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Linda watched as Johnny guided their daughter Sally in a sequence of gymnastic tumbles through the vast spaces of the hall in her father's house. Sally had been greatly looking forward to this visit to her grandfather's house, on the strength of Johnny's promise for exactly this activity.
Ned had sort of slumped to the floor next to one of the columns after he came out to greet them, so Linda had decided to sit down on the floor next to him to keep him company. Ned was also looking in the direction of Johnny and Sally, but Linda wasn't sure they were really what he was seeing. He had a decidedly odd look on his face.
"What's got you so glum, Ned? I mean—anything new?" Linda clasped his arm just below the shoulder, pulling him closer.
Ned huffed a soft breath, nearly inaudible. "No, old. Well," he added under his breath, "old, new, borrowed. All the same," he went on in a more usual voice again, "I always knew I would have to do it someday."
"What's that?"
"Carrying on the family name." He pronounced it like a prison sentence. "Father is insisting on it, right away, as soon as possible."
"Why such a rush? I thought there was less urgency on you now, what with Julia's brood." The lot of them as picture-perfect as Julia could want, to all appearances following in her and her magnate-husband's footsteps like an obedient line of little blond ducklings. (Linda tried to be the adventurous aunt for them during her visits, and kept an eye open for signs that any of them might wish to step out of line, so she could be there for them if they did.)
"Ah, but they don't carry the Seton name, of course. No, but it's my fault, really. I'm afraid I caused father a bit of a problem. A bit of…unpleasantness." Despite the words, Linda could hear the warmth in his words by the end of the sentence. She leaned out to peek at his face and make sure, and—yes, there it was!
"Oh, Ned, I haven't seen you smile like that in—"
Their father emerged and began to speak with Johnny, and at his appearance, the brief flicker of Ned's warm smile immediately vanished—not like a candle being blown out, but like it disappearing behind a wall of ice.
Even without being able to hear them clearly from down the hall yet, Linda could see from her father's approach and Johnny's response what the topic of conversation must be. Since Sally's birth, Father had been trying to get Linda and Johnny to tell him what their child's true, Christian name was ("I presume Sally is only a nickname for the proper name Sarah, of course," he had said then, and Linda and Johnny both peaceably told him, "No," and refused to elaborate further.) It was one of their minor, ongoing battles, and Linda and Johnny were jointly determined never to give him a straight answer.
Linda glanced at Ned. Well, the minor battles made for some diversion from the major battles, anyway.
Johnny was now earnestly insisting (though with a face too merry to be called straight) that Sally's full name was Saltpeter. (Johnny and Linda gave a different answer for Sally's "real name" every time, and Father had even believed them the first couple of times.)
"It's a fine, old, patriotic name! Abigail Adams made saltpeter for the revolutionary army. It's in her letters with John Adams!" Sally herself began enthusiastically reciting how to make saltpeter. At five, Sally spoke as if she had just discovered exclamation points and laughter, and wanted to share the good news with everyone she met.
"Is her name really just Sally?" Ned murmured, low enough so that only she could hear.
"The answer to that question will never cross my lips under Father's roof," Linda murmured back. "I have to keep up the side." Ned chuffed a quiet chuckle next to her, and Linda was glad to see another sign of any happiness from him. She thought she'd try for another one. "Next we might tell him it's short for the Italian name Salvatora."
Ned's lips pursed in a nearly-soundless whistle. "Italian. He sure will hate that."
"Yes, we thought he would."
Their father answered Johnny, "I wish you would stop this absurdity; that is clearly not the child's name. And it may be historical, but it is not traditional. Child, I do not need to know how to make saltpeter, and neither do you."
Sally looked surprised, but not hurt, at her grandfather's disapproval—and turned her face to her father for his judgment. "It's a very practical skill!" he volleyed back, and Sally smiled.
"She's not afraid of father at all, is she?" murmured Ned.
"No. Well, we've never let her see the worst of him yet."
"And she's not afraid of her own father, either," Ned marveled even more quietly.
Linda wasn't entirely sure if the last remark was even directed at her, but nevertheless replied, "Certainly not," confirming the truth of it.
Their father replied, "I trust the child's education will include skills beyond those that are useful in a revolution? Which we may hope not to see happen again. And I think the more appropriate place for this…athletic activity would be the playroom upstairs, don't you?"
"Not at all!" Johnny answered, smiling winningly. "With all this space between the walls and columns and such marvelously high pile carpets, there's no place safer anyone could practice tumbling. Why, there's nothing she could hit her head on for miles!"
Father clearly gave up the argument, at least for now—his opinions about the appropriate way to treat children included not arguing with or upbraiding their parents in front of them. (He would plan to bring her parents into line with his opinion in private instead, and present a united front for the child. After all, he expected not to have arguments; he simply expected to win. He somehow persisted in the belief that this would eventually work on Linda and Johnny, despite all available evidence.)
As he turned to leave, he spotted Ned on the floor alongside Linda and shot him a look of such vitriol that it shocked Linda. As he approached, he said under his breath, "More disgraceful behavior from you. I should never be surprised but I am always disappointed."
"I'm practicing, father. For playing with children."
"You don't need to sit on the floor to play with children. I never sat on the floor for my children."
"Yes, I remember."
Father drew breath, and seemed to be deciding what to say next—out of entirely terrible options, Linda was sure—so Linda interjected into the brief silence, "Father, he's indulging me; I dragged him down here." She smiled sunnily, as if nothing could possibly be wrong—and their father, having already decided against having one argument in front of his grandchild, clearly decided there was no way to continue this conversation without starting another, and left without another word.
"My goodness," Linda said after he was gone. "I don't think I've ever seen him quite like that before. Just what was that problem you said you caused him?"
"An attachment unsuitable for marriage," he said, softly enough that Sally and Johnny wouldn't hear. He pronounced the words with an ironic distance, clearly quoting—then resumed in more usual tones, "The attachment itself is impossible for marriage, actually—but the fear was that I would become regarded as unsuitable for marriage, so. Like any other unpleasantness, it must be covered up and fixed."
"Oh, but surely it can't really be unpleasantness when it made you smile like that! Tell me about—"
"It doesn't matter. It can't matter," Ned muttered. "I always knew," he said again, "I'd have to do it someday. But, now that it comes right down to it…" He was gazing in Johnny and Sally's direction again, and this time Linda realized he really was looking at them, most intently. "Can I?" he said, almost in a whisper. "Can I bring myself to do it, after all? Have a child—and make it miserable? Let it be scared of father—make it scared of me? Because there's no other way. I must. That's what being a Seton means."
"Oh, Ned," Linda whispered, hand on his shoulder. She could barely see his face from this angle, twisted away from her toward Johnny and Sally in the other direction.
"Maybe they wouldn't be miserable, though. Maybe they'd be like Julia. What are the chances? Maybe not good. It was two out of three for us—you and me, who can't be happy here. But then again, it's also two out of three who are happy—Julia, who actually likes it here, and you, because you left. Oh, if only Julia had been born a boy. Then everyone would be happy—and I probably wouldn't exist at all."
"I am very glad you exist, Ned," Linda said, propping her chin over his shoulder. "I always have been."
"That's all I really need to do—exist. I don't need to do anything at the office, only be there. 'To set an example,'" he quoted their father. "Hah. An example for what? A mannequin could do everything I do there. That's all they need, is a mannequin to just stand there and say 'Yes, sir' and 'I do' and—" he faltered. "I guess there is just one or two things they need me to actually do," he muttered.
"Oh, I don't know how to hearten you anymore, Ned."
"Because you have actually been happy, my dear sister. I'm glad. Someone should be."
"I don't want to be so happy that I forget how to understand you."
"Don't try to make yourself miserable for me."
"Oh, but I would, though. At least a little miserable. I would take at least a little of your misery if it meant I could share my happiness with you."
"Hey, Johnny," Ned called over. "Your wife is making herself miserable for my sake. Make her stop."
Johnny was walking Sally down the hall, with her feet balanced atop his, and holding her hands above her head. "Your sister cares a very great deal about you. I could never make her stop. Not that I'd try." Sally bounced off his feet and tugged at one of his arms, which he obligingly held out for her to use as a pull-up bar.
Ned sighed. "Will you and Linda promise, for any children I have, to kidnap them if they turn out to be miserable here? And take them away with you instead?"
Johnny exchanged a momentarily more serious glance with his wife. Linda gave a small nod. Yes, they were on the same page about this. "Well, sure!" Johnny called back, after barely a pause. "The more, the merrier! But is it likely?"
Sally abandoned the jungle gym of Johnny's arm to run directly to Ned and stand in front of him. "Uncle Ned! You have kids too!?" She looked around, as if surprise cousins she'd never heard of before might suddenly materialize.
"Well," Ned said, derailed a bit. "Not yet. I might, in the future."
"How old will they be when they get here!? I'd like it if they were five like me—or maybe four!"
Ned blinked at her. "Well, typically they start at zero and—work their way up." Ned lifted his hand in a shaky gesture pointing upward. Linda thought, privately amused, that talking with a five-year-old must present a different kind of problem than Ned was used to navigating in conversation when he was in his cups.
Ned turned gloomier again, returning to his topic. "Anyway, that's well enough for any girls, or younger brothers, I suppose. But they'll never let the oldest boy go. And there's just no way to be sure that will work out."
"Speaking on that topic, though," said Johnny, crouching down in front of Ned and Linda on the floor. Sally took the opportunity to climb onto his back, flinging her arms around his neck (to his occasional choking sounds—hopefully performative—and her answering giggles). "What if there was no oldest son? No son at all? It can happen. What would your father do then?"
"If I never have one?"
"If you never have one. If you do, but he gets carried off by smallpox. Heck, even if he grows up fine and then gets hit by a bus—come to that, you could get hit by a bus tomorrow. What then?"
"Well," Ned started, and stopped as if he'd run straight into a wall. "I could get hit by a bus," he continued slowly. "I could." Ned went considering over that in a way Linda didn't quite like.
She gave Johnny the gimlet eye—he'd better be going somewhere good with this—and he continued, "What I'd like to suggest is—let your father figure it out." They had come such a long way from the one time Johnny had given in and spoken to Linda about "embarrassing the family" the night of that New Year's Eve party—and found he didn't like the aftertaste it left in his mouth. After that, he had no further dedication to the idea of covering up unpleasantness or keeping up appearances.
"What?" Ned said.
"In the event of not having a son available to carry on the family name, let your father figure out however he wants to cover up that unpleasantness himself. Maybe he'll decide '-and-son-in-law' is actually fine after all. Maybe he'll even get revolutionary and go with '-and-daughter,' since the business would suit Julia to a T! You don't have to figure it out for him ahead of time."
"For. For if I don't end up having a son. Or." Ned couldn't seem to continue.
Johnny nodded slowly, and Linda tightened her fingers on Ned's shoulder. "I believe I did just solemnly swear to kidnap any miserable children from this house. You were a child in this house—and you're miserable. So we are duty-bound to kidnap you."
"Oh, do come with us this time, Ned, please." Linda could hardly find the voice to speak, she was so afraid of saying the wrong thing and ruining their chances.
"I probably could carry you out over my shoulders, if I need to," Johnny said, dashingly. "But we can probably make a cleaner getaway if I don't." Linda held her breath.
Ned closed his eyes…and began a series of small nods, which gave way to him pulling his knees up in front of him, crossing his arms over them, and slumping forward and propping his forehead there. Linda threw her arms around him and said, "Oh, don't pack, don't wait, let's just light out of here, right away!" It was all she could do to keep from whooping in delight.
"Oh—Sally, stay on the carpet, in the open space, not on the statuary!" Johnny rushed off to where Sally was indeed industriously climbing one of the statues in the hall.
"But it's safe, the block must be strong enough to hold me up—it's already holding her up!"
Johnny hovered, arms open and near enough to catch her if she fell. "Well, I can't fault your logic there—except that there isn't any room for you up there, because she's already there. Leave it to her, and get back on the floor yourself."
"She invited me up here with her!"
"Are you sure?" Johnny looked the figure of the statue up and down. "She looks Greek to me, and I don't think you speak Greek yet—perhaps you misunderstood what she said." Sally laughed and let go, toppling over backwards into his arms.
Ned took a deep breath and lifted his head enough so that he propped his chin on his arms instead of his forehead. "Will it be all right? Can it be?"
"Oh, Ned, yes," said Linda. "You're just—out of practice, that's all. You've spent so many years choosing the opposite of what will make you happy that it will take you a while to get into the habit." It was both that simple, and that dreadfully hard. She added, "If you'd like to meet with your attachment while you're staying with us, I hope you know you're perfectly welcome to."
Ned glanced sideways at her, smiling tremulously. "Can you believe it? He makes me hope, somehow," he said in a small voice, not quite broken, with a bright thread running through it.
"Then he is always welcome anywhere I am," she said, hugging him again. "You'll just need to tell us whether we should let on that we know he's an attachment, or not—we should like you both to be comfortable, and we wouldn't want to make either of you nervous."