“That's another story,” Maggie said wisely. “You can forgive him, but decide not to stay with him. You have a right to decide who and what and how much hardship you want in your life. Forgiveness is an entirely other story, and I'm sure in time you will. It's probably too soon for you to make any major decisions. You need to sit with it for a while and see how you feel. You may decide to stay with him in the end, and stand by him, or maybe not. You don't have to make that decision right now.”
“He says I do,” Sarah said, looking grief-stricken and confused.
“That's not for him to say. It's up to you. He's asking an awful lot of you, after what he did. Have the authorities come to see him yet?”
“The FBI is with him right now. I don't know what will happen next.”
“You have to wait and see.”
“I'm not sure what I owe him, or what I owe my kids and myself. I don't want to go down the tubes with him, or be married to a man who's in prison for twenty or thirty years, or even five. I don't know if I could do it. I could end up hating him for this.”
“I hope not, Sarah, whatever you decide. You don't need to hate him, that would only poison you. He has a right to your compassion and your forgiveness, but not to ruin your life or your children's.”
“Do I owe this to him, as his wife?” Sarah's eyes were infinite pits of pain, confusion, and guilt, and Maggie felt deeply sorry for her, for them both in fact. They were in an awful mess, and whatever he'd done, she suspected that Seth was in no better shape than his wife, and she was right.
“You owe him your understanding, pity, and compassion, not your life, Sarah. You can't give him that, whatever you do. But the decision to stand by him or not is entirely yours, whatever he says. If it's better for you, and your children, you have a right to walk away. The only thing you owe him now is forgiveness. The rest is up to you. And forgiveness brings with it a state of amazing grace. That alone will bless you both in the end.” Maggie was trying to give her practical advice, colored by her own powerful beliefs, which were entirely based on mercy, forgiveness, and love. The very spirit of the risen Christ.
“I've never been in a situation like this,” Maggie admitted honestly. “I don't want to give you bad advice. I just want to tell you what I think. What you do is up to you. But it may be too soon for you to decide. If you love him, that's already a lot. But how that love manifests in the end, and how you express it, will be your choice. It may be more loving for you and your children in the end to let him go. He has to pay the price for his own mistakes, and it sounds like they were big ones. You don't. But to some degree, you will anyway. This won't be easy for you either, whatever you decide to do.”
“It already isn't. Seth says we'll probably lose the house. They could seize it. Or he may have to sell it to pay his lawyers.”
“Where would you go?” Maggie asked with a look of concern. It was obvious that Sarah felt lost, which was why she had come to see her. “Do you have family here?” Sarah shook her head.
“My parents moved to Bermuda. I can't stay with them, that's too far away. I don't want to take the kids away from Seth. And I don't want to say anything to my parents yet. I guess if we lose the house, I could get a little apartment, and I'd have to get a job. I haven't worked since we got married, because I wanted to stay home with the kids, and it's been great. But I don't think I'll have much choice. I can find a job if I have to. I have an MBA. That's how Seth and I met, at Stanford Business School.” Maggie smiled at her, and thought that her husband had certainly misused his advanced degree in business. But at least Sarah had the education to get a good job and support herself and her children if need be. That wasn't the point. The big question mark was their marriage, and Seth's future if he was prosecuted, which sounded like a sure thing. As did an eventual conviction, if what Sarah said was true, and it seemed that way.
“I think you need to give this some time, if you're willing to, and see how it shakes out. There's no question that Seth has made a shattering mistake here. Only you know if you can forgive him, and want to stay with him. Pray about it, Sarah,” she urged her. “The answers will come as things unfold. It will come clear to you, maybe sooner than you think.” Or sooner even than she wanted. Maggie reminded herself that often when she prayed for clarity in a situation, the answers were blunter and more obvious than she wanted, particularly if she didn't like them. But she didn't say that to Sarah.
“He says he'll need me at the trial,” Sarah said grimly. “I'll be there for him. I feel like I owe him that. But it's going to be so awful. He's going to look like a total criminal in the press,” which in fact he was, they both knew. “This is so humiliating.”
“Don't let pride make this decision for you, Sarah,” Maggie warned her. “Make it with love. If you do, it will bless everyone. That's really what you want here. The right answer, the right decision, the right future for you and your children, whether or not that includes Seth. He'll always have his children, he's their father, wherever he winds up in all this. The question is if he'll have you. And most important, if you want him.”
“I don't know. I don't know who ‘him’ is. I feel like I was in love with an illusion for the last six years. I have no idea who he really is. He's the last man on the planet I would have expected to commit fraud.”
“You never know,” Maggie said as they looked out at the bay. “People do strange things. Even people we think we know and love. I'm going to pray for you,” she reassured her. “And you pray too, if you can. Give it to God. Let Him try to help you figure it out.” Sarah nodded, and turned to her with a small smile.
“Thank you. I knew it would help if I talked to you. I don't know what I'm doing yet, but I feel better. I was freaking out when I came to see you.”
“Come and see me anytime, or call me. I'll be here for a while.” There was still a lot for her to do for all the people who had been displaced in the earthquake and would be living in the Presidio for many months. It was a fertile field of activity for her, and fit well with her mission as a nun. She brought love, peace, and comfort to all she touched. “Be merciful” were her final words of advice to Sarah. “Mercy is an important thing in life. That doesn't mean you have to stay with him, or give up your own life for him. But you do have to be merciful and kind to him and yourself, once you make your decision, whatever it is in the end. Love doesn't mean you have to stay with him, it only means you have to be compassionate. That's where the grace comes in. You'll know it when you're there.”
“Thank you,” Sarah said as she hugged her, as they stood outside the field hospital again. “I'll stay in touch.”
“I'll be praying for you,” Maggie reassured her, and waved with a loving smile as Sarah drove away. The time they had spent together had been just what Sarah needed.
She drove back down Marina Boulevard in Parmani's car, and south up the hill on Divisadero. She pulled up just as the two FBI agents left, and she was grateful not to have been there. She waited until they drove away, and then went in. Henry was summing things up with Seth. She waited until he had left too, and then walked into Seth's office.
“Where were you?” he asked, looking utterly exhausted.
“I needed to get some air. How was it?”
“Pretty bad,” he said solemnly. “They didn't pull any punches. They're asking for an indictment next week. This is going to be tough, Sarah. It would have been nice if you'd stuck around today.” His eyes were full of reproach. She had never seen him this needy. She remembered what Maggie had said, and tried to feel compassion for him. Whatever he had done to her indirectly, he was in a hell of a mess, and she felt sorry for him, more so than she had before she went to see Maggie that day.
“Did the FBI want to see me?” she asked, looking worried.
“No. You have nothing to do with this. I told them you knew nothing about it. You don't work for me. And they can't force you to testify against me anyway, you're my wife.” Sarah looked reassured by what he said. “I just w
anted you here for me.”
“I'm here, Seth.” For now at least. It was the best she could do.
“Thank you,” he said quietly, and then she left the room, and went upstairs to see her children. He didn't say anything more to her, and as soon as she walked out, he put his face in his hands and dissolved in tears.
Chapter 12
For the next ten days, Seth's life continued to unravel. His case was presented to the grand jury by the federal prosecutor, and they granted the indictment. Two days later federal agents came to arrest him. He was informed of his rights, taken to the federal courthouse, photographed, formally charged, and booked. He spent the night in jail, until bail was set by a judge the next morning.
The funds he had fraudulently deposited in the bank were returned to New York, by a court order, to cover Sully's investors. So Sully's investors had suffered no loss, but Seth's had been shown books that looked sixty million dollars fatter than they really were. And they had invested in his hedge fund accordingly, as a result of Seth's fraudulent representations to them. The nature and severity of Seth's crime caused the judge to set his bail at ten million dollars. He had to pay one million to the bail bondsman to be released on bail. That wiped out all the cash they had on hand. He was assessed as not being a flight risk, and he was eligible for bail because there had been no loss of life or physical violence involved. What he had done had been far subtler than that. They had no choice except to put their house up as bail. It was worth about fifteen million, and the night he got out of jail, he told Sarah they had to sell the house. The bail bondsman could keep ten million of it as collateral, and the other five he needed to pay his attorneys. Henry had already told him that their fee would probably be in the vicinity of three million dollars through trial. It was a complicated case. He told Sarah they had to sell the house in Tahoe too. They needed to sell as much as they could. The only good news was that they owned the house on Divisadero free and clear. There was a mortgage on Tahoe that was going to eat into their profit, but they could use the difference for his defense and related expenses.
“I'll sell my jewelry too,” she said, looking wooden. She didn't care about the jewelry, but was crushed to lose their home.
“We can rent an apartment.” He had already given up his plane. It wasn't fully paid for yet, and he had taken a loss. His hedge fund was closed. There would be no income coming in, but a lot of money going out to defend him. His sixty-million-dollar caper was liable to cost them everything they had. In addition to whatever prison sentence they gave him, if he was convicted, there would be staggering fines. And then lawsuits from his investors would wipe him out. They were becoming paupers overnight.
“I'll get my own apartment,” Sarah said quietly. She had made the decision the night before, when he was in jail. And Maggie had been right. She didn't know what else she was going to do, but it had become clear to Sarah that she didn't want to live with him right now. They might get back together later, but for now, she wanted to get an apartment for her and the children, and she was going to get a job.
“You're moving out?” Seth looked stunned. “How will that look to the FBI?” It was all he cared about right now.
“We're both moving out, as it so happens. And it'll look like you made a hell of a mistake, I'm shaken up, and we're taking a break.” All of which was true. She wasn't filing for divorce, she just wanted space. She couldn't stand being part of the process of the unraveling of their lives, because he had chosen to be a con instead of an honest man. She had been praying a lot since seeing Maggie, and she felt comfortable about what she was doing. Sad, but it felt right, just as Maggie had said it would, she knew. One step at a time.
Sarah called the real estate brokers the next day, and put the house on the market. She called the bail bondsman to tell him what they were doing, so he didn't think there was something sneaky going on. He had the deed to the house anyway. He explained to her that he had a right to approve the sale, hang on to his ten million dollars, and anything over and above that was theirs. He thanked her for the call, and didn't say it, but he felt sorry for her. He thought her husband was a jerk. Even when he'd met with him in jail, Seth was pompous and full of himself. The bail bondsman had seen others like him before. They were always run by their egos, and wound up screwing over their families and wives. He wished her good luck with the sale.
After that, she spent her days calling people she knew in the city and Silicon Valley, looking for a job. She wrote up a ré sumé, which gave the details of her MBA program at Stanford, and her work on Wall Street in an investment banking firm. She was willing to take anything—trader, analyst. She was willing to get a stockbroker's license, or work in a bank. She had the credentials and the brains, all she needed was the job. And meanwhile, out of both curiosity and real interest, potential buyers were crawling all over their house.
Seth got himself a penthouse in what was referred to as the Heartbreak Hotel on Broadway. It was a modern apartment building, full of small, expensive furnished apartments, heavily populated by men who had just broken up with their wives. Sarah got a small cozy flat in a Victorian on Clay Street. It had two bedrooms, one for her, and one for the children. It had parking space for one car, and a tiny garden. Rents had plummeted since the earthquake, and she got it at a good price, and it would be hers on the first of June.
She went to see Maggie in the Presidio to tell her what she was doing. Maggie was sorry for her, but impressed that she was moving forward and making cautious, wise decisions. Seth went out and bought a new Porsche to replace the Ferrari he'd lost, on some sort of deal with no money down, which infuriated his lawyer. He told him this was a time to be humble and not showy. He had hurt a lot of people with the deals he'd made, and the judge was not going to be favorably impressed by his flamboyance. Sarah bought a used Volvo station wagon to replace her crushed Mercedes. Her jewelry had gone to Los Angeles to sell. She still had said nothing to her parents, who wouldn't have been able to help her anyway, but would at least have been supportive. And so far, by some miracle, Seth's indictment hadn't appeared in the press, nor had Sully's, but she knew it wouldn't be long. And then the shit would hit the fan, even more than it already had.
Everett spent days after the earthquake editing pictures. He had turned in the most relevant ones to Scoop magazine, and they had printed a whole section on the San Francisco earthquake. And predictably, they had put one of Melanie in camouflage pants on the cover. They had printed only one of Maggie, and identified her as a nun volunteering in a field hospital in San Francisco after the quake.
He sold other photographs to USA Today, the AP, one to The New York Times, and several to Time and Newsweek. Scoop had allowed him to do that, as they had far more than they could use, and they didn't want to overdo it on the earthquake. They liked the celebrity aspect a lot better, and had run six pages on Melanie, and only three on the rest. Everett had written the article himself, with high praise for residents and the city. He had a copy of the magazine he wanted to send to Maggie. But more than that, he had dozens of absolutely spectacular photographs of her. She looked luminous in shots of her ministering to injured people. There was one of her holding a crying child, and comforting an old man with a gash on his head in the dim light … several of her laughing with her bright blue eyes when she'd just been talking to him … and one he had shot of her as they drove away on the bus when the look in her eyes was so sad and bereft, it almost made him cry. He had clipped up photographs of her all over his apartment. She watched him as he ate breakfast in the morning, sat at his desk at night, or lay on the couch and stared at her for hours. He wanted to make copies of them for her, and he finally did. He wasn't sure where to send them. He had called her several times on her cell phone, and she never answered. She had returned his call twice, and then had missed him. They had been playing phone tag, and both of them were busy, but as a result, he hadn't spoken to her since he left. He was missing her terribly, and he wanted her to see how beautiful
the photographs of her were, and show her some of the others.
He was home alone on a Saturday night, when he finally decided to go up to San Francisco and see her. He had no assignments for the next few days. And on Sunday morning, he got up at the crack of dawn, took a cab to LAX, and hopped a plane to San Francisco. He hadn't warned her, and hoped he'd find her at the Presidio, if nothing had changed in the weeks since he'd left.
The plane landed at ten A.M. in San Francisco. He hailed a cab at the curb, and gave the driver the address. He had the box of photographs under his arm to show to her. It was nearly eleven when they reached the Presidio and he noticed the helicopters still patrolling overhead. He stood staring up at the field hospital, hoping she was inside. He was well aware that what he'd just done was a little crazy. But he had to see her. He had missed her ever since he left.
The volunteer at the front desk told him that Maggie was off today. It was Sunday, and the woman who knew her well said she had probably gone to church. He thanked her and decided to check the building where the religious volunteers and assorted chaplains were living. There were two nuns and a priest standing on the front step when he asked for Maggie, and one of the nuns said she'd go inside and check. Everett's heart sank as he stood and waited, and it seemed to take forever. And then suddenly she was standing there, in a terrycloth bathrobe, with her bright blue eyes, and soaking-wet red hair. She said she'd been in the shower. She broke into a smile the minute she saw him, and he nearly cried he was so relieved to see her. For a minute, he'd been afraid he wouldn't find her, but there she was. He swept her up in a warm hug, and nearly dropped the box of photographs. He stepped back to look at her as he beamed.
“What are you doing here?” she asked him, as the other nuns and the priest walked away. Deep friendships had formed for all of them during the initial days after the earthquake, so they saw nothing unusual about the visit or the obvious delight with which they greeted each other. One of the nuns remembered him from when he'd been at the camp, before he went back to L.A., and Maggie said she'd catch up with them later. They'd already been to church, and were heading to the mess hall for lunch. It was beginning to feel like an eternal summer camp for adults. Everett had been impressed on his way in by some of the improvements he already saw in the city after just a couple of weeks. But the refugee camp in the Presidio was still going strong.
Amazing Grace Page 17