Adam sighed. ‘I hope Lisa appreciates this.’
‘She’s my only child,’ said Hannah matter-of-factly. ‘What wouldn’t I do for her?’
Hannah’s mother, Pamela, wasn’t overly fond of children but she expected to see Sydney occasionally. And Hannah told herself that Sydney’s presence would ensure her mother’s impatience, and thus, a short visit.
Hannah explained to Sydney that they were going to see Gram Pam as she dressed her in a pull-up diaper and a sundress. There was a walled terrace outside of her mother’s garden apartment in the assisted living facility where she could play in the sun. Hannah brought along a little basket of toys for her to play with. They set out after breakfast, and made the twenty-minute drive to the Verandah, which was the name of the shady, beautifully kept complex.
The staff, in their cheerful flowered scrubs, all cooed over Sydney as Hannah carried the toddler past the gracious, light-filled common rooms to her mother’s unit. At seventy, with her deteriorating muscular condition, Pamela could no longer live on her own, and she wouldn’t consider living with Hannah and Adam. Pamela had had four husbands, the third of whom was Hannah’s father. That marriage, like her first two, ended in divorce. Pamela had left each of her marriages considerably more prosperous than she had been going in. From her fourth husband, whom she outlived, Pamela inherited a sizable estate, which, in addition to her investment portfolio, afforded her a generous income in her old age.
Hannah was glad that her mother was financially secure although she had never felt comfortable about her mother’s turbulent love life. She often thought that her own, early marriage was hastened by her desire to escape from the chaos in Pamela’s shadow. Pamela was alone now but Hannah noticed that she often spoke about one of the widowers on the premises who belonged to her bridge group. Hannah recognized the signs. Husband number five was in the wings.
Still carrying Sydney, Hannah knocked on the door to Pamela’s apartment and opened it. ‘Mother. We’re here.’
Pamela, whose pale blonde hair was stiffly coiffed, was dressed in a perfectly crisp mint-green linen pantsuit. She paid a laundress to keep her clothes looking perfect. Although she had always loved high heels, she was now forced to wear sensible white sandals on her pedicured feet.
Pamela rolled up to them in her smartchair, and accepted a kiss on her still-soft cheek from Hannah. Hannah steeled herself against her mother’s customary scent of light floral perfume and medicinal breath. Sydney squirmed away from her great-grandmother’s kiss and ran to the French doors which led out to the patio. The last time they visited Sydney had witnessed a noisy standoff between a bluebird and a squirrel. No doubt she was hoping for a repeat performance. Hannah walked over and opened the door for her, setting down the basket of toys on the pavers.
‘Stay out of the flowerpots,’ Pamela commanded.
Sydney made herself at home on the terrace while Hannah placed a box of pralines on the counter. ‘I brought your favorites,’ she said.
‘I can’t eat those anymore,’ Pamela said dismissively.
Hannah sat down in a chair near the open door so she could keep an eye on Sydney. ‘You can offer them to the bridge group.’
‘Oh, they won’t eat them. Everybody has dietary restrictions. Except for Christina Shelton. Her husband was Jock Shelton, the senator. Did I tell you that?’
‘Yes, you mentioned it,’ said Hannah. She knew that her mother was most pleased to be living in the same complex as the widow of a senator. Even more pleased that she belonged to the same group of ladies who regularly played bridge together. ‘Well, give them to Christina, then.’
‘Oh, she’s off in the rehab. Since she broke her ankle. I don’t know what’s taking so long.’
Hannah didn’t know, and didn’t care. ‘So, how are you, Mother?’
‘Well, to be honest with you, a little beleaguered lately. Everywhere I go, the TV is blaring, and I have to answer the same question. “Isn’t that your granddaughter accused of killing that man?”’ She shook her head. ‘That Troy Petty was a nice enough young man but he was entirely unsuitable. As I told her when she first started seeing him, if you dive into the trough, there’s no point in complaining about the muck. Of course, you’re the ones who gave your approval to this unsavory situation. How could you have even allowed her to get tangled up with a low-class fellow like that?’
Despite her many marriages, Pamela still saw herself as the arbiter of correct social behavior.
Hannah sighed. ‘She’s an adult, Mother. She lives her own life. She makes her own choices.’
‘Oh for heaven’s sakes, Hannah. She’s the definition of a child. She still lives under your roof, like a schoolgirl. Why shouldn’t you have a say in what she does and whom she sees?’
Hannah counted to ten. ‘She needed our help to go to medical school, OK? Between her studies and the baby, she wasn’t capable of handling it all herself. Of course we agreed to help her.’
‘Well, you didn’t do her any favors. And in my opinion, you should have let her stand on her own two feet a long time ago, when she went and got pregnant. That would have taught her a lesson.’
‘I thought you might give her the benefit of the doubt, Mother.’
‘Oh, don’t misunderstand me. Lisa is a brilliant girl. She’ll land on her feet when this trial is over. You’ll see.’
Hannah took a deep breath. ‘Well, yes, but until she does she’s going to need a bit more help. We are trying to work it out but this attorney is very expensive.’
Pamela tilted her head back. ‘Ah, so now we come to the heart of the matter. I was wondering to what I owed the pleasure of this visit.’
‘Mother, that’s not fair,’ said Hannah. ‘You act as if I only come when I want something. That is just not true.’
‘Splitting hairs,’ Pamela declared.
Hannah knew better than to argue. She had often withered under her mother’s contemptuous gaze. In fact, she wished she could just get up and walk out right now, but the memory of Adam’s worried eyes as he went over their finances cemented her to her seat.
‘How much this time?’ Pamela demanded wearily, as if she had been constantly besieged by Hannah in search of money. There was no use in reminding her that they had only asked her twice before for any money in the course of their marriage, and both times, they had paid her back.
Hannah did not want to discuss it. She got up, pulled the bill for Marjorie Fox’s retainer from her purse and put it on her mother’s white French-style writing desk. Pamela set her chair in motion and whirred over to the desk.
‘You don’t have to give it to me now,’ said Hannah.
‘Let’s get it over with,’ said Pamela grimly.
‘We’ll pay you back as soon as we possibly can.’
Pamela sniffed, and proceeded to write the check. She waved it at Hannah, who was forced to reach for it and lift it from her fingers.
Hannah looked at the tidy sum which her mother proffered. ‘Thank you, Mother,’ she said. She folded up the check and slipped it into her wallet.
Just then, there was a wail from the patio, and Hannah looked out. Sydney had toddled after a squirrel on her pudgy legs and tumbled down, scraping her knees. Hannah ran out and scooped her up, holding her close.
‘Don’t cry. Oh, I’m so sorry. It’s all right. Mom-mom will fix it.’ She carried the child into the doors and through the apartment toward her mother’s pristine bathroom.
‘What’s the matter?’ Pamela asked, whirring up to the wide bathroom entrance.
‘She fell and skinned her knee,’ said Hannah. ‘Do you have Band-Aids?’
‘On the shelf beside the sink.’
Hannah propped the toddler up on the edge of the sink, and began to dab at Sydney’s bleeding knee with a wet, snow-white washcloth.
‘You’ll ruin that washrag,’ Pamela predicted.
‘I’ll bring you some new ones,’ Hannah said evenly.
‘You’re babying her too much,’ Pamela observed.
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For a moment Hannah closed her eyes, and counted to ten. Then she gently applied the Band-Aid to Sydney’s skinned knee. ‘That’s what you do with babies, Mother. You baby them.’
SIX
On Thursdays, Hannah always worked late. Hannah didn’t mind it on those evenings when Adam was away on business, as he was tonight. Someone had to be in the office for the working mothers who couldn’t make it during business hours.
Dr Fleischer, the psychologist who did assessments on the families whose cases Hannah handled, leaned into her office. ‘Hey, Hannah? How are you holding up?’
Hannah sighed. There was no use in pretending that she didn’t know what the psychologist was referring to. ‘Just putting one foot in front of the other,’ she said. ‘The trial starts in two weeks.’
Jackie Fleischer, a thin, attractive woman in her late fifties, was new to the office. Lately arrived in Nashville after years in New Jersey, she was somewhat of an exotic creature to the other staff members. She often dressed in mandarin jackets and trousers with an Asian flair, and Hannah looked forward to getting to know her better. Maybe they would even be friends, given the opportunity.
‘And your daughter? How’s she doing?’
‘It’s pretty difficult for her,’ Hannah admitted. ‘She hears the snide remarks. The whispers. She ignores them, and goes about her business. Medical school takes all your concentration. She’s in her second year,’ she pointed out with a defensive hint of pride.
Dr Fleischer shuddered. ‘Oh, I know it. Even though it was a hundred years ago, I remember the pressure when I was doing my clinical work for my doctorate.’
‘She doesn’t want to be derailed by this trial. Especially since she isn’t guilty.’
‘Of course not,’ said Dr Fleischer. ‘How’s her little girl?’
Hannah hesitated, glancing at the photo of her granddaughter on her desk. ‘She’s doing all right. It’s tough. She doesn’t know what’s going on but she’s aware of the tension.’
‘She a lot like her mother?’ Dr Fleischer asked off-handedly.
Hannah was about to say ‘yes’ when she stopped herself. Was Sydney like her mother? Hannah knew that she felt differently around Sydney than she had around Lisa at the same age. Sydney was a calm, quiet child, cherubic in a way that Lisa never was. Sydney seemed to be unfurling like a flower bud, where Lisa had been fiery, easily frustrated, forever in motion. At least Hannah had been young in those days, and could keep up with her daughter. If her granddaughter had been like Lisa, Hannah did not know if she could have managed. ‘My granddaughter is a lot more … serene than her mother was at that age.’
‘Funny, isn’t it,’ said Dr Fleischer, ‘how kids can be so different than their parents.’
‘I guess you would know,’ Hannah observed.
‘Keeps me in business,’ said Dr Fleischer wryly.
The phone on Hannah’s desk rang and she picked it up, as Jackie waggled her fingers in a goodbye wave.
‘Your client is here,’ drawled the receptionist.
Through the phone, Hannah could hear a woman’s shrill commands from the reception area, and the noisy, obstinate retorts of a little boy. ‘Send her in,’ said Hannah.
Sometimes, with all the upset in her own life, it was hard for Hannah to concentrate on the problems of the families – mostly women and children – on her schedule but, as often happened, she found herself pulled, once she got to work, into the shattered lives which presented themselves to her. This evening, she found herself trying to explain how the school was going to handle an attention deficit-disorder diagnosis to a young woman who looked on hopelessly as her son jiggled and jumped around, letting out little shrieks, compelled to touch everything in Hannah’s office. The young woman had dark circles under her eyes, and was visibly missing several teeth. Meth addict, Hannah thought, although she tried to avoid jumping to conclusions about people. But after twenty years of working for family services, there were patterns that could not be denied. Even when she jumped to conclusions, she tried not to judge her clients too harshly. Life was tough for a single mother, especially when her child had special needs.
‘Marcus,’ cried the scrawny mother, really only a girl, ‘if you don’t sit down this minute I’m gonna grab you and wail on you.’
Hannah frowned. ‘Wailing on him is not really the answer, Shelby Rose. He can’t really control it.’
The girl looked at Hannah with wide, frightened eyes. ‘Well, I can’t stand it much more. He never shuts up.’
The phone buzzed, and she excused herself and picked it up. ‘Hannah Wickes,’ she said.
‘Miz Wickes,’ whispered Deverise, the receptionist. ‘I know you have a client with you but this caller says they need to speak with you right away.’
‘Who is it?’ Hannah asked.
‘A Ms Granger for you.’
‘OK,’ said Hannah, her heart thudding at the realization that it was Sydney’s daycare provider. ‘Thanks.’ She turned calmly to Shelby Rose. ‘I’m going to have to take this,’ she said.
Shelby Rose looked at Hannah helplessly. ‘Is that it?’
‘You have to contact the school about handling Marcus’s medication. And come back in two weeks and let me know how he’s doing. You may see a great improvement.’
Hannah could tell from the look on the girl’s face that she didn’t want to leave the safety of the office. Out in the world, Marcus was a never-ending juggernaut of nervous energy, and the potential for disaster was everywhere. Hannah pointed to the phone. ‘I’m sorry but I have to speak to this person.’
Shelby Rose grabbed Marcus roughly by the arm. ‘Come on, we’re goin’,’ she said, and practically dragged the protesting child out of the office. For a moment, Hannah felt guilty, but then, she couldn’t find it within her to care as much about her clients as she did about her daughter. She pressed the blinking white button and drew in a breath.
‘Hannah Wickes.’
‘Mrs Wickes? This is Tiffany Granger.’
Tiffany ran the daycare where Hannah dropped Sydney off in the morning, on her way to work. It was a small group of kids and Tiffany had them in her home, which was outfitted to accommodate their every need.
Hannah was galvanized by the sound of concern in that soft Southern accent. ‘What is it? Is Sydney OK?’
‘Well, yes, she’s OK. But her mom was supposed to come pick her up about an hour ago, and she’s still not here. She’s not answering her phone.’
Hannah felt her face flood with color. She glanced at the clock. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘I wouldn’t bother you but my first-grader has a play at school tonight, and I don’t want to miss it. I called Mr Wickes’s cell but he said he’s in St Louis on business.’
‘Yes, he is. I’m so sorry about this. Look. I will come right away. But it’s going to take me half an hour to get there. If you need to drop her off I can arrange …’
‘No,’ said Tiffany calmly. ‘I can wait. We’ll see you when you get here.’
Hannah returned her phone to her pocket, grabbed her light jacket, and headed out the door.
‘Mom-mom,’ Sydney cried, and rushed to embrace her grandmother.
Hannah picked up the toddler and held her close.
‘Here’s her backpack,’ said Tiffany.
‘I’m really sorry about this,’ Hannah said.
‘It happens,’ said Tiffany, a short, compact young woman who wore her hair skinned back in a tight ponytail, so that her round white face looked like a moon. ‘Signals get crossed.’
‘Sydney’s mother hasn’t called?’ Hannah asked worriedly.
Tiffany avoided Hannah’s gaze, and began to clear up the living room, putting toys into a plastic laundry basket beside the taupe-colored recliner that faced the large flat-screen TV. ‘No, ma’am,’ she said. ‘Haven’t heard from her.’
Hannah gazed at the young woman tidying up the room, her clothes neat, her ponytail smooth. Tiffany had two children herself though s
he couldn’t be more than twenty-five. She radiated competence and calm.
‘I’ve tried to call her,’ said Hannah. ‘There must have been an emergency at the hospital.’
Tiffany was placing a series of hollow plastic boxes, one inside of the other.
‘Maybe so,’ she said carefully. ‘It happens now and then.’
Hannah nodded. ‘Guess that’s why they call it an emergency room.’
‘Well, I know her work at the hospital keeps her very busy. And I’m sorry I pulled you away from work but I didn’t know what else to do. There was no one else I could call to come get her. What with that fellow, Troy, dying in that … explosion …’
Hannah frowned at her. ‘Troy? What about him?’
Tiffany’s white complexion turned vaguely pink. ‘Now, Mrs Wickes, I know we have never discussed this but I just want you to know for the record that I don’t believe for one minute that Lisa had anything to do with that poor man’s death.’
‘Thank you,’ said Hannah stiffly. ‘I appreciate that.’
‘It’s like I told my husband. You don’t entrust your child to just anyone. You don’t give someone that kind of responsibility for your precious child unless you think they are pretty great.’
For a second Hannah was confused. And then she realized what Tiffany was suggesting. ‘What do you mean?’ Hannah asked. ‘What responsibility?’
Tiffany nodded, her eyes wide. ‘Oh, I was sure you knew. Lisa told me it was OK to let Sydney go with him.’
A chill ran through Hannah. She knew that Sydney had been out to Troy’s home by the lake a few times. Sydney had loved the lake, and Troy had showed her how to fish. Hannah had simply assumed that it was Lisa who picked her up and brought her out there.
Tiffany pressed her lips together. ‘At first I thought he might be her father. He certainly seemed to love that little girl.’
‘No,’ said Hannah, flustered. ‘He is not Sydney’s father.’
Tiffany persisted. ‘It seemed like he was. He always had time to look at the pictures she drew and such. I’m sorry, Mrs Wickes. You seem surprised.’
Hannah’s face was hot. ‘Well, Lisa never mentioned that … I mean, it’s not as if Troy had any … He’s not related to Sydney, is all I’m saying.
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