Of course his body
would be cremated by directions in the will. The operation would be
private, attracting no attention from anybody. Buck would make the
arrangements. He tried to picture Buck weeping near the incinerator, and
failed.
Then there was his father, whom, in twenty-four years' sharing of the
world together, he had never met. The man's behavior was odd, to say the
least. From the world's point of view he had declined to own his son.
For such an unusual breach of custom, there must be some adequate
explanation, and the circumstances all pointed one way. This was that
his mother (whom his boyhood had pictured as a woman of distinction who
had eloped with somebody far beneath her) had failed to marry his
father. The persistent mystery about his birth had always made him
skeptical of Tim's statement that he had been present at the marriage.
But he rarely thought of the matter at all now. The moral responsibility
was none of his; and as for a name, Queed was as good as any other. X or
Y was a good enough name for a real man, whose life could demonstrate
his utter independence of the labels so carefully pasted upon him by
environment and circumstance.
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