For the first time in his life, it occurred to him that even though his biological paternity was a bit optional, so to speak, Dad had at least known his mother. In every sense of the word. They'd been acquainted. In his next letter to Italy, he would ask what she had looked like. Even if the answer was "sort of all-round unimpressive," that would be something. And his school records should have a copy of his birth certificate. He could ask for a copy of it to back file with the Bureau of Vital Statistics. Maybe he ought to do that for all three of them. It wasn't a bad idea to make sure that your paperwork was in order.
"It can't be serious, Chad. Can it?" Debbie took off her shoes and propped her feet up on a hassock. It had been quite a day. "They can't be serious?"
"No idea," Chad answered sleepily, tilting his recliner backwards before folding his hands across his chest.
"Surely not. Oh, surely not. They're only eighteen."
"Nineteen next month. Both of them. Out of high school for quite a while now, when you think about it."
"She was just being nice because their father and stepmother are still in Italy. If they hadn't come here, where would they have eaten?"
"With somebody else, I expect. Or done something at their place with chicken. Based on the way she was looking at him, wherever he was, she would be too. Seemed rather taken by him. Vice versa. Both trying hard to keep anyone else from noticing. Success level with that project measurable at roughly zilch. Very taken with him. Can't imagine where she gets it," he yawned.
That was probably the best tack to take, he thought, remembering that Debbie had been seventeen and still in high school when she married Don Jefferson, who was only a year older. She was eighteen when Anne was born and Don was killed in Vietnam. Willie Ray had used every ounce of political clout at his disposal to get the school board to let her come back the next year and graduate. Willie Ray had once told him that Debbie would have run off with Don if he hadn't given his consent at the time. Debbie had been a rather determined young lady herself, Chad mused. Nope. Absolutely can't imagine where Missy gets it.
"Charles Hudson Jenkins!"
He assured himself that Debbie hadn't been reading his thoughts. "It's not as if Tom Stone is a social pariah any more. He's made a ton of money legally and his father-in-law's not too shabby when it comes time to bargain either."
"Well, I'm going to call Mother. If Missy came straight home rather than stopping by Aura Lee's, I might as well hear about it now as later."
She reached for the phone extension, listened a moment, and put the receiver down again. "It's busy."
Chad raised an eyebrow.
"Missy and Ron. Dissecting the dinner events." She frowned. "Missy has a sharper tongue than I ever realized. I wish that I weren't such an honorable mom. I might have learned a lot from eavesdropping longer."
"What did you learn in fifteen seconds?"
"That Gerry called the Lutheran minister out at St. Martin's as soon as they got home from here. About Chip's needing to take instructions, I mean."
"That's not exactly revolutionary news. Chip broke it to us a long time ago. And they are Protestants. Lutherans, I mean. I looked that up after Vera said . . ."
Debbie would rather not talk about her mother right now. "According to Ron, this school teacher out there, the one who is going with the Kochs' daughter, is practically keeping a prize list under the heading of 'up-time converts we have caught.' With Chip, at the moment, as a candidate for the blue ribbon."
"One hand washes the other. We can't expect all the influence to run one way. Doesn't the Koch girl count as a prize?"
"The Kochs were Lutheran already. Before."
"Oh. I guess I never knew that. Our paths didn't cross much."
Chapter 28
Grantville
The plane banked and came down neatly on the landing field just outside the edge of the Ring of Fire.
The walls weren't as smooth and sharp as they had been in the spring of 1631. Where there was soil above the rock, they were starting to erode.
"I still don't like using a government plane for what's really a private trip," Mike Stearns groused.
"Travel is dangerous for babies," came his wife Becky's firm response. "Baruch is barely two and I am still nursing. It is a miracle that they didn't catch something deadly on the trip from Amsterdam to Magdeburg. It will be a miracle if they don't catch something deadly on this trip."
"Gustav ordered a plane to bring us to Magdeburg, too. What are they likely to catch, spending a couple of hours in the air with their parents and one pilot, that they might not catch at home? It's not as if you were dragging them around on wagons and barges for weeks. Or even on a truck for a couple of days, stopping at inns at night."