Crazy Thing Called Love (26 page)

Remembering what Billy had said, she carefully nudged Becky’s elbow, which didn’t even cause her to twitch.

But when Maddy laid her hand on Becky’s shoulder, the girl leapt up.

“What!” she cried, all wild-eyed panic. “Where’s Charlie?”

“Shh. Shh, Becky, Charlie is right here. You’re okay. Everyone is okay.”

Slowly the girl seemed to get her bearings, staring at her brother where he slept. “He’s out cold.”

“You were, too. Why don’t you go back to your bedroom? Get some real sleep.”

Becky’s yawn could have cracked her jaw.

“Yeah,” she said and slowly stood up from her seat. “Come on, Char.”

The young girl moved to pick up Charlie, but Maddy stepped in. “Honey, you’re about to fall over. Let me carry Charlie.”

It was obviously a big deal to Becky, letting someone else take care of her little brother, and Maddy was reminded so much of Billy and Denise. The way he’d carried that girl under his wing for so long. Her and Janice, really.

“Okay,” Becky whispered and then watched as Madelyn lifted Charlie, his dead weight awkward and heavy.

“Oh my gosh, girl, how do you do this?”

Becky didn’t even laugh. “Careful with him.”

“Of course.” Maddy sobered. Becky apparently wasn’t in the mood for jokes. “Lead the way.”

Once they reached the guest bedroom, Madelyn put Charlie down on the bed, pulling the comforter up over his shoulders. Becky crawled in next to him, lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling.

Becky glanced over at Charlie, as if she was making sure he was there, and then went back to studying the ceiling.

There were twenty different things Maddy wanted to say to Becky. About her mom. Her uncle Billy. How no one was going to hurt her. Maddy wanted to know if the girl had been hurt. And how. And then she wanted to unleash Billy on that person.

“What?” Becky asked, finally glaring in her direction.

“I’m sorry about your mom.”

Becky’s shrug wasn’t fooling anyone.

“I … I knew her, a long time ago. We were friends.”

I’ll braid your hair
, she remembered saying that night, to try and get her to stop crying.

Becky licked chapped lips and Madelyn wanted to tell her to stop. They were going to bleed soon. She made a note to leave the girl the ChapStick she had in her purse.

“When you were kids,” Becky said. “I know.”

Becky wiped her nose with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “She told me about you when she was pregnant with Charlie, she told me some friend of hers had gotten rich and sent us some money. Aunt Janice said it was you, before we came down here. She showed me a bunch of pictures of you when you were a kid.”

Oh. As far as ties went, it seemed weak. Terrible.

“You really grew up on the Hill?” Becky asked.

“Around the corner from your mom and Billy.”

Becky laughed a little, like she just couldn’t believe it. “How’d you end up here?”

“I worked really hard.”

“Yeah. And got your teeth fixed.”

Maddy jerked at the accusatory tone of Becky’s voice, but then somehow, with the hungry sixth sense that came from being raised in that neighborhood, she realized Becky was trying to make her own associations. Trying to connect every dot from where Madelyn stood to where she’d come from. Because it wasn’t something that happened all that often, and the map, at least from where Becky sat, was a mystery.

She remembered, all too well, how that felt.

“I had pretty bad teeth.”

“Marrying Uncle Billy must’ve helped.”

She nodded. “It didn’t hurt.”

“And you probably had like straight A’s. You must’ve been smart. Like for real.”

“You know, Becky …” She ran a hand over the comforter tucked up high around Charlie’s ears. He sighed and rolled over, flinging out an arm. His hand was so small and pink. She resisted the urge to touch a finger, just a finger. “Not really. Not any smarter than you probably are. I really wanted out of that neighborhood.”

Becky’s eyes filled with tears and Madelyn forced herself to pretend she didn’t notice them. She took great care to tuck Charlie’s hand back under the blanket.

Becky turned her face to stare at the ceiling and the tears ran from the corner of her eyes to soak into her hairline.

Madelyn didn’t know what to do or say. She wasn’t even sure if the girl was scared or sad or homesick.

“No one is going to hurt you,” she said, taking a shot at scared.

“Tell that to Uncle Billy.”

“He’s … he’s scary, but I swear to you, he won’t hurt you. He won’t lay a finger on you.”

Becky stared at the ceiling so hard, as if she were the only thing keeping it from falling and crushing them.

“Get some sleep, Becky,” she said. Becky sat up and grabbed Maddy, her sweaty fingers a handcuff around her wrist.

“Are you leaving?” she asked. The girl’s attempts at bravery, at cool indifference, were gone. She was white with fear, wide-eyed with worry.

“No,” Maddy said, her plans changing on a dime. “I’ll be right outside.”

Becky lay back down, collecting herself as if she was painfully aware of how young she’d sounded. How panicked. “It’s okay,” she said, too late to take back what she’d revealed. “Do whatever you want.”

“I’ll be right outside when you wake up.”

Becky turned her face away, curled up on her side, the
small bones of her spine pressing against the thin sweatshirt she wore.

Maddy took the hint and shut the door behind her before resting her hand against the wood for a second, as if she could send her unvoiced, unsure hope for healing through that wood.

Billy was right—she had forgotten. She’d forced herself to forget what it had been like to grow up in that neighborhood, with the Wilkins family, because the burden was too heavy to carry.

Behind her was the whir and thump of a treadmill and she followed the sound to a back bedroom. The door wasn’t completely shut and she stood in the shadows of the hallway watching Billy through the crack.

He ran at a relentless, punishing sprint. Sweat ran down every clenched and rigid muscle, dripped off his nose, from the stubborn thrust of his chin. And despite looking like the epitome of health, she knew he was wounded.

Bleeding out in front of her eyes.

The white wires of his MP3 player bounced against his shirtless chest and she realized, with a sudden pang of affection, that he’d put on the iPod so he wouldn’t disturb the kids.

She had no idea why it comforted her, but it did. A small sign that things might be all right. If he could just hold on to his compassion and his reason, he would be okay. He’d see himself out from under this mess.

“Goddamn it!” Billy yelled, and smacked the face of the treadmill with the flat of his hand. Again. And again. Until the treadmill readout cracked.

Or, she thought, ducking back into the shadows, away from the eruption of Billy, he’d screw this situation up worse with his blind anger.

One just never knew which way Billy would go.

* * *

Maddy’s eyes blinked open and she was lost. She was on a couch. Brown leather, so not hers. The gray blanket thrown over her was fleece. Definitely not hers.

“Why in the world is she here?” A woman’s voice said, muffled by walls and distance.

The smell of garlic in butter filled the air and her stomach roared, waking her all the way up.

She was on Billy’s couch. After cleaning up the donuts she’d sat down on the couch and must have fallen asleep. Judging by the sun falling in great sheets through the windows, she’d been asleep for a few hours.

“Billy,” the woman’s voice said and Maddy lifted her head, realizing it was coming from the kitchen. Tara Jean. That steely southern magnolia tone was unmistakable. “It’s her show. She took advantage of you. You can’t tell me she wasn’t planning that shit all along.”

There was a clatter and clang of dishes, a sizzle and the smell of searing meat.

“She told me she had nothing to do with it,” Billy said. “And I believe her.”

“I’ll tell you what I believe—”

“Tara,” another voice chimed in, deep and resonant. “You’ve been telling us for the last half hour what you believe.”

“Fine,” she snapped after a moment. “But I don’t want Billy to be hurt.”

“Maddy won’t hurt me.”

Internally, Maddy flinched, his faith painful.
No
, she thought,
don’t believe in me
.

“I swear,” Tara Jean murmured and Maddy imagined the woman hugging Billy, her thin arms around his thick neck, her mouth against his cheek, and jealousy—irrational and sudden—stabbed her. “When she wakes up I’m going to tell her what I think of her.”

Great. Maddy sighed and sat up, only to find Becky sitting at her feet, Charlie wrapped in her arms.

“That woman does not like you,” Becky whispered, her eyes bright. Maddy wasn’t sure if it was because the girl was laughing at her or because she’d finally gotten some sleep.

“Yeah,” she muttered. “I got that sense. How long have you been sitting there?”

“Not long. Charlie just woke up.”

And they sat here with me, instead of going into the kitchen
. Maddy was uncomfortable with that trust, too.

“I’m hungry,” Charlie cried and all noise in the kitchen went silent.

Becky winced. “Uh-oh.”

Yeah, uh-oh. Maddy threw off the blanket and got to her feet, smoothing down her hair in a lame attempt to be ready for Tara Jean when she came around the corner.

But it was Billy. In blue jeans and a faded blue Mavericks T-shirt. His feet were bare and he looked like every Sunday afternoon they had ever shared.

“You’re awake.” His eyes ran over the kids, as if checking for wounds or stolen silverware. “All of you.”

“Sorry,” Maddy said. “I didn’t mean—”

He waved her off. “It’s all right. Everyone needed some sleep. Are you guys hungry?”

“Starved,” Charlie said, jumping around the floor for no reason.

“Becky?”

She shrugged, which seemed to be the most fluent of Becky’s languages. “Okay, we’ve got lunch coming in a little bit. My friend Luc is making meatball subs.”

“Meatballs!” Charlie yelled—the kid couldn’t have been more excited if Billy had announced that a circus had moved into the kitchen. Billy seemed taken aback by his sudden enthusiasm.

“Calm down, Charlie,” Becky admonished, reading Billy’s unsure surprise. The girl was incredibly adept at gauging a room and calculating moods, Maddy thought.

Survival skills.

“No, it’s fine. I feel the same way about meatballs,” Billy said, smiling down at the boy. “Luc could probably use some help.”

Charlie charged off before Becky could stop him, and without him by her side, she seemed suddenly lost. Suddenly very young. Her hair was coming out of her ponytail in a frizzy little halo around her head, and she still had a wrinkle from the bed across her cheek.

“So that’s what he’s like when he’s had some sleep,” Billy said, with a small smile at Becky. Maddy had to look away, emotion swelling high in her throat. He was trying, he was trying so hard.

Becky ignored his attempt to build a bridge between them and tucked her hands into the sleeves of her sweatshirt. “Have you heard from Janice?” she asked.

Billy shook his head. “She won’t answer my calls or call me back.”

“You gonna put us on a plane?”

“Not until I talk to her,” he said.

“She may never answer her phone. It’s probably been turned off.”

Billy stretched out his neck, as if an invisible collar were getting a whole lot tighter. “Well, we’ll figure that out later. Right now, let’s have some lunch.”

“Becky!” Charlie yelled and Becky took a deep breath.

“I need to use some of that money you gave me,” she said.

Billy’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“We need more diapers. And some cream for Charlie’s butt. And vitamins, and he can’t use adult toothpaste, and—”

Billy held up his hand. “Got it. We’ll go shopping after lunch.”

Becky nodded, her shoulders relaxing around her ears.

“Hey, you guys coming?” Tara Jean stood in the doorway to the kitchen, glaring at Maddy. It was obvious her words were for everyone else.

“Yeah.” Billy turned sideways, lifting his arm as if to touch Becky’s shoulder to usher her into the kitchen, but he stopped himself when the girl flinched away.

Billy wasn’t ushering Maddy anywhere. In fact it was very obvious that it was time for her to leave. Past time.

“I’m … I’m going to head home,” Maddy said.

“What?” Becky asked, panic all over her face. And she wanted to tell the girl that she’d bet on the wrong horse. Tara Jean, who looked like she would draw knives on the girl’s behalf, would take better care of her. Maddy didn’t have anything maternal inside her. She’d forgotten how to give of herself. “You said you would stay.”

“I … can’t—”

“She has to go back to her show,” Tara Jean said, her eyes narrowed like every playground bully Maddy had ever known. “She’s got some more lives to ruin.”

“TJ—” Billy said, trying to step in, but it was too late. Maddy could fight her own battles.

“I didn’t know,” Maddy told Tara Jean. “And I’m doing everything I can to make it right.”

“I saw the donuts. Very generous.”

“You think you know me? You think because you watched that clip you have any idea how bad I feel? Denise was my friend, my very first friend, and Billy was my—” Her voice cracked.
My life. For so long
.

She took a deep breath, reining herself in. No wonder her ideas about friendship were such a mess.

“Billy was my best friend,” she finally said, careful not to look at him. “And I just wanted to help.”

And save my career
.

How did this all get so complicated? Nearly blind with tears that she wasn’t about to shed here, she found her boots by the door and shoved her feet inside.

When she glanced up she saw Becky, stone-still with fear.

“You’ll be all right,” Maddy said, hoping she wasn’t lying. “I told you, Billy’s a good guy.”

“But—”

“Here.” Maddy pulled out a business card from her big purse and a pen and wrote her cell phone number on the back. “You can call me anytime.”