This practice barely affords him a decent living—in fact, he’s not really clearing much more than he pays Sheila—and it is as close to his for-mer, sleek professional life as a campfire is to a blast furnace, and sometimes it is remarkable to Daniel not only that he has chosen this quiet, country life but that he finds it so agreeable.True, leaving New York was more like fleeing NewYork, but he could have chosen some-place with more people, better cases, more money to be made.Yet here he is, right back in Leyden, which, for years, every time he left it—dur-ing prep school, college, law school, after holidays, summers, the funeral ofan old grade school buddy—he always assumed he was seeing it for the very last time.Kate, upon agreeing to move to Leyden with him, sensed that Daniel wanted to be near his aging parents, and, despite her misgiv-ings, she didn’t see how she could prevent him from fulfilling his filial du-ties.Though every story he ever told her about his parents made them seem as ifthey were monsters ofreserve, two towering touch-me-nots who treated Daniel as ifhe were not so much their son as their charge, one ofthose boys from a nineteenth-century novel, a boisterous nephew left behind by a floozy sister, an orphan whose parents have disappeared undermysterious circumstances in India, a little human mess it had fallen to them to mop up.
Sheila hangs up the phone as Daniel closes the outer door ofhis office behind him.She is quick to end what was obviously a personal call, but her smile is warm and unrepentant.
“Everything okay here?”he asks.
She puts a short, bejeweled finger over her peachy lips, and then quickly scrawls a note to him on a yellow Post-it.“Your parents are wait-ing for you inside,”it says.
In truth, he has forgotten they were coming, and hedoesfeel a little dismayed, but he exaggerates his feelings to amuse Sheila—his face a stark, staring mask ofmock horror.He crumples the note, his eyes dart back and forth, as ifhe were about to bolt.What am I going to do?
His lips soundlessly form the words.His hand goes to his throat.Sheila laughs, also soundlessly, and then she leans back in her high-tech swivel-ing office chair, and the contraption tilts back so abruptly that it seems as ifshe is going to tip over, which elicits a scream ofshock and delight from her.
Great,Daniel mimes to her, and then he strolls into his inner office, where Carl and Julia are seated on the sofa, but leaning forward, their heads tilted, looks ofconcern on their faces.
“What was that scream?”Daniel’s father asks.
”Sheila,”Daniel says.“Tipping over.”He greets his parents with affection, which he presents to them mildly, delicately, with the kind ofreserve you expect in a funeral home or in an intensive care unit.He kisses his mother gently on the cheek, shakes his father’s hand while keeping his own eyes down.He sits at his desk, runs his hands over its clear, waxed surface.
“So what’s the problem with your wills?”Daniel asks, wanting to take charge ofthe conversation.The last thing he wants to do is to answer their bread-and-butter inquiries about Kate and Ruby, neither ofwhom they have bothered to try to know very well, but whom they would be likely to ask after, for the sake ofform.
Carl and Julia exchange nervous looks, openly, as ifthey are communicating over a client who is facedown on the chiropractic table.
Daniel, for his part, pretends not to notice.When he was young, he was curious to discover what lay behind his parents’ceaseless secrecy and re-serve, what horrible little habits they might conceal, what gooey sexual secrets, what hidden morsels ofbiography.Maybe they carried some deep malice, perhaps they weren’t really married, perhaps he was adopted, maybe his father was a quack, maybe his mother ended every evening in bed sniffing at a rag drenched in ether, and just maybe they werefrom outer space.It’s puzzling to him how his curiosity has per-sisted, but now he fears that ifthey were ever to suddenly confide in him he might want to clap his hands over his ears.It’s too late for that.His ef-fort has been to make peace with the people who raised him, the creaky couple who always winced ifhe raised his voice, the punctual pair who had a clock in every room and who marked the passing ofthe hours with their sighs, their meals, theirTV programs.Ifthey were to show him something different now, it would upset that peace, the treaty would be nullified, he would have to start to try to understand them, and he did not care to.
Somehow, in their little exchange ofglances, it is decided that Carl will present the problem to Daniel.“We’ve made some changes in our will,”he says, in his calm, authoritative voice.“And Owen strongly ad-vised us to go over them with you.”
“Okay,”Daniel says, stretching the word out.He is looking closely at his father, imagining himself looking like him in forty years.Worse things could happen.Carl is fit, leaner than Daniel is now.His blue eyes are sharp beneath spiky, emphatic eyebrows.There is something strange in the intensity ofhis father’s gaze.When he looks you in the eye it doesn’t feel like frankness, it feels like aggression.His hair is still dark and abun-dant, his posture a living advertisement for his particular branch ofthe medical arts.He looks scrubbed, well rested, prosperous—pleased with life, and pleased with himself.Julia, however, is starting to age rapidly.
She has become frail, a little trembly, and her once imperious features look surprised by her own onrushing mortality.
“Well,”Carl continues,“as you know, in the past three or four years your mother and I have become much more involved in theWindsor County Raptor Center, over in Bailey Point.”
“No,”Daniel says.“As a matter offact, I didn’t know.”Raptor Center?
And then it hits him:his father’s eyes are those ofa hawk, an eagle, a falcon.
“Yes, you did,”Julia says, a little accusingly.“Don’t you recall my showing you pictures ofyour father and me at the center? Father had a falcon on his arm?”Her throat seems as ifit were irritated by the work oftalking, and she coughs into her hand.
“You know me, Mom.I have a terrible memory.But I do know the place.An old friend ofmine from fifth grade runs it.”
“Lionel Sanderson,”Carl says, with a smile.
”Right,”says Daniel.“How is he?”
“Overworked, but what dedicated man is not?”
“He remembers you, ofcourse,”Julia adds.“He often recalls the nice afternoons after school at our house.”
Daniel is both stunned and amused by the untruthfulness ofthis.First ofall, he and Lionel were never close friends and did not spend their time after school in each other’s company.And secondly,no onecame to the Emerson house after school, or on weekends, or during the summer, or any time at all, except to quickly call for Daniel and be on their way.His parents found the racket and clutter ofboys unbearable.The house itself was a meticulous and unfriendly place, and the pictures on the walls were ofskulls and spinal cords, giving the place a kind ofpermanent Hal-loween ambiance—a chilling, childless Halloween.But Daniel knows better than to challenge their take on the past—he has tried it before when other inconsistencies have arisen, and it has caused hard feelings.
“Well, it’s not that we have any plans to be kicking the bucket,”Carl says,“but we wanted you to know that we’ve decided to leave the bulk ofour estate to the Raptor Center.Right now, the whole operation is squeezed onto twenty-five acres, and there’s not a building on the prop-erty that doesn’t need some major repair.What they would like to do—”
“Need to do,”Julia says.
“Is double the acreage, and create facilities that can safely house fiftybirds.”
“I see,”Daniel says.He senses the injury ofwhat is being said, but he can’t feel it.It’s like cutting your thumb with a fine blade and seeing the little crease in the skin but not yet the blood.“Well, that sounds good.Raptors.”