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into him on at least a couple of occasions."
"More than a couple," she verified. "A lot of his friends still invite me to social
events, even knowing the two of us are on the outs."
"And?"
Finally she glanced back up at Jack, her expression one of bewilderment. "And?"
"And what happens when the two of you show up in the same place at the same
time?" He forced a smile. "Does the earth tremble? Do the skies open up? Does the
fickle finger of fate drop either one of you to the ground?"
She, too, smiled, and he could see that it was as forced as his own had been. "No.
Actually, nothing happens. He pretty much stays on one side of the room and I stay
on the other. It's all very civil. Very tidy. Very...very predictable."
Part of Jack had no trouble believing that. Gregory Lavender was without question a
man of grudges. But how could anyone turn his back on Georgia? "You actually
haven't spoken in almost twenty years?" he asked, unable to mask his disbelief.
She shrugged. "I'd like to. He's aged so much. He's been sick off and on for a few
years now, but of course he won't confide in me and tell me what's wrong.
Sometimes I wonder if..." Her voice trailed off as she seemed to be ruminating about
something she'd rather not consider. Then she hurried on. "For the first few years
when I came home, on those few occasions that I did see him, I tried to approach
him, to apologize."
Something inside Jack grew hard and cold. "Why should you be the one to
apologize?"
"I was the one who behaved deceptively," she said in a matter-of-fact manner that
set his teem on edge. "I was the one who wasn't up-front about the whole thing."
"But..."
She didn't give him a chance to defend her. Instead, she rushed on. "But Daddy
would have none of it. He wouldn't even look at me. He just ignored me pretended
I wasn't there. It was...awkward. Even his friends were surprised."
Jack wasn't. But he didn't say that.
"At any rate," she went on, "it didn't take long for me to realize how hopeless the
situation was." She gazed toward the windows, and her expression grew dreamy. "I
don't know. Maybe if I'd married somewhere along the way, maybe if I'd had
children of my own given him grandchildren maybe it would have given him an
excuse to come around. As it is now..."
Jack didn't want to think about Georgia marrying and having children. He told
himself it was only because that was a lousy reason for providing her father with an
opportunity to make amends for something that never should have happened in the
first place. Nevertheless, he had trouble ignoring the bite of jealousy that knifed
through him at the thought of her joining herself to another man for the rest of her
life.
"Why didn't you ever marry?" he asked, thinking the question a logical one to follow
her statement.
Georgia, however, seemed surprised by it. She looked utterly mystified when she
turned to look at him again. For a moment she didn't say anything, as if she'd never
really considered the question before. Finally she told him, "I don't know. I guess I
just never met anyone I wanted to marry."
Jack nodded, but said nothing more.
"How about you?" she asked. "How come you never married?"
He felt decidedly uncomfortable at having the tables so easily turned, but there was
little he could do about that. He'd started them up on this line of conversation, after
all. But he didn't answer her right away, and when he didn't, her expression changed
to one he could only describe as panicked.
"Or are you married?" she asked quickly. "Now that I think about it, you never told
me for sure,"
Boy, she really did think he had changed, he thought, if she considered him capable
of making time with her while he was married to another woman. Then again, he
wondered, was he really trying to make time with Georgia?
Instead of answering his own question, he asked her, "Do you honestly believe that
I'd be sitting here with you right now if I were a married man?"
She seemed genuinely stumped by the answer. "I...I don't know, Jack."
"No, I'm not married," he told her quickly, though why he felt it so urgent to settle
the matter, he couldn't have said. "I never have been."
She seemed relieved when she asked, "Why not?"
He shrugged. "Like you said. I guess I just never met the right person. Plus, I
normally work about fifteen hours a day, six or seven days a week. My life-style isn't
exactly conducive to much of a social life."
She nodded but said nothing more.
"So..." Jack began again. "Any chance you and your father might eventually patch
things up?"
"Why?"
That one-word query, in spite of its brevity, was a really good question, Jack
thought. Why the hell should he care? "I just..." he began lamely. "I don't know. I
guess I've had family on my mind a lot lately."
Georgia nodded, and finally, finally, seemed to relax. "Your own, you mean."
He expelled a single, humorless chuckle. "Mine. Yours. The world's at large. I can't
seem to think of anything else since getting that letter."
She smiled again, and this time there was a warmth and tenderness in it that had been
absent before. "It must be strange after all these years to hear from your brother and
sister out of the blue."
"Strange doesn't even come close to describing how I feel. They're thirty-five years
old now, Geo. Adult human beings with lives and jobs and families of their own.
They were only one and a half years old the last time I saw them. They were still in
diapers, with pudgy little legs, falling down every three or four steps they took...."
He lifted a hand to rub furiously at both eyes, then continued, "They've been living in
the D.C. area all this time. As an adult, I could have passed them on the street a
dozen times and never known they were my flesh and blood. Can you possibly
understand how that makes me feel?''
"No," she said honestly. "I can't. But, Jack, all that's in the past. You can't do
anything to change what's happened to you or to them. You can oniy work on the
here and now and make sure the future brings the three of you as close as possible."
He shook his head. "That's so easy for you to say. You don't know how frustrating
it's been, how empty I've felt, not knowing where they were or what might have
happened to them. Not being there for them when they needed me."
"Then contact them," she said simply. "AH you have to do is pick up the phone and
call that private investigator, and the three of you could be celebrating your reunion
tomorrow."
He shook his head again, more vehemently this time. "No. Not yet. It isn't time yet."
"When will it be time?"
He hesitated for only a moment before telling her, "I'll know when it is."
Georgia dismissed a quick, frustrated sigh. "You know what I think?" she asked.
He met her gaze again. "What?"
"I think you're scared."
In one swift move Jack jumped up from the sofa and set his wineglass on the coffee
table. Then he crossed hastily to the other side of the room and spun around to glare
at her. "You're out of your mind. Why would I be scared of my own family?"
"Hey, how should I know? They were only one and a half years old the last time you
saw them."
Her attempt at levity didn't go far. Jack's response was a bitter smile. "And now
they're thirty-five. They're strangers to me."
She shook her head. "No, Jack. They're your brother and sister."
He turned his back to her, gazing out at the blackness beyond the wall-to-wall
windows. The wind swelled outside the house, gusting enough to make the entire [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]