The Perfect Son (18 page)

Felix seemed to think for a few minutes. “Do I need to put Eudora on my to-do list?”

An unexpected feeling grew in her throat like an iridescent bubble blown through a wand: laughter. “If anything, she’ll put you on her list. You, Felix Fitzwilliam, may have met your match in Eudora Jenkens.”

SEVENTEEN

Several hours later, Felix sat on the patio with Eudora Jenkens, retired horticulturalist of questionable morals. Spring had apparently arrived early in North Carolina. A chorus of spring peepers, jingling away like sleigh bells down in the creek, seemed to agree.

Eudora had welcomed him home with a glass of iced tea. In seventeen years of southern living, Felix had refused to drink iced tea as an abomination against the tea gods. And the stuff Eudora served him was sweetened. Felix never added sugar to anything. Except, of course, to English strawberries served with double cream. Real cream that was too thick to pour. Not the synthetic rubbish American supermarkets sold in spray cans.

Felix raised his glass, closed his eyes, and swallowed. If he could have pinched his nose without offending his elderly neighbor, he would have. And yet . . . this sweetened iced tea was surprisingly good. Quite pleasant, even refreshing. “I’m afraid I have rather a lot to take care of this afternoon.”

“Of course you do,” Eudora said. She turned her face to Duke Forest, where the sinking sun ignited the treetops with an orange glow. “And I haven’t touched today’s
New York Times
. Not always a pleasant experience, reading the newspaper, but I choose to not fret about things I can’t control. Don’t you agree? We can always find plenty to fret about.”

His evening’s to-do list was considerably longer than
read the paper
. Would he have to be blunt and ask her to leave?

“Such a delightful young man, your son.”

“Thank you.” Felix waited for the qualifiers: what the hell is wrong with him; does he ever sit still; why does he blink and grimace nonstop?

“And what a gift he has for dealing with the harsh realities of the world. I’m sure Tourette’s has given him more than one disadvantage, but he sure doesn’t act that way. I spent many years in mental wards, and—”

“My son is not mentally ill.”

“I didn’t say that he was. I believe Tourette’s is classified as a neurological disorder, but I doubt that has always been the case. My twin sister was a paranoid schizophrenic. Well, we didn’t know that for years. Sadly, neither she nor Mama handled the diagnosis with grace. She passed five years back. All in all, it was a blessing.”

“How did your father handle it?” Felix had to ask.

“Daddy left to cohabit with the maid in quite the scandal. I don’t think men of his generation knew how to handle women who were different, women who didn’t conform. And when he discovered I was a lesbian—”

Felix choked on a mouthful of tea. Ella had omitted that part of the potted bio.

“Bless your heart, did I offend? I don’t filter these days. Speaking one’s mind is the sole advantage of age. Sad that we have to wait until our later years to figure that out.”

“I was surprised, not offended.” Felix slapped his chest. “My older brother was gay. He died.”

Eudora eyeballed him. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“It’s been twelve years.”

“But time doesn’t heal all wounds, does it?”

“No.” Felix stared into his tea.

Furious rustling came from a drift of leaves on the forest floor.

“What a rumpus.” Eudora sipped her tea. “This weather sure has every living creature fooling around.”

Felix glanced at her sideways. Please God, she wasn’t going anywhere creepy with this, was she?

“Harry and that young sweetheart of his make a fine couple.”

On the other side of the sliding glass doors, Harry and Sammie lay entwined on the living room sofa, watching a movie. Harry was so still, he had to be asleep. Or maybe not, since he had just scratched his head. Intriguing. Maybe dopamine suppressed the tics; maybe love was a natural cure for Tourette’s.

“I’m not sure they are a couple,” Felix said. “Officially, that is.” How could he explain something he didn’t understand, and why would he even try?

“Youngsters have their own way of doing things. But those two are as much in love as I’ve ever seen. I bet you and Ella were one fine couple. Y’all still are. You so dark, Ella so fair. I didn’t see a single picture of you in the house. Lots of photos of Harry—Harry as a baby; Harry sitting on a toy dump truck; Harry dressed for his first day of kindergarten, I assume, with a multicolored backpack and matching outfit.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Felix noted Harry’s red plaid shirt and clashing purple jeans. If Harry had a style, Felix couldn’t identify it. “Hard to believe, but Harry used to like everything to match.”

“Yes.” Eudora trailed off. “So many pictures of Harry, but none of his handsome parents, and I had to wonder why.”

“Were you snooping?”

“Wouldn’t be much of a crazy neighbor if I didn’t snoop, now, would I? Don’t you have a good nose around when you’re in a house for the first time—see what you can learn? See what’s missing.”

Was she finding fault? “I’m not one for photos. That’s Ella’s territory.”

“And Harry can’t take the occasional photo of his parents while y’all are on vacation?”

“We don’t really have vacations.” Holidays, spent in England, were classified as duty visits. When Harry was younger, they’d squeezed in the occasional sightseeing trip—to York, to Bath—but the last two visits had been devoted to overseeing Mother’s affairs, and Harry and Ella had restricted their tourism to the Tower of London and the Imperial War Museum. And, from what he could remember, a number of rather expensive cream teas.

“Next time I come, I expect to see a picture of you and Ella on your wedding day.”

“I’m not sure I know where the wedding photos are.” The photo of his pregnant bride, the one he kept by his side of the bed so he could see it first thing every morning, was not for public viewing.

“Oh, I’m sure if you search you’ll find something.”

“I’m stretched a little thin, Eudora—”

“I bet she was beautiful. As a young woman.”

“Yes,” Felix said. “She was. Still is.”

“Tell me how you met. In London, I believe?”

He gave her his hardest stare, but she merely raised her eyebrows. “How did you know?” he said.

“Ella told me once. I was telling her about meeting Dahlia. Love at first sight.”

“And Dahlia was married?”
Two can play the Ella-told-me game.

“Oh, yes. Happily married to her childhood sweetheart. But we met, and it was one of those life-changing events you can’t ignore. Like a category five hurricane knocking on your front door. You can’t really escape from that, even if you want to.”

“Meeting Ella was life changing.” The words slipped out unedited.

“I imagine it was.” Eudora cocked her head to the side.

Felix smiled. He was back on the Tube, seeing Ella’s face for the first time, knowing she held the power to break his heart and not caring. “We were on the London Underground, and the train was stuck in a tunnel during rush hour. Ella’s claustrophobic, which of course I didn’t know at the time, but I could tell she was anxious.”

“How very astute of you.”

“I’d been watching her; it was hard not to. She’s never been a woman to blend in.”

Eudora patted the back of his hand; Felix tried not to flinch.

“Her companion had his Walkman on and was singing along, oblivious. She was grabbing at the overhead strap and horribly pale. Once I realized she was about to faint, I made sure I was the first person she saw when she woke up. In fact, I caught her.”

Eudora smiled her slow, easy smile. “And the man with the Walkman?”

“Her boss, a famous jewelry designer. They met in college, and when his career took off, he asked Ella to move to London to be his production manager. It was a step sideways for her, since Ella’s dream was always to have a small jewelry shop of her own and do mainly custom work. It was the first time she walked away from her calling. The second time was for Harry.”

“Were they romantically involved?”

“No, he’s gay. He had a crush on my brother for a while.” Felix’s sigh lingered like acid reflux. “Everyone did—gay or straight.”

A male cardinal dive-bombed the glass door and flapped against it frantically for several seconds before flying off. The bird had done the same thing several times this week. Either cardinals had no ability to learn from their mistakes, or this one had brain damage. Why keep doing the same thing, day after day, with no hope of a different outcome?

“Our timing was off when we met,” Felix said. “Her mother had just died, and Ella’s life was falling apart. She needed someone to tell her to move back home to be near her father.”

“And you were that someone. How very honorable of you, son.”

“Thank you. I can’t say it was easy, but it was the right decision for her. Her boss was making it extremely difficult. Unpleasant, really. Threatening to blacklist her in the industry so she wouldn’t find a job Stateside.”

“And you encouraged her to see him for the asshole he was.”

“More or less.” Felix grinned. “We kept in touch over the next five years, dated other people, but never quite moved on. Her thirtieth birthday present to herself was to come back to London to see if I was the man who got away.”

That encounter, almost as brief as their first, had been long enough only for Ella to conceive. Would Felix have moved halfway round the world for a woman he barely knew if not for the seed that would become Harry? Yes, he would. Huge decisions had always been danger zones, but not that one. Joining Ella after he learned of the pregnancy had been more than the right course of action. It had been the only course of action, because once he knew how they fit together, how they moved together, he couldn’t imagine being with anyone else. If dopamine was the cure for Tourette’s, sex with Ella had been the only drug to ever mute the endless static in his brain.

“How romantic.” Eudora flattened her hand across her chest. “Now you
know
I won’t let up until I see a picture of y’all as a young couple.”

“I’ll look tonight.” Maybe Harry could help him, and then he could judge for himself that his parents’ marriage had not been rooted in mere propriety.

Harry banged on the glass doors and mouthed something.

“Open the door, Harry.”

Harry held up his hands.

Felix rolled his eyes. “Open. The. Door.”

“Dad, Dad! The dryer just buzzed. Want us to fold the laundry?”

“N—”

“What a treasure you are, Harry,” Eudora said.

Harry beamed.

“Okay. Yes, fine. Thank you.” What was the harm? Harry needed to learn responsibility, and he could refold everything when Harry was in the shower.

Birds began chattering in Duke Forest, heralding the end of the day. “Time to start supper.” Felix stood up.

“Oh, my stars, I nearly forgot! I left shrimp and grits in the fridge. You’re not one of those picky eaters, are you?”

Mother had accused him repeatedly of being a picky eater. He wasn’t. She was big on starch and stodge; he wanted quality and nutrition. Although he wasn’t sure grits fell into any category that could be labeled nutritious.

“That’s extremely kind, but you don’t have to feed us.”

“Yes, Harry told me you’ve been trying to deal with everything by yourself. Utter nonsense, of course.”

Nonsense?
Felix opened his mouth, but Eudora continued talking. “I’m a darn good cook, and I have no one to cook for since my Dahlia passed. If accepting the occasional meal puts you at a social disadvantage, you can lend me your son from time to time to help with projects around the house.”

“That’s extremely generous. Thank you.” He glanced back through the sliding doors. Harry and Sammie had disappeared. Were they still folding laundry, or had they retreated into Harry’s bedroom for who knew what? Like everything else in his life, the open-door policy had fallen apart. On the way back from Home Depot, he’d bought condoms and left them out on the counter in Harry’s bathroom.

“You’re welcome to join us for supper. Since you cooked, it seems only fair.”

“Don’t look so terrified, son. I don’t bite.” Her eyes twinkled. “Thank you kindly for the invitation, but I must decline. For now.”

She expected to be invited again? This was why it was easier to refuse offers of help.
Just say no.

The sliding door opened again, and Sammie appeared. “My mom’s here to pick me up. Bye, Eudora, and thank you for having me, Mr. Fitzwilliam.”

“You’re welcome, although I think it’s time you called me Felix.”

Sammie grinned and ran off.

“Lovely girl,” Eudora said. “Now, where were we? Oh, yes. Dinner. I sense you and Harry need some alone time. The poor child has so many worries about his mama, and bless him, he doesn’t want to keep troubling you. But before I go, maybe a quick drink? You keep bourbon in that wooden liquor cabinet of yours?”

Felix glanced at his watch. Five o’clock. “It’s a bit early for me.”

“Son, you need to learn to be a good southerner. Slow things down a bit.”

“At this point, Eudora, I’d settle for simply making it through this week.” He picked at his fingernails.

“What’s making you so nervous, son?”

He didn’t have to answer. He had already shared too much; he really didn’t need to make it worse, tell her the one thing he was scared to verbalize. A pair of cardinals flitted in and out of one of Ella’s camellias and flew off together. Did cardinals mate for life like swans?

“What if she comes home as an invalid? What if she stays that way until the transplant? How on earth will I cope?”

“Honey, I think we both need that bourbon.”

EIGHTEEN

“And that’s everything the cardiologist told you?” Harry picked up his fork, then put it down for a second time.

They were sitting at the dining room table, two half-eaten plates of shrimp and grits between them. Shrimp and grits were a rare treat, but Felix had no appetite—even for illicit carbohydrates. He pushed his plate away; Harry mirrored him.

“You know everything I know. Your mother is in class three heart failure, and she’s on the transplant list. Dr. Beaubridge is optimistic that medical therapy will allow her to come home in two weeks, but she’s going to be weak.” Felix patted his mouth with his napkin. “And probably in a wheelchair. Any physical activity will exhaust her.”

“This changes everything, Dad. I have to see her.”

“No, Harry. Your mother was adamant.” Felix picked up their water glasses. “Please clear the table.”

Harry stood and started jiggling. “Class three heart failure, when there are only four levels? How can that be good? Anything can happen. Anything. I have to see her. Please.”

“Your mother made me promise, Harry.”

“Then break your promise!” Harry’s voice cracked, not with a vocal tic, not with anger, but with raw desperation.

Felix rose to his feet, too. He carefully pushed his chair back into place and kept his eyes lowered. If Harry started crying, he didn’t want to be a witness. “I will not do that.”

“What if some promises are meant to be broken? I know you’re trying to protect Mom’s wishes, but—no offense, Dad—this is bullshit, and you know it. She’s got to stop trying to hold me and Gramps at arm’s length. She’s got to accept that we have a right to be concerned. And what if seeing me actually helps, reminds her of—of”—Harry’s head started jerking as if he were flicking a switch on and off, on and off; Felix waited—“all she has to fight for? When Uncle Tom was dying, you flew out to California to be with him, right?”

“Keep Uncle Tom out of this.” Felix hadn’t meant to threaten, but he was not prepared to relive bad decisions made while Tom was in hospice. “Your mother isn’t dying, Harry. She’s on the transplant list.”

“I need to go see her.” Harry repeated the head jerk. This time, the tic was more violent. “Please, I need to see her.”

Felix turned away, unable to shake the memory of Tom’s voice: “I need you to come, Felix.” But he’d waited, made excuses because he couldn’t accept that Tom wasn’t Tom—unchanged and unchangeable. Another deal was in the works, he couldn’t leave Ella and Harry, and then it was too late. Tom was dead.

Harry followed him into the kitchen, but without the plates.

“Harry, I asked you to clear the table.”

“I know, but just listen. Mom’s always talking about instinct—about following your gut. What’s your gut telling you about this? You must understand, Dad. What kind of a person would I be if I didn’t want to go see her?”

I need you to come, Felix.

“I’ll make you a deal.” Harry’s fingers starting flicking through the air as if manipulated by invisible puppet strings. “If you take me once, just once, I wouldn’t ask to go again. Dad, I need to touch her, tell her I love her face to face. This is something I have to do.” He pounded his heart. “Bottom line, I’m going, whatever you say. Max will take me.”

When did Harry become so contrary? Was this a new behavioral problem, or was he finally growing up, learning to be assertive? “If your decision is made, then whatever I say is irrelevant.”

“Pretty much, but I’d rather have your blessing.” Harry cleared his throat. “And I think one of us should tell her ahead of time, so she doesn’t get upset. Which can’t be good for a bad heart, right?”

So Harry had thought this through.

“Look, just take me one day after school. It can be super quick.”

“But I visit her every morning after school drop-off,” Felix said. He turned on the tap and rinsed their glasses.

“Maybe you could break routine? Special circumstances and all that?”

“I can’t take you after school pickup, Harry. I have to get home as quickly as possible to return to work. This Life Plan deal—”

“Five minutes. All I’m asking for is five minutes.” Harry put his head to one side and beamed as if he were a child saying,
You’re the best.
“I’ll take full responsibility and ask Katherine to plead my case with Mom. You won’t even be involved!”

Felix realized he was still washing the glasses. What a waste of water. He elbowed off the tap. “The drive from school and back will stretch that five minutes into one hour.”

“If you dump me in before-school care and go straight into work, you can easily compensate for that lost hour.”

“A valid point, but have you forgotten what happened last time you were in the hospital? It ended quite badly.”

“I’ll take a Klonopin before I go and practice yoga breathing in the car. Hell, I’ll even meditate.” Harry spread his arms wide.
“Ommm.”

“I thought you hated yoga.”

“But that’s the whole point, Dad. Things change. You do what you have to do. You don’t have to be like the kamikaze male cardinal that keeps head-butting the deck doors. What
is
that bird’s problem?”

“Your mother—your very sick mother—was adamant.” Now Felix was repeating himself, but his brain was too exhausted for original thought.

“So am I. Which means you get to make a choice. If someone told
you
you couldn’t visit Mom, would you listen?”

Felix put the glasses upside down on the draining board and turned to stare into the darkness on the other side of the sliding doors. Despite the predominance of pines at the edge of their property, Duke Forest was filled with hardwood trees, all of them naked at this time of year. In three months, when everything returned to life with the bright-green touches of spring, would Ella be healed? Would she have a new heart? Could anyone tell him that in three months, this nightmare would be over?

“No,” Felix said. “I wouldn’t.”