“I couldn’t get the money,” I say, worried how James’s going to react. “My father. He took all my money.”
James is so tall, so handsome. He’s going to be disappointed when I tell him I’m not pregnant. The best moments in my life revolved around the months we fell in love. He hadn’t yet learned how wealthy I was. Osama bin Laden had brought us together. That is what we told our friends: 9/11 was our blessing. I should have trusted him forever. I should have bought him that fancy Tesla he wanted; he would’ve been so happy. Instead, his eyes drift toward the carafe, which I’ve emptied. He rushes to the sink, fills a glass with water, and implores me to drink it.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” James says. “I was too late. I’m sorry.”
Why is he apologizing? He must be telling me he’s sorry about cheating on me. I’m feeling dopey, dumb, but it’s cute, having him apologize for running around with Laurel. To make him happy, I drink the water and hand him back the glass. He would’ve been so happy if I bought him that Tesla. Why had I been so stingy when I had so much I could give him?
“Where’s Anne Elise?”
“I gave her some tea. She fell asleep.”
“You gave her tea?” James looks horrified. I try to tell him that babies are people too, that they can drink all sorts of things, but I’m mumbling my words, and nothing I say calms him. The glass falls from James’s hand and shatters on the floor, the slivers and shards glistening in the sunbeams shining through the windows. James pulls out his cell phone.
Everything feels so cold and foggy.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“I’m calling 911.”
An ambulance. I should have called for one myself when I realized I’d taken so many Valiums. I’m grateful James is taking care of me. I grab the Valium bottle again. Yesterday, and even this morning, there were dozens of pills in the bottle. Now, only a few remain. Is this why I’m groggy?
James must see it too, the alarm in my expression. His face clamps up with concern. He puts his hand over the phone. “Don’t worry, Trish. I’m getting someone to help you.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
JIM
The 911 dispatcher asks if Trish and Anne Elise are breathing. I’m a fool. I never should have crushed those Valium tablets, never should have placed them in the teapot or given the carafe to Trish. Despite Washington, DC, being, as locals like to say, “the most powerful city in the world,” not a month goes by without some horror story hitting the news about the city’s underfunded and unreliable 911 response services. Trish, seated at the breakfast nook in her lush sable coat, slumps forward, her forehead smacking the lip of the breakfast table. I had crushed the Valium tablets, stirred them into the tea, but it was as if I were in an altered state, possessed by the humiliation of Trish’s promissory notes and the demands that I separate myself from Laurel. I’d been disoriented, knowing Anne Elise was upstairs. I couldn’t fathom why I hadn’t suspected Trish of abducting her. I hadn’t truly anticipated something like this would happen. How was I to know Trish would give the tea to Anne Elise?
As soon as Laurel was in safe hands at the hospital, I ran back to my car, determined to do something about that carafe. My hope had been to get to Trish before she drank the tea. If need be, I was going to feign clumsiness and knock down the carafe, spilling the chamomile tea to the floor. Apologizing profusely, I’d offer to brew Trish a new pot and then sit down with her and chart out our separation. I’d spin this giant roulette wheel and see where the chips fell. Money is one thing Trish understands. To induce her to give up Anne Elise, I was going to sign away all claims on her fortune should we divorce. And about Trish’s legal problems? Prosecutors would need Laurel’s assistance to bring charges against Trish for the kidnapping, so I’d tell Laurel I’d marry her only on the condition she withhold such cooperation. It was as close to a win-win-win proposition as I could imagine. Now, I pray an ambulance will come quickly to save both Anne Elise and Trish.
“Sir? Sir?” the dispatcher asks.
Anne Elise starts crying upstairs. I put down the phone and run to her, overjoyed she’s alive, but upstairs, Anne Elise is locked behind the bookcase in the hideaway office again. I never figured out how to spring open the bookcase to get inside that room. Out of frustration, I hurl books off the shelves and toss crystal bookends, decorative figurines, and a bowl of spare change down the stairs. One of the varnished shelves becomes loose. Kicking doesn’t budge the bookcase. I heave myself at it, ramming my shoulder into it, but rather than moving the bookcase, I hear something pop in my shoulder. A flash of pain sears through me. For once in my life I wish I were a brute, a hulking goon capable of destroying anything and anyone in my path. I ram myself back at the bookcase using my other shoulder. The loose shelf falls off its support pegs. Just beneath one of the support pegs sits a small button such as you’d normally depress to activate a doorbell. I don’t understand how I never noticed it before. I push the button. Something mechanical cranks to life behind the wall. The bookcase screeches backward, revealing the narrow passageway that leads to the secret office.
Downstairs, Savory Mew’s front door bursts open. Someone rushes into the house. It’s been mere minutes since I phoned 911 dispatch, and the speed of the ambulance’s arrival fills me with hope for Anne Elise and Trish.
“I’m up here,” I say, yelling downstairs as I dart into the hideaway office. Seeing me, Anne Elise stops crying. I lift her from the cradle, hug her to my chest. Her face is red with tears, but she’s healthy. There’ll be no more locked doors in her future, no more inaccessible secret offices. When I make a funny face, she smiles.
Footsteps stomp upstairs.
“We’re going to be all right,” I say to Anne Elise. Even if she might not be biologically mine, the bond we already share will keep us united throughout life. I’ll hug her and cherish her, build a life with her and Laurel. Suddenly I can see it: the single-family detached home in the suburbs we’d own, the swing set in the backyard, the sandbox, the trips to the playground. The Christmas trees layered with tinsel and strands of twinkling lights, the Easter baskets overflowing with chocolate bunnies. I see us having more than one child—a little brother for Anne Elise and maybe, God willing, another child down the road. I see the happiness we’ll share: it’s all in our future.
The footsteps approach, and as they do, so too does the smell of gasoline and motor oil. The twin scents bring to mind my father, who I never saw again after he walked out on my mother when I was thirteen. Decades later, that moment of abandonment still reaches out to me, rubbing its salt in my wounds. Back then, I internalized my father’s abandonment, resigned that some inferiority or latent defect within me caused him to leave my mother and me; ever since, I’ve fantasized about the regret that might one day befall him should he find out how well I’m doing in life. I wanted him to open the newspaper in whatever squalid surroundings he found himself in and discover the son he abandoned was now obscenely wealthy.
A man in gray mechanic’s coveralls and a graying ponytail steps into the hideaway office. In my emotional state, I mistake his coveralls for the jumpsuit emergency medical personnel might wear. Seconds later, though, I recognize his true identity.
“Tull! What are you doing here?”
“Don’t ‘Tull’ me.”
“Huh?”
“For you, it’s ‘Tully.’ Tully. Only my close friends can call me ‘Tull’ and get away with it. What did you do with my money?”
My heart clenches in fear. “Your money? You’re here about your money?” I take a deep breath, grit my teeth. The overwhelming stench of bourbon oozes out of Tully. He’s aggravated and frantic. I can’t afford to lie to him. “It’s counterfeit, Tully. All of it. It’s not real.”