Maddy’s World

Danny iced a welt on his thigh. Claire, unsurprisingly without a scratch, insisted upon it.

And now, in the quiet of the pub, he wasn’t sure if he felt more relieved or anxious now that Emelie and Ian left and he faced his living situation with Claire. Even with Ian’s joking parting words of, “keep our new friend close. But not too close,” which earned him a firm head smack, Danny went back to being awkwardly nervous around her.

“So, um.” He coughed. “Hungry?”

“Not yet.”

He shifted the ice. “Okay, uh ... ” If this didn’t stop soon, he’d be falling apart by dinner time. Claire’s phone thankfully buzzed, saving him from saying anything more stupid.

“Oh, this is my agent. I should get it.”

“I’ll just be upstairs if you need anything.” He hurried toward the stairs, tossing the ice, and stopped when her voice came out in stutters.

“I-I ... yes, I know the deadline is coming up. I’m sorry, things have been a little crazy ... y-yes, I remember what you said ... yes, I’ve dropped the silly side project.”

Danny bristled. Was this “silly side project” the one she’d excitedly worked on while on the plane? She’d said she no longer wanted parents, agents, or men telling her what to do, but now she wasn’t fighting for it anymore. Why?

Perhaps he’d stick around and check liquor stock.

“I know you have my best interest in mind ... of course,” she said. “Yes, I’ll have something to you in a couple weeks. Yes, thank you, Allen.” She hung up and leaned her forehead against the cold fireplace stone, groaning. “What are we going to do now, Maddy?”

“You normally thank people for taking away what’s important to you?”

She spun around. “I beg your pardon?”

Danny crouched and started stacking dry wood into the fireplace with heavy thuds. “I said, are you going to let him take away what’s important to you?”

“I heard what you said, I just ... ” Her eyes flashed, and he held back a satisfied smirk. There was his fiery Claire.

Wait—not his.

“He’s only trying to foster my talent.”

“So, he fosters your talent by squashing it into the box he thinks you should be in.”

She huffed and his smirk rose higher.

“He knows the industry better than I.”

“Maybe. But you know you better than he does. Do you like writing horror?”

Her defiance dropped with her head in a deflated sigh. “Yes. No.” She shrugged. “I used to love it.”

“How long do you think you can succeed in something you don’t like doing?”

“But if I don’t, my contract could be forfeited.”

He swiveled toward her, holding up a stick and lightly poked her thigh with it. “I didn’t realize Allen was the only agent out there.”

Her expression tightened with all the things she wanted to say, and he smiled again. She smacked his stick away. “He’s not, but he helped me get out there and obtained all my publishing contracts.”

“That’s his job. You don’t owe him for that.”

“But what if he’s right and no one buys it? I-I mean I’m no J.K. Rowling.”

“What if he’s wrong? And I’m pretty sure even J.K. Rowling didn’t think she’d become J.K. Rowling.”

The corner of her mouth slipped, but she forced it back down. “Writing children’s books has very little chance for success.”

“Wait.” He put it all together. “Maddy is short for Madelynn and that’s a children’s book?”

“A series of books, actually.” She dropped her hand off her hip and chewed on her lip. “And yeah, she’s the child inside me that never really had a chance to get out.” She awkwardly hugged herself. “Weird, huh?”

“No.” He stood and stepped back from the blazing heat, wiping dirt from his hands on his jeans. “As a matter of fact, I’m thinking these books need a second opinion.”

“From whom?”

He poked his chest.

“You want to read my books?”

“I kind of want to meet this child Claire that never made it out in the open.” He smiled and watched hers fully bloom. “If you don’t mind.”

She shifted her feet, placing them close together and perfectly aligned. He didn’t know why she did that, but it was another layer of her he wanted to understand.

“Well, I think that would be okay.” She chewed her lip again. “But you probably won’t like it.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“It’s unedited.”

“I’m making tea.”

He felt her smile on his back as he made his way to the kitchen. When he returned, she’d settled into what he now considered her chair and table, hugging one knee to her chest. His eyes wandered from her rosy cheeks to her hair re-piled on top of her head in a messy bun. She looked completely at home, chewing on a pencil with her shoes off and her sock-covered toes wiggling.

How had he been nervous around her only an hour ago?

“Okay, I’m ready.” He set down the tray, pulled up a chair, and held out beckoning fingers.

Her face blanched. “I couldn’t possibly sit here while you read it.”

“Why?” he asked slowly.

“I couldn’t stand it if you made a face.”

“I’m not going to make a face.”

“You might, and I’ll misunderstand you again.”

He couldn’t exactly argue with that. “Where do you suggest I go, upstairs?”

“No.” She gnawed on her thumbnail. “I mean, only if you want to.”

“What if I sat behind you here at this table? Still close by, yet you can’t see me.”

“Yes, that should work. And I promise I’ll do my best not to ask you what you think every three seconds.”

He laughed, and she stared wide-eyed. Apparently, she was very serious. He picked up his mug and held out gimme fingers again.

She hesitated with her hand at the bottom of a stack of journals.

“It’ll be fine, Claire.”

With one more long breath, she pulled it out and handed it to him with shaking hands. He felt the weight of how precious of a thing she gave him and let his fingers touch hers as he took it. “Maddy’s in good hands.”

“I trust you, Daniel.”

That statement knocked him back and swelled inside him. She trusted him. What did he do to deserve something that special? Taking a breath, he left her with a final reassuring smile and slid onto the bench.

She spun in her seat, facing him. “Daniel?”

“I haven’t opened it yet.”

“I wanted to ask you something.” She tapped the pencil on her chin. “I’m wondering if I stopped liking what I wrote because I didn’t want to lose Maddy. Does that make sense?” Before he could answer, she continued, “After hearing how much Emelie and Ian love my work, I really don’t want to let them down. I love all my fans and I love doing my live QA with them. I’m just not sure ... ” She never finished her thought and rolled the pencil between her teeth.

“Is there any reason you can’t do both?”

“Both? I guess I’ve never thought of that because they’re so different, and well, because Allen said—”

“Where did you find this agent?”

“He was a friend of Brandon’s.”

Danny had to start and stop half a dozen times to keep from saying his honest opinion about any friend of Brandon’s. Instead, he said, “When I finish here, I think we should try to find a way to do both.”

“I’d like that.” She dropped one more nervous glance at her journal before tearing away with a deep sigh.

He gently untied the leather wraparound strap and kept his eyes on the back of her head. He expected another interruption, but she didn’t move.

Opening the front flap, he read, Hello, I’m Maddy, and smiled. In front of him was a sketch of a waving, wild-haired little girl with freckles, patched skirt, and mismatched striped socks, standing in front of a sign saying, “Home for Girls.” Her button nose scrunched as if she tried to peer through the page to see him.

“Nice to meet you, Maddy,” he whispered back.

Flipping pages, Danny followed her journey through adventures and mishaps. She talked about desires for a family while splashing through mud puddles and her dreams for a prince while kissing a frog. Castles were built out of old boxes and chores were turned into imaginative games in faraway lands.

But those games always got her into trouble. Mud tracks tarnished the halls. A frog landed in a bowl of cereal. A stack of plates crashed to the floor from a zealous mop swing.

A faceless adult appeared, tapping their foot and pointing a finger, telling her if she didn’t shape up, no one would ever adopt her.

Danny knew this wasn’t an exact replica of Claire. She was wealthy and not an orphan. But the more he read, the more he saw a pattern. Maddy was highly misunderstood by the adults around her, and more than once it broke her heart—which broke his.

Near the end, he paused on an image of Maddy being groomed for a potential family. Her unruly hair was tamed, mismatched socks aligned. Her hands and face were scrubbed clean.

Feet together, Maddy. Don’t slouch. Don’t speak unless spoken to, and when spoken to, remember your proper words or no one will like you.

Claire shifted in her seat, and he glanced up, watching her fiddle with a loose strand of hair at the base of her slender neck. This part of Maddy’s story, he realized, was a clear view into Claire’s childhood. Why she stood the way she did and spoke the way she spoke—and why she believed people like him so easily thought the worst of her.

He took a deep breath and turned the last few pages. As Maddy was introduced to potential families, one thing after another went wrong. She fumbled her words, dropped a plate on a man, and accidentally laughed when her pet frog leaped from her pocket into a woman’s mouth.

In the end, no one wanted her, and when Danny saw the sketched tears rolling down her plump cheeks, he was ready to jump into the book and adopt her.

Turning the last page, Maddy was Maddy again, disheveled and adorable. She “psst” at him with a curled finger. Chin up. Don’t fret,she said.It’ll get better, you’ll see.She smiled with two front teeth missing.

Her image blurred in his vision, and he closed the journal, rubbing his forehead. He hadn’t been ready for that. Little Maddy, with her joy and childlike wonder, reminded him that his recent marriage break meant his dreams for his own family were also broken.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and swallowed repeatedly.

A crackling log snapped, and his attention came back to Claire. He didn’t bother telling her he’d finished, but instead, watched her twist more strands of hair around her fingers. Firelight danced and flickered over her profile, and he found his breath again.

She calmed him, somehow. Not by anything she did particularly, but by the fact that she was here with him, quietly soaking in the heat from his family-built fireplace.

He cleared his throat, and she slowly peeked around. “I have one question for you.”

“Oh, a question? Sure, what is it?”

“How many more books of Maddy do you have?”

“Six. But one is unfinished.”

“Good.” His fingers absently traced the outline of the journal. “Because I need more of her.”

A mix between a laugh and a cry gusted out of her. “You liked her?”

He scooted to the edge of the bench, and against everything in him yelling that he shouldn’t, he leaned forward until only a few inches lay between them. “No, not like, Claire, love. I love Maddy, and I may have to fight this agent of yours if you don’t try to publish her.”

She pressed a hand to her cheek. “Do you really mean that?”

“I really mean that.” He held out the journal between both hands. “I think it’s time you let your inner child run free.”