Still Waters

He reached into the back seat and took out the mysterious oblong package he'd been gloating about all morning with maddening secrecy. Theresa scowled at the bundle and turned it over in her hands with open suspicion. 'What's this?'

'A surprise,' Zack said firmly. 'Come on. Let's get this safari on the road!'

Maddy locked her car and followed Zack and Theresa up the path, crunching oak debris underfoot. Though loaded down with blankets, a basket, and extra jackets, Zack's step was jaunty. Maddy knew he was determined to make this a happy day for Theresa, even if his own heart was filled with the knowledge that it might be the last day they'd ever spend with her.

When shall I tell him?

Life, Maddy reflected, was full of weird twists and turns. It seemed cruel to keep from Zack one moment longer than she absolutely had to the wonderful news that Theresa was all but his. So why was she still hugging it to herself, like a miser jealously guarding his pot of gold? The custody papers were sitting right there in her purse, the purse she'd left safely locked in the trunk of her car.

Why was it so hard to tell him?

Because she knew perfectly well why Zack had asked her to marry him. He'd hoped a wife would help to swing the adoption board in his favor. If he were assured of gaining custody of Theresa without a wife, would he still want to marry her? Zack was a decent, compassionate man. He would never be so cruel as to withdraw his proposal just because the situation had changed.

But the situation had changed. And Maddy knew that, regardless of Zack's principles, she couldn't go through life married to someone who didn't love her.

Any way you sliced it, it was going to be a difficult and painful thing to resolve.

It had been enough that Zack needed her. Now even that would be gone.

'Hurry up, Maddy!' Theresa called. She and Zack were waiting for her to catch up. Theresa held out her hand, dancing with impatience. 'Give me your hand!'

With Zack and Maddy each holding one of her hands, Theresa took two running steps and lifted both feet off the ground, swinging suspended between the two grown-ups.

Maddy laughed. 'Don't you think you're a bit too big to do that?'

'Aw, gee,' Theresa grumbled. 'How come I'm always either too small or too big!'

'The universal lament of the child,' Zack said dryly. 'That's the breaks, squirt.'

They were ahead of the bulk of the holiday crowd, which would come in later for the fireworks show, on shuttle buses from town. Even so, picnickers had already claimed the available tables, so they staked out a nice spot under a sycamore tree on the gently sloping banks of the lake. It was directly opposite the softball field, where the pyrotechnics experts were busy setting up for the big display later that evening. They would have a good view without being close enough to sustain permanent hearing damage.

Theresa was a little disappointed with the lake at first. The boats were only ugly old canoes, not pretty white sailboats like the ones in her picture. But when Zack told her that the boats in her picture were just toys and that you could actually take a ride in these ugly old canoes, she brightened right up, and of course wanted to go in a boat immediately.

So all three of them donned bright orange life jackets and spent the early part of the afternoon paddling ineptly around the lake, dodging other canoes and paddle boats, and drenching each other with water from their paddles.

When they had collapsed back on their blanket, laughing and half soaked, Zack reached for his mystery bundle and drew it forth with a flourish.

'Oh, boy,' Theresa cried, bouncing up and down on her heels. 'Now we get to see the surprise! What is it? Can I see? Hurry up, Zack!'

'Ah-ah. Cool it, squirt. All in good time.' Zack was shamelessly milking his moment.

Maddy watched them bend together over the package and felt a surge of love wash through her like a tidal crest. She was glad, at that moment, that neither of them happened to be watching her face. She lowered her head until the spasm had passed, then wiped her cheeks quickly and openly with her hands. Her face was spattered with water, anyway, from the canoe's paddles.

They were having such a wonderful time, she thought, even without knowing that everything was going to be all right. She didn't need to tell him yet. She would wait a little longer. She could be a part of them for just a little longer…

'It's a kite!' Theresa shrieked. 'A kite, just like in the picture! Can we make it fly, Zack? Can we?'

'That's the idea,' he muttered, looking perplexed as he tried to decipher the assembly instructions. He cast Maddy a look of appeal.

She sighed and gazed skyward, then reached for the jumbled pieces. 'Piece o' cake,' she said smugly a few minutes later as she handed back the assembled kite.

'Hmm,' Zack said with grudging admiration. 'How'd you do that?'

'Maddy knows how to make things,' Theresa explained. 'She makes puppets all the time, don't you know that?'

'Handy person to have around,' he said softly, smiling into Maddy's eyes. It was the first time all day he'd allowed himself to meet her eyes, and in that moment she saw the fear he'd been trying so hard to hide. And something else too. Something elusive, like a familiar face glimpsed in a crowd. She caught her breath and tried to hold on to whatever it was she'd seen, but it was gone too quickly, hidden behind that smoky veil.

He leaned over to give her a thank-you kiss. Then he and Theresa were dashing off to find an open space in which to launch their kite.

Maddy took a deep breath and opened the picnic hamper. It was their day, Zack and Theresa's. She was the outsider. They didn't really need her at all.

They came trooping dejectedly back to the blanket about half an hour later-minus the kite.

'A tree ate it,' Theresa said sadly.

'A kite-eating tree.' Zack looked thoroughly disgusted. 'There really is such a thing, can you believe it? Never mind, squirt,' he said, ruffling Theresa's hair. 'Next time we'll go to a park with wide-open spaces!'

Next time. He threw Maddy a look that tore at her heart. She almost, almost, blurted out the truth to him then and there. But Theresa began exclaiming over the array of picnic goodies Maddy had laid out, and the moment passed.

They ate fried chicken and potato chips, and carrot and celery sticks and black olives, and fresh strawberries as big as small apples and so sweet, they needed no sugar at all. Maddy had bought them at the roadside stand just down the street from her place. There was a bag of peanut-butter cookies, too, from Dottie Frownfelter.

'Because I made 'em,' Theresa announced, then conscientiously amended, 'Well, I helped.'

'Let me guess,' Zack said. 'You smashed 'em, right?'

'Right,' Theresa said, giggling.

After they'd finished eating, Theresa wanted to go out in the canoes again.

'Not now,' Zack murmured, yawning as he settled himself with his back against the sycamore tree. 'Don't you know you're supposed to take a nap after a Fourth of July picnic?'

'Come on, Zack.' Theresa tugged at his hand, then gave up, recognizing a lost cause when she saw one. 'Can I go by myself, then? I'm big enough.'

Zack opened one eye and gave her a stern glare. 'No, you're not. Don't you go near those boats without me, understand? Hey,' he added persuasively as Theresa's chin developed a stubborn tilt. 'You know, those fireworks are going to keep us up way past our bedtime. Come here and help me catch some z's.'

'I'm not sleepy,' Theresa said, but curled up next to Zack anyway, and in a remarkably short time was out like a light…

'Hey, sweetheart. Wake up.' Zack's words made soft, moist puffs against Maddy's temple. His fingers were stroking her throat. She opened her eyes and found his face inverted an inch or so above hers. 'Sorry to disturb you, babe. I need your keys.'

'What…?'

'Shh. Theresa's still asleep. Car keys. I thought I'd take a bunch of this picnic stuff back to the car right now, so