The Story of Therapy Dog Tails 581
Where Everyone Gets a Dose of Puppy Love
FICTION 60: Colors of the Past 35
Colors of the Past
a novel
W.D. Haverstock
Part Two
Chapter Nine
“… I can see that you’re still the spoiled child you always were,” James said as he watched the shifting expression on George’s face. “Your marriage to my niece hasn’t changed that. I doubt anything ever will. Randal will show you out.”
The lamp suddenly came on and Susan could see Randal’s back. She waited for the door to open.
“If you have anything further to say to me or to my niece, contact my attorney.”
“I have no reason to come back here. Nothing of mine is here. You can do what you like, James, but if you try to drag the Grange name along with you, I’ll see that every little piece of filth that you’ve hidden comes to light. You won’t be able to hide behind your grandfather’s name. There won’t be a place in the world for you or your niece to hide. I’ll see to that.”
Susan heard the footsteps and thought that she should run up the stairs. When she turned, she found Katie standing just behind with the baby in her arms.
“We didn’t hear you come in, Miss Susan,” Katie said. “You’re just in time for supper.”
As Katie said this, the door to the sitting room opened. George came out first and stopped when he saw Susan. She was standing on the first step with her hand on the railing.
His face had not changed and yet it was not the face of the man she had known for most of her life. It was the face of a stranger, the face that belonged to the cruel voice and to an unending moment in the hospital room.
Randal stepped into the hallway behind him. “This way, Mr. Grange.” He indicated the front door but George did not move.
Susan held tightly to the railing.
A man Susan had never seen before stood behind George and whispered something into his ear. This man was wearing a dark blue suit and carrying a thin, black briefcase. George seemed to listen to what the man said but did not take his eyes off Susan.
“I know, I know,” George said, as if annoyed, and waved the man back.
James stepped between George and Susan before either had spoken. “As I said, George,” James said, “if you come here again, I’ll be forced to call the police.” He turned to his niece. “Go on upstairs, Susan.”
Susan stepped to the floor between her uncle and Katie. “I don’t blame you, George, for not believing me,” she said and hoped the pain she felt was not evident in her voice. “I don’t blame you, but you’re wrong.” She searched his face for a remnant of regret but found only a cold, hard stare.
“You tried to give me another man’s child,” George said in the same voice she had heard through the door. He looked at her as if there were nothing there.
“I can tell you the truth,” Susan said, “but I can’t make you believe it. Even if I could, things would never be the same.”
“At least that’s right, Susan. Everything is going to be different from now on.”
“You can have everything, George. Take anything you want. I won’t fight you.”
In spite of himself, George looked into the face that he had spent so many lonely nights imagining and thought that Susan looked more beautiful than ever. He listened to her voice as he had read her letters and in it he could still hear why he had waited so long. He could still see in her body the lines perfectly sculpted as if created from his own imagination. He wanted to hold her in his arms more than he ever had before, more than he had wanted her on the night of their wedding - more even, he thought now, than he had wanted the girl on the night before.
But beside her, drawn vaguely, peripherally, was the curse that she had become. Beside her was the dark silhouette of another person, that part of Susan he could never have created. He could not guess at its source but within the pure body of this angel dwelt the black soul of a devil. For twenty years it had been concealed but in the body of a child the veil had been lifted and the horror revealed, the true horror of their deceit.
“There never was anything I wanted,” George said. “I don’t know how I ever thought there was. I don’t know how I could have thought I loved you. I never knew you.”
She watched the detached look in his eyes and saw that he could no longer see her. He seemed to be speaking to someone else, to someone who wasn’t there. She was nothing to him now but a ghost from the past, a haunting that he hoped would leave him more easily than the others.
The baby made a gurgling sound and Katie turned back toward the kitchen. Susan grabbed Katie's elbow so that she couldn’t go.
“Maybe you can’t believe it, George, but I’m sorry that things have turned out this way. I always thought I was one of the luckiest people in the world. I don’t know why. I thought maybe it was because of you. But now I don’t expect to ever see you again and do you know what?”
A smile crept across her lips and seemed to seep into her chest. She knew that she was going to have the strength to say what she wanted to say and to do what she had to do.
“I still feel like one of the luckiest people in the world and I still don’t know why. Nothing has changed, George, no matter what you think. You may have found out something that you didn’t want to know, but it was true all along, even when you thought you knew me. Nothing has changed. Nothing has changed but you.” She held onto Katie’s arm as the baby began to cry.
“You are just as crazy as your uncle, Susan, if you really believe that. You are the one who has changed. You’re not the girl I used to know.”
George turned away and walked quickly through the front door. The man with the briefcase followed close behind. Randal went out after them and closed the door.
“There was no need for you to say anything to him, Susan,” said James. He put his arm around her and felt that she was trembling. “He came here for no other reason than to upset you.”
Susan held onto Katie’s arm. “Maybe, but I still can’t help feeling sorry for him, Uncle James. He has a child in the world that he will never know.”
“We still have to talk about that, Susan.”
“No, Uncle James, there is nothing to talk about.” She took the baby from Katie and began to rock it gently in her arms. “I’ll take care of her, Katie. You go on and do whatever you have to do.”
“All right then,” Katie said. “That’s just what I was hoping to see. I’ll take her things upstairs for you.” She disappeared into the kitchen.
“I’m only thinking of you, Susan,” James said, though Susan did not seem to be listening. “I want to do what’s best for you.”
“I know, Uncle James, but I have to think about what’s best for my baby. This is my baby. I’m all that she has and I’m not going to let her grow up thinking that the very people who should have loved her the most didn’t want her. I don’t know why it has taken me this long to see that. I should have known it from the start.”
“You didn’t know it, Susan, because it wasn’t obvious,” James said as Susan started up the stairs. “I’m thinking of the baby as well. It needs a home and it needs a mother and father to care for it. George is not going to be that father. Do you have any idea how difficult it is for a young woman to raise a child all alone?”
“I’m not going to be alone.” She stopped on the stairs. “I’ve got you and I’ve got Katie. Didn’t you raise me by yourself?”
“Yes, but it was difficult and it will be more difficult for you.”
“Why?”
“Because the day will come when you will have to tell this child who its father is and why its father didn’t want it. You will have to explain how a man can abandon his own child. It was different when I took you in. When your parents died, I didn’t have a choice.”
“I have even less choice than you did.” She started up the stairs again. “I’ll tell her whatever she wants to know. Would it be easier for her to think that neither of her parents wanted her than to know that at least one of us did?”
James tapped his knuckles on the wooden post. “We’ll talk about this more later, Susan.”
“There is nothing to talk about, Uncle James,” she said without looking back.
He stood at the foot of the stairs until the bedroom door closed. The defiance in her voice surprised him. It reminded him of Clara and he realized that he was staring at the lamp in the sitting room.
He went out the front door. Randal was walking toward the garage but turned back when James called to him.
“Let me see that note Susan left for you at the library,” James said. “Do you still have it?”
“It’s in the car.”
They went into the garage together. Randal took the note from the glove compartment and gave it to James.
“There was nothing more than this?” James asked when he’d read the note.
“No, sir.”
“Who gave this to you?”
“A woman at the desk on the main floor.”
“What did she say?”
“Only that Susan had left the note.”
“Did you ask her what time Susan left the library?”
“Yes. She said it was about two-thirty.”
“Did you ask if she had seen Susan with anyone else?”
“She left alone.”
“Thank you, Randal.”
James started across the lawn toward the house. It was dark now and the wind had turned strong and cold. Susan had left the library at two-thirty but had not gotten home until after five o’clock. He folded the note carefully and put it into the inside pocket of his jacket.
He walked around to the back of the house and followed the path into the trees. He loved the grounds of this building and had cultivated the tiny woods over the years. The trees were thick enough so that from the center of the woods the house could not be seen.
He’d spent many days and nights here, wandering along the snake-like pathway that wound in and out among the trees and bushes. He loved to walk here and imagine that Katharine was at his side and that she was the mistress of everything that was his. In this solitude he had told her his thoughts and listened to the reply of the wind in the leaves.
He stopped and took a deep breath and wondered where his life had gone. In this very place the winters had come and gone. The icy north wind cut through the bare branches to freeze the blood in his arms and legs as it froze the water on the lake. And it was along this path that he had strolled on summer nights, thinking back over the years even as another passed. Tonight again he could feel her presence and he was glad that his thoughts could be distracted by that spirit he knew would always be with him.
But from one vantage point the house came into view through the branches and he could look up to see the window in Susan’s room. He looked up now and saw that the light was lit and that Susan was standing at the window with the baby still in her arms. She was standing there as he had often seen her before, staring out into the darkness as if wondering what the darkness hid. In spite of the baby and the memories it brought, he was glad that Susan had come home.
For a long time Susan stood at the window, rocking the baby and looking into her tiny face. She began to imagine that the small, round chin and cheeks were very similar to her own. She began to see her own face in the face of her child - the straight line of the nose; the narrowly spaced eyes; the high forehead; the thin, pointed chin; and the wide, thick mouth. That such a beautiful, innocent face could even once have horrified her now horrified her more. This child would never have to imagine her own mother.
The baby was wide awake and restless. Susan sat down on the bed and laid the baby under the blankets. Together they lay in the quiet room with only the dim light from the night table. Susan ran her fingertips along the miniature curves of the baby’s face and arms and stomach. The baby laughed a gurgling laugh and looked back through her strange, green eyes almost as if she already knew.
Susan smiled and unbuttoned her blouse. The wide expression in the baby’s eyes did not change as she began to nurse. Susan kissed her child’s face and closed her eyes.