by Mia Caldwell
As the room in California erupts into shouts and applause, Vanessa’s jaw drops. Slowly, she turns to me. “Did…you…?”
I smile. She’s out of the chair and wrapped around me in a flash.
“Oh, Corbin! You are the best! This is such a good thing you’ve done, thank you so much!”
“Well, it was Yankee Cotton and its holdings, really, but I’ll take the credit.”
“What, when did you do this?”
“After you went to bed Sunday night. We were all really impressed by the way you talk about the school. It seemed like a worthwhile use of funds. And rich people are suckers for a tax deduction.”
“I don’t even know what to say, but thank you!”
“I’ll let you show me later,” I say waggling my eyebrows at her.
“Oh, I will,” she says, waggling hers back.
And she totally does.
Chapter Ten
“God, aren’t you like, a jillionaire or something? Where’s the manservant?”
We decided to drive from the airport, rather than using the helicopter, so we could stop and pick up take-out (first world problems, for sure) and by the time we get in, it’s late, Maeve just wants to sleep, we’re hungry, and suddenly our bags seem to be full of rocks.
“I had him fired to free up money for your school, my darling,” says Corbin.
I’d punch him, but I haven’t got the strength. I flop the take-out bags onto the table and shift Maeve’s increasingly heavy body from one sore arm to the other. “Your kid weighs a ton,” I mutter.
Corbin drops our luggage and takes the baby from me. I try to rub some of the soreness out. Seriously, what’s the point of being rich if you still have to carry stuff?
Connie comes scurrying out of her room when she hears us banging about. “Here, give me the bags, you two. You eat. I’ll get these upstairs. Marta will come get Baby.”
She’d no sooner spoken than Marta appeared, cooing to Maeve, whisking her away, leaving us standing in the kitchen. Now that’s better. I could get used to that. Problem? Solved!
Corbin pulls two sodas out of the fridge and pours them into glasses. I’m pulling out the foil packet of pupusas when we hear the doorbell ring.
“Who the hell would be visiting at nine at night?” Corbin asks, heading toward the front. “And who comes to the front door?” His voice gets fainter as he goes.
I hear the door open and a man’s voice saying “Corbin Dobbs Pierce?”
“Yes,” he says warily.
I don’t have a good feeling about it. Late night front door visitors are either the sweepstakes guys with giant novelty checks or…
“You’ve been served. Have a good night.”
…process servers.
I sit there, stomach in knots, as I hear the door close and the sound of a car going back down the gravel drive.
“Fucker must’ve been watching for us to get home. I wonder where he was parked?” Corbin is looking at the papers as he walks in. “It’s the Hamiltons, suing for custody of Maeve.”
He tosses the papers down and collapses into a chair.
“What now?” I ask, afraid of the answer.
“I don’t know. I’m too tired to think about it. I’ll call Jarvis in the morning.” He sits up and opens a bag. “Let’s just eat for now.”
We eat, mostly in silence, and collapse into bed. Corbin has a terrible night, tossing and turning. I can’t imagine what he must be feeling. I’m utterly wrecked at the idea of losing Maeve and she’s not my child. And, even though he’s never said as much, there must be some part of him that sees his daughter as the only good to come out of his marriage.
I don’t think either of us sleep much and when I finally wake to the morning light, Corbin is gone. After I get Maeve changed and cheerful again, I see that he had texted me.
I’ll be in talks with lawyers all day. Will try to make pool, but if not will see you for dinner.
I figure all I can do is just carry on with Maeve’s routine, keep things as normal as I can for her, and hope this all blows over soon.
I take her downstairs for her–you guessed it, rice cereal–and go back to take a hot shower.
A part of me feels bad for the Hamiltons. Corbin has never said a kind word about them, but I’m sure they aren’t wholly evil. They’re people, right? They lost their only daughter and Maeve is a physical tie to her. It must feel like, in some way, getting Maeve would be like getting Elise back. It’s a pity that in all this grief, someone has to get hurt. I just hope it isn’t Corbin. And me.
Maeve, of course, is blissfully unaware that anything is going on. She’s just happy to go on our daily walk around the gardens. This would be such a great place to grow up. All this land, the pool, the city nearby, the river, doting adults at every turn… If Corbin has his way, there will be chickens in this garden and big, slobbery dogs jumping into the pool. Plenty of space for a pony or some of those cute mini goats…
I hear a car coming up the drive, so I stand up from where we’ve been playing on the grass and peer toward the front. It’s a luxury sedan of some sort, probably one of Corbin’s lawyers. I sit back down and turn my attention back to Maeve.
I am letting an earthworm crawl over my hand to show her, so I don’t notice the woman who had gotten out of the car until she is very close to us. Her hair is in a smooth silver chin length bob. Her clothes have an expensively casual look. Linen pantsuit, but ironed. Expensive sandals exposing an expensive pedicure. She has clearly had work done, as her neck and hands betray her age more than her face has been allowed to. But it’s expensive work. None of that weird caught-in-a-wind-tunnel plastic surgery. The woman looks faintly familiar, but her pinched expression doesn’t invite me to look at her for long.
“Can I help you?” I ask, standing.
She ignores me completely, making a beeline for Maeve, her mouth set in a determined line.
“Excuse me,” I say, trying to step between them, but she gives me a slight shove to brush past me.
“There’s my baby girl,” she coos, her voice gruff from smoking back when that was still fashionable. She leans down and snatches Maeve off the lawn before I can react..
Maeve is surprised and startles into a cry. When she sees that she doesn’t know the person who yanked her off the ground, her cries grow louder.
“I’m sorry, but you need to give me the baby, Ma’am.” I say reaching for Maeve even as she reaches for me.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” says the woman, more to Maeve than me, “Maeve wuvs her Grandmama, doesn’t she?” She says it in the French way, with the accent on the second “ma.” It’s grating. “Her Grandmama would not leave her on the chilly earth, touching bugs. No! No she wouldn’t!”
Maeve keeps trying to reach for me and the woman, whom I assume is Enid Hamilton, keeps hoisting her around to stay in her sight line and where Maeve can’t see me. And she keeps clicking at her. Like Maeve’s a Jack Russell.
She sounds…well, she sounds like a cartoon villain trying to be nice to a baby. I’m not sure whether I’m glad I don’t have to feel bad for her or completely freaked out that this woman is trying to take Maeve away from her father. And me.
She whirls on me suddenly, after having not even made eye contact thus far. “This baby’s feet are like ice cubes. Why is she out here barefoot, like some sort of…savage?”
Oh, no she did not.
“Ma’am? Mrs. Hamilton I assume, you are trespassing. Give me the baby and leave this property right now.”
I want to pull Maeve out of her arms but don’t want to scare the poor thing any more than she is already.
The woman looks me up and down and I swear I feel it burn. “You must be the new girl they hired. You won’t do.” She turns back to Maeve and bounces her in what I guess she meant to seem a jolly way, but looks a lot like she’s trying to shake pennies from a piggy bank. “When you come home with Grandmama, you will have the finest servants, yes you will.” She tries to press her ho
rrid old lips to Maeve’s cheek, but Maeve shrieks and lurches out for me suddenly. I’m there to catch her and get her away from Mrs. Hamilton.
Maeve clutches me tightly and I hold her close. I can’t believe I let that woman hold her at all.
“Go,” I say.
“Mind your place,” she spits back, smoothing her blouse.
Ah, this is the sort of person my Gran warned me about. I meet one at last. Lucky me.
“Mrs. Hamilton?” I say levelly. She looks at me, as if granting me the boon of listening. “Why do you want to take Maeve away from her father? Isn’t it enough that she lost her mother?”
She stalks toward me and I have the urge to bolt. “You listen to me,” she hisses. “This baby did not lose her mother. She never knew her at all. And Elise was not ‘lost,’ she was murdered by that self centered child that this baby has the misfortune to know as her father. He murdered her with his neglect and constant travel and the stress he put on my poor daughter as surely as if he’d put a gun to her head. He ripped out my heart. And now I’m going to rip out his. And if that means I have to take on a child, so be it.”
I feel a chill as if an arctic wind had blown in. I’m struck speechless, so I just stand there, holding Maeve has her sobs turn to little hiccups.
“I’ll go. But I’ll be back. I really only wanted to be sure the child was healthy, developmentally normal. It’s worrying that she doesn’t crawl, but I’m sure a proper environment will get her back on track.”
And she just turns and stalks off, goes back to her car, and drives away.
By the time Maeve goes down for a nap, my shaking has stopped, but I’ve worked up a good head of righteous indignation. That woman will not get this baby. Not while I have breath.
As I always do when I feel at loose ends and don’t know what to do, I call Grandma. I haven’t talked to her since I left for the camp because cell reception there was so spotty. I fill her in on what has been going on and on my visit from Enid Hamilton.
“Oh yes, I know her type,” Grandma says and it’s like I can hear her slowly shaking her head through the phone. “She’s not happy and she’s gonna make sure no one else is, either. Probably never even been happy.”
“If you’re trying to make me feel bad for her, it’s not working. She’s trying to take Maeve away from her daddy! And it’s just for revenge!”
“Oh, I can feel badly for her and still think she’s wrong. When you get old like me you’ll understand that everybody has suffering. It’s just different in how it comes out.”
“But what do I do?” I am not really interested in introspection right now.
“Honey, I don’t know. She’s rich and powerful, but so is he. It’s going to be like the gods on Olympus fighting, I’ll wager.”
“Only unlike the gods, Corbin actually cares what happens to his human daughter. I’m worried that he’ll give her up to keep from dragging her through a battle. His parents will definitely get involved, and then, like you say, it’s going to be thunderbolts and curses.”
“Sounds like you need to find a way to keep her from going ahead with the suit. I reckon she won’t listen to reason?”
“I can’t imagine that she would. Seriously Gran, she was like a Disney villain.”
“And they never win, do they? But real life’s not always like that. How might she be persuaded…”
It hits me. “Blackmail! Of course! I have to find something on her, someone that evil has a past, right?”
Grandma sighs. “That is not what I mean, Vanessa, and you know it.”
“You’re a genius, Gran, thanks! I have to call Asia. I’ll talk to you later.”
Sure, Asia hasn’t used her journalism degree since she graduated, but I know she learned how to snoop. Uncovering the mismanagement of fraternity funds isn’t quite in the same league as bringing down one of the wealthiest families in the US, but there’s gotta be some overlap, right?
Asia, who has been kind of bored this summer, is completely stoked.
"Oooo, girl, I am going to get all up in her business!"
“You’ve got to be sneaky–these people are richer than you can even imagine.”
“I saw that house, remember? I can imagine.”
"Then keep in mind that this is the throw-away house they never use. And that the Hamiltons might be even richer than the Pierces. I mean RICH. Like rich people look at them and go ’Damn, that guy is rich.’"
“Daaaamn.”
“Right.”
"Okay, I’m gonna be both Woodward and Bernstein. I’m on it."
And oddly, I feel better. I don’t really have hope that it’ll come to anything, but just having done something makes me feel better.
Corbin doesn’t join us in the pool and he texts to say he won’t make dinner, either. I hope he has a whole team of lawyers and maybe even detectives working on this. I’ve already gone to bed when I hear my door open and Corbin slips inside.
“Hey,” I whisper.
“Oh, sorry. I thought about just going to my own room so I didn’t wake you, but…I really wanted to at least be near you, since I didn’t see you all day.”
“It’s okay, I’m glad you did.” I pull back the covers so he can slide in. “How’s it going?”
"Not great. They have an excellent case because I did abandon her. We can get Marta and Connie to testify as to my character. And you, if you’re willing."
“Of course! Enid Hamilton came by today.”
"What?!" Corbin sits up abruptly and looks at me. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“Because she was here very briefly and you were clearly busy. It was okay. She was a monster, but I handled it.” I tell him about my encounter with Cruella.
He flops back onto the bed. “God, what a bitch. She can’t take Maeve. My parents are willing to counter-sue for custody if it looks like the Hamiltons will make headway. I’d just move back to Boston then, I guess.” He is quiet for a moment. “I should just give her back to my parents. The Hamiltons could go ahead and sue, but my parents would be able to do the counter suit and prove that they’ve been raising her all along and are what she knows best. Jarvis says that would probably work.”
“Is that what you want?” I ask quietly, hoping I know the answer already.
He sighs and his voice is tight when he answers. “Of course not. I want to stay here and raise my daughter. I want to see her catch bugs in the kitchen garden. I want to get her a pony and go to her lacrosse games unless she hates lacrosse, too, and then I’ll just go to her plays or whatever. I want to see her grow up whole, not ruined by those horrible people. I don’t want her to grow up bitter and cruel like her mother.”
“Then you need to fight for her.”
“I know. I just don’t want it to drag on so that I’m always in court, always angry, always wondering if this is the last day I get to spend with her. You know that even if the judge forces them to allow me visitation, they’ll do everything they can to make me stop coming.”
“But you won’t. You won’t let them win.” It’s not a question. He shouldn’t doubt himself.
"No. I’ll take every moment I’m given. But I want them all." He sighs again and mutters, “Dammit.”
“What if we could get the Hamiltons to drop the suit?”
"That would be ideal, of course, but I’m not sure how we would do that. Jarvis has been snooping around to get some dirt, but so far they’re just your standard kind of evil billionaires. They’re not doing society any good, but there’s nothing that would embarrass them to have made public. I mean, people just assume we’re all up to no good, so it’s got to be really shocking."
“I’ve asked Asia to dig around. She used to be a journalist,” I leave out the part that it was for our college paper, “and she loves that kind of detective work. I mean, it’s unlikely she’ll find anything Jarvis can’t, but it’s worth a shot.”
Corbin kisses my forehead tenderly. “Thank you for helping. Even if it comes to nothing, it means
a lot to me that you tried.”
I’m not sure how long it takes Corbin to fall asleep, but I’m awake for another hour at least, trying not to cry. All this money, and it can’t get him the one thing he really wants.
For two days, I get periodic texts from Asia, things like These people are good at staying hidden and I’m not as good at this as I thought. The hope that had been welling up in my heart starts to leak away.
Then I get one that says Is Enid’s maiden name Brooks? and Corbin says it is.
After that, the tone of the texts changes to Oh shit, I think this is big and You were right, she is evil. Then she says, I think we’d better have a meeting, with Corbin and the lawyer. This has gone beyond cub reporter stuff.
“What could she have found?” I ask Corbin when he finally collapses into bed that night.
“I don’t know,” he says, shaking his head against the pillow. "Jarvis hasn’t found anything that even hints at that level of activity."
“I wonder if it’s something Enid did, since she asked about her maiden name.”
“It’d have to be ancient history. They’ve been married since the very early 70s, I’m sure.”
"As long as either the statute of limitations isn’t up or it’s super embarrassing, maybe it won’t matter how long ago it was."
“Yeah. I wonder…”
“Maybe she used to be a man.”
“Nah, too trendy now, she’d be a hero instead of a monster.”
“Maybe she’s a Nazi war criminal in hiding.”
“That would explain a lot, but I think the timing is off.”
“Maybe she killed JFK.”
“I bet that’s it.” His voice is thick with the need to sleep, so I keep the rest of my theories to myself. But secretly? I think she’s a vampire.
We convene in Corbin’s office two days later. Asia’s about to pop wanting to spill the beans, but she won’t tell me anything ahead of time.
“So,” she begins, once Corbin, Wayne Jarvis, and I are settled in at the table, “Back in the mid-eighties, there was this huge money laundering scandal…”