"So you packed your tent, to go out and live
out in the Arizona sand, you are a refugee
from a wealthy family,
you gave up all the golden factories to see who in the world you might be."
Joni Mitchell ( Rainy Night House from the Ladies of the Canyon album)
Daniel had not had the heart, to wake up Bethany. She looked so beautiful, and fragile sleeping. In the morning, he leaned over, and brushed her bangs off her forehead.
"Hi," she said bleary eyed.
"Hi, I've been watching you sleep. Is that creepy?" He kissed her cheek.
"No, silly," she said. Her cell rang from the dresser. "Can you hand me my phone? Urgh, it's my mother," she said, looking at it.
"Hi Mom," she said, "I'm sorry I didn't call last night. Yes, I'm okay. Yes, we had a good Thanksgiving. How about you guys? Oh, I'm sorry. I know. I'll be home for Christmas. Can I bring Daniel?"
"Well Bethany, your sister, Diana's boyfriend, is coming too. I just wish you'd have called yesterday, on a holiday, for crying out loud. You know this divorce I am going through, with your father, is not very pleasant, to say the least."
"But, you didn't call me either, Mom," Bethany clarified, "I know, Mom. I'm on your side. I haven't even spoken to Dad, well - I mean, barely," she sort of stammered, a bit. "He did call, - but I know. I'm sorry."
"Well I just wanted to know everything was alright," her mother, Joan, said.
"Fine, Mom. I'll call later. I promise. Love you, too."
"You have to take sides?!," Daniel asked, feeling surprised, at what he had heard.
"Well, I don't have to. It's just that I feel bad for her, because Dad's got a girlfriend, who's like my age, and it's kind of creepy, if you want to know the truth. I don't feel like my mom deserves this. She has never cheated on my dad, and she's been a good mother to my sister and me."
She and Daniel lay talking for a while. Daniel listened to Bethany, describing the dynamics of her relationship, with each parent, and the difficulty of having your parents separate, even when you're in college already, as she was. He listened, attentively, nodding intelligently, as she spoke, until Lizzy came to tell them that it was time for breakfast.
"Grandma and Grandpa like the family to eat together, like civilized people," she said, in a mocking tone.
Perhaps, it was fifty percent, that they had disowned their only daughter, for being a non-conformer, a hippie, an unwed mother, and a liberal, but fifty percent was her own quest, to make it on her own. She had to find out who she really was, and if she could make it, like someone who had no parents. Also, the tension of their demanding traditions was hard for her to bare, all the time, and the turbulence of the relationship, drove her away, but she was glad to be back. Maybe, they had even become more mellow.
"We're going fox hunting in Westborough today," announced Jack, at breakfast, in a matter of fact manner, like no one else had any say in the matter.
"Dad, Daniel can't see, and Nicolas is uncomfortable around guns. You know that, Dad. Remember last time?," Lizzy protested.
"C'm on it's the Whites' tradition. You women can go shopping."
"I'm up for it," Jim said. He was a hunter as well, and owned a few guns for hunting.
Lizzy rolled her eyes. "How sexist. You women can go shopping?," she mocked her father, teasing him. "OK, but let's listen to Daniel play for us, after breakfast," she suggested.
"Of course," Tara said.
There were croissants, danish, a pitcher of juice, fresh coffee, eggs, toast and french toast. Tara had prepared breakfast with Jack and Lizzy's help. Elaina was off today.
After breakfast Daniel performed in the living room while everyone sipped their coffee. He played and sang an original contemporary, Led Zeppelin influenced piece, one classical piece by Christopher Parkening, and a gorgeous, inventive jazz blues fusion, instrumental version of Summertime by George Gershwin, which he sang very sweetly, in his beautiful tenor singing voice.
Everyone applauded, and gushed about his great talent. Bethany was amazed once again, transcended to a euphoric, peaceful, tranquil, unearthly, almost alternate universe, by the tone of Daniel's guitar strings plucked by gifted hands, and the gentle tone of his singing, with its paradoxical power and strength, at once.
Lizzy felt so proud. Jack, Tara and Jim were impressed. Nicolas was indifferent, as usual, but listened attentively.
After clearing up the dishes, Lizzy asked Daniel and Nicolas if they felt okay about hunting, but they both wanted to go.
"Will you please, please be careful?" She looked at them, to her father, to Jim, and back to the boys again, with a worried look on her face.
"Lizzy, I won't let anything happen to the boys. I feel like their dad, almost," Jim answered sincerely, with a smile, and a pat on Nicolas's shoulder.
"Yeah, and what am I chopped liver?," joked Jack. "These are my only grandchildren, these fine boys, Elizabeth," which he rarely called her, "I am not letting anything happen to my grandsons."
After the guys left in Jack's new Hummer, Tara suggested that they go to East Gloucester, to an antique gallery and boutique.
Bethany loved the idea, being an artist, although she was still disturbed by the idea of shooting innocent red and gray foxes, but it was, after all, 'fox hunting season in Massachusetts,' as Jack would have said, and Lizzy had assured her that there was no debating Grandpa Jack, as everyone, including Lizzy, affectionately called him now.
"Mom, couldn't we just go to Target? I need new jeans and sweaters for work, and the boys need new clothes for Christmas, and I'd like to get something for Dad and Jim. It's Black Friday. Everything will be on sale. Or is that too bourgeois?"
Bethany, being or feeling, an outsider, did not want to come between them, so she decided, as young people often have much wisdom, to stay out of it.
So, they ended up going to East Gloucester, where Bethany marveled over the art, and asked the gallery owner many questions, even how she could have a show, although she felt too humble, to really do this. She was still a student, although very talented in her own right, as Daniel was. He had not seen her work yet, except for one or two shots, she had taken with her cell phone, of some sculpture she had done, and a video on her phone, of she and two fellow students, working on a collage together. Daniel had said it looked like fun, like playing in a band, with other good musicians.
Tara purchased a painting of a landscape, with horses. It had an elaborate, metallic gold frame, and was quite expensive. The owner spent a lot of time, packaging it very carefully, so the glass covering the canvas, would not break.
Bethany was more interested in the abstract paintings. One caught her eye, in particular, an abstract nude, in only three colors, black, red and white, with swift, curvy lines. She thought she might be able to do something like it. She also thought it would look great in her room, back at school, that she shared with a roommate.
The gallery had some antiques, as well. Lizzy was staring into a glass casing, in which were WWI and WWII memorabilia.
There were black and white photos of American soldiers being decorated, an American uniform from WWII, an ammunition belt, a faded American flag, and a German belt buckle, from WWI, with an inscription in German, which she could not really read very well, but deciphered, Gott Mit Uns, around a molded crown in the center. God with us, she was able to translate, from what little German she knew.
There was also a knife, that had been a Nazi war weapon, during the second world war. She wondered what kind of sinister person could want such a thing, as that. She almost felt a pall come over her, just looking at it.
Adrien, having been in Iraq, came to mind again. 'If only we had been fighting a war, that was as obvious a cause, as fighting the Nazis,' she thought.
She had heard people in the bar, talking about the war in Iraq, saying it meant nothing, that it was wrong, and she supposed she felt the same, but had not Saddam Hussein, been cruel to his own people, and gassed the Kurds? What about the rape rooms, George W. Bush had talked about, in his speech, shortly before the war? She recalled reading an article a few years ago, in Time magazine about it. And, yet it was not quite the same, although she had heard that he had had Jews hung in Iraq, and thought perhaps, he was like Hitler, and in the same Time magazine, a story of him giving a man back to his wife, as she had begged to have him back alive, but he had given him back, in pieces, in a black, canvas bag.
It had been hard for her to agree with her liberal peers, when Adrien, so close to her son, and her family, was over there, fighting in that war, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and had died, trying to save others from an explosion, and had saved life, but lost his own. In a way it seemed that the liberals were right, because there were no weapons of mass destruction, and Iraq had little or nothing to do with 911, unless there was intelligence that civilians could never know about. Was not Bin Laden the one they should have gone after? Still, was it not part of being American, to support the troops, trust our government, believe wholeheartedly that we were doing the right thing, bringing freedom where it needed to be, that we were 'the good guys?' In WWII, we were, had freed concentration camps, along with the English and Russian allies.
Bethany tapped her on the arm, "we're ready to go. You okay, Lizzy?"
"Oh, yeah, sure. Let's go," she said, wiping her eyes, that had begun to tear.
Afterwards, they had fish and chips on the water. Then they went to Target in a strip mall, back in Framingham, where Lizzy bought new jeans and sweaters for work, and the clothes she had wanted to get Daniel and Nicolas for college and school, as well as a new sweater for her father and one for Jim. Tara insisted on buying Bethany whatever she wanted, and Bethany declined, but Tara insisted, and Lizzy had raised an eyebrow to her, so she took 'Grandma Tara' as Daniel called her, up on the offer, and chose two pairs of jeans and two sweaters, as well as a sweater for Daniel and a game for Nicolas, who loved playing XBOX.
It was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which he had said he wanted.
When they got home, the phone was ringing. The land line had a talking ID, and flashed off and on again, bright orange light, showing that a call was coming in.
"Oh my God", shrieked Tara, "it's the hospital."
It was Jack. "Darling, don't be alarmed but Nicolas had a seizure. We are at the hospital. They prescribed clonazepam, because the valproic acid he has been on, is not working well. The gun shot startled him. I suppose Lizzy was right. We'll be home soon. We have to get his prescription. We'll be home as soon as he is discharged. I tried your cell phone, but you must have turned it off or had it on vibrate. I was going to try Lizzy's phone, and then I decided to try the house in case you were all back. Jim did not want to upset her. She has been under a lot of stress, he says, since Daniel's friend Adrien."
"Oh, I think I actually forgot it. Oh, Sweetie, thank God it was not something worse. I'll tell Lizzy."
That night they just had turkey left overs, Nicolas lay next to the fire, and everyone doted on him, waiting on him, hand and foot. Everyone was cheerful and grateful, as Jack, Tara and Jim sipped brandy, while Lizzy and the kids drank cocoa, Lizzy being, presently on the wagon.
"So did you shoot anything?" Lizzy asked.
"No," Jim answered. "Jack fired at a fox, but then Nicolas started screaming and freaking out, and the next thing we knew he was having a seizure."
"I'm kind of glad you guys didn't kill any innocent foxes, Daniel," Bethany said, holding his hand by the fire. She put her head on his strong shoulder. He rested his head against hers.
"Do you want to go out and smoke, and walk Rusty while we're at it?," Daniel asked.
"Sure." They went out into the barely snowing air, and smoked, while Rusty took care of business. And, then the snow turned to a gentle rain. They smiled just a little, for no reason at all, except for a hint of joy at being in love, something older, jaded people lose sight of, new love, open-minded, no reservations kind of love, that everyone once knew, and then forgot.
"Are you doing OK, Daniel?," she asked, "I mean, with Adrien and all?"
"I suppose, as much as can be expected. I miss him. He was my best friend. I feel like if I could have gone, I would have. You know? I mean to Iraq, to the army. I would have gone, if it weren't for the RP. I'd have been right there, by his side. Sometimes, I think it should have been me, and not him. Why him?"
"I'm glad you are here, Daniel. I love you.
I don't care about the vision. I will lead you around if you go blind. I just know you are the one."
He kissed her for a long time. "No one ever said anything like that to me, Bethany. No one. I mean, that it was OK to be me, really me, who I am, that you love me for myself."
Just then, Rusty ran back to them, gleefully, and they all went back inside, blowing out the last of their gray, blue cigarette smoke, into the cold, New England, November, darkened, evening sky, like white clouds in the air.
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