Catch a Falling Knife

arriving at the farm, I released King from the back seat of my old Mercedes so that she could play with her friend, Romper. Winston trotted down the sidewalk as I retrieved the rolls and pies I had baked from the car.
    “Hello, Great Grandma,” Winston said as I gave him a kiss. Always one to keep his relationships straight, he eschewed use of the name Gogi, which is what Sandra called me.
    “How are you, Pumpkin?” I asked, wondering how long he would allow me to call him that. He certainly didn’t look like a pumpkin, having lost his baby fat. He would grow up to be tall and thin, like most members of the family, except Sandra, who was short and thin. Albert was tall, but his thinness had thickened in recent years, in spite of his exertions on the tennis court.
    “How are your tires?” Winston asked, surveying them with a practiced eye. He had been born at the age of 40 and already had the cares of the world on his shoulders.
    “They’re fine. I had them checked recently.” I couldn’t remember how recently.
    “Look, there’s a car,” Winston said, pointing to the edge of Albert’s woods, where Burt’s Lexus had just appeared out of the trees. Cars were Winston’s staff of life.
    “That’s Mr. Brown’s car. What color is it?”
    “White,” Winston said, with the assurance of one who has long known his colors. “There’s another car.”
    Sure enough, right behind the Lexus came a less flashy model, one I didn’t recognize. As Winston announced that this car was green, I was more concerned about who was inside it since I had hoped there wouldn’t be any extra people to interfere with our discussion.
    We waited for the two cars to negotiate the long driveway and pull up beside mine. Burt got out first and gave me a hug. I introduced him to Winston and they gravely shook hands. A good-looking blond woman, prematurely wearing a short summer dress, got out of the other car. She showed a lot of leg as she did so, but if Burt saw the show he diplomatically didn’t let on. She was somewhere in her thirties, an age range Albert preferred for his women, so I assumed that he had invited her.
    “Hi,” she said, brightly, to the three of us. And zeroing in on me, “You must be Dr. Morgan, Albert’s mother. “I’m Daisy Templeton. I work with Albert.”
    We shook hands and I introduced her to Burt and Winston. After a brief hello she ignored Winston, leading me to infer that she probably didn’t have any children of her own.
    Albert appeared from the house and after kissing me and shaking hands with Burt, reintroduced Daisy to us and reinformed us that Daisy and he were colleagues. Apparently not yet kissing colleagues, at least in front of other people. Albert took my pies and Daisy my rolls and he and Daisy led the procession along the sidewalk to the front door. Winston, Burt and I followed. By the time we entered the house Winston had Burt’s key case and had identified the key to the Lexus.
    The remaining member of the party, Sandra, met us in the kitchen, with kisses, hugs and handshakes, as appropriate. At one time I had had visions of Sandra and Burt getting together, but that had never happened. Sandra hadn’t met Daisy before, and I saw her surreptitiously eyeing the graceful newcomer as we prepared brunch, probably wondering the same things I did: How much older than Sandra was her father’s new girlfriend and was she wearing any kind of support beneath the spaghetti-strapped top of her dress, because, if not, she had a lot going for her.
    We sat down at Albert’s round table, the six of us fitting snugly, and ate a delicious meal, the main course consisting of an omelet concocted by Albert, which had some ingredients that you wouldn’t necessarily expect to find in an omelet, but which tickled the palette. He was a good cook.
    Daisy, it turned out, was an associate professor in the Women’s Studies program at the University of North Carolina. Albert looked hard at me when he gave us this information because I sometimes make inappropriate comments on subjects like women’s studies.
    Today, however, I was on my best behavior. But I couldn’t find a way to bring up the subject of Mark with Daisy present, and had resigned myself to discussing him later in smaller groups.
    Then Sandra said, “Burt, I’m glad that you’re defending Mark. I feel a whole lot better now that you’re on the case.”
    “Thank you,” Burt said, bowing his head slightly in the Sandra’s direction.