“Can you tell me why Grace wants to leave?”
Duke hesitated. “Dad, I don’t see that it matters; she’s made up her mind. I pointed out that I couldn’t make things as safe for her-nor as comfortable-as it is here. But she’s adamant.”
Hugh pondered it. “Duke, if that’s how your mother feels, I won’t try to persuade her; I’ve long since lost my influence over her. But I have two ideas. You may find one of them practical.”
“I doubt it.”
“Hear me. You know we have copper tubing; we used some in the kitchen. We have everything for a still; I stocked the items to build one if a war came along-not just for us but because liquor is money in any primitive society.
“I haven’t built it for reasons we both know. But I could and I know how to make liquor.” He smiled slightly. “Not book knowledge. While I was in the South Pacific, I bossed a still, with the shut-eye connivance of my C.O. I learned how to turn corn or potatoes or most anything into vodka, or fruit into brandy. Duke, your mother might be happy if she had liquor.
“She would drink herself to death!”
“Duke, Duke! If she is happy doing it, who are we to stop her? What does she have to live for? She loved television, she enjoyed parties, she could spend a happy day at the hairdresser’s, followed by a movie, then drinks with one of her friends. That was her life, Duke. Now where is it? Gone, gone! There is just this we can give her to make up for what she has lost. Who are you to decided that you mother must not drink herself to death?”
“Dad, that’s not the situation!”
“So?”
“You know I don’t-didn’t-approve of Mother’s excessive drinking. But I might go along with letting her drink all she wants now. If you build that still, we might be customers. But we would still leave. Because that won’t solve Mother’s problem.”
“Well, Duke, that leaves only my other idea. I’ll get out instead. Only-” Hugh frowned. “Duke, tell her that I will leave as soon as Barbara has her baby. I can’t walk out on my patient. You can give Grace my assur-”
“Dad, that won’t solve a thing!”
“I don’t understand.”
“Oh, Christ, I might as well spill it. It’s Barbara. She’s- Well, hell, Mother is nuts on the subject. Can’t stand her. Ever since Karen died. She said to me, ‘Duke, that woman is not going to have her child in my home! Her bastard. I won’t have it. You tell your father that he has got to get her out of here.’ That’s what she said, Dad.”
“Good Lord!”
“Yeah. I tried to reason with her. I told her that Barbara couldn’t leave. I gave her both barrels, Dad; I said there wasn’t a chance that you would ever force Barbara to leave. But as for making her leave now, or even letting her, you would no more do it than you would have driven Karen out. I told her that I wouldn’t, either, and that Joe and I would fight you to stop it, stipulating that you were crazy enough to try. Which you aren’t, of course.”
“Thank you.”
“That did it. She believes me when I lay it on the line. So she decided to leave. I can’t stall her any longer. She’s leaving. I’m going with her, to take care of her.”
His father rubbed his temples. “I guess there is no situation so bad but what it can get worse. Duke, even with you, she hasn’t ‘anywhere to go.”
“Not quite, Dad.”
“Eh?”
“I can swing it, with your help. Do you remember that cave up Collins Canyon, the one they tried to make a tourist attraction? It’s still there. Or its twin, I mean. I was hunting up that way that first week. The canyon looked so familiar that I climbed up and looked for the cave. Found it. And Dad, it’s habitable and defensible.”
“The door? The mouth?”
“No problem. If you can spare that steel plate that blocked off the tunnel.”
“Certainly.”
“The cave has a vent, higher up. No smoke problem. It has a spring that hasn’t failed all this dry weather. Dad, it’s as comfortable as the shelter; all it needs is outfitting.”