"Mommy, how much further?"
The four-year-old squirmed on the bus seat; her short legs wouldn't reach the floor and she was tired of sitting. The air-conditioning was broken and it felt at least a hundred degrees inside; the atmosphere made less pleasant by a combination of sweat, exhaust fumes, and her Mommy's perfume, which always made Madeline sneeze.
The dark-haired woman beside her glanced down at her distractedly.
"Not too much farther, Linny. Just sit a little longer and when we stop again, I'll get you something cold to drink."
"Mommy?"
"What,Linny?" Victoria Metcalfe spoke now with impatience, her eyes on a highway sign indicating they were now 200 miles from Chicago.
"Why are we going to this city?"
Victoria looked down at her again. She had to inherit his eyes.
"Because...it's time you met your father."
Linny thought about that a moment, then nodded and slumped down in the seat. Soon she was asleep.
Victoria sighed. Madeline's father...the little girl had inherited not only Ben's pure blue eyes, but his shy smile, his quiet voice, his intelligence. She had walked at eight months, spoken complete sentences at ten months, and was already learning how to read and she was not yet in kindergarten.
It wasn't long after she'd fled Chicago that Victoria realized Madeline was on the way; for weeks she had vacillated between whether or not to have the baby aborted. A baby was the last thing Victoria needed-or wanted. But then she had begun to think. Perhaps this was best. Even if Ben could not love her as he had before after what she had done to him, he could not refuse to see the mother of his child.
Having fenced the diamonds and stashed the proceeds in a Swiss bank account for future reference, Victoria returned to her home state of Alaska and took an apartment in Anchorage. Knowing she was an even more wanted felon, she cut her long dark hair short, wore colored contact lenses, and took the name Victoria Kanakaredes, the surname being her Greek mother's maiden name. She didn't really need to work ,but she took a job in an office as a secretary.
On September 23,1996, she gave birth to seven-pound, three ounce Madeline , after a grueling eighteen-hour labor and being two weeks overdue. When the nurse brought the infant to Victoria to be nursed for the first time, a feeling came over Victoria that she had never felt before. For the first time in her life, she had something that was truly hers-nothing she'd had to steal or cheat or connive for. And something she knew not only would love her, but that she could love, with no strings attached. Only one other person had loved her that way...and now she held his daughter in her arms.
I'm not keeping her just to get to Ben, like I thought I would... I'm keeping her because she's mine and I want to. I can give Madeline anything she wants, anything she needs...I want to give her the chances I missed out on because of the choices I made. Above all...I can never let her know what I was before. Madeline can't know what I've done, or she will never love me.
/
Victoria snapped out of her reverie when the bus jerked suddenly to stop and dumped Madeline ignominously onto the floor.
"Are you okay?" she asked the child, helping her back onto the seat.
"I'll live," she replied matter-of-factly. "Are we there yet?"
"Not there there. But we're making a stop. Now we can get that drink I promised you."
As she stood she was seized with pain,the searing pain she'd been experiencing more and more lately, and she gasped involuntarily. Linny looked at her with alarm.
"Mommy, are you okay?"
"I'm fine, sweetheart. Just stiff from sitting so long. Come on.This is the last stop before Chicago. We'll be there before dark."
*****************************************************************
"The tests all came back negative, Margaret. I can find no reason why you have not been able to conceive."
Margaret Fraser sat in the office of Dr. Jean-Luc Fontaine, the doctor that had been a close friend of her father's for years and who had delivered her when she was born. He was an ob/gyn with a specialty in infertility, and Meg had made the trip back to Ottawa to confer with him. She and Ben had been married for two years, and because both of them were approaching their mid-thirties they had wanted to have a baby before they got much older. But after sixteen months of trying there was no sign of a child, and it was starting to affect Meg terribly. She knew her husband loved her, but would he continue to love a woman who could not give him the child he desired? Oh, he had assured her it was allright- he had even had tests done to make sure the problem wasn't on his side- and told her they would adopt a child if they couldn't have one of their own.
But it wasn't the same thing-Meg wanted a baby of her own. It made her feel a failure as a woman and a wife.
Now she looked anxiously at the doctor. "Well, if there's no reason why I can't conceive, why can't I?'
"That's the problem, Maggie. I can find no reason. If I could, we could try to fix it. But there is not an apparent reason...which means it's nothing I can fix."
Meg stared at him for a moment, then for one of the few times in her life, she burst into tears.
He gave her the name another specialist in Toronto, but that doctor gave her the same sad news; she was infertile. No good explanation why- she just was.
*****************************************************************
Now that they were both married men, Ray and Benton didn't get to see as much of each other. Ray and his ex-wife Angie had decided to try it again, and not only was it working out so far after six months, but Ray, grinning happily, told Ben over fettucine primavera that he was going to be a father.
"Angie is one of those women who's gonna spend eight out of nine months in the bathroom, but she's excited and so am I."
"I'm very happy for you,Ray," Ben said with sincerity. "I'm sure you'll be an excellent father."
"I don't know, I hope so. I know I'm going to be there for my kid like my dad never was for me." Ray noticed his friend's preoccupation despite his own enthusiasm and asked, "Ok, spill it, Benny."
"Why would I want to spill my-"
"Not your coffee. Your guts. Are you down in the dumps with Meg out of town?"
Ben and Meg hadn't told anyone the reason for her trip home; she hadn't called since she first arrived there and he was beginning to feel worried.
"Of course I miss her, but that's...well, that's it."
Ray could tell it wasn't "it", but he had to get back to work. He liked to finish up early so he could get home and start dinner to help Angie out.
"Well, I gotta go,Benny.Come on over tonight if you want the company. We're making her ma's recipe for ziti-the best. You can bring the wolf, too."
"Thank you kindly,Ray. But I should be home in case Meg comes home early or calls."
The Frasers resided in a two-bedroom apartment six blocks from the consulate (making it a sixteen-minute walk for Fraser rather than the seven minutes from his old residence). It was quite a bit nicer than that apartment, but without Meg there it seemed as cold and empty and barren as his former bachelor pad.
Also because this apartment building was more upscale, they had to keep Dief in the kennel provided by the managment for pets. Cats were allowed, but no dogs or birds.
He checked the answering machine (Meg insisted on a phone) but there were no messages. He tried her hotel room, but no answer there, either. He couldn't exactly share her feelings, but felt her desolation at not being able to conceive. He loved children and wanted some of his own,, but he knew Meg wanted to give birth to a child of their own, not take in someone else's. She had stated that very definitely. "Either we have one together or not at all," she had declared, on the verge of tears, the night before she had left. It was the one continuously sore spot in their relationship, and rapidly becoming an obsession with her...
The phone finally rang at ten-thirty that night; he had fallen asleep on the sofa after a solitary supper and a documentary on ice-fishing that,because of his concern over Meg's silence, he had found difficult to enjoy.
"Hello?"
"Well, it's definite. We aren't going to be parents,Ben. There's nothing anyone can do."
He was quiet. "Then we won't be. It won't change how I feel about you,Meg. I married you, not a -a ...mother. Maybe someday things will change. "
"I let you down, Ben. I know how much you want children...I did too, but I-I just can't.. just can't take a child that some other woman gave birth to. I just can't. Not...not yet. Maybe one day. But not this soon."
"That's all right. When will you leave?":
"I'll take the first flight home tomorrow. I'll be at O'Hare around noon."
"Meg, I love you."
"I love you , too, Ben."
***********************************************************************
The bus pulled in to the depot at seven o'clock that morning.
"Well, welcome to Chicago, Madeline. It's a lot different from home, isn't it?"
The little girl looked around in wide-eyed amazement.
"There are so many... buildings!"
"They're called skyscrapers. That's because they're so high it looks like they're touching the sky."
"Mommy, you made a poem!" Linny laughed delightedly.
"Oh, Mommy's good at that," Victoria said somewhat bitterly.
"What?"
"Never mind, sweet. Let's get you cleaned up. You can't meet your father looking like that."
"Does he know we're here?"
"No... but he will soon enough."
They checked into a motel not far from the bus depot; it was too hot for any of the clothes Victoria had
brought for Madeline from home, so she bought a little white and green sundress with matching bloomers and hat. She gave her a bath, brushed out the unruly curls, and dressed her before attiring herself in a short-skirted green linen suit and dark aviator glasses.
The superintendent of Ben's old apartment building didn't recognize Victoria, but she didn't think he would; she'd only seen the man once nearly five years earlier.
"The Mountie doesn't live here anymore, lady. He married that tight-ass superior officer of his down at the consulate and they live somewhere out that direction."
That was news Victoria hadn't been prepared to hear. She felt wobbly and swayed slightly on her feet. So he found another woman. I guess I should have expected that, after what I did to him. I had the chance of a lifetime and I threw it away...and anther woman will never accept a child he had with someone else, especially if that someone is me. But he should know. Even if he refuses to see me, he won't refuse to see her.
Fraser arrived at the consulated punctually at seven, although following Meg's call of the night before he had slept very little and was exhausted. He had much to do before he had to leave to pick her up, and he needed an early start. Turnbull and his new bride Francesca were away on their honeymoon, so with both the Inspector and Turnbull out a lot of paperwork and responsibility fell to Fraser. So it was with a slightly exasperated voice that he responded to the knock on his office door:" Pleas come in."
The woman who entered the office looked older; the cropped,lightened hair surrounded a face made prematurely lined by fatigue and (perhaps?)remorse; she was thinner and stood slightly stooped to one side.
"Hi,Ben,"Victoria spoke in the voice that he had once described as "the most beautiful you've ever heard,",now made lower and hoarser from childbirth and a recently-acquired smoking habit. "Hello,Victoria," he said quietly."I can't say it's a pleasure to see you again." She saw the wedding band on the third finger of his left hand, and noted he kept the hand in plain sight on the blotter on his desk.
"I deserved that," she said to his surprise."I didn't come here to see you, exactly,Ben. I heard you got married, and ...well, even if you hadn't I have no right to make any demands upon you. I came here to introduce you to someone."
It was then Fraser saw the tiny girl standing behind her mother, half-concealed in the shadow of the door.
"Madeline,"Victoria prompted gently, propelling her forward slightly."This is your father, Constable Benton Fraser."
The little girl looked up at Fraser, and he saw himself looking into his own eyes. He looked back at Victoria silently, his face expressionless.
"She was born in September-September the 23rd. I must have changed my mind a thousand times about whether or not to keep her. But after she was born, I wondered why I had ever considered otherwise. I didn't come here to make excuses for what I did, or to use her to get you back. I meant to hurt you,Ben. I hated you for making me waste ten years of my life in that horrible place. I wanted revenge. I'm the one who blew up your father's cabin, I'm the one who shot your wolf and Jolly. And as long as we're clearing the air, I was holding a gun on the train that day. Ray didn't fire in error. "I fenced the diamonds and the money is in a Swiss bank account, in my daughter's name." Victoria cleared her throat. "I brought Madeline to you for one reason, Ben. In about three months..." She looked down at Madeline. "Honey, go sit in the other room there and wait for Mommy."
"OK," the little girl responded, and with a shy smile at Fraser, retired to the next room to wait.
Victoria continued. "In three months, I'll be gone. I have cancer, Ben. There's not much left that isn't cancerous in my body. Chemotherapy is pointless. I even brought the medical reports in case you thought I was lying about that too. I have no family-no one to take care of Madeline when I'm gone. I didn't want to hurt you anymore. But... she's yours as much as she is mine. I need to know that she'll be taken care of. But...until I came here, I didn't know there was another woman to consider. If she won't accept my child...then I will take Madeline to the sisters at St. Michael's and put her in the convent school there. At least I know that the Church will take care of her. But otherwise she will go live with strangers, or worse yet in an orphanage. I can't do that to her. I don't care how you feel about me personally. I felt it was your right to know that she existed... and let you make the choice."
Just then Linny poked her head around the door. "Mommy, I have to go potty." Victoria glanced questioningly at Fraser. Abruptly he said,"You wait here. The one up here is being repaired; I'll take her downstairs."
Linny put her hand automatically into his. She was so small and delicate, like her mother, and she
had light-brown curls, like his mother had had. And she looked too much like him for him to doubt the paternity.
"Do you live here?" she asked.
"No. This is where I work."
"It's very pretty. I was never in a place this nice." They arrived at the bathroom door."Right in there, Madeline. I'll wait for you out here."
"Well, I hope so," she said primly before going in, making him smile despite himself. She was adorable, no question about it.
"Mr.Fraser, I can't reach the light."
He reached a hand in and flipped the light switch for her.
"How's that?"
"Better. Thank you. Now stay there, please."
She was in there so long he began to wonder if she had fallen in, when finally she called, "I need help reaching the sink."
Relieved to find her completely redressed and dry, he gave her a boost up to the sink where she industriously began washing her hands. She looked up at their joint reflections in the gilt-edged mirror before them.
"Do you think I look like you?" she asked seriously."You must be who I got blue eyes from."
"yes,I do think you look like me. Daughters usually do look like their fathers." I cannot believe this is happening. Here I stand with my illegitimate daughter by a convicted bank robber with whom I used to be in love, one hour before leaving to pick up my wife who has just learned she is infertile and who does not want another woman's child. Oh, dear.
Impulsively, Linny threw her still-damp arms around his waist. "I'm glad I finally met you. Now Mommy and I can go back home."
When they returned to the office, Victoria was gone.
"Mommy?" Linny looked around, then worriedly up at Fraser. "Where is Mommy? She wouldn't leave without me, would she?"
"Wait here, Madeline," he said somewhat roughly. He ran down the staircase through the lobby and out onto the sidewalk; no sign of Victoria in any direction. He returned swiftly to Madeline.
"Where did you and your mommy stay your first night here?"
"Um, um, it was called the something Motel, by the bus stop. We were in room 4, I remember that because that's how old I am. Maybe Mommy was tired and needed to take a nap."
"No, I don't think she's taking a nap..." He looked at the clock above the consulate door. Eleven-thirty. Meg's plane would arrive at twelve and there was no way he could be there in time, unless...
Thinking quickly, he telephoned the airport limo service, gave them the flight number and her name, and asked them to explain to her that an emergency prevented him from picking her up and that he would see her at home. He turned back to Madeline, who stood quietly at the foot of the stairs.
"Mommy is going to die, you know," she said suddenly. Fraser knelt in front of her."What makes you think so?" he asked her kindly.
"She thinks I don't know. But I heard her talking to the doctor one day when she thought I was taking a nap. She was crying. It was right after that that she said we were coming here to see you."
She reached up and took hold of his hand."When Mommy dies, are you going to take care of me?"
If we can't have a child together, we won't have one at all...
Maybe some day, but not this soon...
I want to be sure Madeline will be taken care of when I'm gone...she's as much yours as she is mine...
"You'll be taken care of," he said softly.
Meg looked in both directions when she came off the accordion-fold jetway in the airport lobby; no sign of Ben. It wasn't like him to be late, not at all. Not without very good reason.
Then she spotted a man in an airport limo service uniform holding up a sign reading FRASER.
"Did Benton Fraser send you to pick me up?"
"Yes ma'am. He said to tell you something had to be taken care of, but not to worry and he'd see you at home. That's all I know and all I was told to say."
Somehow I have a feeling Vecchio is behind this, as usual. But she just nodded and gave him her carryall to take outside to the waiting car.
Victoria was not at the hotel; in fact, she had taken her things and gone. The only thing left was a suitcase on the bed containing her daughter's belongings and an envelope containing a bank savings book, a gold bracelet, and an envelope with Fraser's name written on it.
Ben-
You'll find everything is as I told you-the account is in Madeline's name- six million dollars from the liquidation of the diamonds. It's sealed until her eighteenth birthday, when she will have access to it. The bracelet is for her, too.
I don't want this to cause any trouble between you and your wife. All I ask is that you see to it that she is taken care of until she comes into the money I have left her.
Don't look for me, Ben-by the time you read this,I'll be dead. Take care of her...and don't let her remember me in any other way except as Mommy. She must never know what I was-Victoria Metcalfe has never existed to her, only Victoria Kanakeredes.
I knew when you gave her your hand what your choice would be-it was love at first sight. And I can leave this life knowing that I was able to leave something good and pure behind me.
I'm sorry Ben. I wish it could have been different.
Victoria
P.S. Please show her the Northern Lights. She'll love it as much as I did.
Fraser looked down at Madeline, who had picked up the bracelet and was turning it around and around in her small hands.
"She's not coming back, is she?"
"No, Madeline, she's not. She was very sick, and..."
"I want to go with her. I want to be with Mommy." He knelt in front of her and put his hands on the thin little shoulders."You can't go with her..not where she's gone."
"Where's she gone? "
"Away. Where she won't have to be sick anymore."
The blue eyes filled with tears. "She's...she's an angel now?"
He nodded. Linny put her head on his shoulder and cried and he hugged her close.
He took the suitcase in one hand and lifted Madeline with the other arm, and left the motel.
"Where are we going?" Linny asked.
"Home," he said, and braced himself for what was to come. Five years earlier, Victoria had taken one week to turn his life upside down. This time she had done it in five hours. But she truly loved Madeline...she was thinking only of her safety and well-being by bringing her to me...I just don't know how I can keep this from hurting Meg and Madeline both.
The tooting of a car horn made them both look around; it was the familiar green Riv. Ray was on lunch, evident by the supersize fries and soft drink he was artfully juggling.
"Hey, Benny! I thought you were picking up Meg. Who's the kid?"
Fraser cleared his throat. "Ray...this is my daughter, Madeline."
It had the expected effect. He promptly spit out a mouthful of half-chewed fries, provoking Madeline to say , "Ew, yucky!"
Fraser gave Ray the whole story in about ten minutes, while Madeline eyed the still-uneaten cheeseburger Ray held in one hand while he listened in disbelief to the tale.
"So she waited til now to tell you you had a kid, as if what she did before wasn't enough..."
Fraser looked at him warningly, meaning he shouldn't mention "that" Victoria in front of her daughter.
"You told Meg about this yet?"
"I haven't even seen her yet today, Ray. I sent an airport service to pick her up. But I can only imagine she will not be enthusiastic." Ray saw Madeline looking at his hamburger.
"Well...maybe she'd better not be present when you break the news to Meg. Want me to take her home to Angie to watch until you do?" He broke the burger in half and gave one half to Linny, who smiled at him gratefully and bit into it hungrily.
"That's kind of you Ray, but no. But..." he leaned down and spoke sotto voce "Victoria was dying of cancer, Ray. I believe she may have committed suicide to spare Madeline the pain of watching her die. Listen for any reports of unidentified victims called in."
"OK. Let me know if I can do anything." Ray reached up and gave Linny's hand a shake. "Nice to meet you, Madeline. You'll probably see a lot of me."
"Nice to meet you too," she said politely.
"Well, she's got the Canadian manners down pat already," he observed.
"Actually, she was born in Alaska, so she's an American citizen. But she's also a Canadian citizen because Victoria and I are both -were both- Canadian."
"Then there's hope for her yet," Ray said dryly, and drove away.
*****************************************************************
"Who is that?"
Meg stood in the middle of their living room and stared at the man and the little girl before her.
"Meg...this is Madeline. And she is, for want of a more subtle description, my daughter."
Her face turned white. "Daughter? Whose else's?"
"My mommy's name is Victoria," Linny informed her.
"Victoria? As in Victoria Metcalfe? She's here...and brought THIS?"
"She brought her, yes, but she is no longer here." Meg sunk onto the sofa. "My God...as if my life couldn't possible get any worse..." She glared at him. "All right. I will attempt to stay calm and focused. You have exactly five minutes to explain before I call the nearest animal shelter." Fraser looked down at Linny. "Madeline, why don't you go wait in the extra room over there. If you're tired, you could take a nap while we, um,discuss this."
"I'm always getting sent in the other room," she complained, but obeyed. Fraser straightened. When he spoke his voice was gentle but edged with steel. "First of all, you are not going to call any sort of shelter. Madeline is my daughter, Meg, and conceived with a woman who I loved at the time and before I even knew you existed. Any feelings I had for Victoria died long ago- once I finally realized that she was simply using my belief that I had wronged her to get me to perform like a puppet on a string to achieve what she wanted."He took a deep breath. "She was here for one week-one week in which we spent-a great deal of time together. I truly believed I loved her and that she loved me-maybe she did. But she loved herself more."
He paced the room and stopped before the window.
"Perhaps she never would have told me about Madeline if she had not become ill. But I saw enough in the few hours she was here that Madeline changed her. For the first time in her life, Victoria was thinking about someone other than herself. I know we cannot have a child of our own right now, Meg-maybe someday that will change, it often does. But I cannot and will not turn Madeline away. Not because of any feelings I once had for her mother, because there is only one woman for me now, and that is you. Madeline is my flesh and blood and she is my responsibility, and this is home for her from now on. I don't want this to come between us, because there is no need for it to do so. It is not Madeline's fault that the events occurred which resulted in her birth. And I would be no kind of father-or a man-if I turned her out into the world to fend for herself. You have a stepmother who came into your life when you were ten-how would you have felt if she sent you away because you complicated her relationship with your father? Give it some time,Meg. Look at it this way- you'll have some practice before we have a child that starts out an infant. This way we skipped the diaper-changing stage."
Meg still did not speak; just sort of stared ahead. The phone twittered just then, and Ben, with a troubled look at her, answered. "Hello?"
"It's me, Benny. They just called in a Jane Doe found in an abandoned freight car in the old stockyards. Caucasian female, short dark hair, green linen suit, mid-thirties. Self-inflicted gunshot to the head. Has a picture of the kid clutched in her hand. Just thought you should know."
"Yes...thank you,Ray."
He hung up and turned back to Margaret.
"She's dead." Her words were a statement, not a question.
"Yes."
An unpleasant chapter in their lives had concluded. A new one would begin-and the author was a little girl lying asleep in the next room. Meg got to her feet. "Well," she said slowly. "Maybe you should see to it that Victoria is identified and buried. She was a Canadian citizen after all."
"Understood. And...what will you do?"
"When she wakes up she'll need dinner. Then I should see about getting her enrolled in kindergarten for this fall. You said she'll be five in September, didn't you?"
They were in the middle of a passionate kiss when a tiny voice said, "Um...can you tell me where the bathroom is,please?"
"The honeymoon is over," Meg said dryly, then extended her hand to Madeline."This way, honey."
And Linny looked up at her and smiled her father's smile.