Family Tree Part 22

"Yup," David said, still without turning.

"I'm sorry."

"Easy words, man."

Hugh sighed. "I was wrong. I made accusations I shouldn't have made."

"Yup," David said again, but he turned to look at Hugh.

"I was upset. I was under pressure."

"That's life."

"Not my life. Say I'm spoiled, say I'm arrogant-say what you want, but confusion is new to me."

"And pressure? You have it at work. How do you handle that?"

"It's not personal. I never felt pressure like this, even when I married Dana-and don't call me a sn.o.b. You've been a good friend. I miss talking with you. If I ever needed your advice, it's now."

"So I'm your black resource," David said.

Hugh stared at him. "If I wanted a resource, I could call any one of the experts I use. You're my friend. I want my friend's advice. Come on, David," he said wearily, "don't you think you're overreacting?"

David didn't blink. "There's no overreacting when it comes to color. It's there, it raises hackles, and it ain't goin' away."

"Do you honestly think I'm a bigot?"

"I never thought so before. Now I'm not so sure."

Hugh didn't immediately reply. David had actually put it well. "That's two of us," he confessed, "and, let me tell you, it isn't making me feel great. I have no problem with Lizzie's heritage. She's my daughter. I don't care if her skin's darker than mine. So what is hanging me up?"

"Could be your lily-white family and friends."

Hugh might have mentioned his Cuban law partner, African-American basketball pal, and multi-cultural client base. But he got David's point. "My family is what it is. I can't change them."

"No, but you can ignore their influence. Why do you have to agree with them?"

"I don't. I've argued with every f.u.c.kin' one of them in the last ten days. But I do care what they think. Same with my friends."

"If they can't accept your daughter, they're not friends."

"It's not that they can't accept her, just that they ask questions. Isn't that a normal reaction? Am I wrong to want answers?"

"No."

"Dana thinks I am."

"I doubt that, but tracking down her father is more complicated for her. It isn't just a race issue."

"It isn't that for me, either."

"No? But you need to find him so people will know where Lizzie gets her color. So here's a question. If you'd had a say in it, would you have given her brown skin?"

Hugh didn't lie. "No. What about you? What would you have chosen for Ali?"

"White skin," David replied. "She'd have an easier life-unless she grows up to fall for a black devil like me, in which case her mother might have a fit."

"So where does it end?"

"Beats me."

"I'm asking for advice here. What am I supposed to do?"

"Love your little girl."

"What about my wife? She thinks I'm a racist."

"You'll have to convince her you're not."

"How?"

David held up both hands. "Hey, not my business. She's your wife, as you told me more than once last time we talked."

Hugh sensed an ebbing of the tension between them. "But you do love her."

"You bet I love her. She's an amazing woman. But she's married to you."

"And you don't think I'm just that little bit insecure?"

"I hadn't."

Hugh smiled dryly. "Then I'm not the only one who's learned something new."

Dana was on the patio when Hugh returned. She watched him while he stood at the carriage studying Lizzie. "When you look at her like that, what are you thinking?" she finally asked.

It was a while before he said, "You can't really do much with a baby this young. She eats, she cries, she sleeps, she p.o.o.ps."

"You knew it'd be like this at first."

"I expected we'd never have a minute to sit still."

"Do you love her?"

"Of course I love her. She's my daughter."

"Did you love her when she was first born?" Dana asked.

He looked at her. "Did you?"

"Yes." Of all the things she didn't know, this she did.

Hugh turned back to the baby. "Mothers love. That's what they do. Fathers have to grow into the job." The surf exploded on the rocks below, sending spray higher than the beach roses. "I don't know all the answers, Dee," he said. "So, okay, I shouldn't have done a paternity test. Can we please put that behind us and move on?"

Dana wanted to. More, though, she wanted to move back and recapture what they'd had. Only she wasn't the same person she had been before the baby was born.

She tried to explain. "I keep wondering what my life would have been like if I had grown up like Lizzie will. If my skin had been dark, would I have had the same friends? The same opportunities?" She kept her eyes on him. "So then I start wondering what would have happened if Lizzie had been born with, say, kidney disease, and I'd gone looking for my father and discovered that he was African American. Would we have embraced him? Would we have told people? Kind of like, if you can't see it, does it matter? And that's wrong."

He was quiet. Finally, he said, "I agree."

"So what do we do about it?" she asked. "Two weeks ago, if someone had proposed this hypothetical situation and asked me how you'd react, I'd have given a different answer. That makes me wonder what I know about you and what I don't."

"Life is a work in progress," Hugh said.

Dana hated plat.i.tudes. "What does that mean?"

"Answers will come. You can't be miserable every minute until they do."

"I'm not miserable. I have Lizzie. I have my grandmother. I have my friends."

"You have me."

"Do I?" she asked sadly. "If I don't know who I am-and if who I am matters to you-how can I know that for sure?"

He didn't answer. Instead, he looked toward the surf. When he spoke, he sounded oddly vulnerable. "So where do we go now?"

The vulnerability mirrored her own feelings. Feeling connected to him in that, she reached into her hip pocket and removed a piece of paper. Unfolding it, she looked at her father's address. "Albany," she said, and held out the paper to Hugh.

Chapter 18.

They set out early Wednesday morning, heading west through Ma.s.sachusetts toward the border of New York. Barring traffic tie-ups, they would reach Albany in three hours. A six-hour round-trip would have been exhausting for Dana without Hugh, particularly since she would have had to stop to tend to Lizzie.

"Leave her with me," Tara had offered.

But Dana recalled David's words. "If I have only one shot at this man, I want to make it count. How can he not look at this little face and melt?"

"You want him to feel affection?" Tara asked in surprise.

"I want him to understand why I'm seeking him out. I want him to see why it means so much to me."

That said, Dana was prepared for the worst, a door slammed in her face, the visit over before it began. Antic.i.p.ating that possibility, Hugh had suggested calling first, but she vetoed the idea. She had come this far. She at least wanted a glimpse of the man.

Hugh would be a witness, which was another reason she was glad he had come. If she got nowhere with Jack Jones Kettyle, she didn't want any questions afterward about how hard she had tried.

Besides, Hugh's presence offered emotional support. He knew she was feeling vulnerable. He had made her breakfast before they left, stopped of his own volition at Dunkin' Donuts for her favorite latte, and made a restroom stop without her having to ask.

The drive was uneventful, but Dana was wound tight by the time they reached Albany. She nearly snapped when their MapQuest directions landed them in front of a church.

"This can't be right," she cried. She would be horrified if they had come all this way for nothing.

Hugh was rechecking the directions, looking from the church to a small house tucked in behind it. He gestured at the latter. "I think it's there."

"But that's part of the church."

"It's the rectory. Maybe he rents the place."

"Maybe the address is wrong," she said. "But the Alumni Directory listed it twice, both as residence and workplace. He graduated from the College of Engineering. I just a.s.sumed he did computer work or something from home."

Hugh caught her eye. "There's only one way to find out."

They parked in one of three s.p.a.ces alongside the rectory. While Hugh unbuckled Lizzie, Dana went to the back hatch and took a diaper from her bag. She changed the baby with shaky hands, but when Hugh offered to carry her, she shook her head. She needed to feel Lizzie's warmth against her body. The baby was her security, proof that she was loved.

"It'll be okay, Dee," Hugh said gently, putting an arm around her shoulder.

"Depends how you define 'okay,'" she said. "What if this is some kind of joke, and the man really lives in the graveyard out back?"

"That'll give you closure."

"You think?"

The rectory was a small, square brick structure whose only adornment was an arch of overhanging oaks. The path was gravel, with bits of gra.s.s pus.h.i.+ng through.

The front door was open. They rang the bell and waited at the screen until a woman came to the door. She wore beige-skirt, blouse, and espadrilles-and appeared to be forty or so, which meant that either she was an amazing-looking fifty-five, or she wasn't Dana's father's wife.

"I'm looking for Jack Kettyle," Dana said quickly.

"Well, you've come to the right place. I'm Mary West, the parish secretary." She held the screen open. "And you are?"

"Dana Clarke," Dana said, realizing that if she was the parish secretary and this was the parish house, there was still the graveyard possibility. "This is my husband, Hugh, and our daughter, Elizabeth."

The secretary smiled at Lizzie. "She is just beautiful. How old?"

"Just two weeks."

"How lucky you are to have gotten her so young. Are you newly moved to town?"

Dana didn't correct the misunderstanding. "No. We're just here for the day. For the morning, actually." It was eleven.

"Well, visitors are welcome for however long," said Mary, and gestured them into a modestly furnished living room. "Please make yourself comfortable. Would you like a cold drink?"

Albany was well inland, and while the ocean air had begun to cool, the breezes hadn't made it this far west. Dana felt the heat, but doubted she would be able to swallow. She shook her head, to which the secretary said, "Father Jack is in his study. I'll let him know you're here." She vanished.

Dana turned wide eyes on Hugh. "Father Jack?" she whispered. "Father Jack?"