Trial of Silence: Pre-Trial Volume Ii

By Diane Haun

She was waiting, reading the Times article about the famous TV Anchors kidnapped sons.
Iris, what would you do if someone kidnapped one, or two, of your children?
What would you? She was discovering advantages to Kyles answering questions with questions.
I dont have children.
Gee, try adoption. The smart mouth was hers.
He followed. What would you do, Ms. Stuart?
How embarrassing! One week with the Junta and she gets caught on the steps of HQ by the reporter everyone avoids. Feeling warm and squishy about her twins, she stopped, turned and stared: he knew she had childrenwell-guarded infoknew there were two and could guess they were twins. The warm squishy metamorphosed into green-ice.
Well? He said.
Is he bothering you?
Yes. The reply was automatic although Iris had not heard her husbands approach.
The Whatever I had to! was to herself.
Reynards hostile eyes followed the reporters retreat.
The man disappeared from UN radar.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781475988741

Diane Haun

Diane Haun has a Ph.D in theatre from the U of Utah. This is the 4th book of the TRIAL OF SILENCE series. Four of her plays have been produced. She has lived in interesting places: Catalina Island (Artistic Director of the Avalon Players, Gregory Harrisons launching pad), housewife in L..A., and English teacher in Sevilla, Spain, now retired in Albuquerque, New Mexico. One of her two daughters lives near Monterey, Ca, the other one nearby in ABQ.

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Copyright © 2013 Diane Haun.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-8873-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-8874-1 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 5/30/2013

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Acknowledgements

Warm thanks to Janie Reynolds. Born in Ft Worth Texas, from three years old a native of Albuquerque, a UNM grad, she is the essence of the friendly kindness that from my experience is Albuquerque. She was generous with her time; her part in the dialogue was interesting and knowledgeable and it saved me from details I had put in the book from ignorance that I forgot to check on until the last minute. Ignoring them could have been tomato-throwing embarrassing.

Again, many thanks and much love to Inma Domene Nuñez for the trilogy covers—now a quadrilogy—and the drawings of the desert compound and the Long Island refuge.

Thank again to Traci Anderson at iUniverse. Add now Allison Howell. Traci got me through the first steps of Volume 1 and Allison helped get it to the printers.

And once again to the Spanish Guardia Civil, Sevilla contingent, expressly to Coronel Carlos Caceres Espejo, my love and gratitude for their generous gift of time and, principally, for the willingness to share with me.

My apologies to Professor Richard Rand, University of New Mexico…his field is Astronomy not astrology. I do know the difference but my dyslexia shows up in the most embarrassing places when I least need it.

For the most beautiful of the beautiful:

Catherine, Elizabeth, Carol, Rachel,

Merchi and Inma

Preface

VOLUME 2

The writing process is a fascinating phenomenon and I find publishing as interesting although they are such different entities.

When I began the publishing process I had a 2082 page trilogy for iUniverse. So I sent the 1st book to Traci, the Check-in Coordinator, that was approximately 800 pages of the total. As I mentioned in the Preface of that book I had decided not to publish but to send the books as a gift to friends and family on memory sticks. One of the reasons I had considered not publishing was because of this 1st book. I always suspected it was overwritten, and it was, the glib excuse being that it was setting up action for the 2nd and 3rd books, and it does. I knew if I did much rewriting to make it less wieldy something would be lost. When I considered certain items to cut I would end up not cutting because that particular candidate for shortening was working. (I have a file labeled Pieces that is 20 pages of single-spaced cuttings from this book, so I managed to cut a little of it.) Then came the big rewrite after 9/11, a major reworking of the three books, for which I had no choice.

That rewrite didn’t do much for the overwritten problem. I still read and honed hoping that readers could get to a certain point in the story so the problem would not be too weighty for them, perhaps not noticed, and they could sail on to the end of the book. (Iris is not the only one around who puts her head in the sand.) The labor of getting that 1st draft on paper and the eternal rewriting that went on for years, left me speechless for 5 seconds when they suggested making two books instead of one. Momentarily I could not see beyond a rewrite that I hadn’t the inclination or the energy to do … but I happened to be looking at a chapter that jumped at me—figuratively speaking—and I knew I had found the right break in the story and that it would relieve the book of the overwritten weight. Now that I have the 1st book, Volume 1, in hand I see the wisdom of the two rather than the one. As one book it would have broken fingers to pick it up.

Diane Haun

Albuquerque

April, 2013

Prologue

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The pleasant but tense dinner, the uneventful flight from Shelter Island back to the city and the smooth limo ride to the apartment Iris owned, by default, left her with just enough energy to dig around in her tote for the keys. Seconds later, keys in hand, she looked at her watch: an hour and a half from the moment she and Kyle had stood up from the table at the hotel restaurant on Shelter Island. An eternity, it seemed.

Her man was on the other side of the steel reinforced heavy door … and the child … a gift beyond expectation or probability. Her left hand gripping the key in the lock, the right hand on her expanding waistline, What on earth is on the way? she whispered to the door.

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It had been a silent flight; neither Iris nor Kyle felt like talking. There was a moment after they were airborne when both realized no one was speaking; independently they tried to think of something to say that would interest the other. Anything could have started words, a sudden strong change of air current, for example, sighting another aircraft, a cough, a sigh, none of which happened, making the silence between them complete all the way to the cross on the roof at headquarters. The usual assaulting chopper noise did not even penetrate that silence.

Essentially they had talked themselves out, leaving both with a mountain of data to think about but nothing to say without recaps and neither wanted repeats of the evening to muddy what must be carefully thought through and kept unencumbered in order for the signaled messages to be useful and not a cause of thorny problems. Kyle had not had the proper time he likes when deciding which paths to send Iris on, too little time to mentally prepare the subtle hints of direction on those paths, what he wanted her to study for him. In other words, what he wanted the Irishman to know. Iris was moving faster than he had anticipated. He had assumed the relationship with Sean and the boy would have been more of a distraction.

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In spite of being aware of Iris’s discoveries Kyle slept very well that night. It was a night’s rest he thought about often when the sleepless nights began.

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Entering the apartment she must leave, the lady who did not really believe in absolutes knew that night her world was going to be upended absolutely.

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Chapter 1

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Silence. Soft light.

Coming from the living room.

Where Sean was stretched out on Reynard’s Bank of England couch, head on cushions, a knee raised supported by the back of the couch. His shoes were off. Brian was asleep on his back on top of him a leg over Sean’s arm that looked as if the arm was between the boy’s legs to keep him from slipping away. I wondered which of them fell asleep first. Lip prints were still on Brian’s face; Sean knows only one way to remove lipstick. A book has slipped to the floor, open, standing on end. I picked it up and when I saw the title I almost brained Fitzgerald with it. Where on earth is Dr Seuss when one needs him?

Good babysitters are hard to find these days.

Around 2015 an independent editor published a toddler version of the first Harry Potter book. He was taken to court where he was punished royally but there was no prison term, not even a suspended sentence. So many mothers queued for days to testify in his favor the judge feared lynching if he insisted on prison—something about saved sanities. From book sales the publisher made an undisclosed amount of money, permitting retirement after paying his attorney’s fee and the generous punishment. About a million copies were still in circulation, a collector’s item with the price rising weekly. Sean and I had a good one when he brought a copy home. I could not believe what he’d paid for it and unfortunately he had given it to Brian before I got my hands on it.

Sell it, Sean, then he can go to university before he goes to law and med school.

What’s with you, booklover?

I believe in reading originals, not expurgated versions.

Iris, he argued, if he likes the story he’ll eventually read the original.

If he’s a lazy reader, like some I could mention, he’ll think he knows the story and assume that’s enough. The beauty of the language, the nuances—

We’re talking about Harry Potter not Hamlet.

Proving my point.

Which is?

I glared at the lazy reader. Rowling plays with the language in a fun way, some of which is a bit over Brian’s head at the moment. By the way, you could read him the original instead of that piece of … that one. Why don’t you?

Not enough drawings. Expurgate, by the way, is not the proper word in this case, Ms. Stuart.

I fired up at his condescending tone immediately, I’m perfectly aware of that and if you understood literary nuances you’d have picked up on how I meant it.

You Americans think anything around Comic Book level is Pulitzer material on its way to an Oscar. He grinned, having won the low blows for the day because I backed down.

Neither of us knew what my limit was and I for one was in no hurry to find it. I don’t really know what I’d do if—I have the bad habit of backing up the line and crafty Fitzgerald marches courageously forward to put his toe on it again. There is one clear pattern to his limit-testing: he never pushes when I’m carrying the S&W.

Brian was ready for bed and I managed to extract him from Sean’s arm without waking either of them, tripping or dropping Brian. He is difficult to carry at going on three, tall for his age, impossible for me if he’s awake and wanting to be on the floor. God love him, he’s beautiful! The reddish hair is all but gone, sandy blond, red highlights and dark roots now. He opened sleepy eyes when I put him in bed, smiled his dimples and went back to sleep holding on to a finger. I waited for his hand to relax to recover the finger. His skin looks transparent in the distant light. Like Sean’s that day in the hospital they brought him in with the bad leg.

Sean has straightened up the room, possibly with Brian’s help. It’s too tidy if the child didn’t have help. We made no effort to take Dick out of the room, instead we put what he left on top shelves where Brian can’t reach them. We left nothing moveable in the room that he could push near the shelves to climb on. A person sits on a heavy toy chest in Brian’s room, the bed or the floor. The room is a mix of my sons, a high school pennant pinned to the wall another from Oxford, Brian’s first drawing—crayon scribbles on a wall when he discovered it’s much more fun to draw there than in the book that came with the crayons. His father asked, when Brian was not present, What’s it supposed to be? Brian told me it was an astronaut from one of his favorite TV cartoons. I wonder what a psychiatrist would make of colorful swirls intersected by straight thick aggressive black lines.

I sent out clean thoughts to the universe that the brother or sister would survive my treacherous proclivity to dispel foreign bodies. The seventh pregnancy, two births, three children thanks to one pregnancy being twins. With our family history, three births out of seven do not seem too many to ask from destiny, it’s less than half. At least there are two surviving males in the family, three if Sean wants to be counted. Martin does not.

A shadow blocked out the light: Sean silhouetted in the doorway, one hand above his head against the jamb, the other held out to me. He swung me into the hall, an arm around my waist, nestling his face in my neck sniffing me, hunting Kyle. I held him tightly. If Reynard preferred another time zone for me to love this man, I shouldn’t be angry. I should thank him, for the child as well. None of his endured the tendency more than six weeks. The painful difficult first months after he left, the three years of unwanted continence, forever seeming at the time, are long past, worth the lithe man in my arms who is real enough to be jealous.

Where do you want to talk?

Shower with me then I’ll build a fire.

Sean has time to play tonight. He washes my hair painting in the lather that runs down my body until he’s ready to make love. I wash his hair and we repeat. Tonight I close my eyes. I don’t want distractions. I came home exhausted and desiring the energy he transmits from his big hands and other appendages. I concentrate on sending him my love. He interrupts once for a long wet kiss.

Very long and very wet.

On the floor in front of the fire, close, facing each other, I can see him without glasses. It takes a few moments to decide where to start.

I’m going to learn to fly a helicopter.

Three hours to decide that!

I have to get out of here.

The bastard’s alive then.

Kyle didn’t say directly but he left no doubt.

Why?

I’ll give you my impressions in a minute. Long Island?

I don’t care where we live. Paddy and Neal?

They go too.

I told him most of what Kyle and I had talked about, some of the impressions I’d picked up, one quite farfetched that he laughed at but finally agreed to bet on: a trip around South America loser paying.

About the four tourists in Algeria, he said, He’s right, I had no idea who they were, but I knew they were there because of me. Watched them from inside a shop, clumsy they were. I did connect them with my capture. If he said the secretaries had separate rooms, he lied.

He was being kind.

Sean glanced at the fire and said no more, also being kind. I don’t challenge; I want kindness this night. Finally, the question I have been putting off, the pregnancy is nearing six weeks.

Sean, do you want this baby?

You’re pregnant, that means a baby.

"But do you want it?"

He tried to read what I didn’t want him to see. Don’t you?

I don’t want you to feel buried in babies. I hurry on. Brian will be a handful for a long time.

He got up and went to the desk, ripped off two small pieces from the invoice on a footstool I had bought for the bedroom. He wrote one letter on each.

"Sean, I think we should decide."

We are. Which hand? Y for yes, N for no.

I pointed to his right hand. He smiled.

Yes, it is. My turn to smile. Iris, can’t you just tell me you want the baby?

I need to be sure you do.

Yes, dammit, I do.

Can’t you just tell me?

Ladies first. I should never have told him about ladies last in Zachariah’s camp.

We talked late, about the move, the baby, the Junta. He said, I hope they don’t want the child.

Kyle didn’t seem upset.

He picked up my hand, explored it, keeping his eyes on it:

How close it was that we never met. Had you come skipping into my camp with four kilos of oranges, I would have thrown you out or ransomed you or … worse. The relics would have put us on Instant Destruct. He suddenly got up and started pacing. "There is a law out there … if anyone comes into camp for any reason, uninvited, they are expected to pay. Bodies are a given whether a camera or watch is offered or not. A man can usually leave without the body price unless someone gay or desperate takes a fancy to him.

A woman hasn’t a prayer. Generally, there are twenty to fifty unattached men. That’s five hours for twenty at fifteen minutes each, twelve hours and a half for fifty and some will want seconds. He was far away.

Oh, Sean! Did you ever—

Don’t ask what I’m not going to tell you. It was another life whether I did or not.

The green terry cloth robe I’m wearing is a gift from Sean, four years ago, the largest size he could find, same as his burgundy one, big on him. I have to roll the sleeves up, it drags the floor and my legs get tangled in the unused part.

If it appears to be too big, it’s intentional, he had said. A man never knows when he might need a little comfort. I may crawl in there with you once in a while.

He’s sensitive about that other life, usually mum about it. My responses are not always constructive, one reason he has told me little I suppose. I don’t blame and I can generally separate the man telling the story from the one in it. It’s just such a distant place I can’t fathom it. As a result, I ask stupid questions, make comments that unintentionally sting. We’ve not used the robe as comforter. When either of us needs solace it’s because we aren’t speaking. He doesn’t approach and I don’t want him to.

His body is tense, the dark eyes distressed. I scramble up and open the robe for him. He slips out of his on the way to encircle my body and lifts me off the floor. I close the robe around us.

If I weren’t here, I’d probably be dead or in prison.

Kyle doesn’t think so.

But you are here! I kiss his ear, the only thing I can reach. I think Lila should make us a new robe. This one doesn’t cover your entire attractive bare Irish ass. He laughed. I felt full of him and told him so.

You mean that literally, of course.

I hadn’t, of course. I meant love, not his baby, but it didn’t matter.

Later, in two robes, we talked until I fell asleep. I vaguely remember a list with two names circled, secretaries from a law firm. The next I knew, Brian was jumping up and down on the bed telling me breakfast was ready. Sean said we had an appointment with Clive for 11:00 and Kyle was going with us.

That didn’t make sense.

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I was worried. The pregnancy felt … odd … different. I felt severely pregnant. Something ready to fall out? With the twins I had felt like I was full of worms. It doesn’t feel like that. Sean and Kyle waited in Clive’s office while he examined me. He didn’t say one word during and told me not to get dressed before joining the men. I sat between Sean and Kyle trying to keep that smock closed in back. Sean winked at me and put his jacket around my shoulders. We sat there like the Three Stooges waiting to hear what the lean and hungry man behind the desk had to say.

The baby is fine.

Sean and I smiled at each other.

The baby is, however, babies.

Our mouths dropped a bit, but we were still smiling. Twins again, just what the Junta wanted.

Triplets.

Triplets! said the Stooges in unison.

Clive laughed. Do you want to see them?

Sean became quite pale. I recall something about a burial in babies. Fuller than you thought, aren’t you? Did you know?

No. That was the difference.

It’s up to you, Ms. Stuart.

It will be difficult if we go ahead.

Do you want to do it again?

If I say no he’ll think I wanted Justin’s twins but not his triplets. Sean took my hand, his arms resting on his thighs, to get close without leaving the chair.

I do, if you want to do it once.

I’m game.

There is one problem.

Tell me.

I leaned close so the others couldn’t hear. I have only two breasts.

He stared, trying to decide if I was serious. We’ll think of something, he said seriously then laughed his head off.

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Sean and Kyle had discussed the move to Long Island, deciding there was no hurry. After the triplet news it became a Junta priority. They can move quickly when necessary, this broke records. The following day we went to visit Lila by helicopter. On the way I fanaticized trips to the supermarket in a UN chopper, three toddlers strapped in while I made a technically perfect landing. Lessons will have to wait, the move, the pregnancy, not enough time. I felt it was now or never. I was right: it was never.

It was a good day for flying, light breeze, clear and cold, patches of snow. After that first storm, nothing; the big storms that winter were yet to come. Kyle took forty minutes to get there; said much less flying time would do it once the routine was established. He flew prudently low around Lila’s farm; a For Sale sign on the neighbor’s lawn was good news. He set down in pumpkin vine stubble in the field behind the house. Lila waited until the rotors had stopped before coming out the back door to greet us. Kyle had brought an attorney with him.

Lila had a Montana breakfast waiting: beef and ham steaks, eggs scrambled with baby peas, tiny kernels of white corn and finely chopped onions, hash browns, hot whole-wheat biscuits, real butter, homemade raspberry jam, juice, milk, coffee. I had warned the morning light-eaters. Watching them enjoy the meal, I had the feeling they didn’t eat much in the morning because no one prepared them a big breakfast. We ate in the kitchen with room to spare at the table. Lila uses the dining room for holiday dinners; otherwise it was there to dust. Brian ate like a field hand.

Meg and Martin finally came to the kitchen when we were having coffee. I introduced them to Kyle and the lawyer. No hands were offered before they were pouring coffee. Martin poured first then hurried to the table so Meg could pour hers.

Kyle glanced at them then stared.

Martin’s plaid shirt was not tucked in. His low-hung navel-exposing flannel trousers were baggy. His long hair and beard were more gray than chestnut, he looked older than sixty-five, though his movements were those of a younger man. Working in the fields had kept fat off. His dark eyes have always been restless. Meg was in a long flowered skirt, white long-sleeved peasant blouse, long and loose. Lila must have insisted on a bra for company. She was loaded down with rings and bracelets the total probably not worth more than thirty dollars. Both had food spots on their rumpled clothes.

Lila, in a western shirt, Levi’s and boots looked more feminine than Meg, a comment heard more than once. Meg was gaining weight, looking normal now; she has been nothing if not skinny. She looks much younger than sixty. She dyed her brown hair red when mine showed up auburn and has had variegated roots ever since.

Lila knew Kyle was breaking his own social protocol by staring. Iris was a fertilized egg they picked up somewhere.

Kyle and the attorney didn’t know how to respond. Sean laughed; Meg does her marijuana giggle, as always when Lila says something she doesn’t quite understand.

You’re a case, Lila. An elbow hits her husband’s ribs, harder than intended. Isn’t she, honey?

Sure is. He acts as if she hit him with an ax handle.

Kyle finally laughed.

As soon as Lila disappeared with Kyle and the attorney, Meg asked, What the fuck’s going on, Iris?

Sean insists the only reason I have a clean mouth is because my mother does not. Not so, I have a dirty one I just don’t use it often. I told Meg what we had agreed on for now. Sean and I are thinking about moving out here.

What does that have to with your boss?

Nothing about my being a possible housemate. I ignored the question and asked Sean if he wanted to walk around. He looked toward the study afraid if we left, Meg and Martin would listen at the door.

Meg baby-talked to Brian while he stared at his hands without responding. He didn’t know what to do; no one baby-talks to him and he may not have understood what she was saying. She gave up, filled a plate with what was left on the stove and joined Martin, who was eating already. They talked about their plans for the day. She was going to baby-sit; he was mending a fence.

Later Sean drove us to the neighbor’s in Lila’s new metallic-green four-door Jaguar. He stayed with Brian and me while the others talked to the neighbors. Sean set Brian down so he could run through mud on his way to the nearest mound of dirty melting snow.

Iris, why does your unpretentious grandmother have a car like this?

She always said it was foolish not to have a good horse if you could afford one. He waited for more. I didn’t continue. It was perfectly clear. He stared a moment then looked away quickly, having heard enough family logic for the day.

The For Sale sign was taken off the neighbor’s lawn.

When the others came back to the car, they drove off and Brian and I walked back to Lila’s. Kyle said the neighbors had told them of another place up for sale on the next street, back to back with Lila’s. It was an undisciplined country block, almost a quarter of a mile between the two houses with a chain-link fence between them. I let Brian get as dirty as he wanted. We can’t do that in the city, there’s always some place to go after playing.

The area looks bleak now, beautiful during the other seasons. A touch of Montana? Better. The children will be able to go home to bandage with hardly a break in the playing or to eat or change dirty/wet/torn clothes. The closest neighbor in Montana had been two miles away and then there was no one my age. I had to ride my horse. I’d start out at dawn to visit a neighbor find something else to do on the way and not arrive. I’d get home long after dark to a worried Lila.

But we had elbowroom.

And the mountains!

History books make no reference to the early concept of space in North America, where one moved in what seemed like endless space, broken only by the occasional lone tree or the mountains and/or forests that went on forever. It meant outdoor living because the premature cabins went up not only fast but small. Once people knew that all the space around a cabin was not needed for corn, potatoes, squash, peas and beans, they expanded the cabins and larger rooms were imagined and eventually built. Some exterior used space became interior living space.

Current space is a place where extraterrestrials hang out.

A detail the books do tell us is that early explorers of North America searched for the River of the West convinced it was there and that it would access North America east to west in no time, if they could only find it, definitely the shortcut from Europe to the spice-rich East. So they stepped into their delicate birch bark canoes, carefully, and discovered the great river systems of the continent: the St. Lawrence, the Missouri-Mississippi systems, the hundreds of tributaries to Hudson Bay, the Great Lakes and countless other lakes. Seemed like endless space and waterways. The farther west they paddled they also discovered that western rivers were harder on the boats they had explored the east in and the canoe shape changed to flat bottom bullboats. These rivers sent explorers to the far north into swampy lakes, black with mosquitoes in summer, frozen nine months of the year. Or south to New Orleans to black mosquitoes and summer delights, winters chilly but never freezing. North or south or west they were always following tales.

At first, lacking a mutual language, they could not understand Indian stories about the Shining Mountains, then they did not want to and finally, with the exception of a few visionaries, they ignored them. Because, if the tales were true that meant a continental barrier to the River of the West, which meant that exotic China and Japan were not a quick trip down the fabled river and over the small body of water they thought the Pacific to be—a rather flagrant miscalculation of space. It wasn’t just ignorance of world geography; it was simply the idea of space beyond imagination.

And when they found rivers flowing west they were indeed on the other side of the mountain barrier, rivers that dug the Grand Canyon and cut through Hell’s Canyon. The Colorado and the Mackenzie took wrong turns after starting out right, one going to Baja California the other running northerly to beyond the Arctic Circle. The Columbia, at last, reached the Pacific, as did the Fraser, in its twisted slit between the Rockies and the Coast Range, after going through Prince George Canyon, one of the worst water ways in North America.¹ The Fraser did not tolerate boats. The first mad explorers rode those western rapids once—few surviving—and everyone else followed on land. River passage stopped at the Rockies. The Rockies! The end of the easy ride.

Oh, they were there all right.

And the coureurs de bois—some great-great-great-grandfather one of them—had a premonition of what the later Mountain Men felt in their bones: western space was only as limited as an imagination and once you saw the Rocky Mountains you never forgot them; if you lived in them you never wanted to leave. If you did they haunted.

I would give a lot if the mountain movers I work for would put a Rocky or two in the neighborhood for my children to play with.

I had to strip Brian off on the kitchen porch then carry him nude, freezing and squealing to the back bathroom for a warm bath. Hot water was added twice and, of course, he came out looking like a prune. While I made tea he played with the pots and pans Lila keeps in a bottom cupboard for his visits.

The TV was on upstairs. Strange days ahead being in the same house with M&M again. I look forward to the contact with Lila. Sean’s relationship is settled with them all. He and Lila enjoy each other. Meg thinks he’s cute and liked to flirt with him. He teases her in a way she doesn’t understand. Martin does. Sean didn’t respond to her flirting and she has stopped doing it. She did it in front of me, not Martin. Had she been large-breasted and blonde I would have said something. Sean tried being decent to Martin and I have to say he put up with an excessive amount of abuse before turning his tongue loose on unsuspecting Martin. Then foolish Martin tried to top him. Sean ignores him now. There’s nothing like being ignored by Fitzgerald—a person can feel like he isn’t there. The first time it happened Martin buddied up, Sean gave him the Fitzgerald freeze and poor frostbitten Martin disappeared. He doesn’t bother Sean anymore but keeps a wary eye on him when he’s around.

Meg came into the kitchen; she does that when someone is preparing something then she never has to. Her tea was poured by the time she sat down. She sipped.

Aren’t you going to ask your father if he wants some?

He knows where the kitchen is.

He may not know there’s tea.

You did.

I pour mine. She glanced at Brian. Time to change tack. I never let her win. Never!

He’s growing like a weed.

Children grow.

Going to be tall.

Like his father.

"Your father wants to know why you’re going to move out here."

He can ask.

Well, so do I.

Then ask me.

Well, if you don’t want to tell me…

I sipped, leaning against the cupboard. She slid a look at me. She has looked at me with wonder, surprise, anger, neutrality, questioningly. Never love. I say nothing. She can ask or she gets nothing.

She changed the injured face to bland as she makes her usual nothing choice. Nice day.

It is.

Your father bounced around in my head, always said with a certain twist of emphasis. How stupid I’ve been.

Are you ever going to tell me who my real father was?

She spewed tea all over the table. What are you talking about?

You know well enough. Scarlet is not her color.

I have no idea.

No? Anger surges. Wasn’t there a green-eyed redhead in one of your groupies? I lean over the table toward her. I know one thing: your husband is not my father!

He’s the one that raised you.

Lila raised me.

She gulped the rest of her tea and stood. I’m not staying to listen to you insult your father.

"Your husband!"

She bumped a shoulder on the doorjamb in her hurry to tell Martin I know their secret. I didn’t get my awkwardness from my father, must have been his brains.

Then … Sean knows! He knew Reynard was not the twins’ father from a photo; he must know the man in front of the TV is not mine. Not too difficult if one is observant or doesn’t have her head in the sand. I’ve seen Sean studying the three of us when he thought no one noticed I assumed because of the usual How can they be her parents? everyone knowing me goes through when meeting them. He hasn’t given the slightest indication.

Past incidents clicked into place: their comings and goings over the years, Martin’s overly affectionate caresses when I was young and the sexually suggestive touches that used to drive me crazy until he finally touched a breast. I told him if he did it again I’d tell Lila. He kept his distance after that, knowing she would shoot him if she knew. Many times Meg was not ready to leave when he was, probably would have stayed after I was born if it had been up to her. They left me with Lila the first time unchristened. Lila named me for a favorite flower and gave me her surname. She knows. I wonder if she and Sean have talked about it.

The Jaguar pulled into the long drive. I put more water on. I know Lila and Kyle will want tea, perhaps the others as well.

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Sean wouldn’t detail the scheduled family meeting; only that Kyle had told him to wear a tie. He’d had nothing to do with ties before being captured by the UN and after seeing his early attempts I offered to help. Reynard had taught me how and insisted on my doing it. ‘If anything happened to my hands, I don’t want to look like a hick if they’re useless.’ He was fastidious about his public image. I enjoy tying ties. Sean hates doing it slightly more than my doing it for him.

The first time I did Sean’s they cleared out the men’s on the 40th Floor and when Sean pulled me inside Patrick, Neal and Ivan guarded. He didn’t want anyone to know and he was actually nervous. When he saw I did it better than he did, it was mine. Before Reynard disappeared Fitzgerald teased while I tied: hints of basic male/female activities while staring at my face until I laughed, making it necessary to redo the tie sometimes. After Reynard disappeared he didn’t touch but neither did he respect the invisible line I drew between us so I learned to do the tie backing up. Gross with me once, I threw the tie in his face and wouldn’t tie it for a long while. He stopped teasing.

It’s not often he has to wear one and he has started teasing me again, not today though, Brian is running in and out and we’re in a hurry.

Patrick and Neal and families are also going.

Six limousines were parked in front of the building when the eleven of us surged out of the elevator. Some of Kyle’s bodyguards went in the first car, Kyle, the attorney, Brian, Sean and I next, another car with guards, then Patrick and family, then Neal and family, the last carried more armed men.

Five short days had made a difference in Lila’s street. Movers were at both neighbors’ houses, which meant that Aileen and Halona would be able to see their future homes that same day. We had talked a lot about the children having grass to play on, fields to run in, trees to fall out of, fresh fruit and vegetables from three gardens. We were excited but had thought they would be coming later.

A large mobile home was now parked between Lila and the neighbor’s—Neal and Halona now—I assumed for some kind of guardhouse. The skirts hadn’t even been put around it. There was a wall going up around the block, a fourth house also within the enclosure; evidently someone had made arrangements.

Sitters—one for each child—took the children to the nearest Discovery Center. Sean made sure the sitter’s weapons were hidden, safed and easily accessible.

Everyone was dressed up. Lila was in an attractive lavender tweed suit, Meg and Martin wore red, green and blue, colorful and clean, Neal and Patrick wore light-colored suits and dark ties, Halona in amber and Aileen in sapphire both looking great. Kyle and the attorney, Owen Handcock, wore dark suits. I knew when I saw Mr. Handcock in the limo it was will-reading time.

Kyle and I laughed about it later, when we could.

What Bremmer and Handcock did was a farce. The unbreakable will was over-witnessed: everyone signed a paper that named Lila’s living relatives, then a paper saying Lila was of sound mind. I’ve often thought the world lost a great theatrical personality when Kyle was elected to the Junta.

Meg and Martin showed more interest than they were usually able to muster about anything and I almost felt sorry for them.

When the assets were read Meg and Martin were not the only ones surprised: Lila still owned land in Montana, commercial buildings in three cities, stocks in two banks, grazing lands, half-ownership of two ranches and stocks in one of Montana’s low-sulfur coal mines. She owned a Western Shop (clothes) not far from the Long Island house in a shopping mall. The shop was a gold mine.

Any or all of it could be sold if the heiress wished, the only stipulation being that the grazing lands in Montana are to continue at the token one-dollar-a-year rent with the renter upon Lila’s death and his family after him; the name was Blackfoot and he was a distant relative. Lila would live in the Long Island house until her death but not run it. She wanted to continue working the farm until she was unable to, not representing a fortune but enough for taxes and upkeep.

I wondered why I hadn’t known all this.

The above mentioned I leave to my only granddaughter, Iris Stuart, with the following condition: should Iris after my death give Margaret María Stuart or Martin Gilbert Brown a house or any amount above the sum of two hundred dollars once a year, the estate will be divided between the State of Montana and the nearest pet cemetery. Mr. Handcock looked up, Montana has been crossed out and replaced by New York, witnessed and notarized. He continued. If Iris complies with this condition, she is sole heiress. Should her death occur before she can make a will, the estate is to go to her children—they were listed—to share in equal parts, Sean Fitzgerald to act as executor. He went to the bottom of the page. "Signed Lila Stuart." He read the revision and modification dates.

Mr. Handcock put down the papers. "Lila has asked me to say that her daughter and son-in-law are to live rent-free in the mobile home, which is now available to them. They can continue