Part 15 (2/2)
Suddenly not quite sure that he wanted to hear what his father would say, he decided to start casually. ”What's happening with the book?”
”Not the book. The tour. The publicist just faxed me the schedule to date, and I've been on the phone with her ever since. They have me booked into supermarkets. Supermarkets, for Pete's sake. It used to be that a book tour was a dignified thing.”
”Don't you have a say?”
”Yes,” Eaton drawled, ”but they have the stats on their side. People are buying their books in warehouses. Do the salespeople in those warehouses make personal recommendations? Do the salespeople in those warehouses read?” He grew resigned. ”But maybe it's just as well. I don't know about this book. It may have errors.”
”What kind of errors?”
”The kind that can derail my career.”
”I don't believe that,” Hugh said. ”You're very careful. Not so your friend Hutch.”
Eaton snorted. ”Friend?”
”I'm representing a woman whose child he allegedly fathered.”
There was a pause, then a cautious ”Can she prove it?”
”We're working on that.”
”The proof better be good,” Eaton warned, ”else he'll accuse you of going after him because I was ticked off. What's she want-money?”
Hugh put his palm to the horn when a car cut into his lane immediately in front of him. ”Not for herself. The boy was. .h.i.t by a car and has serious needs. She tried to get through to Hutch when the boy was born, but she was told to get in line behind all the other women trying to hit him up with claims.”
”Hutch is no altar boy.”
”No. None of us is, I guess.” It seemed the time. ”If I offended you at the hospital, I'm sorry.”
There was a scalding ”If? Do you doubt it?”
”Dad, I was under pressure,” Hugh said, feeling about ten years old. ”You said something totally offensive.”
”But perhaps not totally off the mark,” Eaton countered. ”Brad told me you're doing a paternity test. That says you have your own doubts.”
”No. It says I was pressured by my family to get solid proof that the baby is mine. A DNA test is the only way I know of doing that.”
”So? What'd the lab say?”
”They'll say it's my baby. But I won't have the formal results for another few days.”
”And you don't have any doubts, given your next-door neighbor?”
”No more than I have about you living all these years beside a man Mom dated before she started seeing you.”
”Now, there's another offensive remark,” Eaton charged.
”Dad,” Hugh pleaded with a frustrated laugh, ”why is it offensive when I say it, and not offensive when you do?”
”I've been married to your mother for more than forty years. And she never had anyone's baby but mine.”
It was one too many digs. ”Are you sure?” Hugh asked. ”You and I look alike, but what about Robert? He doesn't look like you.”
”I'm hanging up now,” Eaton advised.
”No, don't,” Hugh relented. ”Please. I really want to talk.”
”About who fathered your brother?”
”About why my daughter's color matters. You champion minorities in your books. I champion them in court. Is it all an ego trip? Or do we truly believe in equality? Because if we do, my daughter's skin color shouldn't matter.”
”Does it matter to you?”
”Yes,” Hugh confessed. ”It does, and I don't know why.”
”Why do you think?”
”I don't know. If I did, I wouldn't be asking. Maybe it matters to me because it matters to my family. Dana's racial makeup doesn't change who she is.”
”Not for you.”
”For you?” Hugh asked, and honked long and hard when another car cut him off. ”Why should it? She's the woman I've chosen. Would it matter if she's purple?”
”Not to other purple people.”
”For G.o.d's sake, Dad.”
”I'm sorry, Hugh, but people gravitate to their own. It's a fact of life.”
”Lizzie is our own.”
”We'll talk about this more once you have the results of that test.”
”And if it proves I'm her father?”
”I don't want to discuss this now.”
But Hugh did. ”What then? Will you accept Lizzie as your legitimate grandchild? Will you accept Dana?”
”Not...now!” Eaton ground out with a sternness Hugh rarely heard. ”The timing of this could not be worse. I have too much else on my plate right now.”
”Fine,” Hugh said, then added lightly, ”Okay. Talk soon. Bye.”
It was dusk before Dana returned home to find Hugh's car in the driveway. She was glad he was there. Beyond that, though, she was too tired to feel much beside discouragement. After settling Ellie Jo in, she had gone to the foot of the attic ladder, picked up the scattered books, and returned them to their carton. In the process, she had searched each one for something her mother might have left-a letter tucked into the crease or a note in a margin-anything that might give a clue to the ident.i.ty of Dana's father or the name of a roommate or friend. Since these books were from her mother's last months in school, it stood to reason that if Elizabeth had doodled anything pertinent it might be there.
She had continued leafing through the books until Ellie Jo called out needing help to get to the bathroom, which raised a whole other worry. Ellie Jo couldn't stay alone.
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