Chapter 25

Emily and I were together for most of the rest of the weekend. In addition to some very satisfying make-up sex, we also spent time talking together, and just being around each other.

Sunday, she and I took four boys from the group homes, out to a ranch that rented horses over in Collier, a town about forty miles west of Ridgeline. At first, all of us were having a great time riding on the trails set up for riding. I think I was the first one to get sore balls, and chafed skin on my thighs, but, soon, all the boys were complaining about it.

Emily said she didn't feel anything bad happening in her legs. She whispered to me that all the bouncing around in the saddle, and the rubbing, as she swayed with her horse's movements, was actually kind of a turn on for her. She said her pussy was being massaged by the saddle.

We stopped off for barbecue sandwiches on the way back, and the boys really liked eating the messy food. I dropped the boys off in front of their homes, afraid to come in and face the music from their house parent moms. I didn't want to be anywhere around them, not after they saw how much sauce all the boys had spilled onto the front of their shirts. They were all sore, but happy to have gotten out and actually ridden some horses. It was a very good day for us.

I had been pleasantly surprised at how well Em seemed to get along with all the boys. She seemed to fit in well with them, laughing and kidding around with them right from the very beginning. On the ride back home, Freddie, one of our ten year old boys, fell asleep with his head cushioned against Emily's breast. She kept her arm around him as he slept. I wasn't sure why it struck such a strong chord with my emotions, seeing her like that, but it did. I guess part of it was that it made me think she'd be a good mother to our children someday, if we ever did get married.

We had gone over to Uncle Bunny's house when we got back to Ridgeline. We got there around six thirty, probably both thinking we'd have some more sex. It had been a weekend we'd managed to spend in harmony. I couldn't ever remember spending that much time with Emily, without the two of us getting into some kind of an argument before.

I'm not sure I remember why the subject came up on the drive back, but, while I was telling her something about the new modular extension we were going to build, over by Holton, I mentioned that we'd have twenty four more boys in the homes. I think Emily might have said something like 'all boys?', and that's when I told her about Joyce wanting us to open an extension for girls, sometime in the future.

Emily and I had never spoken of her life before she was adopted. I had assumed that both she and Gary were adopted almost from birth. Couples such as the Carstairs were, people with money and some small amount of fame, usually had their pick of the most desirable choices.

Babies were always the preferred adoptee's. In a way, it was funny that I had been silently complaining to myself about Emily not showing any interest in any of my projects, when I was guilty of not having spoken to her about something so basic as her age and circumstances when she'd been adopted. She hadn't been adopted as a baby, and, during our discussion about group homes for girls, I found this out, along with a lot of other things that made me understand her better.

Instead of going into the back bedroom and making love, we wound up cuddling on the sofa, while Emily told me about her earliest childhood memories, and of being adopted when she was six years old. Her mother, who had never been married, and who she only vaguely remembered, had gotten sick, and then she died. Emily, then three years old, went to live with an aunt, her mother's sister, for a very short time. That hadn't worked out, so she had turned Emily over to social services, saying she was unable to care for her, and that she didn't have any other relatives, none that she was in touch with, that could provide a home for Emily. This started a year long odyssey for Em, being shifted back and forth from one temporary foster home to the next, while social services sought to find her a more permanent placement.

This had been unusual, but Emily had presented behavioral problems during all her temporary placements. She told me she used to throw giant temper tantrums. She would fall to the floor and scream at the top of her lungs, kicking her feet at anyone and anything that came within her range. This was apparently not the kind of behavior that went over well with most foster parents, which was part of the reason that Emily spent a year shuffling around in the child care system. Emily told me she had also been a very picky eater, liking to eat only Cheerios, Ritz Crackers, and anything that was sweet. She didn't like milk, and she ate her cereal dry. She told me she also had problems with being toilet trained.

While she was telling me this, it really didn't sound anything like the Emily I knew. She didn't throw tantrums, although she still kicked once in awhile. She was a good eater too. She usually ate almost as much as I did, and she was a lot smaller than me.

She told me about the foster home she went to, finally, where the lady in the home reminded her a lot of her own, dead, mom. This woman had a lot of patience with Emily, tolerating her tantrums, and hugging her afterwards, instead of punishing her for them. Emily didn't remember the lady's husband that well, but she remembered a lot about the woman. She told me that she thought the lady would have adopted her if she had been able to afford to do so. The money she got for having Emily and two other kids, as foster children, was needed to supplement her family's income.

When Emily was six years old, the Carstairs came to take her out for a get acquainted visit. They had just adopted Gary, and they were looking for a big sister for him. Gary was four years old at the time. According to Emily, she and Gary looked a lot more alike when they were younger children. I remembered when I had first met them, she and Gary had the same curly hairstyles, but even then, the disparity in their sizes and body shapes made them look very different from each other.

For some reason, Emily couldn't remember why, she stayed well behaved during the first few visits with the Carstairs. She played well with Gary, and didn't go back to her temper tantrums or picky eating habits. This lasted only until the time the Carstairs family decided to apply to adopt her, and until she found herself being moved away from her foster care mom.

Apparently, Emily had been very upset to be taken out of her foster home. She'd been living there for more than two years. Because of being angry at having to leave her foster mom, Em started reverting back to all her old behaviors again. Her tantrums were ignored, and she was allowed to eat only what was served to her at meal times. Emily said, for a month or so, she practically lived on bread and fruit, the two allowable snacks she was able to have other than her regular meals. She might have continued on her food strike and tantrums, Emily claimed, if her mother hadn't started giving both children much smaller portions on their plates. Whatever Emily refused to eat would be given to Gary, or else one of her parents would eat it after she refused it.

"There was so little food on those plates, and I was so hungry, that I started eating again. Soon, they had me asking for second helpings, and then, thirds. I finally had to ask them to serve me a big plate of food like they had. It became kind of a contest between my mom and me. I'd start doing something new, to try to make her mad at me, and she'd find a way to make me stop wanting to do it. I used to fight her all the time about taking baths. She would just let me play in the bathroom, while she gave Gary a nice bubble bath, and then, she'd let him play with all of my bath toys. I also used to refuse to go to sleep at night, getting up after everyone else was asleep, and walking all around the house, getting into things. This really bothered my mom. She was worried that I'd hurt myself because no one else was awake to see what I was doing. I came home from school one day and found her in the living room, crying really hard. She and my father had been fighting about me. When I went up to my room, I saw that all of my new clothes had been packed up inside three small suitcases. I knew what that meant, I was being moved again."

"They were going to send you back?"

"My dad had told her that I was unhappy living there, and he didn't want to keep me with them if I didn't want to be there. I always got along better, in the beginning, with him. It was only with my mom that I had this trouble. He was the first man I'd ever really liked, and he was going to send me away. I knew that I probably wouldn't be sent back to my old foster home again, because of how the system worked. I went over and hid under my bed, crying, unable to handle another move in the system. I'd never been so sad and upset, not even when my other mother had died. My mother came in my room, and she found me hiding underneath the bed. My father wasn't at home that day, but I don't know where he was."

"What did your mom do?"

"She got down on the floor and she talked to me. I told her I didn't want to leave, and she said she didn't want it either, but daddy had decided, and we had to do what he said."

"Jeez, did she even try to talk to him, try to talk him out of it?"

"No. She packed a bag for her, and another one for Gary. After, she called a taxi, and the three of us left to go to her parent's farm. We rode a bus the whole way, and it took a real long time to get here. We were there at the farm for a long time before daddy came to try to get us. That was the only time I've ever seen my mother stand up to him. We had been living in New York, which is where I was born, but my mom was originally from here. She met my dad here, and then they got married and moved to New York. When he first came to the farm to talk to my mother, she told him she wasn't letting me go, and that I was much better behaved now. He left again, but when she didn't give in to him, he came back and took us all back to New York with him. My dad's first two successful books had come out, and he spent a lot of time going to book signings, and speaking at small colleges that hired him to teach two day seminars to their creative writing students. After his books started selling more, he quit doing anything, other than writing, and we all moved back here to live."

"I just thought you'd been adopted as a little baby."

"No. I still remember what it was like in the foster care system. That's why I'm so thankful to my parents for giving me a real home. That's also why it bothered me so much when you told them that we were having sex, and when you talked about me that way with my mom. I still have a little fear, way in the back of my head, that if I disappointed them bad enough, something terrible would happen."

"Since you're almost seventeen, I doubt if they would send you back. I don't think you need to worry about that."

"No, that isn't what I meant. Now, they accept me, but they might stop wanting me to be their daughter or something, if I did something they really hated for me to do."

"Why do you think your mother asked me those questions about my money? Brenda said your family was rich."

"Was rich. Not any more. The last book didn't do very well, and Daddy lost a lot of his money in the foreign exchange trading he was doing. I heard them talking about having to cut back on things. We still get money from royalties on his three best books, but all the other things he wrote are out of print, or not selling anything. He got advance money for the next book, but he hasn't been able to finish it. He's afraid the publishers are going to start using the royalty checks to pay themselves back for the money they advanced to him for the unfinished book."

"Why doesn't he just finish it and let them publish it? If it sells a lot, his problems would be over."

"He hasn't written anything since Gary and I got sick, and we all had to come back here for us to get better. He still needs to do a lot more research on the book. The kind of books he writes have to be filled with real facts and lots of details. He tried to write other kinds of books, pure fiction things, but he hasn't found a story that he likes well enough to take it past an outline."

Knowing that the Carstairs were having money problems answered a lot of questions I'd had, like why Em's father had backed down so quickly, and why her mom was concerned about my money. Em and I talked about Europe, and about how her Dad's family had plenty of money, but they didn't get along well with her father.

"How long would your father need to go to Europe to finish his research?"

"He doesn't know. He thinks maybe a month and a half, but it might be shorter, because he has been able to find out the answers to a lot of his questions by correspondence, and by using the libraries at some of the universities he goes to visit. Mostly, he needs to see the areas he's writing about, and fix the directions of how things are laid out. Things like woods and hills, and older roads from the time he's writing about."

Em and I never did get around to having sex. She wanted to talk about the group homes for girls. She wanted me to change my plans, and use the first modular extension for girls. I was probably going to get into a big fight with her about it, but then I decided to once again change my tactics.

"Look, we've already got plans for this one, but, if you and Joyce want to use these plans, and build another one somewhere, I don't care. I has to be real close to here though, and you and Joyce have to see if the two of you can work together on it. I'm going to have my hands full making time for four new group homes of boys. I'll take care of most of the money, but you need to try and get a grant for the building costs of the group homes. I'll have Mama find some land for it. She has a lot of her own, and she knows who owns pieces that are big enough, and that might be available for sale."

"I don't think Joyce and I can work together."

"All right."

"You aren't going to build these homes if I don't work with her?"

"I'll build them, eventually, but not right now. I'll need to find a woman who will work with Joyce. Right now, I need her to help me with what I'm already doing. I was willing to let you work with her because I thought you wanted to get something done quicker than we've got planned. Maybe I'll have girls in one of the new homes, just to see how it would work with a mixed group home cluster. I think it would cause a lot of problems, but I'm willing to give it a try."

"How about half and half, two houses of each? That way, it would be even, and the boys wouldn't be able to overpower or dominate things with the girls."

"I'm pretty sure that Joyce had younger girls in mind. The boys would be older. I'm not sure it would work well with boys and girls together like you're thinking. What we're doing now seems to be working well, and I'm not sure we should start experimenting too much with it."

I saw the look on Emily's face. In her mind, she had already become the advocate for these little orphan girls she didn't even know anything about. I'd seen a similar look from Joyce. I knew she was going to keep pushing this, until I either gave in to her, or we wound up in a fight about it. I think she realized the same thing. In the past, neither of us would have backed away, or if we had, the other would have still pressed forward, unwilling to leave it unresolved.

"Let's go ask your mother what she thinks, Kenny. Maybe she has some ideas that we could try. It isn't fair to make the girls wait, just because you're only interested in helping boys."

"My mother? This is mostly my project. She does a lot to help us with fund raising, and she puts her own money in too, but she's busy running the golf center."

"I might be able to work with your mother and Joyce together, but not just with Joyce." I could see, like her father, this request was more a face saving thing than any real hope of getting my mother actively involved in the project. Before, I might have rebuffed her request, now, I hopped right on it.

"Good idea. You want to stay here and make love with me, or go over and see Mama?" I thought I knew what her answer would be, but, again, she fooled me.

"Let's go, before you change your mind about it."

We left Uncle Bunny's house, and drove over to mine. Joyce, Dad and Mama were just sitting down for dinner when we walked in the house. We weren't dressed for dinner, and we both smelled of horses, and all the things associated with them. Naturally, none of this bothered Emily, and when Mama asked us to join them, she took the one seat open between Joyce and Mama. I went around and sat in my usual place, glancing at Joyce's face as I did so. As near as I could determine, she was sniffing Emily, and I couldn't prevent a laugh from escaping me.

"We took some of the boys horseback riding, sorry for the smell. Emily was so excited about your idea for the group homes for girls, that she wanted to come right over and ask you and Mama some questions about it." Joyce looked over at Emily to confirm what I'd said.

"Kenny said we could build one of those modular things, only for girls instead of boys, and use the house plans for the other one, right away, if we could all work on it together. I don't know what I can do, but I'd like to help." I was impressed that she addressed herself, right away, to Joyce. I could see all the wheels turning in Mama's head. She was already trying to figure out how Emily and Joyce, side by side, would compare, if I was to see the two of them working together. My guess was that she thought Joyce would so far surpass Emily with her working competence, and that it would take away a lot of Emily's advantage as far as looks were concerned.

"You've agreed to building an extension for girls at the same time as the one you're currently planning?" Mama was again making certain that everyone knew what was at stake as a prize for doing this. She had made her decision. She obviously thought that Joyce would far surpass Emily as far as working toward the successful completion of the project. I didn't disagree with her assessment, but it wasn't a competition as far as I was concerned. I was interested to see if Emily would really try to work with Joyce, and vice versa. I could see Joyce trying to undermine Emily's contributions.

"I would expect you to help them too, Mama. There are bound to be things that come up where your input would be much appreciated."

"Financial input?"

"That too, but I was referring mostly to overseeing the construction contracts, like you did for the golf center. Maybe Hans can help too? You two have experience with this type of building project. I thought you also might be the referee, to make sure these two play fair with each other."

"Kenny, remind me to speak with you about sticking your head into a lion's mouth." My Dad had been sitting quietly, listening to all that was being said. He was aware of the dynamics in play between the four of us. I think he was concerned that I'd allowed my caring for Emily to override my sense of self preservation. He knew that Mama wasn't going to play fair anyway. She had already picked the side that she wanted to win. I had confidence that I'd be able to tell what was really happening. I was actually looking forward to watching all of it play itself out. Emily and I were both stuffed from the barbecue, but we did manage to both have some dessert with the family.

During dinner, Mama asked both Hans and Gerta to come into the dining room. She told them that we were changing our plans about the group home expansion. She told them she thought the land that Hans and Gerta owned over by the golf center would be a nice place to put another extension. She said they would only need about twelve acres of land, and that she'd be willing to pay them whatever they asked for it. Hans and Gerta offered to donate the land, but Mama said no. Mama wound up offering them a lot of money for the eighty acre parcel they had owned for many years. She paid them a very fair price for it, telling them that she was going to keep the rest of the land in reserve, in case she needed to expand the golf center. Hans said he was going to use the money to buy more land in that general area, hopefully land contiguous with the hundred and sixty acres he and Gerta still owned.

On Monday, between classes, I called over to Frank Clooney and asked him to prepare a document for me. I told him I'd like to pick it up that afternoon, along with the check I'd need, drawn on the account the income I was earning was being deposited into. Frank said he'd have it ready for me. He also told me the three charitable trusts were ready, and all they required was my father's signature, and money for their funding. I told him we were still discussing it, and it might be necessary to make some changes, if my father remained unwilling to transfer my money over to them.

He told me there wasn't any big hurry, but that it would be nice if he didn't need to keep depleting funds from my other, smaller trusts. He was concerned because they were being liquidated at a fast rate, and he was the overseeing fiduciary, responsible for the prudent distribution of the assets. I assured him that he'd have funding for all three trusts within ten days, and that seemed to satisfy him. Frank was a lot more concerned with the tiny brush strokes than my Uncle Bunny had ever been. My uncle had been known to play fast and loose, and then fill in all the necessary details, at a later, more convenient, time. Perhaps, this was, in part, due to the fact that he was usually playing fast and loose with his own money, not someone else's.

I had given my father the passenger information for the California trip, along with our itinerary, and Mrs. Carstairs driver's license information. He would give this to Myra, and she would get everything set up with the travel booking lady. School was made more difficult because I found myself daydreaming about Emily, worrying about how Mama, Emily, and Joyce would all get along, and trying to give myself a ballpark estimate on what this new extension would cost me. I knew there was a good chance we wouldn't be given a new grant for the building costs, not so soon after receiving the last one.

I was again fortunate, in that I wasn't called on too much, and when I was called on, I had a fair grasp of the information required to formulate an answer. Once I stumbled, giving an incorrect answer, but even that sparked a spirited debate among some other students, which saved the day for me. Giving any answer that stimulated debate and discussion was a welcome thing with our teachers, even if the answer itself had been incorrect.

I felt fortunate to have gotten away with all my day dreaming, and admonished myself to bear down harder in my studies. I was at a point where I didn't dare let down on my studies. I expected certain things from myself, and good grades had become important to me.

I stopped off at Frank's office on my drive home, to pick up the contract form I'd had him prepare for me, along with the check I'd requested. After thanking Frank, and again reassuring him that the trusts would be funded soon, I headed over to Emily's house. Mrs. Carstairs answered the door, telling me that Emily hadn't gotten home yet. I told her that I'd come to have a word with Mr. Carstairs. She asked me what it concerned, and I told her it concerned Mr. Carstairs and myself, but it was a business proposition that I had come to see if he was interested in. She asked me to come inside, and then took me back to Mr. Carstairs home office. Basically, it was a large library with a lot of light from several large outside windows. Mr. Carstairs was busy jotting something down on a yellow notepad when his wife interrupted him to tell him I wanted to speak with him. He didn't look at all happy to see me, probably thinking the worst about why I had come to him. Mrs. Carstairs excused herself, and shut the door behind her.

"I came over to see you because Emily told me you still needed to do some research for the book you're writing. She told me a little about the research problems, and the publisher's advance."

"She had no business disclosing our business to you." I could see that he was angry.

"Well, I think she thought it would be all right because we both love each other, and it was bothering her. She feels bad that it was Gary and her getting sick that prevented you from being able to finish researching your new book."

"That played only a small part. I'm having other problems now, with the book's concept. Problems that are far greater than my lack of completed research. I'm going to have to do a complete revision almost. In one sense, I'm almost starting all over again with it. A lot of my prior research is now useless."

"Emily said you could do it in a month and a half?"

"Possibly, but that was before I decided on my concept changes. I'd need at least three to five months of intense, on site research, to do justice to the direction I'm now heading. Sometimes, I wonder why I ever wanted to become a writer. It is a profession capricious in its yields. At times, it all seems so easy, and then, it turns, and nothing comes easy anymore. I'm afraid this book was too ambitious an undertaking for me. I wasn't prepared for all the places it would lead me. You have to take an idea where it leads you, Kenny. This one, combined with my own bad investment judgment, has led me to disaster."

"If it's only money, it isn't really a disaster. That's one of the reasons I stopped by today. I hate seeing Emily worried about something like this. I thought I could advance you some research funds, and you could repay me from the earnings from your book."

"A piss poor bargain for you, I think. My book sales haven't exactly been robust of late. This was one of the reasons I decided to try my hand at the type of work I made a reputation producing. I've had only three books that were well received, and moderately successful. All the rest has been disappointing, both to my publishers, and to my financial advisers."

"I can afford to take a chance on this."

"Listening to my wife gushing so enthusiastically about your financial net worth, I can well believe that to be true. The problem with that is that I could never bring myself to accept any of it from you."

"Is it pride, a personal dislike for me, or because you think it would be like you were selling your daughter to me?"

"All of those and more. You are forgetting Anne Coulter and your threats to sue me for all of that. How would it look if I accepted money from you?"

"I'm not sure how that affects any of this. I'm doing this for Emily, and for your wife and Gary too. I'm not even talking about a lot of money here. How much can you make with a successful book? I heard it could be millions."

"For a small handful its millions. For me, a big book would be a quarter of a million, and then some residual earnings. More than that though, would be new exposure for my older works. My publisher might reissue some of my work currently not in print. It would prime the pump for all my past books."

"A lot of money for you then, worth both of us taking a small chance. Read this contract and tell me what you think. I think it's fair, but I'm pretty sure this isn't enough money to last you through five months of research."

"I've told you I wouldn't accept your money. I think we should leave it like that, and let the matter drop." He didn't accept the loan contract I'd had Frank prepare. It was a one page document, basically a promissory note for an unsecured loan of twenty five thousand dollars.

"After hearing you tell me that, I have to wonder if I inherited my own stubbornness from you?"

"Contrary to what you stated to me, I didn't take your mother's innocence. I admit to participating in sex with her, but I was certainly not the first, and neither the last, or the only. I shouldn't have been weak, but I wasn't the one who initiated our brief sexual contact. I've never denied what I've done, but the chance that you are my child is very, very, slight."

"I know that. Anne told me a lot about what her life was like back then. She has no idea herself about who my father might be. According to her, it could have been almost anybody. This isn't about you and me, or you and Anne. This is about you and your professional life, and about Emily and I, and me caring about how she feels. Please read the agreement and reconsider. This doesn't have to be personal between you and me. I've never read any of your books, but Emily says you are a very good writer."

"This is about you getting to play the big hero with Emily? If it is, you needn't worry. She already worships you. You have no idea what hearing about your many exploits, at the dinner table nightly, has done to my digestive system."

"Take the money, go to Europe and do your research. That way you could get your finances straightened out, get your professional life back on track, and avoid having to hear about me at your dining table."