Madeline

People parted around us in the courtyard. No one stopped to say anything — why would they? No one had ever seen us before. I paused, hearing something about champagne and a celebration. I was sure I was mistaken. Two women slid around me into the sea of black. From behind they appeared an unlikely pair. One stiff, as if held up by a single rod, while the other walked with the grace of a yogini. Black pants swirled around her ankles.

At the close of the service we had walked back down the aisle, heads straight, following Dad's lead. But once we spilled out into the stone entryway, the crowd separated us. I looked around for Mom and found her several feet away, talking to a group of women. One reached out and held her arm, as if Mom needed consolation. Perhaps she did. She was the only one in our family who had kept in touch with Aunt Maddie over the years.

The icy rain had stopped, but the clouds felt no less foreboding. The sleet or snow would soon return. Dad watched the sky for a long time. So long, I tipped my head back as well.

"Almost twenty years." He dropped his gaze and stared at me. "That's how long since I spoke to my sister before last month, but she didn't tell me. She said she was calling to say she loved me." He gripped the back of his neck. It wrinkled white under the pressure. "I wouldn't have answered if I'd recognized the number."

His eyes held a rare hint of vulnerability, so I pressed the advantage. "Well, it was about time. It wasn't your fault. None of it."

He cast me an odd, questioning look. Dad, who never questioned. Who held all the answers. "It was my fault. Every bit of it. And I had never seen her so angry. But I was angry too, and ... ashamed ..." Dad breathed in. And out. "I hated that she judged me, but I don't think she did. I don't think she ever held it against me."

"What? What are you talking about?"

His gaze flickered in alarm or pain before it drifted above and beyond me. He shook his head and walked toward the church's circular drive.

Bits of conversation snagged me as we passed. "Isn't there a reception?"

"What about her house?"

"Her brother should host one. Didn't she have a brother?"

"No ... That was Pete's brother in the front row. Maddie didn't have any family."

I looked to Dad and wondered if he'd heard. If those women had done the same, looked at my dad, they would have seen he could never have been Uncle Pete's brother. He and his sister shared the same deep-set eyes, eyebrows, and nose. Her "Irish twins," Granny Caoimhe called them. They looked alike, walked alike, laughed alike. Both bit the side of their cheek when deep in thought, narrowed their eyes when something didn't sound right, and laughed loudest at their own jokes.

Though, if I remembered correctly, Aunt Maddie's laugh was more of a contagious giggle that held strong until you caught on and joined her. Dad's, I knew from experience, held a slight condescension — you simply hadn't caught the brilliance of his humor.

Mom reached us as their driver pulled to the curb. "Maddie was certainly adored. So many people. Shouldn't we go by her house to make sure it's okay? Houses don't like to be left alone."

Dad opened the car's door. "I haven't heard from her lawyers. Who knows who owns it now? We could be trespassing ... Madeline?"

I shook my head. "I have no idea. No one has contacted me." "That's it then. Until told, it's not our concern." He dropped inside.

Mom pulled me into a hug. "I hate leaving you like this. We hardly saw you this trip." She glanced into the dark car.

"It's okay, Mom. You both are busy. I'm busy."

"It's not okay, but I'll be back in four days."

I nodded.

"I land on the seventh, as I'm sure the firm will host something extravagant on the sixth. And I'll get myself to your apartment." She gestured to the parking lot. "How are you getting back downtown?"

"I took the Metra up."

"In the rain? Let us take you back before it starts again." She leaned into the car. "Do we have time to take —"

"Don't worry about it." I tugged at her shoulder. They didn't have time before their flight back to New York. And Dad would not be happy to veer from his predetermined schedule.

"Charlotte?" he called as if cued.

She waved her hand into the car. "As I said, I'll be here on the seventh." She curled a finger around my ear the way she used to do when I was young, and drew a loose strand of hair forward. She often chided me for being too severe. The gesture made me smile and I leaned into her touch.

"My daughter is about to make partner, the youngest partner I might add, at one of Chicago's top law firms. That's worth celebrating." She pulled me close and kissed my cheek. "It's important to celebrate, to mark occasions, dear. Don't forget that."

"Thanks, Mom."

One more squeeze and she, too, dropped into the car. I was left standing alone, with a sea of black behind me all consoling one another over their loss, and an empty street in front of me. No one knew me. I knew no one. And I wasn't sure what I'd lost.

Rather than turn into the crowd, I let memories of Aunt Maddie wash past as I stepped across the church's driveway and headed toward the train station. Past the small village square. Past the gas station that had served soft swirls so long ago. I tripped over a shift in the sidewalk and found myself at the edge of the small park I had sat in before the service. I swiped at the bench and dropped onto it again. There was time before the train.

Madeline Cullen Carter. Same name as me, minus the Carter. I'd been named after her and, until that summer, my dad had only spoken of her in glowing terms. He worshiped her. Only thirteen months older, his "crazy" brilliant sister was everything he wasn't. And crazy was his highest compliment. I could hear it in his voice. My crazy sister went skydiving. Skydiving at forty-five ... She's up to more craziness; she and Pete want to open a bookstore ... She and Pete are headed to Haiti next month to help with relief efforts from Hurricane Dennis ...

Crazy meant bold, daring, fearless. It was a radiant word, endowed with virtue and supernatural strength. For years, I wanted to be called crazy too. But after my last trip, nineteen years ago, the same word, previously laden with excitement, adoration, and a hint of envy, emerged with snarled derision and disgust.

Their retirement savings caused the rift and divided us all. She and Uncle Pete had invested in Dad's Millennium Tech Fund — and, like practically every other tech fund in the spring and summer of 2000 — it vanished.

But shouldn't she have been more understanding? More forgiving? Shouldn't family have meant more than money? Everyone was hurt when the tech bubble burst. Everyone lost money. Yes, some more than others, but it wasn't the managers' faults. That was like blaming Hurricane Dennis on the meteorologists.

But anger can be as irrational as it is visceral. I felt it at school as my best friends avoided, then shunned me, sure my dad had caused all their parents' troubles. And after we returned from Aunt Maddie's house that summer, the apartment felt as silent and somber as school. Mom and Dad retreated to separate corners to heal. They never laughed, never went out to parties or dinners; they hardly spoke. In my most honest moments, I admit I chose Northwestern Law School in an attempt to push...