I started to speak and immediately stumbled, realizing I didn’t know where to begin. The waiter interrupted to ask if we wanted drinks, and I looked at Joe for his answer, somehow already knowing, because of what he’d told me about his father, that he wouldn’t order something for himself. Part of me was tempted to order a glass of wine, but a bigger part knew it would be a mistake. I wanted my head to stay clear, this night. I knew I’d want to remember.
When our iced teas came, I managed to tell him the only things that seemed important: that my mother had died before she could have the garden she’d always dreamed of, and that I wanted to be a nurse.
“Is your father still living?” Joe asked after a moment, but the swift rise of warmth to my skin must have caused him to add, almost immediately, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“It’s not rude. I just don’t talk about him much.”
“You don’t have to talk about him now.”
“But I want to.” And I did; suddenly, though I never would have expected it, I found myself eager to tell this man, whom I’d known only a few hours, everything that had happened to my family since that knock at our door on that stormy night. I began with telling him the name of the prison my father had died in a few months earlier, then my memories about the arrest itself. “It’s still hard for me to accept that my father was a…” I hesitated over the next word.
“Criminal?” Joe said it calmly, and after a moment I nodded, then took my own sip of iced tea and crunched down on a cube.
“I guess there’s no way around it,” I said. “That’s what he was. Even though he didn’t exactly go around breaking people’s legs.” This was something I had always told myself as a way to feel better when I thought of what my father had done.
“What he did was worse than breaking legs, don’t you think?” Though his message was blunt, Joe kept his voice gentle. “Or at least as bad. Taking advantage of people who trusted him.”
“I guess.” I coughed a little, nervous because I knew what I wanted to say next but wasn’t sure I should. “I think I’m afraid of what that might make you think about me.”
“It doesn’t make me think anything.” He shrugged. “Nothing your father did reflects on you.”
“It doesn’t?”
“Why should it? It wasn’t you who stole your friends’ money, was it?”
“No.” That didn’t seem strong enough, so I added, “I wouldn’t do that.”
“Well, then. When you start stealing people’s money, ask me again.” He held my gaze steady as he reached for the check, and I was the first to look away. On the way out of the restaurant, he said, “It seems we have a lot in common, Hanna Elkind.”
“How do you figure?”
“Weak fathers. Meek mothers.” He seemed to startle himself with the poetry of it, which made us both smile.
“Lethal combo,” I agreed. I said it in a joking tone, but in fact I meant what I said; I believed that my mother’s illness and her death had been sped up, if not caused by, the stress of my father’s trial.
When we walked out into the warm evening, Joe took my arm. By the time he kissed me at my car an hour or so later, I knew what it felt like to be on that precipice—the one jutting out over love.
Because I was ashamed of it, I’d never told either of my girls the story of Kip Gunther, and how indirectly it had led to my meeting their father. Now I considered mentioning it to Dawn, as a way of starting a discussion about work and where she might look for a job. But something stopped me. Sitting across from her at the kitchen table as I’d done so many nights before, I felt suddenly vulnerable, wanting to protect myself. I’d often felt that way with Iris when she was younger, because I sensed that she and her friends mocked their parents behind their backs, but I’d never experienced the same sensation with Dawn. I tried to set it aside, but it wouldn’t let me.
Though it went against my instincts and against what Joe believed about raising self-sufficient children, I thought about how I might help Dawn find something to do. Trying to shut Joe’s voice out of my head, I decided to ask Francine if she thought Bob Toussaint would go for the idea of hiring Dawn as a delivery person for our in-home meal service. We’d been down an employee since the end of summer, when one of the college kids who’d been working for us went back to school, and as much as I knew Joe would have hated for me to use an “in” to get one of our kids a job, I thought it might be a good match: the job didn’t require a college degree, only a clean driving record and a car.
I made a point of getting to the office early, when Francine usually had the place to herself. When I asked what she thought about the idea of Dawn coming to work for us, I could see that the question startled her. Then I remembered I hadn’t mentioned to her yet that Dawn was returning home. I tried not to notice that her enthusiasm, like everyone else’s, was tepid at best. Cautiously, she said she didn’t see why we couldn’t hire Dawn, “as long as you can vouch for her.” She tried to say this in a jokey way, and ostensibly she was only asking me to guarantee that Dawn would be reliable in the job.
But I knew that what she really wanted me to do was assure her that Dawn had had nothing to do with trying to kill me. Of course I couldn’t do this, since Francine hadn’t actually voiced the question. She said she’d speak to Bob about the possibility of hiring Dawn. Later in the day, I could see her trying to muster some happiness for my sake when she told me that Bob had approved it, and that I should let Dawn know she was hired.
Dawn showed little reaction when I got home and told her she could begin training the next day and delivering meals to our clients the day after that. “I thought you’d be happy about it,” I said. “With your maxed-out credit cards and all.” I didn’t mention the money she’d borrowed from me the night we went to Pepito’s.
She shrugged. “I guess.” She was focusing on a rerun of Three’s Company, and had made no effort that I could see to start any kind of dinner. “It’s just that it’s not very exciting,” she added, following me into the kitchen where I began rummaging in the cupboards. The TV show had just ended. “Delivering food to old poor people. You know?”
I bit my lip, knowing how Joe would have responded: You’re a college dropout. You’re lucky to get any job. Your mother and I didn’t start out with jobs we liked, either. Instead I said, “They’re not ‘old poor people.’ Some of them are old, but some are laid up on crutches or just too busy to shop. And none of them are poor—they all live in Everton, for God’s sake. And it’s not charity; they pay for this service.”
“Oh.” She seemed to brighten at this information, then thanked me and told me she appreciated my help.
She began delivering meals to a reduced roster of six clients; once she proved she could handle that, Francine would increase it to ten. When I got home after work on her first day, Dawn was like a different person—energetic and cheerful, bustling around the kitchen preparing a meatloaf that ended up not tasting as good as it looked, but I was glad she’d tried.
“I love this job, Mommy,” she said, setting the table. “Everybody’s so nice, and one lady even tipped me. Mrs. Wing. Do you know her?”
I did, of course; Dottie Wing had been on my own delivery rounds list from the day we started the service. Since Francine had suggested I compile Dawn’s route myself, Dottie was the first person I put on it, because she was friendly without demanding an undue amount of time, as some of the clients (lonely, shut in) did. I’d called her personally, to let her know my daughter was taking over, but that I’d stop in now and then to say hello.
I should have anticipated that she would offer Dawn a tip. And I should have warned Dawn that accepting tips wasn’t allowed, but I’d forgotten. I told her she’d have to give it back, and though she balked at first, I convinced her she had to if she wanted to keep the job.
On her third day, I got home early because our last two patients had canceled. I knew Dawn was home because the Corvette was in the driveway. But although the
TV was on as usual, she wasn’t in the family room. Following Abby, who seemed to want to lead me to another part of the house, I found Dawn in Joe’s office, digging through his desk drawer. She was so intent that she didn’t hear me approach, and when I said, “What are you doing?” from the doorway, she jumped, a sheaf of papers falling onto the desk.
“Jesus Christ! You scared the shit out of me,” she said, and once again I felt startled by the profanity coming from my timid daughter’s mouth.
I walked toward the desk, and she seemed to take a step back. “I was just looking for my birth certificate,” she said, looking flushed. “I thought I might need it sometime.”
“You could have just asked me,” I told her, trying to keep the tone out of my voice that would have communicated what I was thinking: What’s the matter with you? “Besides, you know we keep those papers with Tom Whitty. They’re not here.”
“Oh. Okay.” She stacked the papers she’d been rifling through, and stuck them back in the drawer. “Thanks, Mommy. I knew I could count on you.”
I managed to put the incident out of my mind, but two days later, when Tom Whitty called and said he needed to talk to me, I felt a flash of alarm. I was surprised he wanted to meet in person, because usually we conducted our business on the phone. We set a time during my lunch hour, at the coffee shop near the Stinson and Keyes office just outside the city. Though it had been three years and I’d never spent much time at Joe’s office myself, I still didn’t feel ready to go back to the place he had worked during most of our married life. I think I was afraid I would have been able to feel too much of his presence around me, at a time when it would have felt like a threat of some kind—in terms of the emotion it brought up—instead of a comfort.
Tom was sitting at a back table, and when I came over he rose to give me a kiss, turning over the piece of paper he’d been looking at. “Is everything okay?” I asked, trying not to betray my worry. I hadn’t paid too much attention to the details of the financial crisis of the past few years, because Tom had assured me that though our account had taken a hit like everyone else’s, Joe had built up a strong and smart portfolio over the years, and eventually it was sure to come back. But in those few moments before I sat down, I let my mind run to the what-if of having no money left to draw on, and conjured a childhood image of my mother sitting at the kitchen table on Humboldt Street with all our household bills open in front of her, putting her hand out to pick up one and then another, setting them down again with a dazed expression on her face. I had always chosen to believe it was because he couldn’t stand this expression that my father resorted to the scheme that got him arrested and destroyed our family’s name among the people who thought of him as a friend. “Blood from a stone,” my mother would say at such times. “That’s what they want from us.”
When my girls were little, I used to tell them about what my father had done in such a way that they might feel sorry for him and understand why he’d turned to what I called “bad behavior” as a means of winning people’s respect and admiration. I was careful to do this when Joe wasn’t around, because he wouldn’t have wanted me to sugarcoat the whole thing. But I didn’t like the idea that Iris and Dawn wouldn’t know anything about their dead grandfather other than the fact that he was a criminal who had died in a federal prison.
It never seemed to me that Dawn was listening all that intently when I talked about my father, or that she cared about the story at all. But one day Iris, who was sixteen at the time, said, “Bullshit,” when I told them that their grandfather had never intended to mishandle the investments people had trusted him with; it had all just snowballed and gotten away from him. “You make it sound like he was the victim,” Iris said, “when really what he did was pure evil.” That was when I knew she had talked to Joe about what her grandfather did. “You get that people lost their entire bank accounts, right? They trusted him, and he pretended to be their friend, when the whole time he was stealing their money.”
The way she put it made me wince, but I couldn’t tell her she was wrong. But Dawn turned on her sister and said, “Shut up! He just made a mistake!” I told her I wouldn’t call it a mistake, exactly. “Well, what, then?” she asked. When I hesitated, she said, “That’s okay. I get it.” But I’m not sure she ever did.
When I sat down at the table across from Tom Whitty, he told me, “Oh, no, you’re fine. I didn’t mean to scare you.” His skin glistened—I remember Joe told me he had some condition that made him sweat constantly, regardless of the temperature—and he reached to grab another napkin from the dispenser at the side of the table.
We made small talk over coffee for a few minutes, because Tom seemed hesitant to tell me why he’d called. Finally, he asked if I’d heard from Dawn recently. “Actually, she’s moved back home,” I told him, steeling myself for the reaction I knew this news would receive. He managed to hide it after a moment, but it was there, as I’d known it would be. “Why?” When he said he wasn’t sure where to start, I nodded at the piece of paper I’d seen him turn over on the table. “What’s that?”
He picked it up, and I could see he was grateful I’d just come straight out and asked. “I’m really sorry about this, Hanna,” he said, “but I think Dawn’s trying to pull a fast one.”
“What do you mean?” By the time he said it, I wasn’t necessarily surprised, given his reticence. But a slow curl of dread wound its way through my stomach as I waited to hear the details.
He turned the paper over. “You didn’t sign this, did you?” It was a computer printout of a loan agreement from a bank I’d never heard of. Dawn’s name was signed over the line that said “Loan Applicant,” and next to it, over “Co-signer,” was scribbled “Hanna Elkind Schutt”—or something that looked like it. The handwriting of the first signature looked identical to the second, and I recognized it immediately.
For a moment, I admit, it occurred to me to lie and say I had signed it; my instinct to protect Dawn was still that strong. But only for a moment. Then I told Tom, “No. That’s not even close to what my signature looks like.”
“I didn’t think so. I checked it against what I have on file. But I thought, well, maybe after the attack…” I could tell that part of him had been hoping my signature had changed as a result of my cognitive impairment. But the other part was, like Joe, a fraud examiner: he loved to sniff out when people were trying to get away with something, catch them in the act, and see them punished for it. Even if it was the daughter of an old family friend.
I looked at the paper more closely. Dawn had applied for a personal loan in the amount of thirty thousand dollars. Among other information, the form contained my Social Security and banking account numbers.
“Oh,” I said, now understanding what Dawn had been looking for in Joe’s desk drawer.
Tom said, “I’m sorry to have to tell you. But Dawn needs to know she could get in a lot of trouble for this.”
“Do you have to report it?”
He shook his head. “No. That’s up to you.”
I leaned back in my chair and let the waitress refill my coffee. Tom sneaked a look at his watch, so I thanked him and said I’d take care of it. He left me the copy of the loan application, and I folded it to tuck into my purse. Then I sat and looked out the window at nothing until the coffee turned cold.
If I’d had a cell phone, I would have called Dawn. Instead, knowing that Dottie Wing was the last person on her meal delivery route, I got in my car and drove to Dottie’s house, where I parked at the curb and waited. When I saw the Corvette pull into the driveway, I went to meet her at the trunk as she pulled out the tray containing Dottie’s food.
“Goddamn it!” She practically dropped it when she saw me.
I was about to apologize when I remembered why I’d come. “I just saw Tom Whitty,” I told her. When she shrugged to show that she didn’t understand why I was telling her this, I added, “He handles my finances now.”
Dawn just kept looking at me, with no
acknowledgment of what I’d said, for a good ten seconds. Though it hadn’t happened since she’d come home, I remembered this from her growing-up years—how could I have forgotten?—the way she’d stare at someone who’d addressed her, to the point that sometimes people had to say, “Did you hear me?” I pulled from my purse the paper Tom had given me. I handed it to her, and when she didn’t unfold it, I said, “Read it, Dawn,” in a tone I had rarely if ever used with her, even when she was a child.
“Can’t this wait until we get home?” But she saw from my expression that it couldn’t. With a weary sigh, as if I were aggrieving her, she opened the paper and kept her eyes on it far longer than she should have needed to understand what it was. Then she closed it and murmured, “Mommy, I just wanted to have some money of my own, to start my life over. Is that so wrong? Here I am without a college degree, so what kind of job can I get? A real job, I mean. Not this.” She gestured at the house’s front window, behind which I knew Dottie Wing waited for her lunch. “I was never convicted of anything. Never even indicted. But all I can do is make eight bucks an hour delivering food.” Right there, in Dottie’s driveway, she began to cry.
I told myself not to soften. Actually, it was Joe I tried to channel: She needs to take responsibility for her own life. “You didn’t even ask me if I’d sign,” I said. “You didn’t ask me for a loan. Why not?”
“I knew you wouldn’t do either,” she said. Of course, she was right.
“And how were you ever going to pay it back? Did you think about that?”
She shook her head, finally setting the tray down on the car.
“That’s the problem with you, Dawn. You do things without ever thinking ahead about the consequences.” Now she nodded, but I knew she was barely registering my words. This made me angry, so I drew on all the fuel that had been building up since she returned home.
Lacy Eye Page 23
