“He’s been doing calculations. Trying to figure out how much profit he could make if he built something like this. The words that are coming out of this kid’s mouth, I swear, I don’t even understand half of them. Where the hell is he picking up this shit? Anyway, I made him put it back together before bed. I wasn’t going to let that thing sit out overnight and get dust in it, or God knows what. I couldn’t believe it at the time, but thinking back…I guess it sort of makes sense, doesn’t it? That he was thinking that way, even when he was just a kid.”
I swallowed a lump in my throat. “It does make sense,” I said. “It makes a lot of sense.”
“Huh,” said Walter, rubbing his face and raking his fingers through his hair. “It almost makes me feel bad, now.”
I waited, quietly, for something resembling a breakthrough.
“But,” he said. “How could I have known? It just seemed ridiculous to me at the time. Honestly it still does. All this…technology crap. Everyone’s plugged in all the time, to something. But I guess that’s just how things are now. It’s not going to change anytime soon.”
“No, it’s not,” I agreed.
He looked at me. “I can tell you don’t approve,” he said. “But hindsight’s twenty-twenty.”
“Did it work, after he put it back together?”
“Oh, yeah, of course.” Walter chuckled. “He would have regretted it, if it didn’t.”
I didn’t say anything, but he could obviously read my face.
“Oh, come on!” he snapped. “Don’t start with that. I’m not going to get into an argument with you about how I disciplined my son.”
“I don’t want to argue,” I said, as calmly as I could manage.
“You gonna write me up as a child abuser now?” said Walter, his voice growing louder and louder. “That makes everything more interesting, doesn’t it?”
I just looked at him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, after a minute. His breathing started to slow down. “I’m just…this is all…this is all new to me. I haven’t thought about a lot of this stuff in years and years.”
“I’m not here to judge you,” I said. “I just want to tell Daniel’s story. And I want you two to figure out some way to make things work. I don’t know what that is, but if I can help in any way, I’m going to.”
“He’s too stubborn,” said Walter. “He’s never going to change. He thinks he knows best, and nothing’s going to change that.”
“He said some very similar things about you,” I pointed out. I was beginning to grit my teeth.
“And you’re taking his side,” said Walter, rolling his eyes a little. “Of course.
I couldn’t stand it anymore. “Did you come back to reconcile, or did you come back because you thought he couldn’t manage his life without you? Because he’s done just fine for himself, so far.” The anger was roiling inside my stomach. Somehow, the idea of Walter being so disrespectful towards Daniel made me even angrier than my parents doing the same thing to me.
I could tell I was starting to get through to him. “Daniel always thought he knew best. He’s been that way his whole life. He needs to learn how to accept someone else’s guidance.”
“Can’t imagine how he got like that,” I muttered, scribbling heavily on the page.
“I’m sorry, Madeline?” Walter was starting to raise his voice.
“You heard me,” I snapped back. I really hadn’t intended for things to go so far south, but I simply couldn’t keep my mouth shut.
Walter crossed his legs at the knee and considered for a moment before he spoke again. “I’m entitled,” he said, finally. “I’ve been alive for longer than both of you combined. I don’t care how Daniel presents himself to everybody else, I know who he really is. I taught him everything he knows. He’s not half as smart as he thinks.”
If I’d been using a pencil, I would have snapped it in half by now.
“I don’t understand what you’re trying to accomplish,” I managed to say, finally.
He shrugged. “I’m just trying to get you to see things from my perspective,” he said. “But I’m not surprised that you can’t.”
I slammed my notebook shut. “You’re treating him like he’s still a child!” I shouted.
He actually half-stood from his chair, his nostrils flaring. “I’m his father. He’s my son. I don’t need any better reason than that,” he snarled.
My jaw was clenched so hard it hurt.
“Sorry,” I said, as softly as I could manage. “That’s just not going to cut it anymore.”
He’d settled back down, and he was drumming his fingers on his thigh, just like Daniel. “I don’t expect you to understand,” he said, maddeningly calm again. “You don’t have children.”
“You’re right, I don’t.” I let out a long breath, and flipped to a fresh page in my notebook. “I apologize for getting so far off track. Let’s get back to business.”
“Yes, let’s.” His tone was withering.
I was trying to start writing something - I wasn’t sure what - but somehow I couldn’t quite wrap my brain around the motion of moving my hand across the page. It seemed impossible. I couldn’t remember how to start. I felt shaky and cold. My pulse seemed to be thrumming too weak - too fast. I stood, abruptly, and only had an instant to realize what a mistake that was before black spots started swimming in front of my eyes. I swayed, feeling as if my head were starting to float away from my body.
“Madeline. Madeline.” I heard Walter’s voice, sounding very distant and strange like he was talking on an old-fashioned telephone. The last thing I felt before my vision went black was his hand closing around my wrist.
***
“Why am I on the floor?” My lips felt dry and sluggish. I tried to raise myself up on my elbows, but a gentle touch on my shoulder stilled me.
“Madeline, you fainted. It’s all right. You’re going to be fine.”
I stirred. My limbs felt very heavy. I managed to lift my head a little, and I saw that he’d slid a pillow under my ankles. Feet above the head; someone remembered their first aid training. I wanted to laugh, for some reason, but it came out as a dry cough.
“Here,” said Walter, pushing the pillow out of the way and sliding his arm under my back. “Try and sit up, if you can. Slowly.”
He guided me to sit up so that I was leaning against the wall.
“When was the last time you ate?” he wanted to know.
I looked up at him. He’d turned completely businesslike, but not brusque. There was compassion there. I wasn’t sure why that surprised me.
“I, uh…” I swallowed dryly. He was getting a bottle of water from the fridge. “I haven’t.”
He came back, untwisting the cap on the bottle of water and handing it to me. There was a box of saltines tucked under his arm, and when I was done drinking, he tore open a sleeve, pulled out a cracker, and handed it to me.
“You were out for less than a minute,” he said. “I can take you to the hospital anyway, if you want. It might be a good idea. Considering.”
“Considering what?” I said, around a mouthful of cracker crumbs.
He gave me a withering look that I’d seen on Lindsey’s face, more than once. “Madeline, give me some credit. There’s no point in trying to hide it.”
I took another drink from the bottle to wash down some of the saltines. “We were just going to wait a little longer,” I said.
“Yeah, well.” He was crouching there beside me, and he didn’t seem too uncomfortable with the position, which I thought was pretty admirable for a man his age. I was struck again by how different his speech patterns were from Daniel’s, while still being - in some vague, indefinable way - incredibly similar. It was like Daniel had done everything he possibly could to try and separate himself from his past. Speaking with measured precision, showing off his impressive vocabulary whenever he had the opportunity. Being formal when informal would have sufficed. But still, even with all that, he couldn’t quite shake off his father’s influence. “Want me to call Danny?”
“No,” I said. “He’s in a big meeting. Can’t be disturbed. Emergencies only.”
“I think this might qualify,” he said, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
“I doubt it,” I said. “I’m fine now.”
Walter smiled. “Thatta girl.” But his tone wasn’t nearly as condescending as I would have expected.
“Thanks,” I said, after a moment.
Walter sat down, slowly. “For what?”
“I don’t know.” I pulled out another cracker and contemplated it. “Not…letting me crack my head on something, I guess.”
“Well, you’re very welcome.”
I swallowed, and cleared my throat.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“For?” Walter raised his eyebrows a little.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you.” I did feel kind of bad about it, in retrospect. Not that he didn’t deserve it, but I still should have been able to control myself better.
I half expected him to make some joke about pregnancy hormones, or otherwise write it off. Write me off. But instead, he just looked thoughtful for a moment.
“I know I can be unpleasant sometimes,” he said, with a bluntness that, in retrospect, shouldn’t have surprised me. “It’s just…I guess it’s just a habit, at this point. Some people bite their nails. I’m an a**hole. We all have our, you know, our hobbies.”
“Have you ever considered just…not being one?” I set the bottle of water down on the floor beside me. “It’s not too hard.”
“It’s surprisingly hard when you’re not used to being any other way,” he said, standing up and coming over to extend his arm to me. “Hospital?”
“I guess,” I said. I wasn’t too keen on the idea, but he was probably right. I should get checked out, just in case.
“Think you can walk?”
“Most likely.”
He escorted me out to his car, a heavily used station wagon that smelled faintly of old cigarettes. I kept the window rolled down for the drive. We went to the non-emergency door and the check-in didn’t take as long as I’d feared.
“This your father?” one of the orderlies asked, nodding towards Walter.
“In law,” I said, realizing this was the first time I’d ever acknowledged his existence to anyone outside of the family. If any paparazzi happened to be lurking around the corner in the chapel, this story was going to blow up.
Or maybe not. Thinking back on it, I wasn’t confident that Daniel ever discussed his parents in interviews. It might just as easily have been one of those topics he carefully avoided, like the lawsuit all those years ago when he’d still been in college, and one of his “buddies” accused him of stealing a prototype design that eventually became Plum’s first bestselling phone.