The Martini Shot

Chosen

Evangelos “Van” Lucas was behind the wheel of a Land Cruiser, his wife, Eleni, beside him. They were driving home from a Sunday barbecue in Upper Northwest hosted by a business associate of Van’s. Most of the guests were people Van and Eleni had not met before. There had been polite conversation, food eaten off paper plates, and a bit of afternoon drinking.

“You know that lady I was speaking with by the food table for a long time?” said Van. “With the sweatshirt falling off her shoulder?”

“The Flashdance woman. She was nice.”

“She was all right. But why’d you have to go and tell her about our kids?”

“She asked to see photographs,” said Eleni. “Once I pull those out, there are questions. It’s easier just to tell people.”

“But see, then I had to continue the conversation with her.”

“You didn’t look like you minded.”

“Please. She wasn’t my type. That lady was all angles and bones. It would be like doing a skeleton.”

“How would you know what that’s like?”

“My point is, I’m into a woman who looks like a woman. A woman with curves. Like you.”

“I think there’s a compliment in there.”

“And you’re smart.”

“Thanks loads.”

“Not, like, mousy smart. Don’t get me wrong; I like a smart woman. But I also like a nice round ass and a beautiful rack. Which, thank you, Jesus, you happen to have. Matter of fact, you’ve got the whole female package.”

“You’re about to make me blush.”

“But that woman, she just bothered me.”

“I noticed.”

“Not like that. She wanted to talk about our kids, how wonderful it must be to have a rainbow family, how I was doing God’s work, all that bullshit. What a good man I am. Like, just because I adopted a bunch of kids, that makes me good.”

“As you were trying to look down her sweatshirt.”

“Exactly.” Van looked over at Eleni. “You saw me?”

“From across the room.”

“She’s too skinny for me.”

“You like a nice round ass and a beautiful rack.”

“Don’t forget smart,” said Van.

“I know,” said Eleni. “The whole female package.”

They were coming out of the city, going up Alaska Avenue near the District line. Soon they would cross into Maryland and arrive at the close-in neighborhood where the Lucas family made their home. Van and Eleni were in their early thirties. They had four children, ages seven, six, two, and one. All but the oldest had been adopted. It seemed to have happened very fast.

Van Lucas was a big man of Greek descent with the kind of open, honest facial expressions that could be read with ease. The Reagan generation baffled him, and he did not feel he was a part of it. His black curly hair was unfashionably long at a time when the hard-chargers kept theirs short and spiked. He wore a heavy black beard when most went clean shaven and some reached for androgynous. He had the beginnings of a gut inching over the belt line of his Levi’s. His appearance suggested casual good nature and a lack of vanity. He was as advertised.

Eleni reached across the buckets and squeezed Van’s right hand, which rested on the console between them.

“You are good,” she said.

“Ah,” said Van, “knock it off, Eleni.”

He felt electricity when she touched him like that. They’d been together many years and it had never subsided. For a moment he thought he might get lucky that night. But it was false optimism. There was little spontaneous lovemaking between them these days, what with all the commotion around their house. What with all those kids.

When he was single, he had never looked forward to a family. He had no daydreams of watching his children play sports, reading to them at night, helping them with their homework, or kissing the tops of their heads before they left the house. Van Lucas didn’t have a great need for fatherhood, and he didn’t think he would be particularly good at it. But when it happened, he took to it. It was chaotic at times, but it was manageable. He liked being a father, and he loved his kids. Later, he would look back on that time of his life and think: It was easy when they were young.

Within a year of their wedding, Eleni gave birth to a girl they named Irene. “It means ‘peace,’” said Van, selling the name to Eleni. The baby was born after a very difficult pregnancy during which Eleni was required to lie in bed for most of her third trimester. Even with this precaution, Irene arrived prematurely and her survival was in doubt for the first week of her life. But she did fine and progressed without complications. Eleni’s doctor suggested that a subsequent pregnancy would be just as problematic, if not worse, and that Irene should be looked upon as a single blessing and not the first of many blessings to come. Or something like that. Eleni got the convoluted message: Do not tempt fate and try to have another child.

Van was fine with having only one child, but Eleni was not. When Irene got to walking a year later, Eleni decided that a child was not “whole” without a companion. Van said, “We could get a dog,” and Eleni said, “I was thinking along the lines of something on two legs,” to which Van replied, “A monkey, then.” She didn’t smile, so he knew she was serious. He also knew where this was going. Eleni wanted to adopt.

On the subject of adoption, Van suspected he was in the camp of many other men who were not quite sure. Will I truly love a child who did not come from me? Would I be as good a father to an adopted child? Do I want a kid who doesn’t at least look a little like me? He kept these questions to himself for the most part. But they were there.

The one objection a man could legitimately raise was the cost, but Van couldn’t belch about money with a straight face or a clear conscience. He had the dough. A high school friend, Ted Leibovitz, an ambitious renovation man turned builder, had invited Van into his venture when both were right out of college, and they had bought properties in the U Street corridor at fire-sale prices while the Metro was being built, the street was torn up, building windows were boarded, and businesses were failing. The sale of these properties at a profit a few years later had funded bigger projects, commercial and residential, in soon-to-be-hot Shaw, Logan, and Columbia Heights. Ted had an eye for seeing the possibilities in run-down areas, while Van’s talent was in sensing when to sell at the top. Van, despite no visible signs of type-A drive, was making a small fortune as a relatively young man. He was liquid and he had real estate. He couldn’t cry poor to Eleni.

“What are you going to do with all of our money?” she said. “Buy things? You’re not about that.”

She was right. He was not a clotheshorse or into labels. His work truck, a two-toned Chevy Silverado, was his only vehicle.

Eleni was similarly uninterested in material things. She had inherited a deep reserve of compassion from her parents, who had preached and practiced Christian charity throughout her childhood. Hell, Van had met her at one of those Christmas Day dinner — soup kitchen things, to which he had been dragged by a community activist he had been courting for zoning favors. The moment he saw Eleni, her hair under a scarf, an apron not even close to concealing her figure, he fell in love with her. Looks aside, it was the fact that she was there in that church basement on a cold Christmas morning, trying to reach out to people who had next to nothing, when she could have been sitting comfortably by a fire, sipping tea and opening gifts. Her obvious kindness was what closed the deal for him.

“You could do some good,” she said. “Think about the difference you’d make in some kid’s life.”

“While he’s stealing my silverware.”

“Van, come on.”

He threw up his meaty hands in a gesture she recognized as near-surrender. “I don’t know.”

They were seated at the kitchen table of their bungalow. Irene was in her high chair, aiming Cheerios in the general direction of her mouth. Eleni reached across the table and took one of his hands. He felt the current pass through him.

“You know what your name means?” said Eleni.

“Evangelos? It means ‘big stud.’”

“No, but nice try.”

“So tell me.”

“It means ‘evangelist.’ Someone who spreads the gospel. Or, if you want to take it a little further, someone who does good.”

“So you’re sayin what? ”

“Somewhere in your past your ancestors probably adopted kids, too, I bet.”

“When men were men and sheep were nervous.”

“Huh?”

“You’re talking about ancient times. When guys wore metal skirts. The meaning of my name is supposed to make me go out and adopt a kid?”

“Honey, let’s do this,” said Eleni. “We have the money and the opportunity. To, you know, have a reason for being here. Don’t you ever think about why we’re here?”

“Not really,” said Van. “I’m not that deep.”

She came around the table and sat on his lap and kissed him on the lips. His sudden erection was like a crowbar underneath her bottom.

“You’re right,” she said. “You’re not that deep.”

“I’m not doing any of the legwork,” he said. “I got a business to run.”

“I’ll take care of the details.”

“I want a son,” he said, rather petulantly.

Eleni said, “Me, too.”

Through the recommendation of friends in their neighborhood, Eleni made an appointment with an attorney, Bill O’Leary, who specialized in adoptions. Van and Eleni met O’Leary and his assistant, a junior attorney named Donna Monroe, at O’Leary’s downscale office in Silver Spring. O’Leary seemed both distracted and intent on securing them as clients, while Monroe appeared to be more interested in exploring their motivations and needs. Eleni sensed that the lively eyed Monroe was the conscience of the outfit.

After O’Leary had explained the financial aspects of the adoption, in which he pushed for a flat fee rather than itemized billing, they got into the logistics of paperwork, home visits, and matters of timing.

“I’ve heard this process can take years,” said Eleni.

“If you want a baby that looks like you,” said Monroe.

“You mean a white baby,” said Van.

“There is typically a long waiting period for white adoptees,” said O’Leary. “Russia, Eastern Europe. In general you’re talking about children from orphanages who are three, four years old.”

Van didn’t need to be bait-and-switched by O’Leary. He had heard some stories about those kids. He didn’t have the fortitude or the altruism of the people who were willing to take on those kinds of problems. He wanted a family, not a project. He felt that you could mold a baby easier than you could a child who had been socialized, or unsocialized, in his or her formative years.

“No,” said Van. “I’m not interested in that scenario. I wouldn’t want a, you know, handicapped kid, either.”

Van shrugged off Eleni’s reproachful look and shifted his weight in his chair. There was a brief silence as the lawyers digested his remark.

“Would you adopt an African American infant?” said Monroe, looking into Van’s eyes.

Van hesitated. He felt that he was now a customer in the Baby Store, a situation he’d hoped to avoid. And what did you say to the black woman sitting across the table from you? “I’d rather not adopt a black child”?

“You mean, what color baby do I want?” he said. “Is that what you’re asking?”

“This will be easier if we speak freely,” said Monroe.

“We want whoever needs to be adopted,” said Eleni.

Van looked at Eleni. In that moment he knew he would love her forever.

“Right,” said Van.

“Then let’s get started,” said Monroe.

“I’ll have my assistant run the contracts,” said O’Leary, standing excitedly, displaying his tall, birdlike frame. “You do want the flat fee, don’t you?”

Van nodded absently.

That is how it began.

They’d been warned that the adoption process was complicated, but for them it was not. The home visits were perfunctory and quick, and they soon “identified” a baby boy after looking at an array of photographs spread like playing cards on a table. Van said to Eleni, “This is kinda weird. When you choose one, you’re rejecting the others, in a way. You know what I mean? What happens to them? ” Eleni agreed that it was mildly troubling but was steadfast in her belief that they should concentrate on the positive impact they would have on one person’s life rather than bemoaning the fact that they couldn’t help them all. As she was telling him this, her eyes were on the table, and she touched her index finger to the photograph of a black baby who, consciously or not, was staring into the camera, right at them, it seemed, with a startled expression.

“Him,” said Eleni.

Van said, “Okay.”

Van suggested they name the baby Dimitrius, in keeping with his intention of giving their children traditional Greek names. Van was third generation and about as Greek as a Turkish bath, but Eleni did not resist, much.

“Dimitrius is not a traditional African American name.”

“Okay, we’ll call him LeDimitrius.”

“Stop it. I just think we ought to consider what it will mean for him to carry a name like that.”

“It’ll toughen him up. Y’know, the bullies used to call me Chevy Van.” Van balled his fists and held them up. “Until I introduced them to Thunder and Lightning.”

“You were never a fighter.”

“I know it. But that’s the story I’m gonna tell Dimitrius.”

Soon after this conversation, Dimitrius came to them. He was a quiet, pleasant baby, and his sister, Irene, took to him right away. She insisted on pushing his stroller and always sat beside him on the family room couch, where his parents frequently propped him up with pillows. He was her breathing doll. He was loved.

A couple of years passed. They were comfortable as a family and Van was still making significant money. They adopted Shilo, a large dog of indeterminate breed, from the Humane Society at Georgia Avenue and Geranium. The house seemed to grow smaller, louder, and hairier.

When Irene was about to enter kindergarten and Dimitrius was in his last year of preschool, Eleni Lucas got a call from Donna Monroe, now a partner in the O’Leary firm, telling her that another baby had become available. He was a black infant who had been due to be adopted by a white couple who changed their minds at the last minute.

Because they were happy, because they were now convinced that this adoption thing worked, Eleni and Van had already talked about bringing another child into the family. And there was another reason, unspoken to Eleni, which made Van ready to pull the next trigger: Dimitrius was not quite the boy he had imagined he would one day have. He was not particularly coordinated or athletic, and he shied away from any roughhousing or physical contact with his dad. Van loved him, but Van wanted a boy-boy for a son.

And so, a few hours after Donna Monroe’s phone call, Van and Eleni studied the photograph of the boy Van had decided would be called Leonidas.

“He’s beautiful,” said Eleni.

“Yeah, what’s wrong with him?” said Van. “What I mean is, why did the first couple reject him?”

“Too dark,” said Monroe, who now operated without O’Leary in the room and was free to say whatever she pleased. “They initially saw the photos of him when he came into the world, and he was lighter skinned then. They do get darker after the first few weeks. I’m guessing these folks wanted a more Caucasian-looking black baby.”

“Their loss,” said Eleni, something she would say to herself many times over the years as she looked at her boy with deep love and wonder.

“I’m just curious,” said Van. “I know there’s a school of thought with some social workers that says that black babies should go to black parents.”

“I’m a graduate of that school,” said Monroe. “All things equal, I’ll try to place a black baby with a black couple first, every time.”

“So why’d you call us?” said Van.

“You’ve been in here with your kids a few times,” said Monroe. “I see that it’s working, and you’re not trying too hard. You don’t do that over-earnest thing, trying to be all multicultural. I get those types, you know, ‘Look at me, I adopted a black kid.’ You all just act like a family. You’re not dressing your boy in kente cloth or anything ridiculous like that.”

“We don’t celebrate Kwanza, either,” said Van.

“Neither do I,” said Monroe. “That’s a holiday for Hallmark, not for me. Truth is, in this case, I feel like it would be a good fit. Dimitrius should have a black sibling. It would be good for both of them to have a brother to lean on if they get to where they’re having identity issues. What would you name this baby, by the way?”

“Leonidas,” said Van. “It means ‘lion.’”

“Hmph,” said Monroe.

“My husband is trying to keep it Greek,” said Eleni.

“So are you ready?” said Monroe.

“Is this the part where Bill O’Leary bursts in with the contracts?”

“He saw y’all pull into the parking lot,” said Monroe with a small smile, “and he saw his next Mercedes.”

“Let’s do it,” said Eleni.

Leonidas Lucas, wrapped in a blue fleece blanket, wearing a tiny wife beater, was put in Van’s arms a few days later in the offices of O’Leary and Monroe. The boy was five weeks old, cooing, looking up into Van’s eyes, and Van’s thought at that moment was as it would always be when he saw Leonidas: This is my son.

“May I?” said Eleni, who had yet to hold the child.

“Looks like you’re gonna have to pry him out of your man’s arms,” said Monroe.

Van handed him to Eleni.

“He’s a keeper,” said Van, rocking back on his heels, his face flushed.

“Y’all better get home,” said Monroe. “The snow is coming down hard.”

They looked out the office window. Indeed, the flurries that had been swirling all morning had turned to heavy flakes.

“He’s going to be cold,” said Eleni.

“I bought a little something for him,” said Monroe, producing a Hecht’s bag holding a new outfit. “Congratulations, you two.”

Van bear-hugged Monroe before leaving with his wife and son.

They drove through the snow in Van’s Silverado, Leonidas secured in a car seat between them, the truck weighted down by sandbags in the bed. Van and Eleni giggled all the way home. Irene and Dimitrius, being watched by a neighbor, were waiting for them at the door.

“Say hello to Leonidas,” said Van, snow in his hair and beard, carrying the infant football-style into the house. “Your new brother.”

Leonidas was an early walker and it seemed that he would be athletic. He laughed huskily and charmed everyone he met, and he did not cry when the doctors stuck him with needles. Van would never admit it, but Leonidas was his favorite. Van nicknamed him Cool Breeze because it felt that way to him whenever Leonidas toddled into a room.

Dimitrius did not seem to notice or mind that his father was overly focused on Leonidas. Irene and Dimitrius by now had become a unit. They played in their bedrooms, separately or together, and did not spend a great amount of time paying attention to their parents or their new baby brother. As for Leonidas, his eyes followed Van and Eleni as they moved about the room. When he could not see them, he smiled at the sound of their voices. Even Shilo was smitten, and he growled when anyone outside the immediate family approached Leonidas.

Despite the pressure of the new addition, Van and Eleni were getting along fine. They made love a couple of times a week, ate in restaurants without debating if they should, and went out on the occasional movie date. Because they wanted little in the way of material possessions, they felt they lacked nothing. In fact, Van was still doing quite well despite his seeming lack of interest in making money. They had the family they wanted. They hadn’t planned any of this and they felt lucky.

Then, when Leonidas was a year old, they got a call from Donna Monroe. Another baby was available. That night, Van and Eleni discussed it over a bottle of red. They didn’t need another child. Was this a bridge too far? Why tempt the gods?

“Why’d she call us?” said Van.

“I think she likes you.”

“Or her partner got a look at my financials.” Van shook his head. “This house is already too small.”

“We can move.”

“I like it here.”

“You’re a builder. We’ll make the house bigger.”

“I dunno,” said Van.

“There’s a reason Donna called us. Someone whispered in her ear and told her to.” She reached for his hand. “Aren’t you curious?”

The next day they went to the law office. Van remarked that the furnishings were more lavishly appointed than the last time they had visited, but Donna Monroe ignored him as they walked down the hall to an office that Van now called “the closing area.” Monroe was seven months pregnant and she lowered herself carefully into a chair as they found seats. Her belly swelled beneath her maternity outfit. She pushed a photograph across the table, and Van and Eleni bent forward to have a look.

“You don’t have anything against white babies, do you?” said Monroe.

“We’re color-blind,” said Van.

“Why us?” said Eleni. “There’s gotta be a line out the door for a white infant like this one.”

“Actually, not at the moment,” said Monroe. “The couple who had identified him claimed that he came available too quickly. They weren’t ready. I guess they needed to get the nursery set picked out and delivered first. Or have the artist paint the mural in his room before he could sleep there. What they want is a doll, not a child. No lie.”

“But there must be other couples.”

“None on our list who are uncommitted to other kids. None currently who have completed their home studies. Course, I could put him in foster care for a month or so. But I don’t like to do that.”

“I should say not,” said Eleni, looking at the photo, falling in love.

“Aw, Jesus Christ,” said Van.

“He is handsome,” said Monroe.

“Van,” said Eleni.

They named him Spero and brought him home the next day. Upon entering their house, Eleni took a photograph. When it was developed, it showed Spero still in the car seat, Irene and Dimitrius off to the side, Leonidas with his arm around his new baby brother, Van down on one knee, broadly smiling, and Shilo sniffing at the new arrival in the foreground. Behind them, through the double glass doors of the family room, there was a thick wall of clouds, and though it was midday, a light appeared to wink in the gray sky. Van said it was the camera flash reflected in the glass. Eleni claimed it was a star. She would not tell him what she truly believed: that the light was a kind of eye. That there was something out there, watching them and watching over them, this family of six.

Van blew out the back of the house and raised the roof, and their Sears bungalow replica became something taller, deeper, and architecturally unidentifiable. The days became compressed by activity. Time went quickly and there was laughter in their home and raised voices and sometimes tears, but it was good and they were thankful for all they had. As the years passed, the children grew taller and Van grew heavier. Eleni’s face became pleasantly lined and she noticed the beginnings of turkey neck beneath her chin. Shilo passed and was replaced by a large tan mixed breed they named Cheyenne.

Aside from the usual fights, vandalism, and mild behavior problems at school, all of the children’s lives had been free of serious trouble when they were young. Dimitrius was a skateboarder and video gamer. Leo, as he was known outside his home, played multiple community sports, as did Spero. Irene was into dance, gymnastics, and horseback riding. In Van’s and Eleni’s eyes, the boys did not seem to have a problem with their adopted status. But they may have been blinded by love. The truth was, they simply felt that these were their children, not their adopted children, and so it was easy for them to deny that in the minds of their sons there could be more complicated feelings swirling in the mix.

In high school, Irene, black haired like her father and lush of figure like her mom, found the influence of her peers stronger than that of her parents, and she began to use pot, alcohol, and speed. She had sex with boys rather indiscriminately. She also kept up her grades and scored high on her SATs. Her crowd was punk in look only, interested in drugs, not music, and did not have the positive, community-activist bent for which the D.C. punk scene was known.

Dimitrius still idolized Irene and trailed in her wake, and because he was black, an outsider in a group of self-proclaimed outsiders, he felt he had to prove himself and did so by being a harder user than his peers. Like any addict, he lied constantly. He stole money and jewelry from his mother, and his grades dropped to failure across the board. His parents set him up with a shrink, but Dimitrius bailed on the appointments until finally, unreasonable and illogical, he announced his intention to drop out of high school and leave home. Van and Eleni pleaded with him to obtain his diploma. They told him that they were there for him. They told him they loved him and had faith in him, and he replied that he didn’t care.

Irene, just as eager to get away from home, was no help. She was accepted to the University of Washington in Seattle and took off after her high school graduation. Dimitrius got his GED and soon followed Irene, promising his parents that he would enroll in Seattle’s community college. They reluctantly agreed, put him on a plane, and staked him in an apartment out there; soon after he was gone they began to lose touch with him, and eventually there was no communication at all. Van flew to Seattle, looking for his son, but the apartment they had rented for Dimitrius was vacant, and the landlord had been given no forwarding address. Irene, now in her sophomore year, claimed to have no knowledge of her brother’s whereabouts, but Van suspected that she was covering for Dimitrius. He drove and walked around Seattle for several days and nights, looking for Dimitrius among the city’s numerous homeless kids, many of whom were drug abusers. He hired a local private detective to continue the search and then, angry and anguished, he flew back to D.C.

In their home the night of his return, Van and Eleni discussed the situation. Eleni was not happy with the turn of events, but she was less emotional than Van and told him they needed to concentrate on the children who still lived with them. She noted truthfully that the house was more settled since Irene and Dimitrius had left, and probably a better atmosphere for Leonidas and Spero, and Van had to agree.

“But it shouldn’t have happened like this,” said Van.

“Irene’s always gone her own way,” said Eleni. “Her independence is going to serve her well as an adult.”

“I’m not worried about Irene. It’s Dimitrius. He’s lost.”

“We’ll find him.”

A week later, the detective, Paul Garner, phoned Van.

“I located your son,” said Garner. “He’s staying in a warehouse with a bunch of kids near the university. Living hand to mouth, but he’s under a roof.”

“Living how?”

“You want it unvarnished?”

“Of course.”

“The drug of choice out here for a certain kind of kid is meth. I went to that area near U of W first because that’s where a lot of the users are concentrated. Showed around the photograph you gave me, and when I put some cash on top of it I got the information I needed.”

“How do you know he’s using?”

“Because I live here. He had the complexion and the look. His teeth are brown. He had the rank smell they get from all that perspiration.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what did he say?”

“He said that he was fine. He doesn’t want detox and he doesn’t want to come home. Most of ’em think the same way: They’re fine. I told him that his father had hired me to find him.”

“And?”

“Mr. Lucas—”

“Tell me.”

Garner cleared his throat. “He said he didn’t have a father.”

“God,” said Van uselessly.

“Sorry. I really am. Y’know, after I divorced his mother, my son cut off contact with me, too. If it’s any consolation…”

Van felt as if he had been punched in the face. He heard little of the rest of Garner’s story, but he got the address of the warehouse before bringing the conversation to a close. He then phoned Irene, who promised to look in on her kid brother and see to it that he had food and, if needed, a place to stay. Van had the nagging feeling from Irene’s cool tone that she was relatively unconcerned about Dimitrius’s degeneration, or at best felt that Van’s worries were overblown.

“He’ll be all right, Dad. You’ve got to let him come through this himself.”

In bed that night, Van and Eleni held each other and talked quietly, though Leonidas and Spero were long asleep in their room. Eleni had cried a little earlier in the evening, but in ways of logic she was stronger than Van, and also an optimist. She felt it was on her to reassure her husband that the family would be whole again someday.

“Dimitrius will come home,” said Eleni.

“When?” said Van.

“Soon.”

Dimitrius did not come home. During the next several years they spoke to him a few times over the phone, only when he needed cash. After a lecture, and against his better judgment, Van would wire the money. And then nothing, no further contact until the next similar call. They no longer knew where Dimitrius was. As for Irene, she entered law school and stopped coming home, even for holidays. They rarely spoke to her, either. That left them with their two younger sons. Van vowed to get it right with them.

Leonidas’s and Spero’s high school years went smoothly. After witnessing the stress their older siblings had inflicted on their parents, they had no desire to rebel in any significant way. Irene’s and Dimitrius’s absence actually allowed them to flourish.

Neither of them was academically gifted, but both were strong and athletic. They were liked and respected by their classmates for the most part, and were rarely kidded about being salt-and-pepper brothers. For their peers it was not much of an issue. That kind of baggage was carried, mostly, by the generations that came before them.

Leonidas was a handsome man-child, fast on his feet, tall, dark skinned, broad shouldered, and soft-spoken, with an electrifying smile. He had a social conscience like his mother. Spero had black hair, pale skin, and hazel eyes, and at a glance could easily be mistaken for the biological product of Van and Eleni. He was quiet, and a bit brooding and intense, which served him well with girls. Leonidas played wide receiver and point guard for their Montgomery County high school. Spero, quick and wiry, wrestled varsity at one nineteen as a freshman and one forty in his senior year, when he was honorable mention All-Met, winning Mount Madness in his weight class and placing at the seriously loaded Beast of the East tournament in Delaware. There were partial scholarship offers, but Spero had other plans.

Leonidas entered the University of Maryland after his graduation from high school with the intention of becoming a teacher and coach. When Spero graduated, a year after Leonidas, he enrolled at Montgomery College, attended two semesters, then stated his intention to enlist in the Marine Corps. Because there was a new war in Iraq, this did not please his parents. Van, whose father was a WWII veteran, was not a pacifist, and in fact believed that there were necessary wars, but he was strongly against this one and argued passionately with his son about the wisdom of entering the service. Eleni tried quiet persuasion, but neither she nor her husband could change Spero’s mind. Van blamed Spero’s wrestling coach, a thick-browed ex-marine with a Cro-Magnon build who had a combination father/Rasputin-type relationship with his athletes, for influencing his son’s decision.

“He jacked up Spero with that bullshit for four years,” said Van.

Eleni, who rarely spoke ill of anyone, agreed.

While Leonidas neared completion of his degree and prepared to apply for teaching positions, Spero, now a marine with the Second Battalion, First Regiment and having served in Iraq for a year, was moving toward the Anbar province, where he would be participating in an offensive on insurgent forces in a place called Fallujah. In his letters and e-mails, Spero did not tell his parents of the fierce nature of the battle or the casualties incurred on both sides.

That year, only Leonidas would be around for the Lucas family Christmas. Irene could not make it as usual, and Dimitrius was in the wind. It was a troubling time on many fronts. Van’s business was beginning to falter due in part to the economy but mainly because of the acute alcoholism of his partner, now on his third marriage. The Lucas money was safe, as Van had always been conservative with his investments, but he faced the prospect of an unwelcome career adjustment in his middle age. More disturbing, he considered his track record as a parent to be spotty at best. He still wondered on what had gone wrong with Dimitrius, remained puzzled by Irene’s cold nature, and worried considerably about Spero’s safety. He began to complain of headaches and memory loss. He sometimes vomited without the usual warning sign of nausea. In sleep, his dreams were filled with snakes.

Over the holidays, Van said to Eleni, “Funny, this time of year I usually gain weight. I got on the scale today and I’ve lost ten pounds. But I’ve been eatin like an animal.”

“It’s stress,” said Eleni.

A week later, having experienced periods of low-level fever, he went to the family physician, Dr. Nassarian, for some blood work. Nassarian called the next day and told Van that he had seen something he didn’t like, that it was probably nothing to be too concerned about but that he should have it checked. Nassarian was sending him to a specialist to do another workup and some tests.

“What kind of specialist?” said Van.

“An oncologist up in Wheaton,” said the doctor, and Van’s heart naturally dropped.

There was more blood taken, and an MRI, which led to a follow-up visit with the oncologist, Dr. Veronica Sorenson, in her office overlooking the Westfield Shopping Center, which Van still called Wheaton Plaza. He had played there as a boy, flirted with girls, acted tough around greasers, taunted security guards, and been nailed in the old Monkey Wards for shoplifting, back when the center was an open-air mall.

“You have an intracranial tumor, Mr. Lucas,” said Dr. Sorenson.

“A brain tumor.”

“Yes.”

“Cancer,” he said, almost stuttering on the word.

She tented her hands before her and looked directly into his eyes. She was an attractive brunette in her late thirties with a direct, professional manner that was not cold in the least. Dr. Sorenson had photographs of her children set up on her desk. He idly wondered if she believed in God.

“Let me show you,” she said.

Dr. Sorenson turned off the lights in the office and allowed him to examine his scans displayed on her light board.

“It’s called a GBM,” she said, pointing to the image of the growth. “There. It appears in the form of a lesion.”

“What’s a GBM?”

“Glioblastoma multiforme. We’ll need to do a stereotactic biopsy to confirm, of course.”

“You wouldn’t be telling me this today if you didn’t know.”

“Unfortunately, I’m almost completely certain that this is what we’re looking at.”

“Certain of what, Doctor? What’s my prognosis?”

“I wish I could be more positive. This is a most aggressive cancer. The survival rate is very low.”

He looked down at his hand and saw that he was twisting his wedding band around on his ring finger. “How long would a guy with this thing… how long? Ballpark.”

“I recommend that you opt for treatment. We’ll perform cranial surgery to remove the bulk of the tumor, then radiotherapy and chemotherapy.”

“How long, Doctor?”

“Months,” said Dr. Sorenson.

Van, always known as an easygoing, take-it-as-it-comes guy, played his role well. He refused treatment and decided to live his life as lucidly and with as much dignity as possible until its conclusion. Even in his private moments with Eleni, when they weren’t putting business matters in order, he spoke positively about the time they’d shared together and their good fortune at having found each other, and he didn’t break down when he told Irene and Spero by phone and, most challenging, Leonidas face-to-face. His mind was filled with bitterness, confusion, and anger at his Christ, in whom he had never lost faith, but he was determined to keep up a solid front for his wife and kids. Mostly, like any rational human being, he was frightened of death.

He lasted just over two months. His final days were spent in his bed at home, as he wished. He had lost his parents long ago, but he had many friends, and they came to call. Donna Monroe, now a middle-aged divorcée with kids in college, stopped by, and when Van saw her he told Eleni to hide his wallet, and Donna scolded him and laughed. Irene flew in at one point and he was surprised at her appearance. She had gained weight, and her hair was completely gray. In his presence she checked her BlackBerry often. Though he loved her, he felt little affection for her, but he had no guilt in that regard. She flew back to San Francisco and her law firm after a day. Leonidas visited daily. Spero called often and stayed in e-mail contact with Eleni. His tour was almost up but not quite, and he was trying with futility to get leave and come home.

An in-home hospice nurse was on duty, but Eleni kept her out of the room except to administer and regulate the morphine. Eleni talked to Van as he slept. She slipped Popsicles into his mouth and wet his lips with a washcloth when he could no longer drink. On the last night of his life he looked up at her, sitting beside him.

“I’m a failure,” he said hoarsely.

“What do you mean?”

“Where are my children?”

“Leonidas is on his way.” She squeezed his hand. “You’re no failure. Don’t ever think that. You did nothing but good. You’re a good man.”

He drifted in and out of morphine dreams. Leonidas came into the room. He hugged his mother roughly and went to the bedside, where he knelt on the hardwood floor and kissed his father’s hand.

“The best day of my life was the day that lawyer put you in my arms,” said Van, and Leonidas lowered his head as hot tears ran down his face.

“I love you, Pop.”

Van’s cracked lips twitched up into a smile. “Cool Breeze,” he whispered.

Those were the last words he spoke. He died the next morning, just before dawn.

Years passed. Eleni adopted a second dog, called him Yuma, and walked him and Cheyenne twice a day. The outings took a long time, as she stopped to talk to many neighbors on her route and sometimes sat up on their porches and shared tea and, in the evenings, glasses of wine. Deep into her forties she had gotten looks on the street, but now in her sixties she seemed invisible to men. She was still a handsome woman, but she was old.

Eleni no longer had a need for sex, but she was often lonely and would not have minded the companionship of a man. Her attitude was, if it happened, fine. She had her neighborhood friends, her church, her garden, her dogs. And her children.

Her two younger sons called her almost daily. They visited a couple of times a week, mostly at dinnertime, because they liked her cooking and because they knew she loved to feed them.

Leo was a high school teacher in the D.C. public system. Spero did investigative work for a defense attorney down by the courts. When she looked at her sons, she saw Van, and she thought: We did well.

Ours was a life well spent.