He was back now. “It wasn’t your mistake, Maureen. Larhaven wanted that missile to go off.”
“But we had orders from them to delay it.”
“That was Eddie McCormick on the line. He said for you to stay at the plant. He’ll see you there in an hour. He has one of the Kladis brothers with him.”
“Allen Kladis?”
“That wasn’t the name. Would it make a difference?”
All the difference in the world, she thought.
“Allen is a reasonable man, Maureen. Much fairer than his father. We’ve met over some government contracts. Hope this misfiring isn’t his kind of reverse reasoning. The Kladis brothers are determined to beat out the competition and merge with Fabian.”
The kind of reasoning that Allen Kladis was capable of? she wondered. But Spencer called him “fair.” That would be the Allen that she remembered. “Will the merger go through?” she asked.
“It looks like the boys at the Pentagon want another corporate giant. The White House agrees.” He cleared his throat. “The merger will help maintain our position on the world market”
“But it all boils down to money?” That didn’t sound like Allen. Or had he changed once he joined the family business?
“We’ll put a ban on firing any more missiles until this thing gets settled, Maureen. I’ll check things out on this end in the morning and get back to you. By the way, you’re staying with Larhaven when they merge, aren’t you?”
“If they want me.” If Allen wants me, she corrected silently.
“Their loss if they don’t. And if they don’t, we’ll find you a spot here at the Pentagon.”
As she cradled the receiver, she unlocked the top desk drawer and slid out the oriental jewelry chest that Allen Kladis had given her when she was seventeen. She kept the chest at the office because, with all the security there, she felt it was safer than keeping it at home. And still accessible to her most any time she wanted to journey back to the past. She dusted it off with the back of her hand and then took a tiny key from her purse and unlocked it. As she swung the lid back, tears burned behind her eyes.
She spread the items out and lifted the velvet case with the five-carat diamond from Carl. Then, unfolding a packet covered in tissue paper, she wrapped her fingers around the pink-beaded baby bracelet. Baby Birkland, it read. Maureen Birkland’s baby. It was all she had of her infant daughter. The couple who adopted her baby took everything else. Her daughter. Her life. Her dreams.
Ten yellowed one-thousand-dollar bills were held together with a rusty clip, still unspent after almost twenty years. Maureen shrank back from the money even now, still seeing it as Alexander Kladis’s payoff to a frightened seventeen-year-old, his silent warning to stay away from his son, to never use his son’s name. A son who was still alive—not dead as Alexander Kladis had told her.
As she waited for Eddie McCormick to arrive, she picked up Allen’s last note to her. Inside was the snapshot of himself, taken on board his carrier as it lay anchored near Cyprus. Her tears splashed on the picture—Allen at nineteen in his navy uniform, his sailor’s hat perched cockily on his head, his enormous dark eyes smiling out at her.
She clutched the snapshot and took up his note. She could almost hear him saying,
Dear Reeny,
I see you always in our last happy moments together. Mostly at the winter campsite where you sat on the log beside me above that frozen brook and wrote so intently on your notepad, I love you. I look forward to the day when I will see you again, Reeny. I am counting the days until this winter of separation is gone and we are together always.
Last, Maureen unfolded the letter that she had written as a seventeen-year-old. Words written to Allen, about Allen. Words that she had never sent to him.
Dear Allen,
I love getting your letters, but I wonder if I have them all. Sometimes Mother beats me to the mailbox. But would she keep your letters from me?
I have learned to listen for the mailman’s truck on the street behind ours and to hurry outside and wait for him to reach our block. When I do that, he waves and gives me the mail. Allen, I tuck your letters inside my pocket so Mother will not see them. And at midnight, when everyone is sleeping, I read them.
Mother tells me we are too young to be in love. It makes me sad. I want my mother to like you. To be nice to you. We were such good friends and now she seems like a stranger to me. My loving you has hurt her. She kept asking me about that weekend we went away together. Five months ago now. She knows.
Two weeks ago she took me to the doctor. Mother is furious with us. And so I must tell you that I am carrying your child. I am five months pregnant. Yes, I am going to have a baby. Your baby, Allen.
At first I was terrified. I didn’t know where to turn. I couldn’t tell anyone, not even my friends at school. I tried to hide it from Mother as long as I could. When we left the doctor’s office, she wouldn’t speak to me. Even now I can hear Mother upstairs, packing what we will take with us. She insists that we must move. She will not allow me to disgrace the family name.
I have refused to go back to Indiana with her. And so we are moving to Running Springs. But I will not be far away. I have promised you that I will wait for you. No matter what Mother says, I will be here.
Your father came to our house again last week. But Mother would not let me see him, not the way I look now. But I was leaning over the banister and heard her tell him to go away—the way she told you to go away. Your father insists that I must never see you again. Our parents are determined to keep us apart. But, dear Allen, summer is coming.
Of all the seasons, Allen, summer is best. For you will come again in summer. Back to me as you promised. For now, I feel like we have been torn apart like the dull brown leaves outside my window, drifting from the trees into the yard. Falling before their time.
Last month I found Cyprus on the map. I wish that I could be with you, but I am not as pretty as when you went away. I put my hand on my belly and it is full and round, blossoming with our baby. I am frightened, but I am glad, too, because it is part of you. I cannot touch your face or lips or hold your hands. If I could, I would put your hand on my belly and let you feel our baby kick.
Mother won’t talk about her grandchild. She keeps me isolated at home, but when we move to Running Springs, I can walk in the woods over the red-soiled trails covered with twigs that do not snap and leaves that do not crunch. I will look for footprints not my own. I will be looking for your footprints, Allen, and pretending that you are there with me.
* * *
Maureen sat at her desk at Fabian Industries, crying. She had never mailed the letter. Twenty years ago, while she was still penning the words to Allen, the phone had rung.
“It’s for you,” her mother had called up the stairs. “Mr. Kladis is on the line.”
“Allen? Is it Allen?”
“It’s about him.” Her mother’s voice had sounded shocked, stricken. And as she handed Maureen the phone, she had said gently, “Darling, you must be brave. It’s Allen’s father.”
Across the bottom of the letter, she had written the postscript that Allen would never read:
They tell me that you are gone now, Allen. Dead. Killed in Cyprus. Drowned in the waters near the island you loved. Your mother’s island. Your mother’s people.
I clamp my ears, not willing to hear those words. Surely they are lying to me—my mother and your father. How can you be gone and never know about the baby? You promised to come back to me. And I sit alone, feeling our baby kicking inside of me. Our baby is alive, and you are dead. I am so afraid. And I weep because you will never know about