As soon as John came back into the room, Edith pulled him aside and said, “I’ll do what I can, but her distended abdomen, the pain, those dark purple splotches on her stomach could mean she’s bleeding internally. She should be in the hospital,” said Edith.
“If we take her to one, she’s sure to be arrested,” said John. “Her husband was rich, well connected. Word of this will spread like wildfire.”
Sarah’s eyes were shut, her dark hair shining against the pillow. She must have been beautiful, thought Edith. And then, bitterly, Sometimes, beauty is a curse.
“She has no fever, not yet,” she said. “We may have some time to work with, but I just don’t know. I can’t know the extent of the damage.”
“Wherever the car takes the other women,” said John, “there must be hospitals.”
“There must be,” said Edith, “but I don’t know where they go or how long it takes to get there. I don’t know anything; that’s how this works.”
“We should ask her what she wants to do,” said John.
Edith walked to the bed, and said, “Sarah.” The woman opened her good eye. It was a remarkable color, ice blue, almost silvery, and, despite everything, alert, to Edith’s relief. Sarah listened to Edith and then said, “I won’t go to a hospital. If I’m in prison, what will become of Steven?”
She could barely get the words out. A bruised larynx, thought Edith.
“Do you have family who could take him?” Edith asked.
Sarah laughed, a terrible, broken-down wheeze of a laugh. “My husband’s people would never let that happen.”
She reached out and clutched Edith’s hand and said fiercely, “They are fiends, all of them, cruel and heartless. Would you want your child raised by people like that? If I die or get caught before we get to the safe place, promise me you’ll never let Steven go back to them. Promise me you’ll find good people to raise him.”
Edith couldn’t bring herself to tell Sarah that she wouldn’t know where she was going or whether she and her baby ever arrived. Instead, she said, “I’ll find a way. I promise.”
She turned to John. “We shouldn’t wait until morning. If she’s leaving, it will have to be tonight, the sooner the better.”
John nodded.
“I need to make a phone call,” said Edith.
For the first time, Edith called the number George Graham had given her. A woman answered, took Edith’s information, and hung up. When ten minutes passed without George calling her, she began to pace, her hands clasped hard against her sternum, and, for the first time in years, to pray. Ten minutes later, the phone rang.
She spilled Sarah’s story out in one long stream. It was the first time she’d spoken to George since she had ended their relationship, but she didn’t have time to feel awkward. When she was finished, she waited for George to give her instructions, tell her when the car would arrive. Instead, his voice came at her like a knife.
“Don’t be foolish, Edith. Do you think the driver of that car waits down the road for me to call him? He’s hours away; even tomorrow morning would be too soon, and that woman and her baby need to get out of your house tonight.”
“Get out? And go where?” asked Edith, confused.
“I don’t know. Figure something out. Jesus God, Edith, a murderess? A man from a prominent family? A woman people might recognize and with an infant? People will be looking for her. They’re probably already on the hunt. I need your house, Edith. Don’t you understand that?”
“I understand that her husband would have murdered her if she hadn’t killed him first. You haven’t seen the horrible damage he did to her.”
“Then she should be in a hospital. Have that police chief take her there. Immediately.”
“No. I promised her I wouldn’t. If I do that, she’ll be arrested.”
“You promised?” he said, acidly. “It was not your place to promise.”
Edith said nothing, and when George spoke again, his voice was calmer.
“I’m sorry, Edith. Listen. Have the police chief take her to the hospital. Have him do it right away, and if she is arrested, I’ll help her. I will get her the best lawyer money can buy. I know lawyers who could get the devil himself off. But she has to swear not to mention you or your house to anyone. That’s my one condition. Be sure she understands: if she does mention your house, if she says anything about it at any point, I will withdraw my assistance, and God help her then.”
For the first time, Edith felt shame at having ever put her hands on this man. She sat down heavily in the chair near the telephone, trying to gather her scattered thoughts. After a moment, she took a breath and said, “No.”
“Damn it, Edith.”
“She could lose her baby. Her husband’s family could find a way to take him from her.”
“And what about all the other women and babies? The ones still out there who I haven’t saved yet? I’ve spent years putting this system in place, fine-tuning it; if the police start looking too closely, it could all collapse and take you and me with it.”
“I’m sorry, but no.”
“Do what I say!” he said, loudly.
“If you can’t send a car tonight, tell me where to take her. I’ll drive her and the baby myself.”
“You must be insane. I’m not telling you anything.”
Edith sat for a moment, thinking, then said, “If you don’t, I’ll spill the beans, every last one. I know the first names of all the women who have come through here. I know where they’re from because they always tell me. It won’t take the authorities long to find you and to blast everything you’ve built to hell.”
“How dare you?” he hissed. “You think you can blackmail me?”
“I don’t think I can. I’m doing it. Right now.”
After she hung up the phone, Edith leaned over with effort and let the blood flow to her head. When the stars shooting across her vision had disappeared, she stood up and walked into the bedroom.
“There’s been a change of plans,” she said. “The car can’t get here in time. I’m driving Sarah and Steven.”
“What?” said John, sharply. “Where?”
She held up her notebook. “I have directions to a safe house in Canada. It will be a long drive, so we should leave right away.”
“Oh, no,” John said. “Not you. I’m taking her.”
“It could take days to get there and back, John,” she said. “You have a job. People will wonder where you are; they might even get suspicious. I don’t have any guests scheduled for the rest of the winter.”
John’s eyes glinted. “I don’t care, Edith,” he said. “I won’t let you do this.”
“Be reasonable. A woman no one cares about going on a trip won’t raise any eyebrows. The chief of police disappearing will. And what will you do? Take your police cruiser? Take my car and leave yours here for everyone to see? It won’t work. If you’re not concerned about yourself, think of Sarah and the baby. They’ll have a better chance of getting where they’re going if I take them.”
“Edith,” said John, his voice ragged with emotion, “what if you’re caught?”
“We won’t be. Even if someone stumbles onto our trail, which is very unlikely, the directions I’ve been given are designed to throw people off. Back roads, small towns, swinging wide, looping back. It’s not the fastest route, but it’s safe. And at the border, there will be an officer in place who is part of the system.”
“I’m the one who brought her here,” said John. “I should go.”
“Thank you for wanting to. But you must see that it doesn’t make sense. You’ll take care of things here, think of a story to explain my absence if the need arises. I’ll be back before you know it, and this will all be over.”
“No,” said John, quickly. “Give me the address of the house in Canada, and I’ll send a wire, letting you know when it’s safe to come back.”
Startled, she said, “Why? Why wouldn’t it be safe right away?”
“It
will be,” he said. “But just in case.”
As Edith wrote the address down on a piece of notebook paper, she found her hand was shaking, which surprised her. All through her conversation with George, she had stayed collected, but now, here with John, she felt close to breaking down. She took a few long, steadying breaths before she tore the page from her notebook, folded it, and handed it to John, her eyes meeting his.
“I’ll wait to hear from you,” she said.
“I should never have brought you into this,” said John. “I’m so sorry.”
“Nonsense,” she said, smiling at him. “You gave me a choice, remember? I chose this.”
John nodded, wearily. “All right. All right.”
“You should go now,” said Edith. “I can get Sarah and Steven to my car by myself, and the longer you stay, the longer your car sits empty on the street, the greater the risk.”
At the door, John turned to her, his expression unguarded, stripped bare and so full of love that she had to hold back a gasp. A thought flew into her head: Oh God, what if I don’t see this man again?
But she would. She would.
John moved toward her, as if to kiss her or take her in his arms, but she put out her hand.
“Good-bye,” she said. “I’ll see you soon.”
He took her hand and pressed it to his mouth, and then John Blanchard was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Clare
I couldn’t let it go.
I didn’t even know what I hoped to find. Mr. Big City’s identity? Proof that Sarah and her baby had found sanctuary in the end? John Blanchard’s story after he was released from prison? The missing fifty-plus years of Edith’s life?
Yes. No. I didn’t know. And, more important, I didn’t know why it mattered so much, so extraordinarily much to me. Apart from understanding that what urged me on was more than simple curiosity, I understood nothing else about my own motivation. I tried asking myself, What if you answer all your questions, fill in all the blanks, what will it give you, what will it change? But all I came up with as an answer was: something.
Maybe it was the house that spurred me on.
Maybe it was Edith, the Edith of Blue Sky House who had loved Joseph, who had slept with him under the blue sky ceiling, who had paddled a canoe, who had collected leaves and bones, who had suffered Joseph’s death, who had run a business, who had given refuge again and again, who had written down the names of the shadow women and their children in order to make them real, to bear witness, to say that nothing is ever truly erased.
Or maybe it was the Edith of my wedding weekend, sharp-eyed, clear-voiced, human and also spun together out of earth and sky, giving me courage, persuading me to find a way to lift my home onto my shoulders and carry it with me.
I searched for their names, collected Herrons and Blanchards, but never the ones I wanted.
I researched Wickham-Flaherty, the New York law firm that had represented John during his trial, but it had closed in the 1960s, after the tragic deaths of John’s lawyer Randolph Flaherty and his son, Randolph Flaherty Jr., in a sailing accident. I wondered how a small-town police chief would even know about the existence of Randolph Flaherty, Esquire, and I wondered how he could possibly have paid him. I wondered if Mr. Big City had signed those checks, if New York were the big city of Mr. Big City.
I kept thinking that as soon as I found something, I would call Dev. But I didn’t find anything, so I didn’t call. He didn’t call me, either. We hadn’t spoken in the four days since I’d dropped him off at his house on my way back from Richmond. I wasn’t angry at him. I didn’t not miss him. My nights were emptier without his voice in them. But I just kept hearing that question: So what’s next? So what’s next? So what’s next? And I imagined that Dev felt like I did: suspended in the empty space where the answer should have been.
Then, one evening, he called.
Before he even said hello, he said, “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay. Are you okay? Because you don’t sound especially okay.”
“How do I sound?”
“Worried. Or no—mad. Actually, both. Morried? Wad?”
“You do sound weirdly okay,” said Dev.
“Gee, thanks.”
“So what’s up with your Facebook page?” he demanded.
“Now you sound mostly just mad. Also, what are you talking about? I almost never go on Facebook,” I said. “I jumped on briefly right after—”
In the car making my getaway from my nonwedding, I’d taken down the “Engaged” status I’d only ever put up at Zach’s (very persistent) prompting, but I didn’t feel like sharing that bit of information with Dev.
Dev didn’t say, “Right after what?” for which I was grateful. He said, “How long ago was that?”
“Back in June and everything was normal,” I said. “Everything on Facebook, I mean.”
“Get on your computer and go to your page. Right now.”
“No Wi-Fi, bossy person. And, hey, you’re on Facebook even less than I am. How did you happen to be looking at my Facebook page, anyway?”
There was a pause. “Irrelevant. You’re missing the point here.”
“Well, maybe if you made a point, I would stop missing it.”
“Just get on your phone and look at your Facebook page, Clare.”
“Are you speaking through gritted teeth? You know, that might work for Clint Eastwood, but, honestly, it makes you a little hard to understand.”
“Clare.”
“Fine.”
“After you look, call me back.” He hung up.
“Dev was looking at my Facebook page.” Even though there was no one in Edith’s house with me to hear it, it was still satisfying to say out loud.
But as soon as I took a look at the page, this satisfaction, along with every other remotely positive feeling, evaporated.
I hate myself for what I’ve done to Zach. And to me. My life is so empty.
I guess you never realize what you have until you’ve thrown it away like it was garbage.
First his mother left him, then his sister Ro left him, then his father, now me? I feel like a sadistic monster.
I can’t get Zach out of my head. His face. His voice. His body against mine.
I would do anything to get him back. Anything anything anything anything.
The thought of never being with Zach again makes me wish I were dead.
I just need this pain to end.
Post after post after heartbroken, regretful, semisuicidal post, all put up an hour ago. The proximity in time creeped me out, made him feel somehow near me, lurking, which I know didn’t make sense, but I was rattled, and by rattled I mean I felt like either taking a shower or throwing up or both, if not simultaneously, but instead, I deleted my account. Then I shot off a text to Zach: What the hell is wrong with you? Was that supposed to be a joke? Because it wasn’t funny. As I’m sure you know.
I called Dev back. “It had to be Zach. He’s the only person who knew my password. I guess I should have changed it back in June, but I’d forgotten he had it.”
“Well, he didn’t forget,” said Dev. “Obviously.”
“I’m sorry you were worried.”
“Morried,” said Dev, correcting me. “Wad. And I’m sorry I was both of those completely nonexistent adjectives.”
“That’s okay. For the record, I don’t feel any of the things he posted. Not a whit.”
“No one says ‘whit,’” said Dev. “But, hey, that’s good news.”
“Mentally and emotionally, I’m tip-top.”
“Which is more than we can say for Zach.”
“Thanks to me,” I said.
“Nope, you can’t take credit for this. Creepiness of this magnitude had to be in there, waiting to happen. Sooner or later, it would have.”
“I hope so. No. I mean I hope not. I don’t know what I hope, but while we were eating dinner in that Thai place?”
“Yes?”
“H
e texted me the same text four times: I know you’re with him right now, I know you’re with him right now, I know you’re with him right now, I know you’re with him right now.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” said Dev.
“I didn’t want you to get morried the way you do.”
“Seriously. Do you think he did know?”
“Of course not. How could he?”
“He could have had you followed, hired a private detective or something.”
I laughed. “Zach might be crazy, but he’s not that crazy.”
“It would be good to know,” said Dev, “just exactly how crazy he is.”
My phone vibrated in my hand, and I took it from my ear and looked at the screen. Zach.
“He’s calling me. I should get it,” I said.
“Okay. But Clare? Don’t tell him where you are.”
“I won’t. Don’t morry. He doesn’t even know this place exists.”
* * *
He claimed to be drunk, a claim I had no trouble believing, since I could practically smell the alcohol through the phone. He said he’d been drinking more lately, which his brother, Ian, said was understandable, even normal, even wise, at which point I wanted to remark that his brother, Ian, might not be the ideal go-to person when it came to identifying wisdom, but I refrained. He talked about numbing the pain and blunting the anger, but then he mentioned that he was angrier than ever, not every second, but in spurts. He talked about his sister, Ro, about how, for some reason, he couldn’t stop thinking about her, about how all his conversations with Ian seemed to lead back to Ro. He said he’d only written on my Facebook page what he wished I were feeling—presumably including the “wish I were dead” sentiment—but knew I didn’t feel, unless deep down I actually did, which he suspected was true, since he knew the two of us would end up together in the end, and if he knew this, he bet I knew it, too, deep down. I told him, again, that I would always care about him, but that I could never be with him. He ignored this. I told him that maybe he should consider going to a doctor, talking to someone, getting some help. He ignored this, too. I apologized, again, for hurting him. He didn’t ignore this. He said that I should be sorry, that he hoped I’d be fucking sorry for the rest of my goddamned life, and then he hung up.