Love Me Tonight by Gwynne Forster Page B

If I thought you’d be free, I’d invite you to come with me.”
    â€œThat probably wouldn’t be a good idea. She’ll speak less freely if another person is present. I have some news, too. I’ve been offered a post in Albania, and I just signed a letter turning it down. Well, not in precisely those words.”
    â€œCongratulations. And since you don’t want thepost, congratulations for having the courage to turn it down. I’ll be anxious to see you when I get back from Hagerstown tomorrow, so can we have dinner together?”
    â€œYes. Do you think you can come to dinner at my place? I’m a fair cook.”
    â€œI’d love that. What should I bring? Do you have wine?”
    â€œYes, but bring whatever you like to drink. Seven o’clock.”
    â€œAll right. I’m…I’m anxious to see you. I’ll have to work tonight. Otherwise, I’d suggest that we get together this evening.”
    â€œCall me and tell me good-night.”
    â€œI’ll do that. Bye for now.”
    â€œBye.”
    Â 
    Cissy Henry stood at her front door when Judson parked in front of her house, a white, green-shuttered bungalow with a well-manicured lawn. A profusion of seasonal flowers marked the property lines.
    He strode up the walk to the steps and stopped. “Come on up,” she said. “You must be Judson Philips ’cause don’t nobody around here dress up this good on a Saturday. How’d you do?”
    He shook hands with her. “I’m fine, ma’am. How are you? I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your agreeing to see me.” It surprised him that she seemed so youthful and fit. He indicated as much.
    â€œI’m eighty-four. All my life I ate right, never smoked or drank. Went to bed early, got up early and said myprayers every morning and every night. Why shouldn’t I look well?” And certainly she had her mental faculties in order, too, he observed.
    â€œLet’s sit out on the back porch where it’s nice and cool. I don’t turn on the air conditioning till around three o’clock. Money don’t grow on trees.”
    He sat beside her on the swing in the screened-in porch, and gazed at the irises, peonies, roses, daises and other flowers that beautified and perfumed the garden. “This place is enchanting,” he said.
    â€œI’m happy here, Judson. Now, tell me what I can do for you.”
    â€œMy adoptive mother passed on about a month ago. It’s been a terrible blow to me, especially since my dad died a couple of years ago.”
    Cissy’s eyebrows eased up. “Who was your dad?”
    â€œLouis Philips. He was a wonderful father, and I still miss him.”
    â€œI imagine you do. What do you need to know?”
    â€œAs I told you, I’m adopted. I’d like to know who my birth parents were. I never asked my parents, because I didn’t want them to think I was unhappy. I wasn’t. They gave me far more than my share. However, I need to know who I am.”
    â€œYou look like a prosperous man, and the way you talk tells me you’re educated. What kind of work do you do?”
    â€œI’m a lawyer, and I have a degree in law from Harvard.”
    â€œGood, then I know you’ll know how to handle what I’m going to tell you. I don’t know how it applies to you,but this is what I know about Beverly Moten. She had a baby out of wedlock when she was, oh, I don’t know, twenty-two or twenty-three. She was going around with this man, but she never married him. After she had the baby, she left the boy here with her mother and moved to Baltimore.”
    â€œIt was a boy?” She nodded. He started adding. Twenty-two or twenty-three. He was thirty-four, and his adoptive mother was fifty-seven when she died. Was that the other child? He shrugged.
    â€œThat’s not the end of it,” she went on. “When the child was about three, I