CHAPTER 29.

"Is he all right?" Nick looked at her somberly as she came out of Tygue's room. It was six-thirty, and it had been a long hour. He had hidden from them in the garden, and had been soaked to the skin when they brought him inside, clutching an equally soaked Willie. Kate had put him in a hot tub while Nick made hot chocolate, and she had sat for a long time in his room. Nick had waited on the stairs.

"I think he's okay. It's hard to tell. Anyway, he's asleep." She looked exhausted.

"What did you tell him?"

"The truth. What choice did I have? He had heard most of it already, standing at the door. I don't think he meant to eavesdrop. He says he came upstairs to tell me he was home, and he heard us talking about Tom." She motioned to the open door of their bedroom, and Nick nodded, and followed her inside. They closed the door, and Kate sat down heavily on the bed as Nick handed her a cigarette. She looked more like she needed brandy and a hot bath. All they could think was Tygue.

"I stirred up some f.u.c.king hornet's nest, pressing you about Tom." It was all he could think of as he waited on the stairs. But she shook her head through the small cloud of gray smoke.

"Don't do that to yourself. Painful as it is, I think you've done us all good. I feel relieved. And Tygue will live through it. This way I can tell him the good stuff too. Tom Harper was a beautiful human being. Tygue has a right to know that, and he can't unless he knows the rest. So now he'll know both. It's a fair trade." She hesitated for a moment and then spoke again, with a sigh. "There have been times when I've wondered about the way I've played G.o.d. I kept a very important part of himself away from Tygue. I kept him from knowing who and what his father was. I thought that would be easier for him." She sat down slowly and looked very hard at Nick. "But there were other reasons too."

"They couldn't have been bad reasons."

"Maybe they were. I wanted him to be mine. I wanted him to be totally free of all that. I didn't want him to be ... like Tom." Nick waited for her to go on, without saying a word. "I didn't want him to fall in love with the image of Tom Harper, the glory of the alb.u.ms and the clippings and the adulation. Tom loved all that stuff. What man wouldn't? I think maybe I was always a little bit afraid that Tygue might want it too, maybe even to prove something for Tom. To leave the Harper name 'clean.' G.o.d only knows what crazy ideas might have gone through his head ... I was afraid of all those possibilities. It was just a lot easier the way it was." And then, remembering Nick again, she smiled a tiny smile. "But it wasn't right, Nick. It's right that he should know. One day I'll probably even have to tell him about my parents. I let him think the whole world around him had died, except me. But that's not the truth. I suppose everyone has a right to the truth." Nick had had a right to it too. For a moment, she felt as though she had betrayed them all, and she felt a wave of exhaustion sweep over her at the thought. "Anyway, darling, things have a way of working out for the best." She held out a hand to Nick, but he didn't take it and he looked suddenly stricken again.

"Does Tygue think so?" Nick said it bitterly as he looked at her and then out at the Bay. He should have minded his own business.

"He's confused. He doesn't know what the h.e.l.l to think. The only thing he was positive about was that he wanted to see his dad. I told him he couldn't." She sighed again. "And right now he hates me for it, but he'll get over it. He has you." She smiled at Nick's back, and then moved toward him and put her arms around his waist.

"I'm not his father though, Kate."

"That doesn't matter. You give him more than most fathers would-emotionally and in every other way. And I don't know, Nick. This is our reality. Tom was who he was and he did what he did. For whatever reasons. Maybe it's just time we both faced the truth. It won't kill either of us. So stop looking like somebody died." He turned to face her and tried to smile, but it was not an overwhelming success. He felt as though the world had fallen in on him, and he didn't know what to do to make it up to them. "By the way, aren't you working tonight?" She looked at the clock, in surprise.

"I called in sick while you were in with Tygue."

"I'm glad." She smiled up at him and stretched out on the bed. "I'm so tired I could die."

"I can't imagine why, Cinderella." He sat down and started to rub her feet and then her legs. "I mean, after all, you only drove about three hundred miles today, came home and were forced to confront me with all the skeletons in your closet, after which, I was kind enough to tear the guts out of your son, forcing you to rescue the child from the pouring rain, bathe him, comfort him, and generally save the day. Why the h.e.l.l are you tired?" She was grinning at the description.

"Do I get a national award for all that? It sounds exemplary."

"You really should. And me, I should get a kick in the a.s.s."

"Would you settle for something else?" She sat up as he rubbed her legs and slid her arms around his neck.

"I don't deserve it." He hung his head like a wicked child and she laughed.

"Just shut up and relax." He did and they did, and it was nine o'clock when Kate went in to run a bath. "Will you keep an eye on this for me for a minute? I want to check on Tygue."

"Sure." He stopped her for a moment, for a long tender kiss. She had given him everything that night, he knew that. Her body, her soul, her heart, everything she had to give had been his. As though to soothe his pain for what he'd done. "I love you, Cinderella. More than you know. By the way"-he looked down at her gently and smoothed a stray lock of hair from her face-"far be it from me to snoop into your life or question your motives, but it seems to me that you forgot something tonight." She looked up at him with a confused little smile. She knew he was teasing but she wasn't sure about what.

"I did?" And then she grinned broadly. "Oh d.a.m.n. Dinner. Oh darling, I'm sorry. Are you starving?"

"No, I'm not starving. I couldn't even eat. I meant something else." He pulled her back into his arms and felt her body bring his to life again as they both smiled and kissed. "You forgot the flying saucer-you know, the magic baby catcher." He looked at her with a grin. He had forgotten it too. Until afterward. Everything had been so topsy-turvy all night. And when he looked at her now, she was frowning with a look of irritation but not panic.

"s.h.i.+t. My diaphragm." She had left it sitting virginally in the drawer.

"Is that a disaster?" He felt an obligation to ask, although for him it was anything but a disaster. He still wanted her child. Tygue as well as his own. "Would you freak out?"

"No. But I won't get pregnant anyway. It's the wrong time of the month."

"How do you figure that?" Not the way he understood things.

"I had my hair done yesterday."

"Huh? You're crazy. And you haven't answered my question."

"What is it?" But she was teasing him and he knew it.

"The question is ... oh to h.e.l.l with you. Get pregnant, so what. I'll drop you off at the unwed mothers' home, and go to Tahiti with Tygue."

"Be sure you send me a postcard. And don't bother watching my bath." She grinned as she turned it off, and grabbed a white terry-cloth robe to go check on Tygue. "I'll be back in a sec."

"Do that." He said it with a smile. And she did. She was back in a second but without a smile. She walked back into the bathroom with her robe flying wide, showing her long thin naked body, and her face deathly white.

"Tygue's gone."

Nick felt as though the earthquake had hit. She silently handed him a note, and as he read it, she bent over the John and threw up.

CHAPTER 30.

"No, we don't know where he went. All we know is what he left in this note." Nick looked across at Kate. They had discussed it all before the police arrived. They were not going to say anything about Tom. It wouldn't help.

"Let's have another look at that note."

The note was painfully simple. "Iym goang to fine mie fathere." Nice plain seven-year-old English. He was going to find his father. The plainclothesman looked up at Nick and Kate.

"You're not his father, Mr.... er ... Waterman?"

"No. He's Mrs. Harper's son. But Tygue and I are very close." After he said it, he felt like an a.s.s. But who was thinking straight? Kate was beginning to look strangely translucent and gray. She had barely spoken to the police, and Nick was afraid she was going into shock.

"Do you know where his father is? Seems like it would be pretty simple to give him a call." Kate looked agonized, and Nick shook his head.

"I'm afraid not. The boy's father died before he was born."

"Was he angry at you then?" The cop came back at him quickly and this time Kate revived.

"No, I think, if anything, he was angry at me. I think mostly he's just under a lot of new pressures. We just moved to San Francisco, and he's in a new school, and ..." She faltered and Nick squeezed her hand.

"Does he have any money?"

Kate shook her head. "I don't think so."

"Did he take anything?"

"Yes. His teddy bear." Her eyes filled as she said it. "It's a large brown bear with a red tie." She looked down at Bert, who wagged his tail and approached, and she only cried harder.

"What's the boy wearing?"

She didn't know. And she would never be able to guess. But she went to the hall closet and discovered his slicker was gone.

"A yellow slicker. And probably jeans and cowboy boots."

"Anyone in town he would go to?"

"Felicia!" She ran for the phone, but there was no answer when she dialed. Somberly, she gave the officer Licia's number. And Tillie's. And Joey's back home. And ... "And I think he might have tried to get to Carmel." She looked miserably at Nick.

"Does he know anyone there?" The policeman looked up.

"No. But he likes it." d.a.m.n. What could she tell him? He went to find his r.e.t.a.r.ded, crippled, once-famous father, whom he didn't even know was alive until this afternoon? "What are you going to do?" She squeezed Nick's hand as the police closed their little brown books.

"Comb the area until we find him. Now we need some pictures." They brought out dozens of them. Color, close-up, distance, in every possible outfit, on his pony, with his dog, at Disneyland, on a cable car with Licia. They shoved the makings of an alb.u.m into their hands. "We'll only need one or two." Kate nodded numbly as they went out into the rain. "We'll call you every hour to report."

"Thank you."

"Hang tough." They looked encouragingly at Nick as they left. Expensive house. And the kid looked happy enough in the pictures. They obviously weren't abusing him. Maybe he was just one of those funny little kids who needed to run away. They'd seen that kind before. The girls tended to stand dramatically in the doorway, giving their parents every opportunity to beg them to stay home. The boys just packed up and split.

"Oh G.o.d, Nick, what'll we do?"

"Just what they said, darling. Hang tough."

"I can't ... oh G.o.d ... Nick, I can't. He could be kidnapped. Run over. He could be ..."

"Stop it!" He grabbed her by the shoulders and then pulled her tightly into his arms. "Just stop it, Kate. We can't do that. We have to know he'll be okay." Kate nodded numbly as she cried, and then clutched hopelessly at Nick. There was something agonized in her eyes that tore at him, and finally as she sobbed, he began to understand. There was more than just fear and worry in her heart.

"It's my fault, Nick ... it's all my fault."

"I said stop it, Kate. It's not your fault." He wanted to tell her it was his own fault for bringing up the whole mess that afternoon, but it was pointless for either of them to blame themselves now. What they had to do was get Tygue back and tell him about his father, talk about the past, try to explain Kate's reasons for keeping him in the dark. And they would love the boy more than they had before. He needed that. Tonight proved it. But breast-beating was a futile act. Nick held tightly to Kate and gently pushed her chin up with one hand until her drenched eyes met his. "It's no one's fault, darling. We can both torment ourselves with that for the next hundred years, but maybe it was just meant to come out. Maybe he had to know."

"I know he did. I should have told him years ago and then this wouldn't have happened."

"But you didn't, and you can't know now if that made any difference. Maybe he couldn't have handled it till now. Whatever the case, you just have to let the past be. You didn't tell him. Now he knows. Those are the facts we have to deal with."

"But what if something awful happens to him?" Her voice was a plaintive wail again as her eyes flooded again.

"Nothing will. We just have to believe that, Kate."

"I wish I could." She blew her nose loudly and closed her eyes.

The police had called every hour, as promised, but they still had no news. It was after midnight when they reached Felicia.

"Oh my G.o.d." Felicia gasped and sat down as Nick explained. Kate was in no condition to talk. She had stopped crying, but she only sat there, staring, and thumbing through the pictures. Nick had finally stopped trying to take them away from her. "Should I come over?"

"It might help. You've been through worse things with her before."

"Yeah. And Nick"-she hesitated for a moment, and then decided to say it-"I'm glad you know. She needs to be free of all that. She can't hide forever."

"I know. But this is a rough way to go."

"Maybe there's no other way." Nick nodded silently and they hung up. Felicia came right over, and they sat there together, drinking coffee and going crazy until five. And at five-thirty, the police called again. Nick braced himself for the same dismal news. No news.

"We've got him."

"Where?"

"Right here." The cop grinned down at the kid.

And Nick closed his eyes and shouted into the room, "They've got him." And then into the phone again, "Is he okay?"

"Fine. He's tired, but fine. Willie the Bear looks a little forlorn though." The kid was very quiet. Probably sobered by the experience.

"Where was he?"

"Sitting around the Greyhound bus station, trying to talk someone into taking him to Carmel. His mother was right. They usually are. We'll have him home to you in ten minutes."

"Wait. Can I talk to him?" He was going to put Kate on, as she stood there next to him sobbing and laughing and squeezing his arm while Felicia looked on through her own tears.

The policeman came back on in a minute. "He says he's too tired to talk." Ornery little b.u.g.g.e.r. But that was their problem. He'd make out the report, give the kid a speech about the evils of running away and the dangers of bus stations, and take the boy home.

"What do you mean he was too tired?" Kate looked stunned after Nick hung up, and then she understood. "He's still p.i.s.sed."

Nick nodded. "I a.s.sume so."

He a.s.sumed right. When Tygue got home he was subdued, and he waited until the policeman had left before speaking to them. He had dutifully hugged his mother when he came in, but it won her no warmth and no comfort, only the puddle Willie had squeezed onto her s.h.i.+rt that was still soaking. Tygue had dried off in the bus station. It was amazing he had gotten there at all. He said he'd had a nickel and had taken the bus. Bus drivers all along the way had given him directions.

"Do you have any idea what could have happened to you?" She was starting to scream at him out of relief. He hung his head, but he did not look contrite. And then finally he spoke.

"I'm going to do it again."

"What?" She shrieked as Nick tried to calm her down.

"I'm going to find my father. I want to see him." And then she sat back with a sigh and looked at her son. How could she tell him without breaking his heart that there was no father to see? There was a man, and he had been his father, but he was gone now. And Tygue couldn't see him.

"You can't do that." She said it very softly.