Another Man's Child

“They’re overnighting the keys. You should have them sometime tomorrow.”

“Fine. As soon as they arrive, I’d like you to fly out and get it furnished for me.” He’d live with whatever choices Ron made, though judging from the ponytail hanging down the young man’s back, Marcus had a feeling their tastes were very different.

“Of course. I can do it this week if you’d like. Should I consult Mrs. Cartwright on her preferences?”

Marcus shook his head, already feeling the overwhelming loss that was going to leave him incomplete for the rest of his life. “She’s got a lot on her mind right now. Just go ahead and use your own judgment.”

Oh, Lisa. How am I ever going to live without you?

MARCUS LEFT WORK early that Friday. He’d just received a telephone call from Ron telling him the house would be ready the following day. He couldn’t stall any longer. He waited only until he knew the housekeeper would be gone for the day and then packed up his briefcase. He wasn’t sure how soon he’d be back.

“You okay?” Marge asked, a concerned frown marking her matronly brow as Marcus told her he was leaving and wouldn’t be back before Monday.

“Fine.” Truth was he’d never felt worse in his life. But he was finally doing something. It beat these past months of procrastinating.

Marge couldn’t seem to let it go, and her words stopped him as he was about to step through the door. “You’re sure nothing’s wrong, Marcus?”

He sighed. “Nothing a day or two of rest won’t fix.”

“So why the new house in Chicago?”

He opened his mouth to tell her. She’d know soon enough, anyway. But the words just wouldn’t come. “We’ve doubled our Midwest holdings in the past two years. It’s time to have a base there.”

“You haven’t kept me here all these years for being stupid, Marcus. I just want you to know that I’m here if there’s anything I can do.”

Warmed by his secretary’s words, he nodded and left. There wasn’t anything Marge could do. There wasn’t anything anybody could do.

Meaning to go straight home and get it over with, Marcus found himself heading toward Yale, instead. With Oliver Webster only a couple of blocks away, it wouldn’t be right if he left without saying goodbye.

Walking across the sixteen-acre village green, bordered on three sides by churches as old as New Haven, and by Yale on the fourth, Marcus was surrounded by monuments of his ancestors. Straight in front of him was Center Congregational, the church his great-greatgreat grandfather had helped build with his own hands.

And when Marcus turned, Yale yawned before him, a huge testimony to the few men, Harvard graduates, a Cartwright among them, who’d had a dream, and the determination to see it through. Not only had they founded a new university, they’d fought the battle to see Yale permanently settled in New Haven, rather than one of the larger towns in the new Connecticut territory.

That was the stock from which Marcus had come, doers all. They’d passed on their determination from generation to generation, producing heirs to carry on the tradition of excellence. Each generation of Cartwrights had fulfilled that responsibility. Until now. Until Marcus. The Cartwright line was going to end with him.

Striding across campus as if he could outdistance the voices of his disappointed ancestors, Marcus hardly noticed the bustling students around him, the comfort of the warm late-summer day, the beauty that the coming fall promised to be with the abundance of huge maple trees surrounding him. He reached his father-in-law’s office in record time.

Oliver’s door was windowed, and looking in, Marcus couldn’t help but smile, though it was a smile tinged with sadness. Oliver was sitting behind his huge oak desk surrounded by books of every shape and size—on the floor around him, lining the shelves along the walls, even on the chairs across from him. With his spectacles on, his brow furrowed, Oliver looked like every student’s worst nightmare of an intimidating college professor. Few people knew just what a softy Oliver Webster really was.

Marcus knocked on the door.

“Come in,” the older man called gruffly, not looking up from the volume in front of him.

“You got a minute?” Marcus asked.

“Marcus! Of course, son, come in. Have a seat.”

Oliver was dressed as usual in a tweed sport coat, slacks and a skinny tie that had been out of fashion for more years than it had been in. Marcus felt a rush of affection for his father-in-law, unlike any feeling he’d ever had for his own father.

“This is difficult,” Marcus said, seated in front of Oliver’s desk, his elbows on his knees. He looked up at his father-in-law, at the understanding in Oliver’s eyes, and suddenly felt a dam burst inside him. “I’m making your daughter miserable, Oliver. I can’t remember the last time I saw joy in her eyes. These days they’re either unhappy or attempting to mask unhappiness.”

“Give her time, son. She’ll come around.”

Marcus shook his head. He couldn’t allow himself to buy into false hopes any longer. “Time isn’t going to change our problem. It only seems to be making it worse. These past couple of weeks Lisa hasn’t just been unhappy. She’s been edgy, nervous. She’s hiding her thoughts from me.” That was what had finally convinced Marcus to give Lisa her freedom. He couldn’t bear it that his wife no longer felt she could confide in him, that he was losing her friendship along with everything else.

“Come to think of it, she’s been that way the few times I’ve seen her, too,” Oliver said, frowning. “Maybe we should have a talk with that girl, huh?”

“She and I have done all the talking we can do.” Marcus shook his head a second time. “Talk can’t change what’s ailing us, Oliver. You know that as well I do. Lisa was meant to be a mother, and she’s not going to feel fulfilled and happy until she is one.”