Scarsdale, New York: Monday 6th August 2018

Central Park was beautiful this time of year. I looked out over the still waters of Harlem Meer, enjoying the relative peace in our bustling metropolis, enjoying the aroma of my fresh coffee. Glad to finally have escaped from the madhouse atmosphere of our home, finally able to find some peace and quiet to contemplate the future.

In theory, it had cost me a half day’s leave. But one of the benefits of being a boss is that no-one really cares if you disappear off for a half day here and a half day there. They know damn well that you often pull a sixty-hour week. And as long as you get the work done, pull in the sales and are contactable when needed, then they pretty much leave you to your own devices.

By the end of the weekend, I’d felt like my head was exploding. I’d ‘manned up’ and done everything I humanly could for Grace. But I knew this was just the start of a journey, and that the three of us had many long and difficult conversations ahead.

And this is where Monday morning in Central Park came in. It was my first chance to be by myself and really take in the enormity of the news. At forty-nine-years-old I was going to be a father again.

In some ways this was great news. I loved being Donovan’s dad. Every single part of it. Magical memories and a wonderful future to look forward to, proudly helping him through the steps of life. Sue and I had tried and tried, but with my very low sperm count we’d never succeeded in having a little brother or sister for Donovan. I knew this had been a cause of great sadness for Sue. The missing piece of the jigsaw in a life that otherwise she found wonderful and fulfilling. And now, at the grand old age of forty-nine I was being given a second wonderful go at the whole father thing.

That was the upside, but as I sat enjoying the Park’s restorative powers, my mind was more occupied with all the difficulties and challenges ahead.

How would Sue feel as the months passed, as she was forced to look at Grace’s swelling tummy? Swollen with my child, a child Sue might have felt by rights should have been in her tummy. The second child I’d failed to give her.

And what about the practical questions. Would Grace be expecting me to step up and make the relationship between us both more permanent and more exclusive? How would that impact things between Sue and me? Through all of our thinking and talking, Sue and I had both been determined to keep our relationship and marriage as the centerpiece in our life. All the games we played with Francis and Grace just an exciting side order, but not the main meal.

The ten days I’d just spent apart from Sue and, my panicked reaction when I thought she wasn’t at home, had doubly confirmed my belief that my love for Sue was the anchor of my life. But, already in love with Francis, how would Sue now feel about having to share me with another woman, on what was likely to be a permanent basis. As we brought up our child together.

The weekend had been totally focused on Grace. Both Sue and I felt this was the right way of doing things. We felt like quasi-parents to her in some ways, and felt we were better equipped to deal with the shit that life throws at you. We both wanted to make sure we’d got Grace back on an even keel before starting on the inevitable conversations we needed to have about where this left Sue and I as a couple.

As I sat contemplating the need for a refill, I looked out at the calm of the waters and envied the lake’s tranquility. What I’d have given at that moment for even a tenth of that calm in the steaming cauldron my life had become.

I’ve never been good at putting myself first. The downside of a Christian upbringing, where ‘love others as you love yourself’ had been mistranslated as ‘love others more than you love yourself.’ So, after spending a weekend thinking about Grace’s needs, I took this precious time to start thinking through ‘Peter Jones, what do you want going forward?’

I wasn’t so stupid as to think that I’d necessarily get what I wanted. But I knew that me being clear about what I wanted was absolutely critical if I was to avoid being buffeted around, while the other three people in this set-up played things to give them what they wanted.

What did I want?

I took a deep breath and started using an old management technique taught me many years ago. Nowadays it had become a bit of a cliché, but it still had merit. I asked myself, ‘What does good look like?’ For me, Mr. Peter Jones, what would ‘good’ look like in terms of my future life. If I fast-forwarded five or ten years forward, what was the picture I saw in my mind’s eye. What picture of the future would make me smile with happiness and contentment. Smile that things had turned out well in the end.

The human mind is a weird and wonderful thing. Capable of generating and holding all kinds of thoughts that you never knew were even there. The first picture I saw was a case in point, a picture that startled and surprised me and gave me plenty of pause for thought. The picture was of a white picket fence, with Grace standing cross-armed next to the fence, while a little frizzy-haired coffee colored boy ran towards me, crying ‘Daddy, daddy’ in an excited voice.

As the picture came into focus, I saw that Grace wasn’t alone. There was a man standing by her side, his arm protectively and possessively wrapped around her shoulder. And as the picture finally became pin sharp, I saw that the man had James’ face and body. Towering over Grace by nearly a foot and a half, a face that communicated love and commitment.

Just as I was trying to process this strange thought, the picture showed me picking up the frizzy haired little boy and holding him tight in my arms, as he excitedly showed me some metal toy that looked strangely similar to the toys I’d played with as a boy.

Just as I was about to speak, the little boy cut me off by turning to the side, happily brandishing the toy towards my companion. As I turned to follow the toy, I saw that it was Sue who was my companion, with the little boy chattering on to ‘Aunty Sue’ about how great his new toy was.

My gaze moved from the boy and his toy to take in the look on Sue’s face, and I smiled at I saw the loving look on her face. Seeing, the way she interacted with the boy, using words he’d understand and listening to all the little details he was sharing with her. In my mind, she was acting just like a mother or a grandmother would with the child.

As I sat and played back the sights and sounds my mind had generated, I knew this was the future that I wanted. I didn’t want to split from Sue and become Grace’s full-time partner or husband. But I wanted to be there as a father and a friend for both the child and Grace. The thing with James struck me as weird at first, but then I rationalized it that James was just symbolic of a man of Grace’s own age. Someone who’d be a better partner and full-time father for the child Grace was now expecting.

I caught myself smiling as I played back my mental movie for the third time. I knew with total certainty that this, or something like it, was the future I wanted.

But whether or not I could have this future, or a future even remotely like it, wasn’t within my gift. It was something that Sue and I would have to work out. And that’s why I’d booked a quiet table at our favorite little Italian restaurant tonight. A place where I knew we’d be undisturbed and able to start working out as a couple where Grace’s bombshell might take us.

But before we could start that conversation, I had a full afternoon of meetings ahead of me, and a decision to make about whether or not I’d accept a request from a certain Nigerian doctor for a quick meet and talk.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hi, Pete. Glad you could make it. Do you want a beer, or something else?”

I smiled at Francis and went with his beer option, still wondering what exactly it was he wanted to discuss away from the girls. On the phone he’d been pretty cryptic, but eventually I’d agreed to meet up at the ‘Old Friar’ bar which we’d often used as a meet-up place these last few years.

I was meeting Sue shortly for dinner, having had to promise her I’d tell her whatever it was that Francis wanted to discuss with me.

Taking my first sup of the strong Belgian beer, I wiped my mouth and moved things along.

“Francis, forgive me for being pushy and rude, but I don’t have too long as I’m due at the restaurant in ten minutes. What is it you wanted to discuss?”

Francis didn’t look at all put-out by my ignoring the normal social graces and conventions. He already knew all about Grace’s ‘news’ and I reckoned this was almost certainly the reason he’d asked to meet up. His request that it was just me and him seemed a bit overly dramatic. He must have known that whatever he said to me would be repeated virtually verbatim to Sue in a few minutes time.

Swirling his half glass of beer, he looked up. “Okay then, Pete, I’ll come straight to the point. You and I have talked many times about your low sperm count, and how you and Sue were incredibly lucky to even conceive Donovan.”

I don’t know if I was being overly paranoid (a common condition for any man living our lifestyle), but his use of the word ‘even’ felt like a stiletto aimed straight into my gut, impugning my masculinity with one short word. But I let it pass, giving him the benefit of the doubt, remembering our two years of friendship before things got ‘complicated’ between us.

“Well, given your medical condition, I think it’s pretty damned unlikely that you really are the father of Grace’s baby. I mean, it stands to reason. You spent the best part of twenty years trying to get Sue pregnant. Making love several times a week. And yet Grace comes along, smiles at your sweet face and hey presto, five months later you’re a daddy again. Do the math! You’re a smart guy, what are the chances?"

He paused to let his words sink in, to give me a chance to think.

And the truth is, although he’d used different words and given it his own slant, Francis wasn’t saying anything I’d not already thought about myself. I spent all my days playing with numbers and figuring out the odds. It would have been impossible for me not to have considered what Francis was suggesting.

But I’d pushed this thought to the back of my mind. Mainly because I didn’t want to think of Grace in this way. Or in these two ways. Sneaking around and having sex with some other guy. And then using this to trick or trap me into believing I was the father.

Living and working in the poorer parts of the world, you soon realize that for most women in the world ‘love’ and marriage isn’t some soft-focus Hollywood idea. Beautiful girl meets handsome boy, they fall in love, overcome the inevitable obstacle and then live happily ever after. No, for most parts of the world, girls (even pretty girls) will marry a guy who can economically provide for them, their children, and quite possibly their extended family.

It ain’t romantic, but ask anyone who’s travelled the world and they’ll tell you that’s how it is. Many’s the time I’ve been in a mall in some part of the developing world and I’ve caught some local girl eyeing me up. And I never kidded myself it was because I look like Brad Pitt or Ryan Gosling. More likely, it’s that the color of my skin means she sees a dollar sign on my forehead.

But Grace was different. I knew she came from a poor country and a poor background. She’d been the one to tell us how her family’s lack of money had cut short her nurse training. I didn’t want to think of Grace in the same way. Ever since we’d met nearly a year ago in Malawi, I’d believed that she liked me for who I was. That she liked my jokes and the conversations we had. I’d fallen for this girl, and I didn’t want to think this was all a game.

But in just a couple of sentences Francis was causing me to question all of these assumptions. At that moment I hated him for putting that doubt in my mind. Because my gut told me that, once planted, it would be a seed that would grow and would be very difficult to dislodge.

Francis could see the anger and pain building in my face. He smiled to himself, a smile of resignation, and then gave me one final parting thought.

“It’s too early at the moment, but if in six weeks or so, if you want to, I can arrange a buddy of mine to carry out a paternity test. Perfectly safe, totally non-invasive. Won’t do any harm to baby or mother. But at least, if you want to, you’ll definitively know one way or the other if the child is yours. Your call, man. When the time’s right, let me know if you want me to arrange it or not.”

I said a cursory ‘thanks’ to Francis and was about to make my way out to meet Sue, when I felt a burning urge to ask Francis a parting question.

After looking at my watch to judge how late I was running, I looked up at the good doctor’s dark face. “One thing I don’t get, Francis. Why are you raising this doubt? Why are you suggesting I get a paternity test done? Surely you must think all of your Christmases have come at once? If I’m busy playing daddy with Grace and our kid, that leaves the field clear for you in terms of Sue.”

Francis would have to have been a fool not to have picked up on the bile and disgust dripping from my every syllable. But he didn’t react in kind. He had more self-control than that. Instead he just gave me an enigmatic smile and looked me in the eye.

“Pete, man. We both know how much I want Sue. I’ve not hidden that from you, not even for a moment. But remember all the time we spent together as friends, those two years before it all got complicated again. I’m still that same guy, Pete. Still loving dad to Victor, Esther and Joy. Who, in case you didn’t notice, are all about the same age as Donovan and Grace. I may be a ruthless bastard when it comes to somethings, but even I wouldn’t use Grace’s condition to get what I want.”

He paused for a moment, still looking directly at me to judge my reaction, and then continued. “The way I look at it, Pete, I think it would be best for all concerned if Grace gets that test. She can’t hide from the fact that the chance of you getting her pregnant is pretty low. If she’s smart, she’ll opt for the test, so everyone will know for sure who the baby’s father is.”

Having finished his soliloquy, he raised his empty glass and tipped it at me in a mock toast, signaling it was time for me to go.

As I hustled towards the door, I felt angry with Francis. Angry because what he’d said made a lot of sense. Angry because he’d thrown yet another factor or variable into an equation I was already struggling to solve. But in barely twenty minutes together in the bar, he’d thrown another huge curve ball into a situation which I’d naively thought couldn’t get any more complicated.

I jumped into a cab for the five-minute drive to the restaurant where Sue was already waiting for me, trying to calm myself down. Just as I finally calmed to two points below meltdown, a text arrived from Francis.

I read the words, and then closed my eyes at the thought of another topic now added to the pyre of issues Sue and I had to discuss tonight.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Sorry, baby,” was all I could say as I pulled my best apology face and sat down next to Sue. I was now fifteen minutes late and I could see Sue wasn’t happy about it.

“I hope this isn’t going to become a thing. What with your newfound responsibilities and obligations?”

“Was that really necessary?” I counter-punched, my own temper and mood wearing thin.

“Sorry, baby,” Sue smiled softly by way of apology. “It’s just this thing’s getting to me. It’s like we’ve been busy and stressed all weekend, and we still didn’t get any time for you or me to discuss things. We’ve been kicked out of our own house to find somewhere we can talk properly.”

I smiled. I loved this woman. She had every right to be incredibly angry, both at me and the situation. But she was still even-tempered and fair-minded.

I reached out to hold her hand. “It’s okay, honey. I feel totally the same. I disappeared from the office this morning for three hours to sit in the park and get my head straight. What a fuck-up! How the hell did we get ourselves into this position?”

I rarely swore, and very rarely when talking to Sue, but sometimes the blunt directness of Anglo-Saxon words is the only way to get it off your chest.

Sue squeezed my hand back and mirrored my smile. “I couldn’t have put it better myself. Although I could quibble about the use of the word ‘we’. How ‘we’ got ourselves into this position.”

My smile turned to a grimace. “I guess you’re right, honey. I know it’s my fault. I was just trying to get across that in some ways this is all part of the game we’ve all four of us been playing for some time now.”

Sue’s expression told me she didn’t disagree. Changing tack, I pulled Sue’s hand to mine and kissed it tenderly. “After we’ve ordered, I want you to tell me how you see things. And what you do and don’t want to happen, darling. I’ve done a lot of thinking myself, but it’s what you want that’s the most important thing for me, honey.”

For a moment I thought Sue was going to burst into tears. My words seemed to have struck a chord with her. She stroked my face gently and I could see her thinking about what she’d say and how she’d say it.

As we studied the menus, as if making small talk Sue asked me what Francis had wanted to talk about. I summarized the conversation, and Sue just nodded in a non-committal kind of way. The mention of Francis suddenly remined me of the text I’d received from him.

Retrieving my phone, I opened the relevant text and placed it towards Sue in the middle of the table:

Pete, Sue. I hope you manage to get things sorted out with the Grace situation in the next few days and weeks. Just thinking that while you get it sorted, it might be an idea if I keep a low profile. Give you time and space you need. I’d obviously miss you guys, but it might be for the best.

Sue read the message twice, and then as cool as anything she made no comment and just returned to reading the menu.

The food now safely ordered and the waiter dispatched to give us back our privacy, I could see Sue getting herself ready to open her heart to me. I felt like every nerve end in my body was jangling and on fire. The last few days had been like an earthquake, putting a huge crack down the middle of an already complicated marriage. Before Saturday I was pretty sure of Sue’s love for me and commitment to our marriage. But after the last few days I honestly had no idea what she was about to say.

As we looked at each other over clasped hands, my heart was in my throat as I wondered if I was about to hear the words which would end my marriage. That would end twenty-five years of happiness.

Sue could see that her delay was killing me, and so she cleared her throat and started.

“Pete, honey. This is as hard for me as it is for you. I’ve been doing a whole lot of soul-searching and thinking over the weekend and today. When you were with Grace on Saturday night, I hardly slept a wink. I couldn’t sleep, with so many thoughts going through my brain. And what Francis said at the bar, well, that was something that was in my mind as well. Not quite like Francis put it. But certainly, I was wondering about the whole question.”

Sue had said lots of words, but I was still none the wiser as to whether or not I still had a marriage and a wife. And so, I gently pushed. “Sue, honey. What do you want?”

The smile that then came over Sue’s face confused me. “Pete, honey, I can’t fully answer that at the moment. I can only give you half an answer, because we’re still missing a big piece of the picture. Given what we know about your medical condition, we need to know for sure that the child Grace is carrying is really yours.”

She took a deep breath and continued. “I’m sorry if that sounds clinical or disrespectful to Grace, but we’re talking about huge decisions here. And whether you do or don’t have a baby that you made and need to play daddy to is what everything hangs on.”

I was still none the wiser about what Sue wanted. Wanted for herself. She could see the frustration in me, and made a third attempt.

“Pete, honey. I can tell you what I don’t want. I can tell you that I don’t want us to split up. I love you, honey. And I love the family and home we’ve built for Donovan, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to give that up without a fight. But that’s why knowing for certain whether this baby’s really yours or not is so important. If it’s not really yours, then well, I think we both know what that means,” with malice and threat clear in the way Sue finished her sentence.

“But if the baby is truly yours, then that’s a totally different thing. You and I will have to face up to our responsibilities. Grace will truly still be the innocent victim of the game all four of us freely choose to play. And then the number one thing won’t necessarily be what you or I want to happen. It might well be what Grace wants to happen.”

Hearing Sue say this scared me to death, something that was immediately apparent to Sue. Just for a moment an angry look flared in her eyes, the look of women through the ages, having to pick up the pieces after guys had their fun. But just as quickly the flame dimmed and Sue looked at me lovingly.

“Tell me, baby. Do you honestly see it any differently? She’s a girl you’ve been bedding on and off for the best part of a year. She’s twenty-two- years old and living in a foreign country, and trying to complete her nurse’s exams. Are you really telling me that if Grace says that she wants you there twenty-four seven to help her out with your baby, you’re going to say no?”

Sue paused for quite some time to let me think.

“Pete, honey. That’s not who you are. It’s just not. How would you look me or our son in the eye if you treated a young girl, a stranger in our country, like that? And I know you have feelings for her, just like I have feelings for Francis. You’ve not hidden that from me.”

She squeezed my hand again and gave me a rueful smile.

As we started on the entrée, neither Sue nor I particularly felt like talking. I think we were both thinking. I’d come to the meal and the discussion with such high hopes. But what Sue said was simple, to the point and true. Everything revolved around confirming beyond doubt that the child was or was not mine. And after that, if it was my child, what Grace wanted would be the number one thing influencing what happened next.

Sue wasn’t saying that what she and I wanted didn’t matter, she was just saying that what Grace wanted would be the key ingredient in how we changed our lives to accommodate the new addition.

We moved on from the entrée to the main course and my mind cheered me up a bit as I remembered what Sue had said before, about how she loved me and was damned if she was going to let our marriage and family be split up without a fight. Playing these words back in my mind several times gave me a lifebelt to cling to, stopping me from despairing that it might now be inevitable that in the coming months I’d lose Sue to Francis.

And thinking of Francis suddenly brought my mind back to the text from Francis. I fished out my phone and put the message in the middle between us again.

“What do you think, honey?” I worried I was maybe being a coward, in asking Sue’s opinion before sharing my own. But I also felt that after everything Sue had been through these last few days, everything caused by me, maybe she should have her voice and thoughts heard first and foremost. After all, I’d come to this evening determined to find out what she wanted. Even if the conversation hadn’t quite gone the way I’d expected or wanted.

Sue re-read the text a couple more times, and then chuckled to herself.

“I’ll tell you what I think, honey. I think that, while his intentions may be well meaning, you and I will both need a little light relief in the next few weeks. It’s going to be stressful enough without the withdrawal of my Tuesday and Friday night Francis privileges, and your chance to watch the good doctor bang your sweet little wife on Sundays.”

There was something bizarrely reassuring about what Sue was suggesting. To my overloaded and stressed mind, she was almost suggesting ‘business as usual’, let’s pretend this thing isn’t happening. And this had an alluring appeal to it. I could certainly see it from Sue’s viewpoint, but also from my own. The three of us cooped up together in that pressure cooker atmosphere for six weeks while we waited to see whose baby it was. Not an appealing picture.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Looking back on them now, the next few weeks appear in my memory as a series of individual cameos and a group of remembered impressions and feelings.

One of the first things that got sorted out, and which we thought would be hard, was the question of the paternity test. And we had Francis to thank for this. He offered to discuss it with Grace, suggesting that as a doctor and someone outside of our home he was best placed to raise the question in a way that wouldn’t be insulting or hurtful to Grace. After he’d discussed it with Grace, he explained that he’d pretty much used the same reasoning as he had with me in the bar that Monday night. And that after some discussion, Grace saw the sense in his point. That with my difficulty in fertilizing a woman, it was best for the baby and her that we establish the child’s paternity beyond all doubt. That this way all questions and gossip and snide comments could be killed stone dead.

I’d been the one worrying most about Grace’s reaction. Bu when she returned from her chat with Francis, she was positively chirpy. Happy that the test would remove any doubts from people’s minds.

With this decision taken, it seemed to act as some kind of catalyst. With the date of the test now marked on the calendar, it was like some weight had been lifted from Grace and she wanted to start talking about the future and how things would work out.

What she wanted didn’t emerge in a big set piece talk or anything like that. It, kind of leaked out through a series of half-conversations and semi-expressed thoughts. To be fair to Grace, she was a twenty-two-year-old living a long way from home in another country, living in another couple’s house. I think she sensed that she was hardly in a position to make a State of the Union address, about what she saw in the future for all three of us.

But little by little her ideas of what the future might look like started to emerge. As Sue and I pieced the bits of the jigsaw together. Whenever she talked about the future, she seemed to assume that the three of us would all still be living together, pretty much like we were now.

And the way she talked about it, the three of us were all one big happy family. Living together, with Auntie Sue sometimes looking after the little one. With family trips to the park where I had junior on my shoulders and she and Sue would follow on behind, talking about baby and motherhood stuff. Bonding over shared experiences.

The way Grace talked so confidently about the future of the three of us together, I began to believe that this baby must definitely be mine. If this was all some big sham, there was no way this young Malawian girl could keep up the charade so well and for so long. The more she talked, the more the thought that maybe the baby wasn’t mine diminished.

As I said, these pieces of the jigsaw spilled out bit-by-bit. Sometimes Sue and I would hear things together, other times we compared notes when we had a bit of piece of quiet.

These weeks were a stressful time for me. As well as working out what Grace wanted from the future, I was also trying to work out what Sue’s reaction was to the future world Grace was describing. By and large, Sue didn’t say much. When I pushed her on what she wanted, she went to her stock answer of ‘let’s talk about it after the test.’

But if those were her spoken words, watching her non-verbal clues and body language was starting to trouble me. Sometimes she’d not quite manage to hide her feelings, or when she thought no-one was looking the mask would slip. I tried to get her to open up, but she kept defaulting back to ‘we’ll talk about it after the test.’

In the end I gave up trying to get her to open up and share her thoughts, reconciling myself to a big heart-to-heart between Sue and me when the results of the Paternity Test came back in mid-late September.

As you can imagine, waiting for this impending conversation rather felt like one of those poor blood infantry types on D-Day. Stuck inside a heaving landing ship, waiting and waiting as shells landing all around in the sea. All the time knowing a potentially far more terrible event awaited just a few yards ahead up the beach. Only in my case D-Day wasn’t June 6th, it was September 21st.

And the enemy waiting ahead included a big black Panther tank called Francis. All through these days and weeks he wasn’t doing anything especially untoward. But several nights I dreamt about a big black cat laying quietly in the long cross, just waiting to pounce on me and my family. I didn’t need six years at medical school or the divine inspiration of Joseph to interpret this particular dream.

Francis and Sue were still seeing each other on their appointed T-F-Su schedule, and I often felt a paranoid fear of what they were discussing. I suspected they might be discussing what the future held for all four of us, but tried to convince myself this was my paranoia. That Sue wouldn’t discuss with Francis things she’d refused to discuss with me. I honestly think if I’d found out that they were having these conversations, where she’d refused them with me, it would have broken my heart. Broken it and ripped it clean out of my rib cage. As the summer rolled on, it seemed like September 21st would never arrive. Three days before, on the Wednesday, Grace asked Sue to go with her to have the test.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

September 21st was finally here. A Friday, deliberately chosen so as to give us all time to talk over the weekend. I wasn’t particularly happy with it, but the venue we were all meeting in was Francis’ office. It was a colleague of his, Doctor Okafor, who was rushing the results through, so I guess it made some kind of sense. It was three p.m. and we were waiting expectantly for him to run the results down personally from the DNA Lab.

None of us looked at ease. None of us were talking. And then, just one minute after the hour a worried looking man in a white coat came through the door brandishing a hospital envelope. Hospital protocol determined that it was Grace who he handed the envelope to, and we all clustered round to be put out of our misery.

(Thanks to Mr cbears52 for tidying up my mistakes, as ever, RR)