Unforgettable You Page 5

  “No kidding?” Maddox said. “In June? That’s high, isn’t it? I read somewhere the average is eighty-three.”

  “We’ve hit as high as a hundred and ten before. That’s the record. Heard it on the news just this morning.” He forked up another bite. “But yeah, one hundred’s hot, ’specially for June.”

  “How long have you lived in the area?”

  “Since I married Shirley.”

  This proved he was thinking about her; he could’ve used a different benchmark.

  “Course, I’ve downsized a lot since then,” he added. “Used to own three hundred acres.”

  “When did you sell the rest?”

  He waved his fork. “Oh, over the years. Broke off chunks here and there before I put in the trees.”

  “What were you planting back then?”

  “Tomatoes, mostly.”

  “You like pixie tangerines better?”

  “They’re easier. You’ll work your fingers to the bone growing tomatoes. I’m too old for that now.”

  “You seem to be getting around okay.” Maddox offered him an encouraging smile.

  “I’m moving a lot slower than I used to.”

  Maddox barely knew Uriah. He wasn’t sure what he was doing sitting in his landlord’s house at nearly ten o’clock on a warm summer evening, but the way the old guy had used fresh watermelon to entice him to come in told Maddox he was tired of being alone. He was probably alone too much. “Where, exactly, does your son live?”

  His craggy eyebrows came together but he answered readily enough. “Silver Spring, Maryland.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “No. That’s something, ain’t it?”

  “I didn’t realize there was another Silver Springs.”

  “It’s clear across the country and without the s, but...still quite a coincidence.”

  “What does he do there?”

  A far-off look settled over his face.

  “Mr. Lamb?”

  He started eating again but mechanically—raising his fork, putting the food in his mouth, lowering it. “I’m not certain, to be honest with you.”

  Maddox scrambled for something to say in response. “When’s the last time you talked to him?”

  “It’s been about five years.”

  What could possibly have come between them? Maddox was curious, but he wasn’t about to ask. He was pretty certain he’d been invited in to make the night easier to get through, not harder. “It’s amazing the way you handle this place all on your own.”

  “Requires constant effort,” he said. “So how’s that job of yours at New Horizons?”

  “Great. The school won’t open until mid-August, so we’re just getting the curriculum ready, choosing textbooks, staffing, that sort of thing.”

  “You told me you were born in LA. Is that where your folks live?”

  “My mother.”

  He looked up. “And your father?”

  “My mother says he was born in Seattle. She thinks he might’ve gone back there when he left us.”

  The old guy stopped chewing. “How old were you when that happened?”

  “Four. My brother was three.”

  “Do you have much contact with your father?”

  Maddox felt nothing but contempt for the man who’d left his mother alone with two children and no support, financial or otherwise. Even if his father reached out, he’d tell him to go to hell. It was about twenty years too late for a relationship. “None. He didn’t leave a forwarding address. Wasn’t too keen on the idea of child support, I guess.”

  “That ain’t right.”

  “I survived.” His life could’ve been a lot easier, though. He often wondered if his mother would’ve been a better mother if only she’d had someone to help her.

  They ate in silence for a few minutes. Then Uriah said, “Where’s your brother these days?”

  Maddox hadn’t mentioned that he had a history in Silver Springs when he’d answered the ad that brought him to this small orchard. He hadn’t wanted to damage his chances of getting the house, in case Uriah happened to know the Brooks family. He’d figured, if Uriah didn’t remember his name from having read it in the paper or hearing it on the lips of all the shocked Silver Springs residents at the time, that was on him. But now that Uriah was asking a direct question, Maddox decided to be up front, partly because the Brookses already knew he was back, so it didn’t matter if Uriah told them, and partly because he refused to act in any way that could be construed as being ashamed of his family. “He’s in prison.”

  The old man’s hand froze halfway to his mouth. “For what?”

  “For shooting Atticus Brooks.”

  “Ah.” He nodded slowly. “Thought I’d heard your name somewhere before. Couldn’t place it.”

  “Then you know the Brookses...”

  “Not well. I know Susan owns the cookie shop in town. My wife used to stop in and buy a dozen every now and then. Sometimes she’d take in a bag of tangerines. She felt bad for Susan’s boy, for what happened.”

  So did Maddox. That was the thing. He wished he could have that night to live over again. He’d stop that whole chain of events. “Now that you know it was my brother who was responsible for putting Atticus in that wheelchair, do you regret renting to me?”

  Finished eating, he stood up to dispose of the rind.

  Maddox watched him rinse his plate. “Mr. Lamb?”

  “Did you have anything to do with it?” he asked above the sound of the water rushing through the tap.

  “I was there that night, at the same party,” Maddox replied. “But no.”

  He came over to get Maddox’s plate. “Then I don’t regret renting to you.”

  * * *

  “When were you going to tell me Maddox Richardson is back in town?”

  It was nearly two weeks later, on a Friday night at midnight, when her mother opened the door to Jada’s bedroom and hit her with that question—spoken low so that Maya and Atticus wouldn’t overhear from their own bedrooms on the other side of the house. Jada had spent every single day since she’d learned Maddox was living in Silver Springs checking to make sure the coast was clear wherever she went—watching the foot traffic outside the cookie store, peering cautiously down every aisle before entering it when she went to the grocery store, obliquely glancing at the other drivers when she was on the road or stopping to get gas and, much to the consternation of Tiffany, refusing to go to the bar or any other place she thought single people might hang out. She hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him, so she’d begun to relax, to think they could live parallel lives that would never intersect beyond that brief sighting of him at the farmers’ market Saturday before last.

  This brought all of her cautious optimism to an abrupt halt.

  “Jada?”

  The accusation in her mother’s voice, as if Jada had invited Maddox back, was upsetting. But this conversation was going to be difficult enough even if she approached it carefully, so she tried to keep the pique out of her own voice. “I wasn’t going to tell you.”

  She came in and closed the door behind her. “Because...”

  The subtle lines in her mother’s face, around her eyes and mouth, seemed more pronounced today than ever. Jada wanted to feel some sympathy for her. She wasn’t well. But Jada was too defensive to feel anything other than a heavy dose of resentment over the past, and irritation that her mother would approach her this boldly, as if she were still a child. “Because I knew it would upset you, and I didn’t see any reason to do that.”

  She fisted her hands on her hips. “You didn’t think I had a right to know? He’s Maya’s father, for crying out loud!”

  Jada knew what was at stake. “I realize that. But he doesn’t know it and, other than Atticus, neither does anyone else.” Except Tiffany, although Jada wa
sn’t willing to admit that she’d told her friend. She’d been given strict directions not to tell a soul. Learning that she had would only make her mother angrier. Susan wouldn’t stop to think about how young Jada had been when everything went down and how badly she’d needed someone to confide in who wouldn’t try to tell her what to do. Jada probably wouldn’t have had the guts to stand up to her parents and keep Maya, not while she was feeling so guilty and terrible about Atticus, without Tiffany insisting that it was her life and her decision, and she’d be the one who’d have to live with the regret if she made the wrong choice.

  “She looks just like him,” her mother said. “He could easily guess!”

  Icy tentacles of fear wrapped ever tighter around Jada’s heart, but her mother always argued for the worst possible scenario. She supposed most mothers did that in an effort to keep their babies safe; she found herself warning Maya about the terrible things that could happen if she didn’t watch out, too. “It’s not as if I can chase him off. I don’t own the area. Neither do you. We don’t get to dictate who lives here and who doesn’t. I’m not sure it was fair of you to do what you did last time.”

  “Fair of me?” she cried.

  Jada clenched her jaw. “You and Dad. But never mind. Bottom line he has a great job working for New Horizons. He’ll be heading up the girls’ side, so he has good reason for being here.”

  “You know quite a bit about what he’s doing.”

  Jada couldn’t miss the insinuation. “Just the basics.”

  Her mouth tightened. “Then you’ve talked to him.”

  “No, I haven’t. Tiffany saw him at the farmers’ market and told me about it. I didn’t know if he was just visiting or what until Aiyana showed up at the store and told me she’d hired him.” She closed her laptop. “Who told you I already knew he was in town?”

  “Evangeline, the lady who owns the olive oil and balsamic vinegar shop a few stores down. She saw you talking to Aiyana and assumed you were planning to enroll Maya.”

  “Why would I send Maya to a correctional school? She’s a good student.”

  “She doesn’t know that. She has a fourteen-year-old daughter who’s giving her nothing but trouble. Purple hair. Piercings everywhere. Cuts herself. Shoplifts. Runs away every few months. Evangeline has been beside herself for the past several years, can’t seem to handle her, so she’s relieved to have New Horizons as an option.”

  “She’s going to send her daughter to a boarding school that’s here in town? Doesn’t that sort of defeat the purpose?”

  “Why would it? Aiyana’s giving her a steal on tuition. She wouldn’t be able to afford it, otherwise. She’s spent every dime she has trying to get her shop going.”

  “I’m not sure it’ll have the same effect if her daughter goes as a day student and comes home to the same friends and situation that had her cutting herself to begin with.”

  “She’s going to stay there, so it’ll be the same as if she’s miles away. Aiyana doesn’t allow the boarding students to go off campus, not without permission from their parents. And Aiyana is making Evangeline sign a contract that she will come see her every Sunday for two hours, from one to three, but won’t show up any other time or give her permission to leave, except for a death in the family or holidays.”

  “It’ll be interesting to see how that works—being so close and yet so far away.” Jada wasn’t being facetious; she was sincere in that comment. She’d heard Aiyana could work miracles, but this sounded like a unique situation.

  “Although I wish her the best, what happens with Evangeline’s daughter is really none of our concern. I only brought her up because it was Evangeline who mentioned the new principal. She asked me if I’d met him, says he seems young but capable. I nearly spilled my coffee when she told me his name!”

  “I bet.”

  “I don’t understand how Aiyana could hire a man with Maddox Richardson’s background.”

  “Then you don’t know Aiyana, because that is absolutely something she would do. She doesn’t just give lip service to believing in her students. She fully supports them. Besides, she claims he’s qualified.”

  “In what way?” she scoffed.

  “He has a master’s.” That was a pretty lofty accomplishment given that Susan had insisted he’d never amount to much. Jada was tempted to throw that in her face, but she bit her tongue.

  “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “It means he’s qualified for the job!”

  “What about his no-good brother?”

  “What about him? I doubt much has changed for Tobias, since he’s been in prison all these years.”

  “Don’t tell me he’s coming here after he gets out.”

  “Aiyana claims he’s not, but I have no idea if that will change. I didn’t know Maddox was coming back.”

  She wrung her hands. “I can’t imagine how Atticus will react when he hears about this.”

  “I’m guessing he’ll take his lead from you. If you act as though it’s no big deal, maybe he will, too.”

  “No big deal?” She gaped at Jada as though she’d lost her mind. “Maddox Richardson got you pregnant before you were even out of high school, which changed the entire course of your life! You have no education as a result! And because of him and that evil brother of his, your own brother will be in a wheelchair until the day he dies!”

  “Sex takes two.” Jada couldn’t defend Maddox when it came to what’d happened to Atticus, but she wasn’t about to let her mother blame him for Maya. Jada had wanted to make love to Maddox every bit as badly as he’d wanted to make love to her. They could hardly keep their hands off each other. As a matter of fact, she’d never had better sex. There were plenty of times, even while she was married, that she’d lain awake, thinking about how incredibly erotic and all-consuming those encounters had been, and wondering if she’d ever experience the same depth of feeling.

  “I haven’t forgotten your part in it,” her mother snapped and stalked out of the room.

  5

  Maya was lying on top of the bed on Saturday while her friend Annie Coates sat at the white desk in the corner of the room with a pencil and notebook. Downstairs, they could hear Annie’s parents banging around in the kitchen and smell chicken wafting up from the grill outside, since the door to the patio stood open so Mr. Coates could come in and out without bothering to open it.

  “Tell me everything you know about him,” Annie said, poised to make a list.

  Maya was so glad to have found Annie. She’d never had a friend like her. She’d only been in Silver Springs for three months, but it felt as if they’d known each other forever. “That’s just it. I don’t know anything! I haven’t met one single person who knows less about their dad than I do.”

  “Because he died before you were born. You never got to meet him.”

  Maya frowned. “It’s not only that. My mother doesn’t like to talk about him for some reason. She acts weird whenever I bring him up.”

  Annie wrote something in the notebook she had out. “How weird?”

  Maya pictured her mother’s face, how tense it grew whenever Maya asked about her father. “That’s hard to explain. Worried or something.”

  Annie looked up. “Maybe she misses him. Maybe it makes her sad to remember him. My mom always cries when she talks about my grandmother, who died last year.”

  Sad wasn’t the impression Maya got, but she didn’t have a better explanation. “I guess. I just wish she’d tell me a little more about him.”

  “When was the last time you asked?”

  Maya brushed the crumbs from the cookies they’d eaten earlier off Annie’s comforter. “When we were packing up and leaving Eric.”

  “She might’ve thought you were too young to hear about the motorcycle crash. My parents won’t talk about smashed heads or dying people, either. Not in fr
ont of me. They say it’s too gruesome.”

  “How old do I have to be to hear about my own father?” Maya rolled over and shoved a pillow beneath her head as she stared up at the ceiling. “In two months I’ll be thirteen! That’s old enough to hear about motorcycle crashes.”

  “True.” Annie blew a bubble with the big wad of chewing gum in her mouth and it popped. “Did she say you could talk about it when you’re older?”

  Maya shook her head.

  Annie pulled the remains of an even bigger bubble off her face. “What did she say?”

  “Nothing, really. He was a wonderful man, and I look just like him.”

  “That’s good!”

  Maya lifted her head. “What’s good about it?”

  Annie shrugged. “She said he was nice. That’s better than saying he was mean.”

  “But get this—when I asked her what his last name was, she couldn’t remember it!”

  Annie dropped her pencil. “No way!”

  “Yes way! How can she be too sad to talk about him if she doesn’t even remember his last name?”

  Annie bent to pick up the pencil, which had rolled onto the floor. “Do you know his first name?”

  “Madsen.”

  “I’ve never heard of anyone by that name.”

  “I think that’s what it is. When I asked, she said ‘Mad...’ and then she stopped and said ‘...sen’ really fast.”

  Annie bit her lip. “She might be embarrassed for having a baby when she wasn’t married and all that.”

  “I know. And when she was so young. She has one of those dangly things you get at graduation in her scrapbook that says she graduated from high school the same year I was born.”

  “She never went to college?”

  “No.” Everyone who saw her mother assumed she was twenty-four or twenty-five, not thirty. Sometimes people asked if they were sisters, which made Jada squirm. Saying they were barely eighteen years apart made whoever was asking clamp their mouth shut and lift their chin, as if he or she suddenly smelled something stinky.