Charlie thought MacArthur would make them kill him right there in the train station. But MacArthur’s shoulders slumped. “I’ll go to your damned tribunal,” he said. “You can shoot me. Just leave my family alone, you hear?”
They took him away. Captain Livermore didn’t say anything about what would happen to his family.
The tribunal was brief and to the point. Had those planes been on the ground a day after Pearl Harbor? Had the Japs bombed them and wrecked them before they could get airborne? Not much doubt about either question.
MacArthur didn’t bother appealing to Joe Steele. When you’d suggested buggery by cactus, you couldn’t expect much sympathy. From what Charlie heard, MacArthur died well.
Joe Steele went on the radio the day after the execution. “I know this may seem hard. I know it may seem cruel,” he said. “If you tell me Douglas MacArthur was a brave man, I will agree with you. But he made the same kind of stupid mistake General Short and Admiral Kimmel did. Theirs cost us the disaster at Pearl Harbor. His has gone a long way toward costing us the Philippines. We will not win every battle. I understand that. But we should not lose battles because we are stupider than our enemies. That kind of failure will not be tolerated. And that is why Douglas MacArthur is dead.”
Listening to the speech with his very pregnant wife, Charlie wondered how things would have gone if Joe Steele had paid less attention to Hitler, who couldn’t reach American fighting men, and more to Tojo, who could-and had. Charlie was sure of one thing: nobody would haul Joe Steele up in front of a tribunal to judge him for his mistakes.
No, he was sure of something else, too. He couldn’t say such a thing to anybody, not even to Esther. Keeping your mouth shut seemed to be one of the hardest things anybody could do. He did it.
* * *
One of the expectant fathers in the waiting room paced up and down, hands clasped behind his back, as if he’d escaped from an animated cartoon. Charlie wanted to trip him every time he went by. He didn’t. He pretended to read a magazine. He smoked cigarette after cigarette. In the delivery room, Esther was going through all the horrible things a woman had to go through to have a baby. He was stuck out here, waiting.
A doctor walked into the room. All the men stared at him. Behind his mask, he could have been anybody’s obstetrician. He said, “Mr. Lefebvre?” Everybody except the pacing guy slumped.
He at least stopped. “It’s Le-fehv,” he said; the doctor’d pronounced it Le-fever. “How’s Millie doing?”
“Your wife is fine, Mr. Le-fehv,” the doctor said. “If you want to come with me, you can see them now. Congratulations!”
Lefebvre went with him. The other men in the waiting room went back to waiting. At least he wasn’t pacing back and forth any more. Ten minutes later, the door opened again, but it was only another worried-looking dad-to-be. An hour went by. Another doctor came in. “Mr. Sullivan?”
Charlie jumped to his feet. “That’s me!” You couldn’t mess up Sullivan.
“It’s a boy, Mr. Sullivan-eight pounds on the nose. Mazel tov!” The doctor wasn’t Irish.
“Thanks.” Charlie had White Owls in his jacket pocket. He gave the doctor one and tossed one to each man in the waiting room. Churchill smoked cigars, but he’d cut out his tongue after a White Owl, or maybe before. Too bad, Charlie thought. He’d bought some Havanas, too, but he figured he’d save those for when he went back to the White House.
“Come with me, and you can visit with your wife and your new son,” the doctor said.
Esther looked as trampled as she had the first time, even though this labor had moved a little faster. The baby was a funny color, and his head was a weird shape. That didn’t alarm Charlie; Sarah had looked the same way. He kissed Esther’s sweaty forehead. “How are you?” he said.
She shook her head. “Did you get the license number of that truck?”
He looked at the baby again. “He’s a big boy.”
“He sure felt big coming out!” Esther said. She stroked the little bits of fine hair splayed across the top of the baby’s head. “Patrick David Sullivan.” He was named for Charlie’s father’s father and her mother’s father.
“When they throw me out of here, I’ll go call Mrs. Triandos and let her know she can tell Sarah she’s got a new baby brother.” The family across the hall, who had two little kids of their own, were tending to Sarah till Charlie got back.
Patrick-or would he be Pat? — started yelling. It was one of those what-the-devil’s-going-on? cries newborns let out. The world was a confusing enough place after you’d lived in it for a while. When you’d just arrived, you had no idea what was happening, or why.
“Here. Shut up and have some milk.” Esther put the baby on her breast. He might not know much yet, but he knew how to go after the good stuff. Esther had nursed Sarah for a year. She planned to do it again. No matter what the baby-food companies said, it was simpler and cheaper than bottles and formula.
“A son,” Charlie said dreamily. It wasn’t that Sarah wasn’t wonderful. She was. But boys and girls were different, dammit. They’d do different things. They’d think different ways. If not for the differences between boys and girls, this old world wouldn’t have much point, would it?
“After you call Irene, you need to tell our families,” Esther said.
“I was thinking I’d wait till I got home to do that. It’d be a lot cheaper than doing it from a phone booth.”
“Oh.” Esther thought about it, then nodded. “Well, okay. That makes sense. You can let the White House know, too.” She laughed. “When I married you, I never thought I’d say anything like that after I had a baby.”
“Life isn’t what you think you’re gonna get,” Charlie said. “Life is what happens to you while you’re looking out for what you think you’re gonna get.”
“That sounds good. Does it mean anything?” Esther yawned. “I’m so beat up, I don’t care if it means anything or not. Go call Mrs. Triandos. If Junior here lets me, I’m gonna sleep for a week. After I eat something, I mean. I’m starved. Having a kid is hard work. They don’t call it labor for nothing. You’d better believe they don’t.”
Looking at her, all pale and exhausted, Charlie didn’t see how he could do anything but believe her. He kissed her again, and kissed Patrick David Sullivan, too. New babies had a fresh-baked smell that wasn’t like anything else in the world. Charlie’d been sad when Sarah lost it and started smelling like an ordinary little kid. Now here it was again, the odor that said something new had been added to the world.
There were phone booths (Charlie wondered why they weren’t phone beeth, which said something about how tired he was) in the lobby downstairs. He called Irene Triandos. She squealed when he gave her the news. Then she called Sarah to the telephone.
“Daddy?” Sarah said.
“Hi, sweetie. You’ve got a new little brother. Mommy had a baby boy.”
“It’s a boy! It’s a brother!” Sarah told Mrs. Triandos, who already knew.
Talking on the phone with little kids was always an adventure. When Sarah started paying attention to the voice in her ear once more, Charlie asked her, “Do you remember what we were gonna name the baby if it was a boy?”
“’Course I do, silly! Patrick David Sullivan!”
“That’s right. So you’ve got a little brother named Patrick.”
“Patrick brother! Brother Patrick!” Sarah was still kind of hazy about how those things worked. Pretty soon, though, she’d discover that one of the things younger brothers were for was driving older siblings nuts. Charlie was a younger brother. He’d been good at it. He was sure Patrick would follow in his footsteps.
* * *
Just as winter nights in Montana seemed to stretch like saltwater taffy, nights in summer were hardly there at all. That was how it felt to Mike, anyhow. The sun disappeared behind the Rockies. Next thing you knew, it was coming up again on the other side of the sky.