Daybreak (20 page)

He sat down beside her on the piano bench. “Come on, let’s cut it out. Let’s reach an understanding, as you always say.”

His pleading tone softened her a little. Yes, she was soft, maybe too much so.

“I’m willing, but you don’t help,” she said quietly.

“Well, you don’t either, Laura. You make too much fuss about things. That newspaper, for instance. You’ve got to compromise, see the other side of it. He’s not married to those ideas—many of which I happen to agree with.”

“That I know.”

“Some of which I don’t agree with. But I’m not going
to hassle him over his politics. I stay neutral. Meanwhile, he’s getting good experience. He’s an excellent debater, you heard him in high school, and I’m sure he’s improved at college. This experience in an organization is preparation for life. Meeting people, working with people. You can’t tell what the future holds. He may turn this experience around one hundred eighty degrees and use it even in our business, who knows?”

“Meeting people?” she repeated. “The people who write the stuff that’s in that paper? You disgust me, Bud, when you talk this way.” With a weary shake of the head, she closed her eyes. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

“Do that. Let yourself unwind.” He spoke kindly, cheerfully. “Poor little Laura! Worry, worry, worry. You can’t take the world’s troubles on your shoulders, you know. Those blacks will take care of themselves, and Tom will take care of himself, too.”

Alone in the bed while Bud watched television downstairs, she lay awake. The boys were in their rooms, Timmy no doubt with Earl asleep on his feet, and Tom most likely trying to smother his anger. What future was there really for either of her sons? Our children hurt us so.… For Tim, the end was too clear. And Tom’s future is up in the air. There is so much of Bud in him, she thought. The ambition and the stubbornness are both his. What if she had married some other man with different genes? He would still be her son, but he would not be Tom. What if, for instance, she had married Francis Alcott? Foolish, aberrant thought.

From the trees near the window a bird, awakened from sleep, gave a startled cry and subsided. This cry, followed by its silence, now suddenly brought to her awareness the insect chorus in the yard, a level sound
as incessant and unremarkable as silence. Yet for an instant now she became aware of it as though she had never heard it before. And perhaps because Francis’s name had slipped out of some locked box inside her head, something more slipped out: sounds of the summer night when she had played
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
for him. The crickets had been loud that night. Another aberrant, foolish thought.

PART
IV
The Crawfields

8

T
he mail always came in the late afternoon. Shoved through the slot in the door, it landed on the floor of the hall, a tumble of bills, postcards from the traveling aunts, appeals from charities, and slippery catalogs presenting kitchenware, hand-knitted sweaters, birdhouses, and everything that has ever been manufactured by man.

Among all these this day there lay a long white envelope. It looks stern, thought Laura, with its professional lettering:
LONGFELLOW, BRYCE
&
MACKENZIE, COUNSELORS AT LAW
. She didn’t like the bold look of it, which was silly of her. And thrusting everything else aside, she sat down to read it.

A matter of great importance.

Really, really, it was ridiculous to be feeling this quiver of the nerves, this tiny lurch of the heart. People in business received letters like this one all the time. The man probably had something to sell. But—Mackenzie? Ralph Mackenzie, who was running against Jim Johnson, was not a salesman. What could he want?

There was no sense waiting to find out, so she went to the telephone and asked to speak to Mr. Mackenzie. “I just received your letter,” she said, “and it seems so mysterious that I’m answering right away. What is this about?”

“It’s a very personal matter, Mrs. Rice. It’s not anything we should discuss over the telephone. I’m sorry.”

Tom, she thought. The awful business that night. Oh God, could Tom have really had anything to do with it? Yes, maybe he could.

“I’d like to make an appointment with you and Mr. Rice. You tell me when.”

The voice was a gentleman’s, but that meant nothing; he could still be some sort of con man. “You are the Mackenzie who’s a candidate for the senate, aren’t you?” she asked anxiously.

“I am. I am the only Ralph Mackenzie in the book. If you want to make sure I am who I say I am, this office has several telephone numbers, all listed. You may try any one of them to check me out.”

“Tell me, this worries me. Are we being sued for something? If this has anything to do with business, you should get in touch with my husband at his office.”

“Don’t be frightened. You’re not being sued.”

This gentle assurance made Laura feel foolish, and
she said hastily, “I don’t know why I said that. We don’t owe anyone, we haven’t done anything wrong.”

“I’m so sorry to be worrying you, and I don’t like being mysterious. Tell me what day will do. Tomorrow, perhaps?”

He was certainly in a hurry. And this sense of hurry conveyed itself to her, so she said promptly, “Tomorrow afternoon. It’s Saturday, and my husband will be home.” And remembering that it was this man and not she who had asked for the appointment, she said with dignity, “Three o’clock will be convenient for us.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Rice.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Bud protested. “The guy’s a politician. He’s collecting for his campaign. Going around begging. ‘A personal matter.’ Yeah. Personal for the bastard, and you fell for it.” He laughed. “Well, I’ll make short work of him. He’s come to the wrong place. Any pennies I have go to Johnson.”

“I don’t know.” And again there was that prickle of fear. “He said it was urgent. He was very nice.”

“Aha! I’ve got it. Some third cousin, yours or mine, has died without wife or child and has left a fortune. And they’ve tracked us down as the nearest relatives. That’s it, Laura. Wow! We’ll go around the world. I’ll buy you a diamond necklace that you can wear to the supermarket. How about that?”

“He’s coming tomorrow,” she said, not laughing.

Now Bud frowned. “You shouldn’t have allowed it. Let him come to my office with whatever it is. I don’t do business at home, and he ought to know better, a high-class attorney like him. Longfellow, Bryce and Mackenzie.”

“I told you he said it was personal.”

* * *

Ralph R. Mackenzie arrived on time at three o’clock. He was tall and thin and looked like a lawyer in his immaculate seersucker suit with his attaché case in hand.

“I’m sorry to intrude on your home,” he said pleasantly. “But I think you will see it is the best way.”

“Quite all right,” replied Bud in the courteous manner that he could display so attractively. “We’ll sit in the library. It’s the coolest room in the house.”

Mackenzie set the attaché case on the floor beside his chair, opened it, took two or three typewritten sheets out, and was about to speak when Bud spoke first.

“I might as well tell you, in case this has anything to do with the campaign, that I’m a Johnson man. I always believe in speaking frankly from the start.”

“I understand. But this has nothing to do with the campaign. I’m here as a lawyer, not a candidate.”

Laura was frightened. The fright came over her like a cold draft. The events of the last few days had made her vulnerable to outside forces. There was menace in the world; she had never been so sharply aware of it. Her gaze was fixed on the man as she waited.

“This is, as I told you, Mrs. Rice, a personal matter, a very painful one. So I shall get directly to the point with no long preamble. I represent a family whose son was born in the Barnes Private Maternity Clinic, now no longer in existence. He was born on July 8, 1974. And you have a son, Thomas, I believe, born there on July 9. Am I correct?”

“Thomas Paine Rice,” Bud said. His voice rose. “What is this about?”

Mackenzie, putting the papers back into the attaché case, had a moment’s problem with the lock. This delay
was maddening. Yet Laura saw at once that it was purposeful, because the man was tense. When he had adjusted the lock, he looked from Bud to Laura and back to Bud.

“Mr. and Mrs. Rice, this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in the fourteen years since I passed the bar. There is reason to believe that a mistake was made at the hospital, and that the two families were given each other’s babies.”

Laura gasped, and Bud jumped up from the sofa where he had been sitting next to her.

“What? Are you crazy?” he cried. “Crazy, to come here with a cock-and-bull story like this?”

“I wish it were, Mr. Rice. But I can tell you—I represent a family—we’ve been exploring this situation for months now, and unfortunately—”

“I don’t want to hear it!” Bud shouted.

Laura touched his arm. “Bud, please, please don’t. We have to hear it.” Thank God the boys were out of the house. Her heart hammered so—

“Look at my wife! She’s going to faint.”

Mackenzie shook his head. “I don’t know what to do. I have to tell you this, but I don’t want you to be ill, Mrs. Rice. What shall I do?” And he gave Laura a look of purest compassion.

“Of course you have to go on,” she whispered.

“These other people, when they were told, came to me. They were as shocked and disbelieving as you are—”

“It’s a trick,” Bud interrupted. “These things don’t happen. It’s a fabrication, and I am damn well going to get at the bottom of it.” His throat muscles bulged at the V of his open collar, and his cheeks were flushed.
“Coming here like this to scare the life—” And then remembering himself, he said more quietly, “I don’t say I blame you, Mr. Mackenzie. You’re an attorney, and when people come as clients with some wild, tricky story, I understand you have to listen. But I don’t have to.”