Breaking the Ties That Bind

by Gwynne Forster

  He stared at her. “You and I are going to have an understanding. Or this is not going to work. A seven-year-old can fry chicken. What do I want with a woman who can’t cook? I can teach any female past puberty how to please me.” He zipped up his leather jacket, and as he headed for the door, he threw over his shoulder, “See you tonight.”

  “Now what?” Ginny asked herself after she locked the door. This brother was used to having women fawn over him and worship at his feet. “I’m not doing that. Not me.” Minutes later, remembering the previous night, she said aloud, “But Lord, he can put it down. Hell, if sucking his toes would get him going, I’d suck his toes.”

  So at eleven-thirty that night, the smell of chicken and dumplings perfumed Ginny’s kitchen, and if Angela’s recipe and step-by-step advice didn’t produce a first-class dish, she would repay the woman for her treachery in giving her a lousy recipe. She looked at herself in the hall mirror and wished she were twenty years younger. If she were, she wouldn’t be cooking chicken or anything else. Men like Asa didn’t appear every day, and she meant to keep him for as long as it suited her.

  Asa walked into her apartment, and it did not escape her that he sniffed as soon as she opened the door.

  “Hi. I see you’ve been taking cooking lessons. Good girl.”

  She didn’t offer to hug him. If he wanted a kiss, he’d have to make the first move. “A hungry man isn’t worth two cents in bed or out of it, so I’m looking after my own interests,” she said, hoping to give him the impression that she had cooked for him only to ensure her own pleasure.

  “What kind of work do you do?” he asked, surprising her, as he dropped his jacket on the back of a chair and followed her to the kitchen.

  “I work sometimes when I get bored,” she said, telling a lie, “and then, I’m a beauty consultant.”

  He opened the pot, sniffed, and smiled. “How’d you know I love this stuff?” he asked, as if pleased with himself.

  She didn’t plan for him to feel as if she was giving him special treatment. “First time I meet a man who doesn’t like chicken and dumplings, I’ll know I’m on Mars.”

  “Okay, if that’s the way you want it,” he said, reading her correctly. He opened an overhead cabinet, got a plate, served himself, sat down, and ate.

  Kendra had just begun her second cup of coffee that morning when her house phone rang. She checked the ID screen, didn’t recognize the phone number, and was about to ignore the call when she remembered that she didn’t know Sam’s phone number.

  “Hello. This is Kendra.”

  “And this is Sam. I hope you had a restful night.”

  “I rested beautifully after I got to sleep.”

  “Kendra, I promised my dad that he could have dinner at my place next Saturday or Sunday evening. Which evening is better for you? You can see where I live, and if you think you need a chaperone, who’d be a better one than my dad?”

  His laughter wrapped around her like warm sunshine on an early April morning. “Are you sure I’m the one who’d want a chaperone?”

  “Touché. You’ll get a chance to meet my father in an informal setting, and maybe you’ll be more secure in whatever you feel for me.”

  She liked his style, although she wondered if he’d planned the occasion precisely so that his dad could check her out. “I’d love to see you in your home environment and to meet your father.”

  “You aren’t bubbling with enthusiasm about this.”

  She wasn’t and she was not going to pretend. “That’s true, but I want to meet him, because he’ll help me to understand you quicker than you will.”

  “What do you mean?” Did she sense a bit of hostility in his tone?

  “I’ll get from him the kind of home training you received. Am I right?”

  “Absolutely,” he said, apparently backing away from his negative attitude. “And it won’t take half an hour, either.”

  She did not want to continue talking about his father. She wanted some evidence that he was anxious to see her. “What time Saturday?”

  “I’d like to come to your place for you at six-thirty. I’m on Appleton, a ten minute drive from you. By the way, you’ll see Edwina Prill here.”

  Kendra hoped that he didn’t hear her gasp. She wouldn’t have thought that Sam and Edwina socialized, but there was a lot that she didn’t know about Sam Hayes.

  Saturday evening arrived, and Sam rang Kendra’s doorbell at six-thirty. When she opened the door, he greeted her with, “You really are one good-looking woman. You look . . . well, stunning.”

  “Stunning in a ten-year-old bell-bottom dress?” she asked him.

  “It looks new to me. I don’t care how old it is. This dress was designed for you.”

  “Thank you. I wanted to look nice for your father.”

  “For my father! I’m not playing second fiddle to him. What about me? I’ll be there, too.”

  “He’s getting the respect due him as your father,” she said, with a hand on his arm, “but you’re the man.”

  A grin lit his whole face. “Keep it up. That’s what I like to hear.”

  They walked to the elevator with his arm snugly around her waist. When they were seated in his Buick, he held her hand, squeezed it gently, and then drove off.

  At his house, he hung her coat in his foyer closet, and immediately the doorbell rang. Her heart skipped several beats and then seemed to drop to the bottom of her belly. As if he’d received a signal as to her sudden anxiety, he leaned down and kissed her mouth, electrifying and disconcerting her. But as if he’d done nothing of importance, he turned around and opened the door.

  “Hi, Dad. How are you?”

  His father embraced him, silently telling him that, as always, his only son could count on him. “Dad, this is Kendra Richards. Kendra, this is my father, attorney Jethro Hayes.”

  He watched his father closely, for his demeanor would reflect his thoughts and attitude more accurately than his usually carefully chosen words.

  A smile altered the contours of Jethro’s face, and his white teeth sparkled as he extended his right hand to Kendra. “I’m happy to meet you, Kendra. In fact, I’ve had a hard time waiting for Saturday to get here.”

  “Thank you, sir. From the time Sam told me you’d be here, I’ve been scared to death that Saturday would come.”

  Jethro laid his head back and enjoyed a deep, throaty laugh. “Never waste anxiety. Life gives you too many opportunities to put it to good use.” He looked at Sam and winked.

  Sam released a long breath and let himself relax. “You two go in the living room and find a seat while I . . .” The doorbell rang, and he knew that his father was about to face a moment of truth when, after many years, he would see Edwina Prill and judge whether what he felt for her so long ago had survived. He opened the door, intending to tell Edwina that his dinner guests would consist of her, Kendra, and his father.

  His eyebrows shot up. Who was this elegant and feminine woman in spike heels, and with her hair loose below her shoulders. “Hi, Edwina. I’m glad you could come.”

  “Thank you for inviting me. Is . . . uh . . . is your father here?”

  “Yes. He just walked in.”

  Although he’d told her that he’d invited his father, he hadn’t mentioned his dad’s name. He hung her coat and walked with her to the living room. As they entered the room, Jethro stood and walked toward them.

  “Hello, Edwina,” Jethro said, extending his hand. “It’s good to see you after all these years.”

  “Yes, it is. I’ve been out of my mind ever since Sam told me you’d be here. You’ve hardly changed.”

  Jethro didn’t smile. “You’ve changed, but you’re more beautiful.”

  Sam stopped gaping and looked at Edwina as if seeing her for the first time. “Until I was speaking with my dad after the radio program last Sunday, I had no idea that you two knew each other.”

  At Jethro’s urging, Edwina sat close to him. “I never told you, though I kne
w you had to be Jethro’s son. You look exactly as he did twenty years ago. I knew him then, but only for a brief afternoon.”

  Awed, Sam shook his head. “Really?”

  “Yes indeed,” Edwina said. “I didn’t think he’d recognize me as a blonde. I was born a redhead.”

  “I’d recognize you if you dyed your hair green,” Jethro said. “But you ought to be able to ease it back to red.”

  Sam had never heard Edwina laugh aloud, though he’d been in her presence on numerous social occasions as well as at professional events. Her laugh had the sound of a coloratura at her peak.

  “If it’s worth my while, I can definitely do that,” she said.

  Sam could hardly believe his eyes. Stiff and always professional, Dr. Edwina Prill was flirting with his dad. He went to the kitchen thinking that he needed to focus on Kendra and not on Edwina and his father. Jethro was way ahead of the game, and Sam had barely begun with Kendra.

  Lettie, his cook and housekeeper, met him at the kitchen door. “Is everybody here? I’m going to serve some hors d’oeuvres right now. Dinner’ll be ready in about twenty minutes. Was that your sweetie pie who came in with you? I caught a glimpse of her, and I sure hope she’s as nice a person as she is pretty.”

  “Thanks, Lettie.” He patted her affectionately on her shoulder. “When you finish one of your monologues, I’m always out of breath. Yes, we’re all here, and the woman who came in with me is my date.”

  “I don’t know why I’d ask. You’re a genius at talking without saying anything.” She brushed something off the lapel of his jacket. “People will think I don’t look after you properly.”

  He humored her as he usually did when she treated him the way she treated her grandchildren. Years earlier, she had retired from teaching in a rural Alabama school without a pension and was forced to find, at the age of sixty, a job as a housekeeper.

  “I don’t know how anybody could think that. You do everything for me but part my hair,” he said, and grinned to soften the brunt of the remark. He didn’t feel guilty, because she knew he loved her.

  She reflected that, when she lowered her lashes and smiled. “Oh, you go ’way from here, Mr. Sam. I do declare.” She placed in a tray tiny broiled bacon-wrapped liver kabobs and arranged among them grilled jalapeño-wrapped jumbo shrimp.

  “I’ll take that in,” he said, and reached for the tray.

  However, Lettie was as conscious of propriety as she was of status in refusing to call him Sam. “And have ’em thinking you’re the cook? No, sir. You bring whatever glasses you want to use.” After six years, he’d grown comfortable with Lettie. She was devoted to him, and he cherished her.

  “The glasses are at the bar. I’ll get some ice.”

  In the living room, Sam introduced Lettie to his women guests and enjoyed a good laugh when, seeing Edwina sitting so close to Jethro, Lettie didn’t hang on to Jethro as she usually did. Back in the kitchen, Lettie met Sam with both hands on her hips.

  “What’s Mr. Hayes doing with that blond woman? Isn’t she white? We don’t have enough good-looking black women that he can’t find one?”

  Sam lifted first one shoulder and then the other in quick successive shrugs. “Lettie, as far as I know, she’s white. Now, your hair is almost naturally straight, so one of your recent ancestors, probably one or two grandparents, was either white, Native American, or some of both. Right?”

  “Yeah. But that white man never acknowledged my grandmother. And one of my grandfathers was a Creek Indian, or so they say, Mr. Sam, but that does not make it a good thing.”

  “At least you know two personal cases in which race did not stand in the way of physical attraction. Nature doesn’t give a hoot about peoples’ prejudices.”

  She was not convinced. “If you say so, Mr. Sam.” He didn’t try to convince her. She was seventy years old and grew up in the era of Alabama lynchings.

  When Sam returned to his guests, his father had served the drinks. He took a seat on the sofa beside Kendra and, as much as he longed to envelope her in his arms, he didn’t. “What are you drinking?” he asked her.

  “Your dad suggested that I try a vodka comet. I like it. I can hardly taste the vodka.”

  “He probably didn’t put much in it, but it’s there.” She smiled, and his belly turned somersaults. The heck with propriety. He put his arm around her and hugged her. But he couldn’t get his thoughts off his father and Edwina.

  He managed to get Edwina’s attention. “Where did you meet my dad?”

  She smiled as if savoring a pleasant memory. “In court. I was a witness for the district attorney. Jethro got pretty hot with me, questioned my integrity, and almost lost his temper. After the jury gave him his comeuppance, he met me in the courthouse hallway, apologized, and invited me to lunch. I didn’t see him in person from that afternoon until tonight, but I never forgot him.” She looked at Jethro and lowered her lashes as if embarrassed.

  Sam tried to relieve her of the moment’s discomfort by letting her know that he did not disapprove of a relationship between her and his father. “This is fantastic,” he said. “You and I have known each other for at least seven years, and I never dreamed that you knew my dad.”

  “I always knew you were his son. How’d you find out that he knew me?”

  “He heard the program last Sunday and told me he wanted to see you and to meet Kendra.”

  “Interesting. I thought Sunday that you and Kendra had something going, so I wasn’t surprised to see her here tonight.”

  Sam glanced at Kendra before staring at Edwina. “You did? I met Kendra Sunday when I walked into that radio station. It’s true that she hit me with the force of a sledgehammer, but I didn’t realize it was so obvious.”

  Lettie walked in, putting an end at least temporarily to that conversation. “Dinner’s ready, Mr. Sam.”

  “Thanks, Lettie.”

  They made their way through a seven-course gourmet meal that consisted of smoked salmon pâté, cream of mushroom soup, filet mignon with marsala wine sauce, lemon roasted potatoes, asparagus, green salad, and assorted cheeses. When Lettie presented the dessert, crystal bowls of crème Courvoisier, Jethro joshed, “Lettie, if I had known you could turn out this kind of meal, I’d have stolen you from Sam long ago.”

  Later, as they sat in the living room, sipping liqueurs and espresso, Sam reflected that Kendra seemed perfect in his environment. But the thought that she was the child to whom she referred in her letter to the Post cast a pall over what had been for him a perfect evening. It was also the first time that his sprawling apartment had seemed truly like home. He looked at Kendra and found her watching him before she quickly glanced away, but he had seen her feelings of affection and more for him mirrored in her eyes. Damn the luck. If he were alone with her, he’d light her fire.

  Jethro went to the kitchen and thanked Lettie for the dinner. “It was wonderful. Your talents are underused,” he told her.

  “That’s what I tell Mr. Sam. It won’t hurt him a bit to have nice company like tonight once in a while. I’ll lose my touch.”

  “Stay after him,” Jethro said. “He loves to eat.”

  Sam couldn’t resist following his father to the kitchen. “Are you glad to see her again?”

  A frown marred Jethro’s face as he looked at his son. “Where’ve you been all evening? You mean you can’t tell? I was enchanted with her back then, but it gave me a guilty feeling, and by sheer willpower, I closed my eyes and my heart to it. I loved your mother, and I refused to let demon libido ruin our lives. But I never forgot her; I simply lived with it.”

  “But after Mom died, you could have found Edwina. Why didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t know that she wasn’t still married, and I didn’t feel up to dealing with fresh feelings that I’d have to get over later.”

  Sam moved closer and patted his father on the shoulder. “I’ll be damned. You’re quite a man.”

  They returned to the living room, and Jethro shook
hands with Kendra. “I’m looking forward to seeing you again and again.” Then, he walked over to Edwina and grasped her hand. “I’d like to leave now. May I take you home?”

  She stood at once. “Thank you. I’d like that.” She looked at Kendra. “Good-bye. I hope to see you again soon.”

  Sam walked with them to the door, waited while Jethro got them into their coats, and then he said, “I’m happy for both of you, and I hope this is the beginning of something good.”

  “Thank you,” they responded in unison, and Jethro added, “If I’m lucky, it’s a dream come true.”

  Sam left them at the door, shaking his head in bemusement as he went back to Kendra. Lettie had left, and his libido kicked up the minute he realized that he and Kendra were alone. When he reached her, he saw that her facial expression reflected her awareness of that fact.

  “I’ve had a wonderful visit, and I’m glad I met your father. It’s . . . I think I’d better be going.”

  He wondered if she didn’t trust him or whether she couldn’t rely on herself to follow the dictates of her own mind. “We’ll leave as soon as you’re ready,” he told her, “but we’ve hardly had a minute to ourselves. I’ve been trying to adjust to my dad with Edwina, and that is not easy.”

  “Because she’s white?”

  “Oh no, not that. I grant him the right to a woman of his choice, and I demand the same for myself. Because she’s Edwina. I’ve known the professional, always businesslike woman, but this Edwina was as soft as a kitten. Talk about a chameleon!”

  “It was a dramatic change, all right,” Kendra said, “but I liked this soft Edwina. She wants your father, and she’s letting him see her without the armor of her Ph.D. Do you think it will work out?”

  “I’ll bet on my dad any day. What did you think of him?”

  She leaned her head against his shoulder and stroked the back of his hand. “Sam, you know your father is an impressive man. He’s also handsome and self-possessed, and . . . well, he’s also gentle. I like that. In fact, I like him. You resemble him a great deal.”