Page 80 of Ebbing Tides
“With all due respect, sir, I'm sure I've heard worse.”
That didn't seem to help matters much because he hung his head even lower, but still, he nodded.
“My daughter was a troubled girl,” he admitted. “And when she became pregnant, she had no intention of ever keeping the baby. But she saw an opportunity, you see, and she went through with the pregnancy anyway.”
My phone vibrated again in my pocket, and again, it went ignored as I tipped my head, absorbing his story and noting how it aligned so far with my father's version.
Maybe he is capable of telling the truth after all.
“Of course, your father had no interest either. The man was screwing around behind his wife's back, and Lord knows what that must've done to his marriage,” Maxwell grumbled. “One second, he was infatuated with my daughter—or so she said—and the next, he was assaulting her after she announced to him that she was pregnant. I told her to press charges against him, I told her to call the police, but she said she wasn't going to bother. Said she was going to have the baby, was going to take care of things herself. So, she did,” he said with a sigh. “She went through all those months. My wife helped, her sister—”
“She has a sister?” I interrupted, raising my brows like a lost puppy.
He smiled and nodded. “I have two other children. A daughter and a son. Carol and Jack.”
I felt weightless and wonderful. I had an aunt and uncle?
“We all helped Lilly,” Maxwell went on. “We thought … wethoughtthat baby would be all of ours. A new little member of the family. She gave birth, and we took care of him for a bit as she recovered. She hadn't given him a name yet, so we just called him Little Guy, Little Buddy, Little Man …”
His voice grew tight and emotional as he turned to look away from me, clearing his throat and blinking rapidly.
It struck me hard and fast in the center of my chest that he wasn’t just talking about any baby. He was talking aboutme. Iwas Little Man, who could pull such sadness from the soul of this old man.
I had been loved.
And not just by him, but by his wife, his children … everyone but my own parents.
“But then, one day, while I was at work and my wife was at the supermarket and Carol and Jack were at school, Lilly took the baby and left. We didn't know where she had gone, didn't know what she was up to, didn't know where to even look—this was before the days of cellular phones, of course. But we looked. We asked her friends. We searched everywhere we could think of. And then, a few weeks later, she was home.” He looked up at me, an empty ache reflected in his eyes. “But the baby was gone.”
“She left me on my father's doorstep,” I told him. “That's what he told me this morning.”
Maxwell nodded. “Yes. She told us that baby—thatyou…” He squeezed his eyes shut, as if he could hardly believe it—and that would make two of us. “She said you were sent to ruin Richard's life. That was yourpurpose. She was neverright, if you understand my meaning, but I believed her. I believed that Richard's life would be in shambles, and for that, he would punish you for the sins committed by adults.”
A boulder rose from my chest and sat squarely in the center of my throat as I bit my bottom lip, warding off a powerful surge of pain and sadness and agony. He had no idea how right he was—or did he?
“So, I went to him,” Maxwell said, sounding feebler and frailer than moments before. “I asked … no, Ibeggedhim to let me take that baby. I swore I'd ask for nothing in return. I swore he'd never see or hear from me again. But he said no.”
Sadness turned to anger, and I barked a laugh into the clear, early afternoon sky.
“Of course he did! God,” I uttered, shaking my head with anguish. “Goddamn him.”
Ishouldkill him, I decided, nodding to myself as I looked toward Lilly's grave.I should kill my father. It won't make anything better, it won't make anything right, but it would give me maybe, possibly, a small shred of satisfaction to remove his evil soul from my life.
Then a cool, wrinkled hand touched the skin of my wrist, and I turned to Maxwell's crystal-blue eyes, and it hit me. My eyes didn't look like my father's. Similar in hue, yes, but … no, my eyes belonged tothisman. Filled with kindness and acceptance and love.
Maybe if I looked harder, I could find something else Maxwell Meyer had given to me too.
“I won't pretend to know what your life was like, son,” he said softly. “But your father believed your safety was at risk. He told me that, if I brought you back to my home, she would never allow it. I didn't believe him, of course, and when I left his office, I went to Lilly. I asked if she'd like me to bring the baby home, if she'd like the chance to be a mother. And do you know what she said?”
I shook my head. “What did she say?”
“She looked me dead in the eye and said, 'Daddy, if I have to hear that thing cry one more time, I will throw him off a bridge, and nobody will see him ever again.’” He wilted with a sigh and held steady to his cane. “I'll never forget the look in her eyes. It was cruel,evil… and I couldn't understand it, how shecould say something so terrible about her ownchild. But I knew she was telling the truth.”
A brusque chuckle forced its way through my throat as I laid a hand over my forehead and rubbed my brow. “So, you're telling me that—”
“Your father saved your life,” Maxwell finished. “That's exactly what I'm saying.”
“And Lilly never …” I blinked, dropping my hand to my side. “She never wondered about me, never asked, never—”
