also lit up the sky with some fireworks!”
And Samuel and Maxwell almost lit up the ceiling of the house after showing Hartwell what they had done.
“Not in the house, boys!” Belinda yelled as Max and Sam came back down to their place at the big table.
“I think she did, but she left the house again before the sun came up,” Gary replied.
“Did she look in on me?” Hartwell asked, looking for anything if not pity points.
She looked over at Daniel who seemed to have a video record of everything. He scanned through the feed in the hallway outside of the sun room and didn’t see anything at first, but on a second pass he stopped the tape and said, “There!” as he had hope for the first time in the past day that everything would be all right between his usually unbreakable parents.
He broadcast the five seconds of the tape where Maggie peaked into the sun room and the quickly zipped out of site for a moment before reappearing and leaving the house. Daniel then showed Hartwell a feed of the sun and knitting rooms, where Maggie picked up a blanket she had knitted and went into the sun run and put it over Hartwell after she kissed him on the forehead. Daniel even raised the volume on some Maggie audio he picked up, “Just let me finish what I started.”
Hartwell smiled for the first time since Billingsley reentered his life and his faith was restored that Maggie would come back to him once she finally had closure on her previous relationship, which had been hanging on with unanswered questions for over a century.
Maggie was on her way into town to meet Billingsley for breakfast. He was back in bed with Brenda Vinson and she was starting to develop feelings for the shallow charmer. It had been a long time since she had been able to let loose and have a good time, as she had spent the previous 18 years watching after her granddaughter like a hawk and making sure that Alexander Lowery came nowhere near her precious Claire.
“Do you think it’s wise to continue this relationship on the eve of the battle?” she asked trying to engage him in conversation so he would be late for the date.
“I was hoping that I could convince her to switch sides and come fight with us,” Gabriel said in response to the shallow question. “After all, we might be strong and have a superior battle strategy but we are deficient when it comes to actual numbers. We have eight – nine including you – and they have, 20 strong with her and 19 not-so-strong without her.”
“You’re not thinking about telling her the truth, are you?” Brenda asked, trying to put the time-release bomb in his head. While she knew that the truth always sets you free, she also realized that the truth – in this case – would also set Maggie free from the hold Gabriel had over her all of these years.
Billingsley got dressed and left his new family behind in favor of his old family. Maggie had been waiting at the Beach Haven Diner for the better part of 20 minutes and was starting to lose her patience. While she had initially focused on the good times she had with her husband, thoughts of their last days together started to creep into her subconscious and she was feeling a bit compromised and manipulated by his renewed attempt to court her.
“Sorry to keep you waiting Margaret, I had something I had to attend to this morning” he said as he kissed her on the cheek and then sat in the booth across from her.
She immediately smelled a perfume that was not her own and figured that this would be the last time they would be at such close range without trying to kill him. In fact, she had lost her appetite even before the waitress came over.
“Can I get you two anything to drink?” the perky 20-something waitress asked even though she was up all night with her toddler. She had consumed most of the coffee in the diner and was hoping that a coffee order would not be forthcoming.
Just as Gabriel was going to say something smooth and try to flirt with the waitress, Maggie cut him off and smiled at the waitress, “Could you give us a few more minutes, dear?”
It was music to the woman ears that wore the name tag ‘Sarah’ even though her name was Evelyn. She was new to the diner and an appropriate name tag had not been made yet.
Gabriel wasn’t giving up that easy as he looked over her goods and her tag and said, “Thank you, Sarah.”
The waitress rolled her eyes at the cheesy guy trying to flirt with her and left the table to check on the coffee in the sparsely-populated diner at 7:00 am.
Once the waitress was clear from the area, Maggie immediately went on the attack.
“Would it be okay if we discussed what happened before you died?”
Billingsley knew by the tone of the question that his wife would probably not be joining his team any time in the near future. He waited patiently for her questions but surprisingly felt little relief at finally sharing secrets that he had held for many years.
"What happened?"
"What happened with what?" Billingsley asked, knowing
what was behind the question but playing a little hard to get with the answer.
"I want to know more about your death, Gabriel."
"I would think that you would be more interested in my life, Margaret?"
She was growing uneasy, "Life or death, it's your choice, Gabriel."
"I found out that you were going to lose our baby in advance of it actually happening. This was also about the time that my business was about to be flushed down the toilet."
These were two statements that appeared to be mutually exclusive on the surface. But, open further and much deeper inspection, separating the life events was quite problematic and Maggie came to a stunning conclusion.
"Did you give up on us?"
The time had elapsed for sugar-coating responses, “Us? Us?” a defiant and largely delusional Gabriel questioned in an elevated tone. “There really was no us. You were so busy trying to plan a family that I lost focus and my business went bankrupt.”
The mean-spirited and flat-out evil words painted Maggie’s brain and she was no longer the scorned housewife trying to put the pieces of her shattered previous life back together. Sitting in front of Gabriel Billingsley was the ruthless vampire that could care less about her rival feelings. She didn’t even bother to look around when she started tapping her right fingers on the table and then extended the long nail of her index finger cross the table and stopped, resting uncomfortably under her chin.
“I don’t care who you are and where you have been, and your absurd statements don’t even deserve a civil response. The fact is that you quit on us, Gabriel - if that is the person I am really talking to right now. And if you move, speak, or even let out the slightest sound, your head will hit the floor faster than I can say “LOSER!” she said in a low but intense voice. I knew you were looking for a way out, and I also know who helped you get out.”
Maggie had a flash of both current and prior interaction between Gabriel and Brenda Vincent before she made that last statement. Brenda Vincent’s arrival in Beach Haven days earlier to support her granddaughter was also replayed for Maggie’s viewing pleasure.
“I gave you everything and it wasn’t enough. And now I will put aside all of the pain and guilt I have been holding all of these years and focus all of my energies on protecting the only family that I have ever really known. Come tonight, you’re mine Gabe!” she said with the intensity of a woman scorned, using his shortened name that he despised.
Maggie retracted her nail as the waitress came over. She transitioned back into the Maggie that everyone knew and loved as the waitress asked, “Have you made up your minds?”
Maggie smiled, “Yes I have, little one. She pulled a $50 bill from her purse and moved closer to the waitress and whispered, “Go buy yourself something pretty, love. You deserve it,” as she slid the bill into the waitresses apron pocket.
She looked over at Gabriel and smirked, “Catch you later, Gabe.”
The waitress looked in her pocket and removed the bill, waiving it Maggie as she walked out of the front door, “Thanks!?
??
Maggie nodded “you’re welcome” and then walked out of the diner, knowing that perhaps the most difficult conversation of her day was yet to come.
SIXTEEN
Maggie thought back to the early days with Thomas Hartwell on the way home. It had been a difficult transition from the death of Gabriel and her miscarriage to life as a fully-functioning woman again. She had thrown herself into work at a bank during the four years between men.
She had noticed Hartwell snooping around the bank back in 1902 San Francisco, which meant that he was either lost or planning to hold up the place in the near future. When he walked in with a gun and a plan that would have either landed him in jail or killed, Maggie had to step in and give him a second chance at life. It was now Hartwell’s turn to give his wife of two generations, his soulmate, a second chance at making things right. She had to attain closure in her only other relationship that seemed to matter in her lives and was now moments from potentially her most important discussion.
Little did she know that Hartwell had remained at the front window with his wet nose pressed against the glass since Maggie was gone. He had no life without her and was starting to feel sorry for himself in the hours leading up to her homecoming.
“Do you think she’ll come back?” Hartwell asked Daniel as they hovered above the glistening ocean.
Daniel laughed in a moment that had become all-too-serious,