I'd tried, oh, I tried hard to be a good mother to her. But whatever it was inside me, some reptilian beast, ugly and hate-filled, it just got out of control sometimes. I rarely lashed out at her, but even when it isn't aimed at them, children get caught in the crossfire. Poor Clara.
Quickly, I gathered up all the incriminating photographs and hid them in the rolltop. Then I sat down on the couch and cried for a while.
I sure had my custody case. No court in the world would refuse me a divorce, nor grant him custody of Clara over me. The trouble was I didn't know what else I had. What was Brand involved in? I was frightened for him.
It can be hard to let certain feelings go.
***
That evening I reached Jessica by phone and begged her forgiveness. She finally agreed to return, for a raise in pay and the full day off on Sunday, instead of just mornings.
I took a sleeping pill and went to bed early, at the same time as Clara. I slept heavily. Brand must have come in during the wee hours. By the time I got up Jessica had arrived and was straightening Clara's room, Francine, our cook, was washing dishes, and Brand and Clara were eating breakfast. Clara gave me a hug and a kiss. Brandon didn't even look up, just continued to read his paper.
On my plate was the New York Times, neatly folded open to page seven. I sat down and picked it up.
The article exposed said, "Private Investigator Killed in Crossfire." Franklin Mitchell's body had been found in the south Bronx, full of bullet holes. It was believed he'd been caught in the crossfire, in a shootout between the police and a roving mob of looters.
I looked up at Brand. He was watching me. All the warmth drained out of my body.
"Jessica," he called, without taking his gaze from mine.
She appeared in the doorway. "Sir?"
"I wonder if you could take Clara to her room and help her dress? Francine, you, too."
"I can dress myself!" Clara replied, indignant.
"Do as I say. Now." His tone was much sharper than it needed to be. Clara's face started to scrunch up, but Jessica murmured kind words as she and Francine hustled her away. Brand ate a bite of his toast and made a pretense of reading the Business section.
Numbed, I refolded the paper, then caught a look at the main headline on page one. I had a second shock. Bobby Kennedy had been shot.
I skimmed the article. The senator had been gravely wounded early that morning at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, upon winning the California primary. On an interior page they had a photo of the unidentified gunman who had been captured by Kennedy's supporters.
The man was the same young man as the one in the photos Franklin Mitchell had taken on Sunday, the swarthy man who had accepted an envelope from Brand.
I looked up at my husband. He was watching me now.
"I got an odd call at the office yesterday afternoon," he said.
"Oh?" I'd had years of practice disguising my own weaknesses; my voice didn't tremble.
"Mmmm. Patricia said you'd hired her cousin the detective."
Patricia knew where the real power lay, between Brand and me. She'd played it safe. Maybe even told herself she was doing me a favor. "Do tell."
"Mmmm. She said you hired him to take incriminating photographs of me, for the purpose of securing a divorce and custody of Clara."
"She certainly has an active imagination."
"Doesn't she, though?"
Jessica and Francine came out with Clara. Clara wore her peach corduroy dress. It had a felt poodle with blue rhinestone eyes on the bib over a white, short-sleeved blouse trimmed in lace. She also wore her white patent leather shoes and white stockings. Her dark hair was pulled back in white bows. I took Clara into my lap and buried my face in her dark chestnut-and-gold hair, which smelled of baby shampoo. I clutched her tight. She hugged back.
"Your hands are cold," she said.
"Go get dressed," Brand told me. I looked up at him, and my terror must have shown.
"NO."
"Yes. Now."
We both looked at Jessica and Francine, who knew something was up but not what.
"Are you going out, Maman?" Clara asked me. She'd put her hands on either side of my head and those beautiful, speckled green eyes were only inches away.
"Yes, she is," Brand said, lifting her out of my arms. He handed her to Jessica.
I should have fought him. I should have clung to her and not let him have her. I could have run with her; maybe one of the neighbors would have helped me. Someone would have helped me.
I should never have let him take her like that.
Brand took me to an office in a skyscraper down in the Financial District. Dr. Rudo was there, dressed in a different Nehru suit, a black one that made his pale skin and hair and his violet-blue eyes seem luminous in contrast. He greeted me in a way that made me shiver and shrink away.
Brand said, "I believe you wanted to speak to my wife?"
The room looked like a doctor's office, with the requisite diplomas and certifications. An overstuffed couch and cubist paintings on the walls made it a little less medical-looking.
I thought about Dr. Isaacs's office, and what he had said about stress. I wondered if I was going to die.
Dr. Rudo put me in an armchair before his big desk, saying to Brand with a glance at me, "Yes, that would be charming. But a word with you first."
As soon as the door closed and the tumblers of the lock turned over, I dumped out the pens from a pen holder on the desk and rushed over to kneel by the door. The open end of the wood cup I pressed against the wood, and on the closed end I put my ear.
I heard Brand say, "… only wounded."
"Yes. It's a shame that the upper echelon's first impression of you will be how you failed at your first major assignment."
Brand sounded desperate, angry. "I was only the messenger. He didn't use a high enough caliber weapon. That's not my fault."
Rudo laughed. "Relax. It's a head wound. The senator will be dead before morning. And if not, we can send someone in to finish him off. Your wife is the more important factor. If her detective did get shots of you with our Palestinian friend, and she's passed them on, you're at real risk."
"The bitch …"
Their voices faded to murmurs as the floor transmitted to my shins and knees the trembling of their footsteps. They had moved away from the door. I stayed crouched at the door, shivering and sweating till I could smell my own stink, and thought about the photos in the rolltop desk back home.
A moment later footsteps shook the floor again. Dr. Rudo's voice said, "… I doubt her resistance is high; this shouldn't take long."
The tumblers turned and the door opened. They looked down at me. I tried to duck between their legs, but Brandon grabbed my arm and hauled me upright — virtually off my feet.
"My dear young lady, you're showing an alarming amount of initiative," Dr. Rudo said.
"What are you going to do with me?" I felt embarrassed, apologetic, at how my voice quavered. He smiled.
"Just ask your a few simple questions. Come sit down. Relax. Nobody's going to hurt you." He took me by the elbow and led me back to the chair.
Dr. Rudo made Brandon leave the room, and then we chatted. I should have been much more on the defensive; to this day I don't know how I could have relaxed around him, given what I knew.
But the questions all seemed so innocuous. I remember his cool violet eyes looking at me, and his head nodding…. I Went on about Clara, about myself and how much I wanted another child, about Brandon's ambitions. Memories and thoughts surfaced and spilled out of my mouth that I had thought were long buried.