“Susan, this is Mark. Can you get over to the Social Services agency in twenty minutes and bring some ID? Those people have no idea what they’re doing, and if they louse up this time, I’m going to court.”
“What’s up?”
“Just please hurry and meet me over there, Susan. I have to make a run for it.”
She reached the agency with five minutes to spare, and Mark rushed up to her. “Come with me, Susan. I don’t want to give that woman an excuse to drag her feet another second.”
“Sorry. She’s left for the day,” a secretary told them, “but you can go to the director’s office three doors down. I imagine you’re fed up with this, Ms. Pettiford. I know I would be.”
“I’m Mrs. Moody,” the director said. “Rudy’s case worker has been assigned elsewhere in the system. I had no idea that this thing had dragged on so long. Do you want to change her last name?”
“That can be done later, if the child is willing,” Mark said.
“Sign here, Ms. Pettiford,” the director said, “and you may take Rudy home with you. I’ve sent someone to talk with her, and I’m told she’s anxious to go with you but not happy to leave her friend, Nathan. I wish you luck. And thank you for making this child happy.”
Susan sat down and tried to breathe. She could hardly believe that, at last, Rudy was hers. With unsteady fingers, she signed the certificates, then wiped her wet face. “I . . . I’ve never been so happy in my life.” She shook hands with the woman and stood. For a minute, she thought the floor would come up to meet her, but Mark steadied her.
“Can I take her home now?”
“She’s yours. Why not?”
She looked at Mark, certain that she seemed strange to him, because she didn’t think she would recognize herself. “What will I do? I don’t have any ice cream in my house, and Rudy loves ice cream.”
Mark’s laughter helped her settle down. “In that case, you buy some. Every supermarket in Woodmore is open.”
“Okay. But I’d better get Rudy first. A bird in hand is worth two in the bush.”
When she arrived at Ann Price’s house, she found Rudy sitting on her suitcase with Nathan beside her, his eyes red from crying. “Maybe you can let him go with her just for tonight,” Ann said. “I knew he’d be sad, but he’s miserable.”
“If you don’t mind, he can stay with me for a few days, Ann. I’ll bring him back with me when I bring your laundry.”
Ann wiped her hands on the back of her pants, and she realized that her friend had also been crying. “You’re still planning to do my laundry? With Rudy gone, I thought you wouldn’t do that anymore. It’s been such a great help.”
“I’m not a sometime friend, Ann.” What she didn’t say was that she could afford to pay to have the laundry done. And that she would. “I’ll bring my mom and the children to see you day after tomorrow.”
She didn’t want Rudy and Nathan to share a room, so she put a folding cot in her den/office for him, moved her computer and drafting table into her bedroom, and left her mother in the guest room. “You two get acquainted with my mother while I make a phone call,” she said to the children.
Lucas answered on the second ring, and she knew that he wanted to hear from her. “Hello, Lucas, this is Susan.”
“Yes, I know, how are you?”
“I’m very happy. I have Rudy at home with me, and she’s legally my daughter. I brought Nathan for a few days, because he was so unhappy when he learned she was leaving them. Lucas, I—”
“I can’t tell you how happy I am for you. We have to celebrate.”
“Then, come over for supper. The children will be excited to see you. I’ll figure out what I can scare up for us to eat.”
“Better still, why don’t I pile the bunch of you in my car and we go to a roadside restaurant I found and have a feast?” Lucas asked her.
“All right, if you still want to after I tell you this.”
“What?”
“Your dad called and asked if I’d decorate the executive suite in one of his Danville office buildings, and I told him I’d let him know tomorrow afternoon. I figured if you were supposed to be head honcho these days—”
“Hmmm.” Knowing that she cared about his interests gave him a good feeling. “Don’t let it bother you. Tell him you’ll do it, and hike up the fee. I’ll deal with him.”
“But—”
“Don’t worry. Nothing’s going to impair my relationship with him. I’ll just have to remind him of a couple of things. It’s good pay, and you’re a first class decorator.”
“Well, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, I mind his little slip, but I’m glad you’ll be doing it. Let me know which building he wants you to work in. See you in a couple of hours, and give my regards to your mother.”
“Am I going to stay with you all the time, Miss Pettiford?”
“Yes, darling, and I’m going to be your mother, so from now on, this is your home, and I want you to call me Mother or Mom or Mommy, whatever feels comfortable.”
Rudy walked up to Susan and looked up at her with an expression of disbelief. “You’re going to be my mommy? And I’m going to be your little girl? The social worker said that, but I don’t ever believe anything she says.” Rudy looked up at her for a long time, and then she wrapped her arms around Susan’s thighs. Susan didn’t realize the child was crying until she felt the moisture on her body. She hunkered before Rudy, put her arms around her daughter and rocked her until Rudy stopped crying.
“What’s Nathan doing?” she asked Rudy.
“Your mother is teaching him how to make popsicles.”
“Rudy, my mother is your grandmother, so you should call her Nana. All right?”
Rudy’s face bloomed in a bright smile. “Yes, ma’am, and I’m going into the kitchen right now and call her Nana.”
Lucas dressed, got into the town car and headed for Danville and his first confrontation with his father. Calvin opened the door. “This is a pleasant surprise.”
“Hi, Dad. I can’t stay long because I have a dinner date at seven in Woodmore, but I had to ask you this in person.”
Calvin stepped aside. “Come in, and let’s go in the den where we can talk.” He sat down. “I won’t ask if you’d care for a drink, since you’re driving and you seem aggravated. Aggravation is enough to unsettle a driver without the added effect of alcohol. What’s wrong, Son?”
With his right elbow on his right thigh, Lucas propped up his chin with his right thumb and forefinger, and stared at his father, the man to whom he was becoming increasingly attached. Suddenly, laughter poured out of him.
“You knew I’d take you to task for giving Susan that job, didn’t you? What was your point? Either I’m owner and CEO of this company or I’m not. If there is anyone who understands and appreciates propriety in business matters, it’s you. How’d you get off track? Or perhaps I should ask why did you?”
Calvin didn’t bat an eyelash. “So she consulted with you before she gives me her answer. Interesting. I was not satisfied with the fact that she talked with me, knew I was your father and didn’t tell me she knew you, not to speak of how well she knew you. So I figured you hadn’t done your work there. It won’t hurt to spiff up that suite upstairs above your office. Suppose you want to invite the governor or some politicians you’d like to impress? The only thing that makes a dent with those fellows is money or the appearance of it. I don’t believe in bribes, but the appearance of money is just as good.”
“So your aim is to get Susan into my hair. Well, you wasted your time, Dad, because she stays in my hair.”
“Good. She’s a beautiful and charming woman, and I liked her. She has a nice mother, too.”
“Yeah. I like her mother. By the way, I haven’t been able to get a peep out of my mother about what’s going on between you two. She’s not even telling Willis. She told him she doesn’t want to jinx it.”
“She’s never going out of my life again, Son. After wha
t we shared at Mama’s house last Sunday, I can never be without her again. Nothing had changed, except perhaps we love each other more than we ever did. Marcie agreed to a divorce provided she could file the charges, and I told her she could accuse me of anything she wanted short of a crime. She filed this morning. In exchange, she gets this house and everything in it except my personal belongings. I told her to photograph everything in here, put it on eBay, and she can sell it for a couple of million. I couldn’t care less. Luveen’s good at that sort of thing, and I’m sure she’ll take care of it for Marcie. I dislike ninety-five percent of the stuff Marcie put in here and don’t give a hoot for the other five percent.”
Calvin got up, walked to a picture of his father and stood beside it. “Marcie and I have not been in the same bed simultaneously in over twenty years. After my affair with Noreen, Marcie had several and she let me know it. Finally, I stopped pretending, and she welcomed my honesty.
“As soon as Noreen’s passport arrives, we’re headed for Italy. I’ve always wanted to see the works of those great architects and artists, those multi-talented geniuses, especially Michelangelo, Bernini, and Botticelli. Noreen wants to see the Vatican and Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment. Most of all, we long to be alone together.
“The things we discussed and dreamed about all those years ago that seemed so mysterious and out of reach that we could speak of them as if we knew them will at last be real to us. We saw that movie, Three Coins In A Fountain together, and we want to go to the Trevi Fountain stand with our backs to it and toss coins over our shoulders.
“I want to show her the world, Son. Everything.”
“Where will you settle, Dad?” He wanted his mother to see the world, to enjoy life with the man she loved while she was still young enough, healthy and eager to embrace life, but he wasn’t satisfied with what he’d heard.
“She doesn’t want to leave the home you built for her and that she loves, and I don’t want to leave her. That answer your question?”
“Look,” Lucas said, biting the bullet. “Don’t you have plans to get married?”
Calvin Jackson rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “Of course. Hopefully, before we leave, but she told me not to sweat it, that I shouldn’t count chicks before they hatch or some such foolishness as that. She said I shouldn’t tell you because you’d be disappointed if it didn’t come off.”
“I’d be disappointed and probably mad as the devil if you two went traipsing around the world shacking up along the way. I’m not old-fashioned, but I place a value on propriety.”
Calvin winked at him. “I’m straight. You get it right with Susan.”
“Why shouldn’t she get it right with me?”
“Because it seldom works that way,” Calvin said. “Are you having supper with her?”
“With her, her newly adopted daughter, her daughter’s friend and her mother.”
Calvin gawked for a second only, straightened out his face and said, “Tomorrow, you’ll call me and explain all that to me. Have a good evening.” He enjoyed the warmth of his father’s embrace and then headed for Woodmore. So his dad wanted to get him and Susan together. He wondered what his mother and grandmother would say, not that their opinions of Susan would figure into his thinking.
Betty Lou opened the door in response to his ring. “Come in, Lucas. Susan will be down in a minute.”
“Who is it, Nana?”
“Mr. Hamilton!” Nathan squealed, and launched himself into Lucas’s waiting arms.
“My, but you’re growing.” He knelt and hugged the boy. “I think you’re going to be tall.”
“Yes, sir. I hope I’m going to be just like you, sir. Rudy lives here now, Mr. Hamilton.” He heard the wistfulness in the child’s voice and a sadness that, he supposed, accompanied a feeling of having been excluded.
“Now, she has a real family just like you do,” he said, hoping that his words would be balm for the boy’s feeling of inadequacy.
“Hi, Mr. Hamilton.” Rudy gazed up at him, waiting for him to recognize her. He scooped her up in his arms, hugged her and set her down beside Nathan. She raised her arms to him again and, when he leaned down, she kissed his cheek. “Miss Pettiford is my mommy now, Mr. Hamilton, and I have a nana, too. Mr. Hamilton, would you please ask my mommy if Nathan can be my brother?”
“I would, Rudy, but his grandmother may not let him go. He’s her youngest grandchild, and she loves him a lot.”
“Hello, Lucas.” He whirled around and managed to suppress a whistle. If she wasn’t interested in any kind of relationship with him, why had she dressed in that eye-popping, slithery red jersey dress that advertised her sweet breasts, hips that he itched to cradle, and striking legs. He swallowed heavily.
“Hello, Susan. I assume you’re ready?” She nodded. Betty Lou walked past them, and he locked the door with Susan’s key, took the children’s hands as they walked on either side of him and stepped out into the twilight.
I’d be happy with this family. He nearly stumbled as he reflected upon the thought that flashed through his mind. It seemed so natural to have Susan and the children in his care. Betty Lou only made them seem that much more like a family.
Oddly enough, as he later reflected upon his evening, he couldn’t remember a happier occasion, unless it was the moment when he saw his father embrace his mother for the first time. He stood in Susan’s foyer looking down into the face he loved, wanting to make love with her until he went out of his mind and realizing that she wanted the same.
“Maybe we’ve needed some chaperons,” she said.
“Speak for yourself. What I need right now is to be in your arms, buried so deeply in you that not even air can get between us. And don’t tell me that you don’t need the same. There’re no chaperons at my house, and I’ll always welcome you with open arms. By the way, I’m glad you have your daughter.”
“Thank you for helping to make it possible.”
She gazed up at him with such longing that he said, “Oh, hell, Susan,” locked his arms around her and eased his tongue into her waiting mouth. With one hand at his nape and the other at his buttocks, she worked at him as if she thought she needed to imprint herself in his memory. He backed away from her.
“Do you want to go home with me?”
She looked past his shoulder. “I can’t have everything I want, so I’m going to try and content myself with what I have.” She cradled his face with her hands. “I love you, but you deserve so much more. Good night. Please slam the door locked.” She turned away from him and ran up the stairs.
I love you, but you deserve so much more. So that was it. She thought she wasn’t good enough because she couldn’t have children. He closed the front door, tried the lock for security and ambled slowly down the walk. Shaken up by what he regarded as her confession, he walked down to the lake, sat on the bench she had placed there, and told himself to think with his heart and not with his head. Hours later, he got into his car and drove home.
Susan sat at her kitchen table eating breakfast facing Rudy and Nathan, and her heart went out to the little boy who seemed to put so much effort into being happy. He wasn’t, and she didn’t know what could be done about it.
“I’ve decided to take an apartment in Hamilton Village,” Betty Lou said, “the one in which you decorated the living room in avocado green and brown. Lucas said he’ll make certain that I get the one on the ninth floor.”
Susan stopped eating. “Then you really are coming back here to live?”
“I’ll try to give six weeks notice. I’ve promised Lucas that I’ll manage his health service. It’s a retirement complex, and he has to offer health care. I’m just what he needs, and that job is exactly what I want.”
Susan took several sips of coffee as she pondered the news. “The best thing is that I’m getting my mother back. Mom, will you bring the children down to the shop around one. We’ll have lunch, and then I want to take them shopping.”
“Are you going to take Nath
an shopping, too, Mommy?” Rudy asked.
“Of course, I am, darling.” She looked at the boy. “You want to go with us, don’t you?”
His face brightened. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good,” she said, “and before we come back home, we’ll stop by to see your grandmother for a few minutes.”
She went to her shop knowing that her mother would take care of Rudy and Nathan, but what would she do when her mother went back to Africa and, later, when she was at work in Hamilton Village? She’d better begin looking for a nanny. Thoughts of her additional responsibilities did nothing to dampen her spirits. She’d take Nathan, too, if it were possible.
But at that moment, Lucas was taking steps that would remove the possibility of her adopting Nathan. He knocked on Ann Price’s door. “Good morning, Mrs. Price. I hope you remember me, I’m—”
“Of course, I remember you, Mr. Hamilton. Come on in. Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“I’d love it, Mrs. Price. As a bachelor, I settle for instant in the mornings, and I’m not very fond of it.”
She brought the coffee, sat down and exhaled a long—and he thought labored—breath. “What brought you here, Mr. Hamilton?”
“Last night, I took Susan, her mother, Rudy and Nathan out to supper at one of my favorite restaurants, and we had a wonderful time—”
She interrupted him. “When I’m gone, Nathan’s not even going to have what I could offer him, much less the comforts Susan can give him. I’m so happy for Rudy, but Nathan is grieving his heart out. He’s an orphan. My daughter got with a bad crowd after Nathan’s father went to Iraq. He was a good man, sent me money every month to help me take care of Nathan after Delia—my daughter—took off. He was killed over there and she took a hit in a drug bust. Until Nathan met Rudy, he stayed to himself, hardly talked to my other grandchildren, just sat in a corner and read or watched TV. He didn’t even play. He loves Rudy more than anybody in the world, because she needed him, and he knew it.”
Getting Some Of Her Own Page 29
