A Baby of Convenience

Neal drifted off to sleep, having convinced himself that his hang over was responsible for the strange things that Cliff had been saying to him. His last thought before he finally fell asleep was George should be flying back home now.

The shrill shriek of his doorbell woke Neal from his troubled sleep. His sleep had been plagued with dreams he couldn’t recall now that he was up, having been jarred awake. All he had was the dull sense of foreboding that told him his dreams had been nightmares. Again, the bell screeched, making Neal’s head spin. He went into the bathroom to wash the sleep from his eyes and then rushed to the front door.

He pulled it open to find Harry standing there in a grey suit, wearing a somber expression. Neal was puzzled, it was an odd time for Harry to be visiting; it was the middle of the day. He held the door open for him and motioned Harry inside.

“Hi, bud,” Neal said, his voice still groggy from sleep. “What brings you here?”

Harry seemed cautious as he walked in.

“Hi, Neal,” he said slowly, “are you OK?”

Neal shrugged lightly. “Why wouldn’t I be? It's nothing more than a little hangover.”

“Clifford said he called you.”

Neal remembered. “Oh right. He did. I’m still recovering from last night, man. Everything he was saying, I was hearing wrong. I’ll call him back later tonight.”

Harry walked into the living room and took a seat on the sofa.

“Why don’t you sit, Neal,” he said gently.

Neal looked at Harry in confusion.

“What’s wrong?” Neal asked, sitting down.

Neal couldn’t read the expression on Harry’s face; it was starting to alarm him. Harry and George had been best friends growing up, and Neal had been included in some of their capers. He remembered how much fun he and George used to have when they went over to Harry’s. His mother was Japanese, his father was Chinese, and every meal in that house had been delectable. He knew Harry well enough to be able to read him, but today, all he seemed to be able to feel was his own sense of unease.

“Harry?”

Harry seemed to take a deep breath.

“Neal, what Cliff was trying to tell you when he called earlier…"

“Yes?”

“Neal – it’s about George’s plane –"

“What about it?” Neal asked sharply. That feeling of foreboding was coming into sharp focus.

Harry looked down at his hands, wringing them together as though in violent prayer.

“It crashed,” he said, after a pregnant pause, “… it crashed somewhere over the Atlantic.”

He was starting to sound like Cliff, but this time, Neal found it hard to convince himself that he was the one hearing everything wrong. His nap had removed the confusion and the hopeful delusion from his eyes, and he was hearing and seeing everything in startling clarity.

“I, uh… George…"

“George…” Harry seemed to prepare himself before he spoke again. “Neal, it’s unlikely that George would have survived the plane crash.”

He rushed the words out, as though in saying them fast he could somehow minimize the pain of hearing them. Neal sat there in stunned silence, hearing his own heart beat in an unsteady rhythm that made his chest feel tight. His hand went up to his shirt to try and loosen the buttons, but he realized they were plenty loose already. The tightness he was feeling, had nothing to do with what he was wearing.

He felt Harry’s hand on his shoulder, he could hear his voice, muttering words that held the hollow tone of comfort. Neal closed his eyes and leaned against the couch, hoping that when he opened them again, the world would go back to one that he recognized.

***

Neal couldn’t bear to sit at the head of the boardroom table. That was George’s seat and sitting there would be like admitting that he was really gone. He sat in his usual place, the chair on the immediate right of George’s. Harry sat next to him. Slowly, they filed in, all wearing somber expressions; all wearing clothes in shades of black and grey as a symbol of respect. Neal resented them all. It was as if they had already gone into mourning.

‘We don’t know that he’s dead yet!’ Neal wanted to shout at them.