The Blessing

by Jude Deveraux

  “Parker?” Jason asked, his voice filled with horror.

  “No, her.” Charles nodded toward Amy’s bedroom door.

  “You could be fired, you know,” Jason said, glaring at the little man.

  Silently, Charles turned to a porcelain bowl on the counter behind him, lifted the lid and held it under Jason’s nose. It was crepes with hot strawberry sauce, Jason’s favorite.

  In reply, Jason just grunted and looked toward the overhead cabinet that held the dishes. Within seconds he was eating double forkfuls. How was Charles able to always find the best produce no matter where he was? Jason was willing to bet that these lusciously ripe strawberries didn’t come from the local supermarket. On the other hand, based on what the last few days had cost him, he thought it best not to ask where the strawberries had come from.

  “I really am thinking of starting a baby food business,” Charles said seriously. “Maybe you can advise me in what I should do to get started in my own business.”

  It was on the tip of Jason’s tongue to tell him to forget it, because to help Charles meant that he’d lose him as his personal chef. Instead, Jason acted as though his mouth were too full to talk. Some part of his conscience said, “Coward!” but the strawberry crepes won over his higher moral values.

  “Of course I guess everything depends on Max,” Charles was saying. “Do all babies have such educated palettes?”

  Here Jason was on safe ground. “Max is unique in all the world, one of a kind. Speaking of which . . .” He trailed off as he listened silently for a moment, then rose and went to Amy’s bedroom door, opened it, and tiptoed inside. Minutes later he came out with a sleepy-looking Max and a clean diaper.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Charles said. “You must have great ears.”

  “When you get to be a—” Jason didn’t say “father,” as he meant to, but stopped himself. “Get to be a man of experience,” he finished, “you learn to listen for things.”

  But Charles wasn’t listening to a word his employer said, because his wide-eyed interest was on the fact that Jason had thrown a dish towel down on the kitchen table and was changing the baby as though he’d done it all his life. All Charles could think was that this was a man who had everything done for him. His clothes were chosen and purchased for him by his valet, his car was driven for him, meals cooked for him, and anything that was left over, his secretary did for him.

  Charles recovered himself enough to smile at the baby. “And how do you like strawberries, young gentleman?” Max’s reply was a toothy grin, but Charles’s reward was when Max grabbed the crepes with both hands and sucked and chewed until there was nothing but sauce on his hands. And on his arms, face, hair, and even up his nose.

  “How utterly gratifying,” Charles said, standing back and watching Jason clean Max with a warm cloth. “He is without prejudice. Without preconceived ideas. His culinary gusto is the purest form of praise.”

  “Or criticism,” Jason said, annoyed that Charles was still hinting that he wanted to start his own business.

  “Afraid of losing me?” Charles asked, one eyebrow arched, knowing exactly what was in his employer’s mind.

  Jason was saved from answering by a pounding on the front door. As he went to open it, Max draped over his arm, Amy came out of the bedroom, a ratty old robe over her nightgown and blinking sleepily. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  When Jason opened the door, he was shoved aside by a thin blond man who was followed by two other thin young men and one woman who were carrying huge boxes, plastic cloths slung over their arms. All four of them wore nothing but black, lots of black, layers of it. And all of them had hair bleached to an unnatural white blondness that stuck out at all angles from their heads.

  “You must be the one,” the first man, who was carrying nothing, said as he pointed at Amy. He had three gold earrings in his left ear and a heavy gold bracelet on the wrist he was extending. “Oh, dearie, I can see why I was told to come early. That must be your natural color of hair. What was God thinking when He did that to you? And, dear, where did you get that robe? Is it kitsch or have you had it since the Nixon administration? All right, boys, you can see what we have to do. Set up here and there, and over there.”

  He turned, looked Jason up and down, and said, “And who are you, darling?”

  “No one,” Jason said emphatically, then tossed a look at Amy. “Max and I are going out.”

  Amy gave him a look that begged him to take her with him, but Jason had no pity. Heartlessly, he grabbed jackets for him and Max, then was out the front door before it closed. When he’d told Parker to have someone do a makeover, he’d meant maybe hair rollers for half an hour and a little eye shadow. Amy possessed natural beauty; she didn’t need the help of an army of beauticians to prepare for a party.

  For all that Jason pretended to leave the house because of the arrival of the makeover people, the truth was that he was glad to have Max to himself for a while. It was amazing how important the adoration of a child could make you feel, he thought. And it was even more amazing the lengths that a person would go to to entertain a child.

  Jason knew that he had a whole morning before Max would have to nurse again, so he had the baby to himself for hours. The carriage was in the back of the car, so he drove to the tiny downtown of Abernathy and parked. Since Max was still in his pajamas, the first thing he had to do was buy him something to wear.

  “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?” the man who owned the Abernathy Emporium said, squinting at Jason. Since the man had served Jason, David, and their father hundreds of times while the boys were growing up, he should remember him.

  “Mmmmm,” was all Jason said as he put the baby overalls and T-shirt down on the counter along with a snowsuit for a two-year-old. It would be too big for Max now, but it was the best-looking one they had, and Max did have his pride.

  “I’m sure I know you,” the man was saying. “I never forget a face. Did you come with them city people this mornin’ to do up Amy’s face?”

  “I need diapers for a twenty-pound kid,” Jason said, starting to take out his credit card, then paying instead with cash. He didn’t want the man to read his name on the card. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to come to Abernathy; he should have gone to the mall.

  “It’ll come to me,” the man said. “I know it will.”

  Jason didn’t say anything, but put his hand through the handles of the plastic bags, then wheeled Max out of the store. That was a close one, he thought as he pushed Max back toward the car. But the encounter had taken him back in time to when he lived in Abernathy, and now he could see the place with the eyes of an adult, an adult who had traveled all over the world.

  The town was dying, he thought, looking at peeling paint and faded signs. The little grocery store where his father had shopped twice a week and where Jason had stolen candy once had a broken pane of glass in front. He had stolen only once in his life. His father had found out and had taken Jason back to the store. Attempting to teach Jason not to steal again, his father had arranged for him to sweep the store’s wooden floors and wait on customers for two weeks.

  It was during those two weeks that Jason got his first taste of business and had loved it. He found that the more enthusiastic he was, the more he believed in a product, the more he could sell. At the end of the two weeks both he and the store owner regretted having to part company.

  The Abernathy dime store windows looked as though they hadn’t been washed in years. The Laundromat was disgusting.

  Dying, he thought. The malls and the larger cities had killed poor little Abernathy.

  By the time Jason reached his car, he was feeling quite bad about the place, as he did have a few good memories there, in spite of what he told David. Thinking of whom, he wondered why his brother would want to go through med school, then move back to this funeral-waiting-to-happen of a town.

  Jason got into the car, turned on the ignition, waited awhile until the car was
warm, then got into the back with Max and proceeded to dress him in his new clothes. “Well, you won’t have to live here,” he said to Max, then halted for a moment as he thought about what he was saying.

  There would be David to consider, of course, but Jason figured he could talk his brother ’round. David couldn’t possibly love Amy more than he, Jason, did. And no man on earth loved Max more than he did. So of course they’d spend their lives together.

  “Want to go live with me in New York?” Jason asked the silent baby as he chewed on the laces of his new shoes. “I’ll buy you a big house out in the country, and you can have your own pony. Would you like that?”

  Jason finished dressing the baby, put him in his car seat, then headed for the clean, homogenized mall. Since it was Christmas Eve, there were few shoppers, so he and Max could stroll at their leisure and look in all the windows. But Jason saw nothing as he thought about what he wanted to do.

  It wasn’t difficult to see what the last few days had meant to him. Max and Amy were now as much a part of his life as breathing, and he wanted them with him always. He’d buy a huge country house within commuting distance from New York and Amy and Max could live there. Amy would never have to worry about cooking or cleaning again, as Jason would make sure that they were taken care of.

  And they would be there when he got home, just waiting for him. And their presence would make life easier, he thought. He’d return from long, hard days at the office and there would be Amy with oatmeal on her chin and Max in her arms.

  On impulse, he stopped in an art store and bought Amy a huge box of art supplies: watercolors, chalk, pencils, and six dozen sketchbooks of the finest quality paper they had.

  “Either somebody likes to draw or you’re tryin’ to get a girl into bed with you,” the clerk, who looked to be all of seventeen, said as he rang up the sale.

  “Just give me the slip to sign,” Jason snapped.

  “Aren’t you in the Christmas spirit?” the young man said, undaunted by Jason’s scowl.

  After he left the art store, he passed a jewelry store, and as though a hand pulled him inside, he entered. “Do you have engagement rings?” he asked, then was horrified to hear his voice crack. He cleared his throat. “I mean—”

  “That’s all right,” the man said, smiling. “It happens all the time. Now, if you’ll just step over here.”

  Jason glanced down at the tray of diamond solitaires in front of him with contempt, then back up at the man. “You have a vault in this store?”

  “Oh, I see, you’re interested in our security system,” the man said nervously, and from the way his hand was hidden under the counter, he looked as though he were about to push a button and summon the police.

  “I want to see some of the rings you have in the vault.”

  “I see.”

  Jason could tell that the stupid little man didn’t see at all. “I want to buy something much nicer than any of these. I want to buy something expensive. Understand?”

  It took the man a moment to stop blinking, but when he did, he grinned in a way that Jason found quite annoying, but the next moment he scurried into the back, and twenty minutes later Jason left the store with a tiny box in his trouser’s pocket.

  Jason took Max back home at noon to allow him to nurse. Neither male recognized Amy at first, as her head was covered with pieces of aluminum foil. Max looked as though he were about to cry as he always did with strangers, but Amy’s arms felt familiar, so he settled down.

  “How adorable,” one of the thin young men said with sarcasm, his lip curled in distaste as Amy nursed Max, every inch of her flesh hidden from view.

  “Don’t hit him, Mr. Wilding,” Amy said without looking up.

  At that, the young man looked at Jason with such interest that he went into the kitchen, but Charles was still there, and now he was cooking lunch for the whole lot of them. Finally, Jason went into his room and called Parker.

  As was becoming a habit with her, she took a long time to get to the phone. He told her he wanted her to call a realtor in the surrounding areas around New York and fax him details of estates for sale. “Something suitable for a baby,” he said. “And, Parker, I hope I don’t have to tell you to mention this to no one, especially my little brother.”

  “No, you don’t have to tell me that,” she said, and Jason wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard anger in her voice. And, oddly, she hung up before he did.

  Jason took Max out to lunch. They shared a huge steak, butternut squash, and tiny green beans with almonds—and Jason had them grind the almonds so he could share them with Max. When that wasn’t enough, they had crème brûlée, with burnt sugar on top and raspberries on the bottom.

  After the meal, Max slept in his stroller while Jason bought more gifts for everyone. He bought things for David, for his father, for Amy (a new bathrobe and four cotton nightgowns that buttoned from neck to hem), and, on impulse, something for Parker. He got her a pen-and-pencil set. When he saw a cookware store, he bought Charles something the clerk assured him was unique: tiny ice cream molds in the shape of various fruits. For Max he bought a set of hand puppets and a bubble gun that ran on batteries and produced huge, glorious soap bubbles.

  Feeling quite proud of himself, Jason headed home with a car full of gaudily wrapped packages.

  When he entered the house, a tired, fussy Max in his arms, Amy stood there in all her glory, the product of many hours of work—and Jason didn’t like what he saw. She looked beautiful in the long ivory column of satin that was the dress. It was rather plain, strapless, tight about Amy’s prodigious bosom, then opening to a pleat in front and flowing to the floor.

  She was gorgeous, true, but she looked too much like all the women he had dated for so many years. This was a woman who didn’t need any man; she could have them all if she wanted them. And she was a woman who knew she was beautiful. She had to know it if she looked like that.

  Looking at Jason’s face, Amy laughed. “You don’t like it, do you?”

  “Sure. It’s fine. You’re a knockout,” he said without expression.

  “Meow,” said one of the thin men. “Jealous, are we?”

  Jason gave the man a quelling look, but the thin hairdresser just turned away, laughing.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Amy said, but her voice said that it did matter and that she was hurt by Jason’s lack of enthusiasm. “David’s the one who counts, since I’m going with him.”

  “Ooooh, the kitten has claws,” the thin man said.

  “Lance!” snapped the head hairdresser. “Shut up. Let the lovebirds alone.”

  At that Amy laughed, but Jason put Max on the floor, then went to plop down heavily on the old sofa in the living room. Everyone else was in the kitchen, either eating or cleaning up and putting supplies away. Amy followed her son and Jason into the living room.

  “Why don’t you like it?” she asked, standing before him.

  Jason had a newspaper in front of his face and didn’t put it down. “I don’t know where you got that idea. I told you that you look great. What else do you want?”

  “For you to look at me and say that. Why are you angry with me?” There were almost tears in her voice.

  Jason put the newspaper down (it was three weeks old anyway) and looked up at her. “You look great, really, you do. It’s just that I think you look better the way you are naturally.” He thought that would appease her, but it didn’t, and he watched her frown, then turn away to look at Max as he sat on the floor chewing on a small cardboard box.

  “He’ll bite off a piece and choke on it,” Amy said, letting Jason know that he wasn’t being a very good nanny. Lifting her heavy satin skirt, she strode out of the room, leaving Jason to wonder what he had done wrong.

  “Women,” Jason said to Max, who looked up and gave him a grin that showed all four of his teeth.

  Thirty minutes later David arrived with a flat velvet box, a dozen white roses, and Jason’s limo. “I knew what the dress looked like
,” David was saying, “but then everyone everywhere knew what the dress looked like, and, well, Dad and I thought pearls might look nice with it. They aren’t real, but they look good.”

  With that, he opened the box and revealed a six-strand choker with a clasp of carved jade surrounded by diamonds. And Jason knew very well that the pearls and the diamonds were quite real. And, he had no doubt what David had paid for them.

  “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” Amy gasped.

  “They’re nothing compared to you,” David answered, and Jason had to repress a groan.

  But maybe he didn’t do well at repressing it, because Amy said, “Don’t mind him. He’s been like that since he got back. I think he believes I should wear a straw hat and calico.”

  “It’s his image of Abernathy,” David answered, speaking about Jason as though he weren’t standing there and glaring at the two of them.

  “And we should be attending a hayride, not a ball,” Amy said, laughing.

  David held out his arm as though they were square-dancing and Amy took it. “Now claim your partner and do the Strutter’s Walk,” he said, sounding like a square dance caller.

  “Yee haw!” Amy kicked the back of her skirt out of the way as she followed David around the room.

  “All right, that’s enough,” Jason said, grimacing at the two of them. “You’ve had your fun, now get out of here.”

  “We should go, David,” Amy said. “I’ll probably fall asleep by nine o’clock.”

  “Not while I’m with you, you won’t,” David said mischievously as he leered down the front of her gown.

  “The only thing you’re going to get there is dinner.”

  “I’m a hungry man,” David answered, making Amy giggle.

  “I think that ‘man’ is the key word here,” Jason said ominously. “You need to remember that Amy is a mother and that she needs—”

  “You are not my father,” Amy snapped, “and I don’t need to be told—”

  “I’m ready, how about you?” David said loudly. “And the limo is waiting. Shall we go?”

  Once they were in the car and Amy was staring out the window, David said, “What was that all about?”