The Four Corners of the Sky_ A Novel - Michael Malone [115]
He looked up at her, rubbed at his nose where the oxygen tube was clipped. “Dangerous thing…” he whispered. “Truth.”
“No, it’s a little knowledge that’s a dangerous thing—” She started to add, “Dad,” but the word now stuck between palate and tongue. She said, “Jack,” instead.
“Think so?” he asked. “I always thought truth was a lot more equivocal than its reputation…You are just beautiful.” With a delicate incredulous shake of his head, he touched one of the gold buttons on her white uniform cuff. “Remember when we bought you that sailor jacket, gold buttons down the front?”
Her mouth tightened against memory but she admitted, “Yes, I loved that jacket.”
“Admiral Annie.”
She almost laughed, then thought, why should she laugh or cry or feel any of the things she was feeling? Irony took hold of her and sat her down. “I’m not an admiral but I am a naval lieutenant. Well, first I went to elementary school. Your sister Sam raised me. Sam and Clark. You know, after you dropped me off when I was seven and drove away? I went to high school, and after Annapolis, I went to flight school, oh, and I got married to a fellow midshipman, your buddy Brad Hopper, and now I’m getting a divorce, but I told you that. Brad holds the fighter test-flight range record for the FA-18E Hornet. I hold the second-place record. Later this month, I’ve got a chance to set a new record in an experimental jet.”
He smiled quietly at her. “A-plus.”
“So thanks for giving me the King of the Sky. It was the start of something good in my life.”
“I’m worn out,” he said, an astonishing admission. “Wizard of Nod, huh? Maybe I’ll take a nap.”
Annie looked around the room for signs of medical apparatus. Surely he’d be in intensive care if he were in imminent danger; he’d be on a heart monitor; he’d be better attended. “I’m taking you out of here. This is bullshit treatment you’re getting; your oxygen isn’t even on.”
Her father turned his head toward the tank by the bed. “It’s not?”
“What’s your doctor’s name?”
He hesitated. Raffy called from the doorway, through the opening of which his head had periodically projected every few minutes. “His doctor is Parker, Dr. Tom Parker. He’ll be here at eight in the morning.”
Jack just kept smiling. “Let’s don’t talk about doctors now. Every night, every motel, you’d line up your shoes at the foot of the bed. Tennis shoes, cowboy boots—”
“I don’t want to talk about life on the road. I want my mother’s name.” She backed away from him. “You faked a birth certificate saying Claudette Colbert was my mother. Last night you told me her name was Geraldine Jeffers, a character Claudette Colbert played in Palm Beach Story.”
His eyes closed. His hands lifted, fell and he changed the subject, the way he always had. “Your aunt Sam…she’s great, isn’t she?”
Annie said, yes, she was.
“Sam and I used to sneak off to watch movies together. Get more out of life, go to the movies. And believe me, darlin’, life with Judge and Mrs. Peregrine? That was definitely a life you wanted to get more out of—”
Drawn back to him, pulling a metal chair toward his bed, she sat down. “So do better than they did. Here’s your chance, Dad. There won’t be another one. Talk to me about my mother. Tell me about her.”
He turned so the slanted light from the half-closed blinds caught his face; his gold mustache was paler; his green eyes, she realized, resembled Sam’s and like Sam’s were unmistakably filled with affection for her. It was disconcerting.
“Okay, fine, it’s no fun but I’ll tell you the story.” He began, the way he’d always started, “A long time ago…”
“Don’t tell me a story. Tell me the truth.”
“This is a true story.” He gestured to the window, where the last slant of sun streamed in, blinding him until she adjusted the shade so he lay there in shadows. “Your mom and I met in Barbados. We hustled bridge games at the beach resorts. We were