“You can’t say anything?” pressed Mark.
I felt my jaw tightening, and Marilyn squeezed my hand. I just took a deep breath; Mark was being curious, not an asshole. I said, quietly, “Mark, Top Secret is Top Secret. I am not allowed to discuss it with anybody without the proper clearance. There are things that happened on that mission that I haven’t even talked to Marilyn about.”
Then I simply pushed my way away from the counter and smiled. “Besides, it’s all ancient history. That seems like a different me. Now I just live at home with my family.”
None of the boys said anything to us about our money. The little ones didn’t know or understand, and the big ones were generally too polite. I got much more grief over my beard. While Big Bob was always clean shaven, most of his sons grew beards on and off over the years. Matthew had a mustache, Mark and Luke both had trimmed but full beards, and I knew that a number of the others would grow them over the years as well. Both Mark and Luke wanted to know if the goatee was because I couldn’t grow a full beard. I asked them if they had any hair on their balls, or if they only had it on their face. I didn’t ask them that where their mother could hear, just their wives. It was a fun night, actually.
It was after nine when we all headed over to the Sheraton. The next morning we slept late, had breakfast at the hotel, and then drove back over to the Lefleurs. It was actually a lot quieter, since Mark and Luke and their families weren’t around, and most of the high school boys were off somewhere. We just hung around for the day, with Marilyn giving her mother detailed instructions on taking care of Charlie. Harriet put up with this with considerable humor, since she could write books on taking care of babies. Hell, by the time we got back, they’d probably have him potty trained, weaned, and driving a truck!
Saturday night we had hamburgers at the Lefleurs. Think of charcoal briquettes on buns. Still, I had to suffer through one meal that weekend. Sunday would be better.
Sunday turned out very nicely. We didn’t go to the Lefleurs at all. Instead, after breakfast, we dressed in our Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes and drove directly over to St. Peter’s. The day was quite chilly, since it was only the first weekend in April. It was still well inside the snow period for upstate, which is usually considered anytime between Thanksgiving and Easter. Even that isn’t a sufficient time frame. It can snow anytime in November, and right into May. Most farmers don’t even plant until May. This was a real difference to Maryland, where the seasons seemed to start six weeks earlier. We bundled Charlie up and hustled inside the church.
Matthew and Suzie were going to be godparents to Charlie, and this was considered quite unusual to the Lefleurs. Both were single, and Suzie wasn’t even Catholic. Their tradition was that only married Catholic couples could be godparents. Marilyn didn’t realize it yet, but the only godchild she would get, out of over forty grandchildren, was one of Suzie’s kids. Mark and Lauren had selected her oldest brother and his wife as godparents.
After the mass and the double baptism, we headed over to Grimaldi’s for lunch. They had a banquet room upstairs, and I had let Marilyn sort this out with her mother and Lauren. We had a big group, what with Lauren’s family, and it just seemed so much simpler this way. On Friday night I told Mark I would pay and then he could send us a check afterwards. As it was, by the time you added in the Lefleurs, Lauren’s family, the older boys’ girlfriends, Luke’s wife and her family, and my little brood, we were somewhere between 40 and 50 people. No way could we do that at the Lefleur household, even if we catered it.
It all went very smoothly. At least we got Charlie baptized, so my wife could rest easily. Up until now, I had threatened to spritz him with the sprayer at the kitchen sink, and intone “Now you are a Lutheran!” That would usually give her apoplexy, thinking that the heathens had finally gotten their hands on our child. I would usually just laugh and then threaten to do it secretly, so that when Charlie did make it to Heaven some day, St. Peter would send him to the Lutheran section.
Before we left, Marilyn spent another half hour telling her mother how to raise our son, to the point where Harriet simply took the baby seat with Charlie in it and ordered her daughter away. At that point I rescued Harriet by pulling Marilyn away and hustling her and Suzie out to the car. We were there about half an hour early, but Lloyd Jarrett was already there, sitting in the lobby and reading the Utica Observer-Dispatch. We had a phone number to call to return the car, so I found a phone and made the call, and then went back out and left the keys under the front seat. Lloyd had a lot less to load in the King Air without all of Charlie’s gear!
The flight home was even quicker. We landed at New Castle and practically tossed Suzie out as we rolled down the runway. We had her and her luggage unloaded in just a few minutes once we got to the terminal, and then we buttoned up again and turned around for the taxiway. We got permission to fly out very quickly. I guess Sunday afternoons aren’t heavy traffic days. I wondered if New Castle even had heavy traffic days. An hour later Lloyd landed back at Westminster.
“Will you be flying us Tuesday?” I asked him, as we unloaded our luggage from the King Air.
“No, I’ve got a flight in the King Air to Chicago. I have another pilot who’s going to fly you down. He used to be Air Force, too.”
“What’d you do after you dropped us off in Utica on Friday? You hang around Utica?”
“God forbid! I flew home. Your bill would be a whole lot higher if you made me stay in Utica!”
“That’s kind of why we live in Maryland, you know,” I said, agreeing with him.
“Now, if you want me to hang around in the Bahamas, just let me know. Maybe I can load the wife and kids into the cargo hold, or they can sit on the wings or something.”
I just laughed at that and thanked him, and then Marilyn and I got in her car and drove home. It was a touch wearing flying around like this, but compared to flying commercial, it was a breeze! We got back to the town house just in time to catch the evening news. I warmed up some leftovers from the refrigerator, and then we cleaned out everything that would go bad over the next week. I made a couple of trips out to the dumpster with garbage bags. I left enough to live on during Monday, but otherwise cleaned out the fridge.
Chapter 65: Off To The Bahamas
Tuesday, April 6, 1982
We spent the next day unpacking and repacking our bags for the coming vacation. We just tossed our dry cleaning from the weekend into a pile in the corner of the bedroom. That was really just my suit and Marilyn’s dress from the baptism. We had several suitcases and a hanging bag. I teased Marilyn about cutting down on luggage by eliminating all her underwear.
Marilyn grinned at me. “I think you have ulterior motives!”
I gave her my most innocent look. “Marilyn, how can you think that of me? I just worry about taking all that luggage with us.”
“So it has nothing to do with wanting to see me running around without my bra or panties on.”
I held my left hand up, with the middle three fingers extended and the thumb and pinky folded over. “Scout’s Honor!”
She gave me a double take at that. “I thought you did that with your right hand.”
“Oh, well I guess it doesn’t apply then.”
“Did you want to help me pick out my clothing?” she said teasingly.
“What an excellent idea!”
We spent the rest of the evening going through some of her outfits. She would try one on, I would comment on it, and then she would take it off and I would have my way with her! It took us a long time to sort through her closet and dresser, but it was sure worth it! I bet Victoria’s Secret could really boost sales if the models boffed the customers!