A Nearly Perfect Copy (44 page)

“I want to go back to Ireland,” Colin said finally. “And I want to take Moira.”

Elm pursed her lips. “That’s not a good idea,” she said. “I can’t travel anymore.”

“Not you.” Colin stressed the last word so that Elm felt the sting of it. “Me and Moira.”

“You can’t just take her from me.”

“I refuse”—he paused—“to subject her to another brother who is going to die. I refuse to do that to her.”

“I won’t let you. That’s kidnapping.”

“I don’t think a judge would disagree with me when I tell him what you’ve done.”

“Oh, so now you’re blackmailing me?”

“You don’t leave me a choice.”

“You sound like a movie,” Elm said. “It’s not that hard. Please come back home, please. I’m sorry; I’m so sorry. I need you, I need help with our baby. I love you.”

Colin appeared to be considering this, shaking his head lightly. “I’ve put out feelers for a job back home. There are a couple that look promising. ”

“And where will I be in this scenario?”

“As far as I’m concerned, you can be in hell,” Colin snapped. “I’m renting an apartment and Moira is coming to live with me in the meantime.”

Elm was tired. She couldn’t argue with him. He would just get angrier. “Fine,” she said. “I want to see her, though.”

“You can take her for dinner.”

“I can’t believe it’s coming to this,” Elm said, surveying the room.

“This is something you did,” Colin said. “Remember that. This is not a tsunami, or a fact of nature. This is something you did to us, to me.”

“
For
us,” Elm whispered. Colin must have heard but he didn’t take the bait.

“I’ll have a lawyer be in touch. We should get all this in writing.”

The air left Elm’s lungs. She sank into the couch, without the breath for a response.

Colin went to the refrigerator and removed the boxes of Thai food. Then he draped his jacket over his arm and walked out, closing the door forcefully behind him. A few seconds later, Elm heard the elevator ding its arrival and then the doors whooshed closed and she knew he was gone.

Regret was not a strong enough word to describe Elm’s feelings the next morning. She was sure Moira had heard them fighting. The little
girl ran all the way to school, just to be away from her. Elm called in a personal day at work, understanding that she was giving everyone free rein to gossip about her.

She went into Moira’s room to pack her a suitcase. How was it possible that she’d given away her daughter? She replayed the events of the previous evening. She had been expecting Colin to come home, that the sight of her pregnant with their child (with Ronan!) would tug at him in some irresistible way. She wasn’t sure when it was that she had started being so horribly, horribly wrong about everything. She used to have good judgment, or at least, judgment that was not any worse than anyone else’s. And now she was so mistaken all the time.

But really, what choice did she have? If Colin was ever going to forgive her, she would have to be as conciliatory as possible. Maybe she didn’t deserve to see Moira.

Wania had left Moira’s stuffed animals in a row; a dozen googly eyes stared at her like a jury. She opened Moira’s closet. They had kept a few of Ronan’s things, his favorite Yankees jacket, a suit he wore only once that Elm had never been able to give away, even when she finally got rid of his Simpsons T-shirt and his Lego collection. Maybe it reminded her of what he would have been if he’d lived, grown up to wear a suit to important occasions. Or maybe she was hoping against hope that his body would be found, that they could bury him. In any event, it hung there, limp, in Moira’s closet.

What had been her plan, she wondered, for re-creating Ronan? She knew she couldn’t literally replace her son, but she had been hoping that just seeing him would ease the cramp of missing him.

It was best not to fight Colin now; she didn’t have the strength. But when she thought about packing up her daughter’s life, it seemed so unfair. Poor kid, she’d have to move and lose a parent at the same time? Colin should stay in the apartment; Elm should move out. Maybe she wanted to punish herself, she admitted. But she also thought that a few generous gestures might soften Colin slightly.

She went back into her room to pack her own suitcase. The baby gave her a nudge. She felt worse now than she did in the first few weeks after she returned from Thailand. Then she had felt confused by grief. Days would slide by and then minutes dragged on for eternity. Now she had a clear view of the ways in which she was affecting the world. As much as she wanted to turn back time and redo the moments just before
the wave hit, now she wanted to go back before the implantation, before that stupid party that gave her the idea, to go back to simply missing Ronan instead of plotting to resurrect him. He was just a kid. How had he become her messiah?

What struck her most was the unreasonable quiet. She had grown up in Manhattan; the sirens and the thuds of people living on all sides of her, their muffled sneezes through the bathroom vent, the slam of their doors when they came home, all were part of what Elm considered normal. Yet now she was living in a brand-new high-rise corporate residence, double-paned windows that didn’t open and soundproofed walls and ceilings. She was so high up even the sunlight filtered through in an alien way, the strange glass reflecting its light into small particles that reassembled themselves to look like light, but were somehow different.

She could see her building from the window. Her own apartment was on the back side, so she couldn’t see into it, but she had the strange sensation of watching herself from above, living in an establishing shot for a movie. When she called Moira in the evenings, she pretended to her that she could see into her room.

Moira had taken the news that Mommy was going to live down the block with her usual nonchalance. It was unclear whether she understood that her father thought this was likely to be a permanent arrangement, but they had agreed, for everyone’s sake, to make it seem related to the birth of the baby. Moira made paper clothes for the child, and often brought home cards she’d drawn in school, her unadulterated excitement in sharp contrast to Elm’s trepidation.

The oil painting arrived at her new apartment. It was large, two feet by four feet, and Elm took a deep breath before she opened it. It was lacking in any artistry, but the painter, whoever it was, had captured something about Ronan’s eyes, the sparkle, from the school picture. Elm found it comforting, and instead of draping it back in the butcher paper, she leaned it against the wall, face out, where she stared at it for hours.

After work each day she went directly to her corporate apartment, resting until dinner. Twice a week she walked the couple of blocks to her home (she still considered it hers; it was still the place she lived, in her mind). Colin, now free during the day, made dinner, appallingly bad
renditions of recipes from Rachel Ray’s
30-Minute Meals
. Elm had little desire to eat anyway. She forked the food around her plate, attempting small talk.

And then she went back to her aerie and watched Lifetime television until she fell asleep. Often the television was still on in the morning, playing older and older dramas, so that she got out of bed to the hysteria of Pia Zadora in bad eighties hair escaping abusive men who looked like they were auditioning for heavy metal bands. Had Elm worn her hair like that? Probably. She could consult her pictures, except that they were at the other apartment. She had brought only two frames with her. One picture was from last Christmas, the three of them smiling on the couch. The other was the last photo of Ronan. She wished Colin had centered the picture better. Instead, Ronan’s head was a little to the right, and the prow of a longboat seemed to poke him in the back. This was often the last image she beheld before curling up on her side and closing her eyes. Oddly, she slept dreamlessly, peacefully.

It was not surprising that Greer wanted to speak with her. What was surprising was that he suggested they meet in her apartment. Apparently, he wanted to keep Elm’s situation quiet.

She had never seen him anything but placid and composed, but as she opened her door, his face was flushed. He took out a handkerchief and mopped his brow. He leaned forward to kiss her cheek, then thought better of it.

She invited him in, and when she stepped back from the door, he looked at her stomach, wearing an expression of disgust. His wife had had two kids, Elm thought; surely he understood that this is how they came into the world.

“It’s very …” He looked around the apartment.

“Beige,” Elm said. “It’s very beige. Apparently corporate wonks like beige apartments.”

Greer managed a forced smile. “Wow, is that—” He pointed to the oil painting of Ronan.

“Yes,” Elm said. She knew she was supposed to explain why there was an extremely ugly convention center art show portrait of her dead son, but she took a perverse pleasure in letting Greer puzzle out what he was missing.

“Sit down?” Elm asked. “I’m afraid there’s nothing in the house. Do you want some water?”

Greer shook his head. “Elm, do you know why I’m here to speak with you?”

“Greer, this isn’t ninth grade. Spit it out.”

“I’ve had a call from the FBI.”

The scrunched and minuscule pouch that was Elm’s stomach lurched. She’d been waiting for this.

Greer continued, “They’re concerned about several pieces that we, well, that your department put up for auction last fall.”

Elm nodded, pretending that what he was saying was news to her.

“And their connection to a certain Indira Schmitz.”

“Schmidt,” Elm corrected him. What had they said? she wanted to ask him. Get to the point, man. Was Elm going to jail?

“Since you’ve been … I asked Ian to look into it.”

Elm breathed a sigh of relief. Ian must have covered for her.

Wouldn’t he?

“You are aware,” Greer said. He was reciting from a script. Maybe he was wearing a wire. At the very least, he had been to see his lawyer. This did not bode well for Elm. “You are aware that she has been implicated in an art forgery ring.”

Elm nodded. “Good,” Greer said. “It’s good that you’re not denying it.”

“I read the news,” Elm said.

“Ian brought me the documentation of the authenticity investigations. It appears you did your due diligence.”

“Of course, Greer.”

Greer continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “But, Elm, I looked at the report. If this pastel turns out to be a misattribution, then the implications for Tinsley’s would be enormous.”

“Look, Greer, I don’t think it’s misattributed,” Elm said, sitting on the sofa opposite him. “And if it proves to be, I mean, I made a mistake. It happens.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Greer said. “Not in my house.”

Elm sucked her lips inside her teeth so she wouldn’t say anything.

“Elm,” Greer said. “It’s come to my attention that there have been some other … dealings on your part. I recommend, I mean, my lawyer recommends, you say nothing.”

Elm briefly thought about standing up and protesting this unfair
treatment. He was acting on rumors and half-truths, and how dare he, etc. But she simply didn’t have it in her to defend a principle she’d violated. She sat there, mute.