“An abortion.” Mrs. Richardson settled back in her chair. “That’s a big accusation.”
“I’m not accusing,” Mrs. McCullough insisted. “I told you, I don’t have proof. Only a suspicion. And you said anything.” She sipped her coffee, which had gone cold. “If she had had an abortion, would that change anything?”
“Maybe.” Mrs. Richardson considered. “Having an abortion doesn’t make her a bad mother, of course. Though it would likely turn public opinion against her, if the news got out. People don’t like to hear about abortions. And an abortion while trying to get back a baby you abandoned?” She drummed her fingers on the table. “At the very least, it would suggest that she was careless enough to get pregnant again.” She took Mrs. McCullough’s hand and squeezed it. “I’ll look into it. See if there’s anything that might help. If there is, we can bring it up with the judge.”
“Elena,” Mrs. McCullough sighed. “You always know what to do. What on earth would I do without you?”
“Don’t say anything to Bill or Mark,” Mrs. Richardson said, gathering her purse. “Let’s not get their hopes up yet. Trust me. I’ll take care of everything.”
Bebe had not, in fact, been pregnant. Under the stress of the impending hearing, with news crews filming outside the restaurant one day and a journalist stopping her on the street to shove a microphone into her face the next, with a story about the case out every other day, it felt like, and her boss grumbling about the time she’d have to take off for the hearing—she had given in to junk food cravings: Oreos, French fries, once an entire bag of pork rinds, ballooning up fifteen pounds in a month. She’d put in extra hours to make up for the time she’d be taking off, working until two or three on the nights she closed and arriving at nine to open the next morning. That time, in her memory, existed only as a blur. And then she’d gotten food poisoning—a box of leftovers that had sat too long in the fridge—and thrown up right in the library, in front of the social worker. She hadn’t been able to eat for days afterward, and when she recovered, she found that, with the hearing mere weeks away, she was too nervous to eat. By the time the hearing began she had lost the extra fifteen pounds plus ten more.
Mrs. Richardson, however, knew none of this. With no way to prove a negative, she began, logically enough, by searching for evidence of the positive. She could find anything out, she reminded herself. Even if she didn’t know it herself, she had connections. The next morning, she pulled out her Rolodex and flipped to the M’s: Manwill, Elizabeth.
She and Elizabeth Manwill had been roommates freshman year in college, and though they’d found other roommates in later years, they’d stayed in touch, through graduation and afterward. They had reconnected when Elizabeth moved to Cleveland and became the head of a medical clinic just east of Shaker Heights—the only clinic on the East Side, it happened, that provided abortions.
It was a small thing Mrs. Richardson wanted to ask: a small, illicit, slightly illegal thing. Could she check the clinic’s records and see if Bebe Chow’s name appeared in the list of recent abortions? “Unofficially. Off the record,” Mrs. Richardson assured her friend, tucking the phone receiver against her shoulder and double-checking that her office door was shut.
“Elena,” Elizabeth Manwill said, shutting her own office door. “You know I can’t do that.”
“It doesn’t have to be a big thing. No one needs to know.”
“It’s confidential. Do you know how much the fines are for that? Not to mention the ethics of it.”
Elizabeth Manwill had been friends with Mrs. Richardson for many years, and she owed Mrs. Richardson a great deal, though she herself hated to put it that way. She had shown up at Denison as Betsy, a painfully shy girl from Dayton, relieved to escape the constant teasing that had been her high school years, terrified that college might turn out to be the same. At eighteen, Elizabeth Manwill was an easy target for mockery: glasses perpetually sliding down her nose, forehead knobby with acne, clothes frumpy and ill fitting. Her new roommate looked just like the snotty girls who had made high school miserable: pretty, beautifully dressed, somehow at ease with the world, and that first night she had cried herself to sleep.
But Elena had taken her under her wing and transformed her. She’d lent her lipstick and Noxzema, taken her shopping, taught her new ways to style her hair. Walking to class with Elena, sitting beside her in the dining hall, Elizabeth had learned a new confidence as well. She began to speak as Elena did—as if she knew people wanted to hear her thoughts—and to hold herself taller, like a dancer. By the time they graduated, Elizabeth was a different person, Liz Manwill, who wore pantsuits and heels and architect’s glasses that made her look almost as smart as she was, a person who would go on to run a clinic with ease. In the years that followed, Elena—now Mrs. Richardson—had continued to offer her assistance. With her many local connections, she had put in a good word when Elizabeth had applied to the clinic, and after Elizabeth had gotten the job and moved to town, had introduced her to all sorts of people, both professionally and personally. In fact, Elizabeth had met her husband at a cocktail party the Richardsons had thrown some years before; he had been a colleague of Mr. Richardson’s. Mrs. Richardson had never asked, or even hinted, at repayment, and both of them were keenly aware of this.
“How is Derrick, by the way?” Mrs. Richardson asked suddenly. “And Mackenzie?”
“They’re fine. Both of them. Derrick’s been working too hard, of course.”
“I can’t believe Mackenzie is ten already,” Mrs. Richardson mused. “How is she fitting in at Laurel?”
“She loves it. She seems so much more confident now. I think it makes a real difference, being at a girls’ school, you know?” Elizabeth Manwill paused. “Thanks again for putting a word in.”
“Betsy! Don’t be ridiculous. It was my pleasure.” Mrs. Richardson tapped her pen against her desktop. “What are friends for?”
“You understand, Elena, I’d love to help you. It’s just if anyone found out—”
“Of course you can’t show me anything. Of course not. But I mean, if I were to come and take you for lunch, and I just happened to glance over your shoulder at the list for the past few months, no one could possibly say you had shown me on purpose, could they?”
“And what if this woman’s name is on there?” Elizabeth asked. “What good does it do? Bill can’t use it in court.”
“If it does, he’ll look for other evidence. I know it’s a huge favor, Betsy. He just needs to know if it’s even worth digging. And if it’s not? This goes no further.”