After the Loving. Gwynne Forster

his shoulder.

      That night, the Harrington men had sat around the Christmas tree and the lighted fire in the den, each with a woman, along with Henry and Tara in an idyllic family celebration. Everyone, including her, had thought that the men would pair off for the night with their women, but Russ had walked up the stairs with her to her room, kissed her cheek and told her good-night. And it was clear to her the next morning that Drake did not spend the night with Pamela. Three extraordinary men governed by their own counsel. She heard the voices on the lower floor, and rushed down to greet Tara.

      “Auntie Velma, do you want to hear me play the piano? Mr. Henry gave me my piano, and Mr. Telford teaches me how to play it.”

      “You’re gonna have to stop calling Tel Mr. Telford,” Henry said.

      “I know. Soon as he comes back, I’m going to call him Daddy.”

      “Hadn’t you better ask your mother about that?” Russ asked. “You have a daddy.”

      “I know, but I never see him, so I only have to call him that when I see him. I’m going to let Mr. Telford be my daddy.” The tears that glistened unshed in her eyes finally dripped down her cheeks. “If he won’t be my daddy, I’m going to run away.” Her eyes beseeched Russ. “Can’t he be my daddy, Mr. Russ? Can’t he?”

      Russ dropped down on his haunches and pulled Tara into his arms. “He will be your daddy. It seems to me he has been ever since you came here. Telford loves you as much as you love him, so no more tears. All right?”

      She nodded. “Do you think my mummy will let me call him Daddy?”

      He hugged Tara and stroked her back. “You’re five, going on six, so it seems to me you should call him Dad.”

      She threw her arms around Russ’s neck. “Thanks, Mr. Russ. That’s just what I’ll call him.”

      Velma wondered at the significance of that strange conversation with a five-year-old and thought of her father, a man with whom she could never communicate to her satisfaction. Russ understood Tara and knew how to quiet her fears. She looked at Henry who seemed awestruck, with his gaze pinned on Russ. No one had to tell her that to Henry, Russ’s behavior was out of character. She mused as to the reason and, especially, whether it could be traced to what had gone on between Russ and her that day. Her heart fluttered, more with joy than with excitement, when she thought he might be softening, that—like her—he had begun to feel the need for love.

      “I’ll be in and out for the next couple of weeks,” Russ told Velma after dinner that evening. “We’re thinking of building an annex to the Florence Griffith-Joyner Houses in Philadelphia, and I need to work there for a while. If you need me, you have my cell phone.”

      “Who’ll shovel the snow?” She asked the question more to show an indifference to his leaving Harrington House for the remainder of her stay than because she worried about snow removal.

      “If it continues after I leave, Henry will call a snow-removal company. Drake’s leaving in a couple of days for Barbados. We’re building Frenchman’s Village there—an apartment, hotel, shopping mall complex—and, as you know, he’s the engineer for all our projects.”

      “You’re the architect, Drake’s the engineer and Telford is the builder. How did that happen?”

      “We decided on that when we were teenagers, and it suits us.”

      “Wasn’t Drake planning to eat dinner at home tonight?”

      “He decided not to risk driving through this snow. He’ll be here tomorrow. Join me in the den for some cognac? Henry and Tara will probably have some kind of juice.”

      She didn’t want casual chitchat. As much as she loved her niece and Henry, she didn’t want to talk with them right then, and the thought of an hour of impersonal conversation with Russ had about as much attraction for her as poison ivy. Nonetheless, she said, “I won’t drink, but I’ll sit with you while you enjoy yours.”

      He leaned against the big walnut commode that had belonged to his maternal grandparents and looked at her. “How is it that you so often manage to surprise me with the right words or behavior?”

      She lifted her shoulder in a slight shrug. “It isn’t intentional, I assure you.”

      He straightened up. “Oh, I know it isn’t. It’s you.”

      To her relief, Tara began to yawn and nod almost as soon as they went into the den. “I’d better put her to bed,” Velma said to Russ and Henry.

      “Good night. Sleep well,” Russ said, letting her know that their evening was over.

      “Good night,” Henry said. “As for sleeping well, ain’t no point in telling you to do that, ’cause you’re gonna be awake half the night. You young people think you got forever to start living. Dumbest thing I ever heard of.”

      “You’ve got my life all laid out, Henry,” she heard Russ say as she started down the hall with Tara, “but I will live it my way, not your way or Telford’s or Drake’s. You listening to me?”

      “Yeah, and I ain’t heard nothing you haven’t said before. You’re running from that one just because we think she’s good for you. Go ahead. Make yer own bed hard. I ain’t the one sleeping in it.”

      She would have been happier if she hadn’t heard that exchange between Russ and Henry. She put Tara to bed, laid out her clothes for school the next day, pulled off her shoes and tiptoed up the stairs to her room. The last thing she wanted was to bump into Russ. He and Henry didn’t seem to notice that she ate hardly any supper. Hunger pangs pelted her belly, and she drank two glasses of water in an effort to ease the pain. Still longing for solid food, she eased between the sheets and tried to sleep. Three hours later, she sat up and turned on the light beside her bed, exhausted from dreams of a battle with oversize steaks and spareribs and of trying to hide huge hamburgers from Russ, whose mocking laughter echoed everyplace she went.

      Before breakfast the next morning, Russ got the snowplow and cleaned the circle in front of the house, the road leading to it and the one that connected the house and the warehouse. Sitting in the office at the warehouse, he telephoned Allen Krenner, their foreman, and told him what he and Velma had discovered.

      “I haven’t got a clue as to how that could happen, Russ,” he said, “but from where I sit, at least one of the culprits works for either the manufacturer or the packaging company.”

      “You don’t think the accountant is involved?”

      “Hard to say, Russ, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”

      He trusted Allen, a longtime family friend. “Whoever he is, I’ll find him.” He hung up, made the necessary notes in the daily log and went home to get his breakfast. After eating, he checked the weather on local radio and phoned Velma. “We got about eight inches of snow last night, so I doubt school will open today.”

      “Oh, dear,” she said. “I had planned to drive Alexis’s car to Baltimore today. I need to take care of some business.”

      “The roads will be open by ten o’clock, but most businesses will probably be closed. If it can wait until tomorrow, you can drive me to Baltimore, and I’ll get a train there to Philadelphia.”

      Twenty minutes later, he had reason to be thankful that he was at home. “Aunt Velma! Aunt Velma!” he heard Tara screaming, obviously on her way up the stairs.

      He bolted from the room and met her as she reached the landing, both hands on her belly. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

      “My tummy. My tummy. I thought it was candy, and I ate it.”

      He grabbed her and ran as fast as he could to Alexis’s rooms. “What? Show me.”

      She pointed to the remainder of a substance that he supposed Alexis used either in her sculpting or painting. He tried to force Tara to give up the substance, but she couldn’t, and when