My Journal

By Harriman Nelson

24

Emmie and I awoke this morning (well, it was actually after 12:00) to find a letter shoved under the door.

“It’s from the White House,” Emmie said, handing it to me when I finished calling room service for some coffee. “No stamp. Says ‘hand delivered by courier’ with today’s date.  Addressed to ‘Harry’ and ‘Emily’ care of the hotel room number….”

“Has to be from Lee. Go ahead, open it,” I said and patted the sofa for her to join me on.

It was a short note in his descriptive scrawl…

Dear Harry and Emily,”

We can’t thank you enough for your generous and surprising gift. All we really wanted was for your support of our marriage, which you had already given us when it seemed that almost the whole world was against it.

Melody is thrilled that we will have a house overlooking the sea cliffs. We checked the address from the title online and there were some pictures from when it had been for sale. Mel is also anxious to try out the pool when we finally live there.

She wondered why there are so many bedrooms until I told her that many houses have more than strictly necessary in order to accommodate  visitors, family, and new additions as God wills.

She’s pretty anxious that we have a family of our own right away. Something she says, that will demonstrate our love for each other in a tangible way.  I won’t go into details but she told me that the alien anatomy is such that we might expect multiple births, that is, once we start to have children.  But that’s just being hopeful. I’d already told her that I might not be able to father any children since that reactor meltdown we had aboard Seaview a few years ago. Remember, Doc didn’t come right out to say I could never procreate, but the count was low to the point of  zero. I don’t like talking about something so personal but I wanted you to know that it would take a miracle for Mel and me to have a child of our own.

But being the wonderful girl that she is, she’d simply said that if not, we’d adopt. From both our worlds. So you’d best prepare yourselves for an interstellar family at some point in our future. She’d like at least four or five children running around the place, maybe more. For now, though, we’re both happy just being us two.

Camp David is nice and quiet, and the staff pretty much keeping out of sight. Something I certainly appreciate. It’s been so long since I could just sit and do nothing. Except for  gazing at my beautiful bride who makes me so happy, of course.

She made breakfast this morning, (with help from the kitchen staff) and insisted I eat every single bite of the scrambled eggs and toast with butter (the real thing) and various jams and jellies. She had ice cream. 

I have a feeling I’m going to get fat if I let her keep bugging me to make her happy by consuming the amount of food that Mom apparently told her I needed!

We watched the sunrise this morning, just soaking in the majesty of God’s great universe.

Well, she wants to go for a walk right now, so I’ll say goodbye and thanks again for your wonderful present. We really don’t know how to repay you. Except to say we both love you more than we can say.

Lee  & MELODY

“I didn’t know anything about Lee being... damaged,” Emmie said.

“He can still function, but can’t…well…”

“Could be a blessing, Harry. There’s still a lot of objection to any ‘half breed’s.”

“What do you feel about it?”

“Well, they’re so happy together…I don’t think I’d care anymore…”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

Just then there was a knock on the door.

“Room Service!” the voice called out.

I tied my robe tighter and let her go hide in the bedroom. She might have been wearing a robe herself, but it was one of those sheer flimsy things, to match the negligee I’d happily removed last night.

Soon we were enjoying our breakfast, a glorious affair of Belgian Waffles with strawberries and Vermont Maple Syrup, sausages, and  Bread Pudding. All was excellent, although the coffee was substandard.

 
We watched the news and talk shows, while we leafed through The Washington Post which had a lot of great pictures of the happy event, along with one or two of Seaview’s arrival and departure.

Editorials were crammed with the pros and cons of the wedding. And even Ronald got his own two cents in, complaining that a ‘witch’ in the White House was not a good thing, etc. etc. 

I was so angry that he still used the name Nelson that I called the editor and demanded a retraction of his name back to Hawthorne. Of course, the editor had no reason to remove his legal name. I apologized, he was right, of course. All I could do was to say I’d like it known that in my eyes, Ronald was no son of mine and no Nelson.

“Well, sweetheart?” Emmie asked, “want to stay another day, or go back home? It says here that Lee’s mother has already left for the cape.”

“I suppose…let me call Jiggs though to see what his plans are. Perhaps he can get the same flight back.”

“Don’t forget Cmdr. Ames and Angie.”

I was surprised the reservation was so easy. Until we learned that Lee had booked an open reservation for the entire party.

My dear dear boy. Always thinking of others.

There was still some interest in me from the press as we went through security to leave them behind.

“Have you really disinherited Ronald Nelson?”

“I did that some time ago. I only wish I could force him to remove Nelson from his name.”

“But…”

“Good day,” I said as I escorted Emmie into the gate, Jiggs, Angie and Ames following.

“Actually,” Ames said as we were seated in First Class. “There might be. You can always sue. Equating defamation of your character by using your name.”

“You’re kidding, surely?” Jiggs asked.

“Well, it would be a long shot, but it’s worth a try.”

“Let's go for it,” I said.  “The sooner I make my relationship with him null and void, the better.”

“Harry,” Emmie said, “you can’t be serious. He is your biological son. You can’t change that.”

“No, but I can legally divorce myself from any civil connection to him. Right, Ames?”

“Well…”

“Try.”

“With pleasure, sir!”

And so soon we were aloft, fortunately on a non stop flight to LA, where someone from NCIMR would be waiting to drive us to Santa Barbara.

Home.

What a wonderful word.

“Complimentary Champagne,” the attendant said, offering us the bubbly,’ “there’s also some Mur, the president sent a bottle over in case you’d like to have some of it instead.”

“I’m game,” Jiggs said. “But don’t let me have a second shot.”

I had to laugh. As for me, it was going to be a long flight, so why not.

That was a few hours ago, and I’m glad to say Jiggs and I have refrained from additional Mur.

I’m using my time of complete boredom aboard (the movie is a remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still and not a very good remake at all in my humble opinion), to jot down my record of recent events. And who knows, one day they may be of interest to the children of Lee and Melody Nelson-Crane.