Chapter 16
A few hours before the evening Jack the Ripper tour, Mirabel calls as I’m bathing Heathcliff.
“Hi, Mirabel,” I say, drying off my hands.
“Your lawyer friend won’t stay out of my garden.”
Ms. Fernsby comes up the stairs with some towels and takes over drying Heathcliff as the water drains loudly from the tub.
I take my phone into my room and shut the door.
“What are you talking about?”
“Henry Lawton sent another subpoena to my lawyer today. He wants all legal documents related to the trust and other things that don’t matter
one iota. Trust me, Elizabeth, he’s chasing after family matters that are better left alone!”
“Mirabel, if this has anything to do with what upset Philip that night, it would serve you well to tell me and Henry the truth.
We’ll find out one way or another. Philip was upset for a reason, and I need to protect Heathcliff’s interests.”
There’s a very long, scary silence.
“Mirabel . . .”
“Elizabeth, I had a consultation with my attorney today over some concerns Ted and I both have. Your behavior since Philip
died has been peculiar and erratic. You wear black all the time and all that morbid jewelry. And now you’ve made this wild quick trip to London. Heathcliff mentioned something about men, and, well, I don’t know what
you’re exposing our grandson to.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Language, Elizabeth. I know grief drives people to do crazy things, but it’s Heathcliff we’re concerned about. My Summerville
lawyer suggested that given our concerns perhaps we should order a toxicology report on you and apply for guardianship of
Heathcliff. Then the court can determine if you’re a fit parent.”
Nausea seeps through my gut.
She can’t do that.
Can she?
I haven’t done anything to warrant losing custody of Heathcliff. But this stabs at some deep fears of mine. My meltdown in
front of my class. My Victorian compulsions lately. Of course, I haven’t been in my normal state of mind since Philip died.
But I’m definitely not crazy.
I take a deep breath, reminding myself that this is a woman who wears oversize sun hats and shoots groundhogs point-blank
in her garden.
“You can’t do that.”
“You have your lawyer. I have mine. And mine says that depending on how our own investigation goes, we have a chance to take
guardianship of Heathcliff. Perhaps we could even return him to you after your behavior is more . . . regulated.”
“I’m a perfectly fit mother,” I say through clenched teeth.
“I sure hope so, sweetie.”
She hangs up.
She’s never called me “sweetie” in all the years I’ve known her. I don’t think she has any grounds whatsoever to take my son,
but I’m terrified. People lie about parents’ actions to get guardianship all the time, and I know Mirabel lies about more than cigarettes.
If anything reeks of a nineteenth-century novel plot, it’s this. Gaslighting women into thinking they’re mentally unstable in order to take their money, or their freedom, or their children.
Even Charles Dickens tried to convince professionals his estranged wife needed to be committed. Thank god it’s not the 1800s.
Here, in the twenty-first century, I’m pretty sure I’m more protected now. At least I hope so . . .
Just to make sure, I try to call Henry, but he doesn’t pick up.
I don’t leave a message. After all, I’d be crazy to take her threats seriously.
Sarah: Whelp! Book contract came in already, but I got the automatic email reply that you’re only sending and receiving letters.
Huh?
Me: It’s a weird widow ritual. I’ve had a lot less heartburn.
Sarah: Hmmm . . . well then, I’ll just overnight it. Sign, return, and be proud!?
Wispy clouds streak across the evening sky as I walk through the East End.
Tonight I’m wearing a black cardigan over my black eyelet dress, black tights, and buckled leather walking shoes.
In my previous happily married life, the eyelet dress was for casual dates out with Philip.
But I’d wear an elegant wrap instead of the sweater, and pink flats instead of walking shoes.
I’d show off bare legs and arms and sport cute chunky bracelets on my wrists.
Currently, I suppose the widow accessories make me look more like a dowdy Audrey Hepburn.
Since getting off at the Aldgate East tube station, I remember how lively the East End of London becomes at nightfall. With
the crowded Spitalfields Market and the colorful street art of Brick Lane and Hanbury Street, the neighborhoods are a hodgepodge
of bohemia, grad student culture, pub shenanigans, and pickpockets. I keep my purse strap tight across my shoulders. When
I’m almost to our meeting place in front of the Whitechapel Gallery, I pass a tipsy man in a cap tap-dancing on a slow-moving
taxi roof. He salutes me, and I automatically curtsy. It’s a strange and delightful interaction.
August stands near the back of our walking tour group. He smiles wolfishly, sexy as always as he hands me my ticket. “Have
I told you how stunning you are in widow’s black?”
“Widow’s weeds are just my style?”
“Without a doubt.
“Hey,” August whispers, tugging me away from the loitering group toward a streetlamp. He continues with the magnetic smile,
his dimple deepening. “Do you want to try something?”
He holds out a little packet of gummies.
I giggle. Back in grad school, I tried marijuana once. Wes, a few department friends, and I shared a joint through all six
hours of the 1997 Pride and Prejudice miniseries. My muscles stopped working, and I couldn’t move off the faded couch sectional. Yet I’d been very bothered by Colin
Firth’s sideburns. Does anyone see how they’re crawling down his face? My god, they’re MOVING. They’re really MOVING. I called Ian: We have to do something about Colin Firth’s sideburns!
“Come on, don’t tell me you’ve never indulged before?”
“Sure. But it was years ago, and I had kind of a weird reaction.”
“How bloody fun! Come on, then.”
“I don’t know . . .”
“Oh . . . come on—all the cool kids are doing it.”
Taking the gummy certainly doesn’t seem appropriate for high mourning. Then again, Victorian widows loved their laudanum.
That’s the nineteenth-century equivalent of a grape-flavored gummy, right?
“Sure, why not?” I accept the gummy and swallow, not overthinking this one.
“That a girl!” August says proudly, popping one into his mouth.
I suddenly remember Mirabel’s threat.
“Oh my god!”
I run over to a trash can and stick my finger down my throat.
“Elizabeth, what are you doing?” August asks, alarmed.
I’m gagging, but even though the trash smells like rancid fried fish, I can’t cough the gummy up. My throat just burns and
feels scratchy.
I pull my head out of the trash can and start googling. “How long does this stay in your system, August?”
“I suppose a few days.”
“This site says it can be detected in the hair for up to three months!”
He glances around nervously.
“Elizabeth, I think you need to calm down. Surely, your school doesn’t drug test you. And your publisher won’t for sure.” He chuckles. “Besides, absinthe, marijuana—it’s all bloody par for the course in
our business. Do you think Hemingway ever cared about drug tests?”
“It’s not that. There’s so much more at stake.” I call Henry, but he’s still not picking up.
“Elizabeth . . .” He puts his hands gently on my arms and makes me look at him. “I don’t know what’s going on here exactly.
But one gummy will be flushed out of your system by the time you get back to the US.”
“But the hair sample . . .”
I raise my phone.
“Stop googling. You’re just going to upset yourself more.”
“But . . .”
I’m about to argue, but I see his point. This panic is only a bridge to nowhere. I need to wait until I hear back from Henry.
I slow my breathing while August watches me carefully.
“Better?” he asks.
“I think so.”
We wait around a few more minutes until our guide shows up. I’m sorely disappointed that he’s an anemic grad student who looks
like he leads this tour with about as much gusto as his DoorDash gig.
After collecting everyone’s ticket, the guide stands on a wobbly stool so our tour group of about twenty can see him and begins
in a monotone, “So here we are about ready to start our tour about the notorious serial killer Jack the Ripper, who went on
his murderous killing spree one hundred and thirty years ago . . .”
“I can’t believe he’s reading from a card,” I whisper in August’s ear. I’m still not quite feeling the gummy, but I anticipate it kicking in soon. My stomach still
churns a little with worry over taking it. But I try to push it from my mind and enjoy the tour.
“Bloody hell. This wanker is rubbish,” August groans.
We follow along near the back of the group until we reach Mitre Square.
The guide stands on his stool and fumbles with the cards. “Now here we are at the scene of the murder of Catherine Eddowes. This was the night of the double murders. Scotland Yard . . .”
“Never mind this was one of the more gruesome of the murders!” August interjects. He describes dramatically the postmortem examination of Eddowes and how the Ripper taunted
Scotland Yard by keeping one step ahead of vigilante policemen.
“It all happened against the background of the late Victorian period, the approaching fin de si?cle, with glorious rebels like Virginia Woolf and Oscar Wilde. It was a time of rapid change and progress, where the world
lurched and whirled forward! It was a time of phonographs, railroads.
Industries burgeoned all over, and London was the center of it all.
But the change was too fast for some. And here .
. .” August waves dramatically around us.
“Here was a forgotten place of gritty cobblestone streets, shadowy brickyards,
and gaslight. It was a hardscrabble life in these parts, terribly easy to fall through the cracks or slip away, never to be
found . . .”
“Wait!” an older woman interrupts. “Are you A.D. Hemmings?”
“Who?” her heavily mustached male companion asks in a thick Cockney accent.