this time.”

“Where are Evita and Tony?” I asked.

As if I summoned them, they rushed into the waiting room. Evita screamed, “Where’s Manuel?”

The second detective held up a boy’s red knit cap and Evita wilted. “Ms. Gutierrez, we found an abandoned black Escalade, tinted windows with no plates on I-94 near O’Hare. We have the crime lab going over it, we might have a couple of prints.”

“Oh my God, he took him.” Her hand was over her mouth.

Aidan said, “They were after Manuel and once they found out Cass wasn’t him, they dumped him.”

I swallowed down and my legs almost collapsed like pasta in a colander. Aidan maneuvered me to a chair and the four of us sat, while the detectives went over everything that had led us to this place. We were working through the story, when Agent Gwen Foley swept into the small space with two other agents. She met eyes with the detectives and the group stepped away. A short argument ensued before the group came back. One of Gwen’s colleagues fired off queries as the other detectives paced. I answered them as best I could with Aidan’s help, but I was numb, as I watched the time slip away on the clock over the entrance, I stared at it as if it could give me some news.

When we were finished with the interview, Gwen approached me. “Libby, I’m so sorry. I should’ve extended the security detail, but I was certain it was a moot point.”

“We weren’t very cooperative. We didn’t think we needed it any more than you did. We all underestimated his reach.”

She set off with the agents at a determined pace.

There was nothing to do but wait. Evita and I walked the length of the corridor like zombies. We stood blank-eyed, staring down beige walls. We sat together in silence, where tears of fear were the only sounds. Occasionally, Aidan or Tony would step out of the waiting area to take or make a call. They spoke in murmured words and did their best to keep us comforted.