Chapter 3: Dell
After Arianna’s off, I give up on cereal for Grace and pull her out of the high chair. Bernard arrives to whisk the mess away, and I remove her bib and take her with me to the study.
She’s pretty good about playing in this bouncy contraption with a dozen buttons and buzzers while I do a quick look through the business news of the day. If she fusses, I can generally get away with holding her in my lap and reading the article summaries out loud. If I use the Goofy voice while I do it, she’ll giggle all the way through the Wall Street Journal headlines.
But when I set her down and power up my computer, a notification pops up to call my mother. A quick glance at the calendar confirms that it’s been fourteen days since I spoke with her. She keeps track.
I would prefer to wait until tomorrow, when I’m at work and Grace isn’t there to potentially alert my mother to her existence. I know it’s shameful that I’ve kept both the baby and Arianna a secret. But I’m not ready. She’ll want me to come visit, and then there’s the issue of privacy, and how I’ll explain all this, and not to mention the worst of all.
My father.
My hand stills over the cell phone charging on my desk. I don’t want Grace to know him. At all. I won’t have him saying one negative thing to her, ever. I’m not sure I can control myself if he does. A lifetime of resentment might bubble over.
Still, it’s her day. If I don’t call her by lunchtime, she will call me. And the situation might not be as good then as it is now.
I glance over at Grace. She’s happily banging the nose of a clown face that says, “A ha ha” over and over again. I taped over the speakers the first day it arrived to muffle the noise. Otherwise I’d have pitched it off the balcony within an hour.
Our conversations are never long. Mom has zero patience for long talks. Grace will be fine.
I should do it.
The phone is warm from the charger. I pick out my mother’s number from the line of previous calls, the same ten digits from my childhood. The call rings. I can picture the beige cordless on the kitchen wall. Maybe she’s upgraded since then. I haven’t actually ventured home in well over ten years. Thirteen, in fact.
“Hello?” My mother’s voice always startles me, gravelly and low. She’s getting older. I should do better about seeing her.
“It’s me, Mom,” I say. “Is this a good time?”
“Better now than never,” she says. “How is life in the big city?”
“Same as always.” I glance over at Grace. She’s sliding colored beads on a metal loop.
“You sound different. What’s up?”
I can picture her in jeans and a T-shirt with the arms cut out, probably sitting on the counter with a cigarette in her hand. That’s another strike. She can’t smoke around this baby.
“Just work things. You know, the old grind.”
“Your brother is here this week. It’s too bad you can’t come too. He’s all grown up. Twenty-three and ready to take on the world.”
Donovan. He was the winner in the name game. He could go by Don. Donny. Van. I’d had to change mine completely. I haven’t seen him since he was a kid, although I’d quietly arranged for a full scholarship for him to go to college.
“What’s he up to?” I ask.
“He finished his diploma, degree, whatever. You missed his graduation.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“He’s been looking for a job all summer. Finally landed something and thought he’d spend his last free week with his family. Some children do that, you know.”
I accept the admonishment. “What’s he going to do?” Donovan was always a jokester, never taking anything seriously. I’m honestly surprised he made it through college at all.
“Got some job in some office,” she says. “Pushing damn papers around. Like you, I guess. Fancy pants.”
My parents are blue collar to the core. They don’t trust office work. And they have no idea I’ve changed my name. No one does, other than Arianna and a law firm that handled the legal paperwork. There is no connection between my former life and my current one.
Visiting them is a bit of a liability. They will call me Hasmund McDonald. I can’t imagine having any associates in Birmingham, but if one spotted me, they would call me Dell. It’s part of the reason I haven’t gone back.
But now Arianna is pushing the issue. And my mother. Maybe I can control the situation. Avoid my hometown by luring them elsewhere.
“Have you given any more thought to a little trip, maybe with Donovan?” I ask her. “To celebrate his graduation?”
“Oh, we had a cake,” she says. “Marge made it.”
“But a trip would be great for him. See a little of the world before he goes. Maybe Italy or France.”
“Hardly. It’s damn far and your father simply can’t leave the track for that long.”
“He wasn’t invited.”
I can picture her rolling her eyes. “Hasmund, you’ve got to stop the pissy kid act. He was a great father. Look how you turned out.”
Despite him, I think. “I wish you’d change your mind about a trip.”
“It wouldn’t hurt you to come down here. We could have dinner up at the VA Hall. They have a pancake supper every third Saturday. Two-dollar well drinks.”
Breakfast and booze. That’s my mother.
I take a deep breath. Maybe it’s time to mention Arianna at least. Be vague about the timeline of our relationship. I’ll have to fudge Grace’s background.
“Mom, I’ve met a nice woman.”
“Well, hell!” she cries. “I knew it! I told Beatrice next door that you had to have a girl in your life. It’s in your voice.”
My voice? I clear my throat. “We’ve been together quite a while. And, well, we’ve decided to get married.”
Another screech. Then, from the depths of the house, “What in the world, woman?”
My father.
Mom calls out to him, “It’s Hasmund. He’s getting married!”
I can’t hear his response. My throat tightens. I turn to Grace, who looks like she might be getting bored with her toy. She’s stopped playing and squirms in the seat, pushing with her arms as if to lift herself out. She might fuss any second.
“So if you’d like to come up, I’d be happy to introduce you to her,” I say.
“You have to bring her here!” she says. “You have to! Aunt Marge and Uncle Travis will want to meet her. And your great-aunt Ethel and the twins and everyone from the track. Johnny is still there, you know, and Becky and Jeremy.”
“We are not going to visit the track,” I say firmly. God, that would be a disaster. Thirteen years of eradicating my past, undone in one moment.
“But Hasmund, this is a big deal,” Mom says. “Nobody ever thought you were going to settle down. You know, Barb just had her fourth kid. And Beatrice is a grandmother three times over.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her she is one too, but I stop myself. I have close to eighteen months to explain once I bring up Grace, and Arianna and I have not come up with a proper cover story.
Mom’s voice has taken on a younger, girlish quality. “I’m going to have Marge make one of her double chocolate fudge cakes for this. Extra big. Nothing is too good for my boy. Married! Do you have a date? Are you going to do it here at the VA? Becky did it there and they used a bunch of candles and it looked real classy.”
I bet it did.
“We haven’t gotten that far,” I tell her. “I’m sure Arianna will want to plan things.”
“Arianna,” Mom says. “Love it. Sounds like a real down-home girl. I can’t wait. Can’t you come before Donovan is gone? I’ll set up the air mattress. If we move the sofa against the back wall, there’s enough room for it. Of course you and Donovan can sleep on your bunks in your old room. I was thinking for your lady.”
I picture Arianna sleeping between the TV console and the ragged sofa on an air mattress and try to figure out how to explain to my mother that this isn’t who I am anymore.
“I don’t really want to be around Dad,” I say. “I’m not going to budge on that.”
“Well, damn,” she says. “I can’t exactly kick him out of his own house.”
“You sure I can’t convince you to meet me somewhere? It can be close. Maybe a nice cruise? We can take one right out of Mobile.”
I can hire a private boat, easy.
“Now, Hasmund McDonald, I’ve told you I’m not going to leave your father just because you’re being irrational.”
I sigh. “Okay, Mom.”
Grace has started screwing up her face. Before she can make a sound, I pick her up, flying her through the air, the phone pressed between my cheek and shoulder.
“I should go,” I say. Grace will giggle if I do anything too fun. Cry if I stop. A bead of sweat slides down my brow. My time is up. “I have to work.”
“All right,” she says. “Donovan is here until Sunday. I expect you to come down.”
“I’ll talk to Arianna about it,” I say.
“She better say yes if I’m going to like her,” she says.
“That’s ridiculous, Mom,” I say.
“So is not visiting for thirteen years!”
She’s got me there. “All right. Talk soon.”
I bring Grace down and kill the call just before the first fussy cry.
That was close.
But now I have a real dilemma. My mother expects me in a big way. Arianna wants to meet her and I don’t want everybody to start off on the wrong foot.
But I don’t see how I can go to Alabama with an eight-month-old baby and a four-month-old relationship.