“Spare me a description of his build, ears or any other part of his anatomy, and let’s get back to the subject. You dragged me out of an important meeting in order to discuss Dru’s problems. So discuss. All you’ve managed to suggest so far is that it’s a shame she didn’t take after your side of the family.”
“Well, it is a shame, dammit. Annamay looked so much like Kay and me and Dru had to take after—”
“I know, I know. Mr. Big Ears.”
“Even Gerald acknowledges the resemblance and he never notices anything unless it’s right under his nose. He wears glasses. Poor Dru, maybe she’ll have to wear glasses as she gets older. That would be the final straw.”
“I wear glasses.”
“Only to read with. Gerald wears them to see everything, mostly women. Maybe that’s why he prefers big women, they’re easier to see.”
“If Big Ears had so many faults I don’t understand how he could have snagged a perfect jewel like you.”
“Now you’re getting nasty.”
“No, no. Just curious. How did he?”
“He lied a lot.”
“And?”
“I believed him. I’ve always been gullible. I believe everything a person tells me, and it’s such a shock when I’m let down, especially by my own daughter.”
“What does that mean?”
“Dru has been lying to me lately. Nothing too serious, not yet anyway. But it worries me. She told me the other day she was going over to Heather Park’s house after school. I happened to meet Heather and her aunt at the Carlton Plaza that afternoon and Dru wasn’t with them. She’s becoming secretive. A ten-year-old should have no secrets from her mother.”
“That depends on the ten-year-old,” John said. “And the mother.”
“Annamay was so different. Open, direct. You always knew what she was thinking.”
“Annamay is dead. Dru is alive. Comparing the two girls is pointless and destructive. Stop doing it.”
“Is that an order?”
“You got it.”
She looked ready to cry, then thought better of it and made herself another drink instead. She didn’t offer him one. “All right, you’re so clever, Johnny, you handle things. She’ll be home in a few minutes. Talk to her.”
“Maybe I will,” John said. “Or maybe I’ll let her talk to me.”
“That sounds cool and sweet and reasonable, so try it. Let her talk. The silence will be deafening. She doesn’t communicate anymore.”
“She might need a new communicatee. I offer my services.”
“What she very likely needs is professional help. I’m thinking of setting up an appointment with that new kiddie shrink Sarah Fitzroy takes all her kids to.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“She’s too young to start the shrink routine. Lay off her, Vicki. She’s going through a phase called growing up.”
“She’s growing away, not up. And whether she’ll be sent to a shrink or not will have to be my decision. She’s my daughter.”
“She’s mine too, and I like her the way she is, without the services of a shrink, plastic surgeon or orthodontist.”
He waited for her on the south patio which was sheltered from the wind by a six-foot fence of redwood half-rounds. The fence had been built by Vicki’s first husband and it was the only reference she ever made to him. (“That damn fence is beginning to list. Wilbur said it would last forever.” “Don’t blame Wilbur,” John said. “The trunk of the elephant’s-foot yucca is pressing against the fence. It will have to be replaced eventually.”)
John glanced now at the fence and saw that it was listing another two or three degrees. Replacing it would be an expensive project because the cost of redwood half-rounds had risen astronomically.
He sat down on the glider and began rocking back and forth until the movement made him a little dizzy. In spite of his confident manner in front of Vicki he felt uneasy, not sure how to approach the problem of Dru’s report card. He’d had considerable experience with children of all ages but it was in a professional way. Children were mostly on their best behavior when they were taking part in field trips to the museum itself or to the beaches to observe tide pools or the sloughs to observe sea- and shorebirds. His first close contact with a child was with Dru when he married her mother. She was only nine years old at the time but she treated him like an equal and he found himself treating her the same way. Serious opinions were exchanged, especially at breakfast which they took turns making because Vicki liked to sleep late and the cook didn’t arrive until eleven. They were, John believed, friends.
It was nearly three o’clock when he heard the school bus shriek to a stop at the end of the driveway and unload more of its wild cargo.
She didn’t look wild. She wore the neat school uniform, dark green jumper with matching sweater and white blouse, and her long brown hair was tied back with a green ribbon. She was carrying a backpack on her shoulder and a striped orange kitten in her arms.
“Hi,” John said.
“Hi.”
“Who’s your friend?”
“A cat.”
“Boy or girl?”
“Girl, I think. It’s hard to tell with kittens. Do you think you could tell?”
“I can try.”
The kitten, not without protest, changed hands.
“It’s a boy,” John said. “And he’s hungry. Better get some milk out of the refrigerator and add a little warm water.”
It didn’t seem the proper way to begin a discussion of report cards but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He held the kitten against his shoulder until Dru returned with a bowl of milk. They both watched as the kitten lapped at the milk with his tiny pink tongue.
“He’s very cute,” Dru said. “Don’t you think?”
“Very. But you shouldn’t pick up strays.”
“I didn’t. I won him, fair and square.”
“Where?”
“At school.”
“Do they hold raffles there these days?”
“No. Kristy Dougherty’s mother brought them to school in a basket and she offered them to the students who thought of the cleverest names. So I suggested Marmalady and I won first choice. Now I can’t use it being as he’s not a lady. Would you like me to call him John after you?”
“Maybe you’d better not name him at all until you make certain he’s going to be staying.”
“He’s got to stay. He’s mine. I won him.”
“What if your mother—?”
“She can’t take him away from me. He’s mine. I won him fair and square.”
What wasn’t fair and square, in John’s opinion, was Mrs. Dougherty’s method of getting rid of a litter of kittens, but this was hardly the time for a discussion of ethics. Dru was crouched protectively over the kitten while it continued to drink.
“Dru, listen a minute.”
“I won him fair and square,” she repeated. “If he can’t stay I won’t either. I’ll run away like Annamay and everyone will think I’m dead and have a funeral for me and they’ll all be crying and I’ll be laughing.”
“Is this what you really think, that Annamay is alive somewhere and laughing?”
She gave no indication that she had heard the question.
“You went to her funeral, Dru. You saw Annamay’s coffin.”
“Maybe she wasn’t in it. There were just a bunch of bones. One of the girls at school said they could have been animal bones.”
“They weren’t animal bones, they were Annamay’s.”
“No one ever proved it. They didn’t have her name printed on them and there were no distinguished marks.”
“There were no distinguishing marks, no. But the coroner’s jury—”
“They were only people. People make mistakes all the time.”
He knelt on the flagstones beside her and began stroking her hair the way she was stroking the kitten. “Listen to me, Dru. It would be nice to think that Annamay is alive somewhere but it simply isn’t so.”