Snowbound Summer

by Veronica Tower

  * * * *

  * * * *

  The waiter brought the cake to the table after dinner. It had one of those photographic tops—a picture of a much younger Howard and Hanna standing in their wedding attire. Howard looked more than fifty pounds thinner and both of the newlyweds beamed with pleasure for the camera.

  “Wow, Grandpa,” Anne's twelve year old daughter Jody said. “You actually look happy.”

  Anne tried to shush her daughter, which Kara knew was unusual. Ganging up on grandpa was something of a recreational sport in the extended Miller family—not that he didn't usually deserve it.

  “I was a lot younger then,” Howard mumbled, “and more naive.”

  Hanna bristled at the comment, but Kara thought it was kind of sad. Howard looked defeated, as if he were looking back on the last forty years of his life and wondering why he had bothered.

  “Why did you marry Grandma, Grandpa?” one of Kitten's twins asked.

  “Yeah,” the other one said. “Aunt Anne wasn't born for a couple of years so you don't have Mom and Dad's excuse.”

  Kitten made a show of frowning, putting down her beer and taking a swat at her son, but the twinkle in her eyes showed she wasn't actually upset by the comment. She and her husband were very upfront about why they'd gotten married and for the most part they seemed happy with their choice.

  Howard looked much less comfortable than his daughter. “It was a long time ago,” he said. “I don't really remember anymore.”

  Hanna's irritation grew even more evident. She opened her mouth to say something but Anne cut her off.

  “Yes, you do, Dad! I'm old enough to remember how it used to be. You and Mom were happy in the early days.”

  “Before Ron came along!” Kitten added. When Ron shifted his attention to her, she stuck her tongue out at him.

  Howard glanced at Hanna and the woman who had moments before been gearing up for a fight looked away.

  “None of this was Ron's fault,” Howard muttered. Then his eyes widened as if he'd just realized something tremendously important to him. “None of it was any of your fault!” he said. “You were good kids. The problems were between your mother and me.”

  “But what went wrong?” Anne asked. “It all happened so fast.” She turned her question over to her mother. “Mom?”

  Hanna shrugged. “People grow apart,” she told her daughter. “It isn't really anybody's fault.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Kara saw Howard Miller's face set with anger. Evidently, he didn't agree with Hanna's explanation.

  “Maybe we should cut the cake,” Gene interrupted. He looked to his wife, Anne, but whether in warning or as a silent request for help in preventing another Miller family argument, Kara wasn't certain. “Should we sing something first?” Gene asked. “Maybe Happy Anniversary to You?"

  Anne frowned, making it painfully obvious that she didn't know how to answer her husband's question. It wasn't as if this were a happy anniversary after all.

  Howard put his hands on the table and pushed himself to his feet. The color in his cheekbones suggested he was still angry at Hanna. “It's my fortieth wedding anniversary,” he announced, “so maybe I should offer a toast.”

  Every eye turned toward him, more than a little wary of what kind of toast Howard Miller might be making. Even Anne's son, Matt, looked up from his video game to see what was going on. Sadly, no one reached for their glass or one of the two bottles of champagne.

  Howard seemed to deflate a little at this obvious lack of support. He picked up one of the bottles and began to unscrew the wire frame holding the cork in the container.

  “Forty years ago, I married a woman I thought was the most beautiful, most intelligent, most wonderful creature on the entire earth.”

  Ron winced beside Kara. With an opening like that, this wasn't likely to be pretty.

  “I went into this with Hanna with the best of intentions. I promised to love her, to take care of her, to remain faithful to her no matter what happened.”

  He discarded the wire mesh and began easing the cork out of the bottle.

  “I was young enough back then to think that that was all you needed to have a good marriage.”

  The cork popped and a fair amount of champagne spilled out onto the table. Howard picked up a glass and directed the contents inside of it, then he looked for other glasses and began to fill them as well. Anne's husband, Gene, picked up the second bottle and began to open it.

  Howard seemed to draw confidence from this small act of support.

  “I don't know why God does this to a man and woman—marriage I mean. Maybe it's a punishment for what happened back in the Garden of Eden. I don't understand it so I can't explain. But something Kitten said here tonight is troubling me, so I'd like to propose a toast.”

  Gene popped the cork and Howard paused while he filled several more glasses. Anne frowned at her husband and Hanna downright glowered at them both. Kara rose and helped the two men pass the glasses anyway. It was too late to stop the toast so they might as well get through it.

  Howard wet his lips nervously and lifted his glass. “To my children!” he said. A large tear welled up in his eye and then rolled down his cheek. “Anne, Kitten,” he said, “the decision Hanna and I made to bring you into our home—”

  "Howard!" Hanna snapped. “We agreed to never—”

  But Howard Miller wasn't listening to his wife. He just kept right on talking until she subsided back into angry silence.

  “-was the best of our entire marriage. I know I don't show it very often, but I love you both and I'm very glad that I'm your father!”

  Anne frowned in discomfort and confusion, not quite catching what her father had said. But Kitten understood. Her face scrunched up and she began to cry, but whether this was because her father had said he loved her, or because he'd just hinted he wasn't her biological dad, Kara couldn't tell.

  Eric, Kitten's husband, slipped his arm around her shoulders and kissed her on the forehead.

  “And Ron,” Howard continued. The glass was still held up in front of him as he worked his way through his toast.

  Hanna stood up. “Howard! That's enough!”

  Ron's hand slipped around Kara's and squeezed surprisingly hard. “I'm listening, Dad,” he said.

  Hanna turned to glare at him, angry that he was encouraging his father, but Ron wasn't looking at her. All of his attention was on the balding overweight man with the champagne glass.

  “Learning your mother had become pregnant after all of those years was hard for me,” Howard told him.

  Hanna's face snapped back around toward her husband. "Stop!"

  Howard Miller continued to ignore her. “But watching you being born was still the best day of my entire life!” he finished.

  He took a sip of his champagne, as if his mouth was too dry to continue without that tiny bit of help. Then he lifted his glass once more to his children. “Watching you three grow up was worth a lifetime with your mother!”

  He drained his glass and walked away from the table.

  For a moment, everyone sat staring after him. Then slowly, inexorably, the eyes of the large Miller family turned to focus on Hanna.

  She was still standing, quivering with rage, flushed with anger at her husband. Then she threw her napkin on the table and stormed off in the opposite direction.

  * * * *

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Chapter Ten

  “Wow!” Anne's husband, Gene, said after the two older Millers had departed. “This one—we've had some interesting family gatherings over the years but this one may beat them all.”

  “Don't start!” Anne told him. “Please, don't start!”

  “Sure, Anne,” he said. “I was just talking to break the tension.”

  Kitten could not seem to stop crying. Her whole body was shaking as she tried to stifle the sobs and keep them within, but she just wasn't able to silence herself. Her husband continued
to try to comfort her without any apparent success.

  “Does anyone understand what just happened?” Ron asked.

  Kara examined his face carefully. His confusion was genuine, but he must have suspected something because he was still squeezing her hand too tightly.

  “Can we have cake now?” little Emmy asked, but nobody paid any attention to her.

  “That was weird,” one of the twins announced.

  “Why did Grandma get so angry?” Anne's daughter Jody asked.

  Kara looked around the table wondering why no one was talking about the things she thought Ron's father had said.

  She looked at Ron again.

  “Do you think we should go after them?” he asked.

  Kara considered the question. There was no doubt that both of the elder Millers were very upset. Unless Kara had completely misunderstood what was happening, Howard Miller had come very close to spilling two closely held family secrets.

  She looked at Ron again, noticing for the second time today how little he looked like his father. There really wasn't any feature on his face that made her think of Howard Miller. But that didn't have to mean anything, did it?

  She examined Kitten and Anne. They were both dark haired like their parents but the roundness in Kitten's face was unlike either of the older Millers, and Anne's tiny nose and the freckles on her cheeks—she didn't really look like Hanna or Howard either.

  “I want cake!” Emmy repeated.

  “Shush!” Anne told her before turning her attention to her sister. “Kitten? Are you okay?”

  Kitten began to cry harder.

  “Hey,” her husband crooned over top of her. He slipped out of his chair so he could pull her closer against him. “Hey, it's all right.”

  Kitten pushed him away and got to her feet.

  “Kitten?” Anne asked.

  “Now we know!” Kitten sobbed.

  “Know what?” Anne asked. Her confusion did not appear to be feigned.

  Mascara ran down Kitten's face, marking the path of her tears. “Now we know why they always loved Ron more!” Kitten said.

  Anne's mouth gaped open. She really hadn't reached the conclusion Kara and Kitten already had.

  “We're adopted, you idiot!” Kitten told her. “Only he's", she hooked a thumb in Ron's direction, “natural born.”

  “Wait a minute!” Anne said.

  But Kitten had already turned and rushed away from the table.

  Her husband immediately hurried after her. The look of concern on his face would have been touching under less serious circumstances.

  Anne turned to her husband. “Daddy didn't say we're adopted, did he?”

  “Not in so many words,” Gene told her. It was obvious to Kara that he, too, thought adoption was the way to explain Howard's strange comment about inviting his daughters into their home. It also explained why Hanna got upset with him when he started his toast.

  “This is wrong!” Ron said. “Anne, you and Kitten can't be adopted!”

  “No, of course not,” Anne said.

  The expression on her face suggested she wasn't actually so certain.

  “So that's why you guys don't look alike,” Kitten's son said.

  “ Brett!” Gene snapped, glaring at the boy. “This isn't a good time.”

  Anne stood up. “It's okay,” she said. “I know who I am. I—”

  She took a step away from the table and staggered, almost losing her balance.

  Gene leapt to his feet to steady her, but she didn't want his help. “Would you watch Emmy?” she asked. “I need to be by myself for a while.”

  Gene actually looked more devastated than his wife did. He clearly wanted to follow her, but the kids were all sitting around the table. He turned to Ron and Kara.

  “Could you?”

  “I'm sorry, Gene,” Ron said. He pushed back his chair and stood up. “I need to find my parents and figure out what the hell is going on.”

  He walked in the direction his father had taken.

  Kara wanted to help Gene, but she needed to be with Ron more. She leapt to her feet and hurried after him.

  * * * *

  * * * *

  Kara caught up to Ron on the front steps of the lodge. She had to run to do so because he was walking so quickly and he didn't turn to face her until she grabbed his arm and demanded his attention. “Ron!”

  His normally fair face had turned beat red with emotion—a jumbled confusion of pain, anger and fear. He lifted his hand and shook his finger between them as if he expected Kara to start fighting with him. “He is my Dad, Kara!”

  She'd been wrong. It wasn't anger she saw in his face, only pain and fear. She threw her arms around him and pulled him tight against her. “I know, Sweety,” she told him. “Whatever he meant by what he said in there, he'll always be your Dad.”

  Ron's didn't hug Kara back. His body remained unnaturally stiff with the pain of his father's revelations. She wanted him to let her embrace him. She wanted him to cry and hug her back. But she knew that wasn't going to happen. Why the hell had the Millers waited until today to share this with their kids: two adoptions and well, maybe she could understand why they hadn't shared Ron's paternity. Still it was an awful thing to dump on your children decades into their lives.

  Ron's hands awkwardly closed on Kara's shoulders, not pushing her away, but not pulling her nearer either. He simply took hold of her and held on, as if he could ground his churning emotions by anchoring them to Kara.

  His grip comforted her. In the midst of the most shocking revelation of his life, Ron was trying to reach out to her. “I love you, Sweety!” she whispered. “How can I help you tonight?”

  Suddenly Ron pulled Kara very tight against him. His hands slipped behind her back and he crushed her against his hard chest. His right hand cupped the back of her head and pressed her face into his shoulder. His chest heaved as if he were trying desperately to contain a storm of tears. “I have to...” he began. “I have to find my Dad!” he told her.

  His grip didn't loosen. It felt as if he were trying to merge their bodies into one.

  “I know, Sweety,” Kara told him. “I wish I could help you with this.”

  “You can!” Ron said, his voice gruff and thick with pain.

  His hand on the back of her head slipped away, allowing Kara to look up at him. “Anything!” she promised. She'd regret that word in a very few seconds.

  “My Mom ran off alone,” Ron told her. “She's held this in a very long time. I'm afraid she might do something stupid. And I want to know what really happened.”

  The last thing Kara wanted to do was talk to Hanna Miller tonight, but the pain in Ron's eyes overrode her resistance. “I love you, Sweety,” she told him.

  Ron's arms pulled her tight against him again, crushing her against his chest. “Thank God you're here tonight, Kara,” he told her.

  She hugged him just as tightly. “I wish I could fix this for you,” she said.

  “All of these years I've blamed him,” Ron whispered. “All of these years...”

  Kara didn't think Ron's father was blameless in all of this. She didn't know what circumstances had led to Hanna cheating, but surely they didn't justify twenty-five years of tormenting her over it. Why the hell didn't he file for divorce? And why hadn't she? She just couldn't understand the full dynamic here. And she wasn't going to if she remained here hugging Ron. Secrets were being revealed tonight. By tomorrow, Howard and Hanna might close up again for the next twenty-five years.

  She relaxed her embrace, and Ron followed suit. “You go check on your father,” she said. “I'll find your mother.”

  Ron didn't immediately move to do as Kara had instructed. Instead he lifted his hand and lightly caressed her cheek with the tips of his fingers. “What did I ever do to deserve someone as wonderful as you?” he asked her.

  Kara covered Ron's hand with her own, cupping it against her cheek. “I love you, too, Sweety,” she said again.

  She squeezed
his fingers for a moment, then let go of his hand and went off in search of his mother.

  * * * *

  * * * *

  Kara found Hanna Miller sitting in the lodge bar getting drunk. It was not actually where she expected to find the woman and it was only an accident that Kara noticed her out of the corner of her eye as she returned to the lodge restaurant to begin her search. The older woman was sitting by herself with a shot glass in front of her and a mostly full bottle of Jim Bean. If she'd been trying to make herself look like a Hollywood caricature of a woman pathetically trying to make people feel sorry for her, she couldn't have made a better start.

  Kara took a deep breath. She didn't really want to reach out to Hanna right now. She didn't really like the woman. But at the same time, this was Ron's mother and the last fifteen minutes had driven home to Kara how deeply she really loved her handsome, blond boyfriend.

  She steeled her nerve and joined Hanna at the bar. The bartender stepped over to her and asked what she wanted to drink.

  Kara waved a hand dismissively at the bottle of Jim Beam. “First take this away,” she said. “Hanna's had enough already. Then bring us each a Michelob Ultra.” If she had to drink without Ron tonight, at least she could do it without a lot of calories.

  The bartender shifted his gaze to Hanna who sat holding the bottle in her right hand and her shot glass in her left. She hadn't even acknowledged Kara's presence yet.

  “Hanna?” Kara kept her voice quiet and calm. “Give the nice bartender the bottle. We really don't want to get too drunk tonight.”

  While Hanna hesitated, the bartender set an open bottle of Michelob Ultra in front of each of them. She finally sighed and moved her hand to the beer. She lifted it to her mouth and took a long swig. When she finished, she set it back on the bar and said: “At least it doesn't taste as bad as the bourbon.”

  In Kara's opinion, the Ultra didn't have much taste at all, but then she'd been spoiled lately by the decidedly robust Black and Tans she'd been drinking with Ron. She left her own beer on the bar and waited for Hanna to say something.

  It didn't take long.

  “He didn't have to tell them,” Hanna complained.