Man, woman, and child(39)

Sheila still did not reply. But she had a selfish thought: I won't ever have to see that picture in the silver frame again.

"The girls won't talk to me," he added. "Shit. I've devastated them, haven't I? I mean, what the hell can they believe in now? They'll never get over this."



Sheila sat there, silent and unmoving.

He now realized this was going to remain a monologue. So he asked his wife a favor. Directly.

''Can you try and speak to them while Fm gone?"

She looked at him and asked simply, "What could I say?''



Instead of taking Route 6 all the way across the Cape, Bob turned off onto 6A at Orleans. Slower, but prettier. The ^'Cranberry Highway/' with a view of the sea.

The boy had been stoically silent during the last hours before departure. He had packed and then dutifully waited in his room for Bob to come and get him. Bob had carried the green valise, Jean-Claude his flight bag. They walked down the stairs to the kitchen, where Sheila had prepared cheese sandwiches and coffee to fortify them for the journey to the airport.

While the girls remained hermetically sealed in Jessie's room, Sheila had pulled herself together. It could not now get worse. There was even a part of the summer left to try to make things better. Tomorrow would be the first day of the rest of their lives. When words fail, comfortable cliches are always nice to fall back on. She watched the man and the boy eat their sandwiches, and spoke the commonplaces the occasion called for.

*'It was nice having you, Jean-Claude."

His mouth was full. He swallowed and politely answered, *'Thank you, madame."

141



Bob was silent, exiled with his conflicts.

'Tm sure Jessie and Paula are sorry for that . . . misunderstanding/'

Everyone knew they were still upstairs. For the preceding hours had been punctuated with their plangent imprecations. The house was wood, after all.

"Please say goodbye for me/' said Jean-Claude.

"Of course."

When they were about to leave, Jean-Claude extended his hand. Sheila took it, and then leaned down to kiss him on the cheek.

As Bob watched her, he had his first coherent thought of the afternoon: Am I going to be doing that at the airport, in just three more hours?

They had been riding for barely thirty minutes. Bob tried to make conversation.

"You know, when we passed Orleans, back there, I forgot to tell you something."

He glanced at the boy sitting next to him, clutching his flight bag in his lap.

"It's a curious fact"—Bob rambled like an awkward tour guide—"but that's where they built the very first cable station for telegrams to France. There weren't any phones in those days. . . ."

"Oh," said the boy quietly.

What am I babbling about? Bob wondered. Cables? Yes, he then realized, it wasn't all that irrelevant. You were trying to tell him somehow that you'd still keep in touch. That there was a history of direct communication between Cape Cod and France. Did he understand?

What was he thinking?

They passed Sandwich and he did not comment on the funny name.



They crossed the Cape Cod Canal and did not speak.

''We'll miss you, Jean-Claude/' said Bob.

Coward, don't you even have the guts to use the singular?

Speak for yourself, Bob. And they v^ere just passing Plymouth.

'Tve grown really fond of you/' he added. There, Fve done it. I've expressed my own feelings. Some of them anyway. >

For a long while, the boy did not reply. At last, when they were scarcely an hour from Logan Airport, he spoke.

"Is it true, Bob?''

"What?"

"Are you really my father?''

Bob looked at him. He has a right to the truth, dammit.

"Yes, Jean-Claude, I am your father."

All right, curse me out, kid, I deserve it. For not telling you the minute I first met you, to assuage your grief. For not even telling you today, until you made me.

And now, knowingly this time, abandoning you once again.

"That makes me happy," said the little boy. Yet there was a tinge of sadness in his voice.

Bob glanced at him with an expression that asked: Why?

"My mother used to talk about my father. That he was kind and good. And funny. And . . ."

"Yes?"

"And when I met you, even when I saw you for the first time at the airport, I hoped that maybe my father might be someone like you."

This was my worst fear, thought Bob. Or was it



my best hope? That I would meet my son and he would like me—no, love me^ imperfect as I am.

He reached over and touched the little boy. Jean-Claude took Bob's hand with both of his and held it tightly. Very tightly.

Bob could not look at him. He stared straight ahead, lying to himself that it was because he had to be a careful driver.

The boy still tightly held his hand.

And Bob said to himself; I can t let him go back.