He knew without being told that Susan would be at Ann Price’s house as soon as her car would take her there, and he was not going to interfere. Fate seemed to have taken a hand in the matter. According to his watch, workers at Hamilton Village would quit work in half an hour, so he saw no point in going there.
He phoned Willis. “It’s too late for a conference. Where can I meet you?”
“How about The Watering Hole? It doesn’t get noisy until after nine.” Half an hour later, he waited for his friend and business associate in a far corner of Woodmore’s most famous gathering place. Willis joined him almost at once.
“Sorry, but I forgot to ask how’s your old man,” Willis said almost as soon as he sat down.
“You didn’t forget, Willis. You asked me this morning. You know, I’m beginning to think we ought to put some upscale green and black tiles—I mean heavy duty ones—in the lobbies of those buildings. I want them to have an atmosphere of elegance.”
“Yeah, man,” Willis said, “and think of the behinds of those senior citizens kissing that tiled floor regularly.”
“Point taken. Then, it’s parquet floors and Royal Bokhara carpets. I’m sick of that combination,” Lucas said.
“But it’s damned classy, if you ask me. Uh, say, Aunt Noreen’s pretty pissed at you.”
Lucas supposed that his frown would give Willis his answer to that. “She told you that?” He shrugged. “I don’t have to ask why, but I’m enjoying my work with Jackson Enterprises, and I’m not going to stop it to please her.”
Willis propped his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “I think she can handle that. The problem seems to be that you see him regularly and won’t tell her anything about him. You don’t even mention his name to her.”
Lucas banged his fist on the table. “He’s married, dammit, and if he let her down before, she shouldn’t be in such a hell-fired hurry to get back with him.”
Willis stared at him. “Don’t be so hard on her, man. At least she can’t get pregnant.”
Lucas jumped up and gazed down at his closest friend. “You must be rowing with one oar. We’re talking about my mother. She’s old enough to know right from wrong, and so are you.”
Willis didn’t flinch. “But, man, after thirty-six years of misery, she deserves to grab whatever happiness she can get.”
His hands gripped his hips, and if the small-town gossips sitting at the next table had suddenly taken an interest in his business, he didn’t much care. “Willis Luther Carter, you are about to torpedo twenty-eight years of friendship. I know you love Mama, but love doesn’t mean you have to be stupid. I am not going to be their go-between, and neither are you.”
“But, Lucas—”
“If Calvin Jackson ever finds himself a single man, they’re on their own. But he can’t have his cake and eat it too a second time around, at least not with my help. If he wants her, let him get a divorce. My last word on this subject.”
“Sorry, man. She never said she wanted to get together with him. She . . . uh . . . needs to know how he’s doing.”
He felt for her. He always had, but he had to stick with the principles that she had instilled in him. “Don’t encourage her, Willis. Let it lie.”
As Lucas anticipated, Susan drove immediately to Ann Price’s home. “I’m so happy that you have Rudy,” she told Ann. “Do you mind if I see her for a few minutes?”
“Come right on in, Ms. Pettiford. Rudy’s upstairs with Nathan and Dolly, my youngest granddaughter. That child was so happy when she saw me. I wish I could keep her, but I can’t.”
“I hope I can adopt her,” Susan said, causing Ann Price’s eyebrows to arch, “but it may not be easy.”
“If you decide to do it, I’ll speak for you. Rudy loves you, and you love her, and if you two get together, you’ll both be blessed.”
As the days passed, Nathan and Rudy became a fixture in Susan’s life. Not only was Child Welfare slothful about finding a permanent home for Rudy, since the child appeared happier and content where she was. But Ann Price encouraged Rudy’s fondness for Susan. Consequently, she allowed Susan to take Rudy and Nathan on excursions and picnic outings or to her home every Saturday and Sunday.
“I know I’m playing with fire,” Susan told Cassie one April morning as she raked cut grass from around her lavender bushes. “But that little girl is so dear to me. I want to adopt her, and I think I have a chance, but—”
“File the papers. She’s a darling child, and she and that little boy seem devoted to you.” She looked away, as if her next words wouldn’t be pleasant. “Those two seem inseparable. What’s she going to do if you adopt her and take her away from him?”
“I’ve thought about that. I think they’d be happy as long as they could see each other often. I’d take him too, but I know Mrs. Price would never agree to that.”
“Probably not, from what I’ve seen of her.”
“Cassie, I’ve been thinking of sending photographs of my work at Mrs. Burton’s house to a national magazine. She’s given permission, and if the magazine accepts the story, I’ll be able to call my shots. But I need a top flight photographer and a layout artist. Would you do the layout?”
“Would I . . . Nothing would please me more. That’s right up my street. I’ll get you one of our photographers. He’s the best. When do you want us to start?”
Three weeks later, Susan sat in her shop gazing at the photographer’s glossy pages and Cassie’s layout complete with artistic captions and notes. “Well, it’s the best I’ve ever done, and I’m going with it.” She packaged it along with a cover letter and mailed it. Later that day, she telephoned her mother and told her what she’d done.
“I’ll be a wreck until I hear from that editor,” she told her mother.
“Don’t be. If you’re sufficiently satisfied with something you’ve done to willingly expose it to professional criticism, consider yourself a success no matter what anybody else says. When can you take a vacation and come to see me for a week or so?”
“Later on in the summer, maybe, but right now, my business is moving nicely and, until I can afford an assistant, I don’t want to go away.”
“That makes sense. Now tell me, have you met any nice men in Woodmore? You’re too young to miss the best that life can offer you.”
“Mama, I can’t encourage a man, because I, well, you know I can’t have children, and it wouldn’t be fair for me to become involved . . . I mean, to lead a man on when I—”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Susan. Not every man needs to prove his masculinity by fathering a brood. Besides, you can find one who’s already a father.”
“Yes, ma’am.” If only it were that easy. But it wasn’t, and it wouldn’t be. Lucas Hamilton was the man she wanted, and he had already indicated a desire for children. From the time Rudy went to live with Ann Price, she had avoided Lucas as much as possible, for she feared testing his professional integrity and wanted to spare him the dilemma of choosing between her and what he saw as his duty.
Lucas knew how involved Susan had become with Rudy and Nathan and chose to pretend unawareness of it. He realized that Susan needed the children, and especially Rudy, although he could not understand why her maternal instinct expressed itself as it did. She had given him a wide berth recently, and he had allowed it, for he had questions about her that disturbed him, and he didn’t want to care more for her than he did. He’d had a satisfying meeting with his team at Jackson Enterprises that morning, and he’d rather not alter his mood with his concern about Susan.
“I’d give anything to understand women,” he said to himself. Calvin Jackson had let his mother down when she needed him most, but after more than a third of a century, she still cared for him. Susan Pettiford loved children, but she was thirty-four years old and still had none of her own. Verna, the woman to whom he was formerly engaged, could lie like a stick under him in bed, and yet, he’d walked in on her thrashing like a wild woman beneath a man she’d just met. If ther
e was a man who could explain to him the mystery of woman, he wanted to meet the guy.
He parked in front of General Hospital, got out and headed for his weekly meeting with the man he still couldn’t manage to address as Father, though he found that being with him became increasingly easier.
Calvin sat in a recliner beside the window. “I’m glad you could come today.” He said that on each of Lucas’s weekly visits, as if he didn’t expect him. When Lucas commented on that, Calvin said, “I take nothing and no one for granted, least of all you. Have a seat.” He glanced toward the nearby window. “I see you drive a town car. It doesn’t surprise me. A man should carry himself according to his means.”
He observed that his father sat in a chair, rather than the wheelchair. “You’re making progress. When do you think you’ll go home?”
“Tomorrow morning. You’re right. I’m moving along much faster than the doctors thought I would, and I only take a painkiller at bedtime. I’d like to go to Stewart Mineral Springs for a couple of weeks.”
“You can’t do that,” he heard himself say. “It’s in California. You’d have to fly across the country. Sitting upright for five hours would put you right back in the hospital. Why not Warm Mineral Springs, Florida? It’s so much closer, and you could travel in a limousine rather than a plane. You’d be more comfortable.”
He could see the man studying him, evaluating his ideas while sizing him up. “I don’t doubt that you’re right on all counts, but the springs in California have special healing properties. That place is more than a spa; a Native American healer guides you through the healing ceremony.”
He didn’t expect his father to take his advice, but he expressed his view nonetheless. “It’s too far,” he said flatly. “You’ll reverse all the gains you’ve made. What’s the point in sweating through those strenuous exercises only to do something foolish and land back here in this bed?”
Calvin’s laugh surprised him. “You don’t bite your tongue, do you?”
“No, and from what I’ve observed, neither do you. Why not rest at home for a couple of weeks and then decide whether you need to go to one of those places.”
“The pampering I’d get in a spa would certainly be more pleasant, but you’re right, and I’ll take your advice. You don’t happen to play rummy, do you?”
Surely, his shock registered on his face, in fact, in his whole person. Calvin Jackson did not want to recuperate at home, because he would be alone there with nothing to do. A man who had everything . . . and nothing. “No, and I’m surprised that you do.”
“That was what I did on cold nights while in college. You couldn’t have paid me to go outside. That town was like a deep freezer.”
He sat forward, anxious to know about his father’s youth. “Where did you go to college?” According to Miriam, his father went to college in Minnesota, but he wanted Calvin Jackson to confirm it.
“The University of Minnesota. I had a choice, and I went as far from Georgia as I could get.”
“Can’t say that I blame you. Fifty years ago, Georgia was no place to be. Are either of my grandparents living?”
Calvin looked hard at him, as if he needed to gauge the impact of his answer. “Yes. My mother is alive. She’s eighty-eight and still very active.”
He gasped, but quickly gathered aplomb and asked him, “What’s her name, address and telephone number? I’m going to see her.”
Calvin reached toward him, but quickly dropped his hand. “You’re serious? You do intend to visit her?”
“Of course I do. This coming weekend, if it’s all right with her. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. You’re a man and a half.” He gave Lucas the information. “Would you like me to tell her to expect a call from you?”
“That would be good. I wouldn’t like to shock her too much.”
Calvin lifted his right shoulder in a careless shrug. “You won’t shock her. She told me just yesterday that she wanted to meet you. I told her that could take time. She’ll be pleased to know that you’re the one who raised the matter.”
He’d stayed much longer than usual, but he didn’t mind; he’d enjoyed the visit, and he had certainly learned more about his father in that hour and a half than he had on any previous visit with him. “I have to leave now. By the way, is it going to upset your wife if I visit you at home?”
“No more than handing my company over to you upset her. But as long as the money rolls in, she couldn’t care less. I hope you’ll spend some time with me Mondays as usual.”
“Right. I’ll phone you before I head for Georgia.”
“I want you to know that this past hour has brought home to me forcibly what I’ve done with my life, and I don’t deserve your magnanimity.”
When the plane touched down in Athens, Georgia, that Saturday morning, he could hardly wait to get to the end of his journey. Not since he knocked on Susan Pettiford’s front door for the first time had he experienced such a sense of excitement or been so worked up about the approaching unknown. He hailed a taxi and half an hour later he rang the bell at Alma Jackson’s front door. He hadn’t wondered how she would look, but it surprised him when the diminutive, light-brown-skinned woman opened the door. She looked up at him, and her face brightened into a smile.
“I’m Lucas. Are you my grandmother?”
She nodded and opened her arms as she smiled through her tears. “I never even dreamed that this day would come.”
He bent down and wrapped her in his arms. “Neither did I.”
Arm-in-arm, they walked into the house, and he realized immediately that Calvin Jackson took good care of his mother. “Until Monday of this week, I didn’t know about you,” he said, “or I would not have let so many years pass without getting to know you.” They sat opposite each other in chairs upholstered in brown velvet.
“I understand, Lucas, because I didn’t know about you either until Calvin decided he’d better get his house in order before undergoing that surgery. Imagine keeping a secret like that one for thirty-five years. Let me look at you. I would have recognized you anywhere, because from head to toe, you look exactly as Calvin did at your age. He told me the story.” She leaned forward. “Can you ever forgive him?”
“He’s no more at fault than my mother. What I resent is being deprived of his guidance as a child and, especially, as a teenager.” He rubbed his right cheek almost absentmindedly, a certain sign of awe. “In spite of that, I find that I’m like him in many ways.”
“You certainly are. Do the two of you get along?”
“Things improve each time we’re together. I realize that I’m increasingly less inclined to be a smart aleck with him.”
“Good. If you accept him as your father, you should respect him.” She stood, and it continued to surprise him that she wasn’t a bigger woman. “I’ve got dinner ready, so I hope you’re hungry.”
“I was too excited to eat on the plane,” he said, following her to the kitchen. She bent to get a pan out of a bottom cabinet. “This is a really nice house, but we have to do something about these cabinets.”
She straightened up. “Like what?”
“Shelves that pull out like a drawer, and you won’t have to break your back every time you want a pot or a pan.”
“That’s right. Calvin said you’re an architect. Your mother must be very proud of you. Do you take good care of her?”
“Yes, ma’am. She wants for nothing. We don’t have to eat in the dining room,” he said when she headed that way with a platter of barbecued chicken. “What’s wrong with this table?”
That seemed to please her. She held his hand while she said the grace. “Lord, I never dared to pray for this blessing. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
He barely tasted the food, although he realized that she was a good cook, but the entire experience seemed surreal. Overwhelming. “You’re the only one of my grandchildren who’s ever visited me.”
He st
opped chewing, put his fork down and looked at her. “But what about your granddaughters?”
She focused on her plate. “I don’t remember what they look like. I’ve only seen them when I visited Calvin, and it’s been years since I was in Danville. Calvin comes to see me about once a month. I haven’t seen my daughter-in-law in twenty-six years.”
He gave up eating and leaned back in his chair. “What’s the problem? Don’t you get along with the family?”
“We’ve never had a misunderstanding. At least not to my knowledge. I used to send them presents regularly, and I’d get a thank you card from them, but I stopped that when I realized that I didn’t hear from the children and their mother unless I sent them something.”
“That’s almost unbelievable.”
“You can’t imagine what your coming here means to me.” She shook her head as if in wonder. “My grandson. I feel as if my heart will burst.”
They finished the meal of barbecued chicken, grilled tomatoes, string beans, rice, buttermilk biscuits and apple cobblers, and she rose to clear the table.
“I’ll do this, Grandmother.” He looked at her and grinned, suddenly flushed with happiness. “What do you want me to call you?”
“Whatever you feel like calling me.”
“Grandmother is too formal. I think I’ll call you Nana.”
When he walked into the living room a few minutes later, she sat in a big chair, leaning back with her hands covering her face. “What is it?” he asked her, fearing that she might be emotionally overwhelmed by his presence there. He knelt beside her chair. “Are you all right?”
She moved her hands and looked at him. “I couldn’t hold you in my arms when you were a baby or enjoy you in all the little ways that grandparents enjoy their grandchildren. I never got the chance to teach you to love me.”
Getting Some Of Her Own Page 19
