The Address, page 28
He was wrong. “I’m barely hanging on, here. What if it all comes crashing down? You may make fun of Melinda, but she’s stood by me and given me a chance when no one else would. I can’t forget that. If I push to get tested and it turns out I’m not a true Camden, I’ll not only lose one of my only friends, I’ll be totally banished from the New York design community.”
“So you would back down in order to placate Melinda? Do you think she would do the same if the roles were reversed?” He touched her shoulder gently, and she bristled in response. “Sometimes I worry that you’re using this wild-goose chase to avoid dealing with who you really are. In the end, who cares if you’re a real Camden or not? You’re a healthy, smart woman with a bright future ahead of you. Which means it doesn’t matter if Melinda causes trouble. You’ll get a job doing something else; you’ll figure it out. What’s most important is that you move beyond the tragedy of the past, start fresh.”
She wondered which tragedy he was referring to, Theo Camden’s or her mother’s. The shock of her mother’s death, as if it had happened twelve hours ago, not twelve years, hit Bailey in the gut, and she struggled to catch a breath. This usually happened in the middle of the night, when she woke up, heart pounding, certain that the world was disintegrating beneath her. Not in the middle of a crowded party.
Renzo continued on, taking her silence for encouragement. “I understand what it’s like to be barely sober, barely hanging on. But I want to see you stand up for yourself and be counted, not get pushed around by a prick like Tony or a princess like Melinda.”
“I’m confused here. Are you telling me to demand to get tested, or to give it up?”
“Not my decision. Whatever you do, don’t go into it blindly, for the wrong reasons. Or expect it to solve all your problems. That’s all I’m saying.”
Before she could reply, Kenneth came over, pulling two of his friends.
“How many more of those sketches do you have, my dear?” He pointed to the one that was now hanging above his fireplace in a handsome frame.
“Far too many.” She’d gone crazy the last couple of days, trying to capture the building from every angle, as if it might disappear when she no longer lived there. She knew it was silly, but her obsession blunted the pain of having to move on.
“Rory, John, and Edward all want one. I spoke with my neighbors and have already sold six here in the building. I won’t charge you a commission. Yet.”
She did the math. That would do it. She’d have enough to pay for the DNA testing. “You’re amazing, Kenneth. You have no idea.” She gave him a huge hug before he was swooped up by another guest.
Renzo stood and began to congratulate her, but she stopped him. “I know what you’re trying to say, and I appreciate it. I realize I have to figure this out on my own.”
The confusion in his face crushed her. He fixed her with a serious look, all shadow and gravity. “In meetings they say to stay on your own side of the street. For some reason, this has me all stirred up. I guess because all this—the building, the tenants, the history inside these walls—it means something to me. I know it affects you the same way.” He lifted both hands, then let them fall to his sides. “As a matter of fact, you mean something to me.”
Her breath caught in her throat and she looked away, overcome.
The pianist’s last note quivered in the air before dissipating. Renzo took a couple of steps back. “I’m sorry I veered into your lane there. I’m normally a much better driver.”
“Thanks.” If she had had the courage, she’d have let him know how much his concern meant to her, but he’d caught her off guard. And she had to get to Jack; there was no time to smooth things over. “I appreciate it, I really do. But I gotta go.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
Bailey’s father sounded tired when she finally reached him at eight o’clock that night. Apparently, the fishing had been fruitless, or rather, fishless. Which, from past experience, meant his mood would be impatient and surly.
So she’d botched the explanation of her meeting with Fred Osborn and the DNA testing, all logic lost in a nervous dribble of words. Jack had been confused at first, and then wary, before she’d finally gotten around to the urgency of his taking a blood test to prove that they were, indeed, real Camdens.
“I’m not kidding, Dad. I hope you’ll consider doing this for me. For us.”
She’d learned to use consider from Tristan, which was employed when they wanted to push a client beyond their budgetary comfort zone. It softened the request, and almost everyone took the bait, believing they’d made a conscious choice, when in fact the decision had already been made for them.
“How much did you say this testing costs?”
“I didn’t. Because I am paying for it myself.”
“How much, though?” he insisted.
She told him.
“You’re going to blow a grand on the hopes that you land a bigger fish? Why on earth would you want to do that?”
She didn’t bother making a joke about the fish metaphor. “I have the money, and I don’t mind spending it on this. I know I’m right. I’m absolutely sure of it. There’s research and documentation to back it up.”
Of course, if the test came back negative, not only would she be out a grand, but there’d be no chance of getting any payment for all her work for Melinda, who’d be livid at Bailey’s workaround. She’d be right back at square one.
Through the receiver came labored breathing. “My father wanted nothing to do with that family, and for good reason. I regret the day I allowed your mother to get us back under their influence. I don’t see why neither of you are able to settle for what you already have.”
He spoke as if her mother were still alive. Which broke Bailey’s heart and pissed her off at the same time.
“We have two different perspectives.” She kept her voice even, trying to persuade him, not put him on the defensive any more than he already was. “The way I see it, and the way Mom saw it, was that it’s a big world out there. You and Granddad hid from it, and Mom and I didn’t.”
“It’s not a matter of hiding. You’ve been trying to run from me ever since you were in high school. Like you’re ashamed of me, who I am.”
She couldn’t deny that it wasn’t true, because it was. “I want more out of my life. What’s so wrong with that?”
“So go ahead and go after it.”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing. But I need you. The blood sample has to come from the male line: from Theodore Camden to Granddad to you.”
“Here’s what I don’t get: You disappear for months at a time, then call demanding me to prove I’m related to a family my father despised.”
The words stuck in her throat. “I was in rehab, Dad. I should have told you earlier, but I wasn’t sure how. I’m sorry.”
“When did you get out?”
“Last month.”
Silence. She pictured him shaking his head, his shoulders caving in under the weight of disappointment.
“You’re battling the same demons as my father. I saw what it cost him.”
He was skidding the conversation off topic, and she refused to be deterred. “Maybe there are some long-lost family members who deserve to be brought into the light, ones that your father never even knew about. I’ve been reading about the madhouse where Sara Smythe was sent to. It’s horrifying, the suffering she most likely endured. The woman who might very well be your grandmother.”
“What you’re doing here, trying to unravel the past, is no good.” His irritation radiated through the phone line. “Whatever happened back then, in madhouses or fancy apartment houses, has nothing to do with us, with you. I know who I am. I run an auto repair shop and when I have free time, I go out on the ocean and fish. That’s it, but it’s real. You, meanwhile, are chasing ghosts. Stop muddying your life up with all this crap.”
How dare he tell her what to do? First Renzo, now this. She might have made bad decisions in the past, but she was trying to make amends. In the meantime, there was a good chance she shared a bloodline with a woman who’d fought her own demons and lost. Bailey refused to let that happen to her, and Sara Smythe was the key to figuring out how. Certainly not through any of the men in her life, who had let her down when she’d needed them most. Jack was the one who’d retreated into a shell since his wife’s death, letting his daughter run amok in the city with no guidance, no refuge.
Her voice cracked, as it always did when she was livid. “I’ve admitted I’m an alcoholic. I’m going to meetings; I’ve been trying to stay sober. You may not have the same drinking problems, but I learned all about dry drunks in rehab. They’re withholding, negative, defensive. That’s you. So don’t think that you’re any better than me or Granddad. Or that you’ve escaped the past.”
For a few seconds, she couldn’t hear anything other than the blood pounding in her ears. Until it was replaced by the faint click of Jack hanging up and the dull murmur of a dead phone line.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
New York City, October 1885
“Where were you?”
Sara didn’t waste any time when Theo came in to work the next morning. She followed him into his office and closed the door. The air behind him smelled of sweat and alcohol, although he looked fine. Fresh, almost.
“Good morning to you, too.”
“Your wife was ill last night and there was no one there to take care of her. Your daughter was out in the hallway, the boy crying in his crib.”
With a deep sigh, Theo hung up his coat and hat on the coatrack. He didn’t bother answering right away, instead leafed through the stack of correspondence she’d put on the corner of his desk. “Has the check from Mr. Smith-Roberts arrived?”
The audacity of the question, and lack of response to her own, stunned.
“You are trying to change the subject?”
He rubbed his eyes, and for a brief moment a look of utter exhaustion crossed his features. “No, I am not trying to change the subject. Minnie needs to be sent back upstate, the doctor is insisting on it, and that sum will cover part of the funds to do so.”
“I see.” She sat down in the chair opposite him, still unwilling to offer any comfort. “Yes, it did come and I’ll deposit it today.”
He smiled and stared at her as if for the first time. “You are a goddess, Sara. I am sorry to put you through what you went through last night. I have tried so hard to keep you and my family separate, as I promised to do.”
“Where were you?”
“I ran into a couple of potential clients on the train back. They invited me to the Murray Hill Hotel for a drink, and as they are planning on building on a plot they own on Broadway, I thought it was a good idea to go. For the business. For us.”
She had worked herself up into a lather over nothing. The Dakota had the ability to do that, to make you feel like you were the only person within its walls, causing you to become desperate for human contact, particularly at night. The loneliness would dissipate upon awakening the next day, as it had on other nights.
He picked up on her uncertainty. “I know I seem ungrateful, but I am very, very pleased you were there. Minnie had sent the maid home, then fell into a fever. It was all a terrible mess.” His eyes grew teary, his face red. “I should have been home. I had no idea.”
She stood so she blocked the draftsmen’s view through the glass window and lowered her voice. “You couldn’t have known. I’m sorry I was so hard on you. It was a frightening scene.”
He took out his handkerchief and dabbed at his eyes. “Once again, you’ve saved the day. Minnie said to say thank you as well.”
“Will she be all right?”
“The doctor seems to think so. Says it’s common for patients to have recurrences. She was looking brighter this morning, before she left.”
“What about the children?”
“The governess is on her way back. The maids are taking care of them. Such is the privilege of living in an apartment house where the building’s housemaids can take charge in an emergency.”
She thought of the children in that cavernous apartment without their mother. “When is the governess due back?”
“In two days. After all that you’ve done for me, can I ask yet another favor, Sara?”
“Yes, I suppose.” She held her breath, not knowing what to expect from him.
“This morning, Lula asked for you. Would it be a bother if you could stop by the apartment and say hello? I have that blasted dinner with the Builders’ Society. Would that be all right?”
The sweet scent of the baby, the way his fingers curled around hers, invaded her senses. She should say no, but there was no way to explain why not without seeming heartless. “Of course.”
“I wouldn’t be able to manage without you.”
“Thank you, Theo. I’m sorry I was so angry.”
Later that afternoon, he stopped by her desk and placed a piece of paper facedown on it. When she turned it over, it contained an address on Thirty-Ninth Street.
She looked up at him. “Yes?”
“Why don’t you leave early and stop by there. Ask for a Mr. Carmichael.”
“Then what?”
“You’ll see. I don’t want to give away the secret.”
She tucked the address into her satchel and walked along the streets, feeling ever so much lighter. Mrs. Camden being gone again had nothing to do with it, she told herself. Having Theo all to herself again had nothing to do with it.
She couldn’t help but smile when she came to the address. SINGER SEWING MACHINES SOLD HERE. The storefront window overflowed with ribbons and fabrics, needles and thread, and in the middle of it all sat a beautiful black machine, just like the kind the tailor in the Dakota had.
Mr. Carmichael smiled when she said that Mr. Camden had sent her. “Yes, of course, it’s right here. I’ll have one of the boys help you bring it to your carriage.”
She explained that she didn’t have a carriage.
“That’s fine, we’ll get you a hansom cab. There’s no way you’ll be able to carry this yourself.”
The enormous box was wrapped in brown paper and string, with no sign of what was inside. She couldn’t wait to get it home; it was like being a little girl again on Christmas Day. Even if the gifts her mother ultimately gave her were a disappointment—a pincushion or a dreary pinafore—the unwrapping was always a delight.
Two porters carried it up, opened the box, and extricated a brand-new Singer sewing machine. The jet-black body was decorated with apple blossom and cornflower decals, the wrought-iron legs connected with an intricate, weblike pattern. Walnut inserts in the front of the oak cover lent it the air of a valuable piece of furniture, not a practical machine.
Her sewing basket had been stored away in a closet, taken out only for emergency repairs. But now she took it out and spooled black thread on the machine, then laid a scrap of fabric under the needle. Pumping with her feet, she watched as the thread crawled its way up the center of the fabric in perfect even stitches. She could do anything with this machine. Make a runner to cover the scratches on the dining room table, or a new dressing gown.
The Rembrandts’ grandfather clock chimed seven. Sara remembered her promise to check in on the children, and reluctantly packed up her sewing basket and placed the cover over the machine. Downstairs, the Camden flat was in chaos. Emily and the twins were screaming at one another in their room, while the baby cried fat, frustrated tears in the maid’s arms. Sara had hired the maid before she’d been sent away to Blackwell’s, an Irish girl named Siobhan who seemed overwhelmed by the noise and commotion.
“Let me take him.” Sara lifted the boy up and put him over her shoulder, patting his back.
“I’m so sorry, ma’am. I’m not quite sure what the children are going on about, but I can’t get them to stop fighting.”
The girl looked worn and miserable.
“Have you had your supper yet, Siobhan?”
“No, miss, there’s been no time.”
“Then down you go to the servants’ dining room. Get yourself something to eat. I’ll handle the children until then.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I won’t be long.” Siobhan bobbed her head and hightailed it out of the flat.
As soon as the door closed behind her, Christopher let out a loud burp followed by a sigh.
“You were unhappy then, my boy. But now you’re all right.” She kissed him on the head, covered with fine black swirls of hair. A beautiful boy, in such a sad position. An orphan child.
In the twins’ room, Emily had hoarded all of the dolls, which were piled up on her bed. She sat in front of them, arms crossed, her mouth an angry line. The twins ran to Sara as she entered the room.
“Emily won’t share!” Both faces featured upturned noses and bow lips, like beautiful dolls themselves.
“I won’t because they keep on breaking them. Look.” As proof, Emily thrust a porcelain doll at Sara.
Indeed, the doll’s head had a crack that ran down one side of the forehead.
“I didn’t mean to step on her,” wailed Luther.
“You did; I saw you stomp her on purpose.”
Sara fixed her gaze on each child, one at a time. “Now then, let’s stop fighting, shall we? And you’ll have to share the dolls, Emily. Perhaps we can divide them up so that every child has the same amount. That way you will each be responsible for the care of your doll, and if something happens, it won’t affect the others.”
Emily looked up at her, dubious. “Where is Siobhan?”
“She went downstairs to have something to eat. Your father asked me to look in on you. Now, I know it’s difficult with your mother away, but Miss Honeycutt will be here in the next couple of days and then everything will return to normal.”
