“Who could blame him? Stuart would sell his granddaughter for a nice fat consulting fee.”
But I see that Theophilus Mountain has not penetrated to the truth. Stuart, whatever his politics, is a better man than Theo. More direct, less underhanded. Either Stuart turned the request down flat, or the Judge guessed that he would and never bothered to ask. He came to Theo precisely because of his old teacher’s byzantine love of conspiracy.
“And what about Marc Hadley?” I ask.
“What about him?” Theo echoes faintly, exhausted from pretending to be strong.
“You told me you didn’t tell the White House about his plagiarism …”
“I didn’t, Talcott! That was true!”
“I know it was. But somebody was feeding the White House transcripts of Marc’s after-dinner talks, where he floated all those crazy ideas. That was you, Theo. Okay, so you didn’t have the right political views to have any influence with the current administration. But Ruthie Silverman was your student, too, just like she was Marc’s. She would have listened to you.”
He shrugs.
My rage boils over. “And did you ever think, Theo, did you ever think for a moment that it would boomerang on my wife? That you would wreck her chances while you were in the act of sabotaging Marc Hadley’s? That you would wreck what was left of my marriage, too?”
Theo says nothing. He looks genuinely shocked. By the cost? By his discovery? I find that I no longer care. I cannot bear his presence any more, this man I so admired. I stab the Oriental carpet with my cane, push myself to my feet.
“Goodbye, Theo,” I mutter, making for the door.
“I would never have done it,” Theo insists, his voice climbing a couple of registers into true shrillness in his urgent effort to persuade me, “if I had known how it would turn out.”
From the door, I give him a look. “Yes, you would.”
CHAPTER 56
Three days later, Sally finally agrees to see me. She has been in her rehab facility past the requisite two months and can receive visitors. The old brick house perches on a bluff overlooking the Delaware River: if you happen to be crossing the bridge from New Jersey, you can probably see it, looking like the tumbledown mansion that it is. A high brick wall surrounds the property on three sides. The fourth is the river.
Sally and I walk the lavish grounds trailed at a dozen yards or so by a male orderly and the center’s chaplain, the Reverend Doris Kwan, who is present because Sally wanted her to be. The orderly is present because of some rule. Before I was allowed to see Sally, I had a talk with Reverend Kwan in her sunny office. She is a compact, muscular, imperious woman of perhaps fifty, dark hair tied back heedlessly. The air around her crackles; if she turns out to run marathons in her spare time, I will not be surprised. She has a doctorate in social work to go with her divinity degree. The diplomas hang on her walls, along with a bad reproduction of The Last Supper. During our brief conversation, her skeptical glare never strayed from my face. I was against this meeting, she told me, but Sarah insisted. She explained the program: two group meetings a day, four one-on-one counseling sessions a week, mandatory chapel every morning, an hour in the gym every afternoon. We are trying to heal her mind, body, and spirit. We take faith very seriously here. Sarah is coming around, but she has a long way to go.
I assured Reverend Kwan that I am not going to upset the program. She allowed her patent disbelief to show on her face. I wondered what Sally had disclosed in therapy.
Now, walking with Sally, I marvel at the changes in her after her months of sobriety. She is a little slimmer and a good deal more graceful. She is wearing a track suit and sandals. She says she has seen her mother a few times but misses her kids, who are not old enough to visit. Her voice is quieter, her interjections are more contemplative. She has lost a bit of her spark, which grieves me, even if there was no other choice. The dark circles under her eyes tell me how hard it has been.
“I was so worried about you when I heard,” Sally murmurs. She sounds tired but calm. “I would have come to see you, you know, in the hospital, but”-a small flick of the wrist, indicating the center, the grounds, the wall.
“I’m okay.”
“You’re limping. You didn’t use to limp.”
I shrug, my heavy cane plunging ahead like an extra leg. “I’m blessed to be alive,” I assure her. Then it is my turn to ask how she is doing, and we go through the same routine the other way around.
Sally tells me she has learned a lot about herself over the past few months, and likes little of what she sees. I murmur something meant to be reassuring, but Sally does not want reassurance: she wants to discover the brutal truth of what she has done to herself, to help her avoid doing it again. And she wants, she adds, to fix what she can of the damage she has caused. “I’m sorry for the things I’ve said to you over the years, Tal. Especially about your wife. Your ex-wife.”
I make a face. “Not ex just yet.”
“Give it up, Tal. You’re single now. Get used to it.”
“I don’t want to get used to it.”
“You won’t have to.” Sally giggles and punches my shoulder gently. The laughter sounds tinny and determined, a faint echo of the way she used to effervesce. “The sisters will all be coming after you, just wait and see.”
“I doubt it.”
“Are you kidding me? A single black man, doesn’t do drugs, doesn’t drink, really into kids? Sweet, goes to church, doesn’t have a temper? You’ll be fighting them off with a stick.”
I shake my head, genuinely less interested in these possibilities than Sally and my few friends seem to think. But I play along.
“You forgot good-looking.”
“I didn’t forget. I just don’t want it to go to your head.” Another soft punch.
We walk on in silence through the corridor of wise old maples, Doris Kwan hovering protectively like one of Jack Ziegler’s bodyguards. Sally’s smile is starting to look pasted on, and I know my visit is a strain. Whatever other demons might have been driving her, the family, my father’s side, certainly helped carry her over the edge. Right now, the less she sees of us the better. We emerge into a clearing overlooking the river. We sit side by side on a wooden glider, all painted white, gazing together at the Jersey shore. A chain-link fence spoils the view, but the hospital, obviously, cannot take chances.
“You didn’t come here just to see how I’m doing,” Sally finally says. She sounds less censorious than regretful. She misses being loved. I wonder if she knows about Addison.
“That was the main reason.”
“It’s maybe one of the reasons, but it’s not the main reason.”
I cannot meet her eyes. Down near the fence, an older woman is holding a younger, who is sobbing. They could be mother and daughter, but I do not know which is the patient. As they embrace, a pair of attendants keep anxious watch.
“I do have another reason,” I say at last.
“Okay.” Now I chance a look at her, but she is keeping a close eye on the grass, her slippered toe scraping the dirt.
“I need to ask you something.”
“Okay.”
“Why did you take the scrapbook?”
Sally slowly raises her head, the carefully crafted half-smile still in place. Her eyes are bright but wary. They glisten with a hint of tears, or perhaps pain. “What scrapbook?” she asks, unconvincingly.
