“I knew you’d say that. But we’ll be OK.”
Carol nibbled at her casserole in the tiniest bites imaginable. Head down.
“Where will you live?”
“Well, that’s the other good news. You know those little apartments over the gym? Where my trainer lives? We think there’s one coming open at the end of this month. We’re about seventy-five per cent sure one’s coming open.”
“Sixty per cent sure,” Carol said.
“Seventy-five. Little Manny is pretty sure. He usually has the inside line on stuff like that. And they’re really cheap.”
“If you saw them you’d know why,” Carol said.
“Yeah, it’ll take us for ever to clean it up. And it’s just one room. But we’ll find a way to make it livable. And then I’ll be right where I need to be to train.”
“But how will you afford any rent at all? You have no job.”
“Carol has a job. We can get by on that for a little bit. It’ll be tight. But we’ll manage.”
“I don’t understand. Why not wait and make a solid, reasonable plan?”
“We like this plan,” Nat said.
They ate in silence for several minutes.
Nathan noticed that Carol glanced up every few seconds, as if taking the emotional temperature of the room.
Then Nathan remembered something he had briefly forgotten. When Nat first came in, he’d said he had good news, and also a favor. But he hadn’t asked any favors. Yet.
“What was the favor you wanted to ask?”
“Carol’s father wants to meet you. You know. Meet my family.”
“We want his blessing,” Carol added.
“We don’t need it,” Nat said. “She’s eighteen. So we don’t need it.”
“But we want it,” Carol added.
Nathan breathed an inward sigh of relief. Looming requests for favors tended to make him edgy. “Why, of course. That’s no problem at all.”
“We’ll invite them over to dinner,” Eleanor said.
“Well, it’s not really a them,” Nat said. “It’s more just a him. Carol just lives with her father.”
“We’ll ask him to come to dinner,” Nathan said. “That’s no problem at all. We’re happy to do it. We’ll be happy to meet him. Just ask him what night he’d like to come, and then let us know. All right?”
“There’s one other thing,” Nat added cautiously.
Nathan noticed that he didn’t feel at all surprised. Of course there was one other thing. Wasn’t there always one other thing? Not only with Nat specifically, but with life in general.
He said nothing. Just waited for Nat to elaborate.
“He thinks you’re my grandfather.”
“Because you told him I was?”
“Well. Um, yeah. Pretty much. Yeah.”
“I’m not going to lie to him.”
“But you don’t have to, like, jump up and say I’m a liar and you’re no blood relation. Right?”
“I suppose not. I think it’s unlikely that he’ll look straight into my face and say, ‘You really are Nat’s grandfather, aren’t you?’”
“Thanks,” Nat said. “I knew I could count on you.”
• • •
After Eleanor and Carol cleared the table — Carol had insisted on helping — the women surprised Nathan by remaining in the kitchen, tackling the dishes together. The sound of running water seemed a good enough screen for a private conversation.
“She seems like a very nice girl.”
“She’s great. She’s one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.”
“You can tell me this is none of my business if you want to, Nat. But I’m going to ask you anyway. I’m going to risk being unconscionably rude. Is Carol pregnant?”
Nat’s head jerked up. He looked truly stunned. Nathan knew, just by the look on the boy’s face, that she was not.
“No. God, no. Why would you think a thing like that?”
“I just wondered why the big hurry.”
Maybe just young love, he thought. Heaven knows Nat was impetuous enough even when he wasn’t in love.
“No. If she was, it would only be the second time in history that ever happened,” Nat said. “Carol isn’t like that. She’s not that kind of girl. She goes to church. She was— She’s going to be pure on her wedding night. You know?”
“Oh. I see,” Nathan said. Still processing how much that really explained. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to pry.”
• • •
As soon as they had gone, Eleanor said, “We had the nicest talk. She is just a delightful girl.”
“I’m glad you like her.”
They stood in the foyer, having just closed the door behind the young pair. They hadn’t even gone back into the living room to sit.
“I know it would sound terrible if I said I wonder what she sees in our Nat.”
“Actually, yes,” Nathan said. “It would. It would be a highly uncharitable comment.”
“I know. I feel guilty for saying it. I feel guilty for thinking it. But, really … doesn’t it have just a tiny ring of truth to you?”
“I hope not,” Nathan replied. “If there’s some hidden part of me that thinks like that, I’d rather not go searching for it. Maybe she sees some value in Nat that you don’t.”
“She definitely loves him. There’s no doubt in my mind about that. I think she has this idea that her love will be the missing piece in his life. That she’s that one needed addition that will change everything for him.”
“Hmm,” Nathan said. “That’s always problematical.”
“My thought exactly,” Eleanor said.
7 March 1979
Or Did You Used to Be Like Me?
“Just go right ahead and dig in, everybody,” Eleanor said. “Please. Don’t stand on ceremony.”
But Carol didn’t move. And neither did Reginald Farrelly, her father.
“Without even saying grace?” Farrelly asked.
A moment transpired during which no one seemed to know what to say. Nathan decided he had best be the one to salvage the situation.
“All right,” he said. “Fair enough. In honor of our guests, we’ll say grace tonight. Mr. Farrelly, would you care to do the honors?”
Farrelly reached out his hands in both directions. One to Eleanor. One to Nat. Nat looked at it for several beats, as though it might be poisoned, or on fire. Meanwhile Carol took Nat’s hand, and also Nathan’s, and Nathan held hands with his wife.
Finally, reluctantly — very reluctantly — Nat joined hands.
“Heavenly Father, we thank you for giving us your only Son, to be our savior and our Lord. Bless us all as we take this food. Hear our prayer, oh Father, for we ask you this in Jesus’s name. Amen.”
“Amen,” Carol said.
A brief pause while Farrelly waited in vain for additional amens.
Eleanor broke the silence. “OK. Now. As I was saying. Please don’t stand on ceremony. Please dig in.”
Farrelly seemed to accept the invitation as though it extended to information as well as dinner. “So. Mr. McCann,” he said. “Tell me something about your young man here. Tell me why I want him in my family. Why he’s good enough to marry my daughter. See if you can make the sale.”
Nathan, who had been trying for the better part of an hour to like this huge, beefy man with the booming voice, wordlessly surrendered that goal.
Eleanor passed the gravy without comment, but in his peripheral vision Nathan could see her toss him a glance.
He looked across the table at Nat and Carol. Carol stared intensely at her plate as though she hoped she could melt right through it, creating an escape route. Nathan had not seen anyone look so genuinely miserable in quite some time. Not even Nat. Nat was becoming visibly angry. And it was not like Nat to hold his anger inside.
“This is not a sales call, Mr. Farrelly. I do people’s books and taxes. I don’t sell young men. Nat is a grown man. He can speak for himself. If yo
u want to know more about him, why not ask him directly? He’s sitting right over there.”
A long silence. Farrelly sat back in his chair. Nathan knew he was offended. That was not a point in question. He had known, even as he spoke, that Farrelly would be. The only remaining question was whether he would cover it over or state it out loud.
Farrelly’s next move was unexpected. He turned his attention to Eleanor instead. “What about you, Mrs McCann? Do you want to tell me anything about your grandson?”
“Oh, Nat’s not my grandson,” she said. Quite automatically.
Nathan knew her well enough to know she would pull her words back in and swallow them if only she could. She had spoken without thinking first, a habit of hers.
Nathan stepped in to save the moment. Again.
“This is a second marriage for Eleanor and myself. We’ve only been married for a little under a year.”
“Oh? You were divorcees?”
Nathan opened his mouth while still sorely tempted to say, what a brash, discourteous man you are. No wonder your poor daughter wants to get married and get out of your house. Of course, he stopped himself in time. The anxiety in the room felt genuinely palpable. Something Nathan could almost imagine spearing with his fork.
“Eleanor had been a widow for more than seventeen years when we married. I had been a widower for more than five.”
“Oops. Sorry,” Farrelly said. “I guess I shouldn’t make assumptions. You know what they say. When you assume, you make an ass of you and me.”
“Yes,” Nathan said. “Quite.”
“Well, anyway, back to the question. Mrs. McCann the Second? Anything you care to share about your step-grandson here?”
“No, sir, Mr. Farrelly. There is not. I agree with my husband. Nat can talk. He can tell you about himself.”
Good God, Nathan thought. How on earth had things gotten so out of hand in such a short space of time? But the answer was quite simple, he realized. Carol’s father was an ass. An uncharitable thought, but a thought too true to be avoided.
“Nat talks? You couldn’t prove it by me.”
“Daddy,” Carol said. Her voice pitifully strained. “Please don’t embarrass me.”
“Embarrass you how, bunny? By wanting only the best for you? What part of my taking good care of you do you find embarrassing?”
“Daddy—”
“OK. Nat. Tell me about yourself. What’s your church? Where did you go to high school? Any plans for college? What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Silence. Painful silence. Nat squeezed his eyes shut and kept them that way for a time. Nathan waited for him to blow. To burst under the strain like an old steam boiler or pressure cooker. He knew Nat had been getting more and more angry for some time. He also knew there was not one of Farrelly’s questions that Nat would want to answer — would dare to answer. Not a simple, unloaded bit of small talk in the pack.
“I thought you talked,” Farrelly said. “They claimed you talked.”
Did he want Nat to blow? Was that it?
“I’m already grown up,” Nat said. Surprisingly calmly. Though perhaps an artificial calm. No “um” or “uh,” Nathan noticed. No “well,” followed by a comma. He spoke like someone else entirely.
Nathan felt his shoulders ease. Good boy, he thought. He wished Nat would meet his gaze so he could communicate that praise with his eyes. But Nat continued to stare at the tablecloth.
“And I went to high school at North Park,” he added. Technically true. Until the week of his fifteenth birthday, he had attended North Park High School, ten blocks from his grandmother’s home.
“Graduated, I assume?”
“Well … I’m not a drop-out. If that’s what you mean.”
“What I mean is, did you graduate North Park?”
“No. After that I … studied somewhere else.”
“But you graduated.”
“I have my GED,” Nat said quietly.
“Now why would you get a General Educational Development test when you could just finish high school?”
Nathan was just about to step in. To rescue the boy. Who, he felt, was holding up remarkably well. But he never got the chance.
Nat leaped to his feet, hitting the table hard with his thighs, and knocking into his plate, sending a wash of beef gravy spilling off on to the tablecloth. In fact, the plate flew several inches. Nathan was left unclear as to whether Nat had purposely pushed or flipped the plate. It had all happened so fast.
“None of your damn business why I do what I do,” he shouted. “Why are you asking me questions like that? Why don’t you ask me if we love each other? If I’ll take good care of her? Why don’t you ask me about something that matters? That stuff you asked me is none of your damn business. And it’s none of your damn business if I marry your daughter—”
“Now you—”
“I’m not finished yet. You’ve been talking all night, old man. Now it’s my turn. Carol’s eighteen. She can do what she wants. You can’t stop us. As a matter of fact—”
“Nat, don’t,” Carol said. Tugging violently at his sleeve.
“I’m telling him.”
“Don’t, Nat. Please.”
“Telling me what?” Farrelly asked.
The room went deadly quiet again. Nat stood in front of his place at the table, looking awkward and uncomfortable now that his rant seemed to have abandoned him.
“Carol and I are already married,” he said. “We went down to city hall the day before yesterday.”
Farrelly looked at his daughter, who refused to meet his eyes. “Is that true, bunny? Is what he said true?”
Nothing at all for a time. She looked as though she might be about to cry. Or maybe she was crying already, but just trying hard to hide it.
Then she nodded almost imperceptibly.
Farrelly rose. Wiped his mouth on his napkin. Threw it down on the table. Half of it landed on his gravy-soaked beef.
He took a step closer to Nat, and they stood nose to nose, quite literally, for an awkward length of time. It might only have been two or three seconds, but to Nathan it seemed long. Nat was a few inches shorter, but he rose to his toes to face the big man, and stood his ground unswervingly.
In the painful silence, Nathan noticed how much Nat had bulked up. He was wearing a short-sleeved tee, and his chest and arms had changed so much that Nathan worried the boy might be using steroids. Or, more immediately, that he might be just about to use some of what he had been learning.
“I knew you were nothing but trouble,” Farrelly said quietly.
Nathan saw the boy’s hands clench into fists.
He jumped to his feet. “Nat!” he said sharply. And it seemed to interrupt the immediate danger of the moment. “Nat. Think very carefully before acting.”
He watched the boy’s fists turn back into hands again, and he let out a long breath of relief.
Farrelly peeled away from the confrontation. “Don’t come home tonight,” he said, pointing roughly at his daughter. “In fact, don’t come home. Period.”
“What about my things?” She was now crying openly.
“I’ll have them boxed up and sent over here. Don’t bother walking me to the door, anyone. I’ll see myself out.”
“I’ll get your coat,” Nathan said.
• • •
Nathan found the young man in the kitchen, sitting at the table alone, head in hands. He didn’t know where Carol and Eleanor had gone, and he didn’t ask.
He sat across from Nat and waited. Waited for Nat to choose his moment to speak.
“He’s such an asshole,” Nat said miserably, his head still in his hands.
“That’s not the exact choice of phrasing I would have used. But he is a horrible man. No one is disputing that.”
“He was trying to make a fool of me. He thinks I’m not good enough for her. And he was trying to get me to say the things that would prove it.”
“Oh. So you think he’s right.”
“No! I don’t. Why would you say that?”
“You just said that if you had answered his questions, you would have proved it.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. Stop putting words in my mouth. He was trying to make me look like a jerk. I don’t care what you say. I don’t care if you think I’m wrong. I know him. I know what he was doing.”
“I don’t think you’re wrong. I agree. He was trying to make you look bad. I just think, if you had been civil, he would have failed.”
Nat looked up at him for the first time. “Why shouldn’t I tell him off? Somebody has to. Somebody should have a long time ago. He deserves it. Why should I have been civil?”
“Because if you had been civil, he would have been the one to look bad. Not you. This way you appear to validate him. You give him all the ammunition he needs. And you hurt Carol with the way you handled things, too. When are you going to learn to act in your own best interests? In spite of what your emotions tell you to do?”
No answer. Nat just stared at him for several seconds. But the look on his face was not what Nathan might have expected. Nathan found it hard to put words to the look. Curiosity, maybe. Genuine interest.
“Were you always like this?” Nat asked. With no derogatory note in his voice.
“I’m not sure I understand the question.”
“Did you always handle things right, and act reasonable? Or did you used to get mad like me, but you learned to control it?”
Nathan thought a moment before answering. It was a question no one had ever asked, and he had never considered. So he didn’t answer off the top of his head. He wanted to be careful to get it right the first time.
“I think it’s just part of who I am,” he said, in time.
“Well, maybe this is just part of who I am. And maybe we just don’t change.”
“We can change,” Nathan said. “We just have to want to. First we have to believe we need to. And that it’s time.” Silence. “Now maybe you’d better go comfort your wife.”
“I think we’ll have to stay the night.”
“I think you’ll have to stay the month. Let’s be honest with each other.”
“Is it OK?”
When I Found You Page 19