At least the gin had anesthetized the dreams, and although my head was fuzzy, I’d slept through the night for the first time in two weeks. I crawled into a sitting position and tried to remember what day it was. Sunday. Today was Hugh’s memorial service. He was gone, but he was still my ticket into my mother’s head. Chief DuPont had given me an idea with his reference to keeping files on people, but for it to succeed, I needed camouflage.
I called Paul, bought bagels, cream cheese, lox, red onions, and the papers; and loaded them into the car alongside a bottle of champagne from Mother’s wine cellar. I needed the bubbles to cheer me up, make the hangover recede—and help persuade my audience.
Paul and Richard’s walk had been shoveled but not salted. About halfway up, my heel slid into the snow and I ended up in a contorted pose worthy of a Vogue model. I yanked my heel out just as Richard opened the door in his bathrobe. “Hope you can take us au naturel. We’d barely gotten up when you called.” It was almost noon.
“Another tough week?” I stepped inside and kicked off my shoes to avoid tracking in garden mud and snow. In the kitchen, Paul turned from making coffee to kiss my cheek.
Richard shook his head and opened one of the bags, inhaling the scent of the warm bread. “Ah…the greatest smell on earth.”
Paul said, “People are still treating him like he’s contagious. They’ll get over it—”
“Maybe!” Richard interjected.
“They’ll get over it,” Paul repeated, “but it’s going to take some time.”
Richard rolled his eyes. “Pollyanna over there thinks in a few days everything will be back to normal, but we all know that isn’t going to happen. I have to figure out how to handle things the way they are now, since that may be the rest of my career at this company.”
I touched his shoulder. “I’m sorry.” I knew what it was like to be ostracized.
“How about you? Have you learned anything?” Paul pulled mugs from the cupboard while Richard sliced bagels in half.
“Men are weird and stupid,” I said.
Paul passed me a plate with his eyebrows raised.
“Present company excepted,” I amended lamely.
“We’re so grateful,” said Richard.
“Where does this earth-shattering revelation come from?”
I slathered a bagel with cream cheese. “I went to a fundraiser for Andrew Winters last night.”
“As I recall, you begged Mary Ellen for that privilege.”
“That, on top of the Women’s League meeting I had to suffer through on Friday makes me very aware of why I’ve avoided them for so long.”
Richard laughed. “Is your butt black and blue this morning?”
“Shut up.” I wrinkled my nose at him and took a large bite.
Paul sat down opposite me. “How is your mother?”
“Also weird.”
“Maybe she’s secretly a man?” Richard suggested.
I almost snorted cream cheese out my nose. Paul handed me another napkin. When I could breathe again, I said, “Actually that’s why I’m here.”
“Because your mother’s a man?” Richard pretended incredulity.
“Would you stop?” Paul tapped his hand playfully.
For I moment, I envied them so deeply it hurt.
I said, “I need to get into Hugh’s therapy files.”
Paul shook his head. “Oh, no, Clara. Absolutely not.”
“Hugh is still the best source for information about my mother—”
“Except for your mother herself.”
“Who won’t talk to me, so—”
“Clara!” Paul’s anger shook me, seemed to shake the whole room. The bright yellow curtains glared at me.
I stopped, felt my eyes tearing up. Oh joy.
“You are not above the law.”
“I’ll return her file after I find out why she might be in danger.”
“Have you considered the consequences of reading it? Like that you might find out things you don’t want to know? Maybe even about you?”
“I already know what she thinks of me.”
“Do you?” he snapped. He got up and starting clearing the table, even though we had barely started eating, his movements agitated and quick. Plates crashed onto the counter, and the refrigerator door slammed shut. He turned around. “You’re trying my patience. If you intend to find out who your mother is, you need to start taking responsibility for yourself.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that, for a long time, you’ve blamed your mother for all the negative things you feel and do. While she is responsible for initiating some of those patterns in you, you are now an adult and it’s time you thought and behaved as a responsible grown-up.”
I sat there with my mouth open, even though as a well-bred, upper-class girl, I would never do that.
Paul held my gaze as his words worked their way through my defenses, like a needle through the layers of a quilt. Mary Ellen said I’d been “just rebelling,” as if I’d had an adolescent temper tantrum. I knew I’d been hiding for the last fifteen years, but I’d also been grieving—for my father, for a childhood, for the kind of family I would never have. And I’d been reconciling myself to a gift I never wanted and that my mother had tried to deny out of me.
I said, “Thank you for acknowledging that she was responsible for the beginning.” I stopped. I had to say the rest of it, but the breath wouldn’t move over my vocal chords and across my tongue. It was stuck in my chest. I had too much practice sticking things there.
Richard took my hand again, and that helped.
“You’re right,” I said. “I’ve gotten away for a long time with sidestepping the truth. You’re right,” I repeated, emphasizing it to myself. “But Paul, I’m trying to do the right thing, trying to help her and she won’t listen. I need to know who I am, too. I do care about her, even if I’m
