He sighed. He’d ordered up a pot of coffee, but nothing to eat. He was going to call Kristin in a couple of minutes, when he was sure she was awake, and see if he could come…not home…but to his mother-in-law’s and spend Sunday night there. When he had first gotten dressed, he had been quietly confident that she would acquiesce; he was less sure now that he had read the stories in the papers. At the moment, he wasn’t even convinced that she would allow him to join them for breakfast or brunch.
…
Kristin tried to peruse the stories without conveying any emotion, but it was difficult: the more she read, the sadder she grew. And, yes, angrier, too. They were toxic, and she could feel her blood pressure rising. Her only comment to her mother—at least over a breakfast of coffee and croissants in the Manhattan apartment kitchen—had been that Dina Renzi sounded very competent. Though, she added after a moment, she hoped the attorney’s capabilities would never really matter.
“Why is that, dear?” her mother asked. “I don’t understand.”
“Because I am hoping Richard won’t need her for more than”—and here she held up the section of the Times—“this. For public relations.”
It surprised her that she found the newspaper coverage far more chilling than the local news the night before, or even her home’s brief cameo on CNN. The videos were predictable, and she felt she had seen exactly this sort of footage a hundred times before: the beautiful woman with a winning smile, a perfect nose, and expertly coiffed hair standing with a microphone before a suburban home that, hours earlier, had been the site of a domestic cataclysm. There was the cut to a police detective—in this case a woman her husband had already described for her, Patricia Bryant—who was professional and polite and revealed almost nothing. Without a trace of irony her mother had remarked that the house looked nice, especially the black gum trees lining the slate walkway. She was nodding with approval when she shared how much she liked the trees’ purple foliage.
“Is Richard coming back today?” she asked her daughter now.
Kristin was about to rub the bridge of her nose; she stopped herself when she saw the newsprint on her fingertips. “No.”
“Will you go to him?”
“Will I go to him? Mother, you make it sound like he’s a wounded warrior who needs his selfless wife.”
“I didn’t mean that at all. I was simply wondering if you were going to meet him someplace to talk.” Her mother didn’t sound defensive; she sounded reasonable. Kristin realized that she herself sounded far less rational.
“We can talk on the phone,” she answered. “And I am sure we will.”
“Good.”
“I’m not going to do anything drastic. I promise.”
“I know you won’t.”
And perhaps it was her mother’s simple equanimity, but suddenly Kristin felt very much a child herself—once more a shamed schoolgirl or rejected girlfriend in need of a little mother’s love. “I will just be so embarrassed when I’m back at school tomorrow. When I’m in the teachers’ lounge and the classroom,” she said, and her voice broke ever so slightly. “How will I face everybody? I feel so…so violated. I feel humiliated.”
Her mother reached across the small circular kitchen table and tenderly, albeit awkwardly, embraced her. She put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders and upper back and ran her fingers gently over her linen blouse. Kristin bowed her head against her mother and asked, “How could he do this to us?” And then, much to her surprise, she was crying, her whole body spasming with her sobs. She was vaguely aware that her mother’s gray cashmere sweater was growing wet from her tears and her nose, but she couldn’t stop herself and she didn’t care.
“There, there,” her mother was saying. “There, there.”
…
Melissa ran her fingers over the waist-high border of the wainscoting that ran along the dining room walls. She was afraid to continue into the kitchen because she could hear her mother crying in there. Again.
Before this weekend, the only other times she could recall her mother crying were when Grandfather had died and then, a year later, when Cassandra’s brother—their other cat, Sebastian—passed away. Sebastian had cancer and there was nothing more the veterinarian could do, and so they had put him to sleep. The lumps, and they were everywhere at the end, were horrible. Melissa recalled how she had cried, too. The veterinarian had come to their house, and Sebastian had been in her mother’s lap when the vet had put him down. Her father had sat rubbing her mother’s shoulders. They’d all been in the living room. Even Cassandra.
She recalled Sebastian’s death a little better than her grandfather’s, because she had been younger when Grandfather died. Not too long ago she had asked her dad if Mommy had cried more for Sebastian, and he had explained that she had been in shock when her father had died. It had been so sudden. So horribly sudden. But still, he had said, her mother had cried plenty.
Nevertheless, Melissa knew that the crying she was hearing now was much worse than anything she had heard from her mother before. It was louder. It was almost childlike in its inconsolability. Hysterical. Her grandmother was trying to comfort her, but having very little success.
Melissa understood that these sobs were brought on because her mother was hurt. Her father had done this. Daddy. She had seen the TV coverage, but she couldn’t imagine her father with any woman but Mommy. In truth, she couldn’t even really envision that. But it was clear that this…wailing…was triggered by whatever her father had done with the women at the party, and not because two people had been killed at their house.
Yet when Melissa tried to re-create in her mind whatever had occurred in Bronxville on Friday night, it was the violence that was most real to her. Two dead people. Strangers murdered with knives and guns, their bodies in the living room and the front hall. She recalled the moments she had seen from scary movies; though those moments were few, they were indelible. Surreptitiously—with babysitters or at her friend Claudia’s house—she had seen her share of zombies and vampires and corpses on late-night TV. And though she had been frightened, she had always taken comfort in the idea that this was make-believe. There were no such things as zombies and vampires; the corpses always were actors in Halloween makeup. But whatever had occurred at her home on Friday night? That was very real.
Now she leaned against the wall and listened to her mother blowing her nose. She was telling Grandmother that she had to get her act together for Melissa. She had to figure out what she was going to say to her daughter. A second later the wooden chair slid against the kitchen tile. Her mother was standing up. Quickly Melissa retreated through the dining room and down the corridor to the guest bedroom. She didn’t want her mother to know that she had been listening. But the one question she was going to be sure and ask her mother when her mother joined her in the bedroom was this: Just how much danger were they in? That was what she wanted to know. She was pretty sure her mother would answer “none,” but Melissa was going to try and read her face when she responded. She also wanted to know when Daddy would be back. She feared she was going to need both of her parents to feel secure—but she had a sick feeling that this just wasn’t going to happen.
…
Richard tossed his cell phone down onto the hotel bed and watched it bounce on the mattress. He took comfort in his restraint: his initial thought had been to hurl it as hard as he could—a baseball and he was twelve—against the wall with the framed black-and-white photograph of construction workers high atop a Manhattan skyscraper in (he presumed) the 1920s. He had just gotten a call from a lawyer. A fellow who worked at Franklin McCoy and whom Richard had never met. Said his name was Hugh Kirn. Apparently, Richard’s boss—Peter Fitzgerald, great-grandson of Alistair Franklin himself, a keeper of the firm’s torch, and utterly humorless—thought it best if Richard took a leave of absence. Seems all the managing directors and the CFO himself felt that way. Paid, Hugh had made clear. Paid. Of course. At least for now. And if this blew over? Then they co
uld revisit what to do next, and whether it made sense for him to return.
“Revisit?” he asked the lawyer. “Do you have any idea how long you want this leave of absence to be?”
“No. Let’s wait and see.”
“Can I talk to Peter? I mean, tell him what really happened?”
“I told you, I’m calling for him. For the whole management team.”
“I understand. But can I call him as a friend? Just talk to him?”
“You shouldn’t. Please don’t talk to anyone at the firm.”
“Look, I can’t go home. The police won’t let me. So, I was planning on going to the office this afternoon and doing some work. God knows I have plenty to do.”
There was a pause at the other end of the line as Hugh gathered himself. Then: “No. You can’t go there. You’re barred from the office.”
“I’m barred? You make this sound punitive!”
“It’s in everyone’s best interests.”
“Look, it should be pretty empty. I would just—”
“No.”
“No? You’re serious?”
He cleared his throat. “I’m serious.”
“Who’s going to handle—”
“Whatever it is, it will get done. No one’s irreplaceable.”
“Do you know who we’re targeting this week? Do you have any idea what companies I am negotiating with to—”
“Yes. I know everything. We’ve already reassigned your work.”
It was a short sentence, but it was a body blow. Reassigned your work. But once he had absorbed it—his mind reeling with the names of his associates and the people he managed who were going to be taking over his (his!) responsibilities—he only grew madder.
“I’ve got things there I want!” he said. “In my office! Can I at least go there and get them?”
“Like what?”
“Like what? It doesn’t matter like what. My office isn’t a crime scene. It’s not like there’s some sort of investigation into something I may have done at the bank. I…I want my things!” He realized he sounded infantile, but the words were spilling out now like coffee beans from the bulk food dispenser at the natural foods market. This was madness.
“If you could name some—”
“I don’t have to name a goddamn thing!”
“You’re upset. I understand. But—”
“Can’t I talk to Peter?”
“I said that would be inappropriate.”
“No, you didn’t. You just said no.”
“Richard—”
“Don’t Richard me in that tone! We don’t know each other that well. Wait: we don’t know each other at all!”
“We can ship you whatever personal items you want. Family photos. Plaques. Paperweights. We will be happy to ship that sort of thing to your home.”
“Plaques. Paperweights.”
“Of course.”
“This is degrading.”
“So was your party on Friday night.”
“Hugh?”
“Yes?”
“Be a human. Let me retrieve my stuff. I won’t take any files. I won’t take any papers. I promise.”
“I shouldn’t. I really shouldn’t. But since you asked like a human, fine. I will meet you at the office. Is four-thirty okay?”
“Where do you live?”
“It doesn’t matter where I live.”
“For God’s sake, I wasn’t threatening you. I was asking to see how much of an inconvenience coming into the office will be for you.”
“I live on Long Island.”
“Then four-thirty is fine. You’re doing me a favor, so I won’t be a jerk and say that’s too late in the afternoon. Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“You’re going to have security with you, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
“Fine. See you at four-thirty.”
“And Richard?”
“Yes?”
“Since you’re coming in, why don’t you bring your keys and ID card? You can turn them in this afternoon. It will save us all a little trouble in the next few days.”
When he recalled the conversation, he thought he had shown admirable self-control not wrecking his cell phone by heaving it against the hotel room wall.
…
In the end, Kristin decided that brunch would be best. Sarabeth’s. A few blocks from her mother’s. After that, Richard would have to return to his exile at the Millennium. They met at eleven-thirty, Kristin and Melissa rendezvousing with Richard near the restaurant’s awning on the northeast corner of Madison and Ninety-second Street. There were two tables available, one rather light and cheery near the window, and one in the back corner. The sun was out for the first time in days, and it was clear the hostess wanted to seat them at the front, where they could bask in its warmth. Richard surprised her, asking for a table in the rear of the restaurant. He allowed himself a brief moment of self-pity: this is my future. A life in the shadows. Hiding. Shamed. But it passed when he realized that he really did have his wife and his daughter with him. He rallied, especially when he glanced down and saw that Melissa was wearing the new skirt and tights he had picked out for her yesterday.
“They look great on you!” he said, hoping after he had gushed that his pathetic need for approval and forgiveness wouldn’t lessen him in her eyes. But, of course, he did need her forgiveness. And she would, he feared, forever think less of him anyway.
“Thanks. They’re pretty funky,” she said, and he tried not to read anything into how simply normal her voice sounded. He kissed her on the forehead and then Kristin on the cheek. She didn’t turn away. He tried not to read too much into that, either, but it gave him a small measure of hope amid the hopelessness that might otherwise swamp him.
“You must be hungry,” he said as they glanced at the menus. “I know I’m famished.”
“I had a croissant a few hours ago,” his wife murmured. She didn’t look up from what she was reading.
“And I had cereal,” Melissa added.
“Well, all I’ve had is coffee, so I’m starving. I will be the goop who licks fingers and knives and both of your plates.” He peeked over the top of his menu and took inordinate satisfaction from his daughter’s small smile.
“How’s the hotel?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Fine. It’s a hotel. I wasn’t all that far from the theater where you saw the puppet whales.”
“I like hotels. You should have ordered room service. I love room service.”
“I should have, right?”
“Yup.”
“How’s Cassandra?”
The girl rolled her eyes and folded her arms across her chest: “Weirded out.”
“Is she eating?”
“Uh-huh. But she jumps from one piece of furniture to the next. It’s like the carpets are quicksand or something.”
“Where did she sleep?”
“I don’t know.”
“But not with you or Grandma?”
“Nope. Grandma thinks she might have slept on the high shelf in the coat closet.”
“The one in the front hall?”
“Yup.”
“Well, with any luck she can go home soon. We all can.” He turned toward Kristin, but her eyes were still riveted to the menu. Abruptly she looked up and for a brief second he thought she was looking at him, and he felt almost giddy with relief. But he followed her gaze and understood it was only that the waitress had returned and was standing behind him. Over his shoulder. She was about to ask if they would like coffee or tea. Her hair was as black as her dress, and her eyes were the reassuring brown of freshly tilled soil. Her voice was chipper. She was, he guessed, in her early twenties. After she had taken their order—he and Kristin both ordered cappuccinos, while Melissa was having hot chocolate—he turned back toward his wife. Now she was staring at him; he couldn’t decide if she was disgusted or merely bemused. He raised his eyebrows, waiting.
“I used t
o think I understood men,” she said. “I don’t. Or maybe I just overestimated all of you.”
He nodded. He parsed the code: she thought he had been checking out the waitress and was irritated. “Wasn’t thinking what you thought I was thinking,” he told her, hoping he sounded playful and not defensive since Melissa was present.
“What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking about coffee versus cappuccino,” he said. He wanted to tell her that he was no more aware of his surroundings—including the people—than anyone else. Yes, he thought the waitress was pretty, but he took no more notice of her than he would have if the person taking their order had been male. He registered what she looked like; that was it. He swiveled his body in his seat and focused on their daughter: “Tell me more about the musical,” he said. “Tell me all about the whales.” It was probably going to be impossible to make this brunch…normal…but he was, he decided, sure as hell going to try.
…
As they walked as a family the few blocks back to her mother’s, Kristin finally broached the question that she had shied away from at brunch because Richard was trying so hard to make the meal pleasant for Melissa. She was grateful for his efforts; she wished she had had it in her to do the same. “Will you talk to that detective today?” she asked.
“Patricia?”
“Yes. You call her Patricia?”
“I’m not sure I have ever called her anything. If I phone her—which I assume is where this conversation is going—I expect I will call her Detective Bryant.”
She noticed a family strolling toward them: a family of three with a son who was probably nine or ten. They looked so happy, Kristin thought. The parents were smiling at something their son had said. She tried not to be jealous, but she pined for that sort of casual joy. She missed the experience of communicating with her husband without sarcasm, anger, or wariness—or (worse, perhaps) depending upon Melissa as a semaphore. How was it possible they had had that only two days ago?
“If you’d like,” Richard was saying, “I will call her. And, yes, I’ll ask her when we can go home.”