The Purity of Blood: Volume I (76 page)

Why
was
he here?

As I started
after them, Roger came bursting in the front door.
 
“Dad!
 
Check out the Ferrari in the driveway!”

I rolled my eyes
and disappeared into the kitchen to protect Daniel from the ladies.
 
Standing in the kitchen between Daniel and my
mother, I spotted my father out the back windows.
 
He was walking around in the back yard
yelling at someone on his phone, having a heated discussion anyway.
 
In a pause in conversation, my mother
followed my gaze.

“He’s been having problems with a case at the office.
 
I’m sure that’s what it is.”
 
She must have seen the concerned look on my
face.

At 3:30 we sat down to
dinner.
 
Daniel, being the perfect gentleman
that he always was, had my mother eating out of the palm of his hand without
even trying.
   
She was too enthralled
with his blue eyes and biceps to even think enough to ask what he was doing
here on Thanksgiving, and not with his own family.
 

This was a fact
I was sure had not escaped my father’s notice.
 
He’d been closely watching us both throughout the entire meal.
  
I was dreading the conversation I knew would
immediately follow Daniel’s departure.
 
Even though he was sitting next to me, I tried not to look at
Daniel.
 
As it was, every time he passed
me something and our hands brushed, I blushed.
 
It took every ounce of self-control I had to suppress the urge to lean
over and kiss him gently on the cheek or run my fingers through the hair at the
base of his neck.
 
Sitting around the
dinner table with those I loved most, I was discovering it was a lot harder to
pretend you weren’t in love, than it was to pretend you were only friends.

It was about
half way through the meal when I realized my brother was watching Daniel as
well, casting something of an overly suspicious eye Daniel’s way when he
thought I wasn’t looking.
 
It wasn’t
surprising, but I squirmed in my seat whenever our eyes met.
 
When they didn’t, I noticed Roger exchanging
more than one glance with my father.
 
It
was as if they were telepathically talking like Randall and I did.
 
I hoped it wasn’t this annoying to Daniel
when Randall and I would start laughing for what seemed like no apparent
reason.
 

Ten years older than me, Roger had always been a bit more of
a second father than an older brother to me.
 
There had been many times in our lives where he’d been forced into that
role.
 
Not that he’d ever
complained.
 
Even with our age
difference, we were closer than any other siblings I knew.

Daniel actually ate.
 
He ate some peas and a little bit of mashed
potatoes, as well as a few sweet potatoes.
 
He pretended to like them, but I could tell he didn’t.
 
To help him out when no one was looking, I
ate off his plate slowly so my mother wouldn’t try to push seconds on him.

After dinner Mom
and Laurie camped out in the kitchen to do the dishes while my father, Roger
and the kids watched the game in the living room.
 
Much to my relief, the family seemed to like
him, or in the case of Dad and Roger, were polite to him.
 

While everyone
was occupied, I took Daniel on a tour of the house, which in our modest upper
middle class home didn’t take very long.
 
I ended the tour at the door of my room.
 
As we went in, I glanced over my shoulder to see my dad eyeing me
intently.
 
I knew what he was thinking,
so to keep him from following after us, I didn’t close the door all the way
behind me.
 

As soon as we
were both inside, Daniel pulled me into his arms and gave me a long, slow
lingering kiss that weakened my knees, forcing me to hold on to him for
support.
 

“I wanted to do
that so bad all through dinner” he whispered in my ear.
 
“But I was afraid if I even looked at you
cross eyed, your father would pull a shotgun out from under the table and put a
hole in me.”

I frowned.

“Well, I know
how you Donnelly’s like your guns.”
 
He
smiled and I had to laugh.
 
He was right;
I’d seen a few of the looks Dad had given him.
 
Nothing too overt, but just enough to let Daniel know exactly what he
was thinking.

“I can’t blame
him.
 
I’d be thinking the same thing in
his place, except I probably wouldn’t have let me in the front door to begin
with.”

“So, about
dinner – you ate!
 
Aren’t you going to
turn into some sort of monster now?”

He laughed.
 
“No, but I’ll probably look a day older
tomorrow.
 
I hope you weren’t kidding
about liking older men.”

He reached down
to kiss me again just as my mother yelled “Dessert’s ready,” from the dining
room.
 
Reluctantly we headed back to join
the others.

“Apple pie,
Daniel?” my mother asked, handing him a plate.
 

“I’ll just have
some of Sara’s,” he said taking the plate and handing it over to me with a
fork.
 
“I know how much she likes
apples.”
 
He smiled, I’m sure thinking of
our first kiss in the orchard.
 

I ate quickly then
took Daniel out to the laundry room to get away from the family.
 
While we talked, he helped me fold my laundry
and start a new load.
 
Before putting the
detergent in, he picked up the bottle and read the label with a critical eye.

“Just making
sure,” he said teasingly.
 

I couldn’t help
but smile back as I gave him a friendly smack on the arm.

“So why
are
you here, Daniel?
 
Not that I’m not glad to see you, but – ”

Just then Dad
popped his head in with a forced smile on his lips.
 

“Got you helping
with the laundry does she, son?
 
Let her
clean up her own mess.
 
How about I show
you my shop.”

Daniel handed me
the bottle of detergent.
 

“Sure,” he said
with a raised eyebrow my way as he walked out after him.

DANIEL

“It’s
down here,” Mr. Donnelly said opening a door that led down into
the basement.
 

I followed him
down into a large furnished basement where the kids were running around in a
play area that had been set up for them.
 

“It’s normally a
lot quieter,” Mr. Donnelly muttered, ignoring them as we walked down a hallway
and through a door into his shop.
 
Once
inside he closed the door behind me.
 

“That’s
better.
 
Normally this is my quiet
place.
 
Vivy and Sara know enough to leave
me alone down here most of the time.”
 
He
waved towards the corner. “See I got my TV, chair and refrigerator, and lots of
projects to work on.”

Where Sara’s
mother was a bundle of energy, Mr. Donnelly was the calm steady type.
 
I think Sara took after him more than her
mother.
 
He was giving me the same look
she did from time to time; with eyes that looked deeply into mine, attempting
to size me up with as few words as possible.
 
I think they hoped to compel me into some confession of truth, answering
some unspoken question through the power of their unbroken stare.
 
I had to admit, it had worked before.
 
For Sara at least.

“Nice set up,” I
said looking around.
 
“Looks like you
like to work with wood.”

“Yeah, a hobby
of mine. You ever do any carpentry?”

“A long time
ago.
 
I grew up on a farm so you had to
learn all sorts of skills to get along out in the middle of nowhere.
 
I used to help my father build furniture in
the winter when there were no crops to tend, but that was a long time
ago.”
 

I walked over
and examined some of his tools.

“I wouldn’t have
taken you for a farm boy,” he said looking me over.
 
“You kind of have city written all over you.”

Mr. Donnelly
reached over and picked up a small ax and held it, feeling the weight of it in
his hands as he shifted around.
 
Finally
leaning up against his work bench, his impassive gaze kept shifting from the
implement in his hands up to me and back again.

“Well, like I
said, that was a long time ago.”

“Pardon me for
asking, son, but you look a little old to be a student.”

“Actually I’m
not.
 
I work at NPU.
 
I’m a teaching assistant to Professor Walker,
Sara’s Art History professor.
 
That’s how
we met.”

Mr. Donnelly
walked over and sat down on a stool at his work bench.
 
Still holding the ax, he looked me straight
in the eye.

“Son, I’ll get
right to the point.
 
What exactly are
your intentions towards my daughter?”
 

Had I been human,
I might have turned at his look, run up the stairs and out of the house never
to return.
 
Even now I could feel my legs
trembling ever so slightly as I eyed the door.
 
Summoning all my courage, I stood up as straight as I could.

“Well, sir,
that’s why I came here.
 
I’d like to ask
your permission to formally begin seeing your daughter.”

“You ask that
question like you’re already informally dating her.”

“We’ve gone out
a few times, sir.
 
Enough for me to know
that she’s a very special woman, and that I’d like to spend more time with
her.
 
– But I wouldn’t feel right about
it if I didn’t have your blessing to do so.”
 

I was taking my
life in my hands here and I knew it.

He looked at me
appraisingly as if to figure out if I was on the level.

“Let’s say I say
yes.
 
What then?”

“I’ll be honest
with you sir, I haven’t dated much, so I don’t have much experience with
this.
 
But Sara is young and has her
whole life ahead of her.
 
I just want to
make her happy.”

“Very well.
 
What if I were to say no?”
 

I froze for a
few seconds.
 
He wouldn’t, would he?
 
Could he?

“Then I wouldn’t
see her anymore outside of class.”

He stared at me
and thought for a moment, a
really long
moment.
 
His face was completely
unreadable.

“You know, I
almost believe you.
 
Against my better
judgment, I’m going to go with the advice of counsel and say yes – for
now.
 
But whatever you do, don’t give me
cause to change my mind.
 
I promise you,
you’ll regret it if you do.”

I smiled and
breathed a sigh of relief.

“I won’t, sir.”

“See that you
don’t.
 
I don’t expect you to understand
this, not being a parent and all, but that’s my little girl up there.
 
My baby girl, who I brought home from the
hospital when she was just two days old, a warm little bundle in my arms.
 
I wouldn’t expect you to understand the
things I’ve done to ensure her a long and happy life.
 
I’m saying yes against my better judgment,
but only because … well, that’s not important for you to know.”

With a
suspicious look in his eyes, he got up, walked over to the door and opened it
up for me to go through first.
 
As I
started to walk past him, he took hold of my arm.
 

“Just you
remember this, son, for every tear I see on my little girl’s face; well, that’s
how many holes I’m going to put in you with my shot gun, before I …”
 
He deliberately stopped himself before he
could finish his sentence.

“Yes, sir.
 
I’ll remember that.”

“Good then.
 
Now let’s go get us some more pie,” he said
as he slapped me hard on the back and walked out the door.

I got the
distinct impression Mr. Donnelly was a formidable opponent in the court
room.
 
Sara was so much like him.
 
Perhaps she should consider a career in law
as well.
 
She definitely inherited that
maddeningly indifferent stare from her father.
 
It was that look of hers that had dragged even the most reluctant of
truths out of me.
 

After he walked
out of the door, I breathed a sigh of relief.
 
He really had me going there for a minute.
 
Following after him, it left me to wonder
what I would have done had he said no.

Strolling past
the screams I heard him say “Now you kids keep it down before I send your
grandma down here to settle you down her way.”

They immediately
fell silent.