Isabel let out a sound that was jarringly close to a snort.
“There was an article this morning about victims,” Madison pushed. “It was about people who invested their money other places, and now—”
“Those people gambled,” Isabel said, as if Madison’s stupidity were exhausting. “They made a choice, Madison. They didn’t do anything wrong, but neither did your father. And pretending that he did, so everyone can feel better, won’t fix anything. He’s no use to anyone if he’s put—”
She stopped speaking suddenly, and Madison knew what they were avoiding, the forbidden words. Anything to do with prison, anything to do with criminal. The words Jake Levins so relished.
“I love Jake Levins, too,” she began again, breathing deeply. “Sometimes. But look at someone like him, or even—take Tom Dawes. God love Mina, really, but Tom got everything he has because of his father. And what does he have? He’s glorified middle management, and he always will be. He’s no one of consequence, not really. So it would be too delicious for them to pass up, if he’s run things into the ground.”
“Jake?”
“No,” Isabel said, her voice almost dreamy again, not at all perturbed by her daughter’s slowness in their conversation. Isabel was not usually understanding when you couldn’t keep up with her. “Your father. If he’s run it into the ground.”
“Okay,” Madison said. She tried not to picture them all on a plane, on the jet with the firm’s insignia on its side. Her father storming the cockpit in a drunken rage, seizing the pilot’s controls, running the plane into the ground.
Isabel opened her eyes and fixed them on Madison, as though surprised to find her in the same place. Madison tried to hold her gaze but the eyes were so pale and blue, so unblinking. It was like looking up into the noon sky and trying not to squint.
“They hate how successful he’s been,” she said. “They always hated all of them, all the guys, because they weren’t as polite as everyone else pretended to be. I mean, I felt it, too, when I first met him, you know that. They want him to apologize for that more than anything else. Can you understand that?”
Madison nodded. She did not look away from her mother’s eyes. Isabel nodded, too, as if in response.
“The thing right now is to be strong. It’s a system, Madison. He operates within a system. He didn’t create it, but it’s what he knows how to do. And he needs us to be strong while he fixes this. All right?”
Madison said nothing.
“I need to know that you understand what I mean.”
“I think so. I do. But also, couldn’t we go see him? For a weekend, couldn’t we? What’s stopping us?”
Her mother sailed her hand into the air, a dismissive gesture curtailed when it hit the water.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why?”
“Madison, please. You think I might know what I’m talking about? A trail of shoe trees and crumpled ties along the floor, from his bathroom to his bed to the kitchen. All over the carpet. Clamshell cartons on the floor. Your father left to his own devices, it’s not a pretty thing.”
“He’s only left to his own devices because we aren’t there,” Madison said.
The old apartment was on Park Avenue, fifteen blocks north of Grand Central. Everything inside was white or stainless steel, sharp corners and fabrics that felt cold to the touch no matter what the season. Isabel hated sleeping there. But it was an empty shell, really. To hate it so much—it was like hating a blank wall, a crisp white shirt.
Sometimes, when they were all there together and Madison woke up in the night, she’d wander into the living room to see if her father was up, watching television. If he was in a good mood, he’d bundle her into a cab, still in her pajamas, and take her to one of the twenty-four-hour diners on Second Avenue. He’d tell her they should wait a few hours, take the car to his old part of Williamsburg for two Italian subs at his mother’s favorite grocery, but she never wanted to wait. She just wanted her father at the table across from her. The unnatural buttery glow of the lights in those old diners, everyone else there pale and faded, already resembling photographs of themselves. And the way those people eating alone at four o’clock would stop and stare at them when they walked in, she and her father, giggling, his hand wrapped around hers.
She was the only human alive, she knew, who had ever seen her father really giggle.
“We could be there,” she told her mother. “We could be there with him.”
“I’m done talking about this.”
Madison looked at her feet once more, gripping the marble step she’d crouched on, and could not believe her mother’s cruelty. It wasn’t so much, she realized, that her mother didn’t care that Madison might feel mistreated or resentful. It was that these possibilities had never even crossed Isabel’s mind. It wasn’t Madison’s place to demand anything from Isabel, and her mother thought that this meant she never would.
“Well, then, I guess I’ll go back to bed. If you’re done talking about everything I ask about.”
Her mother resettled herself among the deflating suds. Madison stood up and walked over to the door; when she turned back, Isabel was examining the backs of her own hands, rubbing at the wrinkles, the knuckles chafed and red from the warm water.
“I have one more thing.”
“Of course.”
“Are they going to take the house away?”
Her mother emitted a small, harsh laugh. “Well, who’s they?”
“Please don’t laugh at me.”
And immediately the laughter died, like magic.
“Would that be the worst thing? You know this was never what I wanted. This cavernous house where if I put my sunglasses down, I’ll never be able to find them again. I’m not sure it’s how you three should be raised, either.”
Madison tried not to stare at her mother, bare her own disbelief. Yes, she thought. Yes, I think that would be pretty bad. I think that would be the worst thing.
Isabel squeezed the washcloth, letting the excess water stream down into the tub. “I just wish he’d listened to me more. Of all the times to buy an apartment in the Plaza, I mean. Last year. Of all the times. And really, basically, your father is so disciplined. But they’ll find everything, you know, his silliest things. The sheets, those sheets he has FedExed ahead of time to the hotels? They’ll jump on that, I promise you. I promise you.”
“Who?” Madison tried. “Who will jump on it?”
“Everyone. Listen,” Isabel said, looking up at her again. She moved forward suddenly, the water sloshing at her shoulders. “We could have a fresh start, you know? In a way, as long as things don’t take a turn for the worse, this is a blessing.”
Madison tried to ignore the panic rising in her throat, flooding up from her feet. “What?”
“Sweetie, can you trust me? I need you to trust me that I am doing everything I possibly can to keep you all safe.”