"Oh? Well, I'm not troubled by that. Samuel is a good-looking man."
"Yes, he is. Maybe not as handsome as Nelson Childs, but good-looking," she teased. I gave her my best scowl and she laughed. How she could vex me when she tried, I thought.
The next morning Nelson came to the hospital with Samuel to see Chester.
"He's a fine-looking baby," Nelson said. "Your father would have been very proud."
"Daddy was hoping for a granddaughter to spoil," I replied and then added, "like he spoiled my sister. Everyone is always spoiling her."
I watched Nelson's eyes. They shifted guiltily away and he quickly changed the topic.
Sometimes the world around me seemed like it was filled with small pools of deception, lies that like quicksand would pull me down into confusion if I wasn't careful about where I stepped.
"I'm sure we'll have a daughter someday," Samuel declared with his chest out.
"Not someday soon," I said and the two men whose only pain in the birth of their children was the pain in the pocketbooks, laughed heartedly.
Thelma said she would have no difficulty looking after Chester as well as Jacob. She truly enjoyed children and wanted to be more occupied. I considered her my best discovery and I was truly grateful I had her. It meant that as soon as I was on my feet, I could return to my work and feel confident that someone reliable was looking after our children.
Events in our lives took on a quick pace when I returned from the hospital. Less than a month after I had put Daddy's house on the market, we had a viable offer. I closed the sale satisfactorily and then went about selling, donating and bringing home the family possessions I wanted. I told Belinda to go to the house to see if there was anything she cherished, but she never went back once she had gotten her own things. Nothing apparently held any sentimental value for her. It didn't surprise me. She had spent most of her youth finding ways to leave the house. In my mind she used it like a hotel and all the rest of us, even our parents, as servants.
Belinda didn't settle down after Daddy's death. I learned that she had done passingly well at the business school and might even have graduated if she had wanted, but real work was not something she sought with any enthusiasm. Somehow, she was able to occupy her time with her frivolous activities, traveling with friends occasionally and always talking about doing something dramatic.
"Maybe I should become an actress. I might try out for a part in a play at the Provincetown
Playhouse," she declared at dinner one night. "I met a young director who thinks I might be just right for a character in a play he's doing. I'm seeing him this weekend. For a private audition," she added, batting her eyelashes at Samuel. Amusement with her made his eyes brighten as if they had fireflies dancing in them.
"Acting might be just the right thing for you, Belinda," I said. "It comes naturally."
She took it as a compliment.
"That's what I think. I'll see. I'm really not too excited about having to memorize lines and be at the same place every day for weeks and weeks," she said.
Becoming an actress was just another thing she tinkered with, never really intending to do anything serious about it. To Belinda there was nothing worse than being bored. She had the attention span of a hummingbird, hovering over some sweet possibility for a moment and then jerking herself away to explore another and another. Even when she talked to someone at a party, her eyes wandered about to see if there was someone else to whom she should be speaking. The only way she would ever get married was if she were placed in a straitjacket and brought-th the altar, I thought.
When it became clear that Belinda was now someone with some money, she attracted an entirely new clique of male acquaintances, dangling the promise of a serious relationship like fish bait. There seemed always to be someone calling on her. She played with them, amused herself with them and then dropped them as if they had contracted the plague. Still, they came around, called and begged for an opportunity to win her affections. I never stopped being amazed at how gullible most men were.
It went on and on like this for nearly a year, and then suddenly, a week went by and no one came. She remained at home watching television or reading magazines, having only an occasional phone call from one of her girlfriends. She stopped in at the offices more often and showed some interest in what we were doing. Samuel took her to lunch and answered her questions, ostensibly to keep her out of my way and amuse her.
Soon after that she started to go places again, but as far as I could see, she was always by herself. She had her own car, of course, and took herself wherever she wanted. Her comings and goings became more unpredictable and when I asked her what she was doing now, she was cryptic, and did not brag about the men she was stringing along, the places they were taking her and the money they were spending on her.
One day at the office, I went to Samuel and asked him about it. He seemed to know more about Belinda these days than I did. He thought a moment, sat back and nodded.
"I think she has someone," he said, "someone a little more serious than her usual male fare."
"Who? Is it someone who will disgrace us? Is that why she's being secretive?"
"I don't know," he said. "I'm just guessing. I really don't know. Why don't you ask her?"
"I have been asking her and she's avoided answering me."
"Have her followed," he suggested with a smile. I recalled her once accusing me of doing just that.
"Maybe I will," I said. He widened his eyes.
"I was just joking. You wouldn't, would you?"
"We have a great deal at stake in this