She fixed herself a bowl of soup and took it outside. The azaleas were a blaze of color. She had deep red camellias in a glass bowl on the picnic table, shaded by the pine tree. She settled herself at the table. The top needed a good scrubbing. She would do that later.
She turned back to the article, then looked up as an open red sports car drew into the driveway and a man and a woman got out. The woman was younger than the man, with short, curly fair hair, and she was wearing jeans and a short-sleeved T-shirt. Camilla focused on her, instinctively not wanting to recognize the man with his receding reddish hair. But he walked toward her.
‘Camilla,’ he said.
‘Profes—’ she started reluctantly.
‘Grange,’ he finished, and held out both hands to her. She took them, wondering what on earth had brought him to Corinth.
‘Camilla. You’re lovely as ever. Harriet—’ He turned to the woman. ‘Come and let me introduce you to one of the best students I ever had. Camilla, this is my wife, Harriet.’
The woman’s hand was cool, and heavy with rings. She dropped it loosely into Camilla’s outstretched hand, and withdrew it, turning away, her eyes filling with tears.
‘Won’t you sit down?’ Camilla asked. ‘It’s really pleasanter here than in the house.’
Professor Grange sat across from Camilla at the picnic table, gently pulling his wife down beside him, and putting his arm about her waist. To Camilla he said, ‘Has everything gone well with you and Edith Edison?’
‘She’s marvelous,’ Camilla said. ‘I can’t thank you enough.’
‘You deserved the best,’ Grange said. ‘I’m glad I could give you and Edith to each other.’
Harriet pulled a handkerchief out of her small handbag and blew her nose.
Camilla looked at her, at Grange. Why were they here? What underlay this visit? They had not stopped for a casual chat.
Harriet touched her husband on the shoulder. ‘Red, darling—’
‘Camilla—’ His voice was hesitant. ‘Something has happened, something totally unexpected, and—perhaps—hopeful.’
She looked at him, fear beginning to tingle along her spine.
‘Where are the children?’ Harriet asked.
‘They’re out with a friend.’ Why did she not want to tell them that the friend was Dr. Edison? Wouldn’t that have been the normal response? But this was not, could not be, a normal visit.
‘But you knew we were coming?’ Grange asked.
She shook her head numbly. What a strange question. How could she have known?
‘Noelle didn’t tell you?’
Again she shook her head. Noelle had written bitterly of her father’s remarriage. Camilla suddenly remembered the letter which had come from Noelle that morning and which lay unopened on the kitchen table.
‘Red, darling,’ Harriet said again. ‘Don’t keep putting it off.’
Quantum came leaping toward them, sprang onto the picnic table, and sat on Camilla’s manuscript.
Grange reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope, which he handed to Camilla. ‘Read this.’
She took the letter. There was a faint, familiar smell of tea rose. The envelope was addressed in her mother’s round handwriting, with the return address of the apartment in Paris. Inside the envelope was another, blue, marked in capital letters: TO BE OPENED IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH. Camilla looked at Grange.
He said, ‘My wife, my ex-wife, preempted the letter. She gave it to me when she knew she had to go to the hospital for surgery. Cancer. She didn’t want to die with this on her conscience.’ He looked toward Harriet, then back to Camilla. ‘Read it,’ he ordered.
My darling Red,
I’m five months pregnant and all is going well. I don’t expect to have any problems, because I’m incredibly healthy, and my darling doctor says he can’t believe I’m over thirty. But it’s a chancy world, so I want you to know that I think this baby is yours, and if anything should happen to Rafferty, or to me, you need to know this. After Camilla was born, Rafferty and I never conceived again, so I doubt that this baby is his. Thank God Camilla looks exactly like him.
Dearest Red, I don’t want you to do anything with what I am telling you until both Rafferty and I are dead. It would kill him if he thought the baby wasn’t his, and I can’t do that to him. You know how good Rafferty has always been to me. But after we’re both gone, then, if you want to, you can do whatever you think best.
Am I wrong to tell you this and then ask you to do nothing? I don’t know. But this morning I felt compelled to let you know. I trust you, dearest love.
Your one, true Rose
Camilla folded the letter, put it back in the blue envelope, then the white, outer one, and handed it to Grange. She had carefully suppressed any suspicion that Taxi’s father might be Red Grange. Taxi had black hair, and he had Camilla’s eyes, too. He looked like Camilla’s child. There was nothing reminiscent of Grange about him.
‘Are you all right?’ Harriet asked.
‘No. Yes. No.’ The color drained out of everything. For a moment she thought she was going to faint. She blinked. Blinked. Slowly color returned to sky, trees, grass. To Red Grange and Harriet.
‘Camilla, you really didn’t know? You didn’t guess?’ Grange asked.
‘No. No. Father thought—a French diplomat—’
Harriet asked, ‘Camilla, can you have any idea what this news means to us?’
No. She could not guess. She had no idea.
Harriet asked again, ‘Where are the children?’
‘With a friend.’
‘When will they be back?’
‘I’m not sure. After lunch.’
Grange said, ‘Can’t you understand? I want to see my baby.’
Her voice shook. ‘He’s not a baby. He’s four years old.’
Harriet said, ‘I was thrown from a horse three years ago. It was a bad fall. I can’t have children. It’s a terrible grief to me. Red and I were actually talking about adoption when—’
Grange put up a warning hand. ‘Not so fast, Harriet. All we’ve come for today is to let you know about—’
‘To let you know that we desperately want to see Red’s son.’
Camilla said, ‘I’m sorry, but I truly don’t think that’s a good idea, without any preparation at all. Taxi’s a happy, contented little boy. All he knows is that Mac, my husband, is his daddy. He’s not strong, and I don’t want him upset, and he does get upset easily.’
Harriet picked up one of the camellias, dropped it back in the bowl. ‘We don’t want him upset either, but don’t you think his father has some rights? And I—’ She broke off as tears came to her eyes again.
‘Perhaps,’ Grange suggested, ‘I could just see him and not say anything.’
‘No, Red.’ Harriet held up a warning hand. ‘He’s your son. You have some rights. And he has a right to know, doesn’t he? To know who his father is?’
Camilla shook her head as though trying to wake up from a bad dream. ‘I’m sorry. I was completely unprepared—’
‘Didn’t you think,’ Grange asked, ‘that something like this might happen?’
‘No. Not now. At first, perhaps … But it was all so horrible, my mother’s death.’
‘And your father?’ Grange asked. ‘He knew, didn’t he? Did he really fool himself into thinking the baby was his? He must have known …’
‘Taxi looks like me,’ Camilla said. ‘Not like my mother or—’ She looked at him. The reddish hair. The hazel eyes. There was nothing of him in Taxi, nothing to make her suspicious.
Harriet looked at her watch. ‘It’s after one. Won’t the children be back soon?’
‘I need to see my son,’ Grange said. ‘The little son I didn’t know I had.’
They all looked up as they heard children’s voices. Laughter. Taxi and Frankie were holding Dr. Edith’s hands, pulling her along with them.
‘Mommy, Mommy, we blew bubbles!’
‘Like rainbows!’<
br />
Grange and Harriet jumped up, their eyes on the children, who were both wearing jeans and dirt-streaked T-shirts. Taxi’s hair needed cutting, a process he fiercely resisted. Frankie’s hair had been cut short for summer. Harriet moved toward her, holding out her arms. ‘Taxi?’
Frankie stepped back. Giggled.
Dr. Edison, flushed, slightly out of breath, looked at Grange and Harriet. ‘Red!’
‘Edith, dear Edith.’ He hurried to her, taking her hands, looking at her, saying, ‘Gad, you’re still a handsome woman!’ He drew her to him, kissing her on both cheeks.
She asked, ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
Camilla had her arms about the children, nudging them toward the house. ‘You may each have two cookies from the cookie jar. I’ll be in to pour you some milk in a few minutes.’
‘I can do it,’ Taxi said.
‘All right, Taxi love. Go slowly, and try not to spill.’
Grange watched them scamper toward the house. ‘Which one is—’
‘They look very much alike, don’t they?’ Camilla’s eyes followed them in, making sure the screened door was shut.
‘My boy—’
‘The prettier one, with curly hair—’ Harriet looked confused.
Dr. Edith asked, ‘What on earth—’
Camilla sat once more on the picnic bench. Her legs felt too fluid to hold her up.
Harriet said, ‘We haven’t been introduced. I am Harriet Grange. We’ve come to give Red a chance to see the son he’s been denied all these years.’
Dr. Edison said flatly, ‘I have no idea what all this is about.’
Grange handed her Rose’s letter. She read it slowly, then returned it. Then said, ‘Now that you’ve seen this extraordinary document, now that you’ve seen the child, you are, of course, going to heed the dead woman’s wishes?’
Harriet looked at her left hand with its heavy rings, moved the fingers of her right hand across them.
Dr. Edison continued, ‘Which are that you do nothing?’
Harriet spoke in a low voice. ‘Rafferty Dickinson lives in New Mexico. He has abandoned his child. He might as well be dead.’
‘No!’ Camilla’s voice rose. She tried to control it. ‘He is very much alive. Please, please. You’ve seen Taxi, he’s well and happy, you can set your minds at rest. Perhaps, later, we could talk about, what do you call them, visitation rights …’
Harriet’s voice trembled. ‘I don’t think you realize how difficult this is for us.’
Dr. Edison said, ‘I’m sure it is extremely difficult. But now that you’ve been reassured that all is well, shouldn’t you accede to Rose Dickinson’s last wishes and leave well enough alone?’
Harriet reached again for her handkerchief. ‘It’s not as easy as that. For me—it seems such an answer to prayer.’
‘Mommy! Mommy!’ The children’s voices rose shrilly.
Camilla jumped to her feet. ‘They’ve probably spilled the milk.’
‘Let me!’ Harriet’s voice was eager. ‘Let me pour it for them!’ She hurried toward the house, her sandals flapping against the stubby grass. Grange followed her.
Dr. Edison asked Camilla, ‘Is this true?’
Camilla nodded. ‘Mother’s letter—I suppose so. We knew that my father was not Taxi’s father, but we didn’t know—we didn’t want to know—Taxi’s so dark, and we thought it was the Frenchman when we thought about it at all.’
‘Were you, perhaps, deceiving yourselves?’
‘I don’t know,’ Camilla said. ‘We weren’t thinking. We were trying to protect Taxi—my father—’
She pulled a quivering breath. ‘What are they here for? What do they want?’
‘Too much,’ Dr. Edison said.
She and Camilla went into the kitchen, where Taxi was refusing to take the glass of milk Harriet was offering him. ‘I want Mommy.’
Grange touched his wife. ‘Relax, darling. This is enough for the first day. Camilla, we’ll be back tomorrow to talk further about what’s to be arranged.’
Camilla closed her eyes. ‘You’ll have to give us time. I’ll have to talk to my husband about visitation privileges. Please—’
Harriet put the untouched glass of milk on the counter. ‘Please, dear Camilla, be realistic. Doesn’t Red—’
Before she could finish the sentence the screened door opened and Mrs. Lee came bursting in, ‘Camilla, have you had the radio on? Terrible news! President Kennedy has been shot!’
The country was in mourning for the violent death of a president. But Camilla’s world had shrunk again, to the imperative need to protect her little family.
She walked out to the red convertible with Grange and Harriet, said goodbye in what she hoped was a courteous but final way.
Harriet said, ‘You’ve been so gracious, Camilla. I know how difficult our coming must have been for you, especially if you weren’t expecting us. We truly thought you knew.’
Grange said, ‘This is no time to talk, with this horrible news of Kennedy’s assassination. We’ll be by again tomorrow, to talk further.’
‘To talk further about what!’ Camilla cried as the convertible vanished dustily down the road.
Dr. Edison looked at the children, who were happily kicking a beach ball back and forth. She said, bluntly, ‘They didn’t come about visitation rights. They want Taxi.’
‘No.’
‘They’re trying to be tactful about it, but Harriet was horridly transparent.’
‘No. No, Dr. Edith.’ Then she said, as though to herself, ‘Harriet can’t have children—’ She looked at her watch. ‘Mac should be through with his meeting. I’ve got to call him.’
‘What an appalling story you’ve had to live with,’ Dr. Edison said. ‘It was terrible enough, your mother’s death, your father’s being left alone with his baby—But this—’
‘Oh, Dr. Edith’—Camilla walked slowly toward the rectory—‘my mother always left a trail of disaster behind her.’
When Camilla saw Mac walking along the path that led from the church to the rectory, she ran to him, throwing herself into his arms, blurting out what had happened.
He looked at Dr. Edith, who was walking toward him more slowly. She nodded, then shook her head in sadness.
‘You’re sure you’re not—you’re not reading things—’
‘No,’ Dr. Edison said. ‘I’m sorry, Mac. It’s possible that I’m overreacting, but I don’t think so.’
‘They can’t mean it.’ Mac’s voice was harsh.
Dr. Edison said, ‘Oh, I think they do. I will certainly testify for you, and so, of course, will Mr. and Mrs. Bishop. I will tell any judge that you are Taxi’s parents, and that what Red and Harriet have in mind is criminal.’
‘I’ll call Jacksonville,’ Mac said.
Again the assassination was pushed into the background. Olivia’s immediate reaction was incredulity. ‘No. You must be mistaken.’
Mac said, ‘Mama, listen. The letter from Camilla’s mother was real. Grange is Taxi’s father.’
‘You believe that?’
‘It’s there, in black and white.’
The bishop’s voice was heavy. ‘We should have foreseen this.’
‘Come to us,’ Olivia urged. ‘You’ll be safer here, if this is true.’
Mac, with one foot still in the world, said, ‘I can’t leave here, Mama, not with the assassination …’
The bishop said, ‘I’ll speak with some of my lawyer friends, to see if they have a leg to stand on.’
‘Do you want me to come?’ Olivia suggested. ‘Taxi shouldn’t be left with baby-sitters, and Edith can’t be there all the time.’
‘Please come, Mama,’ Mac said, ‘for a few days, until we get this settled.’
‘I’ll call you,’ the bishop said, ‘when I’ve talked to the lawyers.’
‘Dr. Edith,’ Mac said, ‘thank you for being here.’
Dr. Edison said something incomprehensible and rude-sounding in Latin, t
hen asked, ‘Does anybody else know? That Rafferty isn’t Taxi’s father?’
‘My parents know,’ Mac said.
‘Did you suspect that it might be Grange?’
Camilla shook her head. ‘It seemed better not to know.’
Not to know. Is ignorance ever an excuse?
“I didn’t know.” Raffi wrapped her arms about herself to control her shuddering. “I don’t think I want to know now.” The autumn evening was unusually warm. Hazy clouds hid the stars.
A group of girls came by the open window, singing an old student song Camilla had first heard when she was in college, and it had been old all those years ago, Gaudeamus igitur, juvenes dum sumus. They had been immortal then. Camilla looked at Raffi and suspected that Taxi’s intimations had been of mortality when he made his vague suggestions to his daughter. Why now? She turned away, body and mind. “The temperature’s supposed to drop twenty degrees tonight,” she said.
“Grandmother, what you’ve just told me, about their taking my dad away, it’s horrible.” She dropped the green socks as though they had suddenly become hot.
Camilla nodded. “Yes, it was horrible. Everybody talked about wanting it to be civilized, but it dragged through the courts.”
Swiftly Raffi put her arms around Camilla, holding her tight. “I want you to be my grandmother.”
Camilla returned the embrace, assuring, “I am your grandmother. I am Taxi’s mother.”
“But it’s your mother who was my dad’s biological mother.”
“Yes.”
“That makes you my aunt, not my grandmother.”
“No. Raffi, that is only a thin and legalistic way of looking at it. Time and experience are the other side of the coin. Mac and I are your grandparents, even if you never knew him. He is Taxi’s father.”
“Not biologically. And my real grandfather, this Red Grange guy, what a bastard.”
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