Twenty-seven
“So Catherine really doesn’t know about this?” “Nope,” Spencer said. “She doesn’t. I considered telling her, but then I thought I might as well surprise her, too.”
“Well, I think it’s sweet. Maybe a little crazy—the not telling your wife part. Actually, that’s a lot crazy. But it’s certainly a lovely gift for Charlotte. You’re a good dad.”
He smiled at Randy Mitchell, the former Granola Girl who had become his most senior assistant, as they walked down Fifty-ninth Street to the Humane Society of New York’s animal adoption center. The shelter was a no-kill facility, which meant they only euthanized animals that were terminally ill. He had asked Randy to join him because she had a dog, a mutt she insisted was part springer spaniel and—based on the way its tail stood up like a dust mitt and folds of skin hung like drapes between its fore and hind legs—part flying squirrel. Spencer had met the dog, and the creature was among the most unattractive animals he’d ever seen outside the Discovery Channel. But she was playful and happy, and Randy adored her.
Spencer was particularly appreciative that he had Randy’s help this afternoon because it was Thursday evening, a mere five days before the press conference, and Randy had better things to do than help her boss pick out a shelter dog. He imagined he would have come here alone before the accident.
Then he guessed he wouldn’t have come here at all. He would have been unwilling to get a dog before the accident. He’d always told his daughter that he believed it was cruel to keep one in a New York City apartment, but the truth was that until now he simply hadn’t been willing to have his life complicated by the attention a dog needed—especially one that lived in an apartment.
The animal was going to be a belated birthday present for Charlotte: three weeks belated, in fact, and if for that reason alone quite a surprise. The humane society didn’t allow same-day adoptions, and so Spencer’s plan today was to fill out the forms and choose the dog. Then on Monday he and Randy would return after work for the animal. At that point he’d really need his assistant, because he was quite sure that he was incapable of bringing a dog—and all of its accoutrements—back across town to his family’s apartment with one hand.
“I’m not a good dad,” he said. “But I’m trying.”
“Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s a beautiful day, I bet you’ve got a pocketful of Percocet, and you’re about to bring another companion animal into your family’s life. Give yourself a break.”
Randy’s FERAL-speak caused him to cringe slightly—even he viewed dogs and cats as pets rather than as companion animals—but it was a lovely day, he agreed. And his shoulder actually felt a little better this morning. He was not for one moment oblivious to the pain, but today, at least, it was tolerable: a steady ache that was considerably more pronounced than the feeling of a pebble lodged inside one’s shoe but no more debilitating. According to Nick, his physical therapist, the pain probably would never, ever disappear completely, but eventually it would diminish to the point it was at now—and that would be without the gloriously buffering power of the small candy jar of painkillers he was consuming daily. Moreover, he’d gone to a barber this morning and had the whiskers on his face trimmed and shaped into something that resembled a beard. He looked less like an over-the-hill grunge rocker and more like a tweedy English professor. The beard still had a distance to go, but already he liked the air it gave him, and the way the facial hair seemed to shrink his ears to something like a normal size. Granted, his forehead seemed to stretch now into Quebec. But the ears? Almost average. For the first time since the accident, the world didn’t seem quite so exhausting.
THE DOG THAT HE CHOSE was a two-year-old combination of collie and something more petite, with dark eyes and fur that felt like satin against the fingers on his left hand. She weighed just over forty pounds. Her name was Tanya, and she’d wound up at the shelter when her owner had lost his job and a pet—especially a not insubstantial one with an appetite that could only be called impressive—suddenly seemed an unacceptable luxury. Moreover, she’d had emergency surgery the day after she arrived at the humane society, because she’d swallowed a small rubber ball and it had lodged in her intestines. Tanya was a quiet animal who, according to the young woman from the shelter who was assisting them, had always done well in an apartment.
The decision had only been difficult for Spencer for the simple reason that there had been so many needy dogs present, and every single one of them seemed to be barking desperately for his attention. The animals in their pens were so loud that he and Randy and Heather Conn, their guide at the shelter, had to shout to be heard over the din. And while Spencer considered any number of the smaller dogs there—the mutts who seemed to be largely terrier, spaniel, or beagle—simply because they would be easier for him to manage with only one arm, he was drawn to this serene miniversion of Lassie. He decided that Tanya would have been perfect if she were ten or fifteen pounds lighter, both because of his disability and because of the finite space in their apartment. Still, his mother-in-law’s dog lived in an apartment, and that animal seemed quite content.
He had a vision now in his mind of Tanya running through the lupine in Sugar Hill with Nan’s golden retriever, but then he remembered that dog hadn’t run anywhere since the last presidential administration. Still, he saw Tanya racing off the porch and onto the badminton court, jumping into the air after one of the badminton birdies. He saw the dog lounging with her nose on Charlotte’s lap as the girl sat on the carpet before the fireplace in the New Hampshire living room. He saw her walking at his side as he strolled out toward those apple trees, the ones that bordered the . . . vegetable garden.
Oh, there would be no vegetable garden. Never again. He knew that.
But the dog might walk between his daughter and him as they strolled down his mother-in-law’s driveway late in the afternoon, the sun still high because it was only the last week in July.
As he walked the dog up First Avenue, he felt shivers of pain in his right shoulder every time Tanya pulled against her leash and yanked his left arm. The sensation rippled across his upper back and became transformed from a simple awareness of a tug to the feeling of a knife slicing through skin. It was sharp and it stung. Still, he had endured far worse over the last month and a half. Far worse. The dog sniffed everything in sight on the street, from the garbage cans to the sewer grates to the stations on which hung the antiquated pay phones.
Heather and Randy were walking a few paces behind him, chatting. He wondered if perhaps he should bring the animal home tomorrow—Friday—instead of on Monday. The advantage was that Charlotte didn’t have school on Saturday and Sunday, and so she would have more time to bond with the pet. They all would. Moreover, Monday might be chaos for him because of the press conference on Tuesday, and it was certainly possible that his day would get away from him and he wouldn’t even be able to make it to the humane society to pick the animal up.
On the other hand, Willow was arriving this weekend and surely Charlotte would want to see her. And Sara and Willow and ol’ Francis Macomber wanted to take Charlotte and Catherine to the Cloisters on Saturday.
“You have cats, right?” It was Heather talking to him, the woman standing suddenly right beside him. Her eyes were blue and she was staring at him intensely.
“Yes. Two.”
“I believe Tanya’s pretty good with cats. But when we get back, let’s bring her to the playroom on the third floor of the shelter. We can see how she does there with some of the cats we have right now.”
“Okay.”
She pushed her bangs off her face and gazed at his sling. “How are you doing?” she asked. “It looks like she’s giving you a pretty good workout.”
“I’m right-handed.”
“When do you get your arm back?”
“Never.”
“Are you serious?”
“Completely. Nerve damage.”
She nodded thoughtfully and then said, “Your daughter’s thirteen, right?”
“Just turned thirteen, yes.”
“So, tell me: What are you going to do in four or five years when she leaves home? When she goes to college or gets a job?”
“You mean in regard to Tanya?”
“Yup. You said this dog would be a present for her.”
“I guess I’ll be walking her more often, then.”
“I presume you’re married.”
“I am,” he said. Glib responses passed through his head: For the moment. At present. Trying like hell. But he squashed them because the last thing he wanted was to give Heather the idea that Tanya might be brought back to the shelter at some point in the next four or five years because his daughter was leaving for college and his marriage had gone belly up. And though he knew it wasn’t necessary, he felt a prickle of defensiveness—that old anger—at the sensitive spot this woman inadvertently had touched, and he continued in a voice that was needlessly sharp, “Really, you don’t need to worry about my commitment to this dog. I’ve devoted my life to trying to stop animal cruelty: The last thing I would ever do is act irresponsibly in regard to this creature or behave in a manner that would in any way make her life difficult.”
“You don’t need to sell me on your devotion to animals,” Heather said. “I was only asking because I like Tanya, and I will do what I can to make sure she has a happy new life.”
Quickly Randy took the leash from him and gently reeled Tanya in. She knelt on the sidewalk before the animal and nuzzled her. “I think you are going to love every minute of your life with the McCullough family. Yes, I do,” she said, murmuring into the dog’s snout as if it were a microphone. And though she was talking to Tanya, Spencer knew she was speaking largely for Heather’s benefit. He sighed, forced himself to relax. He was very glad she had joined him.
LATER THAT DAY, farther uptown in Central Park, Nan Seton walked her own dog. Though the sun had set it was still light out, and they were on the path just north of the museum that bordered the reservoir. They were passed by joggers and young people on in-line skates, and sometimes the dog would crane his nose into the air as the exercisers slid by, savoring the aromas that their exertions left in their wake.
She liked walking the dog, despite the fact that she no longer felt well, because it created routine. And Nan cherished routine. Granted, in the country it was nice also just to allow the animal to wander aimlessly into the fields of lupine that surrounded her house. But here in Manhattan? It was reassuring to have a regimen. It would not expunge the despondency that had begun to envelope her in New Hampshire, but it would take her mind off it for long moments at a time. She could focus once more on the small repetitive acts and social rituals that filled out her days in the city, instead of on her fears for her family once she was gone. No one—no thing—was irreplaceable. But some people were more useful than others. And now she had to contend with the reality that whatever was ailing her (and Nan knew it was real, because she was many things but a hypochondriac was not among them) was not merely going to take her: When she was gone, her family would still be estranged.
She had just turned around and started back toward the park’s exit, the dog’s leash in one hand, when she saw that woman whom she believed was her son-in-law’s boss jogging in her direction. Dominique Germaine. She was wearing the sort of tight Lycra bike shorts which in Nan’s opinion bordered on the indecent and a halter top that left little of the woman’s stomach to the imagination. She was wearing a headset as she ran.
Nan didn’t believe the woman would recognize her as Spencer McCullough’s mother-in-law, though they had been introduced two or three times, including one afternoon when Spencer had lectured about George Bernard Shaw and nineteenth-century vegetarianism to a luncheon crowd at the Colony Club. (Nan had felt a twinge of guilt that the club had served salmon that day, but certainly her son-in-law hadn’t expected them to serve something with beans or tofu to a group of already gaseous elderly women.) She hadn’t really thought about what she was going to do—or why—but she called out to the woman as she approached, “Excuse me.”
Dominique stopped and for a moment jogged in place, and Nan could tell that she was trying to decide whether this stranger who was accosting her was a FERAL friend or foe. Clearly she was accustomed to being stopped by unfamiliar people. Then she allowed her legs to stop churning and bent down to pet the dog on the leash.
“This is a beautiful animal,” she murmured, and she nuzzled her face against his. “I am so sorry that I don’t have any Kibble-Soys for you,” she said ruefully to the dog.
“Kibble-Soys?”
“Meat-free dog biscuits.”
Nan resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “My name is Nan Seton. You are Dominique Germaine, aren’t you?”
“Guilty as charged. Are you a member of FERAL? I do hope so.”
“Well, I give money to your group each year in December. But I don’t know if I am, technically, a member.”
“Certainly you are. Thank you. We—the animals—appreciate whatever you give. Truly.”
“I’m Spencer McCullough’s mother-in-law.”
The woman rose to her feet, and Nan felt an odd and unexpected twinge of pride at her reaction.
“Well. I am so sorry about what happened,” she said. “It is such a tragedy.”
“John Seton is my son.”
“Of course he is,” she said, and instantly returned their conversation to her son-in-law. “It’s so good to have Spencer back. You can’t imagine. We missed him dreadfully this summer. Dreadfully.”
“I haven’t seen him since he was in New Hampshire. I only returned to the city a few hours ago. I may see him this Saturday or Sunday. I hope so.”
“He’s doing so much better this week. Really. So much better. He will, of course, never—”
“I know all the things he will never do again,” she said, surprising herself by cutting the woman off. She knew she could be blunt—on occasion even curt—but rarely would she interrupt someone while that other person was speaking.
“I feel so bad for him.”
“And for my daughter.”
Dominique nodded. “Yes. And for your daughter.”
“I’d like to talk to you.”
“We are, aren’t we?” She smiled.
“Spencer and my son aren’t speaking. And it’s making everything difficult. This weekend my son and his family are visiting the city, and I want to do something special for my granddaughters’ birthdays. Unfortunately, whatever I do, it won’t involve Spencer. He won’t go because John will be present.”
Dominique pasted on her face what she hoped was a thoughtful expression: one that was interested and winning and sympathetic. Inside, however, she was feeling peevish. She wanted to resume her run. Besides, it was this woman’s son whose indefensible enthusiasm for hunting had left one of her most senior staff members permanently disabled. “And you’re telling me this . . . why?” she said finally.
“Because Spencer is doing this for you. For FERAL.”
“He’s not talking to John for FERAL? Or he’s suing the gun manufacturer for FERAL? Forgive me, but which?”
“Both.”
She inhaled. She wanted to correct this woman, to explain to her in no uncertain terms that Spencer was suing Adirondack, first, because the long-term costs of his disability would be enormous and, second, because he saw no reason why so many animals should be hunted and killed with weapons capable of inflicting precisely as much pain as he himself had been enduring since the middle of the summer. Nevertheless, she would be patient. She had to. She hadn’t a choice. She was a public figure, and, besides, Spencer was very good at what he did.
And so she said simply, “And you want me to do something.”
The woman’s jaw fell slack, and for the briefest of seconds she actually saw the gold fillings residing in the teeth in the lower half of her mouth. Clearly the responses Spencer’s mother had anticipated had not included what she had heard as an offer to help. It wasn’t, of course, in Dominique’s mind. It was merely a confirmation of what Nan Seton was asking; but if this other person had heard more than she meant and it would allow her to disengage from this unwanted conversation quickly, so be it.
“Yes, I do,” Nan answered. “You’re his boss. I don’t see how his refusal to talk to my son is benefiting anyone. I don’t see how this press conference next week will help. It seems to me, all any of this is doing is tearing my family apart.”
“I’m sorry. It shouldn’t have to be that way. But I’m sure you’ve seen how much pain Spencer has been in since your granddaughter shot him. Right?”
Nan seemed to flinch on either the word granddaughter or shot; Dominique couldn’t tell which.
“Imagine, then: Spencer was shot with a gun and a bullet designed to inflict exactly that sort of agony on a deer.”
“The deer die quickly,” Nan said.
“Some do. But that doesn’t make it right. And some run for hours before they die. Or days. The truth is, an awful lot of deer die slowly of their wounds or of starvation because they are unable to browse. And every minute of it they are enduring what your son-in-law is experiencing now.”
“None of that justifies the turmoil my family is experiencing.”
“Reasonable people could debate that. Look at your sweet companion animal here. Why is it acceptable to inflict such pain on a deer but not on this fine creature? Why is a dog more deserving of our protection than a deer?”
“I don’t want to be theoretical. I’m speaking as a mother. As the head of a family. None of this justifies Spencer not speaking to John.”
“Spencer’s angry. Can you blame him?”
“John is very sorry.”
“I’m sure he is.”
“Look, I’m very concerned about this!”
Dominique scratched the dog once again behind his ears. Her patience, she realized, was at an end. “I’ll talk to Spencer,” she said simply.
“Will you?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you. That’s the right thing to do, you know.”
She nodded, wished this old woman a pleasant evening, and slipped her headphones back over her ears. It was semantics, but she told herself as she started to jog that she had never said to Nan Seton precisely what she would say to Spencer. She guessed she wouldn’t tell him anything that he didn’t already know. His mother-in-law wanted the two boys to play nicely in the sandbox. And that, she understood, was no more likely than FERAL deciding not to hold a press conference on Spencer McCullough’s behalf.
THURSDAY NIGHT CATHERINE phoned her brother. Spencer and Charlotte were in the living room listening to the CD for The Secret Garden, playing over and over the cuts in which young Mary Lennox had her solos. Though Catherine was happy to see the two of them spending so much time together, she feared if she had to hear that over-the-top feigned British accent much more—both the one that young actress had used on Broadway and the one her daughter was attempting—she would take the disc and flip it from their apartment window like a flying saucer. She called John while she cleaned up the dinner dishes largely so she could hold the phone against her ear with her shoulder. She hoped that the combination of the conversation, the running water, and the sound that she made when she scrubbed hard, blackened vegetable matter from the bottom of a cast-iron skillet would drown out the Victorian melodrama being reenacted in her living room.
“So, I gather we’ll see you on Saturday,” he was saying to her. Yesterday she and Sara had coordinated the logistics of the Seton family’s visit to Manhattan this weekend, and Sara clearly had briefed her husband on the itinerary.
“Yes, indeed. God, I can’t even remember the last time I went to the Cloisters,” she said. “How old was I? Eleven? Ten? I was definitely younger than Charlotte.”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t with you.”
“You sound tense.”
“Gee, I can’t imagine why I might be tense. Can you?”
“You won’t even see Spencer this weekend. He’s going to take advantage of the fact we’ll be at the Cloisters on Saturday to prepare for the press conference. And on Sunday Dominique is speaking at some rally against the cat show at the Garden, and Spencer’s going to join her. ”
“But the point is, I would like to see Spencer. I want this cold war behind us.”
“Not gonna happen.”
“I know.”
“The thing is . . .”
“Yes?”
“The thing is, he seems so happy these days. He really does. Or, at least, serene. He barely flinched when I told him I’ve been a closet carnivore all these years.”
“Better living through drugs. I’m sure it’s the painkillers.”
“Well, clearly they’re helping with his injury—though he’s still hurting a lot. But what I meant is something different. His attitude. Do you know what he’s doing right this second?”
“Tell me.”
“He’s rehearsing with Charlotte. Again. Suddenly he’s become superdad.”
“Spencer never does anything halfway.”
“Marriage, maybe.”
“Excuse me?”
She wasn’t sure why she had said that, and she wished now that she could take it back. She couldn’t, however, not with John, and so she told him—hoping to diminish the significance of her inadvertent disclosure—“I was just grousing.”
“Indeed.”
“It’s been years since I’ve had more than half of Spencer’s attention, because so much has always gone to pigs and monkeys and circus bears. And now that’s he become superdad, I have him even less. He used to . . .”
She was going to say, He used to worship me. When we were in college, the man had actually worshipped me. And even though it was true, she couldn’t bring herself to verbalize such an idea to her older brother, especially since college had been so very many years ago now.
“He used to what?” John asked her. “Go ahead.”
The irony, of course, was that seven or eight weeks ago she wasn’t even sure she wanted to remain married to him. Why now was she begrudging him his composure? Here he was crippled and in pain, yet he was striving to be more giving, more tolerant. Why was she still angry with him? Was it all because of that press conference? “We don’t need to discuss this,” she said. “I’m fine. Really.”
“Ah, that’s what I like to see: our family’s wondrous emotional repression in action. Good work, Sis. Mother would be proud.”
“Mother’s back now,” she said. “She got home late this afternoon.” She put the skillet in the drying rack and wiped her hands on the dish towel.
“So I hear. I gather she’s joining us at the Cloisters, too.”
“Yup.”
“And we’re doing something with you and Charlotte to celebrate the girls’ birthdays, right? A brunch or a dinner or something?”
“Mother wants us to do brunch on Sunday. Someplace elegant that would give the girls a chance to get dressed up and consume vast numbers of Shirley Temples.”
“Charlotte will want a mimosa.”
“She might. But even she has seemed oddly composed the last week.”
“Maybe it’s that play.”
She squirted gel into the dishwasher and pushed the door shut. “Maybe,” she agreed.
“And Spencer’s definitely not coming?”
“To the brunch? Nope—though he did apologize.”
“Well, I’m glad Charlotte’s feeling better.”
“I didn’t say she’s feeling better. I said she’s composed. It’s pretty clear she’s still shaken.”
“Willow’s a wreck. Well, maybe not a wreck. But she’s very stressed by the idea of a deposition at some point in the coming months.”
She stood up straight. “Really?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Charlotte is, too. Or she was. She seems fine now. But she had one final meltdown before she became the great, unflappable thespian. It was last week when we were having breakfast with Paige Sutherland. The deposition came up, and Charlotte got all weird about lie detector tests.”
“Lie detector tests?”
“That’s right. She said she would refuse to take one. And then she stormed off to the ladies’ room.”
“Well, the idea of a deposition must be very scary for them. Lord knows I’m dreading mine. Alas, that’s one more part of this nightmare for which I can take credit.”
“Beat yourself up. There isn’t enough pain going around at the moment.”
“You know,” he said, “if only Spencer would talk to me. It would make such a difference.”
“What exactly would you say to him?”
“I honestly don’t know. But the idea of us simply returning to speaking terms would be huge. We wouldn’t have to discuss the lawsuit. We could talk about, I don’t know, all the other things we have in common.”
“Like hunting?”
“Like raising daughters. Like playing tennis.”
“The two of us don’t even talk about tennis anymore, and it used to be something we were pretty passionate about. Even during the finals at Flushing Meadows this month—remember how Spencer and I always got tickets when we were younger?—I don’t think we said one single word about tennis.”
“I wish I could talk to him about this press conference. That’s the main thing. I understand the lawsuit. Really, I do. It’s FERAL’s involvement and the media frenzy he wants to create that I find so disturbing. It’s the way my daughter and my niece are being dragged into this in such a public fashion.”
“And you, too.”
“Yes, obviously. Me, too. But if we were talking, there would still be hope. There—”
“John, you couldn’t stop this train even if Spencer would hear you out. It’s way beyond the station. He thinks his lawsuit against the gun company is a way of showing Charlotte this wasn’t her fault.”
“Maybe I should drop by the apartment when you’re all at the Cloisters. What do you think? Spencer and I could talk this out—maybe even get to the point where he’d be willing to join us on Sunday for brunch.”
“He won’t even be here, he’ll be working at FERAL. He’s still learning to use his new left-handed keyboard and mouse, but at least he has such things at the office. His voice input software hasn’t arrived yet—”
“He will need that now, won’t he?”
“Well, it will help.”
“God, this is awful.”
“Please, stop it. Okay? Yes, it’s awful.” While she paused, she heard Charlotte drawing out the first syllable in the word garden as if she were holding a musical note, and softening the r almost to the point of nonexistence. Her mind was flashing back now to that breakfast last week with Paige Sutherland. She couldn’t imagine there was some important detail about that horrible night in New Hampshire that she didn’t know. What had occurred was pretty clear: Her brother had left his loaded rifle in the trunk of his Volvo, and her daughter had thought her husband was a deer and accidentally shot him. It was only complicated if you were a lawyer. Why then had Charlotte freaked out about a lie detector test? Why was Willow, in John’s words, a wreck about the idea of the deposition?
Was it possible there was something she had missed? Something all the grown-ups had missed? Certainly she had asked Charlotte again when they’d had breakfast with Paige. And Charlotte had insisted there was nothing more to the story than what they already knew.
Actually, that wasn’t quite accurate. Charlotte had retreated angrily to the ladies’ room at the very suggestion something more had occurred that night. And so she decided that when Lee Strasberg was done with their daughter—or, perhaps, before Charlotte went to bed—she and her daughter would have a chat.
“Tell me,” her brother was asking her, “how would Spencer react if I just showed up at his office on Saturday afternoon?”
“Trust me, you don’t want to go there. You probably wouldn’t get past the guard in the lobby, anyway.”
“Why don’t I just see how I’m feeling that day—and whether I’ve managed to marshal some arguments that might make a difference to him? Play it by ear?”
She sighed. “Sure. Why not?”
In the living room Spencer and Charlotte continued to work, and Catherine wondered how she had wound up an outsider.
BY TEN O’CLOCK Spencer was sound asleep. The combination of an extra sleeping pill, the pain in what remained of his shoulder, and the ceaseless exertion of trying to learn to exist with one functioning arm had exhausted him. And so Catherine left their bedroom and knocked on Charlotte’s door. She hoped the child was finishing her homework and was about to go to bed herself. She wasn’t. She was on the computer sending instant messages to her friends. Catherine looked at the communications on the screen and realized that Charlotte wasn’t chatting with her usual pals, but instead with the kids—teenagers, actually—who were in the upcoming musical with her.
“Who are you talking to?” she asked, hoping to elicit some specifics.
Without turning around Charlotte mumbled, “People in the show.”
“That’s what I figured.” She pointed at one of the responses and monikers on the screen. “Let me guess: Dudester 1035 is a boy?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And he lives at 1035 . . .”
“Ten thirty-five Fifth. He goes to Buckley.”
“Does Dudester have a name?”
“Archibald.”
“Archibald?”
“Oh, sorry, that’s his name in the play,” she said, typing a response as she spoke. “His real name is Sawyer.”
“How old is Sawyer?”
“I don’t know. A little older than me.”
Catherine had a pretty good idea that “a little older than me” meant fifteen at least. Maybe sixteen. She hoped that no fifteen- or sixteen-year-old Buckley boy was chasing after her waif of a daughter—a daughter who seemed especially tiny right now in a pair of bright red pajamas that were sprinkled lavishly with ivory moons and yellow stars. Regardless, ten o’clock was late for instant messages when you were in the eighth grade and so she asked Charlotte to log off and join her. She sat down on her daughter’s bed and waited there, aimlessly stroking a teddy bear that three or four years ago had meant so much to her child, and which even now Charlotte couldn’t quite part with.
When the girl joined her, sitting down by the footboard with her legs crossed at the knees, she said, “I still haven’t done my history reading for tonight. But I think I’ll only need fifteen or twenty minutes. Is that okay?”
“Bedtime is supposed to be ten. You know that. But, yes, it’s fine to stay up a little late to finish your history. I think Sandy would be angry with me if I didn’t give you that extension,” she agreed, referring to Charlotte’s history teacher, an older fellow on the faculty whose actual name was Sanford Clunt but (thank God) insisted that his students call him by his first name instead of his last.
“Thanks,” she said, and then she jumped off the bed and retrieved her history textbook from the floor by her desk. When she returned to her mother she smiled and murmured, “Good night.” Then Charlotte waited, clearly expecting her to leave.
“One thing,” Catherine said, instead of rising.
“What, Mom?”
“Last Friday, when we had breakfast with Paige Sutherland, you got upset.”
“It felt like you were accusing me of shooting Dad on purpose.”
“I simply asked if there was something else you wanted to tell us. And the idea that there might be more to what happened than I knew only crossed my mind because you”—and she wanted to phrase this perfectly—“expressed some concern about a lie detector test.”
The child nodded.
“So?” she asked Charlotte now. “Do your father and I know absolutely everything we need to know about that night in New Hampshire?”
“Scouts honor.”
“You’ve never been a scout.”
“Then yes.”
“Yes?”
“Mom!”
“I’m just making sure.” She sat up and pulled her child to her, and held her for a long moment. She savored the fruity smell of Charlotte’s shampoo, and surprised herself by whispering into her ear that she loved her. She guessed she surprised the girl, too. Every bit Nan Seton’s daughter, Catherine knew she was not particularly effusive. Then she kissed Charlotte, stood up, and went to the door. From the frame she reminded her not to stay up too late.
When she returned to her own bedroom, she felt better. Not completely reassured. But better. A little bit better.
CHARLOTTE STARED at the page in her history book, her eyes glazing and the words growing indistinct. She simply couldn’t concentrate. She wondered if someday she might be a lawyer instead of a great actor. She hadn’t lied to her mother; she had in fact answered her question with what she considered scrupulous accuracy. She had told her that she and Dad knew everything they needed to know about that night. That was all.
And her parents did know everything they needed to know. They most assuredly did not need to know about the marijuana or the beer. They did not need to know what she was feeling when she pulled the trigger. The truth was, she herself didn’t even know anymore.
The one absolute and inescapable reality was that she had crippled her father for life, and the best way she could help him now was to do all that she could to assist with his lawsuit and his campaigns for FERAL. And if that meant not telling the lawyers everything at the deposition, then so be it. So be it.
So—and she drew out the first syllable as if she were a little British girl in the late nineteenth century, before snapping the last two together—be it.