say that he gave her a lot of thought in return. But he did need to call her. He was overdue in his duty. He glanced at his calendar and saw that he hadn’t talked to her for three weeks.
He dug out his cell phone and placed the call, knowing that if he didn’t do it right at this moment, he’d put it off again. Rain Bernardo picked up on the first ring.
“Hi, Mom,” he said. She responded with almost embarrassing fervor. He thanked her for the card, told her he was working long hours as usual, told her he still liked his house and the town, and came very close to telling her about Rachel. But the enormity of the gap between his life and hers seemed so wide; there would have to be so much fill-in before he could talk across it. In the end, he told her nothing new.
But she had news for him. “I’m getting married,” she said, almost defiantly.
For a second, Manfred was too stunned to say anything. “Wow, that’s great!” he blurted, desperately trying to fill the silence. “Gary, I’m assuming.”
“Yes, of course, Gary.”
“When will it be?”
“We’re just going to slip off some weekend soon,” she said evasively.
“I’ll come,” he said, absolutely certain that he must make the effort. He owed his mother that much. “Just let me know for sure.”
“Well, we haven’t set a date yet,” she said.
“What are you not telling me?”
“Oh, son, you’re so sharp.” She sighed. “The thing is, Gary’s kids aren’t as . . . agreeable to the idea as you are.”
“Why not? You’re one of the nicest women I ever met,” Manfred said honestly.
She laughed, but only a little. “That sounds like you came up to me at a party or something, instead of me being your mom.”
“Uh-huh,” he said. He waited.
“Well, the thing is, they . . . oh, they’re just silly, stupid people,” she said, in a burst of anger that was as unexpected as it was refreshing.
“Me,” he said, suddenly understanding. “They don’t like me.”
“They don’t even know you,” she said, and the anger was still there, full force. “They just don’t like the idea of you. A psychic. Isn’t that stupid?”
“It’s an excuse,” Manfred said. He’d had more experience with human beings than some people three times his age. “They just don’t want their dad to get married, to you or anyone else. I can bet that if I were super-wealthy, they wouldn’t have any objections at all to what I do.”
“I hate to think that, but I have to say there’s something to it,” Rain said.
“Mom, you’re just barely over forty, so you can have a long and happy marriage with Gary. Go for it.” Rain had been unmarried and in her teens when she’d had Manfred, and she would never talk about his father. If his grandmother, Xylda, had known, she hadn’t said a word. Manfred thought she didn’t know who her daughter had been sleeping with, or she’d have found a way to let him know without actually telling him. Xylda had loved him, maybe more than she’d loved her own daughter, Rain, but she’d loved drama most of all.
“I do deserve to be happy,” Rain said now, as if she’d been told that but was just now believing it. “I am going to marry Gary. And if we decide not to tell his kids in advance, we may not tell you, either. We’ll just go do it.”
Since he’d already told her that was what he wanted, Manfred could only repeat that he agreed and wished her luck. “Tell me when it’s done,” he said. “I love you, Mom. If Gary’s the guy you want, go for it.”
When he hung up, after having the whole conversation with Rain several times, Manfred sat back in his chair and worried for a minute or two. Gary and his mother had been dating six years, but those were years that Manfred had not been around much, since he’d been living mostly with his grandmother. He realized that he didn’t know Gary very well. Presumably his mother did, and that was what was important. Should he check Gary out? But Rain had dated the man for a long time. If she hadn’t found out if he had a criminal record in that length of time, she didn’t want to know.
Manfred decided to leave well enough alone.
It would be strange when his mother had a last name that was different from his.