Chapter III
SIMON HADN’T COME out of his room to eat.
She had avoided going into her room. Avoided facing the expanse of the double bed.
Avoided retrieving her nightgown from their shared bureau.
At last she had finally succumbed to her weariness and dragged herself into her room, crawling into bed fully clothed.
Stretching her arm across the unfathomable expanse of the bed, she lay awake with her eyes trained on the ceiling.
She dragged her hand over the sheets again and brought it to rest on her breastbone.
Although her limbs felt like weights hanging off her torso, her eyelids would not close.
She could feel the gritty dryness as the lid slid slowly down and sprang back up again.
She had read and reread the summons, each time her eyes hitched over the inked timestamp at the bottom.
The image of Henry's awkward body in his chair invaded her mind. Try as she might, she couldn’t force it from her thoughts.
What happened to him? It didn’t look like a heart attack to her.
Wouldn’t he be slumped over his desk if he’d had a heart attack?
Wouldn’t his hand have been near his chest?
He would have fallen off the chair, right?
Instead, his arms lay limp and hanging down at the sides of his chair.
His head had been tipped back, and his chair had been facing the window.
Why facing the window? He had never faced the window while working.
Devastation had been clearly written over Henry's face as he had explained to Mrs. Jones and Mrs. MacDuffy, in turn, that it was unlikely to regain custody once the child was out of the jurisdiction of New York. Mae remembered the first woman’s home, the disarray of the two-room tenement.
There had been dirty dishes strewn about and clothes heaped in a corner of the room.
Mae couldn’t help but feel that perhaps the child would be better off in a new home.
But the second woman, Mrs. MacDuffy, had seemed like she ran a proper home, but unfortunately, she wasn’t able to find work, and the court had determined her unfit to provide for her son.
The mantel clock’s deep gong struck once, then twice. In the deafening silence that followed, the soft hiss of the coal stove could be heard from the parlor. The constant exhale of the stove was punctuated periodically by the sound of the coals shifting as they burned.
Now she would have to seek out Mrs. Kerr.
She dreaded the task. Henry had been the people person who could talk to any client under any circumstances.
She had been happy to stand nearby and fade into the background during these tough discussions.
Now that time had come to an end, and the distasteful responsibility would fall to her.
What would this mean for her? For her work?
She thought of the money they had saved over the years.
It wasn’t much, but it could see them through for a little while.
She would have to provide now. How would she get a job now?
She had been working as a legal clerk for 14 years, but she hadn’t seen too many other women work outside of filing or stenography.
None of the offices would hire a female legal clerk.
She’d seen the other bigger offices… The women there were young and pretty, always running for coffee and typing at the front desk.
Could she relegate herself to such hands-off work?
She sighed aloud and felt her shoulders tighten.
Her mind wandered to the next room, and she visualized Simon sleeping on his side with the blankets wrapped tightly around him like a cocoon.
She would find a way to support him. Even if it meant taking an empty-headed job where her only contributions were meticulously typed affidavits and pristine file cabinet organization.
She closed her eyes, and the image that came was not Henry but Simon — four days ago, just days before all of this. The door flying open.
* * *
Before The Note
The door flew open and slammed with a loud bang.
Jumping from her seat in the kitchen, Mae’s stockinged feet scampered to the hallway, the frames holding images of spring blooms dancing back and forth from their mounts like pendulums on the mantel clock in the parlor.
“Simon?” She called. “Is everything all right, dear?”
Silence accompanied the pounding footsteps that sounded past Mae and up the stairs.
Mae's concern over the slammed door evaporated as she caught sight of the tear-stained face, the glasses askew, and a faint bruise beginning to form under Simon's left cheekbone as he scurried past her.
Another loud bang reverberated through the house as Simon's bedroom door slammed into its jamb.
“Simon,” she soothed as she approached him, “what happened, sweetheart?”
“Nothing,” came the mumbled response as he tried to mute his sobbing further.
Picking up the twisted glasses, she straightened the frame as best she could before setting them down gently in the same spot. She tried again, “Simon, what happened?”
“Just leave me alone!”
Mae’s hand froze midway to his shoulder. He had turned his head just enough for her to get a full look at the forming bruise. “What happened to your face?”
“It’s just those stupid boys…,” he whispered, “They pick on me for no reason. Every day they call me names. They throw papers at me in class. They push me around at recess.” Mae's eyes grew wide. She hadn’t known this was happening.
“Did they give you that bruise?” Her hand reached out to caress the swelling discoloration. Simon lowered his eyes and shifted uncomfortably at her touch.
“I pushed one of them back and his friend punched me. When Mr. Hayes came over, he took all of us to the principal for fighting. I told him that I didn’t start it, but he said it didn’t matter.
‘No fighting means no fighting.’” Simon mimicked his teacher’s apparent arrogance as his defiant eyes found hers again. “So now we are all being punished.”
Mae sat for a moment, unsure of how to proceed.
She was angry for Simon and the situation he had been put in, but she also knew that the ‘no fighting’ rule was needed to provide order amongst a large number of students from all areas of their varying neighborhoods.
“Well,” she hedged, “I know it wasn’t fair for you to be blamed for the argument, but Mr. Hayes does have a point.
If he allows you to fight those boys with no repercussions, then all the other boys will think it’s okay to fight when they feel mistreated. ”
Simon’s defiance flashed to hurt in a heartbeat as he recoiled further from her on the bed. “But it wasn’t my fault!”
“Then, we need to go to the school and talk with Mr. Hayes and the principal—”
“Why?” he roared. He turned his back on her. “You don’t know anything!”
She stood and crossed the room. Surely, this was something that should be addressed with the school to ensure that this injustice wouldn’t continue to occur. She resolved to have Henry speak to this principal.
* * *
Henry, who now would never handle anything again.
The half-hour chime sounded. She needed to sleep. She had to be up early to go to the precinct. She needed to know what had happened. She would speak to the captain about Henry’s case, which had been dismissed by the detective. Maybe it had something to do with his death…
The memory arrived unbidden: the last night they had spoken. Two nights before she found him in his chair.
* * *
Before The Note
They had eaten dinner in silence. A headache started behind her eyes, and she picked up her plate to carry it to the sink.
With her back to the table, she closed her eyes and began rubbing her temples.
She could hear the legs of a chair scrape backward, and soft footsteps trailed over to the sink.
She opened her eyes to catch Simon gently place his plate next to hers.
He retreated up the stairs, and she heard his bedroom door click shut.
She twisted the faucet and let the water stream into the drain. As she reached for the first plate, Henry’s hand came to rest on her waist. Her muscles tightened and her eyes narrowed their focus on the dirty dinner plate.
He leaned in close to her ear and murmured, “I’m sorry about what I said earlier.
” His warm breath rustled the hair around her ear, and she quelled the urge to scratch it back into place.
She drew in a deep breath and held it an extra beat.
Just accept the apology. She knew she should, but she couldn’t. Not yet. It still stung.
“Mae…” Henry tugged at her hip to turn her around.
The dirty plate hovered between them, creating the space she needed and allowing her eyes to focus on something other than Henry.
She studied the bits of mashed potato smeared with gravy and the pieces of green bean that hadn’t been eaten.
“I know you work hard. And I know that it’s not your fault that the Bar wouldn’t admit you.
It was a low blow, and I shouldn’t have said it.
” She felt his eyes willing her to look up.
The muscle in her jaw worked as she kept her gaze on the plate.
She felt his soft fingers touch her jaw and draw her head up.
Her eyes followed the motion and swiveled up to meet his.
“I worked all day to bring you actionable information for your motion.” Her fingers gripped the edges of the plate harder.
“And all you cared about was some conspiracy theory.”
She felt his fingers stiffen against her chin. “It wasn’t just some conspiracy theory, Mae. I found the same names over and over again. I just can’t shake the feeling that something is off. I know you look at things as black and white, but there’s a lot of gray too.”
Her face pinched at his gentle rebuke. “Without concrete proof, the gray areas don’t get our client’s children back,” she pointed out.
“I know. That’s why I dug a little deeper after you left.
I realized that you were right and that what I had didn’t add up to a hill of beans.
” Mae leaned back against the sink. “I thought I’d do some of my own research.
First, I went by the courthouse, but it was funny.
There was a new clerk there, and he kept asking about you.
It felt a little odd.” Henry shrugged. “I couldn’t remember if you’d ever mentioned him, so I played along. ”
Mae thought of the red-headed clerk and her brow knitted at the implied relationship.
“Yes,” she ventured, “I think he must be the replacement for the older gentleman who used to be there.” She paused, thinking of his condescension.
“He was rather curt with me, actually, saying that he was only doing things by the book, but it seemed like he was almost reluctant to hand over Lily Kerr’s files. ”
“Hmm, that’s strange that he’d remember all the cases especially if it seemed like he didn’t want to give them to you.
” Henry’s lips pursed before he continued, “Then, I went to the precinct to find the officer who had been listed as the patrolman in all of the cases. He was a decent sort at first, but the more questions I asked, the more elusive he became.” The expectant look from earlier reappeared on Henry’s face. Mae played along with this escapade.
“Okay, so how does this patrolman benefit from this?”
“Mae, every time I hinted at the mother’s absence, he kept saying, ‘A mother’s place is with her children. Period.’” As Henry imitated the patrolman, Mae couldn’t help but envision Simon’s mimicry from the day before.
“Okay, so maybe he thinks he is righting a public failing. But there have to be more people involved to level it up to a conspiracy.”
“I don’t know, Mae. I know it was just a feeling, but I felt like…
Well… Almost like he was taking note of me.
” Henry fumbled with his explanation, and a cloudy look fell over his face.
“When I told him the children’s names, he opened his memo book.
And then, when he asked for my name, I saw him scribble it into the memo book too.
It just seemed… I don’t know… Odd. It wasn’t just that he wrote it down.
It was like he was making sure he had it exactly right… like it mattered who I was.”
Mae thought back to the court clerk the day before and how the man had folded his notebook paper with her name on it into his hand. She had found it odd too. “Well, maybe you are on to something, but it isn’t going to help Winona Kerr any to follow on a whim when we are on limited time.”
“That’s true. Have you had time to type up the motion? I’d like it filed tomorrow morning, first thing.”
“I stopped to get the docket information on my way home today, so I didn’t have a chance to draft the motion. I couldn’t find the attestations, but I didn’t have time to go over all the paperwork. I think I can draft it quickly in the morning and make it back to file before lunch.”
At the mention of the incomplete paperwork, Henry tilted his head, and his brow furrowed.
“While you do that, I think I’ll look into a few more of the names that keep coming up.
I’ll be to the office by noon and we can go over it again.
” Henry reached forward and took the plate from her hands and placed it into the sink. He drew her into a hug.
“Well, just be careful,” she cautioned, her body tensing unbidden. “If this adds up to anything, it may lead us down a path we don’t want to go.”
* * *
Simon had promised to clean up his trains in the morning. She had heard Henry’s feet in the foyer an hour later when he had walked out that same night. Neither of them had come home the next day.