He responded immediately.
School’s almost out so I’ll come for you ASAP. It’ll take about an hour to get there. Are you all right until then?
I’m okay. Text me from the parking lot and I’ll come out. And thank you.
She went to Glynnis Carlson’s office and sat outside her door, holding the plastic bag with her work clothes in it. It was a few minutes before the dragon lady opened her door and motioned Emma to come in. She indicated the chair in front of her desk. Then Glynnis folded her hands on top of her desk.
“Would you like to tell me what happened?”
“I’ll try,” Emma said. “My husband was Richard Compton. Do you know the name?”
Glynnis nodded. She explained that Clarice claimed her mother was a victim, but Emma had only met a few of Richard’s clients socially; they were typically big investors or multimillionaires. She had seen a few in court and was surprised there was anyone from California, especially surprised to learn it was Clarice’s mother, but the crime was Richard’s. Not hers.
“You should have told me,” Glynnis said.
“You wouldn’t have hired me.”
“I might’ve hired you and put you on the night shift. Well, spilled milk. Now, you have the prerogative of calling the police and filing assault charges. The nurse’s aide who attacked you will be disciplined, possibly fired, but you can still—”
Emma shook her head. “It would be a mistake to draw attention to it. Plus, I do understand her anger, I really do. Thing is, I can’t help her with this. I surrendered everything. I didn’t want anything Richard had gotten by swindling people. There isn’t anything.”
“Why does she think there is?”
“There were a couple of books written about Richard’s crime, lots of articles, news stories and internet posts speculating that I had some of his money hidden away. False, of course.”
“Emma, you can’t work with the public even though you’ve been exonerated of wrongdoing. Not for a long time. Do you understand that?”
“I’m trying to keep a low profile,” she said.
“I’m applying for workers’ compensation for you, Emma. I’ve taken you off the schedule. You should take two weeks and then my recommendation is that you resign and find something else. You’d do better in hotel housekeeping—less contact with the public.”
“I’m not hurt that badly,” she said. “I don’t need two—”
“This isn’t the place for you right now, Emma. You should take the time. You’re entitled to it.”
“But you’re not going to fire me?” she asked.
“As far as I know you haven’t done anything wrong. But I want you to think about whether this is the right job for you. I can put you on a different shift from the aide who beaned you with the bedpan, but I’m sure she has friends. Word will travel. Life could be difficult.”
She almost laughed. “I might not have any choice...”
“While you’re recovering, check out the hotels in the area. That’s an option. You’d be working alone, not with a lot of other employees. You’d rarely come into contact with guests. Or...wait a second.” She reached into her drawer and began to shuffle through business cards. “This woman has an excellent service—domestic, business, et cetera. But for God’s sake, tell her the truth from the start. And if you need one, I’ll write you a letter of recommendation. You’ve done a good job here in your brief employment.”
Emma looked down at the card. Riley Kerrigan. Lord, she was everywhere. “Yes, ma’am,” she said. The only advantage she could see was that she wouldn’t have to explain her circumstances.
“Think things over. Call me with your decision, please.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
* * *
Emma went from Glynnis Carlson’s office to the restroom. She took several deep breaths. Glynnis had been kind. Fair and kind. But Emma had to face facts; people would blame her. If they didn’t blame her as a co-conspirator, they’d blame her for not taking action or for not testifying against Richard. They’d never believe she had nothing to say, nothing to add.
Keep your head, she told herself. It’s only been six months. This could go on awhile. You knew it wouldn’t be easy, no matter where you went, no matter what you did.
Then she put the bag holding her soiled work clothes in the trash can. She went to the locker room in the basement where they clocked in and grabbed her jacket. She wasn’t going to wait around for Adam where other employees might pass her on their way to their cars. There was a nice little courtyard behind the emergency room. It was primarily there for those die-hard smokers left in the world, but no one was there at the moment. The sun was shining. It was a beautiful fall afternoon. She sat with her back to the door and talked to herself a little more.
It’s only been six months. Some of his victims will be angry for the rest of their lives. Many will feel his death wasn’t punishment enough. And there would always be those who believed she had some of that money, that she had a plan, that she was just waiting to emerge like a phoenix, rolling in dough, living the high life. It’s only been six months so don’t cry.
But silent tears streamed down her cheeks.
A few minutes had passed when she heard the door behind her open. She heard a little rustling, some footsteps, then a man walked past her. He was carrying a cellophane-wrapped bouquet, hanging down at his side. That was the rustling she’d heard—the cellophane. He walked all the way to the end of the courtyard then turned back toward her. He glanced at her briefly and sat on a bench several feet away and didn’t meet her eyes. He was looking at his knees.
She gave her eyes a little wipe.
He looked up. “Bad day?” he asked.
She nodded. “You?”
“A little disappointing, but it’ll all work out. What happened to you? You’re a doctor?”
She shook her head. It was the scrubs, she realized.
“Ah. Nurse. I guess nurses can have all kinds of bad days.”
She didn’t respond because it wasn’t required, except that she had this real problem with deception. No one would believe that, of course. She imagined almost everyone thought she was a liar.
Her cell phone chimed in her pocket. She took it out and saw Adam’s text. “I have to go, my ride is here,” she said. “I hope your day gets better.”
He actually stood and she realized he was very handsome. Also tall and broad-shouldered. “I hope yours does, too. Here,” he said, holding out the bouquet. “Take these. They’ll go in the trash otherwise.”
“Can’t you take them home to your wife?”
“No wife.”
“Your mother? Daughter? Sister?”
He smiled, improving his looks even more. “Nah. Here. Enjoy.” She just stood there. “Come on, someone just did something nice for you. Take them.”
She did. She said thank you. She went to Adam’s SUV in the parking lot and climbed in the passenger seat.
He eyed the flowers. “Parting gifts?” he asked. And she burst into tears.
Chapter Six
Adam knew something was wrong. Something more than “I fell at work.” He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he knew. He stopped on the way to the hospital and picked up a couple of large mocha coffees with heavy cream. When he asked Emma what had happened, there was a lot of incoherent blubbering and he decided it was probably best to drive rather than sit in the parking lot while she emoted. And emoted.
He picked up a few things—someone had identified her, recognized her, threw a ripe bedpan at her head. There was a lot of whimpering about how she hadn’t known, hadn’t been complicit, everyone thought her a gold digger, a liar. She ended with some incoherent bawling about the disgusting state of her hair, comments that caused his eyes to widen in shock. What did this have to do with hair?
He found a nice park and pulled into the lot in the shade of a colorful tree. He handed her some tissues and after she’d made use of them, gave her the coffee. And the world slowed down and she began to just talk about it.
Adam had a feeling he was going to hell for this, but he wanted her to get this issue resolved, in her mind, at least emotionally, because he just couldn’t pursue her the way he’d like to until that happened. She just wasn’t ready. She wasn’t moving on yet. Everything was so unsettled for her. And that had more to do with what Emma thought of herself than the people who might think badly of her.
“Thank God I ran into you at the burger joint,” she said tearfully. “Just take me home, please, Adam. I didn’t mean to unload on you.”
“Nah, we’re not going home yet. You’re going to have some coffee, calm down and we’ll just talk awhile.”
“I’m sure you don’t need all this chaos clogging up your mind...”
“My mind is fine,” he said. “I’m a little worried about yours. It seems like maybe you’re still feeling confused, out of control. Vulnerable. Victimized.”
“Wouldn’t you?” she returned defensively.
“Probably. But I want you to think about something, Emmie. Lack of power comes from lack of knowledge. Unless I’m totally off base here, you’re still completely confused about what happened to you, how it happened, what to do about it now.”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at,” she said.
“Have you seen a counselor?” he asked.
“What kind of counselor?” she asked.
“Okay, I’m just guessing here, but I think you’re still in shock. Maybe you have a little PTSD because you’re not advancing beyond the shock.”
He actually smiled slightly when he noticed she was looking at him with wide, startled eyes.
“PTSD isn’t limited to war veterans, Emmie. Anyone who’s been through a trauma qualifies. With a war veteran it might be a car backfiring that sends them into a series of PTSD symptoms—anger, sleeplessness, fear, panic, phobia, so on. For the victim of emotional abuse it might be facial expressions, certain comments, another’s rage or threat. You should check this out, see a counselor.”
“Listen,” she said earnestly, scooting forward in her seat and turning in his direction. “I don’t have the money for a counselor and I have health insurance for emergencies, but no one, I mean no one, is ever going to offer me discounted therapy because I suffered through kissing goodbye to millions of dollars after living like a queen for years.”
“Victim,” he said. “You are a victim. And you were probably a victim then, not a queen. You need some help. I’ll check around. I might find someone, you never know. I know everyone—I’ve been teaching half their kids for fifteen years. But while I look, you might want to do some reading. From what you say, you still have so much mystery about what happened to you, you can’t even figure out how you ended up in this mental-emotional minefield and there must be some kind of explanation. If there’s not a clear explanation, there might be enough information out there to help you draw some conclusions. Hit the library. Read those books written by other people who think they’ve drawn conclusions. Find out who they think you are. And who they think your husband was.”
She was shaking her head. “You have no idea what you’re suggesting, how painful that is. Just the little excerpts are horrible.”
“I know.”
“You know? How do you know?”
“I read about it all,” he said with a shrug. “Lots of theories about your late husband. About you. Varying theories.”
“Why?” she asked softly. “Why would you read that trash?”
“Emmie, I’m a science teacher. We investigate. We look shit up.” Then he gave her a wan smile. “I’m just suggesting, since you can’t escape it, maybe it makes sense to face it.”
“I thought I’d been facing it for the last several years,” she said. “I was in the apartment when Richard blew his brains out, after all. I had to hide from angry plaintiffs. I had to watch the house stripped of personal possessions. I—”
“You wanted it behind you, and who could blame you. Now that the whole fiasco is part of your identity and you have to live with it, would it help to understand it better? Like, what kind of man was he, really? Because you don’t actually know, do you? You’ve said that had you known, you would have run for your life. So what do you know about sociopaths? Because that’s my guess. He was a sociopath.”
“What do you know about sociopaths?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Just a little bit, but I admit to being fascinated. I think when they were passing out consciences they missed a few people but they gave the surplus to me—my conscience seems to work overtime.” He reached for her hand. “If you understood, at least as much as possible, could you be at peace?”
“I don’t know.”
“Find out,” he suggested. “I’ll help if I can. I love research. And I love talking to you. But first things first. You need a few days of rest and ice on your head.”
“And my butt,” she added.
“Did they x-ray that part?”
“No. They said if it remains painful to come back in, but it’s already better from just a couple of Advil.”
“Then let’s keep moving forward. It’s time to call Riley and see if you can get a job. It doesn’t have to be a long-term job. But you have to have something...”
“Oh, Adam...”
“She’ll protect you, Emmie. She knows how hard it is to start over, to rebuild your life after you’ve hit bottom.”
“I can’t believe she’d actually help me,” she said.
“Sure she would. In fact, if she doesn’t that would mean I don’t know my sister at all. And that’s not possible.”
“Does she know we’ve been in touch lately?” Emma asked.
“She knows I ran into you at the burger joint. She knows we had a glass of wine and I gave you her business card. That’s all she knows. In fact, I never mentioned we’d talked after you and Jock broke up, after Maddie was born...”
“It was more than a few times,” Emma said. “And why didn’t you tell her?”
He took a moment. “I didn’t call you all those years ago for Riley and if I’d told her we talked, she would have asked a lot of questions about how you felt about her, how you felt about your situation, your feud, for lack of a better word. It would’ve been all about her and her relationship with you. That’s not why I called you. You were around my house for years, all your growing-up years. I called you for me.”
“Oh, Adam,” she said softly.
“And same goes for you. Every time I called, it didn’t take long to get around to Riley. Riley and Jock. Riley and you. Even after years had passed. I’ll say one thing for you and Riley—you have some amazing stamina, keeping that tired old feud alive this long. It’s still got some energy—you got tears in your eyes when I introduced you to Maddie.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I mean, yes, that’s true, I almost cried. Can you keep a confidence? What am I asking, of course you can. You haven’t even told Riley how much we’ve talked since I’ve been back. It wasn’t because Maddie should’ve been my child. Not at all, even though anything would have been preferable to where I landed in the end. Lord, what would I have done, pregnant with only Rosemary to lean on? No, it was because on top of everything else I went through with my husband, my marriage, it turns out I’m also infertile.”
Well damn, Adam thought. It was his turn to be shocked speechless.
* * *
Three days later Emma was introduced to Lucinda Lopez, family, marriage and individual counselor. “It’s the first time Adam has ever asked a favor of me,” she said. “He was my first friend in teaching, a great teacher. I was not such a gre
at teacher but I think I’m a good counselor.”
“You didn’t like teaching?” Emma asked.
“It paid the bills and I did an adequate job. I know I did all that was required of me. But there are some teachers, like Adam, who instinctively know how to inspire. He might’ve grown some real scientists. So—he tells me you’re on a very limited income but in need of counseling. I haven’t read your intake form yet—does that describe you?”
“I’m on workers’ comp right now and looking for a new job because... Well, that job isn’t going to work out. And the reason for that is the same as the reason I need counseling.”
“All right, we’ll get right to it. But before we take a lot of time on the story, tell me what you can afford. It’s very important that you pay something for your counseling, that you make it in some way a priority. At any time you might decide it’s not working for you, and that’s entirely up to you, but please understand—if it’s free, you won’t value it. Make an effort, please, not for me—I’m not in need. For you. Your results will be better if you stretch yourself. If you commit.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know how often I’ll be seeing you. Can you help me with it?”
“The cost of the session? Sure. I provide a sliding scale based on income. Here’s the graph,” she said.
Emma looked at it. She was taken aback by the numbers there, which ranged from thirty-five dollars for a one-hour session to one hundred twenty-five. Presumably, she’d try to meet with the counselor at least twice a month. Even seventy dollars cut deeply into a budget as tight as hers.
“We better get right to it,” Emma said.
“I’m ready whenever you are,” she said.
Emma launched into her story, the condensed version. That took fifteen minutes, interrupted by a few questions from Lucinda, merely for clarification. It took only that long for Lucinda’s face to begin to seem soft and accessible to Emma. She was a very pretty Mexican woman with just the slightest threading of silver in her pitch-black hair, the deepest black eyes, the softest smile. Her voice was likewise soft, but very confident and gracious.