Journey (37 page)

He was already back by then, and when he saw her, she was sheet white, and she started to sob the moment she saw him, and told him what happened.

“Calm down,” he said firmly, “calm down, Maddy Everything's going to be okay. He can't do anything to hurt you.”

“Yes, he can. I'll wind up in the gutter, just like he said. And I'll have to go back to Knoxville.” It was totally irrational, but she had been through too much in a short time, and she was completely panicked. She had money in the bank, that she had saved from her salary without telling Jack, and she had Bill, but in spite of that, she felt like an orphan, and that was precisely what Jack had intended. He had known exactly how she would feel, how devastated, how terrified, and that was what he wanted. It was war now.

“You're not going to Knoxville. You're not going
anywhere, except to a lawyer. And not one on Jack's payroll.” He called one for her when she calmed down, and they went to see him together that afternoon. There were some things he couldn't accomplish, like get her clothes back. But there was a lot he could do to get Jack to honor the contract. Jack was going to have to pay her for what he destroyed, he explained, and he was going to have to pay her a healthy severance, and damages, for barring her from the station. He was even talking about punitive damages in the millions for breach of contract, as Maddy listened in amazement. She was not, as she had feared at first, either helpless or his victim. He was going to have to pay dearly for what he was doing, and the bad publicity it would generate for him wasn't going to do him any good either.

“That's it, Ms. Hunter. He can't do any worse than he just has. He can annoy you. He can cause you some grief personally, but he can't get away with this. He's a walking target, and a very public figure. And we're going to get a healthy settlement from him, or get you punitive damages from a jury.” Maddy beamed at him like a child with a new doll on Christmas, and when they left his offices, she looked up at Bill with a sheepish grin. She felt safer than ever with him.

“I'm sorry I freaked out this morning. I just got so scared, and it was so awful when the guard told me I had to leave the building.”

“Of course it was,” Bill said sympathetically. “It was a lousy thing for him to do, and that's why he did it. And don't kid yourself. He's not through yet. He's going to do every rotten thing he can think of to do to you, until the courts let him have it. And he might even try it after that. You have to brace yourself, Maddy.”

“I know,” she said, sounding depressed about it. It was one thing to talk about it, another to go through it.

And the next day, the war continued. She and Bill were having breakfast peacefully, and reading the newspaper when she gasped suddenly and Bill glanced at her quickly.

“What's wrong?” Her eyes filled with tears and she handed the paper to him. There was a small article on page twelve that said that she had had to give up her place as co-anchor on her show, as a result of a nervous breakdown she'd had after being trapped for fourteen hours in the mall bombing.

“Oh my God,” she said, looking at Bill. “No one's going to hire me if they think I've gone crazy.”

“Son of a bitch,” Bill said, reading it carefully, and then put in a call to her lawyer. He told them, when he returned the call at noon, that they could sue Jack for slander. But it was clear now that Jack Hunter was playing for high stakes, and that his only goal in life was wreaking vengeance on Maddy

She went back to the abuse group the next week, and told them what he was doing to her, and none of them was surprised. They warned her that it would get worse, and that she needed to watch out for him physically as well. The leader of the group described sociopathic behavior to her, and it fit Jack perfectly. He was a man with no morals and no conscience, who, when it suited him, turned things around and imagined himself to be the victim. The description fit Jack to perfection. She told Bill about it that night, and he entirely agreed with them.

“I want you to be careful when I'm gone, Maddy. I'm going to be worried sick about you. I wish you'd come
with me.” She had urged him to go to Vermont for Christmas, as planned, and he was leaving in a few days. She wanted to stay in town to settle Lizzie into her new apartment. She was arriving the day Bill left. And Maddy still thought she should move in with her. Although she loved staying with Bill, she didn't want him to feel pressured or cramped. And she was still waiting to hear about the baby. And that was the last thing he needed to disrupt his peaceful existence. She wanted to move slowly for him.

“I'll be fine,” Maddy reassured him about Jack. She no longer thought he was going to attack her physically. He was too busy making trouble for her in ways that would ultimately do great damage to her.

Her lawyer had the paper print a correction of the story they'd run, and word got out quickly that she had been fired by her irate ex-husband, and within two days, she got calls from all three major networks, and the offers they made her were all tremendously appealing. But she wanted time to think about that too. She wanted to do the right thing, and not move too quickly. But at least she was reassured that she was not going to be unemployed forever. His allusions to trailer parks and winding up broke in the gutter were nothing more than yet another form of torture.

The day Bill left, she went to Lizzie's apartment to organize the things she'd bought for her, and by the time Lizzie arrived that night, the apartment looked cheery and bright, and everything was in perfect order. And she was thrilled that she would be sharing her apartment with her mother. She thought what Jack had done to her was awful. But trying to get rid of Lizzie before Maddy even knew about her had been the worst of
his crimes against Maddy. There was an endless list of hideous things he had perpetrated on her, all of which were clearer to her now. It embarrassed her now to think about all the abuses she'd allowed him. But she had always secretly believed that she deserved it, and he knew that. She had given him all the weapons he needed to hurt her.

She and Lizzie spent long hours talking about it, and Bill called her from Vermont as soon as he got there. He already missed her.

“Why don't you just come up for Christmas?” he said, and sounded as though he meant it.

“I don't want to intrude on your children,” she said fairly.

“They'd love to have you, Maddy.”

“What about the day after Christmas?” It was a reasonable compromise, and Lizzie was dying to learn to ski. Bill was thrilled with the suggestion, and so was Lizzie when Maddy told her about it later.

He called her before he went to bed that night, to tell her how much he loved her.

“I think we need to renegotiate this living arrangement of yours. I don't think it's fair for you to live with Lizzie in a one-bedroom apartment. Besides, I'm going to miss you.” She had actually thought of getting an apartment of her own, for the same reason she didn't want to go to Vermont for the holiday. She didn't want him to feel put upon. She was very sensitive to that. But he sounded almost insulted that she had moved out and moved in with Lizzie.

“Well, considering the size of my wardrobe at the moment,” she laughed ruefully, “it's a decision I can change in about five minutes.”

“Good. I want you to move back in when I come home. It's time, Maddy” he said gently. “We've both had enough rough, lonely times. Let's start a new life together.” She wasn't sure exactly what that meant, and she was embarrassed to ask him. But they had plenty of time to figure it out. The next morning was Christmas Eve, and they all had a lot to do, although she no longer had a job to worry about, and she was planning to turn her full attention to Lizzie.

They went out and bought a tree the next day, and decorated it together. It was a far cry from her grim holidays with Jack, trapped in the house in Virginia, while he ignored the holiday and forced her to ignore it with him. If anything, this was the happiest Christmas in her life, although she still had a certain amount of regret about Jack, and how sour it had turned. But she reminded herself regularly that she was better off without him. And when the good memories washed over her, she canceled them out with the bad ones, of which there were far too many. But what she knew most of all was how lucky she was to have Bill in her life, and Lizzie.

And at two o'clock that afternoon, on Christmas Eve, she got the call she'd been waiting for, and had no idea when to expect. They had told her it could take weeks, or even as much as a month, so she had put it out of her mind, and was concentrating on enjoying Lizzie for the moment.

“He's ready, Mom,” a familiar voice said over the phone. It was the social worker who was helping her with Andy's adoption. “You've got a little boy here who wants to come home to his mom for Christmas.”

“Do you mean it? Can I have him now?” She looked
at Lizzie and waved frantically, but Lizzie had no idea what she was doing and just laughed at her.

“He's all yours. The judge signed the papers this morning. He thought it might mean a lot to you on Christmas. It's a great way to spend the holiday with a new baby.”

“Where is he?”

“Right here in my office. The foster parents just dropped him off. You can pick him up anytime this afternoon, but I'd like to get home to my own kids.”

“I'll be there in twenty minutes,” Maddy said, and hung up, and told Lizzie what had happened. “Will you come with me?” she asked her, suddenly feeling very nervous. She had never taken care of a baby. This was all going to be new to her, and she hadn't bought anything for him. She hadn't wanted to count her chickens before they hatched, so to speak, and she had somehow thought they'd give her more notice than this.

“We'll go buy some stuff after we pick him up,” Lizzie said sensibly. She had baby-sat for kids in all her foster homes, and she knew a lot more than her mother about babies and their needs.

“I don't even know what to get … diapers, formula, I guess … rattles … toys … stuff like that, right?” Maddy felt about fourteen, and so excited she could hardly stand it, as she combed her hair and washed her face, put on her coat, grabbed her bag, and ran down the steps of their apartment with Lizzie.

And when they reached the social worker's office by cab, Andy was waiting for them in a white sweater and hat, and a pair of little blue terrycloth pajamas, and his foster parents had given him a little teddy bear as a Christmas present to take with him.

He was sleeping peacefully when Maddy looked down at him, and ever so gently she picked him up and held him. And there were tears in her eyes as she looked at Lizzie. She still had so much guilt and regret for never having been there for her. But Lizzie seemed to understand what she was feeling, and put an arm around her shoulders.

“It's okay, Mom … I love you.”

“I love you too, sweetheart,” Maddy said, and kissed her, just as the baby woke up and started to cry, and Maddy put him carefully on her shoulder, and he looked around as though looking for a familiar face and cried harder.

“I think he's hungry,” Lizzie said with more confidence than her mother felt, and the social worker gave them his bag, his formula, and a list of instructions for him. She handed Maddy a thick envelope with his adoption papers. She still had to go to court one more time, but it was only a formality. The baby was hers. She was keeping his first name, and had decided to change his last name and her own to her maiden name of Beaumont. She didn't want anything more to do with Jack Hunter. Even if she went on another show again, she had decided to do so as Madeleine Beaumont. And he was Andrew William Beaumont now. She had given him his middle name in honor of his godfather. And as they left the social worker's office, she was wearing a look of awe as she carried her precious bundle.

They stopped at a baby shop and the drugstore on the way home, and bought everything Lizzie and the woman in the store told her she needed. It filled the taxi so full there was hardly room for them, and Maddy was beaming when they walked into the apartment, and the phone was ringing.

“I'll hold him for you, Mom,” Lizzie volunteered and Maddy hated to give him up even for a minute. If she had ever wondered if it was the right thing, she knew for certain now that it was, and had been exactly what she needed and wanted.

“Where've you been?” the familiar voice asked. It was Bill, calling from Vermont. He had just come back from an afternoon of ice skating with his grandson. And he couldn't wait to tell her about it. “Where were you, Maddy?” he asked again, and she smiled as she answered.

“Picking up your godson,” she said proudly. Lizzie had just turned the Christmas tree lights on, and the apartment looked cozy and warm, although she was sorry not to be with Bill on Christmas. Especially now that Andy had joined them.

For a moment, he didn't understand what she meant, and then he realized, and smiled. He could hear in her voice how happy she was. “That's a pretty major Christmas present. How is he?” He could hear how she was.

“He's so beautiful, Bill.” And then she glanced at Lizzie and smiled at her as she held her new brother.

“Not as pretty as Lizzie was, but he's pretty cute. Wait till you see him.”

“Are you bringing him to Vermont?” But he knew it was a silly question as soon as he said it. She had no other alternative, and he wasn't a newborn. He was a healthy two-and-a-half-month-old. He would be ten weeks old on Christmas morning.

“If it's all right with you, I'd love to.”

“Bring him along. The kids will love him. And I guess he and I better get acquainted if I'm going to be his
godfather.” He didn't say more to her, but he called her again that night and the next morning. She and Lizzie went to midnight mass, and took the baby with them, and he never woke up once. Maddy put him in the elegant blue carrying basket she had just bought him, and he looked like a little prince as he lay there in a brand-new blue hat and sweater, beneath an enormous cozy blue blanket with his teddy bear tucked in next to him.

And on Christmas morning, she and Lizzie opened all their gifts for each other. There were bags and gloves and books and sweaters and perfume. But the best gift of all was Andy, as he lay in his basket and looked at them. And when Maddy leaned over and kissed him, he beamed at her. It was a moment she knew she would never forget. A gift she would eternally be grateful for. And as she took him in her arms, she said a silent prayer of thanks to his mother for her incredible gift.