“I feel the same way. Always did,” she said. “I wonder why, Uncle Dar.”
“You’re the daughter I never had,” he said. Ah, God, the day Andrea’s will is read, she will remember this moment. I hope she forgives us all when that day comes.
There was no irony in her murmured, “Yeah, I guess. You remember our truth game, back when my waist and hips and boobs were all the same measurement? No fudging, and tough questions, and promise to love each other no matter what the answers?”
“I seem to recall it,” he said. Could I forget? I lied to you in those days, reassuring you that the world was a nicer place than it is.
“I need to play it again.”
“Why?”
She grinned and stuck her tongue out. “Let that be your first question, then.”
He laughed outright. “Okay, then it is. Why?”
She held her grin, but Dar could see that beneath the surface lay fear. “Because I need to understand how much I owe you.”
She knows, he thought, holding her gaze. She is going to ask me about her real mother. And God help us both, I will tell her. “Good enough. Now your question.”
“Dad thinks you sacrificed your career to try and save my life last summer. How much truth is in that?”
“Some,” he nodded, feeling his heart leap because she could still retain a fragment of innocence in a world full of deceit and, worse yet, stupidity. She would not cry, he knew. He knew because he had seen her this way before, denying tears of regret. He went on quickly, to help her. “You have to understand, Pets, it was a thing that I did without regret. Not then; not now. It may have been the first entirely right thing I’d done forohtwenty years or so.
“And there were other factors involved, decisions that had nothing to do with you. Right is a hard thing to know, honey. You think you’ve done it, and you find out you were wrong. The utter and total truth is, I’m glad it all worked out this way. Now, for my next question,” he said, and cleared his throat importantly, earning her full attention. “I know you wouldn’t go hurtling off to some sunbaked hell by yourself.” She began to smile again. “So what’s he like? And if you tell me what they are like, or she is like, I intend to throw myself into the fireplace.”
Her turn to laugh, his to feel relief. “He’s maybe more mature than the other guys I’ve known. In some ways he’s probably a little like you. He makes me laugh. He’s a gentle thug, a little overweight, and he loves me and no, I don’t intend to marry him yet. Maybe not ever. And God, do we have fun!”
“Any money?”
“Quite a bit,” she said. “International trade. That’s two questions, but I’m big-hearted. Now: I know who the people are who tell me to do things I think I shouldn’t do. Maybe you don’t want to name names, exactly; but what people told you what kinds of things that made you defy them? I didn’t put that very well, I know.”
He leaned back, eyes closed. “I think it started with Eisenhower,” he said.
“Jesus freeze us! I was thinking more like family stuff.”
“No, I did a lot of stupid things in the name of family; probably should have defied them. But I didn’t. I was raised with noblesse oblige in my pablum, Pets. This country is a lot of shitty things, but not as shitty as all the other countries. Anything that threatens the American way of life with all its damnfoolishnesswas something to fight against.”
Petra’s astonishment bordered on awe. “You fought President Eisenhower?”
“No. But I should have, when he did things I knew were dangerous to all of us.” He opened his eyes again, turned toward her. “It’s no secret that people like me are valued for something called ‘balance.’ But the same folks who value us for it, sometimes set courses that would upset that big, tippy balance we call peace. Our leaders think they’re right, of course. Usually they are. But what do you do when you know they aren’t? When they undermine that delicate balance, risk pulling down a nuclear curtain over us all to gain some little edge that isn’t worth that risk? The so-called correct answer is, you’re a warrior; you obey orders. And I did, generally.”
“That’s not defiance.”
“Not openly. Sometimes I raised hell, though.” And now I’m holding back with weaselwords like “generally.” God almighty, what else should I do in this child’s game? “Now, my question: where’d you go for your holiday?”
“Oh, shit,” she said, coloring under her tan. “That’s not fair. Would you believe Cabo San Lucas?”
He simply stared at her, a smile beginning to play around his mouth. “As in Baja?” She nodded. “You didn’t take a goddamn bus to the tip of Baja,” he said. “You must’ve flown.”
“He has his own plane,” she said, so offhandedly that he knew it was important to her.
“Must be a jet,” he said.
“No, just a single-engined something or other. Hey, what’re the chances of getting some”
“Hot chocolate,” he finished for her. “I’ve already made it. In the fridge.”
She was already up, moving to the kitchen. “That’s not what I call hot.”
“It is after two minutes in the microwave. Nuke me a cup too; the brandy’s in here.”
“Ohh, great,” she said, rummaging unseen in the kitchen. He heard her cluttering among his old cups and relaxed in the simple joy of hearing his daughter amuse herself. “Well hello there, you old panhandler,” she said, still in the kitchen. “I suppose you want some too. Well, tough; but here’s some half-and-half. Been keeping out of trouble? Not if I know you, you old fart.” The microwave oven began to hum. Calling over it, she said, “Uncle Dar? I know this is way out of line, but are you really and truly retired? I mean, are you ever likely to go back?”
“That’s your last question. Yes, I am completely and irrevocably retired. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to drag me out of retirement and if they did, I wouldn’t.”
The ping of the microwave oven gave him an audible exclamation point. She bustled into the room carrying mugs, each with a marshmallow melting into foam atop pungent hot chocolate. “I’m glad you’re out of it. Oh-oh, look who’s followed me. I thought I’d bought him off with a saucer of cream.” She sat down carefully, patted her lap as Dar hauled the brandy bottle from behind a book. The cat jumped into her lap and fixed its fatuous gaze on her marshmallow.
Dar poured, replaced the bottle, claimed his seat. “So here’s my last question, Pets: when do I get to meet this man of yours?”
She sipped, he decided, to buy time. “He knows a little about you. I don’t know, I’ll ask him about it sometime.”
Dar sipped, watching her carefully. “Pets, through no fault of your own you are privy to some things that no young woman should know. I can’t express too strongly the fact that you must nevernevertalk to anyone about the things you went through last summer. Just how much do you know about this man of yours?”
“Enough to know he’s not interested in pumping me for information,” she said evenly. “I know what you’re getting at. He’s not some Russian spy.”
I know he’s not. I know exactly who he is, the dirty, dirty son of a bitch. International trade, hm? Single-engined something, hm? Well, our people think the Sovs got Black Stealth One, and the Sovs think we snookered them, and the GRU is chasing its tail over lost money. And Corbett has my daughter; I wish I knew how it feels to have a cup that full I guess it is time to play the man, Master Weston, and know when you’re beaten. “However much you trust him, whoever he is, Pets, there are some things you must never discuss with anyone, just as sure as you love me.”
“Such as?”
“Oh, things Kyle Corbett told you. The mere mention of such things could still cause me”he paused to compose an immense understatement “a certain amount of discomfort.”