50. Theo #2
“I didn’t—before. I was so young...only about four or five. But hearing you read this is bringing it all back.” She shook her head, pressing her hand to her lips again. “Go on. Please.”
I’ve spoken repeatedly to Lizzie of the woman’s distress, but she’s refused to listen.
And how can I take the child from Lizzie against her will, breaking her heart twice?
She grieved so in the year Ella was missing.
Then she became overwrought from the trial, and insisted I use all my influence with Judge Wheeler.
I did comply. But I fear May might be right, that the girl who sleeps in Ella’s bed might not be our precious child, though I have vowed to love her as if she were my own.
I cannot stop thinking of the call we received from the man who demanded a ransom, the one whose voice I could have sworn I recognized.
But though we waited and waited, he never contacted us again.
And now I realize, with all the racket at the Club about MacEwan’s disappearance: he was the one.
He took our daughter, just days after I showed him her photograph. Did I plant the idea in his head?
All I know is, this is my fault. For now he is dead, doubtless at the hands of the ruffians to whom he was in debt, and I find myself perhaps complicit in treachery. Torn between my love for my wife and my moral compass, misdirected though it has become.
I stopped, my finger tracing the words. So Charles hadn’t killed James, after all. He was innocent, at least of murder.
“I knew it.” Ella’s voice was suffused with relief. “I knew my father couldn’t hurt anyone, not like that.”
“You were right, Grandma.” Liv patted her hand. “Keep reading, Theo.”
When May and her daughter came today, I couldn’t help but notice how threadbare their clothes were.
Perhaps this is something I can do to ease their suffering, however small.
I purchased warm coats for the entire family, including the grandmother and brothers, and hired a man to deliver these to their home.
I didn’t want to go myself, and risk a scandal.
I do hope the family doesn’t see this as a bribe, but rather an effort at recompense for their misery, no matter how paltry...
My voice faltered. Here was the proof of what Grandma Susi had told me.
Liv reached out to touch the journal. “It goes on and on,” she said. “I didn’t read it before you came, but I did flip through, enough to see that the entries fill most of the book.”
She turned the pages. Sure enough, Carter had written one entry after another.
Tonight I dreamed of my Ella again. She looked so sad, one began.
And the next:
Today Susi came alone, to the place I had agreed upon to meet her mother.
I asked her where May might be, and she was reluctant to tell me.
At last, she was persuaded to confess the woman’s melancholy had become so severe that the family was obliged to commit her to Kings Park, the psychiatric institution on Long Island.
I cannot help but feel responsible for this situation. What must I do?
I turned the page.
May Dressler has left Kings Park and came once more to see me.
Susi accompanied her. I have had more professional photographs of Ella taken, and thought to give these to her as a gift.
But when she saw them, she spat a curse at me once more, and wept so that I thought her heart would break anew. Susi guided her away.
I could not help but notice how gaunt and ill the woman looked...
I bolted to my feet, bile stinging my throat. “I need some air.”
I turned and made a beeline for the door to the screened-in porch. Shoving it open, I stepped out into the backyard, where I stood, trying to breathe through the tightness in my chest.
Don’t have a panic attack, for Christ’s sake, I lectured myself, like that had ever done any good. Not here. Keep it the hell together.
The sky lowered, crushing me beneath its weight. The world blurred, and I bent over, hands on my knees, trying desperately to make the dizziness go.
I didn’t hear Liv come up behind me, but her small hand was suddenly warm on my back. “Are you all right?” she said.
Her voice was kind, but I lashed out just the same. “Do I look all right?”
I regretted it immediately, but she didn’t react. Instead, she tugged me upright, her hand still on my back, and said, “Breathe with me, Theo, okay? Inhale to the count of four...hold it...then out for four. Like I’m doing. You’re going to be fine. Just breathe.”
Hating myself, I did as she said, and it helped. Ten deep breaths later, the world settled around me and the crushing weight on my chest was gone. I blinked my eyes open and found her looking right back at me. There wasn’t an ounce of pity or disgust on her face, just concern.
I’d treated her like shit, and here she was, taking care of me.
“Thank you,” I managed.
“This stuff is hard to hear. I get it.” She dropped her hand from my back. “Are you okay to keep going? We can stop—”
I squared my shoulders. “If your grandma can do this, so can I. But Liv, while I have you here, I just want to say…about the lawsuit…”
She shook her head, taking a step away. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“I do, though.” I looked directly at her, so she could see I had nothing to hide.
“My mother came up with that crazy idea after she met you. I never thought she’d follow through with it.
I mean, she’s broke. But she got a bee in her goddamn bonnet about it, and she wouldn’t let it go.
She used some money I gave her as a retainer for some shyster attorney who agreed to take her case on contingency. ”
I reached for her hand, and was relieved when she didn’t pull away. “I begged her to drop the suit, Liv. I told her that I’d never asked her for anything, but I was asking for this. But she didn’t care. And it kills me that she hurt you.”
She gazed up at me, her blue eyes wide. “It’s not your fault. I get that now. I guess I thought you knew about it all along, and were just using me. Or that, yet again, you didn’t trust me enough to share what was going on.”
I heaved a sigh. “I screwed up, okay? I know that. But I didn’t keep the lawsuit from you for any reason other than that I was embarrassed as hell.
I didn’t want my messed-up family to touch you.
I wanted to keep you safe from all of that.
Instead, you became collateral damage, and it fucking wrecks me, Liv. ”
“Thank you for telling me,” she said, her voice soft. “And you don’t have to be embarrassed. God knows my parents’ behavior lately hasn’t been anything to be proud of.”
“What do you mean?”
She shook her head. “Never mind. Let’s go. I don’t want to keep Grandma waiting.”
Dropping my hand, she turned, and I followed her inside.
Back on the couch with Ella, who’d gotten a cup of tea in our absence, Liv turned the pages of the diary once more. Leaning forward, elbows on my knees, I braced myself to listen.
Today Susi came to see me, alone. She looked most desolate, and confided her mother was once again in Kings Park. I pressed funds upon her, and though she was reluctant to take them, out of necessity she did so.
I can afford to part with the money, though not as freely as I did before, Liv went on.
The stock market’s crash has affected us all, and never have I been more grateful for the cautiousness that led me to squirrel cash away.
The banks have collapsed, and even chaps such as Arthur James and JP Morgan have suffered terrible losses.
Several of my friends took their lives, and I must confess I am moved to do the same.
But not due to the loss of funds, as financially, we are fortunate to remain quite stable.
No, my misery is due to something else entirely.
I cannot stop thinking of May Dressler, rotting away on a ward at Kings Park.
I went to see her; but such was the horror of the place, with women lying on the floor like insensate slabs of meat, others wailing, and still more staring motionless at the walls, that I did not have the strength to see which of these categories May might claim for her own, and instead fled back to the city without ever laying eyes on her.
I am a coward, as well as a cad.
Air hissed through my teeth. I couldn’t help but imagine what my own fate might’ve been if I’d been born a century ago. Would this have been what happened to me?
Liv reached across her grandmother and laid a hand on mine. “We’re almost finished,” she said. “Hang in there.”
“I’m okay,” I told her, willing it to be true. “Go ahead.”
Three years have passed since we brought our sweet child home from Chicago—the little girl that we may be deluding ourselves by claiming as our own. And though I have done my best to atone for this sin, tonight the chickens have come home to roost.