by Amy Meyerson
Jake tells them about his trip, about Flora’s life as a nurse to the emperor’s children and as a mother in Nazi-occupied Vienna. In both roles, she did what she had to to keep the children alive, first the emperor’s, then her own daughter. He omitted the deaths that had occurred along the way to keeping Helen safe, but Mrs. Zhang seemed to understand what happened to the family that stayed behind.
Mrs. Zhang rests her chopsticks across her plate. “I left alone, too. My mother made me. I didn’t want to abandon my family, but she promised they would follow. My sister and I were the only ones who made it out, though.”
Jake turns to Kristi, whose eyes water. His eyes sting, too.
“I’m very lucky to have my sister, but I think about my parents every day. For them, I had to look forward, not back. I had to learn to be happy, to have my own family. If not, it was a waste.”
Mrs. Zhang lifts her chopsticks and Jake watches her continue to eat, seeing no conflict on her face. She has learned to be happy. It was not a waste. Flora, Helen—their deaths were not a waste, either. At last, Jake knows what his movie has to be about.
After dinner, Mrs. Zhang shoos Jake and Kristi into the living room under the guise of needing to clean the kitchen. Jake wants to sit on the couch with Kristi, but she heads straight to the door.
“So things with you and Beck are better?” she asks, holding the door open for Jake. She makes a pained expression as she rubs her belly. “She’s been poking me like crazy. Usually she submits if I push her back. I hope that’s a sign she’ll be docile as a teenager.” Once she’s visibly relaxed, she asks again, “So, you and Beck?”
Jake shoves his hands in his pockets, knowing they will otherwise reach for her. “I finally understand why she felt so betrayed. I’m trying to be more careful. I think she’s starting to trust me again.”
“I knew you two would figure it out.”
Jake braves a step toward her. “Our case is good, Kris. Like, really good. I’m going to put the money in a trust, for our daughter. If you’ll let me, I’d like to use some of it to get you a bigger apartment, maybe even vet school, if you still want to go.”
Instead of responding, Kristi tells him, “I have another appointment, next week. Nothing big—just a checkup.”
Jake wants to lift her into the air and kiss her like it’s the end of a romantic movie, then he remembers the in-between and keeps his hands burrowed in his pockets as he promises, “I’ll be there.”
* * *
Ashley knows her time is running out. Since her meeting with Stella in June, she’s had informational meetings with former teammates at a health food company, lifestyle brands, and ad agencies, none of which is looking for a publicity director, ten years delinquent. In a month, Beck will submit Flora’s story to the court and the judge will decide whether the Florentine Diamond belongs to the Millers. A few weeks later, Ryan will have to return the money he stole, a half million dollars that they currently do not have. Still, Ashley isn’t ready to sell the house.
“Ash.” Ryan tries to keep his voice down so the children will not hear. He and Ashley are in their bedroom, Ashley protected under the covers while Ryan stands in his boxers. “We have to put the house on the market.”
“Just give me a few weeks,” she says, trying to control the volume of her voice, too. Although Beck has cautioned that Zita’s testimony might not be enough to persuade the court that the diamond belongs to the Millers, Ashley feels optimistic for the first time in months.
“My sentencing is in a month. We need to return the money then.”
“You need to return the money.” Ashley crosses her arms protectively over her chest as Ryan casts her a wounded look. When Ryan is out of prison, they will be we again. “My case is airtight. I’ll win, then I’ll give you the money to pay back your company.”
“No case is airtight.” Ryan sits down beside her on the bed, trying a different approach. “Look, even if you do win—”
“When I win.”
“When you win, it could take months to find a buyer for the diamond. We’re out of time. I’m out of time. We can use the diamond money to buy a new house. A bigger house.”
“I don’t want a bigger house. I want this house where our children learned to walk and lost their first teeth.”
“Maybe it’s better if we start somewhere new.”
Ashley considers that, a new life in a new town. They could move north, to Maine, buy an old farmhouse and live quietly off the land. But Ashley and Ryan are not gardeners. They are not fixer-uppers. They wouldn’t know how to live a quieter life. “I want things go back to the way they were.”
She knows how naive this sounds, but when Ashley finds a job, when Ryan completes his sentence, they can have a modified version of this life, one where they haven’t lost everything.
“Just give me a few weeks? Beck has to file our claim in the next month. We’ll know more then, and you’ll still have a few weeks before you need to return the money. This house won’t take long to sell. Or I can always take a loan out against it. Please, Ry.”
This is a terrible plan. There isn’t enough time. Still, Ryan reaches over to stroke his wife’s face.
“Okay,” he says, kissing her forehead. “We’ll wait a few weeks.”
* * *
Tom and Beck spend late nights at the office, poring over drafts of their motion. They fret over the Habsburg Law. Even if Karl gifted Flora the diamond before the law went into effect, the Florentine Diamond was property of the crown and not the emperor himself. It may not have been his to give. In response, Flora may have been legally obligated to return the Florentine Diamond to the republic. Plus, if she kept it hidden in Vienna for twenty years, doesn’t that suggest that she knew it might not lawfully be hers? It’s the hairline fracture that threatens to shatter their argument. There’s always one, no matter how good the case, something for the other side to exploit, something that prevents any scenario in the law from being a slam dunk.
They proceed with their argument as best they can, eyes bloodshot and twitching from lack of sleep, until time seems to fold in on itself and Beck isn’t certain what day it is, only that the deadline is close. At three the next afternoon, Tom taps on the partition of Beck’s cubicle. Beck knows it’s afternoon because she heard her coworkers return from lunch.
“You’ll never guess whom I just got a call from,” Tom says, almost giddy.
Beck bolts up, realizing she’d been sleeping with her eyes open. “The Austrians want to settle?” This is a ridiculous guess. They’ve been so adamant.
“They want to talk at least. I know, I wasn’t expecting it, either. After Judge Ricci let us admit the tapes, maybe they realized she’s more likely to side with us and figured a settlement is better than a long road of appeals. Cheaper, probably.”
Beck sets something up with a magistrate judge who will oversee the settlement talks. He insists that all parties be present during the negotiations, a tactic he hopes will help them reach an agreement.
* * *
The night before everyone arrives, Deborah and Viktor lay in bed, sharing one pillow, bodies angled toward each other.
“Do you think they’ll actually settle?” Deborah closes the sliver of space between them. She likes feeling his breath on her face as he talks. It’s warm and minty.
“It’s more a matter of whether you’re willing to take whatever money they offer.”
“Will they offer enough?”
“Do you want them to offer enough?”
“I don’t know.” She inches even closer until the tips of their noses touch. “I wish I could see it again. The Florentine. I never got to hold it. I think if I did, I’d know how to feel. Not just about the diamond, about my mother, too.”
By now, Viktor is familiar with Deborah’s logic, the way she trusts energies more than words, objects more than people. The diamond k
nows Helen’s story better than anyone.
Deborah has accepted that Joseph Spiegel was her father but remains unable to shake a lingering resentment that Helen never trusted her with the truth. Sure, Joseph was married. Sure, the affair erodes the romantic image she had of her father, the war hero. Of all people, though, Deborah wasn’t one to judge. In fact, it may have helped their relationship, knowing that Helen made mistakes, too.
Viktor runs his hand through Deborah’s ear-length hair. She’s growing it out, dying it a new shade of red, less purple, closer to the auburn hue of her childhood. Viktor sees her youth and encourages her to show it to the world. He sees all sorts of things in Deborah that she’s never seen in herself. He believes in her thirty-eighth business idea—the organic flower arrangements—and rents space in the greenhouse on his roof so she can grow flowers before the last frost. He knows her mistakes yet insists she’s a good mother. She’s open to change. That’s a sign of a role model, of someone who will never grow old. With every aching joint and muscle spasm, Deborah’s body is painfully aware of just how old it is. Still, when Viktor tells her she’s beautiful, brave, capable, she believes him.
He kisses her eyelids after she shuts them. “Let’s see it, then. Let’s have you hold the diamond.”
She laughs. “That’s impossible.”
Viktor looks hurt. “You’re the one who taught me that nothing is impossible.”
Did she teach him that? She taught him to believe in powers he couldn’t see, in yoga and acupuncture, in veganism, and in red wine, but she hadn’t realized this amounted to an ideology.
“It’s in a vault.”
Viktor wiggles his nose against hers. “It just so happens that I’m on the list of individuals allowed access to the diamond, and your family is in need of a final evaluation of the Florentine in advance of the settlement negotiations.”
“We are, are we?” Deborah tenses as Viktor wraps his arm around her. “Beck wouldn’t like it.”
“Beck doesn’t need to know everything.” He squeezes her close. “You need to say goodbye to Helen.”
“Okay,” she whispers, and kisses him.
* * *
In the morning, Deborah puts on her nicest dress, which is purple velvet and hardly professional. Still, Viktor tells her she looks perfect.
“Eccentrically old money,” he says as she places half a grapefruit before him, the other half in her bowl. Deborah thinks they can share grapefruits for the rest of their lives, two halves of the same whole.
Deborah straightens his tie, which is already perfectly straight. “And you, Mr. Castanza, dapper as always.”
Once they arrive at the bank, Deborah waits in the lobby as Viktor approaches the manager’s desk. Occasionally they turn toward her and she smiles, but the bank manager does not smile back. After they’ve been talking awhile, Viktor waves her over and together they sign their names to gain access to the vault.
Deborah has never been inside a vault before. The sourness of all that metal and cement burns her nostrils. The silence rings in her eardrums. It takes her the entire hall to realize she’s emotionally unprepared to hold her mother’s most secret possession.
After the manager leaves them alone in the vault, making them promise to return the owner’s key to her when they sign out, Viktor places the safe-deposit box on the table with a clang. “You ready?”
No, she thinks.
“Ready as ever,” she says instead.
He drops the diamond into her hand. It’s heavy and cool against her skin. At first she feels no energy, good or bad—just a piece of carbon against her palm. As she shuts her eyes and squeezes the diamond, her palm begins to tingle. Quickly, the stone grows hot, searing her skin. She keeps a firm grip on it, despite the burning, trying to locate her mother’s energy amid that heat. The stone sends an electric shock down her forearm, but she breathes through the pain, searching for Helen, for Flora, beneath that violent energy. Her heart pounds too fast. Sweat gathers at her hairline. When the current seizes her arm, she feels like all the death she’s unleashing from the stone might actually kill her. She drops the diamond, hears it hit the floor as she races into the cool, empty hall.
Deborah leans against the cement wall, catching her breath. Everything about this is wrong. Their being here. The diamond in the vault. Her trying to reconcile with her mother through the stone. The diamond belonging to the Millers, spreading its bad luck like a virus. It’s all wrong.
Viktor finds her in the hall. “You okay?”
He rubs her arms, and she pulls him to her. His energy is so much warmer than the diamond’s. Softer. Right in every way that stone was wrong. Despite his calming effect, she still feels the aftershock of that stone buzzing through her.
He kisses her head. Strokes her youthful red hair. “What happened?”
“That stone is evil.” She waits for him to laugh, and although he stiffens, he does not tease her.
“I’m sorry. I thought it was a good idea.”
“It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known.” They start walking out of the vault. “I didn’t break it, did I?”
“It takes a lot more than a spill on a cement floor to crack a diamond.” For some reason, she knows he’s talking about them.
“I love you.” This is the first time she’s said this to him. She doesn’t mean to say it now, but it’s true. It feels good to divulge something she knows is true.
“I love you, too.” There’s a strange reservation in his voice. As he looks down at her, he seems nervous. Deborah wonders if this is the first time he’s ever said those words to someone, and she feels the last of the manic current leave her body. This was a good idea, she decides. Coming here was the most perfect idea Deborah has ever had.
Eighteen
On the morning of the settlement conference, Deborah wakes up early to make her children a lucky breakfast: vegan pancakes with bananas and walnuts. When they lived in Mt. Airy, she used to make the nonvegan version for them on the first day of school, before big tests, games, and concerts. She hopes the breakfast will remind her children of the times they were together in the past, all the times they can be together in the future, too.
When the Millers bound downstairs with more energy than they usually have at eight in the morning, they say nothing about the symbolism of the meal.
“These look great,” Ashley tells her mother.
“I’m starving,” Jake says, lifting a pancake from the platter.
Deborah feels a slight disappointment, but they are all here, eating together. Maybe they don’t need to recall happier days. Maybe they need to focus on the ones ahead. Deborah wishes Viktor was here to eat pancakes with the Millers, to be part of this morning. He had an early meeting in the city and stayed at his apartment for the night. It’s the first night in weeks that they haven’t shared a bed. Part of her likes it, getting to miss him.
As they eat, Beck gives everyone a rundown of how the day will go. The settlement conference will take place at Beck’s firm, since the Austrians’ lawyers are coming from DC. Tom will meet with the Austrians’ lawyers and the magistrate judge before the Millers and the Austrian representatives arrive. They’ll be ushered into separate rooms for the negotiations, and the magistrate judge will zip back and forth between the parties. If all goes well, it should be over in a few hours. Then the Millers can go to the bank to say goodbye to the Florentine.
“And if it doesn’t go well?” Ashley asks, picking a banana slice out of the pancake, too nervous to eat.
“It will,” Beck vows. “We’re not going to get ten million for the diamond, but Tom will make sure we get enough to settle. It’s in everyone’s best interest.”
“What will they do with the Florentine?” Jake asks.
“It will probably be on display in the treasury with the other crown jewels,” Beck says.
Deborah cuts
her pancakes into pieces, thinking that’s the best place for the Florentine, behind glass where it can’t impart its bad luck on anyone else.
“And will anyone know?” Jake presses. “When it’s in a museum, will the display say anything about how the diamond got there?”
“That isn’t up to us,” Beck says.
“It should be,” Jake insists. “We should have a say in how the story of the diamond is told.”
“Jake,” Ashley warns. “It’s not the time.”
“What, to care about my family legacy?”
“I’m just saying, don’t fuck this up.”
“Like I fuck everything else up?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t need to.”
“Millers,” Beck snaps. “Pull it together—we’re on the same team. Let’s focus on getting an agreement. After, we can contact a newspaper in Vienna or something, okay?”
Her siblings reluctantly agree. Deborah thinks if Viktor could see Beck, he’d be as proud of her as Deborah is.
* * *
The magistrate judge visits the Austrians first, giving Tom time to reiterate everything Beck has already told her family. This settlement is about money. It isn’t about whom the diamond rightfully belongs to, whether Flora should have turned it over to the Austrians in 1919, whether it was even Karl’s to give. It’s about how much cash it will take for the Millers to rescind their claim, to allow the Austrians and the US government to reach an agreement to return the diamond to its homeland.
The Austrians’ initial offer is alarmingly low, lower than the Italians’ a year ago.
“We weren’t going take that from the Italians. Why would we take that now?” Ashley asks.
“And it’s even less because we have to give him a third.” Jake gestures toward Tom. Despite Beck’s truce with Tom, her insistence that he’s been invaluable to their case, Jake cannot shake his dislike of this boring, predictable man who broke his sister’s heart.