The phone bleats. She imagines that even this phone call must be from Weaver. Perhaps she’s gone mad.
“Rozzie. Daddy and I’ve been trying to call you all morning.” Ava’s voice breaks through the haze. “You said we’d go to Cinderella today.” When she was at Louisa’s house, Ava had begged Rosalind to take her to the movie this weekend, since she was sure Henry wouldn’t want to go.
“Oh, Ava. I’m sorry, darling. I know we had a plan.”
“You forgot.”
“No, I’ve had to be away,” she says. “I just got back.”
“So are you ready to go? The movie’s at one thirty. Will you pick me up in a taxi? Daddy and I can wait downstairs.”
The misery of losing Weaver competes with her desire to please this child. She closes her eyes, envisions Ava’s hopeful face. That makes it even harder to say what she must.
“I know you’ll be very disappointed, and I can’t blame you, but I can’t go.”
“Why not? You promised. It’s the only thing I really wanted to do all weekend!”
“I know. I couldn’t be sorrier. Can I speak with your dad? Can you give the phone to him?” She remembers with a sense of unease that she needs to tell Henry about the discussion she had with Louisa. She will, when the world rights itself. She can’t forget.
Ava calls out to Henry and she hears the clatter of the phone being set down. A moment later, her brother-in-law gets on. She discerns a woman’s voice in the background talking to Ava and wonders who it can be.
“Roz?”
“Henry. I’m sorry, but something terrible has happened. Can you take Ava to the movie? I know Cinderella is hardly your cup of tea, but . . . she wants so much to go.”
“What happened? Are you okay?”
Roz can still see the specter of Weaver by the window in his shirtsleeves, smoking, watching her steadily. “Weaver’s died,” she says softly.
“Roz. Dear God. How?”
She doesn’t have the strength to tell him the whole story now.
“I told you he had cancer. Neither of us thought it would . . . end so fast.” She finds those words hard to get out. Has it ended? For Weaver’s sake she hopes so. “Henry, can you take Ava? I just can’t sit through a movie. Not today. And she was so looking forward to it.”
“Of course. Don’t worry. You just rest.”
“I’ve got to warn you, the Tribune says there are singing bluebirds.”
Henry laughs. “I’ll survive. But are you all right? Do you need Louisa to come be with you?”
“Louisa?” Why would he bring up Louisa? “No. I’m all right. I’m just glad Ava won’t be disappointed.”
“If you’re sure. Maybe we should all come there.”
Does he think she’ll go to bed and not get up like last time? Part of her would like to.
“I’m okay,” she says, though her voice sounds hollow. “I just need time to understand that he’s gone. It doesn’t feel real.”
“When we get back from the show, we’ll call. You can tell me what you need and we’ll bring it by. Okay?”
“Thank you. I love you.”
When Rosalind puts down the phone, her heart is slamming. Her head aches. She stares at the cup of tea she poured, but the thought of drinking it makes her stomach tight. Reaching up into the cupboard, she pulls down the bottle of Scotch and shakes to see what little is left. About a jigger’s worth. This big bottle sat abandoned for so many years, dusty and tucked away on the other side of the bar, until Weaver came back into her life. Now it will be gone—like Weaver. She pours the last shot into the hot tea and drinks it down. The tea burns. The liquor burns more.
* * *
Having fallen asleep after the Scotch, she’s sure it’s an air-raid siren that’s awakened her. She sits up in bed, prickly and confused, then realizes it’s the lobby intercom buzzing. Dizzy, she gets up and, holding on to the wall, pads barefoot to answer.
“Yes?”
“It’s your sister,” Moses, the weekend doorman, announces. “Can I send her up?”
“My sister?”
“Miss, can I send her up?” he asks again.
“Yes, of course.”
What’s Louisa doing here? Half-asleep, her mind scans for a forgotten plan. Nothing. Running her hands through her hair at the mirror, she imagines Louisa scolding her for looking such a mess. But when she opens the door, her sister steps in and takes her into her arms.
“Jesus, Roz, you could have told me,” she says.
“Could have told you what?”
“About Weaver. You didn’t say he was dying.”
“But how do you know?”
“I was with Henry and Ava when you talked.”
“You were?”
“I was going to go with you and Ava to Cinderella, but I came here instead—to be sure you’re okay.”
“You were with Henry and Ava?” she asks again.
“Let’s sit down,” Louisa says.
Rosalind nods and they find places on the couch. It’s been a long time since Louisa actually sat down in her apartment. Years, maybe.
“Tell me how you are,” Louisa says.
“I’m okay. Can I get you something to drink? Water? Tea?”
“Oh, for God’s sake. No. Tell me everything. Why didn’t you say that Weaver was sick?”
“You hated him.”
“I know. But only because he hurt you.” She frowns. “Have you been drinking?”
“How can you tell?”
“Your breath.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. You’re probably in shock.”
“I guess so.” Rosalind notes an all-encompassing numbness. As though every tear has been wept and she’s just a pair of red eyes, an aching heart.
Louisa takes both her hands. She isn’t frowning at her, sniping at her, or lecturing. “You loved him, I know,” she says. It stuns Rosalind to realize that Louisa knows nothing about Charlie, how deeply she feels for him, how her life has transformed in a matter of days. She softens at the memory of how he stopped their lovemaking to ask her to open her eyes, to tell her he loved her.
Roz looks over toward the window and sees that Weaver isn’t there anymore. His image has evaporated. He never did like Louisa. Or maybe thoughts of Charlie have swept him away.
“I loved Weaver and I hated him,” she says, surprised to be revealing such a thing to her critical sister.
“After what he did,” Louisa says, “how could you not?”
“But what he did is so much worse than you can imagine . . .”
“How is that possible? You know I already think the man was a beast.”
“Louisa, why were you at the Allerton?”
“You don’t want to hear this now. Tell me more about Weaver.”
“I do want to hear it.”
“Oh. Well, after you and I talked yesterday, I thought about what you said: that maybe it’s not Henry I’m angry at. Maybe I’m just angry at my life and the way it’s turned out.”
Her sister actually listened to her? Nothing could surprise Rosalind more. Perhaps she was able to listen because Roz listened first. Her sister has been impossible for years. But Rosalind realizes how unfair she’s been, never once thinking of Louisa’s side of things.
“I came to the Allerton, and Henry and I talked in the bedroom while Ava listened to a radio show in the living room.”
“What did he say?”
“I think he actually heard me.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him why I’ve been unhappy. And I told him I wanted to understand my part in making him unhappy.”
“You did? Louisa!”
“It’s not going to get better in a day. He’s not going to fly right home . . .”
&n
bsp; “No.”
“And maybe he really shouldn’t. Not yet. What’s the point in getting back together if we can’t do it better? But we’re talking.”
Roz breathes with pleasure. “I’m so glad,” she says. She leans forward and gives her sister a kiss.
“I’m going through the change, you know. That’s part of what’s wrong with me. I’m so short-tempered. I told him that too. He didn’t know.” Rosalind doesn’t want to say Louisa’s always been short-tempered and malcontent. Still, she feels hopeful. She wants her family to stay together. They are her family. As much a mother and father to her as any other adopted child’s parents. She’s just never thought of them quite that way before.
“I want to hear what Weaver’s done. All of it. But, it’s way past lunchtime. Have you eaten?”
Rosalind shakes her head.
“I’m starved. Do you think the Wagon Wheel’s still open? I’ll take you to lunch,” Louisa says.
“Sure.”
“Are you up to going out?”
Roz nods. “It might feel good.”
“Go change and powder your nose and we’ll walk over. Eating lunch will help you soak up whatever it is you’ve been drinking.”
“It was only about a jigger. It’s just that it was early.”
Louisa shrugs. “Go change. I’ll read this magazine.” She lifts the first one she finds on the coffee table. “The Journal of Applied Physics. Sounds riveting. Hurry up.”
Roz slips out of yesterday’s clothes, which are now twice worn and even slept in, and puts on the linen sheath she wore the day she walked to Charlie’s office. Charlie. She tries not to think of how hurt he seemed when they parted, how distant. It leaves her unsettled.
She and Louisa walk west, away from the lakefront, past families heading to Oak Street Beach with pails and towels, past housewives hefting grocery bags and parents pushing strollers. It’s a perfect Chicago summer day. Breezy and bright. She looks back a few times to make sure that Lawrence is trailing dutifully behind them. He doesn’t acknowledge her.
It’s after two, and the Wagon Wheel is nearly empty. A coffee shop with a Wild West theme, it has ceiling light fixtures made to look like wagon wheels, and wall sconces modeled on gas lamps. Blue wallpaper is chockablock with cowboys on horseback wielding lassos, herds of steer, women in bonnets. A middle-aged man sits at the counter nibbling a grilled cheese sandwich; an older woman is counting out cash for her bill at a table by the front window. A tall woman swathed in a sheer green headscarf glides in through the front door to the tinkle of the bell. Not another soul. Roz and Louisa slip into a booth along the wall. Roz notes Lawrence seating himself at a table in the center of the room. A good place to watch. She takes a deep breath, trying to ground herself, to make herself feel the moment, the setting.
One thing is certain: She’s glad to be here with her sister. She wonders if Louisa is only being kind to her because once again, she’s needy. Yet, watching Louisa scan the menu, she feels surprisingly soothed by her presence.
“They have good club sandwiches here, don’t they?” Louisa says.
“Yeah, they’re great.”
“I’m just in the mood.” How changed she seems. Relaxed. “So tell me about Weaver.” She closes the menu. “Tell me everything. Especially why he’s so much worse than I imagine.”
Rosalind glances over at Lawrence, who’s drumming his fingers on the table, waiting for the waitress.
“I’m probably not supposed to say.”
“Why aren’t you supposed to say?”
Roz bites her lip. What does it matter now? Weaver’s gone. Eventually Louisa may actually realize that Lawrence has been following them. Better that she should know.
“Do you see that man over there?”
Louisa glances over and nods.
“He’s an FBI agent.”
“What?”
“He’s here to protect me.”
Louisa’s face moves through a litany of changes. Surprise. Upset. Skepticism. “You’re joking, right?”
Roz shakes her head. And then she tells Louisa everything. Very softly, very slowly. Their lunches come, and Rosalind keeps talking. About Clemence, Victoire, and the FBI, the smashed headboard, the blood. She says nothing about her feelings toward Charlie. She wants to tell Louisa about him in a happy context, not in the shadow of Weaver.
“I told you Weaver’s done so much worse than I imagined. Apparently, he’s been selling atomic secrets to the Russians for a long, long time,” Roz says. “Since ’44, before we dropped the bombs on Japan. You wouldn’t believe the extent of the information he’s shared with them.” Louisa’s mouth opens in surprise, in horror.
“I knew I hated that man,” she says.
“He regretted it at the end. Maybe he’s regretted it for a long time. He wanted some kind of forgiveness. I think that might have had a lot to do with his coming back to me.”
“That just makes him more of a rat. He made things dangerous for you. And probably never thought of it.” Louisa takes the last bite of her sandwich and pats her lips with her napkin. “He had no right to put you through all he has.”
“It’s just between us. Don’t even tell Henry. Let me be the one, okay?”
“Okay.”
Rosalind is glad that her sister is at last speaking to Henry. Just thinking of it makes her smile.
“You finished?” Louisa asks.
“Couldn’t eat another bite.”
Louisa starts sliding out of the booth. “Sorry. I have to run to the ladies’. Why don’t you take that half a sandwich home? For dinner. They’ll package it up for you. I’ll be back for the bill. Don’t you dare try to pay it, okay?”
“As if I could,” Roz says. She watches Louisa walk ladylike to the bathroom, purse in hand, then calls over the waitress. The woman takes the sandwich away and a few minutes later brings it back wrapped and bagged. But Louisa still hasn’t returned. Rosalind straightens her purse, thinks about Ava and Henry at the movie, frets about Charlie. What on earth is taking so long? Rosalind gets up to check on her. Walking by Lawrence, she surreptitiously points to the hallway where the restrooms are and heads that way. The middle-aged man and the woman with the green scarf are gone. At the counter, two giggling bobby-soxers lean eagerly over a shared milkshake. Rosalind heads down the long hallway and pushes open the door marked with a frilly bonnet and the word GALS beneath it.
She gasps. Up against the wall, the tall woman with the green headscarf clutches Louisa from behind, pressing a knife to her throat. It’s when the woman’s kohl-lined eyes meet hers that Rosalind knows: She’s seen this face in her nightmares.
“Clemence.”
She’s alive.
There’s the faintest nod of acknowledgment.
“Or should I call you Victoire?”
The woman’s features harden; her nostrils flare.
“He told you my name?”
The knife pressed against her sister’s throat shudders in Clemence’s hand. Louisa’s eyes are huge and terrified, her lips like chalk. Rosalind forces herself not to stare at the dangerous gleam of metal.
“He told me everything,” Rosalind says.
“And you . . . you passed it on . . . to the FBI.” Clemence spits out the letters as someone would a mouthful of poison.
Rosalind experiences a dropping sensation.
“It wasn’t hard to follow you. We knew you were working with them. Thomas would still be alive, but you compromised him. You’re the one that killed him.”
Swallowing the idea that Weaver’s truly dead, that his death could be her fault, is lye burning all the way down Rosalind’s throat.
“But you’re the one that had him killed, aren’t you?” Rosalind chokes out.
The question pierces its mark, for it makes Clemence’s mouth tremble.
“What choice did I have? How long until he would have been arrested, until he would have spilled everything. Because of you. For years, he loved me,” Clemence says. “He was sent to the US to be our link to secrets, and that’s what he did. Then you came along . . .”
Rosalind takes in her nemesis’s face. How she once envied this woman. Close up, she sees the furrows of age, the crumbling beauty, anguish written into every line. Never once in all these years did Roz imagine that while she was jealous of Clemence, Clemence was equally jealous of her.
“He didn’t tell me about you. He kept us both in the dark,” Rosalind says.
“Yes, he was good at that.”
“He said you were dead.”
“Of course he did.” Clemence’s voice is a soft, broken whisper.
As they’ve been speaking, Rosalind’s been watching Clemence’s green chiffon scarf drop imperceptibly backward, and now, in its shadow, she can make out a shocking gash above her left ear: the hair shaven away in a wide swath, a thickly scabbed line running across the center like the median on a highway. Roz can’t help but wince. All that blood Charlie said they found in the forest preserve . . . was it a scalp wound, a bullet graze?
“Weaver tried to kill you, didn’t he?” Rosalind asks. “He tried to shoot you.”
“Tais-toi!” Clemence draws the scarf back up. Her movement with her left hand presses the knife in the other hand even tighter to Louisa’s throat. Rosalind sees it’s actually nicking her sister’s skin, leaving a thin, red, seeping line. She swallows hard. “I gave him years of my life. And you turned him against me. I wouldn’t have had to kill him but for you.” Tears begin to spill over the lines of kohl, drawing dark rivers down Clemence’s cheeks. “Now it is right that I kill her. To punish you.” Rosalind sees her sister’s eyes squeeze shut, her face go utterly gray.
Atomic Love Page 30