Chapter 24

I answered the door. Two white clad medicos stood there staring at me smiling. The one to my right was wheeling a wheeled case of some sort.

“Mister Steele,” said the fellow to my left.

“Yes,” I said.

“We’re from GMC. Doctor Metcalf sent us. We’re here to help you with your new prosthesis,” he said. He nodded toward the case the other man had been pulling along.

“Doctor Metcalf? She sent you here? I thought I was supposed to come there to do this?” I said.

“Yes, well, yes, but she heard that the police had asked you to stay at home until they did some things to ensure your safety is what we were told,” he said, motioning to the man beside him. “And the officer over there cleared us.” He nodded toward the cruiser parked a short distance from our front door.

“Oh, okay. Well come in then,” I said.

“Honey?” said my wife, coming in from the back. “I heard. So today is the day?”

“I guess so,” I said.

“Well, good,” she said.

“Yes, I heard from Doctor Metcalf herself that he’s been fitted, and that all went well. He will be having to go back periodically for adjustments to the device, but all in all he’s in a pretty good place considering,” said Nathan.

“Yes, considering that he lost his leg. Considering that his woman is a prostitute, considering that he is damn near penniless. Yes, considering everything he’s in a great place,” said Victoria, and she began to sob.

Her husband went to her. He put his arm around her. No words passed between them, but there was meaning in every beat of their hearts.

“The time is coming when he will lighten up and let us help him, them. And, Victoria, I do mean both of them. His woman may be a prostitute, an ex-prostitute, but she is family now. And we need to treat her as such. Okay?” he said.

“Yes, sir, I understand,” she said.

“Good,” he said.

We were seated with the whole clan, and, with the Cabots who had also been invited. That the Cabots had been invited to Konrad’s graduation from high school seemed on the surface to conflict with Victoria’s feelings relating to not wanting to be publicly associated with convicts, ex or otherwise. I mean shades of what Henrietta and I had overheard on the night of Selena’s graduation from college.

At any rate we were all there, and as well invited to the after-grad dinner party at the Scarborough Country Club which the Grimes were members of. Jack and Selena, Victoria and Nathan, myself and Henrietta, and Andrea and Darrell in addition to Konrad and a couple of his friends pretty much filled a long table at the clubhouse. The view of the golf course even in the early evening was really nice, well, the lighting was of the most sophisticated variety.

I was seated next to Nathan and Konrad, and Henrietta was next to me. Victoria was at the other end of the table and she and Selena were entertaining Jack and the Cabots.

“Your graduation was very nice, Konrad,” I said. Henrietta echoed my words.

“Yes, we are very proud of him,” said Nathan.

“I can imagine,” I said.

The evening was good, no egregious comments and no unfriendly looks from any of the usual suspects. It was that very lack of objectionable attitudes that kinda bothered me. It was almost too unusual. I wasn’t especially surprised that Victoria in particular was being careful; I’d expected that she might be, but still...”

We did get an invitation to visit the Sizemores at their place. One which Henrietta looked askance at, I but did nod our acceptance of.

One side note, I did get some looks as per my new artificial leg which I had managed to more or less master in short order. Looks yes, but hardly any comments.

The drive home from the country club was quiet. I had to think, and Henrietta was letting me. Well, then she wasn’t.

“Okay, are you going to let me in on what’s going on?” she said. She was driving, I still didn’t have my license. I shrugged.

“We’ve been invited to Selena’s and Jack’s place,” I said, and hesitated, “By Selena.”

“I heard,” she said.

“It’ll be all right, well, I’m pretty sure it’ll be all right.” My wife just nodded, noncommittally.

“So, she invited them,” said Victoria. “Good, I suppose we really had no choice in that one.”

“No, no choice,” he said. “I suggested it to Selena, and she saw the wisdom of the idea, and Jack’s onboard. But...”

“You’re a genius,” she said smiling. “But...”

“When we are with them, around them, you need to be a little friendlier toward the lady, talk to her a bit more than has been the case. I mean we’ve gone over this before, and that recently, but, well...

“Tonight, at Konrad’s grad dinner, you were polite enough, but apart from being polite you were pretty standoffish when it came to Henrietta: not a good image,” he said.

“It’s hard Nathan. I know he needs a woman, but that woman? He can do better. He’s an okay looking guy. And yes, I know he’s lost a leg, but he lost it being a hero. That buys him a lot of credit with any woman. And she’s so damn tall and plain looking. When she’s standing beside him, he looks like a midget standing in a hole for goodness sakes,” she said.

“Nevertheless, they do seem to be happy and if she is good for him then we need to not only be good with it; we have to be obviously good with it.

“So, talk to the woman when she’s around. Be her friend. And I do mean for real. She’d know immediately if you were playing her, faking it,” he said.

“Okay,” she said. “I will. I can do it. I will do it. Okay.”