A Shadow Of A Doubt

by Elizabeth and Frank

"I don't hear you shouting anything from the roof tops," retorted Maxwell hotly. "In fact I haven't heard one peep from you at all in all these four years!" He glared at her. "I've been so busy defending my own behavior - and in hindsight I don't see why I had to - that I never noticed yours!

"How many men have you thrown yourself at over the past four years? I couldn't even begin to count them! How many? And how many women have I dated? ONE! And even then it was at your urging. And yet it seems that I am the one who's on trial!

"I rather think you just want to get married, no matter who to! Anyone will do! Why should I believe you have any real feelings for me when you've been ready to throw yourself down the aisle at least three times that I can think of? How do I know that I'm not Will Parker and you're not Ado Annie? How do I know I'm not Tolouse Lautrec and you're not the chorus girl? How do I know I'm not in love with a heartless TRAMP who just wants to lynch herself a man?"

Maxwell had shouted so loudly that the children in their bedrooms had heard. The vein on his forehead was ready to burst and his face was beetroot red. He turned on his heel and stormed out of the kitchen, through the living room, took his coat from the closet and left. Tears began streaming down Fran's face. His accusations had been like a knife through her heart, and she ran out the back door without even getting a coat.

But as fast as she ran, and she could run surprisingly fast in heels, she could not escape her guilt. Every word he had spoken was true, and she could not articulate anything in her own defense. Her run slowed to a walk. She did not care that her mascara was now smeared all over her cheeks. Before too long the cold began to nip at her shoulders and her ankles. She could no longer ignore the temperature, so she found herself a taxi and headed for the only place she felt safe - her parents.

Maxwell did not return to the house for several hours. As the front door slammed behind him, the children appeared anxiously at the top of stairs, followed instantly by Niles from the kitchen, his face also showing anxiety.

When they saw it was their father, their faces fell. As Maxwell looked around, he was met by a solemn silence from all of them. Max ignored their silent anger, shed his coat, and proceeded to his office where he remained until dinner time.

Fran had still not returned as dinner was being served. The children began to cautiously air their concerns about Fran's absence, but Maxwell did not feel particularly inclined to search for her. His tirade has startled himself as much as Fran. It had never before occurred to him to question Fran's motives, and now that he had, the evidence seemed compelling. It hurt him to think that this woman who had stolen his heart over the past four years might be as fake as a glass diamond ring. So, despite his own inescapable feelings for her, he refused to run after a woman who might not have any real love for him. What had C.C. said from day one? 'She is a gold digger?'

Sylvia was irritated by the loud knocking at her front door. She had just sat down to dinner, and Sylvia did not like her eating to be interrupted. The knocking was loud and incessant. Morty obviously was not going to move, so Sylvia sighed, went to the door, chicken leg in hand, and opened it. What she saw before her was her daughter in state that caused her to go into a mild shock, such that she had lost her appetite...

"Darling? What's the matter?"

"Oh Ma!" bawled Fran, "Ma, Ma, Ma. it was so horrible Ma!!"

Fran threw herself into her mother's arms and cried, letting all her emotions flow out... in tears.

"There, there darling what's the matter?" asked Sylvia.

Fran just continued talking incoherently through her tears about marriage, Will Parker, Tolouse Lautrec, arguments and Taxi drivers. The first thing Sylvia could make sense of was:

"Oh Ma, quick, give me some money for the cab... oh Ma, he called me a heartless tramp!"

"Who? The cab driver?" asked Sylvia.

"No Ma, Mr Sheffield!" Fran's words again became incomprehensible as she began sobbing, almost hyperventilating.

"Have a bite darling... " Sylvia offered trying to be helpful, but Fran pushed the chicken leg away.

"No!! Mr Sheffield Ma!"

"Not Mr Sheffield again!? I tell you that man will be the death of both of us!"

"Morty! Pay the cab driver! MORTY!!!" screamed Sylvia, as she again put her arms around her daughter. "Now darling, calm down, breath deeply, and tell me what happened."

Fran took several deep breaths until she finally regained control.

"Oh Ma, it was Mr Sheffield. He said the most horrible things to me, he yelled at me... he said that I throw myself at men!"

Sylvia gave her daughter a withering look.

"Yeah, well I do," Fran replied, "but it was the way he said it. He called me a tramp Ma! Oh Ma and he said he thinks that I don't love him! It was horrible!"

Sylvia paused momentarily, considering what her daughter had just said.

"But do you love him?" she asked.

"Ma!" exclaimed Fran.

Sylvia looked at her daughter. The expression on Fran's face and in her eyes was not lost on her. Fran's love for Maxwell was written plainly on her face. It reminded her of something she had heard on an old black and white movie she had seen the night before: "...all our souls are written in our eyes."

"Have you told him that?" asked Sylvia pointedly.

"Well, yes!" Fran looked at her mother. "Well... no."

"So why don't you?"

"Oh Ma, he wouldn't believe anything I say to him now! He'd think I was just saying it, he'd think I was just making it up to get him back! But Ma! How can I ever prove to him that I love him? Nothing I ever do or say will be good enough... I can't stand it any more, I'm moving out!!"

"Yes darling it has been four years and how many good men have you let slip through your fingers?"

"But," Fran replied, "one was a jewel thief, and another was my cousin!"

"YES!!?? So do you understand darling?!" Sylvia countered insistently. "You have to go back!!"

"Oh I couldn't, Ma! He hurt me deeply! Oh ma, I can't go back there again. I can't face HIM again. Ma, would you let me move in here? PLEASE?"

"Of course, darling, you can stay here, you at least have to think it over. But he did say he loved you... MORTY!! Move your spare hair and your TV Guide collection OUT of Frannie's room! NOW!!!!"

Maxwell told himself that the discomfort in his stomach was severe indigestion. He told himself that a simple antacid would ease the pain. But he knew that it wouldn't. Only one thing could make it go away. Only one woman. He wanted her to be there. He wanted to hold her. He wanted to bury himself in her arms and hide from all these problems. But most of all, he wanted to know that she loved him.

Then something occurred to him. Fran, as far as he knew, kept a diary. Maybe she had written something about him, something that would give him a clue as to her feelings about him. He could easily slip up the back stairs and into Fran's room unnoticed. 'No,' he thought. 'That would be a low, ungentlemanly act. That just wouldn't be cricket. Fran would be furious if she found out.'

He wrestled with his conscience for some time, until finally he had to know. The insane thirst within him just had to be quenched. He slipped up the back stairs and into her room to look for her diary, or anything else he might find. He really had no idea where to look or what to look for, but he felt the need to look for something. He hoped to find something. It felt good just to be in her room where she had been, to feel the vibrations of her, to smell the left over fragrance of her perfume. In his heart he felt the emptiness of her absence.

He looked around, not knowing where to start. He lifted both the pillows on her bed and looked furtively around her room, hoping that the diary would suddenly leap out and bite him, and then he wouldn't have to look through her things. It was no good, it didn't bite him, and he would have to look.

He began by opening some her bedside drawers one by one. A smile crossed his face at some of the ridiculous contents, a superball, marking pens, a packet of Cherry flavoured Kool-Aid and plastic pop bag...

Each drawer that he opened made him feel more and more like an intruder and a peeping tom. Finding nothing in there, he proceeded to the dressing table. The table itself was cluttered with lipstick and other such make up, but no diary. He started opening the dressing table drawers, and in the second one he found a piece of paper. He looked at it momentarily, and then unfolded it hastily.

What he found was a poem, written in Miss Fine's own left-handed scrawl:

Maxwell stood silently and read the poem over and over. Could it be about him? Who else could it be about? He dared not assume. Nonetheless, a silent tear escaped his eye and fell on the paper in his hands.

Maxwell's mind swam in a confusion of questions he could not answer. The dull thud of a headache had begun to manifest itself, and his felt like he had been kicked in the stomach by a mule. Without thinking he replaced the paper in the drawer and silently left.

The thought of facing Maxwell again chilled her. In desperation Fran had finally called Val and arranged to meet her in a coffee shop nearby the house where they fortified themselves with caffeine and coffee cakes. Eventually they decided that Val would go to the house and make sure that Maxwell was out of the way, while Fran waited on the corner, cold and alone...

Val peered through the back door and seeing only Niles in the kitchen gently rapped on the door.

"Why Miss Toriello," he said, opening the door. "Oh Miss Fine is not here. She hasn't been here since yesterday afternoon."

"I know she isn't here Niles, she's outside. She needs to get some of her things but she doesn't want to see Mr Sheffield. Is he around?"

"What? Outside? He's in his office, outside? In this cold?" Niles questioned concernedly. "Go get her and I'll try and keep him occupied."

But Niles had no such intention. The fact that she needed to collect some belongings had him deeply concerned that she would move out, and this time not return. This was something that would sadden him deeply not only because it was clear the Miss Fine was the best thing that had happened to the Sheffield household and Mr Sheffield for years, but he himself had come to love her himself as a close friend. For these reasons, he could not bring himself to obey Fran's wishes and keep Maxwell out of the way. Instead he went straight to Maxwell's office to inform him that Miss Fine was back.

As Fran and Val came in through the front door, Maxwell emerged from the stairs bathroom, and attempting to talk to Fran.

"Miss Fine... Wait, please, I need to talk to you."

Maxwell was stopped in his tracks by a glare that would have killed anyone else on the spot. Him, it rendered speechless.

"Fran doesn't want to talk to you Mr Sheffield," Val added putting herself between them.

"Tell him I don't to talk to him!" Fran bellowed, bolting up the stairs to her room.

"But Miss Fine!" Maxwell called after her, his path now blocked by Val.

"She has decided Mr Sheffield, she feels this is the best way," Val said.

Upstairs, Fran couldn't believe that she was back in the house, back in her room. Being surrounded by her belongings had a strange calming effect on her, despite the near confrontation with Maxwell. Thoughts came flooding back of her life here, the children, Niles, C.C., Maxwell, especially Maxwell. She sat on her bed and began to sob. 'Why had it come to this?' she thought. Neither Mr. Sheffield or herself had wanted it this way. It had just sort of happened, perhaps the end of built up frustrations and tensions. Perhaps they had simply pushed each other too far, too far to go back.

Fran slowly began to organize her thoughts. She had no clear idea of what she needed, just enough clothes and makeup to get by, to start a new life until the rest of her belongings could be packed and sent to where ever she would live.

She dragged a large case and a bag from the back of her closet and chose her clothes carefully, just some underwear, her jeans, several blouses and a few other things. Packing her makeup she noticed something was amiss. Things had been moved. Not at all like Maggie had merely borrowed and failed to return. Instinctively she was drawn to a particular drawer. The drawer containing the poem. Picking it up she started to read. Each word familiar as it had just been written, but something was somehow different... In a place or two the ink had run.

Then without thinking she heard herself angrily scream "MR SHEFFIELD!!"

A few seconds later Maxwell appeared at her door, winded from sprinting up the stairs, but pretending not to be.

"Mr Sheffield! What is this?"

"What is what Miss Fine?" asked Maxwell innocently, noticing the paper in her hand. She held it up accusingly.

He stood silently like a little boy in all mock innocence, waiting for his scolding.

"HOW DARE YOU GO THROUGH MY THINGS?!" She exploded. The force of her words shocked him, she had never spoken to him like that before.

"HOW COULD YOU?! After all we have been through together! After all we have meant to each other! Damn you Maxwell Sheffield! Going through my room was the lowest, that was inexcusable! That was grotesque violation of privacy! And you read my poem... And you cried! That was so sweet!!" She softened suddenly, realizing what the watermark and the run ink really meant.

"Who is it about?" asked Maxwell as casually as he could, sensing an opportunity.

"Who do you think? You Schmedrick! Oy! I don't know why I..." she trailed off.

"Miss Fine... Fran," Max appealed.

"Should I even be talking to you?" Fran asked indignantly as she continued to pack.

"Should you be talking to me?! Dammit Fran Fine, where do you get off thinking you're the only one with feelings to be hurt around here? For four years I've watched you look me up and down, give me that look that turns any man's heart to pulp, and then waltz out the door with someone else!"

"Well what do you expect?" she yelled back at him. "I've been waiting for four years now - waiting, waiting, and you know what Maxwell Sheffield!, I'm still waiting!"

"You know it takes two to tango," he scowled. "You've done nothing... nothing to suggest to me that I'm any more important to you than any other man you pick up and throw down... nothing to convince me that if I lay my heart at your feet that you wouldn't trample it. Don't you understand I'm hurting too? Don't you understand I need to know that you love me??"

Fran's jaw started to wag, but she couldn't find the words to go with it. She looked upon Maxwell's face, a portrait of anguish, guilt and anger, not knowing how to answer him.

"Well if this doesn't tell you I don't know what will," she mumbled, throwing the paper at him. "I have to go. I have a job interview at one," Fran added near to tears. Deciding she had had enough, she gathered her bags and walked out.

Maxwell stood in silence, crestfallen, he didn't turn to see her go. After a few seconds that felt like an eternity, he picked the poem from the bed, and started to read. The words now cut him like a knife, deep to his soul, as the words blurred before his eyes, the letter crumpling in his hands. A soft voice brought him out of his trance. Fran had returned and was standing in the doorway, smiling weakly.

"I love you," she said, and left.

The End

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