After two weeks of this, Mitch asked her how she was doing, and she said: "I'll be fine on my own, if that's what you were wondering. Do you want to spend a few nights in the city?"
"I was just thinking about going until the weekend. I'll come back here on Friday night, and maybe if you're feeling better we can go home to New York on Sunday."
"Is somebody going to be using this house?"
"No," Mitch said. "Nobody uses this place any more."
"So why can't I stay?"
"Well you can stay, baby. I just thought you'd be wanting to get back with some of your friends."
"I don't have any friends in New York."
"Rachel, don't be silly. You've got plenty of-" He saw the unhappiness in her eyes, and raised his hands in surrender. "All right. If you say you've got no friends, you've got no friends. I only thought if you were making progress, it would be good for everybody to see you again."
"Oh, now I get it. You want to show me around so the family doesn't start thinking I've lost my mind."
"That's not it at all. Why do you have to be so paranoid?"
"Because I know the way you think. All of you. Always watching out for the family reputation. Well, right now I don't care about the family reputation, okay? I don't want to see anybody. I don't want to talk to anybody. And I certainly don't want to go back to New York."
"Calm down, will you?" Mitch said. "I just wanted to find out where we stand. Now I know." He left the kitchen without another word, but he came back in again ten minutes later. His anger hadn't dissipated, but he was doing his best to conceal it. "I haven't come back here for another argument," he said, "I only want to point out that you can't stay here forever. This is not a life I want my wife to be living, puttering around like an old woman, cutting roses and peeling potatoes."
"I like peeling potatoes."
"You're being perverse."
"I'm being honest."
"Well, that's all I wanted to say. I'm going to be staying with Garrison for the next few days, so we can work through all this Bangkok business." She didn't have a clue what he was talking about; nor did she care to inquire. "So if you need me…"
"I know where to find you," she replied, though she'd realized several seconds before that she wouldn't be coming to look.
Where would she go? That was the question that vexed her for the next few days. Even assuming she did what would once have been unthinkable, and actually left her husband, where would she go? She couldn't stay here at the farmhouse, though that would be blissful. It was Geary property. She could take up residence in the apartment, of course-that was hers-but she'd never feel comfortable there; certainly not without completely remodeling the place in line with her own tastes, and that was too large a scale of undertaking. Perhaps she'd be better off selling it, even if it didn't make a particularly good price, and finding a smaller place to purchase: perhaps somewhere off the beaten track like Caleb's Creek.
She slept on the thought, though not well. She passed the night in an uneasy state somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, and when she dreamed the dreams were of the room in which she was lying, only bleached of all color, like the photographs in George's study that had been left in the sun too long. There were people passing through the room, a few of them glancing down at her, their faces impassive. She knew none of them, though she had the suspicion that she'd known them once, and forgotten their names.
The next day she called Margie, and invited her to visit.
"I really can't bear the country," Margie protested. "But if you're not going to be coming back here for a while…"
"I'm not."
"Then I'll come."
She arrived the next day, her limo packed with boxes of her favorite indulgences-smoked bluefish pate, the inevitable Beluga, Viennese coffee, a box of bitter chocolate florentines-plus, of course, a case of libations.
"This isn't the back of beyond," Rachel pointed out as she watched Samuel, Margie's driver, unload the supplies. "We have a very good market ten minutes' drive from here."
"I know, I know," Margie said, "but I like to come prepared." She pulled a bottle of single-malt Scotch out of one of the boxes. "Where's the ice?"
Margie had plenty of gossip. Loretta had become quite the harridan in the last few weeks, she reported. There'd been a very acrimonious exchange with Garrison a week ago, in which Loretta had inferred some misconduct in the way Garrison had disposed of several million dollars' worth of family holdings.
"I didn't think Loretta had any interest in the business side of things," Rachel said.
"Oh don't you believe it. She likes to pretend she's above it all. But she's watching her empire. In fact, the more I see her operate, the more I think she was always working behind the scenes. Even when George was alive. He did all the talking, but she was the one telling him what to say. And now she's seeing things she doesn't approve of, so she's showing her hand."
"So what happened with Garrison?"
"Oh it was a mess. He told her she didn't know what she was talking about, which was exactly the wrong thing to say. Apparently she went into the boardroom the next day and dismissed five of the board members on the spot."
"She can do that?"
"She did it," Margie replied. "Told them all to pack their bags and go. Then she gave an interview to The Wall Street Journal saying they were incompetent. They're all suing of course. I'm surprised Mitchell didn't say anything about any of this."
"He doesn't talk about the business. He never has."
"This isn't business. This is civil war. Garrison was madder than I've seen him in a long time. It was all very satisfying." They exchanged smiles; co-conspirators in their pleasure at all this unrest. "The way he was talking," Margie went on, "I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't come up with some kind of ultimatum. You know: either she goes or I go."
"And who's going to make that decision?"
"I don't know," Margie laughed. "Especially now Lor-etta's put half the board out of a job. I suppose in the end it'll come down to whether Mitchell sides with Garrison or his grandmother."
"It all seems so old-fashioned."
"Oh, it's positively feudal," Margie said. "But that's the way the old man set it up when he retired. He kept all the power in the family."
"Does Cadmus have any kind of vote?"
"Oh sure. He still sends memos to Garrison, believe it or not."
"Do they make any sense?"
"I think it depends how much medication he's had that day. Last time I went to see him he was flying. Talking about something that happened fifty years ago. I don't think he even knew who I was. Then there's days when he's really sharp, according to Garrison." She grew a little pensive. "I think it's pretty sad, personally. To be so old and not be able to let go of his little empire."
"Isn't that what keeps him alive?" Rachel said.
"Well it's pitiful," Margie said. "But it's the way they are. Control freaks."
"Including Loretta?"
"Especially Loretta. She's got nothing better to do."
"She's not too old to many again, once Cadmus dies."
"She'd be better off taking a lover," Margie said. She had a sly expression on her face. "It's a nice feeling."
"Are you telling me-?" The slyness became a smile. "You have a lover?"
"Doesn't everyone?" Margie laughed. "His name's Danny. I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him, but he's a wonderful distraction in the middle of a dreary afternoon."