“It’s important,” said Felix. “Critically important.”
“Someone’s died?”
“Exactly the opposite,” said Felix. He winked, and seemed unable to suppress a smile.
He was formally dressed as always, in a tailored wool coat and wool pants, with his dark hair neatly combed, as though ready for whatever the day would bring.
“This isn’t what you and Margon were arguing about, was it?” Reuben asked tentatively.
“Oh, no, not at all. Put that out of your mind. Let me deal with the inimitable Margon. Call Celeste, please.”
The phone rang and Reuben answered at once. As soon as Celeste spoke his name, he realized she’d been crying.
“What’s happened?” he asked, making it as sympathetic and kind as he could. “Celeste, tell me!”
“Well, you might have answered your phone, you know, Sunshine Boy,” she said. “I’ve been calling you for days.”
More and more people said this to him, and more and more he had to make guilty excuses, which just now he did not wish to do.
“I’m sorry, Celeste, what is it?”
“Well, in a way the crisis is over because I’ve made up my mind.”
“As to what especially?”
“As to marrying Mort,” she said. “Because no matter what you do, Sunshine Boy, in the ivory tower in which you live, your mother’s going to take the baby. That has pretty much settled it, that and my refusal to abort my firstborn even if it is the son of an airhead ne’er-do-well.”
He was too shocked to say a word. Something kindled in him, something so near to pure happiness he scarcely knew what it was, but he didn’t dare to hope, not yet.
She went on talking.
“I thought I was out of the woods. That’s why I didn’t even bother to tell you. Well, that was a false alarm. I wasn’t out of the woods. Fact is, I’m four months along now. And it
The torrent continued.
He realized he was staring at Felix, and Felix was looking at him with the usual protective affection as he waited without apology to hear what Reuben had to say.
“Celeste, I had no idea,” he said, breaking in on her suddenly.
“Well, of course not,” she said. “Neither did I. I was on the pill, for God’s sake. I thought I might be, right before you first went up there, and then as I said, I thought I wasn’t. And then, well, I had the sonogram yesterday. I wouldn’t have an abortion now even if you tried to push me into it. This baby’s coming into the world. Truth is, Sunshine Boy, I don’t much want to talk to you.” She rang off.
He put down the phone. He was staring at nothing, and thinking over a multitude of things, and that happiness was blazing now, making him positively giddy, and then he heard Felix’s voice, gentle and confiding.
“Reuben, don’t you see? This is the only normal human child you will have.”
He looked up at Felix. He was smiling foolishly, he knew it. He was almost laughing for pure happiness. But he was speechless.
The phone was ringing again, but he scarcely heard it. Images were cascading through his mind. And out of the chaos of his conflicting emotions a resolve had formed.
Felix answered the phone and held the receiver out to him. “Your mother.”
“Darling, I hope you’re happy with this. Listen, I’ve told her we’ll take care of everything. We’ll take the baby. I’ll take the baby. I’ll care for this baby.”
“Mom, I want my son,” he said. “I’m happy, Mom. I’m so happy, really, I can’t figure quite what to say. I tried to tell Celeste, but she wouldn’t listen. She didn’t want to listen. Mom, I am so happy. Dear God, I am so happy.”
Celeste’s stinging words were coming back to him, confusing him. What in the world had she meant by all that invective? It just didn’t matter, really. What mattered was the baby.
“I knew you would be, Reuben,” Grace was saying. “I knew you wouldn’t let us down. She had the appointment for the abortion when she told me! But I said, ‘Celeste, you can’t do this, please.’ She didn’t want to do it, Reuben. She wouldn’t have told anyone if she’d really wanted the abortion. We would never have known. She gave in right away. Look, Reuben, she’s just angry right now.”
“But Mom, I mean, I just don’t understand Celeste,” he said. “Let’s just do whatever we can to make her happy.”
“Well, we will, Reuben. But having a baby’s painful. She’s already requested a leave from the district attorney’s office and she’s talking about relocating in Southern California after this is over. Mort’s applying to UC Riverside for a job. And it looks good. And I’m talking about giving her whatever she needs to get settled there and start over again. You know, a house, a condo, whatever we can do. She’ll land on her feet, Reuben. But she’s mad. So let her be mad. And let’s be happy.”
“Mom, you’re not taking off from work for a year,” Reuben said. “You don’t have to.” He looked up at Felix. Felix nodded. “This boy is going to grow up here with his father. You’re not giving up your career for him, Mom. He’s coming here to live, and I’ll be bringing him down every weekend to see you, you understand? Why, the room right next to mine, it’s Laura’s office, but we’ll turn that into a nursery. There are plenty of rooms for Laura’s office. Laura’s going to be excited when I tell her this.”
His mother was crying. Phil came on the line and said, “Congratulations, son. I’m so happy for you. When you hold your firstborn in your arms, well, Reuben, that’s when you understand your own life for the first time. I know that sounds trite, but it’s true. You wait and see.”
“Thanks, Dad,” said Reuben. He was surprised at how glad he was to hear his father’s voice.
They went round and round for several minutes, and then Grace said she had to get off and call Jim. Jim was scared to death that Celeste would change her mind and call the abortion clinic again and she had to let Jim know everything was all right. Celeste was coming for lunch, and if Reuben called the florist on Columbus Avenue they could have flowers here by one o’clock. Would Reuben please do that?
Yes, he would do that, he said, he would do that right now.
“Look, Mom, I’m going to pay for everything,” Reuben said. “I’ll call Simon Oliver myself. Let me do this. Let me make the arrangements.”
“No, no, I’ll handle it,” said Grace. “Reuben, you’re our only child, really. Jim’s never going to be anything but a Catholic priest. He’ll never marry, or have children. I resigned myself to that a long time ago. And when we go, what’s ours is yours. It’s six of one, half dozen of another who pays Celeste on all this.”
Finally she rang off.
He called the florist immediately. “Just something big and beautiful and cheerful,” he told the guy. “Like this lady loves roses of all colors, but what have you got to make it look like spring?” He was looking at the gray light coming in the windows.
At last, he was able to pick up the mug of coffee, take a deep drink of it, and sit back in the chair and think. He really had no idea how Laura would take it, but she’d know as surely as he knew that what Felix had just said was true.
Fate had given him an extraordinary gift.
This was the only natural child to which he’d ever be a father in this world. It frightened him suddenly to realize this had almost not happened. But it had happened. He was going to be a father. He was going to “give”
