Five Days in Paris Read Free Page B

remember who you were back at the beginning, not who you are now.” But Peter didn't believe that. He had grown into her world. It was his now. And his own world had begun to seem part of another life. It just didn't seem part of him anymore, it was completely foreign. It was as though he'd grown up in Wisconsin accidentally, or as though it had been someone else and he'd never really been there at all. Even Vietnam seemed more real to him now than his early days on the farm in Wisconsin. It seemed hard to believe sometimes that he'd actually spent more than twenty years there. In little more than a year, Peter had become a businessman, a man of the world, and a New Yorker. His family was still dear to him, and always would be. But the thought of life as a dairy farmer still gave him nightmares. But try as he could to convince his father that he was doing the right thing, he just couldn't do it. The senior Haskell was immovable in his objections, although finally he agreed to come to the wedding, but probably only because he was worn down by listening to Peter argue, and trying to convince his father that what he was doing was right.
    In the end, Peter was devastated when his father didn't come to the wedding. He had had an accident on the tractor the week before, and was laid up with a bad back and a broken arm, and Muriel was about to give birth to her fourth child. She couldn't come, and her husband Jack didn't want to leave her to fly to New York. Peter felt bereft at first, and then, like everything else in his new life, eventually he got caught up in the swirl of activity around him.
    They went to Europe for their honeymoon, and for months after that, they never seemed to have time to go to Wisconsin. Katie always had plans for him, or Frank did. And despite all their promises and good intentions, somehow Peter and Katie never made it to Wisconsin, to visit his family on the farm. But Peter had promised his father they'd go for Christmas, and nothing was going to stop him this time. He didn't even tell Kate about the plan. He was going to surprise her. He was beginning to suspect it was the only way to get there.
    But when his father had a heart attack and died just before Thanksgiving, Peter was overwhelmed by his own emotions. He felt guilt and grief and regret for all the things he had never done, and always meant to. As it turned out, Kate had never even met him.
    Peter took her to the funeral. It was a grim affair, in the pouring rain, as she and Peter stood to one side, looking wooden. Peter was clearly devastated, and Muriel was a good distance from him, sobbing as she stood beside her husband and babies. It seemed an odd contrast of farm folk and city slickers. And Peter began to realize how separate he had become from them, how far he had traveled since he left, how little they had in common now. Katie had been uncomfortable with them, and she made a point of it to Peter. And Muriel was surprisingly cool to her, which was unlike her. When Peter said something about it to Muriel, she muttered awkwardly about the fact that Katie didn't belong there. Although she was Peter's wife, she hadn't even known their father. She was expensively dressed in a black coat and a fur hat, and she seemed irritated to be there, and Muriel said so, much to Peter's chagrin. She made a pointed comment to Peter and they had argued about it, and then they'd both cried. But the reading of the will only brought up more stress between them. Their father had left the farm to Muriel and Jack, and Kate had been visibly outraged the moment she heard what the lawyer said.
    “How could he do that to you?” she had raged in the privacy of his old bedroom. It had a linoleum brick floor and the old tan paint on the walls was cracked and peeling. It was a far cry from the house Frank had bought them in Greenwich. “He disinherited you!” Kate fumed, and Peter tried to explain it. He understood it far better than his wife.
    “It's all they