Part 19 (2/2)
”I did not want to talk about how you're in a funk because I'm paying more attention to him than to you,” I said.
”Perhaps what you want to talk about isn't terribly important,” she said.
”Yes, it is. What we have to say to each other is always important, because we love each other and we belong to each other. And will forever.”
”Including what you refer to as my funk?”
”Yes.”
She was silent.
”Don't be ordinary, Suze,” I said. ”We're not ordinary. No one else is like us.”
She sat with her hands folded on the edge of the tabletop, looking at them. A small wisp of steam drifted up past her face from her coffee cup, a fleck of cinnamon sugar marred her lower lip near the corner of her mouth.
The kitchen clock ticked. I could hear a dog bark somewhere outside.
Susan put one hand out toward me and turned it slowly palm up. I took it and held it.
”There's no such thing as a bad boy,” she said. ”Though you do test the hypothesis.”
I held her hand still and said, ”First the kid wants to be a ballet dancer.”
”And?”
”And I have no idea how he should go about that”
”And you think I do?”
”No, but I think you can find out.”
”Aren't you supposed to be the detective?”
”Yeah, but I've got other things to find out. Can you get a handle on ballet instruction for me?”
She said, ”If you'll let go of my hand I'll make some more coffee.”
I did. She did. I said, ”Can you?”
She said, ”Yes.”
I raised my coffee cup at her and said, ”Good hunting.” I sipped some coffee.
She said, ”a.s.suming you can keep him despite the best efforts of both parents and the law, which rarely awards children to strangers over the wishes of the parents. But a.s.suming that you can keep him, are you prepared to support him through college? Are you prepared to share your apartment with him? Go to P.T.A. meetings? Maybe be a Boy Scout leader?”
”No.”
”No to which?”
”No to all of the above,” I said.
”So?”
”So, we need a plan.”
”I would say so,” Susan said.
”First, I'm not sure how much the parents will want to get tangled up in legal action at the moment. Neither one wants the kid. They only wanted him to annoy each other. If they had to get into a court action to get him away from me, I'd try to prove them unfit and I might dig up things that would embarra.s.s them. I don't know. They may each, or both, get so mad that I wouldn't give the kid up that they'll go to court, or the old man may call out his leg breakers again. Although I would think after the first two debacles they might be getting discouraged.”
”Even parents who dislike their children resent giving them up,” Susan said. ”The children are possessions. In some cases the parents' only possession. I don't think they'll give him up.”
”They don't want him,” I said.
”That's not the point,” Susan said. ”It's a shock to the most fundamental human condition. The sense that no one can tell me what to do with my child. I see it over and over in parents at school. Kids who are physically abused by parents who were abused when they were children. Yet the parents will fight like animals to keep the kid from being taken away. It's got to do with ident.i.ty.”
I nodded. ”So you think they'll try to get him back.”
”Absolutely.”
”That'll complicate things.”
”And the courts will give him back. They may not be good parents, but they aren't physically abusive. You haven't got a case.”
”I know,” I said.
”If they go to the courts. As you say, the father seems to have access to leg breakers.”
”Yeah. I think about that. I wonder why.”
”Why what?”
”Why he has access to leg breakers. Your average suburban real estate broker doesn't hang out with a guy like Buddy Hartman. He wouldn't know what rock to look under.”
”So?”
”So what kind of work has Mel Giacomin been involved in that he would know Buddy Hartman?”
”Maybe he sold him real estate, or insurance.”
I shook my head. ”No. Nothing Buddy's involved in is legitimate. Buddy'd find a way to steal his insurance.”
”What are you thinking?”
”I'm thinking if I can get something on Mel, and maybe something on Patty too, I'd have some leverage to bargain with on the kid.”
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