Laurie and Leda exchanged a look that clearly said they had found a pigeon ripe for the plucking, and just weren’t sure if they had the heart to grab my feathers. “Oh, I couldn’t-” Leda began.
“Nonsense. Believe me, this is the least I can do for you after taking up your time today.”
“I’ll get it ready for you,” Laurie said, hurrying off to the kitchen before her grandmother could refuse a second time.
Leda smiled after her.
“You must be very proud of her,” I said.
“I am. She’s a good-hearted girl.” She looked up at me. “And your uncle is a good-hearted man. He deserves your forgiveness.”
“Yes,” I said, “I’m beginning to see that perhaps he does.”
“You know,” she said, “I didn’t get a chance to finish what I was saying before my father interrupted us. My dad provided a perfect example of what I was going to tell you, though.”
“I hope you weren’t about to tell me that,” I said, and she laughed.
“No, no. I meant, his situation is a good example. Until a few years ago, my father was strong and active. People always guessed him to be twenty years younger than he was. Then about five years ago, his health began to fail-and to fail quickly. It was as if those years caught up to him all at once. He hates being sick. He hates being dependent on me. He thinks of me as his jailer, not his helper. But I hate it, too. And I’m as much his prisoner as he is mine.”
Her face was set in angry lines as she said this. She looked away from me, and stared out the windows, toward her brother’s house. Gradually, her face softened, and her voice was quiet when she spoke again. “You might say, ”Just put him in a home, then.“ Maybe someday it will come to that. But right now, while I can still care for him, I can’t think of setting him aside, or leaving him to strangers-well,” she added with a smile, “not on most days.”
“No one could blame you.”
“And I can’t blame Arthur. Until you’ve been there-it’s hard to understand. But I think Gwen’s dependence on Arthur became like that. I think it made him feel confined. His business gave him his first taste of freedom. And Gwen learned to be a little more self-reliant, although if he left her alone too long, Bobby or Daddy came by looking for a handout.” She shook her head. “His so-called secret family-your aunt and your cousin-they gave him his real life, a more balanced life. I was so sorry that they didn’t stay together after Gwen was killed, although I can see why it would have been almost impossible. I’m sure your aunt felt very hurt and betrayed.”
“She did, but-things change,” I said faltering for a way to say more without admitting how many lies of one kind or another I had racked up in the last hour. “Leda, there’s so much I’d like to tell you, but I think I’ll wait until I can bring my cousin with me-if that would be all right with you? Perhaps we can come at a time when your father is sleeping or won’t be disturbed by us?”
She smiled. “That would be wonderful. I’ve never had a chance to meet Arthur’s son.”
Laurie arrived with a grocery sack but hesitated before handing it to me. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” I took it from her, said good-bye, and made my way across the street. About halfway across I had a sensation of being watched, and looked over my shoulder. I couldn’t see anyone looking out the tinted-glass windows, but I could have sworn that somewhere on the other side of that glass, Horace DeMont was boring holes in my back with his angry stare.
“Come in!” a voice called from a speaker near the front door of Robert DeMont’s home. I hesitated only for a moment before trying the door; it was unlocked. But as I opened it, I couldn’t see anyone waiting for me in the room beyond. That didn’t mean he wasn’t there-the room was not one that could be taken in at a glance. I had been able to guess the decor of Leda’s home, but even looking at the interior of Robert’s place, I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. Except for the spaces taken up by windows, the walls were lined with bookcases. Not all of these bookcases held books; many of the shelves were crowded with gadgets and tools. Apparently the books that had once occupied the shelves were stacked on the floor-not much of the floor was visible. A maze of worktables was covered with drawings, metal parts, gears, bottles of adhesives, soldering irons, magnifiers, cardboard boxes, clamps, more tools and a host of unidentifiable objects. The tables each had their own chairs; most were metal folding chairs, a few looked like used office chairs.
To my right was a door that seemed to open onto a hallway, and at the other end of the front room, another doorway, probably leading to a kitchen. No sign of DeMont.
I was about to call his name when I heard a toilet flush. I stepped inside and waited for a respectable amount of time. Just as I was about to call out, “Are you feeling okay?” I heard another flush. And another. About six in succession before he yelled, “Bring my dinner back here!”
Not especially anxious to obey, and wondering why anyone in such apparent gastric distress would want to eat-let alone eat in that particular room-I said, “I’ll just leave it on the kitchen table.”
“No you won’t!” he called and I could hear him moving down the hallway. He stopped in the doorway and looked at me. “A woman!” he grinned, “That’s great! Just what I need! What happened to your face? Oh, never mind, that’s a rude thing to ask.”
He was a big man, tall and broad-shouldered, probably in his late sixties or early seventies, but in good shape. Having heard that he was an inventor who needed to have his meals delivered, I suppose I had expected someone who would be frail and pale. He was tanned and fit and seemed perfectly capable of taking care of himself. Or anyone else, for that matter.
His hair was white, his eyes blue under snowy brows. He waved his hand to me in a “hurry up” motion and took off back down the hallway. “Come on,” he called over his shoulder, “I want to show you an invention that is going to save marriages all across America.”
What the hell, I thought, and cautiously followed, keeping my distance.
He walked into the bathroom and moved to the toilet. I was just about to turn right back around when he said, “Watch the toilet seat.”
As he stood there, facing the toilet in the classic standing male position, the seat slowly but steadily lifted. He turned to me, beaming. “Now watch!”
He moved away from it with a jaunty step and it flushed.
“Now you try it,” he said.
“Uh, no thanks,” I said.
He gave me a sly smile and said, “Okay, you big chicken. Watch this!”
He approached the toilet, turned his back on it-as if he were about to take a seat-and slowly but surely, the seat came back down. He lowered himself onto it, grinned at me, and got off. Again the jaunty step, and the toilet flushed.
“You see?” he said excitedly.
“Yes. Amazing.”
His grin faded. “What’s the problem?”
“What’s what problem?”
“What s the problem that is preventing you from being enthusiastic about a product that could revolutionize the sleeping habits of millions?”
“Sleeping habits?”
“Of course!” he exclaimed, as if I were the biggest dunderhead he had ever laid eyes on. “Every night, all across America, millions of women fall onto wet, cold porcelain surfaces. And why? Because some man has forgotten to put the seat back down! Now how is any poor gal going to get back to sleep after something like that happens to her?”
“It’s very thoughtful of you to try to be of help-”
“I hear a but coming!” he said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“A b-u-t. You like it, but-” He stretched the last word out.
“But it needs to rise and lower faster. By the time that seat was starting on its way down, most women would have already hit the porcelain. And I don’t even want to think about what will happen while a half-asleep man waits for that seat to rise all the way up.”