Family Merger

“Why?”

“He said the boy was a shiftless bloodsucker. He said my sister had been stealing stuff from his office. Elizabeth was a little wild, but she wouldn’t have done anything like that.”

“Did you do anything to help?”

“I wasn’t there. I was the good daughter who did everything Mom and Dad wanted. I was at boarding school. Elizabeth got herself kicked out of Country Day so she could go to public school. I dated boys from approved families. Elizabeth chose half her dates just because she knew they’d make my father furious.”

“So you dedicated yourself to pregnant teenage girls because you think your sister got a raw deal.”

“What would you have done?”

“Locked them in the same room until they came to some solution.”

“That may work in business, though I wouldn’t have thought so, but it doesn’t work with personal relationships. You each have to try to understand where the other is coming from.”

“Coddle them and make them think being stupid is an acceptable way to behave.”

She folded her napkin. It was time to leave. “That’s not what I said.”

He put a fifty-dollar bill on the table and rose. “You said your father and sister should be allowed to stay at odds with each other because you have to honor their feelings. Yet you said I ought to take a leave of absence to repair my relationship with my daughter. Your logic is inconsistent. Either you have a set of principles that work in all situations, or you don’t have a workable theory.”

She had preceded him out of the restaurant and she waited to answer him until they were in the car.

“I told you I don’t pretend to be a professional, so I don’t give advice.”

“You’re giving me advice.”

“Only because you insisted.”

Kathryn didn’t know how she’d let herself get drawn into helping Ron. All the other parents had been more than willing to meet with the specialists she recommended. Why couldn’t she keep her distance from the Egans?

Something had been different about them from the first. Cynthia wasn’t like the other girls. Or maybe she had reacted differently to her because Cynthia wasn’t panicked or hysterical or even silent and moody. Kathryn felt almost as though they were equals even though Cynthia was only half her age.

She didn’t kid herself when it came to Ron Egan. Everything was different because her physical response to him had been immediate and undeniable. It didn’t matter that she might disagree with him in every way. As a man, she found him powerfully attractive. She wanted to be around him even though she knew it was a foolish thing to do.

He seemed to be truly interested in learning to communicate with his daughter, but he had no idea how to begin. If she didn’t help him, he was liable to treat Cynthia as a hostile takeover. They could end up like her own family.

“From now on you and Cynthia will have to work things out on your own.”

“Good. That means you’ll be able to go on a date with me tonight, and you won’t have to tell me how I’m doing everything wrong.”

“Everyone will know what I did. How is that better?” Cynthia asked.

“It will be a lot better if you see your friends,” Kathryn said.

They had been talking for nearly half an hour. Rather, Kathryn and Cynthia had been talking. Ron had been mostly listening, putting in a word now and then, responding when addressed directly. He felt as if they were conversing in a foreign tongue. The words were ones he knew, but they seemed to have different meanings from what he expected. He wondered if it was just a woman thing, or if there was some special bonding between them. He couldn’t remember Cynthia ever being so open and relaxed with Margaret Norwood or the governess, and they’d known her most of her life.

They’d come back to find that Cynthia’s best friend, Leigh Stedman, had come by to see her. After refusing to see her, Cynthia had locked herself in her room, extremely upset anyone at school knew where she was or that she was pregnant. It had taken Kathryn several minutes to convince Cynthia to let her into her room. It had taken more than thirty minutes to convince her to talk with her father.

Pacing up and down the large living room, he’d had plenty of time to rehearse what he meant to say. He’d even edited it to make sure he wasn’t too severe. But when Cynthia walked through that door, she didn’t look like a confident young woman any longer. She looked like the little girl who used to like to curl up in his lap and go to sleep when he worked late. He’d instinctively held out his arms, and she’d come to him.

For a few minutes everything was the way it used to be. They held each other while she cried. But as soon as her tears dried up, she became stiff, their positions awkward. When he released her, she moved away, ultimately sitting in a chair rather than on the sofa next to him. She looked so small, sitting in that huge overstuffed chair with her feet tucked under her, he could almost think of her as his little girl again. But he would have been fooling himself. At first she’d talked exclusively to Kathryn. It was as though she was embarrassed she’d cried in front of him. He’d wanted to tell her it was all right, that she never had to be afraid to come to him when she was frightened or feeling alone.

“I wouldn’t look at it like that,” Kathryn said. “You have a friend who knows what happened, and she still wants to be your friend.”

“I don’t have any real friends,” Cynthia said.

“I’ll bet you do,” Kathryn said. “You’ve only been here two days, and already you’re everybody’s favorite. People can’t help but want to be your friend.”

Ron didn’t know if Cynthia believed that, but it seemed to improve her spirits.

Cynthia chewed on her lower lip. “They won’t want a friend with a baby,” she said.

“All real friendships expand to include other people—boyfriends, husbands, children, even other friends. You’ll see if you just give your friends a chance.”

“Leigh’s parents are just about the most important people in Charlotte,” Cynthia said. “They’ll never let her have anything to do with an unwed mother.”

“I think you ought to give Leigh and her family a chance to make that decision rather than you making it for them. I think you’ll find very few people are so narrow-minded, so unwilling to make allowances for mistakes.”

Ron knew it must have been difficult for Kathryn to say that when her own parents had turned their backs on their daughter for the same reason.

“Leigh told Lisette she’s coming back tomorrow,” Kathryn said. “You’ve got to make up your mind what you’re going to do.”

“Do you like this girl?” Ron asked.

“Of course I like her,” Cynthia said impatiently. “I said she was my best friend, didn’t I?”

“Would you still want to be her friend if she got pregnant?” he asked.

Cynthia shifted position in the chair before she answered. “Yes, I would.”

“Then I’m sure she feels the same way about you.”

“I expect it will hurt Leigh a great deal if you cut her off,” Kathryn said

“There’s somebody else you need to see,” Ron said.

“Who?” Cynthia asked.

“Margaret. She’s helped take care of you from the day your mother and I brought you home from the hospital. She’s devastated you would run away from her.”

“This has nothing to do with her,” Cynthia said.

“She loves you. That means everything you do affects her. The same is true for Rose, Rosco and Gretta even though they’ve known you only half as long. If you don’t feel you can go see them, at least talk to them on the telephone.”

“I didn’t think they’d care.”

“Margaret cares a lot. She treated your mother like her own daughter.”