Chương 6
“No,” Lena said. “It isn’t a wall.”
Clara appreciated the answer.
At noon, Margaret’s attorney called. Clara declined to speak with her.
At one, Edith called and left a voicemail saying she had purchased the correct birthday cake herself.
At two, the police called to say Julian had contacted them through counsel. He admitted being in the kitchen but denied striking Clara. He said she had become emotional during a disagreement about her employment and Margaret had attacked him without provocation.
“What happens now?” Clara asked.
“The report goes to an investigator.”
“Will he be arrested?”
“I can’t predict that.”
Clara thanked the officer and ended the call.
She spent the afternoon canceling lessons with three private students she taught outside the Mercer house. She told one parent she had the flu. She told another she had a family emergency. The third parent, a man who worked in finance and regarded every rescheduled lesson as evidence of moral decline, reminded her that his daughter’s recital was in six weeks.
“I understand,” Clara said.
“Do you?”
She looked at her bruised face in the hotel mirror.
“Yes.”
That evening, Edith appeared in the lobby carrying a reusable grocery bag.
Clara almost refused to come down. Then she saw the housekeeper sitting beneath a framed photograph of sailboats, the grocery bag resting between her sensible shoes.
Edith had brought soup, clean towels from Clara’s apartment, the chipped ceramic mug, and a slice of chocolate-raspberry cake in a plastic container.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Clara said.
“I took a bus.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.”
They sat in the corner of the lobby while a youth soccer team ran in and out of the elevators.
Edith folded her hands over the grocery bag.
“I gave another statement.”
“To the police?”
“Yes.”
“What did you change?”
“I told them about the pantry.”
“You already did.”
“I told them what happened before.”
Clara waited.
Edith looked toward the revolving door.
On the night of the pantry incident, Julian had followed Clara upstairs after she refused to sign the statement. Edith heard raised voices through the service corridor. When Clara tried to leave, Julian blocked the pantry doorway and took the papers from her. She reached for them. He pushed her. Her face struck the edge of the open door.
Edith had seen the last part.
“You told me you came in after,” Clara said.
“I lied.”
“Why?”
“Because he asked me what would happen to my pension if Margaret sold the house.”
Clara stared at her.
“He can’t control your pension.”
“I did not know that.”
“You could have asked Margaret.”
“I have worked for this family fifty-two years. Asking is not something I learned.”
The soccer team gathered near the vending machines. One boy pressed every button without inserting money.
Edith watched him.
“When Julian was thirteen,” she said, “he stole cash from my purse. Margaret made him return it. He cried. Not because he was sorry. Because she looked disappointed. I believed that meant something.”
“Maybe it did then.”
“Maybe.”
Clara opened the plastic container. The cake had shifted during Edith’s bus ride, and raspberry filling stained one side of the chocolate frosting.
“Did Margaret send you?”
“No.”
“Does she know you came?”
“Yes.”
“That means she sent you.”
“It means she tried to send a car, and I told her I was not an invalid.”
Clara handed Edith the plastic fork.
“It’s your cake.”
“I had two slices at lunch.”
They shared it without speaking for a while.
Before leaving, Edith put an envelope on the table.
“What is that?”
“My written statement.”
“The police have it.”
“This is for you.”
Clara did not touch it.
“I failed to say something when saying it might have mattered,” Edith said. “I am not asking you to forgive that. I am trying not to do it twice.”
After she left, Clara read the statement.
Edith’s handwriting slanted sharply to the right. She described the first shove, the pressure over Margaret’s competency, Julian’s habit of entering Clara’s apartment without knocking, and a phone call she overheard in which he told someone that Margaret was “one episode away” from losing control of the trust.
The final paragraph was about the slap.
I saw Mr. Mercer strike Ms. Wynn with his open right hand across the left side of her face. Ms. Wynn did not strike him, threaten him, or move toward him. She held the counter to remain standing. Mr. Mercer then told her to answer him without performing.
Clara read the paragraph four times.
The next morning, she met Lena at the courthouse.
The building smelled of wet coats and old paper. Clara had expected a solemn place. Instead, people stood in lines checking their phones, children ate crackers beneath signs prohibiting food, and a court employee argued with a printer.
The temporary order was granted that afternoon.
Julian was prohibited from contacting Clara directly and from coming within a specified distance of her temporary residence or workplace. Because he had not been formally charged, the order felt both important and strangely conditional, a sentence built around what might happen.
As Clara and Lena left the courthouse, a man in a charcoal overcoat approached.
“Ms. Wynn?”
Lena stepped between them.
The man raised both hands. “I’m an investigator retained by Mr. Mercer’s counsel.”
“You need to speak to her attorney,” Lena said.
“I don’t have one.”
The investigator looked at Clara.
“That’s why I hoped we could clear up a few misunderstandings before this becomes expensive for everyone.”
Clara thought of the hotel bill in Margaret’s name.
“Do not answer,” Lena said.
The man held out a business card. “Mr. Mercer is concerned that Mrs. Mercer is being isolated.”
“She called the police,” Clara said.
Lena touched her elbow.
The investigator’s expression softened almost imperceptibly. “And she assaulted him.”
May you like
Clara looked at the card but did not take it.
“He had cream on his shirt,” the man continued. “You had a bruise that was over a week old. These things will be considered separately.”
