A Father for Philip (7 page)

He could hear his mom and Kathy talking
in the living room, and he stood eavesdropping for a few minutes, putting off
the time when he had to take the note Jeff. Soon, because the conversation in
living room wasn’t all that interesting, just about his dad hadn’t come home,
ever, and he’d heard that lots of times, he grabbed some cookies, took the note
out of his lunch kit and went to the other side of the hill.

Panting, he came to halt beside Jeff,
who grinned down at him “Hi, sport!”

“Jeff! Jeff! Will you go to the school
on Saturday.... tomorrow… an’ help with the field for sportsday on Monday? The
teacher wasn’t gonna give me a note ’cause I don’t have a dad and my mom said
even if he did come back he’d have to have an awful damn good reason for
staying away for so long and—I’m not allowed to say ‘damn’, so don’t tell,
okay? but I haven’t got a dad to go and I told Miss Walker you would go and she
gave me the note.” He sucked in a long breath and pushed the note at Jeff. “I
told her you were strong and could build a log cabin and do more work than any
of the dads!” His wide, light gray eyes looked up at Jeff with faith and trust
and hope.

Jeff read the note which was addressed
to “Dear fathers”, folded it small and tucked it away in his shirt pocket. He
hunkered down behind the boy and said, “Sport, why don’t you ask Grant?”

“Oh, Grant wouldn’t do anything like
that. Besides, he’s gone away.” The light in Philip’s eyes showed that this was
to be treated as good news. “Hey, Jeff, what’s frigid? Grant said that to mom
and she didn’t even say goodnight to him. Is in a bad word like ‘damn’?”

Jeff smiled. “No, Phil. Not really, but
it would be sure to make your mom mad. Probably even madder than ‘damn’.” His
smile turned into a grin, as if he were amused at some secret joke. He rumpled
the hair on Philip’s head. “Tell you what… I’ll go to the school tomorrow, and
if I see Miss Walker I’ll tell her you sent me. Okay?”

Philip beamed. “Okay!” Then, obviously
thinking that if favors were being bestowed, it was up to him to do a little
bestowing himself, he said, “Sunday is my birthday, Jeff. Do you want come to
dinner?”

Jeff looked sadly at his companion.
“Son,” he said slowly, “I’d like nothing better than to come to dinner on your
birthday, but I bet your mom has already planned on the number of guest she’s
having. One more might upset all her plans, and then where’d we be?”

“But there’s still time to ask her, and
she could cook a bigger cake,” Philip replied earnestly, adding, “anyway, it’s
only Kathy and Bill coming.”

Jeff, who by this time knew of Kathy and
Bill and their place in the scheme of Philip’s life said, “No friends from
school?”

“Nah… They all live too far away except
for Jamie Peters and I don’t like him. He’s a dumb old fatty. His dad’s fat,
too, and he isn’t even going help get the field ready ’cause he wants to play
golf with his boss.”

The triumph inherent in Philip’s tones
made Jeff smile. “It’s not very nice to dislike someone just because they’re
fat, Phil. He can’t help it, can he now?”

“Aw… That’s what mom says.”

“And you listen to your mother, young
fella. But I promise I will help get the field ready, so you don’t have to
worry about that anymore.”

“Would you come to my party?”

“No, son.” That was the final answer and
Philip knew it “What you want for your birthday, Phil? A pony, maybe?”

“No! Ponies is horses but smaller. I
don’t like horses!”

“Don’t you? That’s too bad. I’m getting
a horse next week and I was hoping you and I could ride together sometimes.”

“No! The day I laughed at Grant when he
fell off he put me on his horse and it was so big! Bill took me down and I ran
and ran into the woods and then I found an axe an’ pretended I was chopping off
Grant’s head and things and—” Philip abruptly remembered just whose axe it was
he had found and used. “Oh!” he said, putting his hand to his mouth, waiting
for Jeff to get mad at him for doing such a bad thing as chopping someone up,
even if it was only pretend.

Jeff did not get mad. “I understand,
Phil. You said you hated him, and just then, you did. It’s all right to hate
someone sometimes, but you just have to learn not to go around chopping them
up. You chopped up a log, and then we started building the cabin together and
you forgot all about hating Grant, didn’t you?”

“Mostly… But I hated him before that,
when I was just little and he laughed and made fun of me every time I cried
when I hurt myself… And he pulled out my loose tooth and made it bleed and
called me a sissy. When he tried to give me riding lessons and I said no he
said I’m just a stupid baby.”

“Oh. Well, son, sometimes even grown-ups
can be wrong. I know you’re no baby, and you’re sure not stupid. It takes a
big, smart, strong boy to help build a log cabin.” The firm conviction in
Jeff’s words made Philip glow with pleasure.

“Did you ever hate anybody enough to
want to chop on them, Jeff?” Philip asked, frowning slightly, still not sure
that it was all right to hate.

“Yes. Once.”

“Who?”

“Someone you wouldn’t know about, Phil.”

“What did you do? Chop him?”

“No. I told you, we might be mad enough
to think we hate people now and then, but we don’t chop them up. Anyway, when I
found out what he had done to me, he was already dead.” Jeff looked incredibly
sad and Philip slipped a hand into the big one hanging by Jeff’s side. The man
looked down and smiled. “It’s okay, I got over hating him. I can understand why
he did what he did, and I can forgive him, I think. But it’s not my forgiveness
I worry about…”

Philip, who hadn’t a clue what Jeff was
talking about, said, “How come you have whiskers now? You didn’t have them
before.”

“I felt like growing a beard,” Jeff
smiled. “Do you like it?” He stroked the short, yet full beard and mustache
covering his lower face.

Philip nodded slowly. “Hmm… Yes,” he
decided. “I like it.”

“Good. What should I get you for your
birthday?”

“Gee, I don’t know. What do you want to
give me?” he countered.

“Something I can’t… But how would you
like a lucky horseshoe to hang over your door?”

“Oh, sure!” Philip’s eyes glowed. Jeff
was sure he if he had offered him a stale cooked carrot for his birthday, that
too would have been just as good. “But could I wait for until we finish the
cabin and hang it over our door, here?”

“If that’s what you want to do, of
course. Now I think you’ve stayed long enough. Your mom will be worried. See
you tomorrow? When I get back from helping with the field?”

“Yup. See you, Jeff.”

~ * ~

The morning of Philip’s birthday brought
low lying clouds and heavy rain. Both he and his mother slept late, due, no doubt,
to the dark skies, and when she awoke Eleanor went to the back porch at once to
see if the basket was there as Ralph Exley had promised. It was, and she lifted
the lid to be met by a shiny black nose, a whimpering sound and the scrabbling
of little paws against wicker.

“Oh, you are a darling!” she crooned,
scooping up the pup into her lap. “Come and meet your new best friend.”

She carried the puppy into Philip’s
room, put it on the bed beside her son’s head and stood back. The pup sniffed,
licked, then sneezed. Philip opened his eyes a crack, then widened them into
big, blue-gray orbs. He squeezed them shut for a moment before he popped them
open wider still.

“Wow!” he cried. Then “Wow!” again.

“Happy birthday, love.” Eleanor smiled.
“Like him?”

Philip’s expression was answer enough,
but he said, “Oh, Mom! Is he mine?”

“All yours. He’s a Labrador retriever,”
Eleanor replied.

Philip squirmed to get away from the wet
little tongue which was trying to wash his chin. “Will he get big?”

“Pretty big. Like this, maybe,” his
mother said, indicating height with her hand.

“Wow!” Philip said once more. “Can I go
show him to Jeff before breakfast?”

“No, honey.” Eleanor chuckled. “It’s
pouring rain and he’s too little to go running through the woods yet. You’ll
need to remember to keep both gates in our fence closed all the time, too.”
Normally, they stayed open all the time, now Philip was big enough to stay away
from the road running past the farmhouse. “You wouldn’t want him wandering into
one of the pastures where a cow could step on him, would you?”

Philip looked at the tiny puppy and held
him close. “No! A cow could crush him with one foot. I’ll remember to close the
gates when I leave the yard.”

“But you won’t be leaving the yard
much,” she said. “You’ll need to stay home with him and help him learn all
sorts of things. I’m sure Jeff will understand.”

“Then can I go tell Jeff about him now?”

“Not in the rain! If you want your puppy
to be really yours, you’ll have to stay out of the woods until he’s big enough
to go along. You need to spend lots and lots of time with him in case he thinks
he’s my dog, not yours, because I’ll have to look after him when you’re in
school. What are you going to name him?”

“Casey,” replied Philip without an
instant’s hesitation, looking surprised at his mother’s question.

“Casey? That’s a good name. How did you
come up with it so fast?”

“Because that’s his name, Mom. That’s
what you just called him.”

“I did?” Eleanor  knew quite well
she had done nothing of the sort.

“Yes. You said, ‘Casey thinks he’s my
dog.’” Philip frowned and held the puppy closer to him for a moment. “How come
he thinks he’s your dog, Mom?” He appeared quite aggrieved at the thought.

“Philip! I don’t believe you heard a
word I said. I did not say ‘Casey thinks he’s my dog’, I said, ‘
in case
he thinks he’s my dog’.”

“Yeah. Casey thinks he’s your dog. But
he’s not, Mom. He’s mine. Isn’t he? Even if you said—”

“All right! All right!” Eleanor laughed,
holding up her hands to ward off the spate of words she expected to hear
pouring out of her son as he repeated their previous conversation verbatim—As
he had heard it. “Breakfast. Let’s go.”

But ‘Casey’ the dog remained.

~ * ~

The birthday dinner party went off well,
with everyone, including Kathy batting balloons wildly around the house while
the puppy barked shrilly, getting in the way, and getting too excited, Eleanor
declared wiping up the third puddle in five minutes.

“Put him on the back porch, love. His
basket’s there. He’ll be warm enough.” she added seeing the mutinous look on
Philip’s face. Casey, she was determined, would grow up to be an outdoor dog.
She didn’t want him—or Philip—thinking he could sleep with her son. The covered
and walled-in back porch was to be his realm. “And then you’d better get ready
for bed. Big day tomorrow, don’t forget. And I’ll be there to see you win lots
and lots of races… Or at least try hard.”

“Jeff,” Philip informed the party of
adults, in an attempt to gain out-of-bed time, “went to school to help the dads
get the field ready. He told me last night. But,” he added sadly, “Miss Walker
wasn’t there. So he couldn’t tell her he was my friend. Would you tell her
tomorrow, Mom? Please? And tell her him and me’s building a log cabin?”

“Oh, Philip! If I tell Miss Walker anything,
it will be about your grammar. Let’s not talk about ‘Jeff’ right now. You’re
only stalling. Put Casey to bed now, make sure his water dish is full, and say
goodnight. I’ll come and tuck you in soon.”

After she had tucked Philip into his bed
Eleanor returned to her guests. “Well, Bill, I hope you’re right, and having
the pup will keep him home. I don’t know why I didn’t have sense enough to
think of something like that myself.”

“Probably because you were never a
little boy,” said Bill with admirable logic. “That’s where I think single
parents have it rough with a child of the opposite sex—they can’t see things
quite the same way as a parent of the same sex can, not one with a half decent
memory of his or her own childhood, that is.-your-old dad must’ve had a few
problems raising you, Ellie, what with being a man raising a girl, and a double
dose of the generation gap as well.” He laughed. “I’m glad Kath and I are
having our kids before we’re old enough to be grandparents.”

“If Dad had a hard time, I was
blissfully unaware,” she responded. “At least not until he tried to tell me
about my rapidly approaching puberty.” She grinned, remembering. “There, we did
have a few hang-ups. Thank goodness for sex-ed in school, though it did come
about six months too late for me. I was an early bloomer. I sure hope you’re
still around, Bill, when Philip starts to grow up. I’ll need all the help I can
get.”

“That’s a ways off yet,” said Kathy,
making no attempt to hide her prodigious yawn. “Before you have to worry about
it, you’ll all be settled down and married to someone… Grant, maybe, and can
sit back and leave it all to him.”

But will I? Eleanor asked yourself later
that night she lay sleepless in her bed. Will I ever settle down and marry
anyone, even Grant? The thought of letting Grant try to explain hormones and
such to her son curdled her stomach. She doubted he’d do a good job. Knowing
him, he’d insist it all be left to male teachers, preferably at a prep school
where he’d expect to incarcerate her child.