Late on Wednesday afternoon, a red 1953 Buick Skylark pulled up the Houston driveway. A tall man with salt and pepper gray hair stepped out of the car at the same time as his wife, a blonde woman in her late 30s. She pulled the seat forward and a small boy with brown hair, jeans, and a button-down, short sleeved shirt jumped out of the back seat of the car. The three walked up the tiered steps to the front door of the Houston mansion and the woman rang the doorbell. After pressing the button a second time, Bill came to the door and opened it.
"Roy!" Bill exclaimed and hugged his brother.
Returning the hug to his much shorter and younger brother, Roy said, "It's been a long time."
"Yes it has," Bill replied with tears in his eyes.
Roy backed up and put his hand on his wife's arm. "Bill, this is my wife Flo…." He paused and looked behind her where Will was hiding behind Flo's leg. "And this is my son, Will."
Bill shook Flo's hand and then stooped low and shook Will's hand. "Nice to meet you, son." His gesture broke the ice for Will, and he came out from behind his mother.
Roy took his brother's hand again and patted the top of it. "I'm sorry I couldn't be here when Rebecca passed," he said.
"I understand. You were abroad," Bill replied.
"Where's Mattlock? Will's been looking forward to meeting him," Flo said.
"He's been champing at the bit, too," Bill replied. "C'mon inside." They all walked into the house and Bill called, "Mattlock, your cousin's here!"
Mattlock emerged at the top of the stairs and ran down into the living room. He ran right up to Will and thrust his hand at him gregariously, causing Will to flinch. "I'm Mattlock!" he exclaimed. Will shook his hand and then put his hands in his pockets. Mattlock did the same and the two sized each other up. "Wanna come up to my room and play with my toys?"
"Sure!" Will exclaimed.
"Daddy, can we?" Mattlock asked.
"For a little bit. Dinner should be ready soon," Bill replied.
"Okay, Daddy," Mattlock said, and he grabbed Will's hand and took him up the stairs to his bedroom.
Bill gestured to the living room furniture. "Please, sit down. Would you like something to drink?"
"Have any red wines?" Roy asked as he sat down.
"I have a Grenache," Bill replied.
"Perfect," Roy said.
"Flo?" asked Bill.
"I'll have the same," she replied.
Bill poured their drinks and poured himself a Bourbon at the bar. He gave Roy and Flo their drinks and sat down. "So tell me…what have you been up to?" he asked Roy.
"Mainly teaching at the university. It's nice to have a holiday break and not have to travel abroad for a change," Roy said.
"Poor thing – having to travel abroad," Flo joked.
"It's different when it's for work, dear," Roy explained.
"Who are you kidding, Roy. You love your work," she said.
"True, true," Roy said. "Flo would like to travel more. It's her lifelong dream to go to Tahiti, but between teaching at the university and occasional work with The Company, we don't find the time to travel for purely pleasure."
"You're still not going to tell me what The Company is?" Bill asked.
"Afraid not, or I'd have to kill you," Roy said with a wink. Flo slapped him on the upper arm.
"C'mon. You're among family here," Bill said.
"Well, of course, you know that I've been in the military and I've worked for the government in other capacities. The Company is a sort of sub-contractor to the federal government, but that's as much as I could tell you without jeopardizing my clearance level," Roy said.
"It surely isn't called 'The Company?' Bill asked.
"Of course not. That's a terrible name for a company, and not very creative," Roy said. Flo laughed.
"I guess I'm not going to get much out of you, so Flo – why Tahiti?" Bill asked.
"I first learned about Tahiti when I was in art school – when we studied Gauguin and his time there. While Roy and I lived in the Arlington/D.C. area a few years ago, I saw a travelling exhibit of his work and that sealed my desire to visit Tahiti," Flo replied.
"Such a romantic, my wife," he said, putting his arm around her. "I prefer Bouguereau myself. Who's your favorite artist, Bill?"
"Hmmm. I guess I'd say it's between Frederic Remington and Thomas Hart Benton," Bill said.
"American artists? Interesting. Well, they do seem to finally be coming into their own these days. Benton's got a great visual rhythm," Roy replied.
"How did you two meet?" Bill asked.
"Actually, it was at a museum," Roy said. "In 1946 – at the National Gallery of Art in D.C. I saw this beautiful young woman looking intently at Albert Ryder's Siegfried and the Rhine Maidens. It was a new acquisition, which is why she was there. I walked up and looked at it with her. After a few moments of silence, I said that I had seen Wagner's Götterdämmerung performed in Berlin and the painting had captured the scene's emotion."
"I expressed my disappointment in Ryder's technical abilities with paint – especially in terms of his glazes," Flo said.
"Ever the art critic," Roy said with a smile.
"I thought he was making a pass at me, and I was there to look at art," Flo said to Bill.
"I was, but I did want to hear your expertise," Roy replied. "We talked about the painting some more and she asked about the opera I'd seen in Berlin and I asked her if she liked opera. She said she did. And we had our first date at the opera shortly after that."
"In the end, it was the recluse Albert Ryder who brought us together," Flo said.
"I'd never met a woman like her in all of my travels," Roy said.
She looked at Roy askance. "Please dear. I've heard you say that, but it can't be true."
"I mean it. I've met a lot of women in my travels, true, and some were intriguing and even dangerous, and worked in a variety of fields, even my own and for The Company, but it was my home country that brought me Flo. Just goes to show you that home isn't a place on the map," Roy said.
"Dear, you're making me blush," Flo said.
Roy put his arm around her and said, "I've never met a woman as cultured, intelligent, caring, giving, and who's willing to challenge me and be my sounding board, and still be my best friend and not just a wife or lover. I trust her implicitly and am the luckiest man in the world."
Flo simply said, "Roy, that's enough."
He jokingly said to Bill, "See?" and smiled.
"You are very fortunate," Bill said.
"Would you like to remarry, Bill?" Roy asked.
"I don't know. I don't have the time or occasion to meet women these days. I'm pretty absorbed in business. Mattlock also keeps me busy. Whether or not I remarry, I'd like my son to meet and marry a woman like Flo," Bill said.
"Can't go wrong," Roy said.
"Alright, boys. I mean it. That's enough. I'm getting embarrassed," Flo said.
Roy joked, "I forgot to mention humble." Flo elbowed him and the two men laughed.
Up in Mattlock's room, he had been giving Will the grand tour of his toy collection, which was vast. Most of his collection consisted of guns and cars, some of which were model cars that he and Bill had built together and were only meant for display on the shelf unit on his bedroom wall.
"You have a lot of toys," Will said.
"I guess," Mattlock said, looking around the room.
"I don't have this many at my house," Will replied.
"They're just toys. I give them away all the time. Do you want some to take home when you leave?" Mattlock asked.
"Really?" Will replied. "I don't know."
"I mean it. You can have whatever you want," Mattlock said.
"I'll think about it," Will replied.
"What do you do for fun at your house?" Mattlock asked.
"I play with friends in my neighborhood, play war, explore…." Will said.
"I don't have any friends in my neighborhood; though, a new family moved in down the street. I don't know if they have kids my age, yet." Mattlock replied.
"So what do you do while you're at home?" Will asked.
"I play with these," he said, gesturing to the toys. "I play in my tree house and go riding horses with Bo and Lamar. I sometimes help them with chores too. Most of my friends are at school. Charlie, Steven, and C.J. I met all of them at C.J.'s birthday party. My daddy knows her daddy and momma."
Will was fixated. "You ride horses?"
"Well, yes. We're on a ranch," Mattlock said with a smile.
"Wow," Will said. "I've never ridden a horse."
"I bet Bo and Lamar will take us if I ask them," Mattlock said.
"That would be great!" Will replied exuberantly.
Sergei entered the living room from the kitchen. "Dinner is served," he said.
"Great," Bill said. "Roy, Flo, this is Sergei, our family chef."
Roy and Flo stood up with their glasses in hand. "Nice to meet you, Sergei," Roy said. He continued in Russian, "Ty russkiy , Sergey ?"
"Da," Sergei said.
"Velikiy. My dolzhny govorit' na russkom vmeste," Roy replied.
"Da," Sergei said with a smile.
"Mattlock!" Bill yelled. He waited a few moments after no response, and yelled Mattlock's name again. The two boys showed up at the top of the stairs.
"Yes, Daddy?" Mattlock said.
"Dinner time, son," Bill replied. Mattlock and Will walked downstairs while the adults made their way into the kitchen and sat down. When Mattlock and Will entered the kitchen, Bill was placing a large book and a phone book on one of the chairs.
"I should have picked up another booster seat for Will. This will do," Bill said.
"I'm sure it will be fine," Flo said.
The boys sat next to each other in their chairs. Bill took one end of the table and Flo and Roy sat opposite the boys.
"What are we having tonight, Sergei?"
He started ladling some stew into the bowls on the table. "First, we have Cozido Portuguesa. Then there's Bacalhãu á Gomes de Sá , and finally, for dessert, there will be a choice between Pasteis de Nata and Pão de-Ló," Sergei said.
"How wonderful," Roy said. "I haven't had Portuguese food since I was in Lisbon."
"I hope you like it," Sergei said.
"It smells delicious," Flo said.
"With food like this, I could get fat around here," Roy said.
"No you wouldn't. I'd put you to work on the ranch," Bill said.
"Definitely worth working for," Roy said.
"Sergei, when did you come from Russia to America?" Roy asked in Russian. Mattlock and Will paid focused attention on the two men.
"My family fled Russia in 1937 when Stalin was persecuting the Russian Orthodox Church. We travelled through the Ukraine, Romania, over to France, and finally to London where we settled in 1938," Sergei replied in his native language.
"You made it in the nick of time," Roy replied.
"Yes. It was not long after that the Nazis made a mess of Europe and part of the USSR," Sergei affirmed.
"You must have picked up your cooking skills along the way," Roy said.
"Da," Sergei said.
"When did you make it to America?" Roy asked.
"Our family survived the Nazi bombings of London in 1941 and at the end of the War, I took a Trans-Atlantic ship to the States. I was 23," Sergei replied in Russian. "I started working odd cooking jobs from the east to the midwest and finally to Texas. I met your brother at the dedication of the Cloverleaf Hotel and he hired me to be his personal chef. He's sponsoring me for citizenship."
"That's great, Bill. Sergei was just telling me that you are sponsoring him for citizenship," Roy said.
"Yes. That's true," Bill said.
"Well, Sergei, I suppose we can speak Russian together later. We should probably speak English now to be a part of this gathering. What do you think?"
"Yes, Mr. Houston," Sergei said.
"Call me Roy," he said.
Sergei nodded.
"What do you boys do for female company around here?" Flo asked.
"Well, there's my neighbor and friend, Annie Hickok. We call her Cattle Annie," Bill said. "She's a character. You'll get to meet her while you're here. There's probably no way of avoiding it."
"I'm intrigued," Flo said.
"I think you'll like her," Bill said. "Other than that, there's not that much feminine influence around here except for a few household staff." Bill thought for a bit. "There might be another female presence around here soon. Mattlock's made himself a friend recently. Haven't you Mattlock?"
"Yep! C.J.'s her name!" he said.
"And how did you meet her?" Bill asked, already knowing the answer.
"At her birthday party. And I go to school with her," Mattlock replied, looking at Flo and Roy.
"We're going to have her come over for a visit soon, aren't we?" Bill asked Mattlock.
"Yep!" he said.
"What do you like about her, Mattlock?" Roy asked.
Mattlock looked pensive for a few moments while chewing his food and then swallowing. "She's smart, funny, and punches like a boy!"
"Well, now that is something," Roy replied. Flo smiled.
"Did she punch you?" Will asked, wide-eyed.
"Yep. Decked me good," Mattlock said.
"I'd be afraid of her," Will said.
"Not me. I bet she'll like to ride horses and explore and everything," Mattlock said.
"Don't get your hopes up, son. There's no telling what she might enjoy doing," Bill said. Turning to Roy and Flo, he said, "Although, she didn't strike me as one who liked to stay at home and play with dolls."
"What do her parents do?" Flo asked.
"Her father is a lawyer and her mother is a medical doctor," Bill said.
"Ahhh…Professional family," Flo replied. "What does C.J. stand for, Mattlock?"
"Cady something, but Julia calls her C.J., so we all call her C.J.," Mattlock replied.
"Julia is C.J.'s precocious neighbor and best friend," Bill clarified.
"Oh…." Roy said.
"Is she coming over while I'm here?" Will asked with a worried look on his face.
"No. Probably later," Mattlock said.
Will let out a sigh and looked relieved.
Everyone ate their meals and desserts and went to the living room where they all watched Brave Eagle with Mattlock and Will before they had to go to bed. Bill had purchased a rollaway bed for the occasion and placed it in Mattlock's room. Bill tucked them in and said goodnight to the both of them and Roy and Flo came in afterward and did the same. Then, the adults retired to the living room with some wine and conversation.