her face crumpled. ‘Oh, honey, that would make you a stateless person. I wouldn’t do that to you.’
‘Prove it.’
‘Of course.’ She sighed. ‘It’s on file in Town Hall, you can get a copy any time you want. You might as well know. I had to tell them something at the hospital, so . . .’ Oh, didn’t she take a long breath then, and wasn’t the voice she finally managed so thin when it came out that she sounded like someone else. Long breath. ‘I told them it was Burt.’
‘Son of a bitch!’
‘I did what I had to.’ Lucy had a strong, sweet face – too pale, but with those beautiful eyes. They loved each other, that was understood. She’d brought him up doing what she thought was best for him, that too was understood. She wasn’t being cruel. She was doing the best she could.
‘If I have a father he has a name, so, what? What’s his damn name? At least you can tell me that.’ When she didn’t answer he took her arm. It was too thin. Even in the heavy sweater, she was rattling with the cold. Was she already sick, all those years ago? He doesn’t know. That night his voice was so thin and shaky that he hated it. ‘If you loved me, you’ll tell me.’
‘I love you, and I can’t.’ She looked up with tears streaming.
‘Won’t!’
‘Won’t, then.’ For the second time that night, she surprised him. ‘I won’t tell you and you have to promise not to ask.’
Oh, Lucy. What are you afraid of? ‘Mom . . .’
‘I’m trying to keep you safe! Now, promise.’
‘Why do I have to . . .’
This popped out in spite of her. ‘Because he wouldn’t want you to know!’
‘Mom!’
Then Lucy’s fingers closed on his so tight that the nails dug in like little teeth. She was struggling to frame an agreement but she had run out of words. ‘Please!’ she cried finally, out of such grief that the implications silenced him.
For a long time they stood just there, Dan with his back stiff and chin jutting, until she jerked him into a hug. He resisted but she pulled him close. They stood, rocking. With her face buried in his chest – When did I get this tall? – his mother wheedled, ‘And you have to promise not to look for him. OK?’
There was a technical term for the answer Dan made her then, which he didn’t learn until he was in college. Let her think he was giving her what she wanted. ‘As long as we both shall live.’
‘Ever.’
The sound Dan came out with then, that let them end the clinch and go inside, could have meant anything. Because they had to survive the moment, she took it as a yes. He’d managed his first broad mental reservation.
He still didn’t know who he was, but things were good. At least they were done with Burt.
Lucy went to court and got her old name back. Carteret. They took the birth certificate to probate court and got his name changed to match. He became Dan Carteret, and it suited him fine. He still didn’t know who his father was, but he went along all right, not knowing. Lucy went back to work on the sub base; she started as clerk typist and advanced to office manager. She looked better than she had in a long time and Dan started doing better in school. They did fine together, just the two of them. The house was quieter with Burt gone, and they let things relax to the point where magazines sat on the coffee table every which-way and you could no longer bounce a quarter off beds made so tightly that it was hard to get back in at night.
There would always be the central question, but Lucy had said everything she intended to say and he loved her well enough to let it pass, at least for now. For his mother’s sake Dan Carteret went along not knowing who he was. He finished high school and went to college outside Chicago not knowing; his mother loved him well enough to let him go to California to look for work. He hugged her hard, saying, ‘I’ll come back for Christmas.’
‘Don’t worry about me.’ She tightened the hug and then broke it with the little push that means goodbye. ‘It’s your life now.’
That first year was hard: no time, never enough money. He was waiting tables, writing spec scripts because in Los