Blessing in Disguise (43 page)

At the corner of Eighth and Twenty-second, Grace grabbed her mother’s wrist. “Let’s go back to my place. Just you and me.” Her heart was pounding as she shot Jack a look that he immediately picked up on.

“I believe this is my exit cue.” He kissed her lightly on the mouth, and gave her mother a more dignified peck on the cheek before climbing into the cab he’d hailed. “Good night, ladies.”

“Really, dear, can’t it wait until tomorrow? After the flight I had, what I could
really
use is some sleep.” Mother really did look all done in, Grace thought.

But she found herself insisting, “It won’t take long,”

Back at the loft, Grace waited only until Cordelia was seated in the living room before pulling a sheaf of Xeroxed pages from her desk drawer—the letters, which she’d copied on the machine in her office after Nola left. She felt sick to her stomach, but she had a feeling that, if she didn’t do this now, she might never again get up the nerve.

“Mother, please, please, don’t hate me for this.” Grace pressed the copied letters into her mother’s small white hands as she sat erect on the sofa, still wearing her good wool coat that smelled faintly of camphor and lilac. “No matter what you might think, I’m not doing this to be spiteful. Really, I’m not.”

Cordelia looked down at the paper-clipped sheets in bewilderment, and that was when Grace realized her mother didn’t have her reading glasses on, and probably wouldn’t be able to make out the words.

“What is this?” she demanded imperiously. “Grace, there’s no need for you to be plying me with so-called evidence. I’m not senile ... not yet, at any rate.”

“But the way you pretend that nothing could ever taint our family’s reputation—you sometimes make me feel like
I’m
the one who’s losing my mind.”

“All right,” she snapped. “It happened. Is that what you want to hear? Your father
did
struggle with Ned Emory; maybe he was even indirectly responsible for the trigger going off. But why air our family linen? It’s nobody else’s business.”

“Mother ...” She stopped. The sick feeling inside her seemed to be expanding, a great agonizing wave rising up from the pit of her stomach. Weakly, she finished, “That’s not the whole story.”

“Of course it is. Your father would never have kept anything from me. And
you
certainly haven’t,” Mother replied in that same curt tone.

It was suddenly, painfully clear to Grace that her mother could not have even suspected about Daddy and Margaret.

She dropped to her knees before Cordelia, taking her soft, silky-cool hands, with their gleaming pink nails, in her own. “Mother, listen, whatever Daddy did or didn’t tell you ... I know he loved us. He ...”

“Grace, what
are
you trying to say?”

“Daddy and Margaret ...” She stopped. “Mother, Nola Emory is their child.” Grace spread her hand over the letters in Cordelia’s lap. “It’s all here. In Daddy’s own words. Every letter he wrote Margaret.”

Cordelia’s face turned as white as the sheaf of papers she was now shoving from her lap, as if it were something she’d spilled that might stain. She was trembling, and suddenly Grace was afraid for her.

But Cordelia’s voice, when she spoke, was strong, caustic. “You
hateful
girl!” Her eyes glittered like broken bits of glass.

“Mother, it’s true. Read them.” The paper-clipped pages had fallen against one of Cordelia’s neat navy pumps, forming a sort of lopsided tent. Grace retrieved them, placed them once again on her mother’s lap.

“Why are you doing this?” Mother’s whole face seemed to sag, her voice now a ragged whisper that Grace had to strain to hear.

“I’m sorry,” Grace told her “I know what a shock it is. I still haven’t gotten over it myself. But if we—”

“No. Impossible.” Cordelia’s mouth snapped shut like a vault closing on something of immeasurable value. “Your father ... I would have known.”

“How? You weren’t with him every moment, not even every day.” Tears were now running down Grace’s cheeks, and she did nothing to stop them. “Oh, Mother, I’m not saying it to hurt you, but the truth is, you and Daddy lived pretty separate lives.”

“And just what did you expect?” Mother cried, her voice rising, becoming shrill almost. “A family like those on television? Your father wasn’t ordinary. We weren’t ordinary.”

Nola’s words came back to her. “I know,” Grace said. “But maybe that was the whole point—maybe he needed a place where he
could
be just ordinary. With Margaret—”

“Don’t!” Mother held up both hands. “Don’t you dare!”

“Oh, Mother ...” Grace pressed her forehead into her mother’s knees, feeling their unyielding hardness soothe her in some odd way—like the cool crystal doorknobs she remembered from the old house in Blessing. When Grace finally lifted her face to meet Cordelia’s gaze, she saw how mightily her mother was struggling to keep from falling apart.

“I ... don’t ... have ... to ... listen ... to ... this.” Mother spoke in little bursts, through clenched teeth, her hands curling into fists.

Grace longed to put her arms around her mother, but something in the way Cordelia held herself, rigidly, without an ounce of give, warned her to stay put.

Grace watched helplessly as her mother tried to get up. But Cordelia’s arms and legs buckled, and she was thrown awkwardly back into the sofa cushions, clutching hold of the papers in her lap as if to steady herself. Mother, who had always been so poised and graceful, suddenly reminded Grace of those old black-and-white eight-millimeter home movies—her movements made clumsy, herky-jerky, by the camera. Except Mother wasn’t smiling as she had been in nearly every frame of those home movies. She was staring at Grace with a waxy expression, as if she were in shock.

In a clear, distinct voice Mother said, “I believe I’ll be going now. Please don’t trouble yourself any further.” She got up, seeming more in control, and started back toward the door, as erect as if held by a string stretching from the top of her scalp to the ceiling. The letters, which she was clutching, were now curled into a club, as if she intended to hit someone with it.

“Wait!” Grace charged after her, grabbing her arm with more force than she’d intended. Under her bulky coat, Mother’s tiny bones felt almost frail.

Why were people always saying that confrontation was a good thing? Grace felt awful, as if she’d just killed someone ... or been struck herself.

Mother turned, freezing her with a glance more disdainful than the one Grace had once seen her turn on the white mayor of Blessing, when he laughed in Mother’s face for demanding that he abolish the “Whites Only” fountain in Jefferson Square. Her voice, when she spoke, was equally cold.

“I forgot to tell you ... your daddy’s library ... a good portion of the funding we were expecting hasn’t come through, and, the way it looks now, we may not get it. Of course, once you’ve
expanded
on your sordid little tale, there won’t be any point in me even trying to raise the money.”

Grace felt as if a block of stone—one heavy enough to have been used in the building of such a library—had been dropped on her, crushing her. “Oh, Mother, I’m sorry. Maybe there’s something I can—”

“You
have done quite enough.” Mother yanked her arm free.

Her eyes were like the discreet diamonds flashing in her ears, hard and bright. Even as her arm was jerking upward as if she meant to strike Grace, she caught herself and lowered it stiffly to her side.

And then Grace was grabbing
her,
clutching her with both arms. Mother’s flowery scent engulfed Grace, making her think of the honeysuckle she used to pluck off the orchard fence and suck on, always hoping for more than the mere trace of sweetness each blossom grudgingly delivered.

After an eternity, Grace felt her mother’s head lower until her forehead was touching Grace’s shoulder, lightly, cautiously, like a weary traveler pausing to let down a burden for just a beat before moving on.

The stone crushing Grace seemed to lift a bit.
Say something!
a voice inside her screamed.

But then it was too late; Mother briskly unfastened herself from Grace’s embrace, marched over to the door, and let herself out. Closing—definitely not
slamming
—the door behind her.

All without a single backward glance. The tightly rolled letters still clutched in her fist.

Jack swam, his long arms slicing the surface of the McBurney YMCA’s pool. As he spat out a mouthful of overly chlorinated water, he tried not to think about last night’s dinner at Luma. With her mother, Grace had seemed so frustrated ... which was, he also knew, how she felt about him.
My fault,
he thought. He
wanted
to take that last step, but something was stopping him.

As he swung into his turn and started another length, Jack thought of his daughter. This past week or so, he’d gotten the sense that Hannah was lightening up on Grace. Wishful thinking? Or was it possible that one obstacle, at least, might soon be removed from his path?

He’d tried to talk to Hannah about it, but she’d been curiously evasive. Almost furtive. Maybe this was another of her ploys—get Grace to relax her guard, then sock it to her. He didn’t want to believe that of Hannah. But ...

Through the water streaming down his face, Jack caught a glimpse of his son in the lane beside his, thrashing at the water, not as if he were swimming, but as if he were
beating
the hell out of it. And Ben’s face, knotted with effort, nearly purple—whatever gene, or DNA strand, made a person supercompetitive, he had it in spades.

Nor was Ben above manipulating people to get what he wanted. Could Hannah, too, be capable of such Machiavellian deviousness? Did her grudge against Grace go a lot deeper than he’d imagined?

Jack swam to a stop and pushed his goggles up over his forehead. He looked over at Ben, clutching the pool’s tiled edge and struggling to catch his breath—the winner of their undeclared race, for what it was worth.

Did Hannah confide in Ben? Unlikely, but even if he knows something, it’s not his first priority.

Ben proved him right. “Hey, Dad—you seen the C-print for the MacArthur cover?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I have.” Jack had a sinking feeling. Of all the things going on at Cadogan, Ben
would
have to pick this one.

Ben grinned and scrubbed his face with one hand, water dripping between his fingers. “I’ve been hanging over Eastman’s shoulder for weeks. He was ready to feed me to the sharks. But in the end, he ran with my idea, and I think what we came up with is pretty sensational.”

“It has a certain style, no doubt about it.”

“Why do I sense that you’re not exactly thrilled?”

Jack noted the tight look on Ben’s face. Should he have postponed this until they were back in the office? Maybe ... but he got so swallowed up ... and it seemed like Ben was never at his desk when Jack buzzed him.

“Listen, Ben, it
is
good ... but too soft, too literary.” Jack shook his head. “I don’t think it’ll fly with the chains.”

“You don’t think, or you
know
it won’t?” Ben had to raise his voice to be heard above the swimmers thrashing on either side of them. “You talked to Walden, Dalton?”

“Del Cruzon happened to be in the office. He said the same thing. This is a gritty, hard-boiled mystery, Ben—we’ve got to go with something that packs a wallop.”

“Behind my back!” hissed Ben. “Jesus Christ, Dad, you could have talked to me about it
first.”

Jack winced. It was Roger Young all over again. Why with Ben did he always come out the bad guy? He felt a sudden urge to snap at Ben, tell him to grow up. It was time he stopped blaming Daddy for everything that went wrong. When
he
was thirty, he’d had a wife and kid, murderous car and mortgage payments, and no trust fund. No time to feel sorry for himself, either, or pick over old bones.

“Look, Ben, this is not something you should take personally,” he said evenly, without, he hoped, sounding apologetic. “I think you’ve done a dynamite job with everything about the book. But this cover just is not right for it. If you want, we can run it by some of the other major accounts. But I’m pretty sure we’ll get the same reaction.”

“Yeah, right.” He could hear the sarcasm in Ben’s voice. “Jack Gold always knows best. When do I ever get any credit? I smooth Roger Young’s feathers, and I still feel like I’m out in left field, not getting any support.” He stared at Jack, his lower lip almost quivering.

“Ben, I’m proud of you—you know that.”

As if realizing he was on the verge of pushing it too far, Ben said, “Look, I’m sorry, it’s been a rough morning. Maybe you’re right. I’ll talk to Eastman when we get back to the office. There’s still time to do some noodling.” He grabbed hold of the coping and hauled himself out of the pool, water sliding off him as if he were shrugging off a second skin. Then, standing at the edge, he reached down and extended his hand.

Jack, even as he was letting himself be half-hauled up to the tile deck, couldn’t help feeling there was something vaguely condescending in Ben’s helping him. Was he still pissed off? If he knew anything about Hannah, would he hold back purely out of spite? Yeah, he just might. Damn.

Jack waited until they’d showered, and were in the locker room getting dressed, before he asked, “You noticed anything different about Hannah lately?”

Watching his son button his shirt. Jack, for an instant, saw the freshly bathed baby he used to snap into his Dr. Dentons. He waited for Ben to speak, but his son seemed totally absorbed in knotting his tie.

“I can’t put my finger on it,” Jack went on. “It’s like she’s hiding something. Whatever it is, it’s even gotten her to cut Grace some slack. You have any idea what’s going on with her?”

Ben, yanking loose the tie, dissatisfied with the knot he’d made, turned to face Jack. “Look, Dad ... I don’t know if I’m the one you should be asking.”

Jack caught the guardedness in Ben’s voice. And something else—something dark. Jesus. Was something actually the matter with Hannah? Was this furtiveness of hers a sign of real trouble?