The Love Children by Marylin French Read Free Book Online Page A

Fields also. The Lipkins and the Fields didn’t really mix, but being mannerly, they didn’t collide either, so the afternoon was filled with little fits and starts of conversation that dribbled off into nothing, as if they kept trying but failed to find one song they could sing together. Of course they would have had something to talk about if the Fields had told the Lipkins about their disabled children, Derek and Marguerite, but they didn’t. Or maybe if the Lipkins had told the Fields about how bad they felt about Israel being militaristic, but they didn’t either. Or if anybody had brought up Vietnam, but everybody stayed away from that. Ted and Dr. Lipkin talked about music, about composers I’d never heard of who lived before Bach; Annette and Mrs. Lipkin talked about volunteer work, which Mrs. Lipkin did a lot of, and Annette would have liked to do but couldn’t. Mom and Mrs. Lipkin talked about books, because Mrs. Lipkin read a lot. So did Dr. Lipkin, but the books he read no one else in the room had ever heard of, on physics and astronomy and mathematics.
    The meal was delicious, and everybody brought a little gift for Mom or me; and Mom had small gifts for all the young people, and the grown-ups drank wine and got mellower, and at the end of the afternoon the atmosphere was convivial. Thank goodness, because Dad had had enough wine that his manners were beginning to slip. All it would take would be if some man looked at Mom the wrong way.
    Bishop didn’t come; he spent Christmas with his family. He had invited me the night before to Christmas Eve mass. The Connollys
and five of their seven sons all went, with a few guests, including Sandy and me. We took up a whole pew in the church. Mr. Connolly was a big burly man with white hair and a red face. He was much older than my father: Bishop’s sister, Maggie, was thirty-one and married and had four children of her own. Bishop’s two oldest brothers were in Vietnam; Michael was in his first year at Holy Cross, and Bishop and the others ranged down from him. The Connollys were nice, but you couldn’t tell what they thought about anything. Mrs. Connolly was constantly worried about something and asking one of the kids if this or that had been done. You could see she had been pretty once, but she now looked worn down.
    The church was decorated with statues and embroidered linens and flowers everywhere. It had stained-glass windows and it was beautiful. I’d never been to a mass before. It was pretty long and you had to stay alert to know when to stand up or kneel or sit down. Afterward, we went back to Bishop’s house and there was cocoa with whipped cream, then a huge feast, spread out on the dining-room table. A lot of the people who had been at the mass came to the house afterward; it was a big party. There were two maids and a man in a black suit to serve drinks, and there were two Christmas trees, one really tall one in the front parlor and a smaller one in the back parlor, both elaborately decorated. After the midnight supper, the grown-ups stood around drinking, and Sandy had to go home. Her father came for her. Bishop took me up to his parents’ room—they had their own living room upstairs, connected to their bedroom, and they had their own television up there, Bishop said, to avoid the arguments the boys always got into over the other two, one in the living room and one in the rec room in the basement. Before Bishop, I’d never known anybody with three television sets. Bishop’s older brother had gone out with friends and the younger ones had gone to bed, so we sat up there and he gave me a Christmas present, a little
silver bracelet; it was really beautiful, and I was so embarrassed because all I had for him was that stupid toy car. But he loved it, or he said he did, and hugged me. I kissed him and told him I loved him, and he said he loved me too.
    It was a great Christmas, except for the fact