Her Father's House by Belva Plain Page A

stupid of him. Lillian had been what she was long before she ever laid eyes on the Sanders.
    â€œBy the way, Howard knows Chloe and Frank. Or at least he's met them. Yes,” Lillian repeated, “he goes everywhere and everybody knows him.” She paused to look around the room. “That painting—you were very nice about it. A lot of men would have raised hell about my spending so much money without asking first.”
    â€œWell, you loved it. I understood that. Take it with you.”
    â€œThanks, but I wouldn't think of taking it. I'll be able to buy more if I want to. One thing I'll miss, though, going to the galleries and exhibits with you. Howard doesn't know the first thing about art and doesn't want to. But you can't have everything, can you?”
    Once, he thought, for a short time, I believed you could. I believed, in fact, that we did have everything. But he did not speak as Lillian rose and put on her coat.
    â€œI suppose we'll meet soon with our lawyers, Donald, since you insist on having them. I'm sure it won't be complicated, since we're not fighting each other.”
    â€œI have only one demand: open and generous visitation when the child is born.”
    How much he really would want or use that, he did not know. Perhaps if it should be a boy, he would want it. . . . At any rate, it was of his flesh and blood, and he would provide for it.
    â€œOh, I want to remind you about the silver. It's worth a small fortune, so don't forget to pay the insurance.”
    â€œThe silver?”
    â€œThe Danish silver that Howard gave us.”
    â€œTake it. Take it with you now. I don't want it.”
    â€œFor goodness sake, Donald, don't be foolish. You may want to use it someday. One never knows. And I don't need it. Howard's got enough silver to equip a hotel.” With a hand on the doorknob, Lillian paused. “Don't be angry at me, will you?”
    He looked at her. Beauty incarnate, she was. Those eyes. That heavy, bright hair. The classic face—beauty incarnate.
    â€œFor a while, at least, we loved each other,” he said.
    â€œLoved? I'll tell you something that I read. I think some Frenchman wrote it. ‘There are people who, if they had not heard about it, would never fall in love.' Good night, Donald.”

Chapter 7
    I t had begun to drizzle, and the April air was soft on Donald's face as he walked toward the hospital. On the corner of the street, he stopped to reconsider whether or not he should continue.
    The early morning's telephone call at home had surprised him, although it really should not have done so because he could hardly have expected Lillian to send him a formal birth announcement. In high spirits she had urged him to visit the nursery for a look at the prettiest seven-pound, three-ounce baby girl that anyone could imagine.
    â€œJust ask for the Wolfe baby, and they'll pick her up to show you.”
    Wolfe
. Well, of course. What else should it be? He was, after all, the father, soon to be in three or four months the divorced father, but still, the father.
    There was such emotional turmoil inside him! During the fall and winter just past, he had been settling down. Mr. Pratt had been right about work as a restorer of mental health; he had provided Donald with so much activity, two trips abroad and a full load at home, that there had been neither time nor energy left for personal grief. But now, as he hesitated on the street, anxiety surged back as if to engulf him again.
    What was the point of going in to see this baby? For one thing, it was a girl, and even though he knew he wasn't supposed to feel this way, he believed that he would have a different kind of companionship with a boy than with a girl. So this child would belong to Lillian, and he would be reduced to the kind of pathetic father who had lunch on a Saturday or Sunday with a child who hardly knew him.
    He was still standing, undecided, when he caught sight of Lillian's friend Cindy