saw Roger,” Rotheli said nostalgically. “I must have told you about
Roger, Page. He was our first. We lost him.” His eyes were fixed on his
grandson with a wonderful expression.
Page stared at him. “Was—Roger that little?” He had been going to say,
Was _I_ that little? The near miss made him shaky.
“Not _that_ little, but he was small, and had those same eyes....”
“The most beautiful eyes,” June whispered, surprising them all with this
recollection salvaged from sickness. Page watched her, fascinated, the
way children are, to hear his own mother speak of him with such love in
her voice. He cherished every word and never afterward forgot it. “You
watch,” June said. “This one will have eyes like that when he gets them
open. Great big dark blue eyes that dominate his whole face. Like two
plums pressed in a cookie. So bright and sweet.”
Page wanted to embrace her. Here he was, a man and a father, with the
living proof of his virility in that bassinet, and he wanted to put his
arms around June and selfishly tell her everything and be mothered.
There was nothing of revenge left in his feelings at all. But he
responded to Jack’s tug on his sleeve and got hold of himself. Jack had
been keeping an eye on him and he could see what was building up.
Page looked back at his infant son: so small and homely, face screwed
up, chest working, small fists clenched tightly. He felt love and hope
and fierce anxiety all at once.
“I have to see Sunny,” he said. “I _have_ to.”
“You think you’re tired,” Jack reminded him. “Let the poor girl catch
her breath.”
Moments later a nurse came to fetch Page. But when the others tried to
tag along she held up a hand to stop them.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Usually we only let the fathers in. Dr.
Settick wants to see them together for a minute. Mr. and Mrs. Rotheli?”
Ben nodded at her.
“I’ll come for you when the doctor is ready. Your daughter is anxious to
see you. She’s been through quite a lot, you know. I don’t know how long
you’ll be able to spend with her today. Mr. Pringle, you come with me.”
She went off with a starchy rustle and Page rushed after her. Jack
called after him, “Keep in touch, boy!” but Page was too distracted to
hear.
June turned and told Jack, “I’ll tell him for you.”
Page went directly to Sunny’s bed. He leaned over her, pausing for a
moment to look at her and reassure himself, and then kissed her very
gently. He didn’t even notice Richie Settick in a corner of the room.
“Darling, you’re wonderful,” he whispered. “I’m so proud of you.”
She was weak and quiet beneath her falsely healthy sunburn, but
profoundly happy. She knew the whole truth about the baby’s chances, but
she knew the scope of Richie’s ability, too, and her hopes were strong.
“Did you see him?” she asked. “How does he look? Is he in an incubator?”
“Yes. He looks like the future president of the United States,” Page
laughed. He kissed her again while she smiled at him and would have kept
on kissing her, but Richie cleared his throat and Page looked up
suddenly.
“Sorry to butt in,” Richie said.
Page turned to face him. “Don’t apologize,” he said quickly. “That’s my
department.” He held out his hand.
Richie came over to take it but added uncomfortably, “I have one more
thing to say to you. You may not feel so apologetic afterwards.”
“You’ve earned the right to speak your mind,” Page told him. “Shoot.”
Sunny stiffened a little. She hadn’t expected any speeches from Richie
and for a dread moment she imagined him confessing his love for her. She
watched him anxiously.
“I wanted to say this to you now,” Richie said, “before I have to leave.
Before we know for sure how things will turn out for the baby, and all.”
“Say what?” Page said. Sunny tried to interrupt but Settick silenced
them both with a wave of his hand.
“This isn’t easy for me—or for you,” he said self-consciously. “But I—oh
hell, I don’t want to sound like a pompous idiot. I just want you to
know that I—I understand what the problem is between you two.”
He stopped a moment and looked at their faces, both turned toward him
with amazed attention. “This is the first time I’ve ever seen you
together,” he went on quietly. “You look a lot alike.”
Sunny’s mouth dropped open and Page made a sudden move as if to break in
on the doctor. But something in Settick’s expression stopped them and
they let him finish.
“I don’t know whether it’ll make any difference to you—what I’m going to
say,” he continued. “I figured the whole thing out months ago, Sunny.
The incest thing. It wasn’t your fault I did. You were too unhappy to
keep secrets very well.
“Page—if you’ll forgive me—there’s only one thing wrong with your wife.
And I don’t mean the fact that she’s your sister.” The Pringles stared
at him. “I mean the fact that she’s afraid of losing you. If she knew
your marriage was secure for the rest of your lives, she’d be a well
woman right now.
“I know why you objected to the marriage, Page, and I respect your
reasons. God knows I’m not passing judgment. I only want to make you
see, if I can, that the reasons don’t stand up any more. Sunny’s life is
at stake, and maybe your sanity. Don’t worry about the baby. I’m going
to watch that child day and night if I have to stay here a month.
Whatever happens, I can assure you of this much: there’s not a damn
thing wrong with his heredity. If he makes it he’ll be strong and sane
and healthy.”
There was a little silence while Richie girded himself for the last and
toughest thing to say. Sunny and Page waited intuitively for him to go
on. Settick walked to the door and put his hand on the knob. At last he
turned back and added, “I can’t tell you to go back together. I can only
ask you to, and recommend it ... not as a ‘professional man,’ but as a
friend.”
He smiled a little. “For God’s sake, Page, don’t let her go. Don’t ever
let her go.”
The two men looked hard at each other and then Richie left them alone
together.
19
Jack and Laura were permitted to see Sunny in the evening. It wasn’t the
usual hospital procedure, but Sunny wasn’t the usual hospital case, and
Settick had arranged a few privileges for her. Anything that would keep
her spirits high was granted, and the Manns were near the top of her
list.
When they arrived, she had just wakened from a long nap and was talking
intimately to Page. She looked beautiful in spite of the harsh burn on
her face when she turned to greet them, and Laura felt a catch in her
throat as she bent to kiss Sunny’s cheek.
Sunny took her hands with affection and thanked Jack for nursing Page
through the delivery.
“You look great, honey,” Jack said. “And so does the baby.”
“Does he?” She beamed. “They won’t let me see him till tomorrow. He
can’t be moved tonight and I can’t get out of bed.”
Jack and Laura obligingly launched into friendly praises of little
Pringle, talking with the comfortable closeness of long acquaintance,
until Jack finally said, “I can’t wait any longer, Page. I have to ask.
What did you do about the Rothelis? Did you tell them who you are?”
It was Sunny who answered him. “When they came in this afternoon they
were so happy, so relieved,” she said.
* * * * *
Her parents had chatted with her and Page for a little while. Sunny was
tired but full of Demerol, a synthetic derivative of morphine, that made
her unnaturally talkative. Her parents didn’t keep her long—just enough
to reassure themselves she was all right. Before they left, Ben asked
what they planned to name the baby.
Sunny and Page drew a blank. They hadn’t talked about it since the happy
night Sunny revealed her pregnancy to Page and he suggested calling the
child Ben, after her father. After that they dropped the subject as if
to mention it was to put a hex on the child.
Sunny, thinking fast, said, “‘Baby Boy Pringle,’ just like on the card,”
and they laughed. But Page broke in and took over.
“We’re going to call him Roger, Ben,” he said.
And the laughter stopped abruptly. Ben looked at his son-in-law with
disbelief at first and then a slow grateful smile spread over his face.
He put his arms around Page and gave him a bearhug that made Page groan
and chuckle all at once.
“My God!” Ben exclaimed, savoring it at last. “It’ll be like a chance to
watch our own Roger grow up. You have no idea how much they look alike.
Page, you didn’t do this just for us? You don’t have to bribe us to
babysit, you know.”
“I did it for all of us, Ben,” Page said.
And Ben, oppressed suddenly with the memory of his first son, went to
Sunny’s bedside. “I want you to understand something, honey,” he told
his daughter. “There’s something your mother and I never told you. Right
now, with everything happening the way it is—I feel as if you ought to
know. It’s about our Roger. You see, he—didn’t die when he was a baby.
We had to give him out for adoption.”
He threw June a hasty glance to see how she was taking it, but she
nodded at him to go on.
Sunny, taken aback at the confession and wanting to make it easier for
her father, said at once, “I know, Dad.” And bit her lip, realizing too
late that in his view, she couldn’t possibly know.
“You know?” he repeated, shocked.
“I mean—you never said he _died_, Dad. You only said you _lost_ him.
Never in all these years did you tell us he died. Chuckie and I figured
out years ago that something else might have happened to him.”
Ben stood gazing irresolutely at her for a minute until June said, “It
was done through our doctor. He gave Roger to a fine family. A man and
his wife who’d wanted a son for years and could never have one of their
own. We never knew them, but the doctor told us they were wonderful
generous people and they’d bring him up with love. That was the most
important thing.”
“Yes, of course,” Sunny said softly. She was afraid she would start
crying if she said any more.
“We had to do it, Sunny,” Ben said. “Your mother—”
“I know, Dad.”
“It was the only tragic mistake I think we ever made in our marriage,”
Ben went on. “We’ll never stop wondering where he went, what happened to
him. But in a way I think it’s just as well we don’t know. He might not
want to know us, he might resent us, he might even disappoint us. I wish
him much happiness, wherever he is. But now that we have Page in the
family....” He smiled at him. “We’ve got a son.”
For a moment Sunny felt the shattering confession close to the surface,
and she watched Page tensely, holding her breath. But Page had seen his
parents looking at his own son a little while before, and he knew he was
as close to them as he would ever be. The desire to confront them with
the truth had dissipated when they were confronted instead with his
child. He would never tell them now.
* * * * *
“Then they never really lost Roger at all,” Laura said softly. “I’m so
glad, Sunny. So awfully glad.”
“Have the Pringles seen the baby yet?” Jack asked.
“June and Ben are going over to their place tomorrow for lunch. It’ll be
their first meeting,” Page told him. “Looks like you called things
right, Jackson.”
Jack ignored the compliment. “Are you planning to go back to New York
one of these days?” he said.
“Damn right,” Page said. “I don’t know what the _Sunday Magazine_ will
want to do about me. But I know what _I_ want to do: stay in that town
and write.”
“Alone?” Jack said, glancing at Sunny.
“Are you kidding? With three mouths to feed instead of two?”
And Sunny laughed at him the way she used to when Page was courting her,
and kissed his hand.
* * * * *
“What if they lose little Roger?” Laura asked Jack going down in the
elevator at the close of visiting hours.
“They won’t, if sheer love can keep him alive,” Jack said. “If not ...
it’ll be bad, but they’ll have each other. And I have the feeling Page
is willing now to have more children, whatever happens.”
“Do you think they’ll be happy?”
“Do you doubt it?” he said.
“Page is a funny guy, Jack. He never actually said she was his wife now,
in so many words. And a scandal could still hurt him.”
“Could hurt anybody, sweetie,” Jack said, putting a hand on her neck and
tickling it lightly. “But not half as much as a divorce. I think they
could face a scandal all right, if they ever had to.”
Laura turned to smile at him. “Well, they’ll never have to on my
account,” she said. “No one will ever get that story out of _me_.”
He knew she was scolding him gently and he said, “You mean ‘Mr.
Winkler’? He was Page’s step-father, honey—George Pringle.”
Her mouth fell open and he hugged her as the elevator door opened on the
ground floor, laughing at her surprise.
“The elder Pringles are not fools, after all,” he said. “And neither are
the younger Pringles. They’ll make it.”
THE END
of an Original Gold Medal Novel by
Ann Bannon
Blood of the Grape
ROSE was old before she was thirty, searching for the right man
but a sucker for the wrong one.
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already running from the law.
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small jobs in return for large favors.
Wild Harvest
by Stephen Longstreet
A bold, earthy story of the girls who work the fields under the
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Transcriber’s Notes
The original spelling was mostly preserved. A few obvious typographical
and punctuation errors as well as variations in hyphenation were
silently amended. All other changes are shown here (before/after):
[p. 33]:
... huge picture window looking out on Lake Michigan. Sunny ...
... a huge picture window looking out on Lake Michigan. Sunny ...
[p. 67]:
... “You rather have the baby than me, is that it?” he said ...
... “You’d rather have the baby than me, is that it?” he
said ...
[p. 75]:
... and earful of Page’s escapades over the years and never ...
... an earful of Page’s escapades over the years and never ...
[p. 80]:
... “Am it talking as if I didn’t?” ...
... “Am I talking as if I didn’t?” ...
[p. 89]:
... restrained at first, but Laura’s warmth and concern shined ...
... restrained at first, but Laura’s warmth and concern shone ...
[p. 105]:
... him because he’s damn fairy!” ...
... him because he’s a damn fairy!” ...
[p. 148]:
... he ushered Page inside ahead of him, talking off his hat ...
... he ushered Page inside ahead of him, taking off his hat ...
[p. 167]:
... thumping the rear fender as he shoved to his feet. “Before ...
... thumping the rear fender as he shoved himself to his feet.
“Before ...
[p. 171]:
... He shook his head, talking her in his arms. She
half-collapsed ...
... He shook his head, taking her in his arms. She half-collapsed ...
[p. 171]:
... underneath it, till we’ve got more share here,” he said. ...
... underneath it, till we’ve got more shade here,” he said. ...
[p. 178]:
... “You still think you’re going to tell them you are?” ...
... “You still think you’re going to tell them who you
are?” ...
[p. 181]:
... “You know what about,” Jack simply. “I wouldn’t ...
... “You know what about,” Jack said simply. “I wouldn’t ...
[p. 190]:
... Vin Packer ...
... Ann Bannon ...