“In that case you can write it out and I will give it to her as soon as she is through with rhythm games.”
I looked upset (and was) and said, “I don’t want to do that. It would be much kinder to tell the child in person.”
“Death in the family?”
“Not quite. Family trouble, yes. I’m sorry, ma’am, but I am not free to tell anyone else. It concerns my niece’s mother.”
She was weakening but still undecided. Then Pete joined the discussion. I had been carrying him with his bottom in the crook of my left arm and his chest supported with my right hand; I had not wanted to leave him in the car and I knew Ricky would want to see him. He’ll put up with being carried that way quite a while but now he was getting bored. “Krrwarr?”
She looked at him and said, “He’s a fine boy, that one. I have a tabby at home who could have come from the same litter.”
I said solemnly, “He’s Frederica’s cat. I had to bring him along because ...well, it was necessary. No one to take care of him.”
“Oh, the poor little fellow!” She scratched him under the chin, doing it properly, thank goodness, and Pete accepted it, thank goodness again, stretching his neck and closing his eyes and looking indecently pleased. He is capable of taking a very stiff line with strangers if he does not fancy their overtures.
The guardian of youth told me to sit down at a table under the trees outside the headquarters. It was far enough away to permit a private visit but still under her careful eye. I thanked her and waited.
I didn’t see Ricky come up. I heard a shout, “Uncle Danny!” and another one as I turned, “And you brought Pete! Oh, this is wonderful!”
Pete gave a long bubbling bleerrrt and leaped from my arms to hers. She caught him neatly, rearranged him in the support position he likes best, and they ignored me for a few seconds while exchanging cat protocols. Then she looked up and said soberly, “Uncle Danny, I’m awful glad you’re here.”
I didn’t kiss her; I did not touch her at all. I’ve never been one to paw children and Ricky was the sort of little girl who only put up with it when she could not avoid it. Our original relationship, back when she was six, had been founded on mutual decent respect for the other’s individualism and personal dignity.
But I did look at her. Knobby knees, stringy, shooting up fast, not yet filled out, she was not as pretty as she had been as a baby girl. The shorts and T-shirt she was wearing, combined with peeling sunburn, scratches, bruises, and an understandable amount of dirt, did not add up to feminine glamour. She was a matchstick sketch of the woman she would become, her coltish gawkiness relieved only by her enormous solemn eyes and the pixie beauty of her thin smudged features.
She looked adorable.
I said, “And I’m awful glad to be here, Ricky.”
Trying awkwardly to manage Pete with one arm, she reached with her other hand for a bulging pocket in her shorts. “I’m surprised too. I just this minute got a letter from you—they dragged me away from mail call; I haven’t even had a chance to open it. Does it say that you’re coming today?” She got it out, creased and mussed from being crammed into a pocket too small.
“No, it doesn’t, Ricky. It says I’m going away. But after I mailed it, I decided I just had to come say good-bye in person.”
She looked bleak and dropped her eyes. “You’re going away?”
“Yes. I’ll explain, Ricky, but it’s rather long. Let’s sit down and I’ll tell you about it.” So we sat on opposite sides of the picnic table under the ponderosas and I talked. Pete lay on the table between us, making a library lion of himself with his forepaws on the creased letter, and sang a low song like bees buzzing in deep clover, while he narrowed his eyes in contentment.
I was much relieved to find that she already knew that Miles had married Belle—I hadn’t relished having to break that to her. She glanced up, dropped her eyes at once, and said with no expression at all, “Yes, I know. Daddy wrote me about it.”
“Oh. I see.”
She suddenly looked grim and not at all a child. “I’m not going back there, Danny. I won’t go back there.”
“But—Look here, Rikki-tikki-tavi, I know how you feel. I certainly don’t want you to go back there—I’d take you away myself if I could. But how can you help going back? He’s your daddy and you are only eleven.”
“I don’t have to go back. He’s not my real daddy. My grandmother is coming to get me.”
“What? When’s she coming?”
“Tomorrow. She has to drive up from Brawley. I wrote her about it and asked her if I could come live with her because I wouldn’t live with Daddy anymore with her there.” She managed to put more contempt into one pronoun than an adult could have squeezed out of profanity. “Grandma wrote back and said that I didn’t have to live there if I didn’t want to because he had never adopted me and she was my ‘guardian of record.’ ” She looked up anxiously. “That’s right, isn’t it? They can’t make me?”
I felt an overpowering flood of relief. The one thing I had not been able to figure out, a problem that had worried me for months, was how to keep Ricky from being subjected to the poisonous influence of Belle for—well, two years; it had seemed certain that it would be about two years. “If he never adopted you, Ricky, I’m certain that your grandmother can make it stick if you are both firm about it.” Then I frowned and chewed my lip. “But you may have some trouble tomorrow. They may object to letting you go with her.”
“How can they stop me? I’ll just get in the car and go.”
“It’s not that simple, Ricky. These people who run the camp, they have to follow rules. Your daddy—Miles, I mean—Miles turned you over to them; they won’t be willing to turn you back over to anyone but him.”
She stuck out her lower lip. “I won’t go. I’m going with Grandma.”
“Yes. But maybe I can tell you how to make it easy. If I were you, I wouldn’t tell them that I’m leaving camp; I’d just tell them that your grandmother wants to take you for a ride—then don’t come back.”
Some of her tension relaxed. “All right.”
“Uh...don’t pack a bag or anything or they may guess what you’re doing. Don’t try to take any clothes but those you are wearing at the time. Put any money or anything you really want to save into your pockets. You don’t have much here that you would really mind losing, I suppose?”
“I guess not.” But she looked wistful. “I’ve got a brand-new swimsuit.”
How do you explain to a child that there are times when you just must abandon your baggage? You can’t—they’ll go back into a burning building to save a doll or a toy elephant. “Mmm...Ricky, have your grandmother tell them that she is taking you over to Arrowhead to have a swim with her...and that she may take you to dinner at the hotel there, but that she will have you back before taps. Then you can carry your swimming suit and a towel. But nothing else. Er, will your grandmother tell that fib for you?”
“I guess so. Yes, I’m sure she will. She says people have to tell little white fibs or else people couldn’t stand each other. But she says fibs were meant to be used, not abused.”
“She sounds like a sensible person. You’ll do it that way?”
“I’ll do it just that way, Danny.”
“Good.” I picked up the battered envelope. “Ricky, I told you I had to go away. I have to go away for a very long time.”
“How long?”
“Thirty years.”
Her eyes grew wider if possible. At eleven, thirty years is not a long time; it’s forever. I added, “I’m sorry, Ricky. But I have to.”
“Why?”
I could not answer that one. The true answer was unbelievable and a lie would not do. “Ricky, it’s much too hard to explain. But I have to. I can’t help it.” I hesitated, then added, “I’m going to take the Long Sleep. The cold sleep—you know what I mean.”
She knew. Children get used to new ideas faster than adults do; cold sleep was a favorite comic-book the
me. She looked horrified and protested, “But, Danny, I’ll never see you again!”
“Yes, you will. It’s a long time but I’ll see you again. And so will Pete. Because Pete is going with me; he’s going to cold-sleep too.”
She glanced at Pete and looked more woebegone than ever. “But—Danny, why don’t you and Pete just come down to Brawley and live with us? That would be ever so much better. Grandma will like Pete. She’ll like you too—she says there’s nothing like having a man around the house.”
“Ricky...dear Ricky...I have to. Please don’t tease me.” I started to tear open the envelope.
She looked angry and her chin started to quiver. “I think she has something to do with this!”
“What? If you mean Belle, she doesn’t. Not exactly, anyway.”
“She’s not going to cold-sleep with you?”
I think I shuddered. “Good heavens, no! I’d run miles to avoid her.”
Ricky seemed slightly mollified. “You know, I was so mad at you about her. I had an awful outrage.”
“I’m sorry, Ricky. I’m truly sorry. You were right and I was wrong. But she hasn’t anything to do with this. I’m through with her, forever and forever and cross my heart. Now about this.” I held up the certificate for all that I owned in Hired Girl, Inc. “Do you know what it is?”
“No.”
I explained it to her. “I’m giving this to you, Ricky. Because I’m going to be gone so long I want you to have it.” I took the paper on which I had written an assignment to her, tore it up, and put the pieces in my pocket; I could not risk doing it that way—it would be too easy for Belle to tear up a separate sheet and we were not yet out of the woods. I turned the certificate over and studied the standard assignment form on the back, trying to plan how to word it in the spaces provided. I finally squeezed in an assignment to the Bank of America in trust for—“Ricky, what is your full name?”
“Frederica Virginia. Frederica Virginia Gentry. You know.”
“Is it ‘Gentry’? I thought you said Miles had never adopted you?”
“Oh! I’ve been Ricky Gentry as long as I can remember. But you mean my real name. It’s the same as Grandma’s...the same as my real daddy’s. Heinicke. But nobody ever calls me that.”
“They will now.” I wrote “Frederica Virginia Heinicke” and added “and to be reassigned to her on her twenty-first birthday” while prickles ran down my spine—my original assignment might have been defective in any case.
I started to sign and then noticed our watchdog sticking her head out of the office. I glanced at my wrist, saw that we had been talking an hour; I was running out of minutes.
But I wanted it nailed down tight. “Ma’am!”
“Yes?”
“By any chance, is there a notary public around here? Or must I find one in the village?”
“I am a notary. What do you wish?”
“Oh, good! Wonderful! Do you have your seal?”
“I never go anywhere without it.”
So I signed my name under her eye and she even stretched a point (on Ricky’s assurance that she knew me and Pete’s silent testimony to my respectability as a fellow member of the fraternity of cat people) and used the long form: “—known to me personally as being said Daniel B. Davis—” When she embossed her seal through my signature and her own I sighed with relief. Just let Belle try to find a way to twist that one!
She glanced at it curiously but said nothing. I said solemnly, “Tragedies cannot be undone but this will help. The kid’s education, you know.”
She refused a fee and went back into the office. I turned back to Ricky and said, “Give this to your grandmother. Tell her to take it to a branch of the Bank of America in Brawley. They’ll do everything else.” I laid it in front of her.
She did not touch it. “That’s worth a lot of money, isn’t it?”
“Quite a bit. It will be worth more.”
“I don’t want it.”
“But, Ricky, I want you to have it.”
“I don’t want it. I won’t take it.” Her eyes filled with tears and her voice got unsteady. “You’re going away forever and...and you don’t care about me anymore.” She sniffed. “Just like when you got engaged to her. When you could just as easily bring Pete and come live with Grandma and me. I don’t want your money!”
“Ricky. Listen to me, Ricky. It’s too late. I couldn’t take it back now if I wanted to. It’s already yours.”
“I don’t care. I won’t ever touch it.” She reached out and stroked Pete. “Pete wouldn’t go away and leave me...only you’re going to make him. Now I won’t even have Pete.”
I answered unsteadily, “Ricky? Rikki-tikki-tavi? You want to see Pete ...and me again?”
I could hardly hear her. “Of course I do. But I won’t.”
“But you can.”
“Huh? How? You said you were going to take the Long Sleep...thirty years, you said.”
“And I am. I have to. But, Ricky, here is what you can do. Be a good girl, go live with your grandmama, go to school—and just let this money pile up. When you are twenty-one—if you still want to see us—you’ll have enough money to take the Long Sleep yourself. When you wake up I’ll be there waiting for you. Pete and I will both be waiting for you. That’s a solemn promise.”
Her expression changed but she did not smile. She thought about it quite a long time, then said, “You’ll really be there?”
“Yes. But we’ll have to make a date. If you do it, Ricky, do it just the way I tell you. You arrange it with the Cosmopolitan Insurance Company and you make sure that you take your Sleep in the Riverside Sanctuary in Riverside...and you make very sure that they have orders to wake you up on the first day of May, 2001, exactly. I’ll be there that day, waiting for you. If you want me to be there when you first open your eyes, you’ll have to leave word for that, too, or they won’t let me farther than the waiting room—I know that sanctuary; they’re very fussy.” I took out an envelope which I had prepared before I left Denver. “You don’t have to remember this; I’ve got it all written out for you. Just save it, and on your twenty-first birthday you can make up your mind. But you can be sure that Pete and I will be there waiting for you, whether you show up or not.” I laid the prepared instructions on the stock certificate.
I thought that I had her convinced but she did not touch either of them. She stared at them, then presently said, “Danny?”
“Yes, Ricky?”
She would not look up and her voice was so low that I could barely hear her. But I did hear her. “If I do...will you marry me?”
My ears roared and the lights flickered. But I answered steadily and much louder than she had spoken. “Yes, Ricky. That’s what I want. That’s why I’m doing this.”
I HAD JUST ONE more thing to leave with her: a prepared envelope marked “To Be Opened in the Event of the Death of Miles Gentry.” I did not explain it to her; I just told her to keep it. It contained proof of Belle’s varied career, matrimonial and otherwise. In the hands of a lawyer it should make a court fight over his will no contest at all.
Then I gave her my class ring from Tech (it was all I had) and told her it was hers; we were engaged. “It’s too big for you but you can keep it. I’ll have another one for you when you wake up.”
She held it tight in her fist. “I won’t want another one.”
“All right. Now better tell Pete good-bye, Ricky. I’ve got to go. I can’t wait a minute longer.”
She hugged Pete, then handed him back to me, looked me steadily in the eye even though tears were running down her nose and leaving clean streaks. “Good-bye, Danny.”
“Not ‘good-bye,’ Ricky. Just ‘so long.’ We’ll be waiting for you.”
IT WAS A QUARTER of ten when I got back to the village. I found that a helicopter bus was due to leave for the center of the city in twenty-five minutes, so I sought out the only used-car lot and made one of the fastest deals in history, letting my car go for half what it was wo
rth for cash in hand at once. It left me just time to sneak Pete into the bus (they are fussy about airsick cats) and we reached Powell’s office just after eleven o’clock.
Powell was much annoyed that I had canceled my arrangements for Mutual to handle my estate and was especially inclined to lecture me over having lost my papers. “I can’t very well ask the same judge to pass on your committal twice in the same twenty-four hours. It’s most irregular.”
I waved money at him, cash money with convincing figures on it. “Never mind eating me out about it, Sergeant. Do you want my business or don’t you? If not, say so, and I’ll beat it on up to Central Valley. Because I’m going today.”
He still fumed but he gave in. Then he grumbled about adding six months to the cold-sleep period and did not want to guarantee an exact date of awakening. “The contracts ordinarily read ‘plus or minus one month’ to allow for administrative hazards.”
“This one doesn’t. This one reads 27 April 2001. But I don’t care whether it says ‘Mutual’ at the top or ‘Central Valley.’ Mr. Powell, I’m buying and you’re selling. If you don’t sell what I want to buy I’ll go where they do sell it.”
He changed the contract and we both initialed it.
At twelve straight up I was back in for my final check with their medical examiner. He looked at me. “Did you stay sober?”
“Sober as a judge.”
“That’s no recommendation. We’ll see.” He went over me almost as carefully as he had “yesterday.” At last he put down his rubber hammer and said, “I’m surprised. You’re in much better shape than you were yesterday. Amazingly so.”
“Doc, you don’t know the half of it.”
I held Pete and soothed him while they gave him the first sedative. Then I lay back myself and let them work on me. I suppose I could have waited another day, or even longer, just as well as not—but the truth was that I was frantically anxious to get back to 2001.
About four in the afternoon, with Pete’s flat head resting on my chest, I went happily to sleep again.