Howard said, “Why didn’t you tell us what was going on? That way, there wouldn’t have been any danger of something like that going wrong.”
“Yes, you’re right. The habit of secrecy, I suppose. I thought it best to let you continue to believe the family was working unaided until I had a concrete accomplishment to present to you. Frankly, I was afraid several members of the family would have objected if I’d said I wanted to bring in outsiders.”
“You’re right,” Robert said. “They would have. Don’t those two back there speak English?”
“About as well as I speak Vietnamese. They could make themselves understood if they had to. They had more pressing problems to think about just then, I suppose that’s why they didn’t attempt any English.”
They walked on in silence until they reached the perimeter road, where Wellington said, “If you strike off in that direction, you’ll come to the blacktop road fairly soon. Then the house will be to your left. And your car, Robert, will be to the right. I go this way now.”
Robert stuck out his hand, saying, “I think you saved our lives. Thank you.”
Wellington looked surprised, and then a kind of bland emptiness of expression settled on his face, and he shook Robert’s hand and said, “You’re very welcome. I was pleased to be there at the right time.” He nodded to Howard, and released Robert’s hand. “I must go.”
They stood a moment, watching Wellington walk away along the perimeter road, buttoning his topcoat. Howard thought, Why do I mistrust him so? Why do I dislike him so? There was no answer.
iv
Howard sat in an uncomfortable chair in the depressing room Robert had taken in Chambersburg, and observed how Robert and Evelyn behaved when in one another’s presence. Somehow, though they acted normally, with their usual habits and patterns and ways of speech, they were nevertheless totally different. In Evelyn, it was the difference between a cloudy day and one bright with sun. In Robert, the difference was subtler, less easy to define: an infusion of strength, of tone, of some extra dimension. In any case, it was both pleasant and saddening to be in their presence, as it is always to be in the presence of a couple newly in love.
It was Tuesday evening, and while they waited for Joe Holt to come over from Eustace and tell them the results of his examination of Brad, Robert was giving Evelyn a more detailed description of their encounter yesterday with the Chinese and Wellington and the Vietnamese than Howard had done after the event. Finishing his story now, Robert said, “Walking back to the car, all I could think about was what you’d said in the restaurant about them being professionals who know what they’re doing and us being amateurs making it up as we go along and hoping for the best. And you were right. If it had just been us amateurs out there on the Lockridge team, it would have been all over. Howard and I walked right into their arms.”
“Babes in the woods,” Howard said. “That’s exactly what we were.”
“You might have been killed,” Evelyn said. She and Robert were sitting side by side on his sagging sofa. They were holding hands.
“I know it,” Robert said. “Thank God it turned out we had professionals on our side.”
“Wellington is so sneaky,” Evelyn said. “He never tells anybody what he’s doing. I wish he’d talk to us. What if he’s doing other things, too?”
Howard said, “I’ve been thinking about that, and I think we ought to do something about it.”
Robert said, “The question is, what?”
“I’m not sure. But I don’t like this feeling that he isn’t really one of us. You just said ‘the Lockridge team,’ and Wellington just doesn’t give me the impression of being part of that team.”
“He acts like he’s above it,” Evelyn said. “As though we were children, and he was the grown-up.”
“In yesterday’s situation,” Robert said, “that was exactly the way it was.” To Howard he said, “But I know what you mean, he really isn’t one of us. You could tell that from what he said at the meeting.”
Knowing that Robert meant the comment about killing Brad to save him from disgrace, Howard gave him a quick frown and headshake; it was nothing to tell Evelyn.
Who had already pounced on Robert’s statement, saying, “What did he say?”
Robert had obviously understood Howard’s signal, and now didn’t know what to do. Howard rescued him, saying to Evelyn, “He seemed too willing to turn the problem over to some government agency.”
“He doesn’t have any confidence in us,” Evelyn said.
Robert said, “I hate it that we proved him right. We needed him yesterday a hell of a lot more than he needed us.”
“In any case,” Howard said, “he’s given us more time. And I think we ought to use some of it to get the family organized better, and get Wellington to let us into his confidence. I’ll call Gene White tomorrow and see about setting up another meeting.”
“I keep having the feeling,” Evelyn said, “that there’s something we should be doing. But I don’t know what it is.”
Robert said, “Maybe if Wellington—” and was interrupted by a knocking at the door.
“I’ll get it,” Howard said, and as he’d expected, it was Joe Holt. Howard held the door for him, and Joe stepped in saying, “I had a time finding this place.”
“Most people don’t look for it,” Howard said.
It was strange how habit overpowered one’s sense of urgency. Howard was more than anxious to hear Joe’s medical opinion of Brad, and he was sure Robert and Evelyn both felt the same way, but everyone had to go through the usual host/guest routine first, Robert getting Joe’s drink order and going to make it, Evelyn assuring herself that Joe had a more or less comfortable seat, and even Howard himself engaging in a bit of small talk about driving conditions coming out here from Philadelphia. But at last everyone settled down, and there was a little silence, and then Joe said, “It was what we thought.”
Evelyn said, “A stroke?”
“Yes. Without actually getting him into the hospital for a lot of tests, I can’t define the thing exactly, but I can make a rough estimate. It hit somewhere in the left hemisphere of the brain, and the damage it did was severe without being extensive. The main thing is the personality change, of course, and that’s primarily the result of a slackening of the reins, a lessening of self-control. The other symptoms are slight, and mostly unimportant.”
Howard said, “What other symptoms?”
“He has a very slight hemiparesis, primarily in the — I’m sorry, I use the words I think, let me start over. There is a very slight paralysis of the right side, primarily in the right leg. That’s what makes him limp when he’s tired.”
Remembering the sight of Brad striding over the meadows, Howard said, “I haven’t noticed any limp.”
“He doesn’t have any when he’s rested and feeling good. But if he’s tired, at the end of the day, or if he’s feeling discouraged for some reason, he does have a slight limp. He also has the symptom that complicates everything else, called anosognosia, which is an inability or refusal to acknowledge that there’s anything wrong. He won’t notice the limp, for instance, and he certainly won’t recognize the personality change.”
Evelyn said, “Can he ever change back?”
“No. I’m sorry, but it’s a one-way street. Any further changes he might undergo will only take him farther away from the person he used to be.”
Robert said, “Will there be more changes?”
“I can’t say. Probably, but not necessarily soon.”