Kathleen Creighton - Still Waters

"Oh, sure, we'd love to," Maddy said, jumping up from her perch on the arm of the couch. Her voice was sharp, and Carleen was staring at her, but she couldn't help it. "I'm sure your husband can hardly wait to do a favor for the guy who punched him in the stomach and left him sitting in the middle of a public fountain!"

Carleen put her hand over her mouth in a vain attempt to stifle a nervous giggle. Maddy stared at her in exasperation. "Carleen, can I ask you a question? Why did you come to see me about this? Why didn't you talk to Zack? He's the one- "

"Oh, gee, are you kidding?" Carleen gave another nervous titter and clutched her purse. "Joe would kill me if he ever found out I'd talked to him. I don't think he'll ever forgive him for that-although he had it coming. Joe hit him first."

"Carleen," Maddy said gently, praying for patience and wishing the woman would just leave, so she could have a good cry and get her frustration out of her system. "If your husband won't even talk to Zack, what in the world makes you think he'd ever agree to give him custody of Theresa?"

Carleen's eyes got very round. She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and visibly seemed to pull herself together.

"But that's the thing, see," she said, looking determined. A little scared, but determined. "Zack doesn't need Joe's permission. See, my sister, she never cared much for Joe. In her will, she gave custody of Theresa to me. That's all. Just me. I'm Theresa's legal guardian."

Maddy stared at her. She felt strange. Frozen.

Carleen cleared her throat and looked down at her hands. Maddy heard the snap on Carleen's purse click loudly. She watched Carleen's hands dive into the handbag and reappear holding some legal-looking papers. When she gazed back up at Maddy her eyes held a rather touching spark of defiance. There was a pink flush across her cheeks.

"I want-I'd really like for you guys to adopt Theresa. You and Zack. So… I went and got the papers." She thrust them at Maddy. "Here they are. If you want to… all you have to do is sign them."

Dolores Springs Park was several miles from San Ramon, in the coastal foothills. The springs fed a creek, which ran down a canyon crammed with native California sycamores and live oaks, into what had to be a rarity in Southern California-a small, natural lake. The Parks Department had installed boat docks and restrooms and picnic tables, and, at the lower end of the canyon, parking lots and a softball diamond, but otherwise had left things pretty much in their natural state.

The tires of Maddy's car-Zack's Mercedes wouldn't accommodate three-crunched over a layer of live-oak mulch as she pulled into a shady spot and parked.

Theresa was already bouncing out of her seat belt, shouting, "Oh, boy. Where's the lake? I don't see any lake!"

Zack laughed. "Patience, imp. Would I lie? Here, you get to carry the blanket."

"I want to carry the picnic basket!"

"Sorry, squirt. You're just a little bit too small for that. But here, how about this?"

He reached into the back seat and took out the mysterious oblong package he'd been gloating about all morning with maddening secrecy. Theresa scowled at the bundle and turned it over in her hands with open suspicion. "What's this?"

"A surprise," Zack said firmly. "Come on. Let's get this safari on the road!"

Maddy locked her car and followed Zack and Theresa up the path, crunching oak debris underfoot. Though loaded down with blankets, a basket, and extra jackets, Zack's step was jaunty. Maddy knew he was determined to make this a happy day for Theresa, even if his own heart was filled with the knowledge that it might be the last day they'd ever spend with her.

When shall I tell him?

Life, Maddy reflected, was full of weird twists and turns. It seemed cruel to keep from Zack one moment longer than she absolutely had to the wonderful news that Theresa was all but his. So why was she still hugging it to herself, like a miser jealously guarding his pot of gold? The custody papers were sitting right there in her purse, the purse she'd left safely locked in the trunk of her car.

Why was it so hard to tell him?

Because she knew perfectly well why Zack had asked her to marry him. He'd hoped a wife would help to swing the adoption board in his favor. If he were assured of gaining custody of Theresa without a wife, would he still want to marry her? Zack was a decent, compassionate man. He would never be so cruel as to withdraw his proposal just because the situation had changed.

But the situation had changed. And Maddy knew that, regardless of Zack's principles, she couldn't go through life married to someone who didn't love her.

Any way you sliced it, it was going to be a difficult and painful thing to resolve.

It had been enough that Zack needed her. Now even that would be gone.

"Hurry up, Maddy!" Theresa called. She and Zack were waiting for her to catch up. Theresa held out her hand, dancing with impatience. "Give me your hand!"

With Zack and Maddy each holding one of her hands, Theresa took two running steps and lifted both feet off the ground, swinging suspended between the two grown-ups.

Maddy laughed. "Don't you think you're a bit too big to do that?"

"Aw, gee," Theresa grumbled. "How come I'm always either too small or too big!"

"The universal lament of the child," Zack said dryly. "That's the breaks, squirt."

They were ahead of the bulk of the holiday crowd, which would come in later for the fireworks show, on shuttle buses from town. Even so, picnickers had already claimed the available tables, so they staked out a nice spot under a sycamore tree on the gently sloping banks of the lake. It was directly opposite the softball field, where the pyrotechnics experts were busy setting up for the big display later that evening. They would have a good view without being close enough to sustain permanent hearing damage.

Theresa was a little disappointed with the lake at first. The boats were only ugly old canoes, not pretty white sailboats like the ones in her picture. But when Zack told her that the boats in her picture were just toys and that you could actually take a ride in these ugly old canoes, she brightened right up, and of course wanted to go in a boat immediately.

So all three of them donned bright orange life jackets and spent the early part of the afternoon paddling ineptly around the lake, dodging other canoes and paddle boats, and drenching each other with water from their paddles.

When they had collapsed back on their blanket, laughing and half soaked, Zack reached for his mystery bundle and drew it forth with a flourish.

"Oh, boy," Theresa cried, bouncing up and down on her heels. "Now we get to see the surprise! What is it? Can I see? Hurry up, Zack!"

"Ah-ah. Cool it, squirt. All in good time." Zack was shamelessly milking his moment.

Maddy watched them bend together over the package and felt a surge of love wash through her like a tidal crest. She was glad, at that moment, that neither of them happened to be watching her face. She lowered her head until the spasm had passed, then wiped her cheeks quickly and openly with her hands. Her face was spattered with water, anyway, from the canoe's paddles.

They were having such a wonderful time, she thought, even without knowing that everything was going to be all right. She didn't need to tell him yet. She would wait a little longer. She could be a part of them for just a little longer…

"It's a kite!" Theresa shrieked. "A kite, just like in the picture! Can we make it fly, Zack? Can we?"

"That's the idea," he muttered, looking perplexed as he tried to decipher the assembly instructions. He cast Maddy a look of appeal.