(Room 101)
Madrigal leaned over her unconscious husband and squeezed his hand. The EKG monitor blipped steadily. "I couldn't get here fast enough to tell you how sorry I am. Remember that September day when you called to ask me out?"
The phone rang. Mary Lee Wedgewood leaned over and picked it up. "Wedgewood residence."
It was a male voice. A young male voice. "Uh...is Madrigal home?"
Mary Lee was tempted to impersonate her older sister, but thought better of it. "May I ask who's calling?"
"A boy from school."
"You and the rest of the male population of that school," groaned Mary Lee. She cupped her hand over the mouthpiece. "Madrigal! Phone! It's a boy!"
Petros' hand was sweating over the receiver. The few seconds felt like hours.
"Hello?" It was Madrigal's musical lilt.
"Madrigal? This is Petros Xanatos. I don't know if you know me, but I'm in your English class. I sit by the window in the third row."
"I know who you are."
"Would you like to go see a movie with me Saturday?"
"Is this a joke?"
"No. I think," The teenage boy's voice stammered.
"Keep thinking, loser," replied the girl. "Because nothing short of six states falling into the Pacific Ocean would make me go anywhere with you!" She hung up.
Petros stared at the phone before he replaced the receiver. For the first time in his seventeen years of life, he had felt the sting of unrequited love.
Madrigal's gray eyes were shiny with fresh tears. "I can't believe I called you a loser. I thought you were below me, when I didn't deserve you. Remember Homecoming? The wiring in the gym picked that night to blow and soon the whole gym was in flames? My dress caught on fire. Good thing the theme was Gone With the Wind and all the girls were wearing those pouffy dresses with the hoopskirts. Only the skirt itself and my petticoats got burned. But you pulled that punch bowl from the banquet table and poured it over me. And you actually carried me out of there. You could have died from smoke inhalation, but you risked your life to save me. I always wondered why you did it. And then when we were in the ambulance getting treated, you apologized for getting me wet. And then we started going out. Even went to the prom together. Everyone said it wouldn't last, but we got married four years after high school. And we were still married when it came time for our tenth high school reunion. I miss you a lot, Petros."
(The hallway)
"I won't lie to you, Mr. Xanatos," said Dr. Goldheart, the cardiologist who had treated Petros. "It was serious. If the clot-dissolving medication hadn't been administered upon the paramedics' arrival, he might have died." She pointed to the images on the wall. "Here are the angiogram images. You'll notice the ischemia. Your father's heart is pumping at about seventy-five percent capacity."
"Will he recover?"
"Provided he doesn't have any serious complications? Yes, but we'll have to keep him under close observation for a few days."
"Do you know what caused this?"
"Considering most of my patients are overweight and eat butter with everything? It was a large clot that lodged partway in the right coronary artery and effectively blocked the heart flow, but according to his medical records, your father didn't seem to have any previous medical problems. But then again I've seen eighteen year olds die from heart attacks."
Xanatos nodded, remembering Paris Papadakis. He turned and headed for the waiting room.
"Hello, David," came a familiar-sounding voice from behind him. The businessman turned. Dr. Goldheart was gone. In her place was Elisa Maza.
At least it looked like Elisa Maza. Instead of her usual jeans, black shirt and red jacket, she was wearing a crisp nurse's uniform. The voice was the same, but it sounded bitter. Almost poisonous. "You were due."
"Due for what?"
"A reality check. Life is supposed to be ups and downs. You only got the ups until now. Looks like you've been paid a visit by Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera."
"I never pegged you as a vengeful woman."
"After what you did to my brother? Or my friends? But the cosmic scales of justice have achieved a certain irony. My brother's different on the outside and your dad's dying on the inside. From a blackened heart that's just like yours." Elisa scanned Xanatos with her dark eyes. "Aren't you going to make some smart-aleck retort?"
"I might. If you were the real Elisa Maza."
"I'm real enough."
"Would it help to say I'm sorry, Detective?"
She snorted. "Apologies are just words."
"If this is my punishment, why didn't it happen to me?"
"Your dad didn't deserve this, but my brother didn't deserve to be a mutant. A family member for a family member."
"My father would say 'Eye for an eye will leave the world blind.'"
"My father said, 'What goes around comes around.'"
"I hear Dr. Lee Thal is just as good at genetics. Perhaps he could find the cure." Unless she took the Concorde, thought Xanatos. Coming here from New York in this short a time would be physically impossible. And how would she have known about Father's heart attack? She's probably just a figment of my imagination. He turned to walk away, glancing over his shoulder.
Elisa was still there, watching him.
The businessman walked down the sterile white corridor to the waiting room. He took a seat next to Fox. Alex was in his mother's lap.
The click of expensive high heels touching the linoleum of the floor became audible. David looked up and beheld his mother.
Madrigal looked as if she had aged ten years. A hundred new wrinkles graced her face. The only makeup she wore was blush, under which her normally peach skin was white-gray. Her tears had left streaks.
Alex squirmed in his mother's arms, wondering why Grandma looked so sad. He kept cooing and reaching for Madrigal, as if to reassure her everything was going to be all right.
Fox offered a handkerchief, which the brunette accepted gratefully.
"Hello, Mother," Xanatos greeted.
"I never noticed how much you look like your father until now," replied the matron.
"How'd you get here?" Fox asked. "You beat us here and you live in Seattle."
"My aviation design company perfected a supersonic jet. Flies at twice the speed of the Concorde and uses half the fuel."
Xanatos flashed his trademark smirk. "Be careful, Mother, or your corporation will be in direct competition with mine. And I crush my competition."
The tears had stopped. "You could never beat me at Clue. What makes you think this will be any different?"
"Where are you staying?" Xanatos asked.
"Crystal Waters Inn. Five star. I wouldn't check into anything less. Why?"
"Apparently, we'll be here awhile."
"Don't lie to me, David."
"Fine. Do you still have your key to the old house?"
"Why?"
The businessman shrugged. "I want to show Fox where I grew up."
"But nosing around your father's house without his permission."
"He'd let us in if he were conscious. It's not breaking and entering."
Madrigal shuddered. "Don't give me those puppy-dog eyes!" She reached into her handbag and dug out a keyring. She removed a copper key and handed it to her son. "But don't tell your father you were in his house without his permission."
"Fair enough." Xanatos took Alex. "Care to babysit your grandson while we go?"
The grandmother accepted the infant gratefully.
"Come, Owen," commanded the tycoon. "I'll give you directions."
Madrigal sat down in one of the molded plastic chairs, and held the gurgling infant. "I remember when your father was a little baby..."
XXX
"Waaaah! Waaaaah! Aaaaaaah!"
Madrigal pulled the pillow over her head. "Petros!"
"What?" Her husband mumbled. "I didn't hear anything!"
"Cut it out! I fed him last time! It's your turn."
"Oh, Maddie. It's lobster season. I need every second of sleep I can get."
"Oh, fine." She spilled out of bed and shoved her feet into her slippers. She went to the kitchen to warm up a bottle of milk. Meanwhile, the cries were getting louder and higher-pitched.
Madrigal opened the bottle and found that the gallon of Royal Dairy she had bought was empty. No matter. She opened a quart of Cowry and filled a bottle, then heated it up. A quick squirt to make sure it wasn't too hot. Then she took it to her son.
The baby took one sip of his milk and spit it out. "Yucky."
"David, it's milk. We're out of the other brand." She tried to give him another drink, but the infant shut his mouth tight. "It's two o' clock in the morning!"
Baby David shook his head.
"What do you want? Royal Dairy? It costs a whole dollar more! I only bought it because it was on sale." Her son was pouting. "The store is closed!" The little boy didn't seem to comprehend. His eyes widened and a tear fell down his cheek. Then he started to cry as avidly as ever.
"OK, fine. I'll go to the twenty-four hour mart in Augusta. Just don't give me that puppy face." And let me drink some coffee so I don't fall asleep at the wheel.
"Goo," was the reply.
Xanatos and his wife were riding down the streets of Bar Harbor in a limousine. Luckily, Xanatos Enterprises had some businesses in town, including a limousine service. It helped to own such a conglomeration of companies.
Owen drove carefully, within the speed limit. His boss looked out the window. A lot had changed since the last time he was in Bar Harbor.
"I think I figured out why you married me," Fox said to him with a smile.
"The reasons I gave you in my proposal? Or something else."
"Try Freudian."
"Enlighten me, Fox."
"I reminded you of your mom. She's got expensive tastes, elegance, style, and I suspect she's not afraid to get mean. You're a textbook case of the Oedipus complex."
"I'm more of a Jungian."
"What I'm curious about is why someone like your mother got married to a stuffy and modest fisherman."
"Same way a fairy queen made herself human and married pathetic little Halcyon Renard." The memories were flooding back.
XXX
"It seems like a thankless task," Seven year old David Xanatos commented. "Walking miles every day carrying a sack of letters."
"It's communication," replied the kindly old mail carrier, Mr. Opperknockety.
"You could try phone or telegraph."
"But some things are best said with a letter or card. When I was a little boy, I pretended I was riding the Pony Express. Or a knight of the Round Table."
"I fantasize more about being Andrew Carnegie or John D. Rockefeller than a cowboy or knight."
Mr. Opperknockety smiled and the boy the day's mail, which consisted of the current issue of the Wall Street Journal. "I guess you should read this before your mother, then. Cheers, my boy." He tipped his hat and moved on.
XXX
"My mother is a successful entrepreneur. She taught everything I knew about business," Xanatos added.
Fox smirked. "I thought you said you taught yourself by stealing her copies of the Wall Street Journal."
"But if she didn't subscribe, I wouldn't have had access to them. My mother used to tell me she wanted to be an actress, but since it's got a high failure rate she decided raising a child would be more fulfilling. She stayed at home full-time. Dad worked. The money he made kept us out of the poorhouse, but just barely."
"Rags to riches. You really should write that book." The limousine stopped in front of a modest cottage.
XXX
Nine year old David handed his mother a graded paper. "I got an A on my project."
"You didn't tell us about a project," Petros commented, joining Madrigal at the table.
"It was simple," explained the boy. "We had to come up with a theory and do an experiment that either disproves or supports the theory. I did 'Relativity and Evolution.' I wanted to see if the primal instinct for parents to protect their young remained in modern-day humans. Remember last week when I came home all dirty and I said Nick Saunders pushed me in the mud? I was testing Mother's reaction. She called Mrs. Saunders and threatened to sue. And the next day, I tested the other parent's reaction. And if I recall correctly, Father threatened our residential bully."
"I did not," argued Petros. "I just told him to leave you alone!"
"Anyway," David continued. "Your reactions supported the theory that parents will protect their young!" He turned and walked out.
"Do you feel used, Maddie?" asked Petros once their son was out of earshot.
"Yes, but proud," replied Madrigal.
XXX
Xanatos got out. "Welcome to my simple humble neighborhood, on my simple humble street."
TBC