THE DEVILS DIME (15 page)

“I’ve gone and ruined your Sunday afternoon.”

Addie lifted her head and looked into the sorrowful eyes of the father she’d always known she loved. She placed a hand on each of his arms and rose on tiptoe to plant a soft kiss on his jaw.

“Quite the contrary,” she said, settling back on her heels. “It’s not every day a girl gets her heart unbroken.”

Long seconds passed as father and daughter stood on the lush green lawn of Gramercy Park. Reluctant to part. Three little girls in white organdy pinafores with pink satin bows screamed past them unheard. But the little boy chasing them dashed between Addie and her father, and they stepped away startled, and laughed.

Ford Magee watched his grown daughter laughing at the children who still circled them screaming in delight. He reached into his coat and pulled out an envelope with her name written across it in a strong, masculine script and placed it in her hand.

“There are things you don’t know, Adelaide. This is as much as I can tell you. For now, anyway. The rest...well, I hope the rest doesn’t matter any more. Read it. And when you have, I’m hopin’ you’ll come see me.”

Ford Magee pressed his daughter’s hands between his own one last time and turned to go.

“Papa?” The word still felt awkward but welcome on her tongue.

He paused, half turned toward Addie.

“Is next Sunday too soon for you?” She clutched the letter to her chest and waited for his answer. She knew she wanted to see him no matter what he’d said in the letter.

His woeful expression gave way to a slow, fatherly smile. And as he turned to leave he delivered his parting words with a hitch of his cheek that almost resembled a wink. “Fear not, darlin’. I’ve waited twenty years. I imagine I can wait one more Sunday.”

. . .

Addie looked at the envelope that she still clutched, and then cast a look around the park for Jess. He was helping a fellow carry orchestra equipment to the horse cart.

She slipped a fingernail under the flap of the envelope and tore it gently open. The letter covered two pages, front and back.

Addie took a deep breath and settled herself on the bench. The screaming children reversed their game and the three little girls sped off in close pursuit of the boy.

Waiting to read what her father had to say would have been as impossible as watching ice cream melt in the dish and not picking up the spoon. And so Addie read.

Dearest Daughter,

Sometimes life gives us something so good we only get to keep it a short time. That’s the way it was with you and your mother. There are things I can’t tell you, but always know that this one thing is true. I loved you and your mother like nothing I’d known before or since.

After she took you to Chicago in the summer of ’76, Julia wouldn’t write to me. I think something frightened her too badly to see past it to the truth. To me. But your Aunt Lucille kept in touch. Each time I sent her money, she’d send me a long letter about your school and the funny stories you liked to tell. I wish I’d been there, Adelaide, to hear your funny stories.

Her hand flew to her mouth and Addie looked in the direction her father had disappeared. He’d kept in touch! And sent money to Aunt Lucy for her. The shock of it set her lips trembling. But inside she felt a spreading warmth at the knowledge of his continuing care.

Addie returned to the letter, and the very next words revealed something even more stunning.

But I did hear two of your recitals. Your aunt made sure I knew about the big ones. The first time I went to Chicago, you’d been playing the violin about four years. It was when the Governor had that big to-do on the lawn of the governor’s mansion and you played that polka tune in his honor.

I swear, little darlin’, you were the funniest thing I ever saw. You didn’t once crack a smile. There were probably a thousand Sunday strollers milling round the lawn, and they all stopped and gawked when the governor said this little bitty miss was going to play them a tune.

You stepped up on the platform so serious in your braids with big white ribbons. And then you started playing. And your hands were flying back and forth and up and down that instrument so fast and people were stomping and cheering and I knew right then and there you had a gift.

Then there was your graduation recital from the Conservatory. You were fourteen, and the prettiest thing I’d ever seen. And oh, you played so sweet. They gave the graduation medal to that Russian boy who played the piano and I thought I’d come up on that stage and raise a ruckus I was so angry.

But you put that violin under your scrawny little arm and turned to that little pipsqueak and you held out your hand to congratulate him. I couldn’t believe it. I’d watched you play your little heart out. And perfectly, too. And I knew everyone in the audience felt the very same way I did because they were saying so all around me.

But you didn’t hesitate for a second. You shook his hand and then led the applause. Addie, sweet daughter, I had never known a more proud moment in my life.

Not long after that, your good Aunt Lucille passed on. I knew because her solicitor notified me that she’d left some unpaid bills. I took care of them and set up a regular transfer of funds to your mother from what we called the Estate. I don’t know if your mother ever knew, but I don’t think she did, or I figure I’d have seen that money tore to bits and stuffed in my post box.

Now girl, I’m not telling you this for any other reason but to let you know that I never forgot about you. I always made sure you were all right. If Julia didn’t want me around, I couldn’t see a way to change that. But I had to know you were doing all right. And until that sweet aunt of yours parted this world, I had that small comfort.

It’s been ten years now, and every day I prayed that I’d see you one more time before I die. And now the good Lord’s brought you to New York City. Right here to this very place.

I’m shamed that I turned you away, sweet girl. You have no idea what it did to me to open the door and see you standing there, looking just like Julia did when she left, only a little younger. My chest was pounding so fierce I was sure I’d just died and Julia was there to take me Home.

But it was you. And I treated you so bad, mostly because I was afraid. But that’s another story for another day.

If I could erase that moment, I would. But I can’t. Just know, dear daughter, that in twenty-four years of loving you, I lost my head for a few seconds. It will never happen again.

And if you will just give me one more chance, I’d like to show you the man your father is.

I leave it to you, Adelaide, and if you cannot or do not wish to see me, I swear to you that I will understand. I wish you all God’s blessings now and always.

Your father,

Ford Magee

. . .

“That’s what he meant.” Addie breathed the words as Jess settled onto the bench beside her. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and the ends of the decorative ribbons that dropped from her waistband were soaked.

Addie took the handkerchief Jess held out to her. Her own was sodden and useless by now. She looked up at Jess as she re-folded the letter. “He came to hear me play.”

“And you played beautifully,” Jess offered quietly.

“No.” Addie waved the letter in the air between them. “In Chicago. He came to hear me play in Chicago.” A little laughing cry bubbled out of her. “Twice!”

“Sounds like the kind of father who cared a lot about his little girl,” Jess said as he stood and flagged down a strolling vendor. “Cherry or lime?”

“Yes, thank you,” Addie replied absently as she dabbed at her tears.

Jess chuckled and purchased one of each, and held both cone-shaped paper cups of Italian ice out to Addie to choose.

“Oh!” she said, startled out of her distraction. “Thank you.” She selected the cup of cherry ice and began to poke at it with its little flat wooden scoop.

“I’d forgotten so much about him.”

Jess sucked the tart lime juice out of a mouthful of ice.

“Like what?”

“Oh, like his rumbly voice that sounds like a favorite old grandpa teddy bear. And his eyes. They always crinkle at the corners like he’s about to tell a funny story.” Addie slipped another chip of ice into her mouth. “And his crooked finger! How could I have forgotten that?”

“How did it get broken?”

“Oh, lands, I don’t know. I never thought about it. But it was the one I always held whenever we walked out on the street or went anywhere at all. He called it his compass finger.”

“His compass finger?”

Addie smiled and turned to explain. “Mm hm. He said it always pointed to the North Pole. His little joke on me, I guess.”

“You seem surprised to remember good things about him.”

“Not surprised, really, but we never spoke of him over the years. And I got over the feeling of missing him. Until Mother died. Then I had this incredible urge to be papa’s little girl again.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Miss Magee,” Jess said as he took the wilting paper cup from Addie and tossed it into the trash bin, “but at twenty-four you’re hardly daddy’s little darlin’ anymore.”

“What did you say?” Addie took the hand Jess offered and rose from the bench.

“Sorry to disappoint you?”

“No, no. Darlin’. You said darlin’.”

“Darlin’. Yes, I guess I did. But what—”

“You said it just like he does. When he left today, I asked if next Sunday was soon enough for us to get together again and he said ‘fear not, darlin’. Just like you said ‘darlin’ just now.” Her spreading smile pushed the last vestiges of the tears from her face as she beamed up at Jess.

His movements stilled and Jess turned his head sharply to watch her expression. “Fear not? You’re positive that’s what he said?”

Addie sighed. “That’s precisely what he said. It made me feel so certain. So safe. ‘Fear not, darlin’”.

“Well, I’ll be.”

Chapter Ten

Jess strolled around the small parlor that sat to one side of the lobby of the Grayburn Arms. He studied the ancient portraits of New York’s founding fathers while he waited for Addie to return from stowing her violin in her room.

The afternoon’s events had taken an emotional toll on her, but she wanted to fill in pieces of her story for Jess. Pieces she felt could best be demonstrated by showing him notations her mother had made in an old diary.

Jess wondered if she knew how strongly the afternoon’s events had impacted him as well. Those three words she’d spoken, attributed to her father, had sent him into all kinds of speculation.

Fear not, darlin’.

It was the very phrase he’d read in a twenty-year-old newspaper article. The exact three words spoken to each of twenty victims by their rescuer.

“Here we are. Sorry to keep you waiting, Jess.” Addie carried a small wooden tray painted in bright Bohemian colors to the tea table that sat between two worn leather chairs.

In the brief moments she’d been gone, she’d managed to prepare the tray and, astonishing as it seemed, find ice for the tea glasses. They settled themselves on the leather chairs and Addie proceeded to pour.

Jess watched her lift the heavy pitcher easily. The shoulder seemed completely back to normal. And stronger than those of most of the females he’d encountered in other parlors. His gaze moved up her sleeve, remembering the firm, defined muscle beneath.

“I’ve brought Mama’s diary,” she began, then halted. She sat running her fingers over the binding and gave a self-conscious laugh. “She was so happy here.”

Jess picked up his tea glass and the napkin she’d placed on the edge of the table for him. Ice chimed against glass as he swirled his tea and considered her words. “Well, then. I guess I don’t understand.”

“Hm? Oh. Why she took us to Chicago?”

“If she was so happy, why would she leave?”

Addie fidgeted in the chair. “It seems she...she came to believe that my father was...well, was seeing other women.”

Addie coughed, and Jess couldn’t miss her profound embarrassment at this admission. “But I don’t believe it. Not for a minute.”

She opened the book and thumbed randomly through it, nodding absently as she recognized familiar passages.

“It’s all peaches and cream until the last three entries, and they are very out of character with the others. Like this one.” Addie flipped easily to the page to which she’d just made reference.

“You see, before this page, she’d always referred to my father as ‘my sweet F.M.’. But on these last three pages, it becomes simply ‘F.M.’ Listen to this.
‘
April 10, 1876. F.M. home late again. He insists a breakdown on the roundhouse track kept him at the station. He couldn’t, or wouldn’t, explain rouge marks on his shirt. Sat up half the night by the window while I lay awake in bed. His open heart is guarded tonight.
’”