Suburban Renewal by Pamela Morsi

that conviction for which he was now on parole.
    That he hadn’t told me any of this bothered me. That he was inept at the job I’d given him was annoying. The way he seemed to have taken over my life was downright scary.
    I couldn’t share any of my feelings about this with Corrie. She hated Dad and always expected the worst of him. My complaining would have been tantamount to saying that she was right. Maybe she was, but I wasn’t ready to admit that.
    Even if I did, what would that change? Floyd Braydon was my father. We’d been apart nearly all my life. For good or bad, a boy needs a father. After all this time, I wanted mine.
    And there was Nate. I easily forgot all my father’s shortcomings when I watched him with my son. Nate adored his paw-paw and Dad showered the little guy with love, attention, affection. I didn’t see how that could be a bad thing.
    Floyd Braydon was family. Lost family found at last. Corrie couldn’t appreciate that because she’d always had hers close. I couldn’t explain it to her, because I didn’t really understand it myself.
    So instead, I took her on a nice week-long getaway to south Texas. It was still cool and brisk in Lumkee. But in San Antonio it was already like summer. I anticipated a couple of quiet strolls along the Riverwalk, sipping champagne together from a balcony overlooking the moonlit water and retiring to the pleasures of a lust-filled bed at La Mansion Del Rio.
    That wasn’t exactly how it turned out.
    Our first indication was the incredible traffic snarl we encountered as we exited the highway into downtown. Orange cones and barricades were all over the place. Every detour we took led to another detour. I’m sure I must have circled the entire city at least twice before I finally made my way to the hotel entrance.
    The doorman hurried out to help me with the bags from the trunk of our shiny new Volvo. I tipped him generously and placed my hand against the small of Corrie’s back, ushering her through the doorways of the street entrance.
    I felt great. I felt important. I was a well-dressed businessman with a luxury car, walking into an expensive hotel with a very fine-looking blonde on my arm.
    The blonde was, of course, my wife, but she didn’t look much like the woman I had married. Corrie had trimmed up since the kids were born. She worked out every day. She’d had her pretty chestnut hair lightened and permed into a huge explosion of gold ringlets all over her head. She’d also started wearing a lot more makeup and it made her look really different. The change came from some woman-seminar thing she described as “having her colors done.” I didn’t quite understand it, but she told me that she’d turned out to be a summer which, apparently, was a surprise to her. Knowing that helped her decide what she should wear.
    For myself, deciding what to wear was usually based on what happened to be hanging in the closet when I was getting dressed. Though that was changing, too. Corrie assured me that I was a True Autumn, whatever that means. What it meant to me was that all my favorite shirts disappeared and new stuff in yellows, greens and browns appeared in their place.
    â€œYou didn’t even leave me one white shirt!” I complained at the time.
    Corrie shook her head. “Autumns don’t wear white, ivory is white for an autumn.”
    So she got me a couple of shirts in ivory. They looked white to me. I was wearing one that day.
    Inside the lobby of the hotel, the noise and hubbub ceased immediately. The place was cool, dark and pretty much deserted.
    â€œWhere is everybody?” Corrie asked me, in a whisper.
    I shrugged. “It’s an exclusive hotel,” I told her. “Maybe it’s so exclusive, nobody comes here.”
    We walked over to the check-in counter. It looked empty, but as we got closer we could hear the click of plastic computer keys from behind the