14

“So you finally lost track of them, then?” Mr. Winkler asked Jack disappointedly, accepting a sandwich from Laura. It was after three A.M. In a little while the summer streets of Chicago would be light again and hot with the June warmth that had scarcely abated in the dark hours.

“No,” Jack said. “The Rothelis called us and filled us in a couple of weeks ago. They were trying to find the Pringles to tell them where Sunny was. June thought we’d have their phone number. She told us Sunny was in Los Angeles. She thought Page and Sunny were headed for a divorce and she was pretty worried.”

“Then she still didn’t know the truth? I mean, that Page was their lost son, Roger?”

“No. She told us all she knew and we guessed at the rest.”

Winkler’s face was tired but no less interested. The sandwich revived his energy and he listened carefully, like a student at a lecture who would write a paper on the subject as soon as he got home.

And Jack, by this time, was speaking to him with the familiarity of long acquaintance; long only in hours, but deep in perception. Jack now knew who Winkler was. It made him feel safer and easier in relating the story.

* * *

Page brooded silently for four days in New York until he could stand it no more. His jealousy was full-blown; his loneliness made all the days seem gray.

He stood in the middle of his living room, trying to ignore the phone. At last he grabbed it with a sort of sideswipe, pretending he wasn’t quite aware of what he was doing and that would make it all right to call her, just as it’s all right to do outrageous things in your dreams because it isn’t the real you doing them.

He dialed her number, rehearsing his speech. It shocked him severely when the operator broke in after a couple of rings to ask what number he was calling. He told her.

“That number has been disconnected, sir,” she said.

He hung up without answering, standing perfectly still and saying to himself, She did it because she doesn’t want to hear from me. She did it because she wants me to think she doesn’t have enough money in the bank. She’s only trying to scare me.

And Page was frightened. He rushed downstairs and hailed a cab, driving over to her apartment with his heart pounding in his throat. Her windows were dark, though it was nearly eight o’clock. Perhaps she was at a movie. Or out with the doctor.

The small entrance hall was faintly lighted and he went up the stairs to her rooms with noisy carelessness. He still had a key and put it to the lock. But it didn’t fit. That’s going too far! he thought angrily.

Chagrined, he shuffled down to the basement in search of the janitor, whose room was behind the furnace.

“Hello, Mr. Pringle,” the janitor said amiably, opening his door.

“Hi. Say, I seem to have lost my key,” Page said, hoping his embarrassment didn’t show. “Could you let me in my wife’s apartment?”

“That lock’s been changed, boy.” The janitor gave him a curious stare. “And anyways, she ain’t there.”

Page felt like hitting him. “Where is she?” he asked.

“How should I know? Just left, without no address.”

“Did she go—alone?”

“Had some young fella to help her. Blond, like you, but not so tall. Seemed to think a lot of her.” He smiled the lecherous grin of the aged and impotent.

“Settick!” Page said.

He turned and ran up the stairs with the janitor’s evil laughter floating after him. He raced to the nearest drug-store with a phone booth. In a moment he had Dr. Richard Settick’s home address in his pocket, and in another moment he was in a taxi on the way there.

It was about eight-thirty when Richie Settick answered the ring at his door. He opened it with a wide friendly sweep, the way he usually did, and froze. He was confronted with a strange tense man whose face was bafflingly familiar.

Page was holding himself together by a strict effort of will, as if he feared letting go and blowing to bits in front of this rival. For a moment Settick thought he had a crackpot on his hands.

“What do you want?” he said.

“My wife.”

And Richie knew immediately who he was facing. Whatever else he knew, or guessed, he didn’t say. Page was trembling, and the little twitch around his eyes gave warning of the rumbling violence inside him.

“Come in, Page,” Richie said, and such was Page’s emotional state that he never stopped to wonder how Richie recognized him without having seen him before. Richie, on his guard, stepped aside to let Page pass. He had expected a noisy, threatening bully. Instead Sunny’s husband was stiff and silent.

“Where is my wife?” Page said.

“She’s on a little trip,” Richie told him. “Sit down, Page.”

“I want Sunny,” Page warned, ignoring Settick’s invitation with a darkening face.

“I had to send her away.”

“Don’t you understand English? Where is my wife?” Page was shaking visibly. Richie judged, being smaller and not having the advantage of anger, that he’d get a shellacking unless he betrayed Sunny. So it took some courage for him to declare, “I can’t tell you where she is. If you find her she’ll have that baby on the spot. It might kill her, Page. And not many babies survive such a premature birth, either.”

“No one can say that for sure. You’re trying to bluff me,” Page said in a strong, urgent voice in spite of his shaking. He had pride, like Sunny, and he would not let himself come apart in front of this man she admired. Settick was calm and forceful, well-informed, a man to respect. Page could appreciate it without liking it. He was ready to hate this man who had persuaded Page’s wife to leave him. But he knew Sunny would not listen to an ordinary man. Accordingly, in spite of his bitterness, he was curious, and he felt no contempt for Settick.

“I’m a doctor. I know when a pregnant girl is in trouble,” Richie told him. “If Sunny loses that baby you’ll have yourself to blame, not just for the baby’s death but for what happens to Sunny because of it. And it’ll be rough, I can promise you that.”

Page watched him, suddenly recalling his mother, June Rotheli, and Pringle’s story of how she had tragically lost her mind when he, Roger, was born. Sunny might do that if she lost her child. She was a lot like her mother. The thought made him weigh Settick’s words.

Richie watched his face work around these ideas, wondering what it was that made him wince, hoping his own words had made some sense.

“You don’t want to kill that baby, do you?” Richie said.

“I just want Sunny,” Page said, astounded to feel himself retreating a little. Richie felt it too and began to think Page wouldn’t spread him around the living room.

“Then give her another few months,” Richie pleaded quietly. “Till the child is born and you know they’re both okay. She loves you, Page, she didn’t want to go. I insisted because every time she saw you she came all unglued. You weren’t living with her, anyway. You rarely saw her.”

“And I suppose she told you why, you—conniving bastard!”

“No, she didn’t. She just said it couldn’t be helped and you loved each other in spite of it.” Richie lighted a cigarette and continued seriously, “She talked to me quite a lot, though, when she came in for her examinations. I don’t think she has many problems I don’t know about—or couldn’t figure out. Would it help you any to know, Page, that I think....” He paused, then proceeded cautiously, “... I think this baby will be normal?” He waited, ready for a wild reaction from Page.

But Page deliberately misunderstood him. “Of course it’ll be normal,” he said quickly. “She hasn’t starved herself that much.” He covered his face with his hands for a moment as if he were afraid to comprehend Richie’s full meaning, as if his hands could hide his thoughts from the doctor. When he dropped them he said, “I’ll ask you once more: Where is she?”

“If I told you you’d go straight to her.”

“Do you know what this is doing to me?” Page said roughly.

“You’re not pregnant. She is.”

“I have to know! God Almighty, are you trying to drive me nuts?” He reached the doctor with one giant step, pulling him up by the lapels and shaking him.

Richie looked him straight in the face. “No.”

Page gave him a stout shove that sent him walloping into his door. But Richie caught him on the rebound, plowing a fist into Page’s solar plexus. Page hit the floor on his knees, struggling loudly for breath while Richie watched, unwilling to press his advantage.

When Page could talk he mumbled furiously, “You’re in love with her. You wouldn’t do this otherwise. Damn you! Probably going to meet her somewhere.”

Richie said nothing. When Page recovered he helped him to his feet and pulled him to the front door. “She’ll be back as soon as she’s had the baby,” he said.

“I’ll find her,” Page swore, pushing the tumbled hair off his forehead. “If you think I’m going to wait two or three months for my wife, you’re crazy.”

“You’re the crazy one,” Richie answered. “And you know it well enough to be ashamed of yourself right now.”

For the second time in the past few days, the fight went out of Page. He loved Sunny and he had to find her. Richie loved her and he had to hide her. Page understood that suddenly and understanding made him quieter, less desperate.

He looked at Settick with the clear green eyes so much like his sister’s, and experienced an irritated gratitude toward this man who had cared for her.

“If I’d been with her all this time, she wouldn’t have had to turn to you,” he said, almost to himself. He wondered how he could admit this without feeling cowardly about it, or humiliated.

“I wish I could hate you for what you’ve done,” he said frankly to Richie. “I wish I didn’t understand why you did it. I could break your head then with a clear conscience.” He smiled tentatively. “You think I’m a dangerous character, don’t you?”

“You were, a minute ago.” And seeing Page collect his wits, control himself, made an impression on Richie. For the first time since his arrival, the doctor saw what Page could be like when he had himself in hand, and it made him jealous; not of a shadow or a name on Sunny’s lips; but jealous of this flesh-and-blood man facing him now and showing signs of civilized intelligence at last.

“Does it make any difference if I say I had to avoid her? And it hurt me as much as Sunny?” Page shot Settick a glance. “Will you tell me where she is if I give you my word not to frighten her?”

Richie shook his head. “All you have to do is be there, and she’s frightened,” he said. “I can’t take the chance. She isn’t that strong.”

“I keep my word, Settick,” Page said. It was as close as he could bring himself to pleading.

“Give her these months, Page. Give her her child safe and sound. After that, she’s all yours.”

And Page saw that until then, she was all Richie’s; not in any adulterous sense, but in the sense of safe-keeping. More argument with the young doctor would gain him nothing.

He left, wondering at his own self-control and perception. Richie wondered, too, if Sunny hadn’t exaggerated her husband’s difficult temper. Both men felt a grudging esteem for each other and in different circumstances they would very likely have been friends.

For Page, in the trial of soul-searching and steadfast love, found himself changing for the better. He was not yet quite a man, but no one could call him a temperamental college boy any more, either.

He went home and placed a call to the Rothelis, fingering the library notes Pat had left on his desk that afternoon. Deliberately, he dumped the notes into the wastebasket. It would be a while before he wrote anything more.

Ben answered. It was the first time Page had heard his voice since he knew Ben was his father, and he listened with new attention, hearing echoes of his own voice in it.

“Page! Good to hear from you,” Ben said, and Page felt a melancholy fondness for him. He had been so resentful against the Rothelis in the months since he had known the truth that it surprised him to feel love for them now.

“Ben,” he said, anxiety making him brusque. “I’m looking for Sunny. Is she with you?”

“Looking for Sunny?” Ben said, his tone sharpening. “What do you mean?”

“I mean she left me. I mean—” He couldn’t describe the reasons for their separation. He couldn’t blurt out to Ben, You’re my father! There was no adequate explanation but the forbidden one. “We quarreled,” he mumbled.

“What about?” Ben said dubiously.

“I can’t explain it now. Is she there?”

“What makes you think she’d be here?”

“I don’t know. Don’t girls usually go home to their mothers when they fight with their husbands?”

“Sunny wouldn’t pull a trick like that,” Rotheli answered, fully alarmed now. “She’s not that kind!” He seemed to be trying to convince them both.

“Well, she’s not in New York. And if she’s not with you, I—oh God, I don’t know where to look.”

“She’s all right, isn’t she? She isn’t sick?” Ben asked.

“No, but she’s pretty damn pregnant,” Page said.

“She’s what?” Ben Rotheli shouted over the phone.

And Page remembered too late that Ben hadn’t known. Sunny made Page promise not to tell anyone until their problem was settled.

“Page, is my daughter pregnant?” Rotheli demanded. His anger snapped over the wires and Page heard June cry out in the background.

“Yes, Ben,” he admitted. “You know how women are when they’re that way,” he pleaded. “They change, they aren’t themselves. I never dreamed she’d ... Ben, don’t be too hard on me.” He didn’t want to antagonize this father of his who didn’t know he was talking to his own son.

Ben remembered how June had been when she was carrying her own children and he relented a little. But his voice was still cold when he said, “Well, we’ve got to find her, fast. You get in touch with the police there, and I’ll—”

“The police? Oh God no!” Page broke in, thinking what would happen if publicity brought the truth out.

“God damn it, Page, you do as I tell you!” Rotheli ordered him. “If you’re not going to get the cops to find your wife, I’ll get them to find my daughter!”

“All right, all right,” Page said, deferring like a dutiful son, but only to quiet Ben. He would find Sunny himself, without any help from the police. “And Ben—if you hear from her, call me right away. I’ll do the same.”

They ended the conversation on that agreement and Page spent a sleepless night, waiting for daylight and another chance at Settick. He sat on his bed and smoked, studying maps, trying to put himself in Sunny’s shoes. She hadn’t gone home. Was she across the river in New Jersey? Or across the continent?

* * *

He set out early after the doctor, only to discover that Settick made his hospital rounds in the morning and wasn’t in his office. Page would have to come back at one o’clock and sit in the waiting room, a lone buck in a forest of pregnant girls.

No thanks, he thought. And suddenly he began to wonder if Ben had been lying to him. After all, Sunny had doctor’s orders not to let Page know where she was. Suppose she had been there at Ben’s elbow, full of stories about the baby dying, scaring Ben into lying? She would have made a convincing actor out of a wooden Indian.

Abruptly, Page changed his plans and called the airport. There was nothing available immediately but they promised him the first cancellation to Chicago. Restless and worried, aware of his loneliness like a chronic pain, he packed and went out to wait for a plane. Six hours later he got a place. He never thought to call the Sunday Magazine until he was airborne and then dismissed it with a silent curse.

He timed his arrival in Hillsburg for nine o’clock the next morning, when Ben would be gone for the day. If Sunny was there it would be a lot easier to abduct her from her mother than her father.

He drove up and parked his rented car in the Rotheli’s back driveway. There was no sound, no signal to warn June, who was washing dishes in the kitchen, that he was coming. She saw him standing in the doorway and gave a small shriek. A cup hit the sink and shattered.

Page smiled at her, but his eyes searched the room, looking for traces of Sunny.

“Hello, June,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” At the sound of his voice she began to cry. “It’s all right,” he said, dismayed at having to comfort her.

“Page!” she exclaimed at last.

He took her into bashful arms and hugged her.

“Is she here? I thought she might have asked you not to tell me,” he said, unable to postpone the question.

“I’m so glad to see you,” June wept, making him wait anyway for the answer. “You terrified us when you called.”

“But Sunny ... is she—”

“No, she isn’t with us.”

His face fell. He looked so completely whipped that she put her hands against his cheeks, a little caress of Sunny’s that touched him. “I probably shouldn’t tell you ... but we got a telegram from her late last night. She’s fine.”

“Thank God!” He leaned heavily against the wall, pulling June with him. It was all happening too fast. His heart labored like a bellows.

“We tried to call you right away, but you weren’t home,” June said. “And your office this morning said they didn’t know where you were either. So then we began to worry about you.” She laughed with relief, a laugh like Sunny’s that made Page ache. He had never before realized how alike they were.

“Where is she?” he said.

“I can’t tell you,” June said, looking away.

“Now don’t you pull that on me!” he protested. “June, she’s my wife. I adore her. I’m going insane without her,” he cried passionately.

June had thought she could tell him everything over the phone. Instead here he was, sweating and desperate, in her own kitchen. His eyes were on her like two green lights, and he clutched her arms with his hands.

She wanted to tell him. She couldn’t help it. She felt the same attraction to him that Ben had when they met. But Sunny’s wire was explicit: “Don’t give Page my address. Very important.”

“She said not to tell you, Page,” June apologized.

“Of course she did, she’s mad at me,” he said, using any argument he could to soften her up. “June, I’ll die without that girl. I can’t help it if I sound melodramatic. All I ask is a chance to talk to her, to explain. How can I when I don’t even know where she is?”

It sounded so logical. June was sentimental and loving, and she wavered. Page implored her to give him the address. She heard the pain and the love in his voice and wished Ben were there to handle him instead.

How could two people patch up a marriage if they were a country apart? she asked herself. Besides, Sunny was pregnant now. June knew how that went, how miserable you felt, how irritable and unreasonable. And how terribly you needed your husband.

She thought of her own suffering when Roger was due and how hard she had leaned on Ben then, calling him names and abusing him. But he had been strong and patient, and her gratitude had never faded.

She was sure Sunny was being stubborn and silly. Whatever the quarrel, it didn’t merit a divorce. And yet Sunny was setting up residence in another state. June knew how the young Pringles loved each other and she finally broke in on Page’s disjointed tirade.

“Ben will kill me when he finds out,” she said uncertainly, “but I think Sunny needs you as much as I once needed him.”

Page waited, afraid to speak for fear she would change her mind. At last she pointed to the telegram in a letter holder on the kitchen table. Page sprang across the room and grabbed it, scribbling Sunny’s address on a paper napkin: 4225 Los Feliz, Los Angeles, California.

“Los Angeles! What’s in Los Angeles?” he said.

“Sunny.” June smiled.

“My God, the Coast.” He stashed his astonishment in a pocket with her address. “June, you’re a saint!” He gave her a violent hug and dashed out. June ran after him, startled at his odd behavior.

“Page, wait! Where are you going?” she called.

“To get my wife.”

“But you haven’t been here ten minutes. Ben will want to see you. What shall I tell him?”

But Page was already backing out. He waved at her and turned down the drive.

* * *

June went back in the house and called Jack and Laura Mann. She hadn’t met them but she’d heard Page mention them and knew them second-hand through Sunny’s letters. She told the Manns where Sunny was and Page was headed, and they gave her the Pringles’ phone number.

June introduced herself to George Pringle in a friendly voice, assuring him that Sunny was fine and Page would soon be with her. “And they’re expecting a baby!” she said cheerfully. “I’m sure they won’t mind if I tell you.” But she was surprised when her news seemed to aggravate him.

“What’s she doing in California?” Pringle said, in a voice sharp enough to hurt June’s feelings.

“They quarreled,” she said.

“What about?”

“Sunny didn’t say. But she’s acting foolish. She wouldn’t even give Page her address—”

“But you did? Aren’t you interfering a bit, Mrs. Rotheli?”

“Mr. Pringle, I didn’t have to call and tell you any of this,” June replied. “And if you’re going to be unpleasant—”

“Forgive me,” he said hastily. “You must understand that I’m worried.”

“I don’t think you need to be. They’re in love and they’ll work it out. It’s hard for a man to comprehend what a girl feels like when she’s pregnant. She doesn’t believe it now, but her husband is the best medicine for her.”

Pringle understood from the conversation that the Rothelis had no idea Page was their son. “Mrs. Rotheli, I think this is more serious than you realize,” Pringle began, but he couldn’t tell her the rest of it. It would have been brutal, unforgivably impersonal, over the phone.

But he felt something had better be done about it at once. It was his plain moral obligation to protect Page and Sunny from themselves. If he could do it only by following them to Los Angeles, that is what he would do.

He thanked June and hung up, calling O’Hare Field for jet reservations the moment his line was clear.

“I’m going out there tonight,” he told his wife moments later. “I’m certain Sunny went there to escape Page and I can’t understand why he doesn’t take this God-given chance to let her go. I know how much he loves her. Lord knows it isn’t easy for the boy. But she’s done all a woman can to help him, and he knows how evil this relationship is.”

“George,” his wife said mildly, “stay home.”

“What?” He stared at her. They so rarely disagreed on anything that it shocked him to hear her object. “Somebody has to help them, Lucia. They haven’t strength to help themselves.”

“Don’t you think they have more strength at their age than you have at yours?”

He left his packing momentarily to explain, “It’s not a question of physical vigor, my dear.”

“George, I’ve thought about this till my head ached.”

“Of course you did. We agreed long ago their marriage wasn’t valid.”

“We agreed. You and I. They didn’t.”

“They are very young, very much in love,” he said formally. “You have to remember what that feels like, Lucia dear.”

“I remember,” she murmured. “Do you?”

“Why certainly. Only for a woman, it’s different. They’re not as reasonable as a man. They have a weaker sense of honor and morality.”

“I am an honorable and moral woman, George,” Lucia said with great dignity, “and I believe Sunny is, too. She deserves a chance to keep Page if she can win him away from your stuffy principles.” She stopped, amazed at herself.

Pringle dropped a handful of underclothes and marched to her bedside to stamp out the anarchy. “Lucia, do you feel well?” he said, restrained but not unkind. She began to cry and he added gently, “My dear, I love both of those children. I’d give my soul to change things, but I can’t. They have to be separated. They are not husband and wife, they are brother and sister. Once you understand that, you see at once what must be done.”

“I can’t believe she meant to leave Page forever,” Lucia said. “I can’t believe it’s right for us to meddle. They don’t want your help, George.”

“They need it. It’s my moral duty—”

“It’s your moral duty to mind your own affairs!” she cried with the courage of conviction.

“My son is my affair!” he declared.

“Perhaps they can build a life together, but not if you insist they’re doing something dirty and terrible. Page can’t take that and you know it.”

“That’s why I’m doing it,” he said determinedly. He looked at her clear bright eyes and flushed cheeks; her anger gave her the look of youth he had almost forgotten. He was inexpressibly shocked at her.

“I lie here alone in this bed day after day,” Lucia said, unable to return his gaze, “and I think about that boy I love so much: how we alienated him with our stingy love, our cold, correct home, our speeches about the grand old name of Pringle.” She caught her breath. “And then I think what it did to him when we called and told him about Sunny. I don’t know what’s right and wrong any more, George. I only know in spite of my love I’ve lost my son. I wouldn’t care if Sunny were his own mother, I’d want him to have her.”

Pringle finished packing, silent with heavy disapproval. “You’ll come to your senses in a day or two, and see that I’m right,” he said finally. “Have Edna call my office and tell them I probably won’t be back until Monday.” He kissed her cheek. But she was weeping and desolate, and because he loved and needed her, he sat down on her bed and held her in his arms. “You’re overwrought, darling Lucia,” he said tenderly. “I’ll call Dr. Blue.”

“No. No more pills. George, it would almost make me well again if you’d stay home and let them patch it up.”

He put his hand on her forehead. “You’ll feel better after you rest,” he said, lowering her into the pillows. He tried to believe that it was merely a little fever, an excess of anxiety, that prompted her words. To think otherwise was to admit he didn’t know his own wife after thirty-four years. And that was preposterous.

He kissed her once again and walked softly out of the room with his suitcase.