Brass Ring

by Diane Chamberlain

  “I’ve spent the last few days going out of my way to avoid the media,” she said, her voice flat. “And now I’m supposed to voluntarily sit in a room full of reporters?”

  Brian sat down on the edge of the bed next to her and squeezed her arm. “They won’t be there to see you,” he said. “They’ll be there for Claire.”

  She shook her head, her damp hair chilly on her shoulders. What was Claire up to? She remembered her sister’s allusion to old memories and the pain in her voice, and she felt an unexpected desire to protect her from harm. Claire didn’t know how ruthless the press could be.

  “You’ve accomplished what you wanted to on this trip,” Brian said. “You did most of what you needed to do. But there’s one final obstacle you need to take care of, and that’s you and Claire.” He squeezed her arm again. “We’re going to this press conference.”

  She reached out to lock her hand with his. She and Claire were no longer children, no longer filled with childhood fears and fantasies and rivalries. And there was one thing Vanessa now knew with absolute certainty: Her sister was not her enemy.

  “Yes,” she said. “We’re going.”

  53

  VIENNA

  JON SAT AT THE long table at the front of the foundation’s main conference room, watching as reporters filed in and took their seats. Next to him sat Vanessa Gray, pale and fragile and silent. She and her husband had arrived only minutes earlier, and they had merely nodded to him and Claire as they sat down. Jon saw Vanessa’s gaze dart around the room. He couldn’t blame her for her apprehension. He reached for her hand and squeezed it.

  “I’m glad you came,” he said. “Thank you.”

  Claire sat to his right, engrossed in conversation with Steve Ackerson, the foundation’s attorney, whom Jon had insisted she consult. Steve was not at all happy about this press conference and had demanded to be with Claire as she spoke. Only if he’d let her speak without interruption, Claire had said. She’d requested the same of Jon. She wanted to do this alone. Jon understood. He admired her for doing it at all.

  It was hardly Claire’s first press conference. At least ten times in the past, reporters had converged on this room at the foundation to hear about the development of a new program or some other topic of interest to the foundation. Still, Jon could tell she was nervous. She had stayed at the house with him the night before and had been unable to sleep. They’d made love, which made her alternately giddy and weepy and very, very tender toward him. It hadn’t eased her nerves, though, and now she kept unconsciously groping for his hand, holding it for only a second or two before pulling her own hand away. Her voice was breathless as she talked with Steve, and she kept checking her watch. On Jon’s other side, Vanessa rocked her foot frenetically beneath the table. He was sandwiched between two human bundles of anxiety.

  Perhaps twenty-five reporters were seated in the room, and there was a steady buzz of chatter, which quickly abated when Claire stood up behind the microphone-studded podium.

  “Thank you all for coming,” she began. Jon shifted his chair away from the table a bit so he could more easily see her face. Next to him, Vanessa did the same.

  “I am, as you all know, the sister of Dr. Vanessa Gray, who recently accused Senator Zed Patterson of having abused her when she was eight years old.” Whatever nervousness Claire had exhibited before starting to speak had disappeared. A sheet of paper rested on the podium in front of her, but she didn’t glance at it. “My sister and I have been estranged since the time of her abuse,” she continued. “We were separated by our parents, Vanessa living in Seattle with our father while I lived here in Virginia with our mother.” Claire spread her hands out on the sides of the podium. Her wedding ring glittered in the overhead light. “For the past several months, I’ve been trying to make sense of some long-forgotten memories from my childhood,” she said. “I recently visited Winchester Village in Pennsylvania, where the carousel built by my grandfather is housed, and I remembered very vividly that I, too, was molested by then deputy sheriff Walter Patterson on the carousel.”

  A surge of whispering swelled in the room but faded quickly as Claire spoke over it.

  “This occurred at least two times that I remember,” she said, “but I believe it probably happened more often than that. I realize that my sister’s allegations haven’t been taken seriously, and it’s with some apprehension that I go public with this information myself. But I feel that I must, not only to lend credibility to Vanessa’s statements, but also to alert others to the fact that Senator Patterson does indeed have a history of pedophilia. I doubt very much that Vanessa and I were his only victims, and I hope that by our coming forward, other victims will be given the courage to do so as well. Pedophilia is not an illness that goes away on its own, and I’m concerned about the possibility of other children being at risk in the presence of the senator.”

  She glanced down at Jon. He smiled at her, and she looked out at the reporters again.

  “I’ll take your questions now,” she said.

  A woman wearing thick glasses stood up in the third row. “Forgive me, Ms. Harte,” she said, “but your coming forward at this time seems a bit suspicious. Your sister makes some allegations against Senator Patterson and, suddenly, you claim to remember something similar happening to you. Can you offer us any proof at all that what you’re telling us actually took place?”

  “I have no proof other than my words and Vanessa’s,” Claire said. “There were two witnesses to one of the incidents of abuse. Unfortunately, both of those people, my mother and my grandfather, are dead.” Claire drew in a breath. “After visiting the carousel and recalling the abuse, I told my husband what I’d remembered. He then told me that shortly before my mother’s death, she revealed to him that she and my grandfather had walked into the barn one day to discover Mr. Patterson molesting me on the carousel. My mother described an incident to my husband, which I remembered only as my husband repeated it to me. She said that after she and my grandfather found us on the carousel, a fight broke out between the sheriff and my grandfather. During that fight, Mr. Patterson knocked my grandfather to the floor and I…” Claire’s voice failed her for the first time. She looked down at the podium, and Jon felt a film of sweat break out on his back as she raised her eyes to her audience once again. “I got one of my grandfather’s carving knives,” Claire said, “and I stabbed the sheriff with it.” Jon could see tears in Claire’s eyes. “I loved my grandfather very much,” she said. “I think I was trying to protect him, but he died of a heart attack during the fight. My mother never pressed charges against Sheriff Patterson, for reasons of her own. She was the type of person who distorted the truth in an attempt to protect her children from pain. She made sure I forgot what had happened, but the incident came back to me as my husband told me about it.”

  There were a few seconds of silence in the room. Looking at the faces of the reporters, Jon knew that for perhaps the first time they were beginning to doubt Patterson’s slick and convincing rebuttal of Vanessa’s allegations.

  A second reporter stood up, this one an obese middle-aged man. “How can you explain the fact that Senator Patterson has made victims’ rights his pet project?” The man wheezed as he spoke. “Not to mention all the work he’s done for women and children?”

  Claire leaned into the bank of microphones. “Only the senator can answer that question,” she said. “I can speculate, but I’d like to stick to what I know as fact during this conference, rather than conjecture.”

  An African American woman sitting in the middle of the room stood up. “You said you”—the woman looked down at her notes—”stabbed Senator Patterson with a carving knife. How serious was the wound and where was he cut?”

  “He was cut in the lower abdomen, and I remember a lot of blood,” Claire said. “I don’t know if the wound was very serious, however.”

  Jon stole a look to his left, at Vanessa. Her round blue eyes were on Claire. The fingers of her right hand were pres
sed to her mouth, while her left was tucked snugly into her husband’s hand on the table.

  The questions continued for a few more minutes. They were skeptical questions. Stunned questions. It was obvious that Claire had shaken up this room of reporters. Whether they believed her or not was unclear. Jon wasn’t certain it was important.

  Steve Ackerson suddenly stood up, leaning across Claire to speak into the microphone. “That’s all the questions Ms. Harte-Mathias will take today,” he said. “Thank you very much for coming.”

  Claire raised her hand to keep the reporters in their seats. It was obvious she had something more to say.

  “I don’t know if I’ve been fortunate or unfortunate to have blocked these memories from my mind all these years,” she said. “All I know is that my sister has done the suffering for both of us.” She glanced in Vanessa’s direction. “I feel as though it’s long past time for me to take on my share.”

  Steve set his hand on Claire’s shoulder, turning her, and quickly ushered her from the room, out into the hallway. Vanessa and Brian followed, with Jon behind them in his wheelchair. By the time Jon reached the hallway, Vanessa and Claire were embracing. He was anxious to touch Claire, to tell her how much he admired her for what she had done, but he could see that he would have to wait his turn. It was going to be a long time before anyone could pry these two sisters apart.

  54

  MCLEAN

  SHE HAD LEFT ONLY a few things at Randy’s town house. Some articles of clothing, a few books, and some CDs—Chopin, mostly, which Randy certainly didn’t want and in which she found she had little remaining interest. Randy was waiting downstairs while she packed in the guest room. He had the television on, and she could make out the sounds of the midday news. She knew what the top story was—she’d been listening to it all morning: Penny Patterson had taken a nearly fatal overdose of sleeping pills. She’d been found in her Pennsylvania home by a friend very late the night before. She had called the friend earlier in the evening, sounding despondent. She was crying, the friend reported, and was saying, over and over again, “Zed has a scar. Zed has a scar.” No one had any doubt that the scar to which she referred had been given to him long ago by a frightened and furious knife-wielding ten-year-old girl. Claire’s sense of vindication couldn’t erase the sympathy she felt for Penny Patterson.

  Back in February, Claire had borrowed one of Randy’s sweatshirts. As she walked into his bedroom to put it away, she could hear him in the kitchen downstairs making a racket with the pots and pans, Cary was due to arrive later that afternoon. He and Randy were going to make cookies, Randy had told her, to celebrate spring. She was glad Cary was coming. It would make things much easier on Randy to have his son with him today.

  She opened the middle drawer of his dresser where he kept his sweatshirts and spotted a folded sheet of paper tucked between the shirts and the side of the drawer. She pulled the paper from its niche. It was covered with tiny handwriting, in green ink, and the signature at the bottom of the page made her gasp. Your sister, Margot.

  She sat down slowly on the edge of the bed, and flattening the page on her lap, began to read.

  Dear Randy,

  You always hated this picture frame. When you gave me the photograph, you said it should have a nicer frame, and you’d comment on it every time you visited me. But you never brought a new frame. So I figure they will give you this picture, and the frame will bother you enough to change it, and when you open up the old frame, this letter will fall out. I hope you find it sooner instead of later.

  Well, I bet you are surprised to know that I actually heard the things you said when you visited me. You probably thought I wasn’t listening, but that is one thing I am good at, Randy. Listening. And I heard every word you ever said to me. And so did Charles. Charles is always with me, and he speaks to me often. I know you probably think that’s crazy, but I don’t care. Charles is here. I don’t see him, but I hear him. He still talks in his child’s voice. He’s always saying how good it is where he is now, how peaceful. There is music all the time. I know he wants me to come there, but he is not very pushy. I think the time is right, though, so here is this letter. I can’t leave it out for someone else to give you, because it’s important that only you get to see it. Only you and I know what really happened that night. Charles and I have forgiven you. Maybe I should have said that to you out loud sometime. Maybe that would have helped you. I almost did that one time you cried when you visited me. Remember? But somehow I could never get the words out. I only wish I’d lived long enough to see you forgive yourself, Randy. I don’t think you’ll ever be happy until you do.

  Charles’s death did the same thing to you that it did to me. It made us both scared of loving somebody, right? I’m in here, where I don’t have to worry about it much. But you’ve had chances and you’ve blown them. Those girlfriends you used to tell me about. The ones you broke up with when you thought you were getting too close to them. That was a long time ago—bet you’re surprised I remember!! And LuAnne. You think she left you cause of your heart, but I know what you’re like. You probably never let yourself really love her, did you? Never got really close enough to make her feel loved. You’re so afraid of taking a chance with somebody, Randy. I hope you don’t hold back that way with your little boy. Cary, right? You showed me a picture of him once, but I didn’t look at it, remember? I was afraid he might look like Charles.

  I have some advice for you, Randy. First of all, get out of your house. I know you’re hiding in there like you’ve always done when you get depressed. So LuAnne is gone. Look at it as a lesson. Get out and meet some people. Get out of your shell. You’re probably saying, “Look who’s talking.” Well, I’m in a pretty thick shell, that’s true, but it’s what I want. It’s not what you want, though. I know that about you. You’re a caring person or you wouldn’t still be hurting so much about Charles after all these years. You like people and you have lots to give them, but you’re just scared to do it because they might fall off a bridge or leave you. Right? And they might!! No guarantees. But it’ll be worth it. I’m not talking about finding a lover, necessarily. Just one person or even a bunch of people you can love and get close to. Get involved with them. Listen to them. Make a difference in someone’s life and it’ll make a difference in yours. Please, Randy. I can’t bear to think about you being miserable for the rest of your life.

  As for me, don’t you dare get depressed over what I’m going to do. I’ll be happier by the time you read this letter. Happier than I’ve ever been.

  I love you, you know. I’m sorry I never said it to you. I guess you are not the only one afraid to take that risk. See what we’ve missed out on?

  Well, tomorrow night I will fly from the bridge in Harpers Ferry. I’ve dreamt of doing that for years. It is supposed to snow like it did that night. Won’t that be beautiful? And Charles will be waiting for me. The music will be waiting.

  Your sister, Margot.

  Claire sat numbly on the edge of the bed, the letter flat on her knees. Even when she heard Randy begin to climb the stairs, she made no move to return the sheet of paper to its hiding place.

  Randy stood in the doorway. His eyes lit on her face first, then dropped to the letter before returning to her face again.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was putting away your sweatshirt and the letter was there, and when I saw it was from Margot, I had to—”

  He held up a hand to stop her. “I thought of telling you about it many times. I’m not sure why I didn’t.” He moved toward the bed and sat down next to her. “Well, Claire,” he asked with a sigh, “did I make a difference in your life?”

  “You did what she told you to do.” Claire bit her lip. “You took a risk and now I—”

  “And there were no guarantees,” he interrupted her. “I knew that going in. I told you, I have no regrets.”

  She pressed her hands together above the letter. “I hope your experience with me doesn’t send you back to your she
ll again.”

  He shook his head with a grin. “You were my dress rehearsal, Claire,” he said. “Now I’m ready for opening night.”

  Claire smiled, then looked down at the wrinkled paper. “When did you find this?” she asked.

  “Between the time you gave me the picture and the time I called to ask you to meet me for lunch. I felt ready then to hear what Margot had said to you on the bridge, but I also remembered you mentioning your sister. I knew you were upset about her and needed to talk, but it never would have occurred to me to encourage you until I read Margot’s letter.”

  Claire shook her head. How different the last few months would have been if Randy hadn’t discovered this letter. How different for both of them.

  She ran her fingertips over the fine green handwriting. “Is there any more news on Penny Patterson?” she asked.

  “It sounds like she’s going to be all right.”

  Claire felt the dark cloud lift from her shoulders. “That’s a relief.”

  “I doubt very much she’ll be standing by her man after this, though,” Randy said.

  “I certainly hope not.”

  “I’m glad you’re standing by yours, though.” Randy gave her shoulders a squeeze.

  “You are?” she asked, although she wasn’t surprised to hear him say that.

  Randy nodded. “You know, don’t you, that Jon is probably the least handicapped of the lot of us?”

  She nodded, smiling.

  A buzzer suddenly went off in the kitchen.