Got me cold. “Why would Gilia care what I do?”
His laugh was bitter. “Nothing in my political career is being left to chance.”
“You’re spying on your own daughter?” No way could a man this sleazy be my father.
“For some inexplicable reason, she has developed a trust in you. Consider how these photographs will affect that trust.”
Since the bald buzzard wasn’t Dad, that cleared up the incest problem, at least as far as sister went. She could still be a cousin. None of it would mean squat when Cameron showed her the pictures.
“That’s a lousy way to use your daughter.”
He shrugged. “I am protecting her.”
“If I had proof my daughter’s boyfriend was a pervert, I wouldn’t blackmail him. I’d tell her.”
He smiled again. “That would do away with my leverage, wouldn’t it?”
The numbness started in my solar plexus and spread in and up until all the major organs were desensitized. This sort of thing happens when you live by your own private version of right and wrong and say to hell with everyone else’s values. I’d justified Katrina on the grounds that I was not yet promised to Gilia, but when it came time for Gilia to know the score, my justification stank.
I made it into the executive bathroom, fully intending to vomit, but as I knelt over the toilet bowl I remembered my novel
Shirley poked her head back through the door. “What did the politician want?”
“Blackmail.”
“I should have thought of that years ago.” When I didn’t laugh, Shirley went away.
The typewriter ink hadn’t smeared, but my handwritten notes in the margins had. I read the page where Bucky assures Samantha’s mother that their trip holds no danger. Tension between Samantha and her mother runs through all the Bucky books.
Peeling the sheets apart required concentration—not my strong suit, at the moment. Fifteen minutes’ work brought back six legible pages, then I gave it up as a waste of time. Even nauseous, I knew I was only pulling the past out of the toilet because Cameron had mangled the future. And the past itself was shot; the book had gone underwater in the first place after Wanda spoiled my memories. Which left nothing but the present, and right now the present wasn’t so all-fired wonderful either.
What I needed was advice from someone simple. Complex people get so distracted by looking four moves ahead that they’re frozen when it comes to what to do next. Slow thinkers make faster decisions.
So I headed for the hospital. Not that Babs and Lynette were slow, as in stupid; they just knew the worth of intellect, which doesn’t rate too high compared to other functions.
First stop was the viewing window by the nurses’ station. Sam and Sammi lay next to each other in clear, Plexiglas bassinets with crib safety instructions on the side. They both wore white knit hats and had rose-petal eyelids. I could tell which was which by the rubber bulb thing the nurses use to clear gunk from babies’ noses. Sam’s was blue, Sammi’s pink. I pretended they were forty-three and called me Dad. I would be seventy-six.
Two doors down the hall, Babs and Lynette sat propped up in bed, wearing billowy purple nightgowns, sucking Coca-Cola through hospital straws and watching
“Dr. Hayse told me I was the bravest girl he’d ever seen,” Lynette said.
Babs flounced on her pillow. “He said the very same thing to me too. I bet he says that to ever’one.”
“Be just like a man.”
I talked. I hadn’t meant to when I walked into the room, and I’m not certain how I got started, all I know is the whole story poured out—from Christmas 1949 to Cameron calling his daughter “Leverage.” The first few minutes Lynette split her attention between me and the soap, but by the end I had both girls rapt. It was the longest uninterrupted speech I’ve ever made to a woman.
When I was done, I sighed once and waited for their verdict.
Hearing it aloud made me realize how tawdry I was. The girls could condemn or shun me; they still had time to change Sam’s and Sammi’s names. Whatever they did, I deserved it.
Lynette sucked air off the bottom of her Coke can. “Shoot,” she said. “That happens all the time on TV.”
“All the time?” I hate it when my problems aren’t unique.
“Not all the time,” Babs said. “Not exactly like you told it. But nobody knows who their folks are and someone’s all the time threatening to expose someone else.”
“So what do people on TV do?”
Babs giggled. “The dumbest thing they can think up.”
Lynette nodded. “People on TV are stupid.”
“Any geek knows what you should do,” Babs said.
I didn’t get it. If any geek knew the answer, why didn’t I? Novelists are supposed to understand the human plight.
Lynette said, “Dump the woman you don’t like and beg forgiveness from the one you do.”
Babs added, “Only you better confess before her daddy spills the beans. If he tells, you’re in deep doo- doo.”
I considered the advice. It had to be good; no one who says
“If you were Gilia and I confessed and begged your forgiveness, would you forgive me?”
Lynette looked at Babs, who thought a moment, then said, “Fat chance.”
Catharsis comes from the ancient Greek word ???????, which literally translated means “to pass a hard stool.” That evening as I stood in my room dressing for the appointment with Katrina, I passed a hard stool. It was inspired by what Lynette said about soap opera characters always doing the stupidest thing possible.
As a kid, I lived for books. I inhaled every book I could lay my hands on, from Nancy Drew to Hemingway and beyond. Books were real; social reality was a bother. Tom Swift and Peter Pan were stronger, faster, smarter, and morally superior to anyone I saw in person; therefore whenever I faced a situation I learned to take the course my heroes would have taken.
Here comes the catharsis: Fictional people don’t make logical choices, they go with whatever is most interesting for the story. And stupid mistakes are much more interesting than wise conduct. Which means that when it comes time to decide the future, I—deliberately—am stupid.
Marrying Wanda to save her was interesting, but stupid. Searching for five fathers, eating Katrina, adopting strangers’ babies—all interesting but stupid. I’d found a motto. Or better yet, the inscription for my tombstone: Sam Callahan was interesting, but stupid.
Realizing a fatal flaw in your character and fixing that flaw are separate matters. My first choice under the boring-but-right system would be what to wear tonight. Going as a slob would show disrespect for Katrina and her birthday, but dressing upscale might be taken as a sign we’re dating. Didn’t want to send the wrong message. I finally decided on fairly new Levi’s, a button-up, tuck-in Banana Republic shirt, and a sports coat Shannon bought at the Burlington Factory Outlet store. I considered cowboy boots, but that felt like too much. After all, this was a breakup.
I was sitting on the bed, lacing up my Adidas, when Shannon walked in without knocking. She was dressed as a Tahitian belly dancer—grass skirt and breasts covered by plumeria leis.
