The Address, page 32
Sara straightened. With the knowledge of the knife, she had leverage. She could threaten to turn him in if he didn’t let her leave with Christopher.
“Luther almost cut himself playing with this knife from your desk.” Mrs. Camden spoke with a harshness that Sara had never heard before.
“I told the boy not to play in here. Is he all right?”
“Luther, take your sisters and go to the nursery,” ordered Mrs. Camden. “Shut the door.”
The child scrambled away, calling out to Emily and Lula as he did.
Theo patted Luther on the head as he ran by. “He seems fine. I’m sure there’s no harm done.”
Sara pointed to the knife in Mrs. Camden’s hand. “What was that doing in your desk?”
For the first time since he’d arrived, Theo seemed off balance. “Right. It’s a keepsake, from an important night that I wanted to remember.” He gave her a pointed look.
“It’s the Rutherfords’ knife.” Sara stood tall, firm, even though inside she was terrified. His audacity astonished her. “You stole it.”
Mrs. Camden looked like she was about to pull her own hair out. She turned to Sara. “What are you talking about?”
“We went to a ball. Together, the night before you arrived from England. I saw this knife there. It’s part of the Rutherfords’ collection.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Theo dismissed her with a wave of his hand. “It’s not that at all.”
She ignored his lies. “That’s not the least you’ve done, is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I spoke with Daisy. She told me she tried to blackmail you. Got me sent away. Then you took my child.” Her breath came haltingly. She couldn’t speak any more than a few words at a time, and her emotions threatened to overpower her.
“You saw Daisy? In prison?” Theo took a step forward, then stopped. “I don’t know what to say. The girl’s a crook.”
“She told me everything.”
His shoulders sagged and he seemed more like a boy about to be reprimanded than a grown man. All bluster was gone. “I made a terrible mistake.”
“Yes, I remember you saying that. The day on the harbor. I didn’t understand at the time. How could you do such a thing?”
He avoided his wife’s gaze, directing his words at Sara. “When Daisy told me that you were with child, I knew that everything might come crashing down. My business, my reputation. She said she would take care of it, and I thought that meant she’d bring you to a doctor.”
“She tried,” said Sara. “You were a coward, trying to protect yourself.”
He pressed on. “But then there was that business with the necklace. I didn’t know what to think, until Mr. Douglas informed me that you’d decided to go back to England voluntarily. At the time, I thought that was best, for all of us.”
Sara shook her head. “Why would he lie to you?”
“Probably because, like me, he wanted everything tied up neatly, swept away. No hint of scandal. But after I read that terrible article in the paper, I realized that you were not in England. You’d been holed up in the madhouse all that time. The thought made me wretched. I realized what I’d set in motion, that it was my fault. Right away, I tracked down the reporter, to find you.”
“You not only found me, but Christopher as well. I saw your signature, where you took him out of the Foundling Asylum.” Sara turned to Mrs. Camden. “Did you know you’ve been raising my son?”
“I suspected.” She glowered at Theo. “But I had no choice. He told me to take him in, and never speak of the circumstances.”
“How could you agree to such a thing?” Sara spun back to Theo. “After trying to get rid of the child, why bother?”
Mrs. Camden’s voice was bitter. “Because he was a boy. Theo wanted a son.”
“You already have Luther.”
A terrible silence fell over the room, the only sound the metallic ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner.
“Tell her,” Theo instructed Mrs. Camden. “Go on, tell her the truth.”
Mrs. Camden flushed. “The twins were born when we were apart for a period of time. They are not Theo’s.”
The memories tumbled over in Sara’s mind. How Theo was less affectionate toward the twins than to Emily. The bruise on Luther’s arm. The way Theo’s own stepfather had mistreated him. And that day in the Langham hotel room, when the nanny had insisted Theo was supposed to be watching the twins. She’d been telling the truth. He’d gone out and left them alone in a room with an open window.
Theo paced the room, the words pouring out, like an actor practicing a soliloquy. “I’m not a terrible person. I made one mistake, and it threatened to bring everything tumbling down. I was panicked. You see what my work means to me; you’ve been by my side the entire time. Half of it’s yours, Sara. You’ve earned it.”
“Money won’t solve this problem, Theo.”
“It’s not about the money. I’m creating something phenomenal, we’re creating something phenomenal, and I want a son, a true son, to carry on my vision.” He looked up, tears in his eyes. “I figure I’ll teach him everything I know, so he can carry on after I’m gone. I vow to take good care of him, and you, to set things right. If I’d know that was where Douglas was sending you, I would have swum across the East River to rescue you. Don’t you see? I had a moment of terrible weakness, of panic. But then I tried to rectify it, to save both you and the boy.”
“Who is Luther and Lula’s father, then?”
Theo glanced at Mrs. Camden, who stood unblinking, furious. “She fell for some romantic poet who professed his love and then left her with child. Twins, no less.”
Mrs. Camden began to shake, her shoulders trembling. “You’re a beast. An unforgiving beast.” She appealed to Sara. “I tried to get away with the children as much as possible. I didn’t want to stay, the situation made me physically ill, but my choices were limited.”
Before she’d known the truth, Sara would have given anything to be Theo’s wife, to be beside him day and night. Her toxic envy had made her blind to the truth.
Mrs. Camden was still holding the knife, her grip fierce. “I was never bright enough for him. He brought me books and newspaper articles and insisted I read them. Quizzed me on politics and Tolstoy, and I tried at first but it was never enough.” When Sara stayed mute, unsure of what to say, Mrs. Camden swiveled back to Theo, her fury at full pitch. “I could never please you. You never loved me, then punished me when I sought comfort elsewhere.”
“Calm down, Minnie.” Theo eyed her right hand. “Look at what I’ve done.” He gestured at the room around him. “I’ve taken care of you and your children. We live in this grand palace, where you can get anything you like with a ring of a bell. We were both weak at times, but I’ve finally succeeded. I kept both of our scandals out of the limelight. I have everything I want. Now both of you do, too. It’s a relief, in a way.”
“Everything I want?” Mrs. Camden erupted. “I live with a tyrant, across the sea from my country. My family is fractured, broken, and I can’t even retreat to the safety of a private home. Instead, we live in this monstrosity, where your lover lives down the hall and every tenant and servant knows that I am not enough. Done in by the man who swore to love and protect me.”
At first, Sara thought that Mrs. Camden was running out of the room, away from his venomous tone. But she was headed right for Theo, knife raised. He lifted up his hand as she approached, and for a second they looked as if they were about to begin some kind of macabre quadrille. Until she slashed at him hard, wildly.
Sara screamed for Mrs. Camden to stop, but at the sound of the knife cutting through flesh, she instinctively turned her head, sickened. Theo cried out, clutching one hand with the other, as blood seeped between his fingers and onto his white shirt, staining his waistcoat within seconds. Mrs. Camden pulled her arm back and lunged at him again, this time aiming for his chest.
“Mrs. Camden, stop!”
Sara ran to her and wrenched the knife out of her hand.
Theo fell sideways, onto the drafting table. The entire structure crashed to the floor below him, pens scattered across the room as he landed on his stomach with a thud, his face turned to the side, mouth partly open.
He blinked once. And then went still.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
New York City, July 1886
Still waiting. Biding time.
But this was a different kind of waiting because there was no hope. And that was freeing, in so many ways. In the past eight months, Sara had mastered the art of doing nothing, of letting her mind wander while her body sat still. Her mind could go anywhere it liked. Down the dark hallways of the Dakota, into the children’s nursery, along the walkways of Central Park. She’d close her eyes and see the world outside, the one that she would never see again, only in her mind.
Mind’s eye. It was better than reality. If she tried hard enough, she could remember the scent of Christopher’s baby breath, the sound of his cooing. The way he’d wiggled around inside her belly when they were one person.
A bell rang. The door to her cell clanked open. Then she was walking down the cellblock, to the jeers and yells that she usually could shut out. The cacophony of the incarcerated.
She hadn’t been sent back to Blackwell’s after her trial. Instead, she’d been put on a wagon, shackled hand and foot, and carted a hundred miles north of the city, to a prison in the woods.
Sometimes, Sara revisited the day Mrs. Camden killed Theo, in her mind’s eye. Where she’d gone wrong. If she could have made it right. But she’d been caught off guard by Mrs. Camden’s attack. Then she’d made mistakes.
After Theo had fallen, Sara and Mrs. Camden had stared at each other for what seemed like ages, before Mrs. Camden began to shake, trembling as if she was about to fly off into the air and out the window. So Sara took over. She told her to go to the children, close the door to the nursery while she figured out what to do, what to say.
There was no way to make it look as if Theo had accidentally fallen on the knife. But the night with Daisy and the intruder came to mind. Yes, that would work. An intruder had broken in. They’d found him here, dead. She left the library, closing the doors behind her, and directed Mrs. Camden and the children to go up to the roof promenade. Take the stairs, stay there. Don’t come back down until I say so.
Back in the library, the stolen knife lay in the very center of the rug, where Mrs. Camden had dropped it. That wouldn’t do; it would raise too many questions. She slipped it into the pocket of her dress and walked downstairs, through the courtyard, and into the park, where she buried it beneath a thicket of bushes. No one must find it.
Back inside, past the porters who gaped at her and asked if she were all right. She caught her reflection in the apartment’s foyer mirror, noticing for the first time that her skirt and her cheek were stained red, as if she’d been out picking raspberries. Theo lay in a pool of blood, his mouth open, face white. A glint of metal caught her eye, lying on a litter of linen drawings splattered with blood. The knife’s sheath. In her haste, she’d missed it.
And next to it, a ghastly stump of a finger, covered in blood.
She picked up the sheath and dropped it into one of the leather tubes that held drawings. Drawings that would no longer come to fruition. All of Theo’s ideas, buildings. Lost.
The finger was soft, still warm. He’d drawn masterpieces with it, the sure, even lines issuing from the nub of the pen in its clasp. She had an irrational desire to put it back on his hand, to try to make him whole again. At a loss, she placed it in the tube as well, closing the lid tightly. The tube went back under his desk. She’d tell Mrs. Camden to dispose of it later.
Voices in the hallway. Men’s voices.
The door to the apartment opened. She’d locked it behind her, but Fitzroy had the master key. He and two policemen stepped inside. Carefully, politely, like they didn’t want to make a fuss, didn’t want to muss up the silk rug and shiny floorboards. Not expecting to see blood and mess and a body. A woman in a dress with red stains on it, red stains on her hands and face.
Fitzroy spoke for her when she didn’t answer any of their questions. Her name, who she was, who Theo was. That he didn’t know where the rest of the family was. One policeman had rushed off to search the other rooms, fearful at what he might find.
No, she wanted to say. Everyone else is safe. It’s just Theo who’s dead.
And Sara who was red. Red with blood.
“Sara.”
She was in the visitors’ room of the prison. Not sure how she’d gotten here, not remembering the walk from her cell to here.
Mrs. Camden stood before her. She looked pale and thin. Not good. She had to stay healthy for the children. For Christopher. She’d promised.
“I’m sorry it took so long to come. I didn’t want the newspapers to know. I had to wait.”
“Of course.”
They sat down on either side of a small wooden table. Once, Daisy had been the one in shackles and Sara had been free. Theo had brought everyone down with him that he possibly could.
But not Mrs. Camden. Nor the children. Sara had made sure they were all right.
“How is Christopher?” Her voice creaked from disuse.
Mrs. Camden smiled. “He’s lovely. We celebrated his first birthday two weeks ago. Growing fast, healthy. A good boy. You have a good boy.”
Sara nodded. She rarely spoke these days. Figuring out which words to say took too much effort.
“Sara, I should have confessed.” Mrs. Camden looked about the room, her eyes red and wet. “I should be here, not you. I should have taken the blame. You did nothing, nothing at all.”
“No. We agreed when you came to see me before the trial. It’s better that Christopher is raised by you. I wouldn’t have been able to give him everything you have. Such a chance at a grand life.”
“I will, I promise.” She trailed off.
Blinded by love. The phrase had always seemed silly to Sara, something poets invented. Yet nothing could have prepared her for the devotion she’d felt for Theo. He’d enveloped her in his intellect and his charm, making her feel she was an indispensable part of his life. And maybe she had been, for a time. He had needed her around, as a reflection of all the good qualities of himself, because his wife, by that time, reflected the worst. His irritability, his spite, and his thirst for success. Sara had refused to see the shadows in his temperament or question why his relationship with Mrs. Camden was so strained. Most likely, he’d lavished similar attention on Mrs. Camden early in their relationship, before turning on her when she failed to live up to his high standards.
But these regrets were no longer of consequence. The boy was what mattered most, and she was determined he be given every chance in the world to succeed, independent of the sordid story of his parentage.
“Did you find the drawing in my room?”
Mrs. Camden took out a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. “I’ve hung it over his crib as you asked. It’s the first thing he sees when he wakes and before he goes to sleep each night.”
Her dream cottage, so her child might also dream of lovely things. For all of Theo’s betrayals, he’d left behind many beautiful creations. Including the drawing. And their son. “What about my letter, you have my letter?”
“It’s in a safe place and I promise to give it to Christopher when he turns twenty-one. Then he’ll know everything, and he can come and visit you.”
Sara smiled. That was twenty years from now. She wouldn’t be around. She could feel it in her bones. Something inside her was eating away at her. Guilt, maybe. Anger at having been so misused. Anger at herself. Her insides were a stewy, nasty mess and would kill her eventually.
Nothing more needed to be said on the subject. They had an agreement. Mrs. Camden spoke of Christopher and Luther and the girls, telling her what they’d said and did, the words he spoke, the way he wobbled about on his fat little legs. Sara drank in every word, every image, to fill her library of thoughts for later use.
She would feed on them until the next visit. Until her energy faded and her soul dissipated into the night air. Her last remembrance was that of holding her boy, in his sailor suit, on top of the roof promenade of the Dakota, the city gleaming below her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
New York City, September 1986
A year after Strawberry Fields was officially dedicated, the hilltop had become a hive of activity most hours of the day, the gray-and-white “Imagine” mosaic strewn with flowers and candles.
To be honest, Bailey avoided the area if she could. It wasn’t a place she felt comfortable striding through, veering around the tourists wielding cameras. Doing so was like galloping through the Sistine Chapel to get to St. Peter’s. Covered in a canopy of American elm tree branches and lined with hollies and mountain laurel, the site demanded an air of reverence and respect.
She found a spot on an open bench vacated by a couple of college students in torn jeans, carrying backpacks. Red roses had been arranged in a peace symbol, and three guitarists sat together on a bench opposite, strumming out tunes to a receptive crowd. She watched as a little girl danced about, jumping and swinging her arms to the beat, unaware of the tragedy behind the music.
One year sober. She’d made it. Not only had she made it, she’d risen to the challenge, supporting others at meetings, newcomers who came in weeping and scared, or those who’d relapsed and walked in amid a cloud of self-hatred. Each time she’d helped someone else, she couldn’t help but reanalyze her own journey and mark her own progress, remember what it was like. And vow to stay healthy and strong.
Soon after the insanity in Fred’s office, Bailey had reached out to Melinda. She’d hated the way things had ended, and could only imagine what it felt like for Melinda to have lost everything, to be cast out from her own family history. To make Melinda suffer had not been her goal.
