“Be still,” she says. I want to hit her.
“Did you hear what happened out front?” Sarah asks. “Two shootings? You weren’t down there, were you?”
“Of course not,” Susan says, over my head. “I was up here, waiting for you.”
“I didn’t know you were coming in.”
“I should have called, but I was en route and the shuttle was a mess. I came to pick up a few boxes. Are those all the boxes, Eletha, in the office?”
“For the most part. I still haven’t packed all the case files yet.”
“I was looking for some of the older things, his personal things, but I couldn’t find them.”
“What things?” Eletha asks. “The personal stuff is still in the credenza.”
I think of the checkbook; I found it in the credenza. Is that what Susan is looking for?
“I looked, but all I found were school papers,” Susan says.
“I think I’m done with the ice, Susan.” I take her hand and move it away. “What are you looking for exactly? Maybe I saw it.” I watch her face.
She looks down, mildly surprised. “Oh, maybe you have. Memorabilia, mostly. Pictures from our honeymoon, things like that. Special, personal things. I guess you haven’t seen anything like that.”
Is this a code? “No, I haven’t seen anything special. Or personal.”
She leans over me with the wrapped cube. “More ice?” We have ways of making you talk.
“No, thanks.” I take the ice and toss it into the wastecan, then rise unsteadily, feeling her aide hovering at my shoulder. Is he the one who hit me? I wonder what his voice sounds like.
“Are you sure you’re well enough to stand, Grace?” she asks.
Boy, she’s good. I can’t tell if what’s beneath her smooth exterior is evil or just a smooth interior. “Sure. Thanks.”
“Well, I’d better get ready. I’m holding a press conference before we go.”
“Press conference?” Sarah says.
“Since I’m in town, considering what happened. Then we go. In two hours, isn’t that right, Michael?”
The aide checks his Rolex and nods, apparently mute, at least in my presence. I need to hear his voice. I say, “You look so familar, Michael. Did you go to Penn?”
He shakes his head but doesn’t say a thing. A man of few words.
“Where did you go to college?”
“Brown,” he says quickly. Too quickly for me to hear his voice.
“Where are you from? Maybe that’s where I know you.”
“Maine.”
“Oh? Where in Maine? My ex used to like Blue Hill in the summers.”
“Bath.”
It’s still not enough. “Oh. Well, what’s your last name? You looks so much like someone—”
“Robb.”
Eletha shoots me a quizzical look and I give up; I’m out of questions and Michael’s out of syllables. “I guess it was somebody else.”
“Guess so,” Susan says, with a faint smile.
18
Bernice rests her chin on the top of the plastic gate like Kilroy over the fence. My mother shifts the ice pack on my head. “How’s that?” she says.
“Ma, will you stop? I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” she says, practically hissing. Her breath is a mixture of denture cream and stale cigarettes. She hasn’t mentioned our skirmish last night; we’re both pretending it didn’t happen. “You shouldn’t have been there.”
“I had to eat, Ma. If I didn’t eat you’d be yelling, ‘Why didn’t you eat?’” Of course, I didn’t tell her about the warning. It’s been worrying me since it happened, but I still can’t remember any more than I already have. From the local news, it looked like the shooting had to do with
“Here’s the lady,” Maddie says. Her eyes are fixed on the portable TV on the pine hutch. The national news comes on, and the first story begins with a miniature head shot of Susan, floating to the right of a graying Tom Brokaw. “She looks like she’s in the movies, Mom. She’s pretty.”
“I heard she’s ugly in person,” my mother says.
“She’s not.” Especially for a killer. But by now she’s in the air, heading out of my jurisdiction with monosyllabic Michael.
“Look, Mom,” Maddie says. “She’s gonna talk again.” She points to the television, and I focus on the screen as the news runs part of Susan’s speech.
“What happened in Philadelphia today, only a block from Independence Hall, makes a mockery of the Constitution. The framers envisioned that the First Amendment would create open, free, and robust debate. They did not anticipate that words would be replaced by gunfire and thoughts drowned in human blood.”
“I don’t like that part,” Maddie says solemnly.
“Me neither,” I say, absorbed by Susan’s tiny image. Her star is on the rise, her career jump-started by her husband’s death. The papers keep talking about her strength under fire; presidential timber, says the
“I am happy to announce that the condition of the two shooting victims is now stable. However, we should use this near-tragedy to consider how we, as citizens of a free and democratic country, can exchange ideas through peaceful means, without resort to violence.”
“What she’s saying, Mom?”
“Nothing.”
My mother laughs. “So what else is new? She’s a politician.”
The ice pack shifts on my head, and I seize the moment to grab it away. “I’m fine now, thanks. Please go sit down.”
“I’m trying to help you.”
“I know. I said thank you.” I drop the melting ice pack next to the spaghetti bowl.
“Shhh!” Maddie says, staring at Susan.
“Was that a Chanel suit she had on?” my mother says, as she takes her place at the dinner table.
The broadcast cuts to scenes outside the courthouse: film of Mrs. Gilpin crying in the arms of a friend and her husband looking on with relief and happiness. He says to a woman reporter, “Now we can see justice done. Now we can close the book.”
In the background is Mrs. Stevens, but Gilpin doesn’t seem to make the connection that she’s about to endure the same pain he had. The camera cuts to her, standing next to the black councilman. “How do you feel, Mrs. Stevens?” comes a shotgunned question, a reporter’s drive-by.
“How do you think she feels, you jerk?” I say to the TV.
“I don’t understand, Mom,” Maddie says, but I hold up a finger.
On the TV, Mrs. Stevens swallows visibly. “I think my boy done wrong, but I don’t think he deserves to die. He’s still young, and the young—”
“Justice was not done here!” the councilman interrupts. “Thomas did not have a fair trial! We will appeal to the Supreme Court without delay, because time is running out. Meanwhile, two African Americans were shot here today, showing support for their young brother….”
The camera focuses on Mrs. Stevens’s numb expression, then a commercial for Rice-A-Roni comes on.
“So Senator Waterman makes the national news,” my mother says, arching an eyebrow plucked into a gray pencil line.
“She calls these things press conferences, but she never takes any questions.” I get up stiffly and turn off the
