Those Harper Women by Stephen Birmingham Page A

me?”
    He looked at her for a long time. “Look, there’s nothing I can do. But I can let you talk to the traffic manager if you’d like.” And he opened his little gate and took her to the traffic manager’s desk.
    â€œWhat’s your grandmother’s name?” he asked her.
    â€œMrs. Charles Blakewell.”
    â€œBlakewell? Isn’t that some relation to the Harper family down there?”
    â€œMy great-grandfather was Meredith Harper.”
    Late that afternoon there was a telephone call from the St. Thomas airport. “This is a little unusual, Mrs. Blakewell,” the man said, “but your granddaughter Miss Ware is here, and she seems to have arrived on an unpaid ticket. You might say she came collect.”
    Meeting Leona with her car, Edith had been quite provoked, thinking of all the telephone calls that now had to be made, to Leona’s mother, to the school, to her father, to everyone else who might be wondering where she was. “And don’t forget. I expect to be reimbursed for this, Leona,” she said. “And not by your mother or father, but by you.”
    They sat in the back seat in silence while Edith’s chauffeur drove. Leona began rummaging in her purse. Leona took out a piece of paper, folded it carefully so that only the lower edge showed, and said, “Granny, will you sign this please?”
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œJust something I want you to sign. Sign it here—at the bottom.”
    â€œI never affix my signature to anything unless I know what it is.”
    â€œWell … read it then,” and she unfolded it.
    It was written in Leona’s round, progressive-school printing.
    RUN AWAY LICENSE
    I, the undersigned, do hereby grant and permit my granddaughter, Leona Harper Ware, to run away from where ever she may be at the moment when the conditions (in the place where she is at the aforesaid moment) become so intolerable and hateful that they become a threat to her sanity and reason.
    (signed) ________________, Grandmother
    Edith had taken the document and looked at it for a minute or two. Then, taking a pen, and bracing the paper against her knee as the car bounced along, wrote, “With the specific proviso that whenever said granddaughter runs away she runs to me,” and signed it.
    Leona took the paper. “Thank you, Granny,” she said.
    â€œAnd the price of the ticket you may consider my birthday present.”
    She had squeezed Edith’s hand and, looking straight ahead, her eyes opened and closed rapidly.
    â€œDon’t ever tell your mother I did this,” Edith said.
    When they got to the house Edith said, “Here are two keys. One is for my gate, and one is for my front door. Keep them with the license, Leona.”
    Barely two years later, after Leona’s divorce from Jimmy Breed, when Leona arrived with her suitcases in St. Thomas again, she had looked so dispirited that any thought Edith had had of reproving her had vanished. She simply put her arms around the child and said, “Well, you stuck to the terms of our contract, didn’t you, dear? You came home to me.” And she was touched to see that Leona still carried the two keys on a velvet ribbon.
    Thinking of this now, Edith realizes with a start that she has allowed a perfectly awful thing to happen. This is one of the worst things she has ever done. For today—or rather yesterday, since it is now past midnight—was the birthday of Poo, Diana’s very small son by Perry. Poo is four. No, five years old. Poo is what Diana calls “my menopause baby,” and also says was “the result of too much brandy one night in Burgenstoch.” Poo, though his true Christian name is Harper, is called Poo because Poo was his first word, addressed to one of the poodles. One hopes that name will not adhere to him through life. But even more awful than forgetting Poo’s birthday, or being uncertain of his