19
Linda didn’t have an off-switch, not when it came to her children. She and Erik didn’t take a week away, like their friends often did, leaving the kids with Izzy or one of the grandmothers. She just couldn’t imagine it, boarding a vehicle that would loft into the air, separating her by hundreds or even thousands of miles from Trevor and Emily. Margie thought this was very unhealthy, that ultimately it would take a toll on the marriage, that the children would become too dependent, too needy, never self-reliant. And maybe she was right. She and Erik were in crisis. Trevor cried like a toddler when she’d left them earlier with Erik’s mom; Emily sulked. But Linda thought Margie’s off-switch was a bit too well-developed, that she had disconnected too easily and too often from her girls. That sometimes even when she’d been present, she’d been absent. Izzy didn’t share her feelings about this, remembered things differently.
Linda remembered often feeling alone in her family, that she was no one’s first thought. Her shrink thought this caused her to be overly vigilant to Trevor’s and Emily’s needs. It was true that since Emily was born there hadn’t been a morning when she wasn’t immediately upon awaking tending to one of her children. There had been no mornings of languishing in bed with her husband, no really abandoned nights out. Ever. Was this unusual? She didn’t really know. Most of their friends, other artists or professionals, had chosen to have only one child. Most of them had full-time nannies or au pairs, young, live-in girls from Europe who seemed in the best cases like surrogate children (whom you’d never had to diaper and who now did the dishes and cared for the smaller child), and in the worst cases like tight-bodied interlopers gazing with barely concealed avariciousness at their wealth and husbands.
She knew her friends loved their children; she didn’t judge them. But it seemed to her that only she and Erik were parenting full-time, fitting work and life around Trevor and Emily, putting personal wants and needs last or never. Which way was right? Who was better off? She honestly didn’t know. She just knew she couldn’t be another way.
She remembered reading somewhere that the look on your face when a child enters your field of vision is one of the single most important factors in the shaping of that child’s self-esteem. Luckily, she couldn’t keep the delight off her face when she looked at Trevor and Emily; their faces, the sound of their voices, their accomplishments-from walking to potty training, from academic achievement to personal blossoming-filled her with more joy and excitement than anything else she’d known in her life.
But that statement had caused her to think back to her own childhood, to remember faces, expressions. She remembered wandering eyes, hard stares into the distance, furrowed brows. Not directed at her. Just in general, the faces she saw were sad ones-and she had never been enough to brighten them.
She was thinking this as Erik emerged from wherever they’d been holding him, with Margie’s lawyer, John Brace. Actually, he was the son of Brace the elder, Fred’s longtime attorney, who was getting too old, too frail to come out to the police station in the middle of the night. There was something harder, not as gentlemanly, about the younger Brace. A hard-ass. His face was all sharp angles, still and pale. She examined him as he talked to Erik, low, intent. She thought, He’s a wolf. Feral, lonely, merciless. Good, perfect, exactly what they needed now.
They approached her and she embraced her husband, longer, harder than was appropriate with a stranger present. But she couldn’t seem to let go of him. She saw Brace turn discreetly away, give them the privacy of not staring.
“It’s okay,” said Erik softly, rubbing her back. “I’m okay.”
Brace cleared his throat and they turned to look at him. “This is an emotional time for you. But we have a lot of ground to cover. Your financial losses. Your sister, how we get in touch with her and convince her to return to the fold. Your potential culpability in this matter. How we proceed from here to protect ourselves. Where should we do that?”
“It’s late,” said Erik. “Let’s do it tomorrow, John.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. A lot can happen between now and then. We need to be prepared.”
Looking weary, anxious, Erik nodded. “Home,” he said. “Let’s go home.”
“No,” said Linda, too quickly. By the time she’d left the hospital with Trevor and Emily, and shuttled them into a waiting taxi, Ben had left. But she couldn’t count on him not to be lurking around the apartment, waiting to ambush them on their return.
“Let’s go to a café or something. Café Orlin is right around the corner. It’s quiet, private. I’m starved.”
Erik looked as if he was about to argue but then seemed to change his mind.
“Fine,” he said, taking her hand. “That’s fine.”
Brace nodded uncertainly, took a quick glance at his watch. Then he ushered them toward the exit. Linda noticed and liked that he seemed in charge, but was still deferential. She felt safer, calmer with him there, as if there was no problem he couldn’t make disappear. The elder Brace didn’t have this quality, didn’t seem like an enforcer, more like a trusted adviser and friend. Someone who would do his best to help, within the letter of the law, but would bow to forces bigger than himself. His face was soft at the jaw, kind and warm at the eyes. There was no kindness or softness in the face of the younger man, just granite.
The three exited the precinct and turned left, toward First Avenue. As they proceeded down the block, Linda saw-just out of the corner of her eye-Ben, waiting in his Mercedes across the street. Her heart nearly stopped in her chest, her stomach bottomed out completely, but she kept walking, pretended not to see.
She hoped he was a coward, that he’d stay in the periphery, a looming threat that never materialized. But then she heard a car door open and slam hard. She found herself cringing, clinging close to Erik, not able to bring herself to turn around even as she heard the footfalls behind them. John and Erik, already in conversation, seemed not to notice.
“I’m going to need you to start from the beginning, Erik,” John was saying. “How Marcus Raine approached you, what documentation he provided, what you signed. Then we’ll work our way up to the events of this evening.”
“Okay,” Erik said. “I can do that.”
“Can I make a suggestion? It really would be better if we went back to your place. I’m reluctant to discuss your private matters in public. And in lieu of a secretary, I’d like to record our conversation to be transcribed later.”
“I agree. Linda?”
Linda barely heard them. She had the vague sense that she was being asked something that needed answering, but she couldn’t hear over the rushing of blood in her ears. They were just about to turn the corner.
“Linda!” called Ben, loud, insistent. All three of them stopped moving and turned back, startled at the sound of his voice.
Ben stood there, legs spread, arms akimbo. In the dim light of the street, the bulk of his frame was dark, menacing. She could barely see his face. She found herself unable to move, to open her mouth.
Please, Ben, she wanted to say, don’t do this to him. Don’t do this to me. Not now. But she couldn’t; it all lodged in her throat. Her life was a china teacup, already on its way from delicate grip to marble floor. She had no one to blame but herself. She thought of her babies, Emily and Trevor, how she’d betrayed them more than she had anyone else with her vanity and stupidity. What kind of mother was she if she could lead herself and the father of her children into a moment like this?
“Who is that?” asked Erik, his face open and earnest, even in such a moment.
Linda shook her head. She opened her mouth but still no words came.