Chapter 31

Mr. Chalmers helped me with my mother, moving her into her bedroom, Gerta followed close behind us. The three of us spent the next hour with her, Uncle Bunny (that's what he asked me to call him) telling mama how difficult it had been for the two of us to bring her back this time. I decided to ask her about the place she went to.

"Did you want to come back to us?" She looked at me for a minute, and then closed her eyes before speaking.

"Kenny, that is too hard for me to answer. Going there is the way I imagine drowning would be, because I really have to fight hard before I reach a point where I cease to struggle. It isn't good or bad, it just is. At the end, when I was wherever I go, I lost my way back, and it became difficult to find all of you again. I almost heard you Bunny, I was aware that you were looking for me. I tried a few times, but I couldn't leave where I was. It isn't something that I choose to do, Kenny, and I realize that these episodes are coming closer together now, and that I've completely lost the ability to return on my own."

"You can't go there anymore, it's too dangerous for you now, Bertie. We almost lost you this time. I had to call Tommy to go pick up Kenny from school." Uncle Bunny was crying too now, but a lot of it was his relief from the all night stress that he'd been under. I held my mother's hand, just squeezing it now and then, to let her see that I was still there with her. It was less than half an hour before she fell asleep.

The two of us went down stairs together. Uncle Bunny was telling me about how bad he felt about sending Mr. Parsons to bring me back to the house to try to reach mama and get her to try to return to us.

"Kenny, what happened with you and the Connor girl? Gerta says her family has been phoning over here, five or six times a day, demanding to speak with Bertie or Tommy about you. Is it something that I need concern myself with? As your attorney, I mean?"

While Gerta had us eat the pork rib dinner she'd prepared, I told Uncle Bunny about everything that had happened to me with Brenda, including the problems I had gotten into with Richard, and both of Brenda's parents. I explained to him how I felt about things, and how I didn't want to cause any more trouble for any of them. When I told him what had happened in the limo on the way back from school, he laughed and said something that sounded a lot like "Hans hasn't changed any." I told him my reasoning behind my decision to not stay friends with Brenda. I also told him what Mr. Parsons had told me about needing to not run away from my problems, because that didn't solve anything, and wouldn't teach me how to interact better with people.

"I might need to disagree with Tommy about that. I'm not sure he understands how new and different all of this is to you. You need more time to adjust and acclimate yourself to this radical change in lifestyles. Given the history of your interaction thus far with Brenda, I'm not certain that your solution isn't as good as what Tommy is suggesting. If you are in love with her, as you believe yourself to be, you'll find it difficult to implement your current planned course of action. In any event, at your age, these situations often seem more critically important than they turn out, in fact, to be. My advice is to do whatever your instincts are telling you to do. At the very least, this relationship is going to be a profound complication for you, right now."

"Are you my lawyer telling me this, or my uncle?"

"Why, I'm both, Kenny. I'm not telling you what to do, I'm simply offering my advice to you. With matters of the heart, the final decision always rests with you."

After we finished eating, Uncle Bunny drove me back to the school. Before we left, he called Mr. Parsons and told him that mama was sleeping, and seemed in reasonably good spirits.

"Tommy, Kenny and Bertie have bonded in a way that I can only term remarkable. They are now truly mother and son. You needed to know this, as it will affect the way they relate with each other." Uncle Bunny listened for a minute or two, and then he signaled me to come to him and take the phone receiver from him.

"Kenny, I hear that you were successful in bringing Bertie back. That is excellent news, and you've managed to do something important for all of us, something that I've never even had the nerve to attempt. Thank you. I've given thought to that other matter that we spoke of, the Connor situation. Tell me what you've decided you want done there. I'll try to get accomplished whatever you decide you want to happen there."

"I spoke to Uncle Bunny, and he says that maybe I'm not ready for Brenda yet, that I'll have to be the one that decides. He says for me to go with my instincts."

"Does that mean you want to hide out at that school, and just hope everything dies down on its own?"

"No, I won't be hiding there, but I still don't think I want to keep on with Brenda, not the way things were going. She doesn't listen to what I tell her, then she expects me to know what she wants without me being told. I don't want to keep arguing like this with her. Even if it doesn't mean that I'll be sent away, I don't like all the arguments and the fighting. I don't want to spend all my time thinking about what's going to go wrong next."

"All right Kenny, put Bunny on the line. We'll do this your way. You are coming home on Friday though?"

"I'm planning on it. Are you going to be here too?"

"I think I better be there. Bunny told me that there are going to be some changes, and I need to see these for myself."

Uncle Bunny and Mr. Parsons spoke for a few more minutes, before he hung up, and we went out to his car. We drove out to the school in silence. When we got there, Uncle Bunny turned off the ignition of his car.

"Kenny, I need to get some things clarified for my own peace of mind before you go back inside. Are you aware of the instructions Tommy relayed to me after the two of you finished speaking on the phone?"

"No, he didn't tell me what he was going to talk to you about."

"It concerned this situation with Walt Connor and Brenda. Tommy told me I was to take any steps necessary, subject to your approval of them, to get their whole family to leave you alone. You are already aware of the business relationship that Consolidated Foods has with Walt's company?"

"I know they buy things from him. Different ingredients."

"Tommy has recommended that I meet with Walt, after Tommy takes steps appearing to threaten to sever this relationship. Following that, in the event Walt doesn't agree to cease all his hostile words and threats toward you, Tommy will sever them, completely and irrevocably. He told me to first check with you before contacting Walt. This is what I am doing now. Is this what you want?"

"No. I don't want anyone hurt because of me. Can't you just convince him to let it go?"

"Walt isn't a reasonable man. It isn't part of his natural behavior. Tommy says he can be hammered into submission, or coerced into complying, but not reasoned with. I'm inclined to agree with this assessment. He is a man given to bluster though, prone to outbursts and loud complaints over any perceived injustice done to him. The notoriety is what Tommy wants to avoid from this incident. My advice is that you authorize me to do whatever it takes to neutralize his harmful potential towards us."

"I really don't want Brenda to be made poor because of this, Uncle Bunny. Can you threaten him, and then not do anything if he doesn't do what you want?"

"Not a good tactic for us to employ, Kenny, because empty threats are worse than none at all. Walt isn't emotionally stable enough for us to anticipate what he might do if we simply threaten him. Tommy wants to place an order for the new grain increase with Walt's largest competitor. Word of that would get back to Walt immediately. The short term impact on his business would be slight, but the long term threat would be unmistakable. I would then be in a position to contact him with an offer to try to broker the truce between our two families."

"Wouldn't it be a whole lot easier to just let him stay mad at me?"

"For the short term, the answer is yes, but not for the long term. Walt is supposed to be a loyal team player. Sometimes, he forgets which side he is supposed to be on. This is just one more instance of that. I grant you that this time he would seem to have something of a legitimate reason for being upset. If he had just limited his angry protests to the immediate participants, we wouldn't have a problem with these outbursts of his. Unfortunately, Walt has chosen a much wider audience for his broadcasts. It isn't just a local incident, involving Walt and his youngest child any longer. Walt has to either rein himself in, be reined in by us, or sever his relationship with our family. This severance would include his position as a supplier to Tommy's division. It was our loyalty to Walt that made him a player in grain supply. Without Tommy's purchasing contracts, Walt didn't have a viable business. He doesn't really have any business without Tommy."

"You want to make him realize that he's replaceable? He knows that already."

"It is one thing to know it, to have an intellectual understanding, but experiencing your vulnerability is something else again. I need for you to decide, Kenny. That is Tommy's instruction to me. I've outlined your choices and given you our recommendation for what we should do. You have to decide what you want."

"I don't want to make the wrong decision. What happens if we don't do anything for a week?"

"We'll be sending Walt a message that we will tolerate what he is now engaged in. Knowing Walt, this will simply motivate him to escalate his attack upon us."

"Mr. Parsons told me that he'd take care of all this with you, if I could bring mama back from where she was hiding."

"He will, and I will, but Tommy thinks it is important that we not proceed without your approval."

"No. This isn't what I'd want to do. I'm not going to approve of something I don't believe in. Is Mr. Connor threatening anyone besides me? Except for talking about suing everyone. Mr. Parsons said he can't win that way."

"If he threatens you, Kenny, its the same as him threatening all of us. He has already been told this repeatedly."

"I still say no. Don't do it. You can threaten him, but don't do anything to hurt his business."

"Okay, Kenny. Tommy said you'd make that decision. We'll hold off on taking any action against him for now. I'll let you know when he pulls his next stunt."

I got out of Uncle Bunny's car, and hurried into the residential building. Luckily, all of my school work was up to date before Mr. Parsons had come for me. I felt troubled because I had made my decision based solely on my emotions. It wasn't like I thought I knew more than Mr. Parsons or Uncle Bunny. I knew I didn't know a third as much as they did. What I did know was that I'd feel very bad if they ruined Mr. Connor's business just to punish him for being mad at what I'd done with Brenda or to Richard.

The week went by quickly. I kept expecting to hear from either Mr. Parsons or Uncle Bunny, but they didn't contact me. I talked every night with Gerta and my mother. Gerta told me that she was eating, and Mama told me that she was ready to play golf with me on Saturday and Sunday. I told her about my decision about Mr. Connor, expecting her to tell me that I did the right thing. Instead, she said that I should have listened to what Uncle Bunny and Mr. Parsons were telling me. She told me that the calls from the Connor's had stopped, and she hadn't heard anything more about anything Walt was saying about me.

Hans picked me up at five o'clock on Friday and drove me home. We talked up front in the limo, and he told me that my mother had been back to her normal self all week. He also told me that Mr. Parsons had been at the house since Wednesday night, but spent all day in his study, just like he normally would.

When I got home, I was met by Mama and Mr. Parsons. They told me that Gerta had made stuffed lobster tails for me, and that she had been baking since early that morning. I was real happy to hear that, because my roommates had been grouchy when I'd returned to our apartment empty handed the last couple of times I'd gone home. Dinner was great. I found out that Elena and Mr. Parsons had been planning on betting on college football games. Elena had a man who took her bets over the telephone. At the dinner table, they were trying to explain this bet they were going to make together involving four teams that they picked. All their teams needed to win for them to win the bet. If they all won, they would both make several hundred dollars. The way they were telling their story, it would be unusual for them to be able to do that. What I thought was really unusual was seeing Mr. Parsons so excited about winning a few hundred dollars doing that. We had already talked about the bet we were making for the next day's golf. I was again getting eight a side, but Mr. Parsons and I were playing from the white tees this time. My mother was giving him three a side, but she was playing from the red tees. Again, he had a hundred dollar Nassau with each of us.