Family Reunion, page 10
“Never mind. Let me see your pencil. And your pad. I want you to make a phone call.”
Sam glanced around at Pinky as he fumbled, but Ganaway hardly noticed it through his awareness that the young man had stood up and was putting on his raincoat, almost as if he knew what Mr. Ganaway was about and didn’t want to be taken back to the Ward.
It occurred to Mr. Ganaway he might let Sam go on and make the call, to save the hospital people from chasing hither and yon all over town, but after all that was their worry; if the boy was going to leave of his own accord, let him leave. When a pain in your chest passed its peak and started to subside you didn’t try to call it back. He laid the pencil-stub on the pad and politely stood up too, recalling that one of the basic functions of politeness was to speed the parting guest.
But the young man, fastening the belt of his coat, turned his left hand over and glanced at his watch, and Mr. Ganaway found himself for a second, willy-nilly, again in the moment when the boy had done that before; found his convictions of the boy’s identity change back into the ones he had had then. And when the boy approached the table, holding out his hand, instead of simply taking it in a hearty farewell Ganaway thought of the earlier voice in himself that had cautioned him it might be better not to touch the youth, if he could dodge the contact without hurting the boy’s feelings.
He turned his eyes to jabbing the scorecard in his pocket as if he hadn’t seen the hand, and having gone this far, on his feet and all, it seemed suddenly reasonable enough to go on through with it. “Excuse me, son, for having to rush out on you like this. My folks are waiting dinner on me.” He zippered up the front of his golf jacket (a present this Christmas from Bess), picked up his tweed cap and without pausing to put it on started out across the tile floor between the tables with eager strides.
Near the middle of the room it occurred to him he was leaving with unforgivable discourtesy and he turned half round and called, “Good-bye,” over his shoulder, waving the cap in a flourish of relief as his left shoe went from under him on an ice-cube, tumbling him backward and swinging the base of his head against a corner of the third table from the fireplace.
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These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1967 by Berry Fleming
ISBN: 978-1-4532-9297-6
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BERRY FLEMING
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Berry Fleming, Family Reunion
