Reborn

2

"Do you still like the Jefferson Airplane?" Carol called from the big wing chair in the Hanley library. Already she had started thinking of it as her chair.

She felt better this morning—at least emotionally. Jim had made such tender love to her last night, whispering such wonderful things in her ear that she no longer felt like such a miserable failure as a woman for not being pregnant. She had brought Laura Nyro's first couple of albums along to the mansion today and now that wonderful voice and quirky lyrics were booming from the hidden speakers of Hanley's stereo, making the big house feel a little bit more like home.

Physically, though, she felt just as queasy, just as tired as she had every other morning recently. Another blood-soaked dream last night hadn't helped, either.

Something was wrong with her. She had decided this morning to make an appointment with Dr. Albert for a good general checkup. And if he didn't find anything, she'd go to a gynecologist and really go to work on getting her periods straightened out.

But for right now she was taking it easy. She had made herself comfortable with the Arts and Leisure section of yesterday's Sunday Times. She was only now getting around to it. Jim had made her call in sick because she'd been so tired this morning.

Actually he wanted her to quit her job. After all, they no longer needed the money, he said, so why should she drag herself off to the hospital every morning? Good, logical reasons, but Carol didn't want to quit. Not just yet. Not until she had kids to stay home for. Until then there were people at MCH who needed her. People like Mr. Dodd.

Kay had called from the hospital this morning to tell her that Maureen Dodd had agreed to take her father home. She was picking him up tomorrow. The news had made Carol's morning.

"Jefferson Airplane?" Jim said around a mouthful of food as he walked into the room. He had a well-bitten apple in one hand and one of Hanley's journals in the other. He had done little else but pore over those things since they'd arrived this morning. "Don't really care for much of their new stuff. Why?"

"Oh, just wondering. Korvette's has After Bathing at Baxter's on sale for two thirty-nine."

Jim swallowed and laughed. "On sale? Honey, we don't have to worry about sales ever again! If we want it, we'll buy it at list and pay the whole four seventy-nine! We'll buy a stereo and never buy mono records again! Don't you understand? We're rich!"

Carol thought about that a second. They were spending an awful lot of time here at the Hanley place but still slept and ate and made love in their own little house. Maybe she should stop referring to it as the Hanley place. Legally now it was the Stevens place.

"I don't feel rich," she said. "Do you?"

"No. But I'm going to start working on it. It's scary, though."

"How do you mean?" She knew she was scared, but Jim?

"The wealth. I don't want it to change us."

"It won't," she said.

"Oh, I know it won't change you. It's me. I don't want to stop writing, but what if the money makes me too comfortable? What if I stop being hungry? What if I mellow out?"

Carol had to smile. Every so often he would do this—break out of his tough-skeptic persona and become vulnerable. At times like these she loved him most.

"You? Mellow?"

"It could happen."

"Never!"

He returned her smile. "I hope you're right. But in the meantime, what say we hit Broadway this weekend?"

"A play?"

"Sure! Best seats in the house. Our penny-pinching days are over." A new cut began on the Nyro album. "Hear that? That's us. We're gettin' off the Poverty Train. You've got the section there. Pick a play, any play, and we'll go."

Carol thumbed to the front. She saw ads for I Never Sang for My Father, How Now Dow Jones, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, none of which much appealed to her. Then she came to a full-page ad quoting rave reviews for Neil Simon's latest.

"Let's see Plaza Suite."

"You got it. I'll call a ticket agent and see if he can dig us up a couple of good seats—price no object."

Carol hesitated. "Do you think we could make it a matinee?"

"I guess so. Why?"

"Well, after last week…"

"Sure," Jim said with a reassuring smile. "We'll be out of the city by dark. We'll drive back here and have dinner at Memison's. How's that sound?"

"Absolutely wonderful!"

In a burst of warmth for Jim, she opened her arms and he fell into them. She wanted to make love to him right here and now in this big old chair. She kissed him, trailing her hand into the tangle of one of his sideburns. He pulled away for a second to place the journal he had been reading on the table beside the chair. That was when Carol noticed the writing along its bottom edge.

"What do those mean?" she said, pointing.

Jim picked up the book again. "Never noticed them."

He held it closer. A series of numbers and letters had been printed in a line:

33R—21L—47R—16L.

"My God, Carol!" he said, leaping from the seat. "That's a safe combination! And it's written on the bottom of the 1938 journal, the one right before the gap! Got to be to the safe upstairs!"

Carol was filled with a sudden foreboding. She grabbed at Jim's arm.

"Why don't we leave it locked?" Jim's expression was frankly puzzled. "Why?"

"Because if Hanley—your father—locked it away so securely, maybe it should stay that way. Maybe there's stuff in there he didn't want anyone to know, stuff he would have destroyed if he'd known he was going to die."

"Whatever's in that safe is the truth. And I've got to know the truth—about who my mother is, or was; and about my father's relationship with her."

"What difference does that make? It's not going to change who you are!"

"I need my past, Carol. I've got the Hanley half. Now I need the rest—my mother's side. This Jazzy Cordeau he mentions may be her. But no matter what Becker digs up on her, I'll only be guessing as to whether she's the one. But I've got a strong feeling that after we open that safe, I'll know."

Carol hugged him against her. "I just hope you don't regret it. I don't want you hurt."

"I can handle it. I don't know what Hanley's hiding. The truth may not be pretty, but it's got to come out of that safe." He smiled. "What's that they say, 'The truth will set you free'? That's the way I feel about what's in that safe. Besides, how bad can it be?"

He stood up and held out his hand to her.

"Come on. Let's open it together."

Carol felt her queasiness double as she rose and followed him upstairs.