15

“That was about ten days ago,” Jack told Mr. Winkler. “The next thing we knew, you were on the phone to tell us you’d seen Sunny and Page in California and Page was having a change of heart.”

“They were driving back to Chicago,” Winkler said. “They ought to be here in a week or so. I suppose they’re trying to figure out how to break it to the Rothelis when they get here.” He shook his head. “Amazing story, isn’t it? The adoption and all. Hard to believe, even when you know it happened. It sounds like the kind of crazy switch you’d find in a Gilbert and Sullivan plot, only this one isn’t comical.”

They all sat quietly for a moment: Jack studying his guest; Winkler looking at the floor as if the weird story had shaken his composure; and Laura watching the two men in silence.

“Do you think they’ll ever forgive the elder Pringles?” Winkler asked, his eyes moving slowly up to Jack’s face.

“If the Pringles will let them,” Jack answered.

“I hope it works out,” Winkler said. “You see, I have a son just about Page’s age. I’ve been thinking while you were telling the story what it would do to me to lose his respect, his love. It must be hell for Pringle.” He spoke with paternal compassion.

“I don’t doubt it,” Jack said with a nod.

The clock sounded the half-hour. It was five-thirty in the morning, and the chime brought Winkler to his feet.

“I have to go,” he said. “I shouldn’t have kept you youngsters up all night.”

“Our pleasure, Mr. Winkler,” Jack said. “We enjoyed it.”

“If you hear from Sunny and Page again, I’d like to know whether they’re all right,” Winkler said.

“We’ll give you a call,” Jack offered.

“You ... might have trouble reaching me. Page said he’d contact you at the end of the week. Can I call you then?”

“Sure,” Jack said, smiling at the dodge.

At the front door Winkler turned. “Thanks for the dinner, Laura,” he said.

“I’m glad you liked it,” she answered, standing beside Jack.

Winkler hesitated. “Do you think,” he said, “that Page ever really loved his step-father?”

“I think he still does, very much,” Jack said. “It’s just a question of pride now. It’s hard to admit you’ve been wrong. And Pringle’s in line for a few apologies of his own. He shouldn’t have followed them to L. A.”

“I guess not. He must have had had the best intentions, but ... the road to hell, and all that. Well!” He brought himself up straight and back to reality. “Thank you again. And good night.”

* * *

“He’s a funny old guy,” Jack said.

“Probably a lot like Mr. Pringle,” Laura agreed. “Aristocratic, high principles, and all. But Jack, you shouldn’t have told him—”

“But, darling, I wanted to,” he said, turning around and taking her in his arms. Jack and Laura were about the same height, but he always made her feel small and feminine. In spite of her own odd nature, she loved him. He was her home, her refuge. And his love was her security. Through Jack she could understand Sunny’s need for Page.

“I’m afraid someday you’ll hurt Betsy,” Laura chided. “You don’t have to tell people you’re gay.”

“I had to make Winkler understand,” he said. “It was part of the story.”

“It shocked him, though.”

“He’ll recover.” He kissed her forehead, in a gesture as intimate as things normally got between them, and said, “Come on. We can squeeze in a nap before Betsy wakes up.”

* * *

Jack was expecting Page’s call, but not the very next day. He was startled to hear the familiar voice saying, “Jack, how are you? This is Page Pringle.”

“How are you, old buddy?” Jack answered with a calm he didn’t feel.

Abashed, Page said, “Did you know we were in Chicago?”

“We knew you were coming,” Jack said. “Talked to June. How are you?”

“Okay, thanks. We flew back.” Page, who didn’t deserve Jack’s friendliness, was grateful and surprised. He talked a little too fast to cover his emotions. “We damn near didn’t make it, though. Got lost. On the high desert.” His voice was suddenly terribly tired.

“My God,” Jack said. “Are you all right? Sunny—”

“I am, but Sunny’s over at Wesley Memorial Hospital. She’s in labor. It’s a miracle that baby didn’t come out there on the sand.”

“It’s premature, isn’t it?” Jack said. Laura was hovering anxiously over him now.

“About nine weeks. Sunny’s doctor just flew in from New York. He knows the case and she wanted him here for the delivery. They say he’s a damn good man.”

“Settick?”

“You know him?” Page said.

“Sure. He delivered Betsy.”

“That’s right, I’d forgotten.” Page couldn’t say more without making some kind of apology, however clumsy. “Jack ... I want to tell you—”

“Forget it, boy.”

“No, let me say it. I can’t look you in the eye till I say I’m sorry. You said a mouthful that night, and I behaved like an ass. I guess because you were telling me the truth and the truth was so damn painful. Like sandpapering a sunburn. And I know all about sunburns now.

“Jack, I didn’t straighten out until Sunny and I got lost and came to grips with the truth for the first time. You saw it before anybody else. Whatever I said that night, please don’t hold it against me. I’m not the same guy any more.”

“You’re forgiven,” Jack said. “Where are you?”

“At the hospital. I want to stay as close to Sunny as I can.”

“She’s still in labor?”

“Yeah. Pretty rough.”

“Want some company?” Jack said.

“Sure do.”

“I’ll be over in half an hour. With cigarettes.”

“Good boy, Jack. Thanks.”

“I’m coming too,” Laura said as Jack hung up the phone.

“Honey, it’s turning into a damn convention. The Rothelis are with him and I expect the Pringles will show up later.”

“This baby meant the world to Sunny, Jack,” Laura said. “If anything happens to it.... Well, June went to pieces over her first, and she might do Sunny more harm than good. I want to be there just in case.” Laura’s affection for Sunny had an undoubted erotic tinge. But at that moment she didn’t even consider it. Her concern was quite selfless. Jack saw there was no arguing with her and surrendered good-naturedly.

They drove over to Wesley Memorial Hospital, taking a carton of cigarettes, apples, a pint of scotch, and a plastic pacifier for the baby.

“Nine weeks early,” Laura mused. “That’s not too bad, you know. Betsy was four weeks early and she was almost six pounds.”

“Yes, but you didn’t quit eating. And you weren’t lost on the desert, either.”

She fell silent, wondering about it.

They parked their red Volkswagen two blocks away and walked to the hospital, taking the elevator up to the maternity waiting room. They saw Page first, talking to a handsome middle-aged couple that Laura knew at once must be the Rothelis.

They approached with caution. Page hadn’t warned them whether the Rothelis knew yet who he was and it seemed highly unlikely that they did. Page was badly sunburned, the skin still red across his nose and cheekbones; it had been cruel exposure for his fair skin, and it must have been as bad for Sunny’s.

Page and Ben Rotheli stood up and Page gripped Jack’s hand hard with emotion. Jack was absorbed for a moment in matching the features of father and son. The resemblance was subtle. If you knew about them, you saw it. If you didn’t know, and weren’t looking for it, it would escape you.

“June ... the baby?” Laura said.

“Not yet,” June said, shaking her head. The strain of the wait showed in her eyes. Impulsively Laura put a warm hand on June’s and squeezed it, thinking how hard June must be trying to control herself now, for everyone’s sake.

“It’ll be all right,” Laura said. “My little girl came early, too.”

“Did she?” June said eagerly, and they launched into comforting woman-talk.

“She’s been in true labor about ten hours,” Page told Jack. “She’s pretty weak after two days on that damn sand. It’s incredible how many pints of water you lose in that heat.”

“I believe it.”

“The pains started then, actually,” Page said. “But it was false labor.”

“How’s it going now?” Jack asked.

“Settick says she’s got a lot of natural stamina. The baby’s alive. They can hear its heartbeat. They’re giving Sunny injections of saline solution to speed things along.”

“Thank God for Dr. Settick,” Rotheli said with feeling. “He took right over when he got here. One of the other doctors told us he was doing a brilliant job. If anyone can bring her and the baby through, he can.”

Page nodded agreement without a show of jealousy. His opinion of the young obstetrician had been drastically revised when he understood that Sunny’s life might be in his hands.

“She’s got to be all right,” he told Jack. “The baby comes second.”

“You can always have more kids, Page, but you’ve only got one Sunny,” Ben said gently, putting a hand on Page’s shoulder. Jack realized then that Ben and June still did not know that Page was Roger Rotheli.

“June, I’m going down for a sandwich,” Ben told his wife after a minute. “Can I bring you anything? We haven’t eaten since we got here eight hours ago,” he said to the Manns.

“Go along with him, June,” Page said. “We’ll get you right away if there’s any news.”

Reluctantly, June let herself be persuaded, largely because Ben seemed to need her company. She had no appetite herself. She was so tired, her face so like Sunny’s, that Page, watching her walk out, felt a great warmth for her.

He sat with the Manns in silence for a minute.

“Have a cigarette,” Jack said finally, offering Page the carton. “It’ll calm your nerves.”

“Thanks.” Page opened a fresh pack and lighted one. “What I really need is a wake-up-and-swing pill,” he chuckled. “After that desert vacation and this baby business, all I want to do is lie down on the floor and sleep for a week.”

“The Rothelis don’t know who you are yet, do they?” said Laura.

“No.” He sighed a cloud of fresh smoke. “I can’t even think about that now. Not till Sunny’s out of danger.”

“I thought we’d see the Pringles here,” Jack said.

“I didn’t call them. They don’t know we’re back, and Mother’s bedridden.”

“Still quarreling?”

“Oh, that’s not it. You see, they haven’t met the Rothelis, and this seemed like a lousy time for it, with all of us so worried. It’d drive me nuts to have them on my neck.”

Jack bent forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “How the hell did you get lost in the desert?” he asked.

Page told him in a voice that was grim.

* * *

He had arrived out in Los Angeles in the early evening and driven a rented car to Los Feliz Avenue. Sunny’s apartment was one of the scores lined up in neatly landscaped rows on the big avenue. He picked out her number behind a waving palm frond, and then had to spend twenty minutes finding a parking spot.

Her rooms were on the ground floor in the back, surrounded with freshly watered orange day lilies, their leaves weighted with water diamonds. It was a perfect setting for her.

Page knocked on her door and waited several minutes. He could hear her walk across the room finally and stop by the door.

“Who is it?” she said and her voice struck joy and relief into his heart. But he was afraid to answer for fear she would keep the door locked. Then what could he do—break in a window?

“Brian?” she said, sounding more alert this time.

Page had no way of knowing Richie Settick’s brother’s name. He only knew Sunny seemed to be expecting a man and his sudden anger triggered the voice out of his throat. “Sunny? It’s me, darling. Page.” Silence. “Let me in.” Again, silence. “Sunny, can’t you hear me? Darling, let me in.”

Very slowly the door opened. Sunny’s face, heart-catchingly lovely, gazed out. They studied each other warily. She put a protective hand over her stomach, Richie’s warning ringing in her ears.

“How did you find me?” she said and he saw the alarm in her big eyes.

“Your mother,” he said softly.

She appeared shocked at this, but she didn’t question it. “What do you want?” she asked.

“I want you,” he whispered.

“Dr. Settick said—”

“I know what he said. I talked to him.”

“Did you hurt him?”

“No. He gave as good as he got. He’s a good man, damn him. Sunny, please come back with me.”

“To live with you?” She looked at him with yearning, resenting his intrusion, his threat to her child, yet knowing that if he wanted her back as his wife, she would go.

“Can we talk about it?” Page said.

“That’s all we’ve done. It hasn’t helped much.”

“We’ve only shouted at each other,” he said. “Sunny, don’t make me stand out here in the dark. Anybody could hear us. I feel like a damn Fuller Brush man.”

“You stay right where you are and tell me what you want from me, Page.”

“I want to take you on a honeymoon,” he said, coming closer to keep it private. “We’ve never had one. I thought we could take our time and see the West and ... maybe settle this thing.” He hadn’t known when she opened that door what he would say to her. But suddenly he had found the words.

“And fall smack into the same old ugly rut when we got back,” she said. “I sit at home for months while you make up your mind you can’t live without me. Then we meet for a few agonizing hours and yell and hurt each other and make dreadful, guilty love because your real name is Roger Rotheli. And then home I go to sit and weep for another few months. Or have a miscarriage.” Her voice rose and he hushed her with a worried stare.

“You’ll have to do better than that,” she finished more quietly.

Abruptly he pushed his way in, moving so fast she hadn’t time to thrust the door between them. He took her in his arms and kissed her. For all his strength and passion, he seemed like a child begging her to make up his mind for him.

She returned his kisses helplessly. “Page,” she murmured while he hugged her and he shuddered at the tears in her voice. “I will not tell you what you should do.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“Not with words,” she conceded. “You’re asking another way. But darling, you have to face this alone. I’ve made up my mind; now you make up yours. Either you take me back or you leave me. You can’t have it both ways.”

“Help me,” he whispered into her shoulder, admitting his dilemma at last. “I can’t live like this. I’m so lost, Sunny. It all seems clear to Dad. And it seems just as clear to you. Only you’re on opposite sides of the fence, you two. I’m at dead center and you’re both pulling on me till I’m coming apart at the seams. I can’t move one way or the other.”

“Climb off the fence, Page,” she pleaded.

“Say you love me,” he said, searching for comfort, trying to forget everything but Sunny’s presence.

She stroked his head and let her random tears fall unchecked. “You’ve known that all along, and it just makes things worse.”

“Just say it, Sunny. My darling, darling Sunny. Please.”

“I love you,” she said. “I love you, Roger.”

She shocked him rigid. He stared at her to see if she meant to hurt him. She was bravely serious.

“Good night, my darling brother,” she said, and closed the door softly in his astonished face.

* * *

Neither of them slept. Page, stripped of his pride and wavering between two identities, sat down shamelessly on Sunny’s door mat and spent the night watching the stars.

He wanted to be up there where there were no riddles, no flesh and breath, no incest. Nothing but the fire-punctured dark; nothing but the flow of Infinity.

Our love will last in spite of everything, he thought. The only question is, will it hurt more if we’re together or apart?

But he already knew the answer. He couldn’t fool himself any longer. The real question was the one she threw at him as she shut the door: was her brother brave enough to live with her? Take his sister for his wife? Could he survive the horror and scorn they might have to face? Conquer his fear and make her the strong, loving husband she needed?

He let it spin around in his head, a crazy carousel that had no starting place and no stopping; just endless indecision.

* * *

Sunny lay on her bed and watched the moonlight slide across her ceiling. Perhaps, being a woman, her decision was easier than his. Her love was her life. It didn’t matter whether she was Page’s sister or not. Alone, she didn’t know who she was. With Page she did know and she was unafraid.

Her heart dilated with love and pity for him. But if I make this decision for him I’ll be open to a lifetime of blame, she thought. Whatever goes wrong with us he can blame on me. No, if there’s any fault-finding, we’ll have to share it.

But she went cold at the thought that he might leave her again, whipped by his fears.

Sunny didn’t realize that Page had spent the night only fifteen feet from her bed until she heard him talking in the morning. His voice came clearly through her front door. She dropped her toothbrush and ran to let him in.

The door opened on Page and George Pringle, and it wasn’t any happy chat they were having. They fell silent at the sight of her, as, she looked from one to the other in surprise, convinced that Pringle must have come along to prod Page into saying good-by to her.

“Won’t you come in?” she said frostily. “I might have known Page would want to face his wife with a chaperone.”

Mr. Pringle got the point: Sunny had not left Page out of any noble desire to end their illegal marriage. Silently he ushered Page inside ahead of him, taking off his hat as he followed. Sunny shut the door and turned to face them, arms folded and eyes contemptuous.

“I didn’t expect this,” she said. “Page has always been brave enough to come calling by himself until now.”

“Sunny!” Page flared.

“Page had no idea I was coming,” Pringle said.

“Really?” Sunny said sarcastically. “Well, you seem to have timed it perfectly. Congratulations. I suppose you also got my address from my mother?”

“Don’t misunderstand, Sunny,” Pringle said. “Your mother loves you, and she’s very worried about you. I couldn’t tell her the truth.”

“You’re too generous, Mr. Pringle.”

“I know I’ve lost your affection because of this thing,” Pringle said regretfully. “And it grieves me. I’ll tell you the truth, though it has given me a great deal of pain. Lucia feels as you do, my dear: that you and Page should—should live together as man and wife.” His gaze dropped. It humiliated him to admit this, yet it might win him her goodwill.

“Mother said that?” Page asked, disbelieving.

“Yes. I was most unhappy, as you must realize. But I felt I had to come here, in spite of her objections, when I learned that Page had followed you, Sunny. I felt that I had a duty to help you two.”

“You have a duty to leave us alone. We don’t need your help!” Sunny declared. “We just need each other.” Pringle at that moment was her worst enemy. “I know exactly what you want to tell us, as if it weren’t already branded on our brains: We are brother and sister.” She gave the words a hard punch that made them almost unbearable to hear, and suddenly found herself weeping.

Pringle stood alone in the center of the room, embarrassed, unsure, full of smothered love. He didn’t know how to proceed. He only knew he cared enormously for his “children” and he thought he was morally right. “I love you both,” he said hesitantly, trying to reach them.

“Then have mercy on us!” Sunny said.

“But I’m afraid you’ll end up together again.”

“We haven’t made any decision yet,” Page said.

“You coward!” Sunny shot at him, forgetting for a second what havoc that word had wreaked the last time she used it. Her eyes darted to his mutilated left hand. Quickly he made a fist of it.

“Do you really think you can keep each other and live normal lives?” Pringle said incredulously.

“I can’t think at all, God damn it,” Page said. “I’m paralyzed until you get out of here!”

Pringle hesitated a moment and then went to the door. “All right,” he said. “But if you can’t separate on your own, I warn you I’ll do all I can to separate you myself.”

The three of them looked at each other for a second. “The hell of it is,” Sunny said to Pringle through her tears, “you really do love us. I believe that.”

“My children, I love you very much,” he said gratefully. “That’s why I’m here.”

They watched him turn and go in silence. Sunny had always been fond of her father-in-law, since their first warm meeting, and she regretted the hard words she had spoken. Yet she had had to say them.