by Karin Tanabe
“Let me try to explain. As you know, my husband thinks of himself as a great explorer of women. The Marco Polo of womanizers. This is boring behavior. But when it started, I thought that if I made myself more interesting, he might be more interested in me. So, I’m asking you, is that what you’re doing now? Trying to take Tom’s attention away not from other women, but the hospital? His patients?”
“It is not.” Only Amelia Edgeworth could liken her husband’s philandering to a thirteenth-century Venetian explorer.
“Fine. Then are you acting this way because you want a divorce?”
Turner Wells’s face flashed in my mind like a neon sign in Times Square.
There were many things I could have expressed to Amelia. The truth. Confusion. Heartache. Lies.
I chose lies. “I do not.”
“Should I believe you?”
“I hope you will.”
“I’ll choose to believe you, then,” she said, reaching for her drink. “Divorces are messy affairs.”
“But if we divorced, Tom could marry the right girl. The girl you wanted for him,” I said, refusing to hold back the shot.
“You are now the mother of his children,” she said, looking at me, her face still beautiful and regal at sixty-eight. Whatever pact she’d made with the devil was clearly going strong. “That means that you are the right girl now. Besides, I don’t hate you, Rina.” She finished her drink and handed me the glass. “I never did.”
“I’m glad?”
“You should be. I do find you complicated. And as we all know, complicated is better than boring.”
I didn’t reply.
“So, it’s this motherhood thing that is making you look so cadaverous,” she said, giving me another once-over.
I shrugged.
“Small children are terrible, Katharina. Everyone knows it, but nobody says it out loud. It makes us look weak and cowardly. Unfeminine.”
“But why can’t we say it out loud?” I said, placing her glass on the bar. “Why can’t we at least say it to one another? Women like you and me.”
“I’m not supposed to tell you it’s horrible, Rina! If I did, you would never have had them. And then what? No heirs to speak of. No little potatoes to give kisses to.”
“Or pistols.”
“Listen, he stopped crying, didn’t he?”
“There are other ways.”
“Katharina. Your parents are poor as alley cats—I suppose you are, too, without Tom’s money—but at least you’ve got claws like one.”
My parents lived in Geneva. My father was a professor of art history. From what I knew, they were not eating discarded fishtails for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And until very recently, I had been making forty dollars a week.
Amelia lifted her hand and ran her nails across the table.
“So go ahead and sharpen your claws, Rina. Figure out what you have to do to survive and do it. And if it requires a check— to keep on that Sarah from Barnard or some other bushy-tailed babysitter—tell me. But don’t tell me when the men are watching. It would be—”
“Unfeminine.”
“No, dear. It would be stupid.”
At that moment, the elevator dinged and Tom entered the room. Both Amelia and I looked at him like he was an intruder.
“I called the apartment after my morning meeting and Father said you were here. I was worried,” he said, his gaze darting between us.
Clearly, the woman he was worried about was me.
“And I’m worried about your marriage,” Amelia said. “Rina is suffering,” she said. “Do you see how bad she looks? Of course you do. Everyone can see it.”
“Excuse me?” I said, looking at her.
“Rina is suffering?” Tom echoed.
“That’s what I said.”
“There’s suffering, and there’s suffering, Mother,” said Tom with exhaustion in his voice. Such talk always exhausted Tom.
“Being a mother is real suffering, Tom,” said Amelia firmly. “And don’t you ever say otherwise, or you will not be welcome in this house anymore.”
“This is my apartment,” said Tom.
“Not bought by that pittance of a doctor’s salary.”
I stared at Amelia, stunned.
“You men refuse to acknowledge it all. Giving birth? It’s not exactly one long nude cocktail party with quite the favor at the end.”
“Mother, you’re drunk,” said Tom. He went to the kitchen and fetched a glass of water.
“Why don’t you follow suit, Tom? You could use a drink.”
“I’m going back to work,” he said, heading to the elevator. “You two can continue this discussion without me.” As he walked out of the room, I heard a cry. Peter had woken up. A few seconds later, Gerrit followed suit.
“No, Tom, you will not,” Amelia countered. “You two join your calloused hands together and go have breakfast. I’ll take care of the babies.”
“Mother, I don’t have time—”
“Don’t adopt that tone, Tom. Your excuses are lost on me. But do remember this. Just because I wasn’t always there—though I was there plenty—doesn’t mean Rina will be anything like me if you let her off the leash. She’s made of stronger stock than I am.”
“And why is that, Mother?” he asked before I could faint.
“Because she’s decidedly middle-class! The middle class, they’re just better at these things.”
I started to laugh. There was no other proper reaction.
“What are the decidedly, sickeningly rich good at?” asked Tom.
“Being sickeningly rich, of course,” said Amelia as Gerrit toddled to us and Peter cried louder. She intercepted him before he could get to me. “Also drinking. Guiding the gentle hand of man. Attending various functions. Singing. The rich are quite good singers. Oh, and we’re excellent at having nervous breakdowns and affairs.”
“Oh, Mother, anyone with genitals is good at having affairs.”
“Do you have to be so crass?”
“I learned it all from my father.”
“That part is true. Now, please, leave before I change my mind.”
She looked down at Gerrit.
“Guess what your grandmama has in her handbag? Another revolver!”
Tom gestured to the elevator and I followed. Three doors down from our apartment was an overpriced French bistro. He started walking toward it, but I suggested the bench across the street. The one that looked at the zoo.
“Why in the world is my mother in our apartment?” asked Tom when we sat down.
“I don’t know. To talk about motherhood.”
“Do you want to talk to me about motherhood? Or maybe just about our marriage?”
“Both,” I said quietly, not the least bit ready for such a conversation.
“Then I’m going to ask you again. Are you having an affair?”
“I am not,” I said, not able to meet his eyes. “I was involved with something. Someone, a man, asked me for a favor. Asked me to … interpret something. And it got a bit complicated.”
“The interpretation or the man?” asked Tom, looking toward the park.
“The interpretation. Sometimes things like that can be very difficult.”
“Is that what you want? Difficult? I’ve spent our marriage trying to ensure nothing was difficult for you.”
“But I don’t want to live that way, Tom. When life has no difficulty, it’s like a coin with one side.”
He nodded and crossed his legs uncomfortably, his body allergic to inactivity.
“And this … interpretation is why you’ve been acting so strangely. Skulking around, crying, lying, drinking—”
“No, Tom,” I said clearly. “This interpretation is the only thing that has made me happy.” I took a deep breath. “Perhaps I should have told you something about it, but you and I, we have grown so far apart that I can barely remember a time when our marriage was different. And, despite your best efforts, there actually is difficulty in o
ur lives. Our children can be very difficult.”
“But things change, Katharina. They’re difficult now, but it will be much better soon, and then you’ll miss them being babies. All women do. You just have to grit your teeth and get through this part. I wish you enjoyed it more. I wish you enjoyed me more,” he said earnestly.
“I do enjoy you, but I don’t ever see you, Tom. How can you enjoy someone who provides a life that he doesn’t share with you?”
“It’s a phase, Katharina.”
“Fine. A phase. Then since we’re speaking plainly, let me be frank. You no longer find any magic in me, Tom. You find it all at the hospital. And why should you find it in me? I have so little left.”
“Katharina, life is not about magic. Not always. We grow up. We have responsibilities. Careers. Then there are moments of magic still. Aren’t there?”
“What is my career, Tom?”
“This is your career,” he said, swinging his arm toward our building. “Is there anything better than being tasked with raising your children?”
“In fact, there is,” I said, thinking of how I felt getting off the bus at Lake Success.
“I’m sorry you feel that way. I want our life to make you happy. I want you to be happy.”
“Do you?”
“Of course I do,” he said quietly.
“When I was thinking about leaving the UN—well, when I was being pressured into leaving the UN—you said I could go back when our children were older. Well, they are older, and I’d like to go back.”
“To work? To the UN?”
“Yes, Tom, to work! You’re not the only one with a graduate degree in a subject you love. I want to speak to adults, I want to contribute to this world.”
“You are contributing already, by raising two good boys, who will be two great men.”
“That’s not enough, Tom. Am I not great? Why do we have to waste me, and my mind, in the process?”
“I don’t think I’m seeing things the way you want me to.”
I shook my head in frustration. “That’s because so much has changed since the day you put that Band-Aid around my finger. I have changed too much. And you. So have you.”
Tom exhaled loudly, his frustration overpowering his poise.
“Why don’t you understand that nothing is forever, Katharina? You know my goal. You know I’d like to be at the helm, not always at the bedside. You can’t just leave the boys before that happens. We’re all depending on you.”
“And then what? Do you imagine that when you are Mr. Lenox Hill, we will see you more, and I will magically be more fulfilled? The hospital just received three million dollars from the Millses. Three million! Which I may have played a tiny role in, mind you, but you’re still not satisfied. You’re not working any less, nor do you have plans to work any less.”
“I’m extremely thankful that you and Mrs. Mills got on so well. But it’s not enough money to do all we’ve set out to do. We need at least—”
“Listen to yourself, Tom! You think you are so different from your father because you’re going to a hospital instead of a hotel room, but the void in my life is not unlike your mother’s.”
“I am nothing like my father,” he said angrily, practically clawing the bench.
“Except that, like your father, you are never home. It is you who should be sleeping in the guest room. You have become the guest in our house, not me.”
Tom stood up. “I can try to change that. In the future. But you have to realize—”
“No,” I said, interrupting him. “As I just said, you promised me before I had the boys that if I still cared about working for ‘peace and security,’ I could go back to the UN. That the Edgeworth name would help me attain my goals there. But lately, being Rina Edgeworth causes more panic than pleasure. Your family is so worried that I will sully your precious name by being anything less than their stifling version of perfection. And let’s be quite honest, Tom, the only professional goal you want me to attain is the permanent shedding of my ambitions. So what you need to realize is that if you can’t balance your devotion to Lenox Hill with your devotion to your family, there will be no future here. Our home will be short one wife.”
He looked at me, and for the first time, he seemed to recognize that his loving wife had lost much of the loving. There was grief in his eyes. “If you want to learn to love me again, I can try to make it easier.”
“I still love you, Tom,” I said. “I do. It’s me I have the problem with.”
“Well, I love you enough for two, Katharina. I lovely smart love you.”
I nodded. I knew he believed that. But how could it be true if he had failed to care that since the day I’d traded Turtle Bay for Fifth Avenue I’d stopped loving myself? I stood up. “You want me to be happier?”
He nodded.
“Then just let me leave. Just let me get off this bench and go,” I said.
“Will you come back?”
“To an always empty house? No. But if that changes—”
“You know it can’t right now. You know that—”
I didn’t stay to hear the last of his words. I went back to the apartment, took the boys from Amelia, and got into a taxi.
“Where to?”
“The Brooklyn Bridge.”
CHAPTER 41
I held Peter to my chest and let Gerrit stick his head dangerously far out the taxi window. “New York,” he said gleefully.
“Yes, baby,” I said. “And we’re going to see one of the best things New York ever built.”
It turned out that Gerrit was extremely passionate about the Brooklyn Bridge. He kept screaming about it and clawing at his stroller, wanting to get out so he could plunge straight into the water. Bringing him to a very large bridge was about as good of an idea as inviting your cat to bathe with you.
But I needed to see something big, to feel the wind against my face, to marvel at the city. The person who made me feel the most alive was gone. Nothing could replace Turner, but I needed to start finding moments of joy on my own.
As we reached the middle of the bridge I saw a very familiar man standing dead center. Lee Coldwell.
“Bridge!” Gerrit bellowed, waving his hands in the air wildly.
“Let me guess,” I said to Coldwell. “You followed me here.”
“Maybe,” he said, gesturing for us to walk. We moved past a group of loud young men, then walked alongside some architecture student pontificating about the bridge to his exceedingly patient girlfriend.
“Can I ask why?” I said once we were alone. “I thought I wasn’t supposed to be seen with you.”
“These days, it seems that everyone is taking chances. Making very stupid decisions. Risking it all. I thought I’d join in.”
I ignored the edge in his tone and kept walking. Lee Coldwell was no longer just an FBI agent, he was the man who had made Turner Wells part of my story. “What does that have to do with me?”
“You … Well, we don’t think we’re quite done with you.” He paused. “That sounds very macabre. Let me try again. We have an opportunity and we think you’re the perfect person for the job.”
“You do?” Suddenly I couldn’t even hear Gerrit’s screams. All I could hear were those words.
“There’s someone on the periphery of Nick Solomon’s group. Robert Bolle. Heard his name before?”
I shook my head no.
“We don’t have any evidence of him moving documents out of the Justice Department, where he’s employed now—as a litigator of all things—but we’ve seen him with Solomon too many times to ignore. Now he’s gotten himself a job at City Hall. As in New York’s City Hall. And not just in any office. He’s working on judicial recruits. Advising on candidates for criminal court, civil court. He’s going to weigh in on who goes to the bench, and I’d bet my ass that he’ll be filling it with sympathizers. We need someone on the inside to make contact with him. Become friendly with him. Observe him.”
“City Hall?”
“Yes. Remember what Solomon told you? There’s a door open in the governor’s room? That’s City Hall.”
“Of course,” I said, picturing the reception room in City Hall. That must have been what Nick was referencing. “So, you think I could be useful because I was once under the employ of City Hall?”
“That’s a big reason,” he said. “We could help ensure that you’d get hired again. Probably not with Judicial, but there’s an office that does something with immigrants, which means they’ll have translation work. It’s not sixty hours a week, not even half that. But the real reason we want you, Mrs. Edgeworth, is because you’re pretty good at all this.”
I didn’t know how to answer. If the Soviets knew about Turner, perhaps they knew about me. Coldwell didn’t seem to think so, and I was too scared to tell him I knew what Turner had done. Or what could be done to Turner.
“City Hall,” I said, thinking of the way I’d felt running up those stairs. That memory was now forever entwined with my night in the subway station with Turner.
“Will you consider it?” Coldwell asked again.
The only place I had been dreaming of returning to was the UN. But sometimes another door opened. Perhaps City Hall would be the thing, the place that would allow me to thrive inside 820 Fifth Avenue instead of desperately trying to escape. Or maybe it would be the force that made me leave my keys there for good and start a new life without Tom. Either way, I needed to try.
“I would like to,” I finally said. “But even if I’m getting paid by the city of New York, I still want your money. Forty dollars a week.”
He nodded. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from you.”
By the time we walked across the bridge to the Brooklyn side, both boys had fallen asleep. We turned around and walked back toward Manhattan.
“Ava is dead. Jacob is dead. But I’m going to City Hall.”
“Yes. Because you are very much alive.”
“My best trait.”
“Mrs. Edgeworth,” Coldwell said when we once again reached the middle of the bridge. “You’ve been an incredible help. You can still be an incredible help, if you can figure out how to make it all work,” he said, gesturing at the children.