March 30th
"Wanna get married?"
Sarah glanced at Gene, who had his back to her. He stood by the fireplace and stirred embers to get the new logs to catch; while it had warmed up in the daytime when bright sunshine filled the house, the nights were still chilly.
"My goodness, this is all so sudden," Sarah said, conscious of Jason's perplexed look. "What's in it for me?"
Gene finished with the fire and came to sit next to Sarah on the couch. "You'd get me," he said in a reasonable tone. "What else is there?"
"Oh, I don't know . . . what kind of prospects do you have? You know I like to be kept in style." Sarah did her best to sound both demure and provocative. "A house in the Hamptons, apartment in Manhattan, a Lear jet on the back lawn . . . you know, the usual."
"Hmm . . . well, like I said, you get me," Gene said. He gave a big phony yawn, stretched out his arms and slipped one behind Sarah's shoulders. She picked up his hand and dumped his arm at his side.
"Masher," she said. "Don't think you can tempt me with kisses and sweet nothings, if that's all you have."
"Oh dear," Gene said mildly. "Guess I'll have to bring out the big guns then." He leaned in and put his lips to her ear. "How about a couple of weeks in Key West?" he stage-whispered.
"Now you're talkin'," Sarah said. "They marry people there, don't they?"
"So I've heard," Gene said. "Whaddaya say, chicky babe? Is it a date?"
Sarah glanced at Jason, who watched them with a wary gaze, as if they were two cans of gasoline about to explode. "Can we bring the rug rat with us?" she asked.
"Why not? We can make it an adoption bash too. A party here at home, then a party on the beach. What do you think, junior?"
Jason's eyes widened. "Two parties? One—one in Florida?"
"Sure, why not?" Sarah scooted aside a bit and patted the space between her and Gene. "Come on over."
Jason didn't need to be asked twice. A few moments later he was snuggled into the empty spot with his head on her shoulder and his arms around both her and Gene.
"We thought it would be nice to have a party for you at Poppi Lou's, if that's something you'd like to do," Sarah said. "You can invite anyone you like. Then you can go with us to Key West. We'll arrange time off and homework with the school."
"We'd love to have you come with us," Gene said quietly. "It would be our first vacation together as a family. I can't think of a better way to celebrate you coming into our lives."
Jason didn't speak at first. "Okay," he said finally. His voice was barely audible. Sarah sensed an emotional shut-down wasn't far behind; he was overwhelmed. She gave the top of his head a kiss.
"Good. Now off to bed with you. Dad will come read the first chapter of the new book in just a few minutes," she said, and kept her voice matter of fact. Just as she'd hoped, she felt some of Jason's tension dissipate. He nodded but didn't move. A soft sigh escaped him. Sarah stroked his cheek. "It's for real," she said. Gene rubbed his back gently.
After Jason had finally slipped away to wash up, Gene eased his lean form next to Sarah's. When he bent his head she accepted his kiss, a leisurely moment between them. "You'd better get ready to read," Sarah said when the kiss ended. "Don't be surprised if he asks you some questions about the vacation. He's not quite sure we really do want him with us."
"He's been through a lot lately," Gene said. He smoothed a curl back from her forehead. "So have you. How's it going?"
"That's only the third time today you've asked me," Sarah said, but she didn't really mind. "I'm all right, love." She put a hand to his cheek. "How about you?"
"Better now that you're home," he said. "I missed you."
Sarah gave him a little caress. "Thanks. I missed you too." She smiled. "Meet you upstairs shortly."
"I'll be there."
She watched as Jason returned to his room and Gene settled him in, then began to read. Through the half-open door she could see them together, just hear the murmur of Gene's voice. Now and then Jason asked questions or made a comment; the exchange was comfortable, relaxed. A little of the fear over Jason's true state of mind left her. She and Gene didn't want to throw too much at him, but he also needed to know he was truly wanted. Moments like these counted for more than parties and vacations, but they had their place too. They created joyful memories to stand alongside the darker history of his past. She understood that more clearly now.
When Gene had put the book away Sarah stood. She banked the fire, replaced the screen and went upstairs, tired but in a good way. Tomorrow I'll get my seed order sent out. She smiled to herself at the thought and felt a quiet gladness. While she still had plenty of personal therapy hours ahead, she knew it was a good sign, wanting to work in the garden again. Watermelons, she thought. We'll try watermelons this year. Tough to grow here with such a short season, but it's still worth a try.
[H]
Greg sits on the edge of the bed and stares at the cordless phone in his hand. He's been here for some time now, caught between a desire to forget the whole idea, and the relentless impulse to know, to discover.
Roz has displayed her usual discretion; she's left him alone but stays close. She's in the living room with a movie on. If he went in to her now, if he told her he hadn't made the call, she wouldn't hold it against him or get upset. She'll support him whatever he decides. That's comforting, though a part of him wishes she'd push him into a decision. That way he could blame her if things go horribly wrong. An unworthy thought, but then it isn't the first one he's had, and it sure as hell won't be the last.
Just do it, he thinks. Fish or cut bait. Shit or get off the pot. All those meaningless clichés that pop into your head and do nothing but clutter it up. He looks at the email he printed out, finds what he's looking for circled in red. He takes a breath. Then he punches in the numbers and grips the handset. His palms are sweaty. It rings once, twice; then someone answers, and Greg feels his gut clench."Hello?" The voice on the other end sounds . . . older. Hesitant, awkward. "Doctor . . . Doctor House? You're Blythe's boy?"
"Yours too, apparently," he says. There is a brief silence.
"Yeah, guess so." There is a glimmer of rueful, awkward humor in the resonant voice—something of a surprise; he'd expected resentment, coldness. "Thanks-thanks for calling. You're a braver man than I am, Gunga Din." There's a hesitation, a considering silence. Deciding what to do, where to go with this. He's afraid too, Greg realizes. "Nice . . . uh, yeah, nice to meet you. Benjamin Franklin Pierce here."
"Did your parents really name you that?" Greg asks, momentarily diverted.
"Yeah, but Dad never called me anything but Hawkeye unless I was in trouble." The humor is more in evidence now. "I got to know both names pretty well over the years."
It sounds like Grandmommy either left or died at some point, but Greg lets it go for now. He can do some research on his own later. "Hawkeye . . . can't be because of the football team," he says instead.
"Last of the Mohicans. Dad-I mean your—your grandfather was a big fan of the book. Said it was the only one he ever read."
"You're kidding," Greg says.
"No, I think he was, since he was the first kid in his family to go to college. Got a medical degree from Androscoggin." Pierce sounds amused. "Actually you come from a long line of lobster fishermen. Finest kind, as they say around here. Listen, you—you don't mind if I call you Greg, do you? Doctor House seems a little formal under the circumstances."
"Most people just use House." He honestly doesn't care. "I presume you have a specialty."
"G.P."
"Mom said you were a surgeon before you went into general practice. Why'd you give it up?"
Pierce sighs, a quiet sound. "Asking tough questions right out of the chute . . . you're definitely my kid." He pauses. "I'm not sure I can answer it to your satisfaction. Or mine."
"Give it the old college try," Greg says.
"Yeah, okay. After the war . . . let's just say I'd had my fill of patching up people the Army insisted on sending into harm's way. Meatball surgery isn't all it's cracked up to be. In fact it managed to crack me up. Runny noses and sore throats were more my style after that."
"Cracked you up . . . as in you went nuts?" A cold chill goes down Greg's spine. So his own mental problems could have even more of a genetic factor than just Blythe's propensity to addiction?
"For a while, yeah. It's not something . . . I don't talk about it. Ever. Okay? So let's not go there." The subtle pain under the harsh words is all too familiar. For once Greg doesn't push. Right now it's enough to ponder that whole 'like father, like son' truism.
"You were drafted. Couldn't have been Vietnam," Greg says, to shift the topic tangent. "I'm thinking Korea."
"Yeah. You're a diagnostician," Pierce says. "Re-opened your own practice in the Adirondacks after you left Princeton."
"You've been reading up."
"Actually your mother told me. She's incredibly proud of you. She has good reason to be." There's another silence. "She, ah . . . she didn't tell me about you, you know. I just found out not—not too long ago."
"That would explain the lack of birthday gifts," Greg says. "Nice excuse for stiffing me."
"I'll buy you a fifty-three year-old pony. One year for every birthday I missed."
Greg can't help but smile a little. "And all the horseshit to go with it, no doubt."
To his surprise Pierce chuckles softly. "You got the sense of humor anyway," he says. "Probably the only good thing I had to give."
Greg doesn't want to admit it, but instead of resentment he finds himself intrigued by this guy. There's something there, a familiarity he can't put a finger on. But whatever it is, he never felt it with John House in all the time they were forced to live together under the same roof. "So you and Mom ended up in a one night stand, apparently."
"Boy, you really do go right for the jugular, don't you," Pierce says. He sounds torn between amusement and annoyance, a dichotomy Greg understands all too well.
"It's a good technique to possess in my line of work," he says.
"What possible difference does it make to you how it happened?"
"I wouldn't be here if you two hadn't gotten together. I have a vested interest in finding out the truth," Greg says.
"Yeah, okay . . . okay. I guess maybe I owe you that much." Pierce is silent a few moments. "It was late March of fifty-eight. I was in New York for a conference, planned to meet an old friend there, you know, kill two birds with a dozen martinis between us. Your mother and I, we met at the hotel bar. I was waiting for someone and Blythe was sitting there in a blue dress . . . it was like a scene from a movie. She was pure class, your mother. Still is." The admiration is quite plain in his voice, even after all the years between this memory and today. "So beautiful, and smart with it. And she had this laugh . . . it lit up the room. There were a few other wolves trying to pick her up but she refused all of them. I could see buying a drink for her wouldn't put me in the running, so I offered coffee. She told me later that was what made her decide to talk to me."
Greg nods, even though Pierce can't see it; that's his mother, using her naivete to advantage and getting away with it through sheer charm.
"We started talking and it was like we'd known each other for years. So she ended up coming with me and we had a great evening. Trapper liked her, said she was a peach. She danced like a dream." There's a smile in the older man's voice. "At the end of the night I asked her up to my room and she said yes."
It's Greg's turn to be silent. He's imagined all sorts of ways this deed went down, so to speak, but nothing like this.
"Listen, I don't know how you feel about one night stands but you should infer from what I told you that we were both adults, we knew what we were doing and neither one objected." Pierce sounds defensive now.
"She probably didn't tell you why she decided to have sex with a total stranger," Greg says.
"I didn't ask." There's a noticeable apprehension in Pierce's tone. "So I guess you're gonna tell me now. If you're really mine you will anyway, whether I want you to or not."
The truth of that statement hits home, but Greg doesn't let it stop him. "Her husband wanted a kid of his own, a son to reflect his own image, but he was shooting blanks. So he pushed her to have an affair. She objected at first, but then she chose someone in their group of acquaintances and he freaked out. After that she made up her mind to get pregnant anyway. Actually I'm surprised she decided to go to New York, but she probably thought it was a good place for anonymous sex. She wasn't wrong."
A long silence ensues. "I see," Pierce says at last. "Real piece of work, your mother. And the guy who raised you, he was no slouch either."
"You don't know the half of it."
"I knew she was stubborn," Pierce says. "She wouldn't let me pay for the cab the next morning."
"She probably thought you'd already given her what she needed. To ask for more would be taking advantage of you."
Pierce gives a snort of amusement—the same sound Greg knows he makes when he's startled into it by an unexpected bit of humor. "I'm sure that made sense to her at least."
"Mom has a fairly strict sense of justice, though she puts her own interpretation on it." He can't believe the two of them can talk like this; they're strangers to each other, and yet it just feels right somehow. Sarah would glory in this entire event, so of course he won't tell her about it until she discovers it happened and extracts the details out of him bit by bit. "Have you decided yet to rewrite your will and leave it all to me?"
"Not much to offer, kid. A basic practice and a house in Crabapple Cove, that's all. I think there might be a lobster boat in there somewhere but don't quote me on that." Another pause. "You—you have someone? A wife, a . . . a significant other, isn't that what they call them now?"
"Wife," Greg says. "First year anniversary coming up." He doesn't know why he said that, but it's out and there's no way to take it back.
"That's great," Pierce says. "That's fantastic. What's she like?" The warmth of genuine interest shines in the simple question: he really wants to know.
"She's got all the right equipment, what else matters?"
"Oh come on, you know there's more to it than that! What's she like?"
For answer Greg gets up and goes into the living room. As Roz looks up he hands her the phone. She takes it, a question in her eyes. He says nothing, just waits. She rolls her eyes at him but speaks into the receiver.
"Hello?"
For the next few minutes he watches his wife get to know his biological father. She is hesitant and a little shy at first, but then Pierce says something to make her laugh and she returns the favor as her green eyes spark with amusement. After a few minutes they talk like old friends. Greg feels that tight knot in his gut loosen. Roz is a test, to see if this man is anyone he truly wants in their lives. It's not that he can't decide for himself; he's got a perfectly good bullshit detector. But now his path is linked to hers, and if he can limit the hurt he causes her through her perceptions and judgment alongside his own, so much the better.
"I'd love to meet you," she says. "I'll talk with Greg and see what he decides, and if it's okay we'll do it."
There's another minute or two of social niceties, an exchange of numbers and email addys and other meaningless actions, and then he sits next to Roz on the couch. She takes his hand in hers. "I like him," she says. "You got a cool dad. I'm jealous."
"Huh," he says, and closes the brief conversation with a kiss that pushes everything else into the background. He'll think about this whole thing a bit later, when Roz is asleep beside him and the damn cat's curled up behind his knees and the house is quiet. For now, the reassurance of someone there to hold him close is enough.
