You Made Your Bed: A Novel

by Cornelia Goddin

  I feel tears slide down the sides of my face though I am not crying. I hear reggae playing.

  Jamaica. In my room, lying on my bed, reading a thick paperback. Gordon came in and closed the door. I was on the bed, on my stomach, looking up at him.

  You have to understand: I was fifteen. A young fifteen. I had no experience with boys—they thought I was stuck-up, and I probably was. I hadn’t even kissed anyone. No experience whatsoever.

  Innocent.

  I closed my book, marking my place with a finger. Weird I can remember that detail. Like I was just going to come back to my place in the book and carry on.

  I looked up into my father’s face and saw him looking at my chest. I was wearing a bikini—of course I was, I was fifteen! And he could probably see most of me because of how I was lying on the bed.

  In the mixed-up confusion that came later, I believed…I believed that I had brought about what happened because of the way I was lying on the bed. That’s probably common enough, isn’t it, drawing that kind of false conclusion?

  But what happened after was probably not so common. I wasn’t blaming myself; I was congratulating myself. For having won. For making something happen that elevated me so far past Mummy and Wilson that the competition was virtually over. I was the queen in the family now, the person Gordon loved most—hadn’t he just proved it? There was nothing they could ever do to top me.

  I start shaking as the images come crowding in, jerky and badly lit, as though the film is damaged, just as Wilson described it.

  My father reached down and lifted my chin so that I was looking up at him. I could see something was different about him, a sort of bulkiness in the region of his Speedo, but even though I was a New York sophisticate in many ways, I was, as I said, completely inexperienced in these matters. I knew about sex, about bodies, but only the way any bookworm does. Not as reality, not as his skin, his flesh against mine…

  A fucking innocent.

  He said nothing to me, no words except my name, he repeated my name as he slid his fingers into my mouth and then pushed himself against me…

  Music was still playing, and I remember thinking that was good because it would keep anyone from hearing.

  He lifted me up from the bed and kissed me on the mouth. I tried to imagine that we were in a movie, that I was the star, that this was romance.

  To be sure, I did not entirely succeed. I told myself I was the winner, I told myself all kinds of lies, but I see now that it was like poison spreading through me and I was trying any strategy I could think of to stop it, including the lie that what had happened was beautiful. That Gordon loved me that much.

  Black is white. Night is day.

  After he kissed me, he pulled the strings of my bathing suit top and it fell to the floor. He sat on the end of my bed and did things to me while I stood, glancing sometimes through the Venetian blinds to the lush greenery outside.

  It felt terrible and also good. That was problematic, as you might imagine.

  At one point I thought I heard something and jerked my head toward the window, but saw nothing. It’s only now, too late, that I realize it must have been Wilson, outside, looking through the window. Too short to see anything but me from the waist up, his topless sister, and not the truth of what was happening.

  “My beauty,” Gordon was murmuring, as he ran his hands and tongue over me.

  And all these years, and all the other times he came to my room, I tried to believe that was real—his love, his preference for me. I stand up from my bed, undulled now by any excess of cocaine; for once, maybe the first time, feeling the unbearable truth.

  You understand a little better now, I believe? My mother saw what my father was up to and did nothing. Closed the door and walked away. Perhaps I should have chosen to kill her, after all. Like I said at the beginning—it could have been any of them.

  All those years, fantasizing about murder: it was always Gordon in the crosshairs, Gordon I wanted to hurt. But then he would appear in my bedroom just before dawn, and the full force of him there, wanting me, choosing me…I could not and did not want to stop him.

  And I see, in retrospect, I chose to get rid of the one person who was not ever guilty, though the irony is not lost on me that if Wilson—or Mummy, or anyone—had called the cops thirteen years ago, everything might have turned out differently.

  Just imagine, please, what my life would be like, if Wilson had remembered what his sister and father started doing together in Jamaica, and kept on doing all these years? He had to know. No one living in this apartment could have possibly been ignorant, not with Gordon pulling me onto his lap in the library, and some weeks spending every night in my bedroom. Yes, Wilson knew, and whatever technique he had used to block it out was falling apart.

  Marecita knew, too. She saw things, but never said a word.

  Wilson was minutes away from telling Sandie Shearer, and after that he’d have told Rebecca. Probably it would feel good to him, all that talking—he always had more of a taste for truth than the rest of us. And with all that truth telling, it would be only a hop, skip, and a jump to the media. Everyone alive would know about me and Gordon. And me, with a baby in my belly?

  Are you starting, finally, to understand my desperation?

  And perhaps, now that the truth of my life is laid so uncomfortably bare, you understand why, delectable as it is to contemplate, I do not deserve the solace of Amory Porter. I would only be the emotional equivalent of concrete boots for him, and I have no interest or desire in dragging anyone else down with me. Wilson was more than enough.

  And what about the little bean? Can you imagine, once the frenzy of salacious headlines about me and Gordon had died down, how this would be whispered about her everywhere she went for the rest of her life? How she would never, ever escape it?

  When I kept saying ruin I was not exaggerating. It was thinking about her that forced my hand, that made me act in a way I deeply regret but cannot wish to take back.

  I cannot wipe away the fact that most of me was glad to have Gordon’s attention, even his depraved attention. I did not turn away from it even once.

  And even so, even with everything I gave him, including this last act of protection that nearly got me arrested—even so, he has gone back to her.

  76

  Gordon is glad when Caroline leaves the library; a tear-stained cheek holds no interest for him. He closes the door, locks it, makes a phone call.

  It is during this call that he becomes aware of a commotion outside—on the penthouse floor, the sounds of sirens are just as piercing as on lower floors—and eventually, with some regret, he hangs up to see what is going on. New Yorkers are used to the backdrop of sirens as emergency vehicles move through the neighborhoods, but this noise is not fading, not on its way somewhere else.

  He is just reaching the foyer when the intercom buzzes.

  “Mr. Crowe, hurry! Mrs. Crowe, on the terrace—”

  Gordon runs into the living room. Through the glass door, he can see his wife. Straddling the railing, like she is riding a horse. He stops. Lillian waves down to the street, then rocks back and forth, lifting her hands high in the air and waving her fingertips. Gordon is looking at her from behind, he can’t see her expression. Slowly and carefully, not wanting to spook her, he opens the glass door.

  “Darling,” says Lillian, turning to look at him while swinging her feet.

  “Please, Lillian. Come here.”

  Lillian laughs. It is a laugh of freedom, of finality, of a decision made and no longer doubted.

  They can both hear a murmur from the street. A crowd has gathered. Gordon hears someone talking into a bullhorn but cannot make out what is being said. For one of the only times in his life, Gordon wishes someone else were in charge and telling him what to do.

  Caroline enters the living room and sees her parents outside.

  Gordon holds out his hand, afraid to get any closer. “Take my hand,” he says, trying his best.


  “Stay back,” Lillian barks, in a tone he has never heard before. “You do realize you ruined everything?” she growls, but between the noise of the street and the wind, he can’t quite understand what she says.

  Caroline slips out to the terrace, her eyes going back and forth from one to the other. She circles behind Gordon but says nothing.

  Gordon opens his arms and despite what she just said, Lillian reaches one hand out. He tries to grab it but their palms slide apart. He thinks he hears someone in the foyer and prays it is someone trained for this situation, but when he turns to look no one is there. He sees Caroline but does not acknowledge her.

  Lillian stands up and throws the other leg over to the wrong side. She is balancing on a narrow strip of concrete, on tiptoe. The crowd gasps. Lillian laughs again, then walks along with one hand sliding along on the railing, dipping her foot as she goes along like she is on a tightrope. She is utterly, blissfully fearless.

  More sirens down below. She stumbles, drops down, but manages to catch one knee on the strip of concrete. The crowd cheers and she musters a slight smile as she pulls herself back up. She stays on the wrong side of the railing, turns to look down, waves again.

  “Sweetheart,” says Gordon, pleading. He can’t allow this, he doesn’t want this, but it is not up to him. This once, Lillian is the one making the decisions. “Please,” he adds, reaching both hands out to her. “I know things have been awful. But they’ll get better, I promise you. Stay with me, Lily, please.”

  Lillian stops. She seems to consider. She leans her elbows on the railing, and looks coquettishly over her shoulder at the crowd down on the street. Then loses her footing, the crowd yelps again, she grabs the railing and straightens up. The police have cleared an area on the sidewalk below the terrace.

  Gordon is on the brink of panic when Lillian meets his eyes and almost smiles. “Onward,” she murmurs, reaching both hands out to him. He surges forward and grabs for her.

  “Oh, thank God,” he says, as she grasps his wrists, holding tight.

  Coming from behind, Caroline takes two quick steps toward her father. “If you want her so badly, take her,” she says, giving him a hard shove with both hands just as Lillian springs backward with all the force she has in her legs. Gordon hits the railing hard. He is tall, his momentum propels him forward, and he follows his wife into the air high above Park Avenue.

  77

  Caroline

  It is close to midnight. I have just finished the last of the pork dumplings I ordered at dinner time, and should be getting to bed, though I keep putting it off. Pregnancy does stimulate the appetite, and I think I may want to revisit the refrigerator once more before calling it a night.

  You never know how you’re going to react to sudden tragedy, do you? Losing both parents at once in such a violent manner would be an earthquake to anyone, and I am undoubtedly in a deep state of shock. Even the jeerlings are silenced by the astonishing event: Gordon and Lillian, splat on the pavement in front of 744.

  The expected media circus is in full swing, the city gorging itself on as many details as it can cram in about a well-known, powerful family which has fallen so precipitously. Quite literally, if I may be allowed a moment of dark humor. Several of Gordon’s lawyers have been rummaging in his library, possibly beginning the process of probate, along with various businesspersons who worked for him; I can’t even imagine the tangled knot of finances and jurisdictions that must be involved.

  A stream of people I barely know has been stopping by to offer condolences and gawk at the terrace. Some stare out through the glass door but will not go outside, others appear to want to stand right where Gordon was standing when he went over. They peer over the railing and shake their heads. A detective from the NYPD is poking around, but he shows not even a wisp of suspicion. Law enforcement has come after all, but there is no chance they are here for me.

  I am in the center of the uproar, none of it quite sinking in all the way. (And yes, I have remained the very picture of sobriety, extending my run to double-digit days. No calls to Dr. Feelgood, even though he would probably throw in a little extra given the circumstances.) No sign of Amory Porter, for which I am both grateful and deeply sad. Natalie has breezed in and out several times, at a loss for what to say. Can’t say I hold that against her.

  I still think I hear Mummy’s ice clinking in the late morning. Still expect to find Marecita making Gordon a sandwich. Still exist in a state of exquisite anxiety over when Gordon will next come to my room.

  Sleep is nowhere on the horizon so I get up and wander through the apartment. I gaze at the Cézanne, which is lit as though in a museum, a man’s face separated into chunks, blue-green planes outlines in black. I trail my fingers along the birds on the top of the Black Forest clock, and for once, the apartment is quiet.

  The penthouse is nineteen floors up and higher than nearby buildings; no one could see me from below when I came out on the terrace. Down on the street, hundreds of eyes were pinned to Lillian as she balanced on the ledge of the terrace, but the nineteenth floor is a long way up, and the whole thing happened so quickly.

  It is selfish of me, no question, but I have, in the split second they fell, been set free, and I cannot find in myself any way to be sorry about that. I loved them both. It’s nearly impossible not to love your parents, no matter what they do, that’s the sad truth, isn’t it? But it’s not like love is some kind of divine shield that protects you no matter what; I’d have to be an idiot not to have figured that out by now.

  I put on a T-shirt to sleep in instead of my usual silk nightgown, and climb into bed. Then I sit up, glancing out my window and thinking of how their bodies must have looked as they fell. Were they flailing? Resigned? Graceful?

  I pick up the tiny balsa-wood box of worry dolls Marecita gave me for Christmas, and take them out one by one. They don’t have feet and I cannot stand them up, so I cradle them in my palm, touching each one in turn.

  “I shouldn’t have killed my brother,” I tell the Lilliputian woman in a bright red skirt and a nearly microscopic head-wrap. “And I know my contrition is worth exactly nothing to him now.”

  I set her back in the crowd and pull out a man in green trousers. I feel a pressure to say something to him about what has happened, but all I can see is pictures in my head and no words come. I put the man back in the balsa-wood box, pile his friends in with him, and put the top back on.

  You made your bed, shriek the jeerlings, who have awoken with renewed vigor, and the worry dolls, while beloved to me, cannot do anything to shut them up.

  78

  Amory lies in bed on his back, thinking about Caroline.

  She murdered her brother, and now her parents are both dead as well.

  As he thinks of her, a chill comes over him, but it is still mixed with desire and a deep curiosity—a potent concoction.

  I should call that detective, he thinks, taking a stern tone with himself because he knows, deep down, he is going to do no such thing. The bracelet, glass, and DNA report are in an envelope, shoved to the back of his desk drawer.

  Amory allows himself a few more minutes of luxuriant thoughts about Caroline, about finding her on his doorstep, asking for help. Caroline in his apartment, in his bed, allowing him to know her.

  With a burst of discipline, he throws off the covers and reaches for his phone to call Chub, whom he can count on to tell him to drop any ideas about Caroline fucking Crowe right into the gutter.

  79

  Caroline

  Irving Stratmeyer calls for an appointment, and perhaps rather crassly, I tell him to come right on over. The dedicated and capable Mr. Stratmeyer has been one of Gordon’s lawyers for as long as I can remember; no one is more humorless, dry as dust, and suited to his job. I might be mistaken, but I think—I hope—that his specialty is estate planning. I’ve been anxious to spend some time in Paris—the maternity care is excellent, I have heard—but dare not leave the country until probate is wrapped up.

>   “So very sorry,” he says, as I lead him into Gordon’s library.

  “Thank you. It’s been, obviously, a terrible shock.”

  Mr. Stratmeyer nods slowly.

  “Would you like coffee? Something to eat?”

  Stratmeyer shakes his head but does not answer as he unzips a leather case and pulls out a satisfyingly thick sheaf of papers. I am enjoying the anticipation of i’s dotted and t’s crossed.

  “It may seem early, but it’s important that we go over this now,” he says, taking several sheets of paper from the pile and setting them on the corner of Gordon’s desk. “Every effort is taken to let beneficiaries know when they are named in a will, so that they may take appropriate action depending on the circumstances.”

  His tedious verbiage flies by, making little impression on me.

  “You are, of course, a primary beneficiary. The estate is quite large, with many moving parts,” says Stratmeyer. “I am not sure how much you know about your father’s affairs?”

  I shrug. “We didn’t talk business all that much. It’s old-fashioned to the point of chauvinistic, but he didn’t really think women—or at least I—should be out working.”

  An expression crosses Stratmeyer’s usually inscrutable face, but I don’t know how to read it.

  I hear a lone cry, a raucous caw, a warning.

  “You are the sole surviving progeny of Gordon’s marriage to Lillian Masefield Crowe. Gordon has provided for the other progeny equally to you.”