A Father for Philip (16 page)

Grant stood up looking bewildered and
then with a hollow laugh, said “A very strange man, that friend of the kid’s.
How come he put your ring back into his pocket? What’s wrong with your jewelry
box?”

Eleanor desperately sought an adequate
answer. She was tired. And she wished Grant would go. She knew an explanation
would have to be made, but not now. The time for that had been when she had begun
to make it, back when David had broken in on them. Deliberately? And if so,
why? Still, she was too tired, feeling too sick to try to explain to Grant now.
She would be unequal to the ensuing battle. All she could think to say about
the ring was, “I gather he feels it safer there and will be easier for him to
give it back to me when I ask for it, than if he had to dig through the mess in
my jewelry box.”

“Are you going to ask for it back?”
Grant asked in a hard voice.

“I don’t imagine I’ll let him keep it.
After all, it is mine, Grant,” she said and he spun on his heel as David had
done and walked rapidly out of the room.

I’m not being fair to him, she thought
in anguish, but I really couldn’t have faced an argument today.

~ * ~

David avoided her room for the rest of
the day except for bringing and collecting her lunch tray, then the next time
Eleanor heard his voice was when Philip came home from school the screen door
slammed—without having squeaked open first. Philip noticed the difference at
once. “Hey!” he exclaimed. “The door doesn’t squeak.”

“No,” rumbled David’s voice. “I oiled
it. Like a lot of things around here, my son, it’s been needing a man’s
attention for a long, long time.”

Needing a man’s attention? Eleanor asked
herself. Meaning exactly what? Or who? Me? Philip? And thereby saying by
implication that Grant was not man enough for the job? It must be admitted, she
thought, but Grant had given a very poor showing of himself today, and she had
been ashamed of him, of his pathological fear of infection, of his
patronization of David, whom he took to be nothing more than a flunky to be
sent out to the kitchen to make coffee, then offered money for his services.

But David had shown himself more than
capable of looking after himself. A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth
as she remembered, and she wiped it away quickly, feeling guilty that her anger
with David had been liberally laced with amusement at what he’d done to poor
unsuspecting Grant.

But, to imply that Grant was not manly
was unfair. He, at least had been loyal, steadfast, and had stuck with Eleanor
for four years, knowing it would be a long wait until she was free, and not
knowing if the wait would be worth it in the long run.

But I never asked him to wait, she reminded
herself. I always told him I was unsure, and that it might be better if he
forgot me.

But Grant always came back, and in doing
so, had proved that he must care for her very deeply. He had taken an interest
in her work, believed in her enough to send it to his brother with his personal
recommendation. Of course, her main source of income was the rent from the
farm, and that wasn’t great, but the little ‘Eleanor Bear’ earned did provide
the nest-egg she’d been salting away toward Philip’s education. So that much,
she owed to Grant.

Surely it all counted for something and
his difficulty in understanding Philip and his needs was the result of his own
background. He’d been raised by his mother in the rooming-house she managed.
That might be where he’d developed his hotelier’s instincts, but it had done
nothing toward teaching him the finer points of child-rearing. He can’t help
being the way he is, and I’m sure, if I were going to marry him, he would never
have insisted on my selling the farm so he could construct, of all things, a
golf course! Golfers on the rolling green hills where dairy cows had grazed for
five generations? To her, it seemed ludicrous. It was just a passing idea of
his. He’s a businessman who doesn’t understand sentiment. If it hadn’t been for
his ambition, he wouldn’t have gotten where he is. I must give him credit for
his accomplishments.

“Is my mom better, Jeff?” Philip’s
voice, sounding full of cookies, broke into her reverie.

“Almost,” David said. “Why don’t you go
and see her… Ask her what she wants for dinner.”

Philip came into her bedroom exuding an
energy that crackled and snapped in his eyes, filling the air with boy. He
landed on the bed with a bounce and the springs sang out. It must be time for a
new mattress. Wouldn’t do to have it—No! That was not happening again.

“Hi, Mom! What do you want to eat?”

Eleanor gave him a hug. He looked so
happy, so full of life and good spirits and the delight of knowing the two
people whom he loved best in all the world were together in the same house. She
squeezed him tightly for an instant, feeling love wash over her like a wave
almost painful. Philip struggled and she let him go. “Never mind me. What would
you like for dinner?”

“Hamburgers and fries. Jeff can make
’em. He says he can make anything, ’cause he can read a recipe. Did you get
some of that Jell-O he made? It was the nicest Jell-O, Mom. When he took it out
of the fridge, I could drink it out of a cup. How come you never make Jell-O
like that?”

Eleanor grinned in spite of herself. He
can make anything, can he? He can read a recipe? But clearly, he can follow the
directions on the side of a small box. “I didn’t know you’d appreciate
drinkable Jell-O, Philip, and if you ask Jeff, he’ll probably make hamburgers
and fries for you. But tell him that you have to eat some vegetables, too. I’m
not hungry and certainly not for drinkable Jell-O.”

“Fink,” said David from the doorway and
Philip jumped up, giving Eleanor’s message in his normally shrill, loud tones,
then finished by saying, without pausing for breath, “What’s ‘fink’?”

“That’s someone who tells on someone
else,” David replied. “And do you absolutely have to yell? I thought that
Jell-O was a secret between you and me.” He gave Eleanor a sheepish grin over
the boy’s head and her heart flipped painfully before she managed to steel it
against his charm.

“Oh,” said Philip easily, “we don’t have
to keep secrets from Mom. We can tell her all that stuff. She understands.”

David stared long and sadly and Eleanor.
Oh no she doesn’t, his eyes seemed to be saying, and she met his gaze, held it,
her eyes in turn assuring him that she did… She
would
understand, if he would only give her something to
understand. Trust me, she pleaded silently, and his gaze dropped first.

“I’m sure she does, son,” David said to
Philip, but his words were directed at Eleanor and she knew it. “I would never
keep anything from your mother if I could help it. But…” And he raised his eyes
to Eleanor once more, “There are some things which told, would do more damage
than the silence of not telling them.”

Eleanor was only peripherally aware of
Philip looking from one of them to the other, puzzled as they gazed with pain
and longing into one another’s eyes, David begging for mercy, for
understanding, she seeking knowledge, trust, truth.

“How can you be sure of that unless you
try?” she finally asked.

Casey, at that moment, bounded into the
room, his claws clicking on the hardwood surrounding the rug and he skidded
against Philip’s legs. The child reached down and picked him up, giggling as
the small pink tongue attacked his ear. “Take him out for a little run, please,
Philip,” David said, and when the child had gone, he sat down and took
Eleanor’s hands.

“When I was away, I thought of you every
day,” he said. “I never stopped missing you, never stopped loving you. I used
to take out my little snapshot of you and look at it every day, and every night
before I slept, until one night when I was in prison for a crime I did not
commit, the rats ate it. Even after that I carried a picture of you in my
heart. You are my life, my love, and always have been. But I can’t tell you
what kept me away. You hurt yourself Eleanor, and me, and Philip, too, by
refusing to trust me. If I thought it would help you to know, believe me, I
would tell you. But I know it would be the worst possible thing to do.” He
leaned forward and placed his head against her breast, and of their own
volition her fingers glided through his hair. “Trust me,” he whispered.

“Do you trust me?” she asked, hardly
daring to breathe.

“I trust you with my life.”

“Then tell me.”

David stood up. “Impasse,” he said
sadly. “What would you like for dinner?”

“Nothing.”

“I’ll bring you something. You’ll eat
it.”

“I’ll get up and eat in the kitchen with
you and Philip. He’ll like that, since it will be your last night here.”

“Will it?”

“Yes, David.”

That night, after the dinner for three
in the kitchen… A bittersweet affair for the two adults, and a fun time for
Philip, the dishes were done, put away, the kitchen tidied and Philip tucked
into bed before David left. Eleanor sat alone in the silent living room,
looking out the night approaching fast and wondered how many more nights of
aloneness she would endure. How quiet the house was, how empty. David’s
presence had been what the small cottage had needed, and now it was gone, gone
by her doing. She had sent him away.

While Eleanor sat in her lonely,
too-empty little house, with her lonely empty thoughts, her husband sat on a
canvas chair beside his camper on the forestry road.

I’ll give her two weeks, he told
himself. If she hasn’t come to me by then, I will tell her what she wants to
know though God alone knows what it will do to her. She’s still too sick, too
weak, to cope with that knowledge yet, and I cannot do it to her.

Friday evening, Grant showed up at her
house.

Eleanor opened the door. “Oh… It’s you.”
His irritation at her less than enthusiastic greeting showed in the way he
pushed through the doorway as if denying her the opportunity to keep him out.

“I take it you’re alone?” he asked.

“Yes, alone, except of course, for
Philip and Casey.”

“That man?”

“He left on Tuesday night. He went back
to his camper.” Eleanor heard herself say it with total calm, and wondered how
she could do it. It was like being calm trying to say the world broke in half
on Tuesday. The other side is going to out to orbit another sun.

“That’s good.” Grant settled himself in
an easy chair, put his feet on a hassock and leaned back. “Listen, Ellie, I’m
glad he’s gone because quite frankly, if he’d still been here I have been
forced to tell him to leave. I did some checking in town this week, and I don’t
like what I’ve found out.”

“Oh? What kind of checking?” I must tell
him who David really is!

“Did you know he’s been around here
since before Easter? He arrived one morning and right away began asking
questions. He was driving a brand-new car—and not a cheap model, either. He
wore what looked like very, very expensive clothing. The first thing he did was
go to the post office. His excuse was to buy to airmail stamps for a couple of
letters he was sending to Brazil, one to Argentina and another to Ecuador,
Charlie said. He couldn’t help looking at the addresses when he sorted the
outgoing mail. But what he really wanted to do, according to Charlie, and what
he did do, was pump him for information. I talked to Charlie. He said that
right from the first he had doubts about the guy. I mean, sending letters to
South America?”

“Just what else did Charlie have to
say?” she asked him, knowing she was going to tell Grant the truth tonight, but
for some reason, she wanted to know what David had done when he first arrived.
Of course he would remember, if he remembered anything at all, that Charlie
Simmons, the gossipy postmaster would be the best source of information in
town. Charlie knew everything about everyone for miles around, and never
hesitated to share his knowledge and his suspicions.

“Well, it seems there was no one, no
other customer, that is, in the post office. The Davidson guy—if that is his
name. He apparently didn’t introduce himself to Charlie, and didn’t put any
return address on the letters, though Charlie didn’t realize that till
later—the man just leaned on the counter and started chatting. He began asking
questions about old-timers. He claimed to have lived here for a few months,
years back, although Charlie doesn’t remember him. They got to talking about
who was still alive, who’d passed on, and when your old man was mentioned, he
wanted to know right away who had the place. Charlie told him it was Bill
Robbins.

“I asked Charlie if he’d mentioned you
and the kid to the guy, the fact that you were sort of isolated down here in
this little hollow, and he denied it. Said the guy hadn’t asked about you at
all, so he figured he’d never met you.”

“Why did you wonder if you asked about
me… Us?”

“Well, because of the way he buddied
right up to the kid sort of right after he bought the Anderson place. I thought
maybe he had some ulterior motive.”

“What ulterior motive could there be
befriending a little boy who happens to live on an adjoining property?”

“Oh, Ellie. Come on! You read the papers
don’t you? Watch television?”

Eleanor snorted in disdain. She couldn’t
help it. What Grant was suggesting was ludicrous, at least as applied to David.
“You’re paranoid!”

“Now just a minute,” Grant protested.
“Don’t take that attitude with me. It has happened, you know, and the man did
act suspiciously. After he found out about your dad, and that Bill was farming
the place, he started asking about other properties in the district, implying
he was in the market. Charlie told him about the Anderson place, that it had
been listed for years and no one seemed to want it. He got really pleased
looking, Charlie said, and went off to see Rick Forrest. Charlie got the rest
of the story from Katie, Rick’s secretary.”

The realtor wouldn’t be happy if heard
about that, Eleanor thought, but raised her eyebrows in encouragement for Grant
to go on.

“That Davidson fellow went away for a
few days then came back and bought the Anderson place from Rick. Ellie, he paid
cash, or, at least with a cashier’s check. For the full amount.”

Eleanor knew that must gall Grant,
because for years he had lamented the fact the price on the Anderson farm was
too high for him to afford. Not that he wanted a farm as such. What he wanted
was property. For a golf course? She had a fleeting thought about organizing a
protest march with placards reading “Grow Food, Not Egos!” and parading through
town. The notion made her smile.

“What’s the joke?” Grant snapped.

“You make it sound almost illegal to pay
cash, and in full.” Eleanor knew she was being nasty, playing like this with
Grant, but unable to stop.