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The Boy Grew Older by Heywood Broun
"Your son was born ten minutes ago," said the voice at the other end of the wire.
"I'll be up," replied Peter Neale, "right away."
But it wasn't right away. First he had to go upstairs to the card room and settle his losses. Indeed he played one more pot for when he returned to the table his deal had come around again. He felt that it was not the thing to quit just then. The other men might think he had timed his departure in order to save the dollar ante. He dealt the cards and picked up four spades and a heart. Eventually, he paid five dollars to draw and again he had four spades and a heart. Nevertheless, he bet ten dollars but it was no go. His hands shook as he dropped the two blue chips in the centre of the table. The man with a pair of jacks noticed that and called. Peter threw his cards away.
"I've got nothing-a busted flush. I want to cash in now. I owe for two stacks. That's right, isn't it? I haven't any chips left. If somebody'll lend me a fountain pen I'll make out a check. I guess I need a check too. Any kind'll do. I can cross the name off."
"Why are you quitting so soon?" asked the banker as Peter waved the check back and forth to let it dry. "We're all going to quit at seven o'clock."
"Two rounds and a consolation pot," corrected somebody across the table.
Peter was curiously torn between reticence and an impulse to tell. He felt a little as if he might begin to cry. When he spoke his voice was thick. "I've got to go up to see my son," he said. "He's just been born."
He shoved the check over to the banker and was out of the room before anybody could say anything.
He thought that the banker said, "Congratulations," as he slammed the door behind him, but he could not be certain of it.
All the way up in the taxi he worried. The hospital was half a mile away. He wished that the nurse had said, "A fine boy," but he remembered it was just, "Your son was born ten minutes ago."
"If anything had been wrong," he thought, "she wouldn't have said it over the telephone."
"Is everything all right?" was his first question when a nurse came to the door of the small private hospital and let him in. "My name's Peter Neale," he explained. "My son's just been born half an hour ago."
"Everything's fine, Mr. Neale," she said and she smiled. "The baby weighs nine pounds. Mrs. Neale is fine too. You can see them both, but she's asleep now. You can't really see her today, but I think they'll let you have a good look at your son. He's a little darling."
Peter was reassured but irritated. Formula was all over the remark, "He's a little darling." He thought she ought not to use it until she had learned to do it better. Some place or other he had read that babies were fearfully homely. Still it didn't look so bad when he came into the room. Black was smudged all around the eyes which gave the child a rakish look.
"Miss Haine," said the nurse who brought him in, "this is Mr. Neale."
"Mr. Neale," she added, "meet your son." Then she went out.
"Is he all right, Miss Haine?" was Peter's first question as soon as the door closed. After all, the other woman was just supposed to answer the bell. Miss Haine might know more about it.
"He's a cherub," said Miss Haine.
"How did his eyes get blacked?" Peter wanted to know.
"Oh that's just the silver nitrate. We always put that on a baby's eyes to make sure-Look what a fine head he has."
Peter bent closer. The baby was not nearly so red as he had expected. As for the head he didn't see why it was fine. He had no notion of just what made a head fine anyway. The child kept wrinkling up its face, but it was not crying. There was nothing about his son to which Peter could take specific exception, but somehow he was disappointed. When he had said down at the New York Newspaper Club, "I've got to go up and see my son," the phrase "my son" had thrilled him. But this wasn't "my son." It was just a small baby. It seemed to him as distant as a second cousin.
"He is sweet," remarked Miss Haine.
"Yes," said Peter, but he felt that any extension of the discussion would merely promote hypocrisy on both sides. "Can I see my wife?" he asked.
"Come this way," said Miss Haine. "You can only stay a second. I'm pretty sure she's asleep."
Maria was asleep and snoring hard. Miss Haine took up one arm which was flung outside the cover and found the pulse of the sleeping girl and as she felt it she smiled reassuringly. "Yes," she said, "she's doing fine."
"And now," she added, "I'm going to bundle you off. There really isn't anything around here for a father to do. This isn't your job, you know. I'm going to let you come back in the morning, but not before ten."
Peter learned later that one of the strongest factors in Maria's resentment against having a baby was that he was implicated in the affair so slightly. He tried to tell her that she ought to blame biology and not him, but she said there was nothing in the scheme of creation which arranged that fathers should be playing cards when their sons were born. It had an air of reckless indifference about it which maddened her. Peter knew that he could not explain to her that he had not been free in spirit during the afternoon. He simply could not bear to stay out of a single pot. Hour after hour he kept coming in on middle straights and three flushes. Never before had he done anything like that. But she knew so little about poker that there was no use in telling her any of this. Indeed he realized that he had made a mistake in venturing his one answer. Maria was in nowise pacified when he said, "But I lost fifty dollars."
It was supposed to be a marriage of convenience, but Carrie made the mistake of falling in love with Kristopher. When the time came that she needed him the most, her husband was in the company of another woman. Enough was enough. Carrie chose to divorce Kristopher and move on with her life. Only when she left did Kristopher realize how important she was to him. In the face of his ex-wife’s countless admirers, Kristopher offered her 20 million dollars and proposed a new deal. “Let’s get married again.”
Corinne devoted three years of her life to her boyfriend, only for it to all go to waste. He saw her as nothing more than a country bumpkin and left her at the altar to be with his true love. After getting jilted, Corinne reclaimed her identity as the granddaughter of the town’s richest man, inherited a billion-dollar fortune, and ultimately rose to the top. But her success attracted the envy of others, and people constantly tried to bring her down. As she dealt with these troublemakers one by one, Mr. Hopkins, notorious for his ruthlessness, stood by and cheered her on. “Way to go, honey!”
Kaelyn devoted three years tending to her husband after a terrible accident. But once he was fully recovered, he cast her aside and brought his first love back from abroad. Devastated, Kaelyn decided on a divorce as people mocked her for being discarded. She went on to reinvent herself, becoming a highly sought-after doctor, a champion racer, and an internationally renowned architectural designer. Even then, the traitors sneered in disdain, believing Kaelyn would never find someone. But then the ex-husband’s uncle, a powerful warlord, returned with his army to ask for Kaelyn’s hand in marriage.
Natalie used to think she could melt Connor’s icy heart, but she was sorely mistaken. When at last she decided to leave, she discovered that she was pregnant. Even so, she chose to quietly leave his world, prompting Connor to mobilize all of his resources and expand his business to a global scale—all in a bid to find her. But there was no trace of Natalie. Connor slowly spiraled into madness, turning the city upside down and leaving chaos in his wake. Natalie finally surfaced years later, with wealth and power of her own, only to find herself entangled with Connor once again.
Janet was adopted when she was a kid -- a dream come true for orphans. However, her life was anything but happy. Her adoptive mother taunted and bullied her all her life. Janet got the love and affection of a parent from the old maid who raised her. Unfortunately, the old woman fell ill, and Janet had to marry a worthless man in place of her parents' biological daughter to meet the maid's medical expenses. Could this be a Cinderella's tale? But the man was far from a prince, except for his handsome appearance. Ethan was the illegitimate son of a wealthy family who lived a reckless life and barely made ends meet. He got married to fulfill his mother's last wish. However, on his wedding night, he had an inkling that his wife was different from what he had heard about her. Fate had united the two people with deep secrets. Was Ethan truly the man we thought he was? Surprisingly, he bore an uncanny resemblance to the impenetrable wealthiest man in the city. Would he find out that Janet married him in place of her sister? Would their marriage be a romantic tale or an utter disaster? Read on to unravel Janet and Ethan's journey.
After hiding her true identity throughout her three-year marriage to Colton, Allison had committed wholeheartedly, only to find herself neglected and pushed toward divorce. Disheartened, she set out to rediscover her true self-a talented perfumer, the mastermind of a famous intelligence agency, and the heir to a secret hacker network. Realizing his mistakes, Colton expressed his regret. "I know I messed up. Please, give me another chance." Yet, Kellan, a once-disabled tycoon, stood up from his wheelchair, took Allison's hand, and scoffed dismissively, "You think she'll take you back? Dream on."