One More Knight

Her father’s lips curled disdainfully. “You’re in no position to be making anything of the sort.”

“No,” said Charly quietly, “I don’t think you have that quite right. It’s you who are in no position to deny me.” She paused. Her father glared at her in frigid silence. His eyes, his face, even his skin color seemed to have frozen. She took a breath. “I believe you know what I want. I want to see him.”

She could hear his breathing-short, shallow gasps. It suddenly occurred to her that he looked awful-even ill. She felt a quiver of doubt, uncertainty. But then his lips curved and his eyelids dropped to half-mast, and he said in that viscous drawl, “What makes you think he’d want to see you?”

The calculated cruelty of it nipped any concerns she might have had for him in the bud. Killed them dead, like peach blossoms in a March blizzard. Once again, just as she had the last time she’d faced this man, she felt herself go cold and still. “What have you told him?” she whispered. “About me?”

He jerked back, pretending insult. “I told him the truth.”

“The truth?” And suddenly she was on her feet and leaning toward him across his desk, all resolve forgotten. “You don’t know the truth!”

His eyes flew wide. “Don’t I?” He coughed, then drew himself up, pressing down on the arms of his chair, his voice rising as he did. “Which truth am I in ignorance of? The fact that his mother was a spoiled, selfish girl whose wanton behavior destroyed her own reputation and one of the finest families in this town? Or the fact that she abandoned her child the day he was born and then ran away? Nevah once looked back?”

Charly was trembling so hard that, but for her hands braced on the desktop, she doubted she could have kept her feet. She was seething with rage, words sizzling like hot coals on her tongue. “I will…see…my…son.”

“Selfish, spiteful girl.” Her father all but spat the words at her. “Have you no shame? ”

She was too angry to recoil. “Have you? I did not abandon my son, and you know it. I gave him up for adoption-on the advice of so many supposedly wise and compassionate people, not the least of which was my own father! And I did it-” she sucked in a desperate breath “-I did it so he could have the kind of warm, loving home I never had.”

“How…dare…you-”

“How dare you! What did you do, Your Honor? Did you use your judicial power and connections to gain custody of my son? Did you adopt him yourself? In God’s name, why? Why would you do such a thing?” He didn’t answer, just stared at her from a frozen half crouch, his face like stone. Sensing victory, she straightened and gave a high bark of laughter.

“Did you actually think you’d be a better father to him than I would have been a mother? How? How could you, when you were never a father to me, your only daughter? How could you possibly think you could give him more love than I could, when you never gave me any? Whatever love and affection I got, Dobrina gave me. You were never there for me-never.” The last word was a growl, harsh with pain. But there were no tears. There would be no more tears, not in front of him. Never again.

She turned away from him, her voice brittle now with self-control. “Did you know I used to sit in my room in the evenings, doing my homework, getting ready for bed, and I’d look out my window to see if I could see the light in your office window, just so I could feel near you? But you never had time for me. You never listened to me. You just judged. Hell, you aren’t even listening to me now. You know that? When I walked in here, I was ready to compromise. All I wanted was to see him-not even to let him know who I am, just…introduce me as a distant cousin, or something, I don’t care. Just…to see him. But as always, you didn’t give me a chance to tell you that. You wouldn’t even listen.”

She had run out of words, finally. Shaking violently, gasping like a marathoner, she caught her breath and held it, fighting to regain control and somehow slow her runaway heartbeat. And in that sudden stillness, she heard a faint choking sound.

She turned, jerky and off balance, like a malfunctioning windup toy, and felt herself go numb with shock. Her father was lying across his desk in a half crouch, his arms clutched to his chest. What she could see of his face was a dreadful, slaty blue.

Charly never did remember much about what she did then. The next thing she knew, she was on her knees beside her father, who was lying flat on his back on the floor, and she was blowing into his open mouth, and pumping away at his chest with all her might and saying furiously, in time to the beats, “Don’t… you… dare… die. Don’t… you… dare… die. Dammit, I’m… not… finished… yet.”

She was still at it when Dobrina came home, she had no way of knowing how many minutes later. Then she paused just long enough to say tersely, “Thank God you’re here. Call 911. My father’s had a heart attack.”

Chapter 8

August 4, 1977

Dear Diary,

I don’t know whether to be mad at Colin, or kiss him. He did something that made me so embarrassed I could have just died, but then it all turned out okay, so I guess it was really pretty sweet. What he did was, he told me he was having this pool party at his house, and that it was just going to be Kelly Grace and Bobby and some others, nothing big, and we’d just barbecue and listen to music and hang out. So I went over, and guess who was there? Richie. I mean, just Richie, and nobody else. Talk about embarrassing! God, it was so awkward. There we were, just the two of us, with our bathing suits and everything, and we couldn’t even look each other in the eye! But like I said, it all turned out okay. We started talking, finally-I mean, what else could we do, right?-and we both said we were sorry, and he asked me if I wanted to go with him to see Saturday Night Fever this weekend. Of course I said yes! Even though I’ve seen it three times already.

Of course I didn’t tell Richie about what happened between Colin and me. I’m never going to tell anyone about that, ever, ever. And I don’t think I will have sex with him, either.

Thought for the Day: From now on, I am going to wait until I am truly in love. Or at least married.

Troy had taken Bubba for a ramble up the street and was just working his way back toward the car when he heard the first siren. The first thought he had was that the noise was going to set poor ol’ Bubba off, and every other dog in the neighborhood along with him.

Then the fire-department paramedics came roaring past him, with an ambulance right behind them, and he stood stock-still and watched them both turn into the same driveway he’d just come out of. And God forgive him, what he thought then was, Lord help us, she’s killed somebody!

Even on further reflection it didn’t seem all that far-fetched a notion, considering the jagged edge the woman had been walking for as long as he’d known her. Which, come to think of it, was less than twenty-four hours. After all, what did he really know about this Charly Phelps, anyway?

Okay, for one thing, that she was the friend of somebody whose judgment and good sense he trusted. Other than that, just that she was a California lawyer who’d spent an unhappy childhood in a small Southern town, liked bourbon and french fries, pretended not to like dogs and had a soft, mushy heart she didn’t want anybody to know about. Oh, yeah, and she was one hell of a lover. Passionate. Edgy. Angry…

He took off at a jog-trot, Bubba loping happily along beside him with his tongue hanging out. Half a block later Troy broke into a dead run.

The two meat wagons were parked in the semicircular driveway in front of the big brick house with the white columns, engines idling, lights flashing, ready to roll. No one was in sight. Troy got Bubba put up in the Cherokee and was taking the steps two at a time when the front door burst open and a paramedic came backing out onto the porch, holding an IV bottle high in one hand. After him came the stretcher, or rolling gurney, or whatever they called it, surrounded by a whole bunch of EMTs, all of them in a hurry but businesslike about it. Troy took that as a good