“You’d better go home, if you’re not going to a hospital,” Eletha says as we step off the elevator.
“Maybe I will,” I say. Ben is the first to find his keys, and he unlocks the exterior door.
Eletha pulls me by the arm, and we troop down the hall together. “First we’ll get some ice on that bump, like the nurse said,” she says. We push open the door to chambers, and standing in the middle of the room is Senator Susan Waterman.
I blink my eyes once, then again. She’s still there.
Bernice, the dog who’s been driving my station wagon, stands disloyally at her side.
“What are you doing here?” Sarah shouts, letting out a squeal of delight that reverberates in my brain. She rushes over to Susan and gives her a warm hug. “I thought you were in Bosnia!”
“I delayed the trip. We leave tonight.”
Ben tightens his tie. “Senator Waterman,” he says, extending a stiff hand, “please accept my condolences.”
Susan breaks her clinch with Sarah. “Thank you, and I’m pleased to finally meet you,” she says to Ben, pumping his hand so vigorously that her silver bangles jingle. Ben seems to forget that he’s a Republican for a minute as he takes in the aura of power that envelops the woman. It’s undeniable, despite the offhand way she wields it. “My husband told me so much about you, Jim.”
Ben withdraws his hand. “I’m Ben. Ben Safer, Senator.”
Her clear blue eyes focus on Artie. Tiny parentheses at the corners of her lips deepen into a smile. “Then you must be Jim,” she says, vaguely off balance.
“Artie Weiss, Senator. I’m sorry about Armen.” He can barely say it; he must still be hurting.
“Good God, I’m zero for two,” she says with a light laugh. “Wait, I know. You’re the basketball player.”
“Right. I think Jim was one of last year’s clerks,” Artie says uncomfortably.
“Of course.” She shakes his hand and then looks at Eletha. “You look wonderful, Eletha. How are you?” She extends a hand.
Eletha shakes it, obviously underwhelmed. She complained all morning about the funeral arrangements, or lack therof.
“Fine,” she says. “How was the funeral?”
A flicker of pain crosses Susan’s face; the first sign of grief I’ve seen. “Beautiful. I’m sorry you couldn’t be there, El,” she says, then her gaze focuses on me, direct and strong. “You must be Grace. My husband spoke about you all the time.”
I bet he did. Did you kill him for it? “I’m sorry—”
“Thank you.” She extends a hand and squeezes mine hard; I squeeze back just as hard. We have both proved our manhood. “And thank you for adopting Bernice. I was so surprised to see her here, I called the refuge and they told me. I couldn’t possibly keep her, with my schedule.”
I’m sure. “She’s fine with me.”
“Grace got caught in that mess down there,” Eletha says. “Hit on the head. I keep telling her she should go home.”
“By all means you should. I’ll lend you Michael, he’ll put you in a cab.” She gestures to the tall aide with the expensive glasses, standing by Eletha’s desk. I remember him from the memorial service.
“I feel fine, I really do.”
“Nonsense.” She marches me over to Eletha’s chair and plops me down in front of the monitor. “El, would you get us some ice for this bump?”
“I was about to.”
Bernice trots over to me and burrows under my hand, trying to make up for her inconstancy. Her brown eyes roll up at me like marbles. “Good dog,” I say, softening, and pat her head.
Eletha returns with some ice wrapped in a paper towel and hands it to Susan, who brandishes it like Nurse Ratchett. “Where’s the bump?” Susan says.
“In the back.”
“Remember when Malcolm fell off his bike, Eletha?” Susan asks. She probes my head with a large hand and presses the ice into my noggin—not exactly a mother’s touch. “He needed stitches, didn’t he?”
“Twelve of ’em.”
“Twelve stitches, can you imagine? Poor kid. He was four, right?”
“Five,” Eletha says.
“I think that’s enough ice,” I say.
“Be still,” she says. I want to hit her.
“Did you hear what happened out front?” Sarah asks. “Two shootings? You weren’t down there, were you?”
“Of course not,” Susan says, over my head. “I was up here, waiting for you.”
“I didn’t know you were coming in.”
“I should have called, but I was en route and the shuttle was a mess. I came to pick up a few boxes. Are those all the boxes, Eletha, in the office?”
“For the most part. I still haven’t packed all the case files yet.”
“I was looking for some of the older things, his personal things, but I couldn’t find them.”
“What things?” Eletha asks. “The personal stuff is still in the credenza.”
I think of the checkbook; I found it in the credenza. Is that what Susan is looking for?
“I looked, but all I found were school papers,” Susan says.
“I think I’m done with the ice, Susan.” I take her hand and move it away. “What are you looking for exactly? Maybe I saw it.” I watch her face.
She looks down, mildly surprised. “Oh, maybe you have. Memorabilia, mostly. Pictures from our honeymoon, things like that. Special, personal things. I guess you haven’t seen anything like that.”
Is this a code? “No, I haven’t seen anything special. Or personal.”
She leans over me with the wrapped cube. “More ice?” We have ways of making you talk.
“No, thanks.” I take the ice and toss it into the wastecan, then rise unsteadily, feeling her aide hovering at my shoulder. Is he the one who hit me? I wonder what his voice sounds like.
“Are you sure you’re well enough to stand, Grace?” she asks.
Boy, she’s good. I can’t tell if what’s beneath her smooth exterior is evil or just a smooth interior. “Sure. Thanks.”
“Well, I’d better get ready. I’m holding a press conference before we go.”
“Press conference?” Sarah says.
“Since I’m in town, considering what happened. Then we go. In two hours, isn’t that right, Michael?”
The aide checks his Rolex and nods, apparently mute, at least in my presence. I need to hear his voice. I say, “You look so familar, Michael. Did you go to Penn?”
He shakes his head but doesn’t say a thing. A man of few words.
“Where did you go to college?”
“Brown,” he says quickly. Too quickly for me to hear his voice.
“Where are you from? Maybe that’s where I know you.”
“Maine.”
“Oh? Where in Maine? My ex used to like Blue Hill in the summers.”
“Bath.”
It’s still not enough. “Oh. Well, what’s your last name? You looks so much like someone—”
“Robb.”
Eletha shoots me a quizzical look and I give up; I’m out of questions and Michael’s out of syllables. “I guess it was somebody else.”
“Guess so,” Susan says, with a faint smile.
18
Bernice rests her chin on the top of the plastic gate like Kilroy over the fence. My mother shifts the ice pack on my head. “How’s that?” she says.
“Ma, will you stop? I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” she says, practically hissing. Her breath is a mixture of denture cream and stale cigarettes. She hasn’t mentioned our skirmish last night; we’re both pretending it didn’t happen. “You shouldn’t have been there.”
“I had to eat, Ma. If I didn’t eat you’d be yelling, ‘Why didn’t you eat?’” Of course, I didn’t tell her about the warning. It’s been worrying me since it happened, but I still can’t remember any more than I already have. From the local news, it looked like the shooting had to do with Hightower, so the person who warned me wasn’t t
he shooter. I hope.
“Here’s the lady,” Maddie says. Her eyes are fixed on the portable TV on the pine hutch. The national news comes on, and the first story begins with a miniature head shot of Susan, floating to the right of a graying Tom Brokaw. “She looks like she’s in the movies, Mom. She’s pretty.”
“I heard she’s ugly in person,” my mother says.
“She’s not.” Especially for a killer. But by now she’s in the air, heading out of my jurisdiction with monosyllabic Michael.
“Look, Mom,” Maddie says. “She’s gonna talk again.” She points to the television, and I focus on the screen as the news runs part of Susan’s speech.
“What happened in Philadelphia today, only a block from Independence Hall, makes a mockery of the Constitution. The framers envisioned that the First Amendment would create open, free, and robust debate. They did not anticipate that words would be replaced by gunfire and thoughts drowned in human blood.”
“I don’t like that part,” Maddie says solemnly.
“Me neither,” I say, absorbed by Susan’s tiny image. Her star is on the rise, her career jump-started by her husband’s death. The papers keep talking about her strength under fire; presidential timber, says the New York Times.
“I am happy to announce that the condition of the two shooting victims is now stable. However, we should use this near-tragedy to consider how we, as citizens of a free and democratic country, can exchange ideas through peaceful means, without resort to violence.”
“What she’s saying, Mom?”
“Nothing.”
My mother laughs. “So what else is new? She’s a politician.”
The ice pack shifts on my head, and I seize the moment to grab it away. “I’m fine now, thanks. Please go sit down.”
“I’m trying to help you.”
“I know. I said thank you.” I drop the melting ice pack next to the spaghetti bowl.
“Shhh!” Maddie says, staring at Susan.
“Was that a Chanel suit she had on?” my mother says, as she takes her place at the dinner table.
The broadcast cuts to scenes outside the courthouse: film of Mrs. Gilpin crying in the arms of a friend and her husband looking on with relief and happiness. He says to a woman reporter, “Now we can see justice done. Now we can close the book.”
In the background is Mrs. Stevens, but Gilpin doesn’t seem to make the connection that she’s about to endure the same pain he had. The camera cuts to her, standing next to the black councilman. “How do you feel, Mrs. Stevens?” comes a shotgunned question, a reporter’s drive-by.
“How do you think she feels, you jerk?” I say to the TV.
“I don’t understand, Mom,” Maddie says, but I hold up a finger.
On the TV, Mrs. Stevens swallows visibly. “I think my boy done wrong, but I don’t think he deserves to die. He’s still young, and the young—”
“Justice was not done here!” the councilman interrupts. “Thomas did not have a fair trial! We will appeal to the Supreme Court without delay, because time is running out. Meanwhile, two African Americans were shot here today, showing support for their young brother….”
The camera focuses on Mrs. Stevens’s numb expression, then a commercial for Rice-A-Roni comes on.
“So Senator Waterman makes the national news,” my mother says, arching an eyebrow plucked into a gray pencil line.
“She calls these things press conferences, but she never takes any questions.” I get up stiffly and turn off the TV.
“Aw, can we leave it on?” Maddie asks.
“No, honey, not during dinner.”
“But we just watched during dinner.”
“That was special.” I sit down.
“I don’t see what the big deal is,” my mother says, half to herself.
Of course she doesn’t. When I was a kid, we ate dinner on spindly trays in front of a console television. At least Walter Cronkite didn’t hit us. “We’ve already discussed this, Mom.”
Maddie resettles sullenly on top of the Donnelley Directory. “Grandma lets me watch TV during snack.”
“I think it was a Chanel suit,” my mother says quickly, chopping her spaghetti into bite-size pieces. She refuses to twirl it: too Italian. “Did you see?”
“See what?”
“The buttons. That’s how you know it’s Chanel.”
“I didn’t see.”
“How’s your head?”
“Full of important thoughts.”
She frowns. “I still say you should report what happened. You were attacked.”
“It’s not worth it.”
Maddie shifts on the phone book. “Are they gonna catch the guy that did it, Mom?”
“I don’t think so, babe.”
“Why not?”
“They don’t know who did it.”
“Serves them right.” My mother snorts. “They’re the ones with all the guns—”
“Wait a minute. That’s enough,” I say, and she quiets; we have a specific understanding. I wouldn’t let her baby-sit for Maddie unless she agreed to suspend her two favorite activities: racism and smoking.
“What, Mom?” Maddie asks, confused. “What happened to the guy?”
“They think he ran away, honey.”
“Where did he run to?”
“Somewhere in the city. Not near here.”
Maddie nods knowingly and digs into her salad. “It’s dangerous out there.”
“What?” I laugh. “Where did you get that?”
“Don’t you know?” she says, with a mouthful of iceberg lettuce.
“Finish chewing and then talk, okay?”
She chews the lettuce like a little hamster.
“Don’t let her do that,” my mother says, but I wave her off.
“How’s that tooth, monster girl? Ready for the Tooth Fairy?”
Maddie swallows her food. “Almost ready. There’s only one of those thread things. Wanna see?”
“No. Please.”
Her face grows serious. “There are bad people, Mom, didn’t you know that?”
“Really?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What are you watching in the afternoons, Dragnet reruns?”
“Care Bears!” Maddie says, and grins at my mother. My mother winks back, and I decide to let them have their secrets.
“All right, so tell me how school was.”
“Okay.” She shrugs, shoulders knobby as bedposts in her white blouse.
“Did you have art?”
“Yeah.”
“Yes. Did you make anything?”
“Yes.”
“What did you make?”
“A picture.”
“What is this, a deposition? What was it a picture of?”
She perks up slightly. “Trees. You stick little sponges in the paint and then on the paper. It makes fake leaves for the trees. It’s scenery. It’s for our play.”
“You’re going to be in a play?”
Maddie nods and sips her milk, leaving a tomato-sauce stain on the rim of the glass and a milk mustache on her upper lip. Then she grabs her napkin in a professional way and wipes her mouth.
“What’s the play about?”
“Spring.”
“That sounds nice. Is it a musical?”
She rolls her eyes. “No, Mom. That’s in the olden days. We don’t do anything as dumb as that.”
“What a relief. Jeez.”
Maddie squints at me to see if I’m kidding. I squint back, and we squint at each other like moles for a minute.
“Maddie told me some good news today, Grace,” my mother says. She turns to Maddie. “Tell your mother how you made a new friend.”
“You made a friend?” It’s too much to hope for.
Maddie beams. “At recess.”
“Terrific!” I feel my heart leap up. “I propose a toast. To Maddie and her new friend.” I hoist my glass in the air, and so does my mother. The heavy tumblers clink loudly.
&nbs
p; “She won’t tell me any more about it,” my mother says. “She says she’s only allowed to tell you.”
“Oh, a secret! So you played with this friend at recess? What did you play?”
“Digging.”
“Like with Madeline?” I think of the day I watched her near the edge of the playground.
“Yep. He likes Madeline.”
“Oh, he’s a boy, huh? Is he cute?”
She wrinkles her nose. “Kind of. He’s big.”
“How big? Like a second grader?”
“No, bigger than that. Almost as big as Daddy.”
My mother laughs. “That means fifth grade.”
“What’s his name?”
“It’s a secret. He’s my secret friend.”
I wonder if he’s imaginary. “But he’s real, right? Not like Madeline. A real boy.”
She looks confused. “He’s a man, Mommy, not a boy. He helped me and Madeline dig a hole. He’s strong.”
“What? A man?”
My mother puts down her fork in surprise. “Not a stranger!”
“Maddie knows not to talk to strangers.” I turn to Maddie. “Right, honey? He’s not a stranger, is he?”
Her face flushes red. “He knows you and that’s not a stranger.”
“Who is he?”
“He said it’s a secret. I told you. He knows you and your work. He knows your judge and the lady on the TV. That’s not a stranger.”
“What did he look like, Maddie?” my mother says, her voice thin with anxiety. “Tell Grandma.”
Maddie looks from my mother to me, becoming uncertain. “I didn’t do anything bad, Mom. He said he was my friend, and you said make a friend.”
“Of course you didn’t do anything bad,” I say as calmly as I can. “Which recess did he play with you, Mads? Recess in the morning or recess after lunch?”
“He knows things. He said it’s good to be careful, like you say. He said, Tell Mommy too.”
I feel my gut tense up. “Tell me to be careful?”
“Maddie, what are you talking about?” my mother says. “How could you—”
“Ma!” I snap at her. “Let me talk to her.”
My sudden anger makes Maddie’s lower lip buckle. “Mom, I didn’t do anything wrong.” Her eyes well up with tears.
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