Baby

sofa, he stuck his head out the library door into the foyer.
    “ Martha, get in here, please.” An intriguing expression settled comfortably on his haughty features. Crossing to the burled walnut sideboard, he poured brandy into tiny crystal snifters.
    “Yes sir?” Martha stood at the library door, the bun on her head unwinding from the heat and labors of her bustling day, her apron wrinkled and stained. Robert grimaced, eyeing the apron.
    “Put your apron in the hallway won’t you Martha?” She stood looking at him with a blank look in her eyes. “The apron—the apron.” He waggled his fingers at her, the gesture dismissive. She quickly removed her apron, returning from the hall to stand before him.
    “Yes, yes, much better. Please sit down, Martha, I have an announcement.” Handing her a snifter, he directed her to the sofa at the fireplace. He took his customary seat at the other end. Martha sat, eyeing the snifter, looking as natural as a defecating woodpecker in her hand. Oblivious, Robert chattered on.
    “I have definitely decided to marry Miss Kathryn. I have yet to ask her, of course. But I do not anticipate a problem. It’s high time we fill this house with children. As you will agree, she is quite suitable. Drink up, my dear.” He again waggled his fingers at her. “Please arrange time, beginning next week, to sit with her to plan the arrangements. Give her anything she asks for. The wedding will be held here of course …” He glanced at Martha, still frozen with the snifter in her hand. “Martha, if you are to be my new major domo, you must learn to relax. Now, drink up.” Blinking slowly, he watched her raise an eyebrow, bringing the snifter to her lips as he continued to happily rattle on about his extravagant wedding and the new direction their lives would take.
    ###
    The years evaporated quickly. Robert and Kathryn, the toast of Norristown’s exclusive social whirl, found branching into New York City society presented many intriguing opportunities. Over the years, he converted his vast fortune into the banking business, burnishing his now impeccable reputation. No one ever condescended to peek under the veneer of genteel hospitality to the worm holes and rot in the foundation of his wealth and soul. Not even his wife, Kathryn.
    As the joyful celebration of Robert’s seventy-third birthday passed, he showed tentative signs of waning strength. He no longer cared to attend the season’s social calendar, choosing to closet himself in his library to pass the day. Kathryn proved to be a loving fertile wife, blessing Robert with five children. Their first-born son, Garrett, hard at work polishing the chrome of their 1972 Cadillac Convertible, planned to drive the family to Summit. Robert and Kathryn’s eldest daughter, Judith, having married at seventeen, needed to return to her home with her baby after enjoying a short visit with the family. Riotous laughter emanated from the car as they piled in. Robert fondly waved goodbye to his wife and five children from the wide, columned front porch, declining as usual to accompany them. Even though he adored his family, the fact that Judith’s husband Edwin planned a surprise unveiling of their new home, could not temp him to join the party.
    Robert returned to the sanctity of the library, ringing for Alice to bring him his specially blended licorice tea. Martha, having failed to achieve a modicum of the confidence he used to share with Eli, retired shortly after Garrett’s birth. Perhaps she had sensed his disappointment in her.
    As he awaited his tea, his mind catalogued the many highs of the last two decades since he reformed his life and married Kathryn. The list was prodigious. The highlights truly culminated with the birth of Garrett, his favorite son and heir. The boy, almost a copy of Robert at his age, truly showed promise as a financial wizard, an asset in the banking empire he planned to leave to him.
    The only bed bug in the mattress centered around the mysterious deaths (purely a coincidence, of course) of most of the men involved in the cover up on Lily Pond Road. Robert decided twenty years ago to edit the name of his first wife from his memory. He even convinced himself that the 2000 acres he stole from her passed to him legally. Unfortunately, his persistent dreams and sweats proved uncontrollable, refusing to allow him a single untroubled night’s sleep.
    Eli and Hudson’s deaths were only the beginning. Subsequent deaths