“You wait till tomorrow. I’ll go with you.”
“We’ll see,” said Adam, and he started out, swinging his arms with bravado.
Abra came in with shining eyes and a red nose from the frosty wind, and she brought such pleasure that Lee giggled softly when he saw her.
“Where are the tarts?” she demanded. “Let’s hide them from Cal.” She sat down in the kitchen. “Oh, I’m so glad to be back.”
Lee started to speak and choked and then what he wanted to say seemed good to say—to say carefully. He hovered over her. “You know, I haven’t wished for many things in my life,” he began. “I learned very early not to wish for things. Wishing just brought earned disappointment.”
Abra said gaily, “But you wish for something now. What is it?”
He blurted out, “I wish you were my daughter—” He was shocked at himself. He went to the stove and turned out the gas under the teakettle, then lighted it again.
She said softly, “I wish you were my father.”
He glanced quickly at her and away. “You do?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you.”
Lee went quickly out of the kitchen. He sat in his room, gripping his hands tightly together until he stopped choking. He got up and took a small carved ebony box from the top of his bureau. A dragon climbed toward heaven on the box. He carried the box to the kitchen and laid it on the table between Abra’s hands. “This is for you,” he said, and his tone had no inflection.
She opened the box and looked down on a small, dark green jade button, and carved on its surface was a human right hand, a lovely hand, the fingers curved and in repose. Abra lifted the button out and looked at it, and then she moistened it with the tip of her tongue and moved it gently over her full lips, and pressed the cool stone against her cheek.
Lee said, “That was my mother’s only ornament.”
Abra got up and put her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek, and it was the only time such a thing had ever happened in his whole life.
Lee laughed. “My Oriental calm seems to have deserted me,” he said. “Let me make the tea, darling. I’ll get hold of myself that way.” From the stove he said, “I’ve never used that word—never once to anybody in the world.”
Abra said, “I woke up with joy this morning.”
“So did I,” said Lee. “I know what made me feel happy. You were coming.”
“I was glad about that too, but—”
“You are changed,” said Lee. “You aren’t any part a little girl any more. Can you tell me?”
“I burned all of Aron’s letters.”
“Did he do bad things to you?”
“No. I guess not. Lately I never felt good enough. I always wanted to explain to him that I was not good.”
“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good. Is that it?”
“I guess so. Maybe that’s it.”
“Do you know about the mother of the boys?”
“Yes. Do you know I haven’t tasted a single one of the tarts?” Abra said. “My mouth is dry.”
“Drink some tea, Abra. Do you like Cal?”
“Yes.”
Lee said, “He’s crammed full to the top with every good thing and every bad thing. I’ve thought that one single person could almost with the weight of a finger—”
Abra bowed her head over her tea. “He asked me to go to the Alisal when the wild azaleas bloom.”
Lee put his hands on the table and leaned over. “I don’t want to ask you whether, you are going,” he said.
“You don’t have to,” said Abra. “I’m going.”
Lee sat opposite her at the table. “Don’t stay away from this house for long,” he said.
“My father and mother don’t want me here.”
“I only saw them once,” Lee said cynically. “They seemed to be good people. Sometimes, Abra, the strangest medicines are effective. I wonder if it would help if they knew Aron has just inherited over a hundred thousand dollars.”
Abra nodded gravely and fought to keep the corners of her mouth from turning up. “I think it would help,” she said. “I wonder how I could get the news to them.”
“My dear,” said Lee, “if I heard such a piece of news I think my first impulse would be to telephone someone. Maybe you’d have a bad connection.”
Abra nodded. “Would you tell her where the money came from?”
“That I would not,” said Lee.
She looked at the alarm clock hung on a nail on the wall. “Nearly five,” she said. “I’ll have to go. My father isn’t well. I thought Cal might get back from drill.”
“Come back very soon,” Lee said.
4
Cal was on the porch when she came out.
“Wait for me,” he said, and he went into the house and dropped his books.
“Take good care of Abra’s books,” Lee called from the kitchen.
The winter night blew in with frosty wind, and the street lamps with their sputtering carbons swung restlessly and made the shadows dart back and forth like a runner trying to steal second base. Men coming home from work buried their chins in their overcoats and hurried toward warmth. In the still night the monotonous scattering music of the skating rink could be heard from many blocks away.
Cal said, “Will you take your books for a minute, Abra? I want to unhook this collar. It’s cutting my head off.” He worked the hooks out of the. eyes and sighed with relief. “I’m all chafed,” he said and took her books back. The branches of the big palm tree in Berges’s front yard were lashing with a dry clatter, and a cat meowed over and over and over in front of some kitchen door closed against it.
Abra said, “I don’t think you make much of a soldier. You’re too independent.”
“I could be,” said Cal. “This drilling with old Krag-Jorgensens seems silly to me. When the time comes, and I take an interest, I’ll be good.”
“The tarts were wonderful,” said Abra. “I left one for you.”
“Thanks. I’ll bet Aron makes a good soldier.”
“Yes, he will—and the best-looking soldier in the army. When are we going for the azaleas?”
“Not until spring.”
“Let’s go early and take a lunch.”