47. Ill-Gotten Gains - 1929 #2
“You know what I mean.” He advanced on her, one step at a time, until he loomed over her. Charles was such a soft-spoken man most of the time, it was easy to forget how large he was. He had at least ten inches on Elizabeth, but she stood straight, refusing to drop her eyes.
Fury clouded Elizabeth’s vision. She stepped closer to him still, so they were toe to toe. “What do you expect from her? She’s been traumatized! She was tiny when she was taken!”
Charles heaved a sigh. “I know that.”
“Besides, there are things she remembers. Playing the piano, singing together. She remembers me reading to her; she’s said so.
And her stuffed animals are precious to her, like they were before.
Her sweet, curious demeanor...that’s just the same.
” Elizabeth’s eyebrows lowered, drawing so close together, her head began to ache.
“Does she remember that woman, is that it? Is that what you’re insinuating...
that we should give up our daughter because a—a vagrant suggests she looks familiar, and you’ve somehow talked Ella into agreeing? ”
“I haven’t talked Ella into anything. And no, she hasn’t given any indication that she recalls May, or Susi either.
” His nostrils flared, the way they always did when he was on the verge of losing his temper.
“But I’ll tell you one thing. May’s torment is unfeigned.
If there’s one thing I know after all this time, it’s the look and sound of a woman who’s mourning a lost child. ”
His eyes bored into her as that arrow struck home, as he’d meant it to do.
That was the thing about being married; you knew each other’s weak spots.
The fact that she and Charles had resorted to leveraging his honor and her desperate grief against each other portended nothing good.
Elizabeth knew this; knew, too, that she ought to have more sympathy for May Dressler, even though the woman was delusional.
But she couldn’t bring herself to. The urge to protect Ella was too strong, a lioness determined to stop at nothing to save her cub.
“How dare you,” she hissed instead. “To say such a thing to me, of all people!”
He stepped back from her, his hands curled into fists, and turned half-away, hunching his shoulders.
“I would think you, of all people, would understand what she’s going through.
What if Ella is her child, Elizabeth? Then, what atrocity will we have committed?
What will we have done?” He flinched, as if she’d struck him.
“If we’ve stolen another woman’s little girl, surely we’ll burn in hell for such a thing. ”
Unlike Elizabeth, Charles had been raised to respect the dictates of the Church in a way that went beyond the secular, for the sake of appearances and societal connections. He was a true believer; but at this point in her life, there was little Elizabeth had faith in other than herself.
“Number one,” she said, raising a single finger, “Ella isn’t her child.
She’s ours.” A second finger joined the first. “Beyond that, we didn’t steal her.
That couple in Chicago called us, Charles.
They saw the resemblance, just as we do.
You saw that woman, Esther. She didn’t want to give Ella up.
She was devastated. Do you think she would’ve relinquished Ella to our care, if she weren’t absolutely sure? ”
He turned back to face her. The blue-gray shadows that rimmed the hollows beneath his eyes, as if he hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in weeks, sent a pang through her heart.
“Small children often look alike,” he whispered, as painfully as if it were a confession.
“It’s not as if the Dresslers could afford to put ads in the paper, as we did.
When Esther and Daniel reached out to the police, they didn’t know Lily existed.
It proves nothing, save that they were determined to do what they saw as the right thing. ”
At his last words, Elizabeth gave a bitter laugh. “Let us say, for argument’s sake, not that I believe it for a minute, that the little angel in the other room is indeed Lily Dressler, Charles. What then?”
His eyes sprang wide. “What do you mean? We’d restore her to her rightful family, of course. What other choice is there?”
He was so na?ve sometimes. It was part of what had made her fall in love with him: beneath the facade of the cutthroat tycoon beat the heart of a compassionate man who would do anything for his friends...
or for her. Charles always thought the best of everyone.
It was a blessing and a dreadful annoyance, all at once.
“Charles,” she said, as slowly as if she were explaining the situation to a child, “what kind of life can she have with those people? Living in poverty, never enough to eat, threadbare clothes, little access to education...is that what you want for her? You’re right; I’ve seen what the tenements are like.
The conditions are—” She shook her head, the words catching in her throat.
“The children live hardly better than animals,” she said at last. “Even if our little girl were descended from such ilk—which she’s not, I promise you—we can offer her so much better.
We can give her a beautiful life, Charles. She will want for nothing.”
He stared at her, mouth agape beneath his drooping mustache, as if gobsmacked.
For an uncharitable moment, it occurred to her that he resembled a fish that had been dotted on the head with a mallet; she’d seen the dockworkers do such things, when her father had taken them on family outings to the shore.
“Lizzie,” he said, and to her horror, he was trembling.
“What’s happened to you? You never were a cold woman, before.
I know how you’ve grieved these past years.
I’ve been grieving with you. But sweetheart...
you can’t mean that. Whatever material things we can give Ella—if we knew for certain that May Dressler was her mother, surely there would be no question that we’d restore her to her family, no matter how it hurt us. ”
Agony bolted through Elizabeth’s body at the thought of losing the little girl she thought of as her own.
Who was her own, no matter what doubt May Dressler or Charles might try to instill.
Ella was her daughter. She had to be. Those blond curls…
Elizabeth remembered how, when Ella was a baby, she’d pin a small pink bow in them each morning.
Her big brown eyes were as full of light and promise as they’d always been, eager to take in the world around them.
Of course Ella wasn’t exactly the same. How could she be?
She’d had a year to grow, and she’d been through a frightful experience.
But now she was home, and Elizabeth wanted with all her heart to keep her daughter safe.
The thought of Ella living in the tenement on Orchard Street—clad in rags and hungry, cared for by a woman gripped by delusions—while Elizabeth roamed the empty rooms of One Lexington, searching for a daughter who would never come home...
it pained her so she could scarcely breathe.
She wasn’t a monster. She was a mother. But how could she make Charles understand?
“Think of it this way,” she said, seized by sudden inspiration.
“Remember the story of King Solomon, from the Bible? How two women stood before him, both claiming a child was their own, and Solomon discovered the true mother’s identity by offering to cut the child in half?
One woman spoke up, saying she’d relinquish her claim, rather than harming the child in such a way.
And that’s how he knew the one who’d spoken was the child’s true mother.
” She placed a placating hand on Charles’s arm.
“All I want is for Ella to be happy. Happy, and whole. But the Dressler woman...she won’t stop trying to tear the girl apart. What does that tell you?”
Charles’s expression hardened. “You won’t stop either, Lizzie,” he said. “It’s just that, if this is a game of tug o’ war...you’ve got a hell of a lot more weight on the rope.”
The blood rushed to her cheeks. But before she could frame a suitable reply, he’d turned and stalked from the room.
The door closed behind him with a final sort of thud.
Though Elizabeth could have wrenched it open and followed, instead she sank back onto their bed, for once allowing her husband to have the last word.