Falling for Your Madness (17 page)

I knew what was coming next. The elder Dr. Bowles took my hand and kissed it. “I can see it in you, Miss Laura. You are royalty. Davey, she’s got it in her. You picked a good one. She is exquisite!”

David sensed how much I was blushing, and he took my hand. This was a bit overwhelming, but I did manage an “It’s very nice to meet all of you. David’s told me so much about you.”

“Is Fay here?”

Aunt Honoria clasped her hand on her heart. “Not coming until five.”

“Good!” David clapped his hands together. “That way I have all of you to myself.”

There was much commotion about what we were to do next. Aunt Honoria led me to a formal dining room where lunch had been served. Sandwiches and a tureen of soup were on a sideboard, and the table was spread with fine linens and china. She clearly wanted David and his father to sit and eat. But the elder Dr. Bowles had another idea.

“David! Now that you’re here, can we play fox hunt?”

David’s eyes were full of madness. “Whose turn is it to be the fox?”

“Merle’s, the little buggar. Where is he?”

“Probably hiding, the coward. I’m very glad it is him. I wore my nice shoes.”
David and his father looked around the house, calling for Merle. Aunt Honoria motioned for me to sit and start my lunch without them. “Let the boys play,” she said. “We can have a minute to ourselves.”

I really liked her. I wanted to please her.

We gathered our soup and sandwiches and sat at the table. Not only did I feel like I was in the presence of a great lady, with her silver flatware and crystal, but I also felt like one myself.

“Now,” she patted my hand and smiled at me. “I want you to know that I have never, in all my years of living here, ever since they needed me, seen David so happy.” She dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. I was getting misty-eyed too. “We’ve all worked so very hard to shape him into the man he is today. You, you dear, are our and his reward.” She started to cry, and I didn’t know what to do, so I patted her on the arm and, naturally, poured her another cup of tea.

“David is so good to me. What was he like as a boy?”

“Quiet. Sensitive. Tended to stay alone. I had lock him out of the house so he could get some fresh air and sunshine. We insisted on the fencing and the riding so he would get some form of exercise. If it were up to him, he would have stayed in his room with his books.”

“That sounds like David.” As I said that, there was a ruckus, coming from outside.

“Tally ho! Get him, Davey, get him!”

Through the bay window of the dining room, I saw David and his father, both wearing bright red coats and riding helmets. They were running around the house, on stick horses, chasing something, and I didn’t know quite what it was. I watched to see them come around again, to find out what it was they were chasing. It was an actual fox! For some strange reason, it was wearing a yellow jacket.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

158 Orange Street

Beverly, Massachusetts

2:01 p.m.

“Now that we’ve had lunch, does anyone want pudding?” Aunt Honoria was clearing David’s plate. She doted on him. I liked watching her.

Dr. Bowles looked to his sister. “What do we have for pudding, Honoria?”

“Well, we have Jell-O and tapioca.”

“Don’t we have chocolate pudding?”

“You ate all that pudding yesterday for pudding. What would you like today for pudding?”

“I really want pudding. Tapioca isn’t at all what I want for pudding.”

“We’re having cake and ice cream later. You don’t even have to have pudding now.”

“I always have pudding. Now
what
are my choices for pudding?”

I was impressed with Aunt Honoria’s patience with Dr. Bowles.

“Jell-O and tapioca.”

“No. I’ll just pass.” But then he looked up at her again. “Unless we have some pie.” He was a very interesting man. Eccentric? He had the exact right amount of eccentricity to be David’s father. I liked him a lot.

“David! Oh! David! I almost forgot! You have to see this!” Dr. Bowles jumped up from the table and went into the living room. He came back with today’s
Boston Globe
. He opened it to a section on local news.

“Look, Davey! The Prince is coming!”

David took the paper from his father. “Oh, I suppose he is. How about that.”

“You should go talk to him. He can help you get into Oxford!”

“Now, Father, I …”

Dr. Bowles brought the paper to me. “Don’t you think so too, Laura? Don’t you think that the Prince can clear this Oxford mess up for David so he can go to England?”

I looked at the article. It was true. Prince William and Kate were due to arrive in Boston a week from tomorrow. They were touring sites on the Freedom Trail, including the U.S.S. Constitution, visiting a homeless shelter, and speaking at Dana Farber Cancer Center. Then they were going to New York and Washington, D.C.

“Davey, have you told Laura about the letters?”

“No, I haven’t, I …”

Out of a drawer in the sideboard, Dr. Bowles pulled out a stack of letters tied in a blue bow. “Look, Laura! That good-for-nothing Charles thinks if he sends me this, we’ll change our minds. Like that’s going to happen. Did you see this Laura? They start back in 1968. Charles was just a young man then, but boy, he knew what he wanted.”

He put one of the letters in my hands. It was a fine piece of paper. At the top, it read,
Balmoral Castle.
The date said July 4, 1968. In a distinct handwriting, in black ink, it said:
Dear Professor Bowles, Happy Good Riddance Day. Now please give it back. --Charles.

The next letter was from Windsor Castle, from July 4, 1969. It read.
Dear Professor Bowles, Happy Good Riddance Day to you and your family. We would like it back at your earliest convenience
. --Charles

Dr. Bowles showed me the next one, from July 4, 1970.
Dear Dr. Bowles, Happy Good Riddance Day. Guess what I’m going to ask for, you old sot. --Charles.

The entire stack of letters, over forty of them, contained slight variations of the same message. They were always from July 4 of that year. They always said ‘Happy Good Riddance Day’ and referred to the return of a specific item. I had no idea what it could be. But David knew. I guessed he would tell me when he was ready. I would be patient.

Dr. Bowles leaned in very close to my face. “The Prince wants it. But he can’t have it. Not as long as David is around. Isn’t that right, Davey?”

David looked at me with that unsettled, fearful look that he often had when he was concerned about me. It was the same look he had when he told me he was Anglican. It was the same look he had when he gave me the lilies and recited Tennyson on the sidewalk in front of the cafe. It was the same look he gave me when he first told me about
the project
.

“That’s right, Father.” He swallowed, and I saw his Adam’s apple bob. “Not as long as I’m around.”

Sunday, October 21, 2012

158 Orange Street

Beverly, Massachusetts

4:51 p.m.

“Oh! Laura! I love it!”

Dr. Bowles had unwrapped my gift to him. The drawing of the English bulldog had turned out well, even though charcoal wasn’t the best medium. David had been pleased.

“I have just the place for it! Come see!” Dr. Bowles jumped up out of his dining room chair and ran out of the room. He sprinted up the stairs.

“What’s up there? A magic carpet ready to take us on an adventure?” I don’t know what made me ask that. I had felt all afternoon that I should expect the unusual.

David took my hand, and we followed Dr. Bowles up the stairs. “What would you do if there was?” David’s look of madness was back in his eyes.

I giggled. “Follow you, of course.”

David squeezed my hand. I had the feeling I had said the right thing.

Dr. Bowles ducked into a bedroom. We followed. The room’s walls were painted pale blue. There was only an antique couch and an ottoman in the room. The most prominent feature was the art on the walls. Every square inch of wall space was covered with a five-by-seven charcoal drawing of an English bulldog. There must have been hundreds of them. All of them in black frames. All of them of the same bulldog face, the one I had drawn. Mine was indistinguishable from all the others. Yes. David was right. His father had an obsession.

“Davey, put it here for me.”

David hung my drawing one of the few empty spaces on the wall.

“There!” Dr. Bowles beamed. “It’s beautiful. Perfect.” He came to me and kissed my hand. “Just like you. Thank you for my very fine and elegant gift. I will treasure it always.”

Dr. Bowles left the room to go back downstairs, and I followed. David grabbed my hand and gently pulled me back.

“Are you okay? Are you still with me?” He trembled. I saw in his eyes that he was afraid that his father’s behavior was too much for me.

“I’m still with you!” I kissed him. I wanted that kiss to tell him,
everything is going to be all right, we can do this.
“Why would I not be?”

Sunday, October 21, 2012

158 Orange Street, Beverly, Massachusetts

7:46 p.m.

Aunt Honoria touched my arm. “Laura, dear. You don’t need to clean up. It can wait until you and David leave.”

“No. Please. I insist.” I gathered the empty dessert plates and brushed the cake crumbs into my hand. David and his father were in the living room looking at books. At some point in the evening, and I was never really sure when it was, David’s sister Fay had appeared. It was as if it were just four of us, Aunt Honoria, Dr. Bowles, David, and I, and then there were five. She was in the dining room, seated next to Dr. Bowles with her dessert plate and tea cup. I don’t remember being introduced to her, but I’m sure I was. David would have never forgotten to do that.

She was not at all like David. She was short and round with a close-cropped haircut. She wore wire frame glasses, cheap brown leggings and an oversized, stained T-shirt. I remember David telling me that her name was Margaret Leandra Fay Bowles, that she was six years older than he was, and that they were not close. That’s all I knew about her. She didn’t say much to anyone. I decided that if it wasn’t important for David to engage in conversation with her, and she certainly made no indication that she wanted any, then it wasn’t going to be important to me either.

“David, I need to ask you about …” Aunt Honoria left the dining room to speak to the men.

I took a few dishes to the kitchen. I sensed someone behind me. It was Fay.

“So, you’re the new girlfriend. How much longer do you think you’ll last?”

“Excuse me?” Questions like that were unbecoming a lady.

“David will scare you away. It’s just a matter of when. I’m Fay. The black sheep of the family. I’m sure David’s told you all about me.”

I did not like her. I tried to keep my cool. I didn’t care if this woman
was
David’s sister—nobody, I mean
nobody
, had
better put me on the defensive about the man I love. “David doesn’t speak negatively about anyone. Especially a lady.”

“That’s right! It’s against the rules of chivalry!” She lit a cigarette. “Oh spare me.” She waved the cigarette smoke in my face. “You, you are precious, aren’t you.”

“I need to go sit with David.”

“No. I think you need to know exactly what you’re getting into.” She stood between me and the kitchen door. “I am a state social worker, and I’m an expert on deviant behaviors. And
they
haven’t exactly helped him. What do you know of his childhood?”

I didn’t like the way these questions were going. “He was quiet. He read a lot.”

“That’s an old lady’s way of saying delusional and obsessive-compulsive. Narcissistic. Overly sensitive. Paranoid. Unstable.”

“David isn’t any of that.”

“How do you know? How long have you been with him?”

I swallowed. “Five weeks today.”