“I started falling for you in the hospital gift shop," I said. "After Creech told me about the trust, he asked how much I wanted to give away. He could see through me, too, but C. Clayton Creech sees through everybody." I told her about the division of the money and the new trust to be set up for her son. “In the meantime, you'll have two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, paid from his share."
Nothing had changed in the bright shield of her face, "You don't think we should have talked about these arrangements?"
“I was in a cell at Police Headquarters, Laurie. Creech came in for about fifteen minutes before they let me out. I did what I thought was right."
"Creech convinced you of what he thought was right. It isn't too late to change things." Shining with the utter, straightforward sanity of twenty-twenty foresight, she opened her hand before her as if the world lay in her palm.
"Creech doesn't know about us. And he doesn't understand New York. How could he? The kind of apartment I'm going to need costs about two million. I'll have to have dinner parties, meet the right people, and do the right things. We'll need teachers and tutors and lessons in Europe. How much do you need to be set for life? Three million? Five? The rest could be made over to Cobbie, with a provision that I have something between five and eight hundred thousand a year. We would be together. If we got married, it would he as though you never gave anything up."
"Would you want a prenuptial agreement?"
Laurie leaned back and regarded me in a steady, unflinching manner that seemed less measuring than conducted in the light of previous measurements and considerations held up for revision. None of this was even close to being cold or calculating. The quality of her steady regard spoke for her—it declared the terms of her immense attraction. What I saw in her face was sadness suffused with irony, and it struck me that until then I had never so much as imagined the existence of ironic sadness. I felt the pull of a future open to nuances beyond my own reach: at that moment I could not have denied what seemed the central principle of her life, that in the realm of adult emotion range meant more than depth. Like great, cool wings, Laurie's range extended for miles on both sides. I had taken this capacity for a shield, but it did not fend off or deflect, it took in, and all that it took in increased it. She sat before me, blazing with consciousness.
“I hate the whole idea of prenups," she said. "What a way to begin a marriage. You might as well buy a Coca-Cola franchise." Her face settled into a smile of unreadable privacy. "Philadelphia might be good for us. It's less expensive than Manhattan, and the Curtis Institute is a great music school. Lennie Bernstein went there."
Like C. Clayton Creech, Laurie reassembled herself without altering her posture or moving any part of her body, then smiled at me and stood up.
Her next words clarified whom she had included in "us." "You'd visit Philadelphia, wouldn't you?"
"Better tell Posy to apply to Temple or U. Penn," I said.
“I can always find another Posy." Laurie knew that she had shocked me. The administration of the shock was a deliberate acknowledgment of our new relationship. "Especially in Philadelphia. The hard part was finding one in Edgerton." She kissed my cheek. "Call me before you leave. I need your address and phone number."
I watched her saunter across the hallway to the staircase.
•131
•Wisps of fog drifted across Veal Yard. A film of condensation gleamed on the cobbles. In the gray light, the buildings around the square seemed on the verge of departure. On the far side of the fountain, a woman's black pump stood with its heel lodged between two stones, as if abandoned only minutes before. A woman leaving, a woman walking away with such finality that she had left her shoe in token. ... I remembered the eloquence with which Laurie had passed through my doorway and the undiminished clarity of Star's voice, describing an alto solo in a concert she had seen while pregnant with me.
All at once, grief spoke from every gleaming cobble and wisp of fog, and the world seemed to deepen and enlarge.Grief, I thought, it'severywhere, how could I have supposed I would ever get away from loss —
Robert's face vanished backward into a lane.
"Robert!" I called. “I have to—"
On the way to Cherry Street, I kept glancing over my shoulder to find him sprawled across the back seat and opening his mouth to say something funny and cruel, but I was still the only person in the car when I pulled up in front of Nettie's house. It was a little past 9:00a.m. All three of my favorite relatives would be in the kitchen. I got out of the car and looked at Joy's front windows. The net curtains hung straight and undisturbed. It was too early in the morning for Joy to take up her post.
Nettie and May bustled around the stove, preparing scrambled eggs, bacon, and what smelled like chicken livers. Clark Rutledge sneered up at me from his bowl of pebbles and sugar.
"Good to see you wearing that pretty jacket, boy."
Nettie asked if I wanted to join them for breakfast, and I said that I was hungry enough to eat anything they put in front of me. I sat down next to Clark.
"They say on the radio Grenville Milton killed himself last night. Care to hear my opinion?"
"Fill me in," I said.
“It's a setup, pure and simple. Stewart Hatch has enemies who would stop at nothing to put him in a bad light."
"Mrs. Hatch must be going through the torments of hell," Nettie said. "And such a lovely woman. Isn't she, Ned?"
"One of a kind."
May ladled eggs and chicken livers onto the plates, and Nettie took a foil-wrapped package of bacon from the oven. Clark pushed his empty bowl to the center of the table. "Left Mr. Hatch holding the bag. That was the point of the exercise."
"And him with a wife and child," May said.
"His wife and child are going to get ten or twelve million from a family trust," I said.
"They will have a roof over their heads," May said. “I am comforted."
“I'm comforted to know you'll have a roof over yours," I said. "When Stewart Hatch heard about Milton's suicide, he told his family's lawyer, Parker Gillespie, all about his Uncle Cordwainer, so you won't have to worry about that anymore."
Nettie and May applied themselves to the chicken livers.
"By tomorrow, everyone is going to know he was Edward Rinehart," I said.
May sank back in her chair and gazed heavenward. "That is a great relief. I may not be an eater, but I am a talker, and silence comes hard to me."
"What the devil are you gabbing about?" Clark asked.
"Mr. Hatch has released us from our vow of silence," Nettie said. “It seems we have the boy to thank for that. You've done well by us, son, and we are grateful for your efforts on our behalf."
“I second the motion," Clark said. "Although I regret that Mr. Hatch is bound for the clink. He was generous to a fault."
"Stewart Hatch laid out a lot of money to keep you from talking about his uncle. Which is why you couldn't tell me about Edward Rinehart."
"Well, son," said Nettie, "we couldn't help but know a lot more about Mr. Edward Rinehart than your mother ever did."
"Because he looked like your father."
"You could not miss the resemblance," said May. "And we couldn't tell her the facts. You can't talk about a thing like that to an innocent young girl."