The Tolling of Mercedes Bell: A Novel (47 page)

Except for the small matter of being an orphan. But then she can turn out like you. And you sure turned out “okay”!

S
HE WITHDREW AND PUSHED HIS
arm off of her. She rolled over away from him and stared into the dark. After a moment of silence, she got out of bed and put on her robe. She was aghast that she had ever allowed such a monster to touch her.

She went into Germaine’s bathroom and locked the door. She ran water in the sink and immersed her hands in it, then her face. She wanted to wash the touch of him off her. She wanted to scream, throw up, smash the mirror with her fist—
something, anything.

She went into the living room, where moonlight streamed through the windows onto the carpet. For a while she sat on the couch staring at the quadrangles of light on the floor. She tried to grasp the full significance of Jack’s admissions, the cold premeditation of his actions; she reeled under the horror of knowing that someone who’d purported to love her had consciously plotted her extermination for years through uncountable occasions of unprotected sex, the very act designed to bring life.

He’d made the ultimate fool of her. She must have been the easiest mark in the world, with her ratty raincoat, her battered old car, her impoverished neighborhood, and her sweet, sad daughter.

Images of Germaine’s face filled her mind. Germaine as a baby. Germaine as a toddler. Germaine missing her front teeth. Germaine learning to read. Germaine learning to roller skate. Germaine brokenhearted after Eddy’s death. Germaine immersing herself in books and studies. Then her transformation after Jack had entered their lives.

Mercedes thought of their simple life in the pink palace and wished with all her being that she and Germaine could rewind the clock and go back there. As fragile and imperiled as that existence had been, it was infinitely safer than the present. Then the dam
broke, and she began to cry. The illusion of Jack was finally shattered. She lay down on the carpet in the moonlight and rocked herself back and forth, sobbing. She curled up in a ball on her knees and held her head in her hands. She couldn’t do it. She could not face the life before her. She couldn’t bear it. She no longer had the strength. Her humiliation was complete.

Please help me,
she prayed.
Please help me protect my child. Please let me find a way out of this mess. If I am to die of AIDS, let me live with Germaine in some semblance of honor and peace until then. Show me the way out.

Another wave of tears surged through her, and she cried again. Never had she felt so used, so dirty or worthless. She crawled into Germaine’s bed and buried herself under the covers.

I
T WAS HER BIRTHDAY
, and she’d just awakened in her bedroom. It was a small room with beige wall-to-wall carpeting. Light shone through an eight-paned glass door to the right of her bed. Sleepily she looked outside through a small window. A brown sparrow sat on a branch, chirping and cocking his head this way and that. She heard footsteps. Germaine came stumbling in, her flannel pajamas rumpled from sleep. She had braces on her teeth, and her hair was in a messy ponytail. She smiled as she climbed into bed, her eyes twinkling with merriment. She threw her arm around her mother and hugged her.

I
T WAS SUCH AN INTENSE HUG,
packed with so much love, that Mercedes felt it still when she awoke to the dawn of a new day.

Jack was sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper by the time she was ready to leave for work. When she entered the kitchen, he watched her like a cat waiting outside a mouse hole. She was calm
and collected, in a sleeveless black dress and low heels. As always, he found pleasure in the way she moved.

She ignored him. He watched her pack a lunch, rinse out her coffee cup, and leave it in the sink. When she was ready to leave, she let the front door shut soundly behind her.

R
oadwork had slowed traffic to a near standstill on Mercedes’s route to the office, so she turned down a side street to avoid the crush. Camphor trees formed a bower over the middle of the road, which was lined with nice single-family homes. She rolled down her window and leaned her elbow on the window ledge. A cool summer breeze blew through the car. No children were out yet, but their toys and bikes were scattered here and there. A woman walking a small wirehaired terrier waved as she passed.

A sign peeked out from the greenery in front of a pale blue house with white trim. She strained to read it, but couldn’t. Something made her stop the car and get out. The house was nestled in the bushes at the bottom of a slight incline, framed by a row of mature sycamores in the back. The sign read, For Rent.

She walked down the eight stepping-stones to the uninhabited house.
The eightfold path,
she thought, and smiled. The house had large windows into the living room on the left, an attached one-car garage to the right, and a breezeway between the garage and the front
door in the center. The wind in the trees sounded like waves rolling into shore. She cupped her hands around her eyes and looked in the windows of the empty house: wood floors, a kitchen with a skylight, a small brick fireplace with a painted wood mantel in the living room, and a doorway that must lead off to a bedroom or two—all in all, a very pleasing configuration. She wrote down the information on the sign and took a minute more to check out the yard.

She imagined living there with Germaine through her high school years. She daydreamed about watching her daughter turn into a young woman. She would attend her school events, watch her learn trig and calculus, read the papers she wrote for English and history. She could picture Germaine getting ready for dates and the prom, preparing for the SATs, filling out applications for college, heading out the door to go babysitting—all in this little blue house. Was it possible?

As she drove away she noticed neither large houses nor rundown ones in the neighborhood. The yards were reasonably well kept and the few cars she saw were economy cars, plus an occasional pickup truck or van with a business logo on it. Nothing fancy. The neighborhood was midway between Germaine’s school and the office, and close to a good public high school.

S
HE TRIED TO SETTLE IN
at her desk and focus on the chart she was supposed to be making for Darrel, but her mind was like a bird in a cage, hopping from one perch to the next. Jack’s confession had upended everything. She couldn’t process all of its implications and felt a wild urgency to do something about it, but had no idea where to begin or what to do. She went to the conference room and closed the door behind her. In a few seconds she was speaking with Dr. Hand.

“Is everything all right?’ the perceptive doctor asked.

“No, far from it, and I need your advice.”

After hearing all that had happened the night before, Dr. Hand said, “I think you should speak with a lawyer as soon as possible. You’re in jeopardy legally
and
financially and you need to move quickly. And as far as Matthew Spencer goes, you might reconsider whether to go to that meeting at all. I don’t see any advantage in your being there—only danger.”

“What do I do about Jack at home?”

“Keep calm and don’t engage him until you figure out exactly what you need to do.”

“He changes so much from one day to the next, I never know what he’ll be like.”

“Then don’t anticipate. Concentrate on Germaine and yourself and what you need. Call and let me know what the lawyers tell you, please.”

Exiting the conference room, she nearly ran into Caroline.

“Hi, stranger,” Caroline said cheerfully.

“Caroline, you’re just the person I need to see. Can we talk?”

“Hmm, that doesn’t sound good. Follow me.” They closed Caroline’s office door behind them.

“Sit,” Caroline ordered. She’d never seen Mercedes so agitated.

“I’m here as a client.”

“Okay.”

She explained the truth of Jack’s illness, his dementia and bizarre behavior and the doctor’s advice to her. She talked about her discoveries at his office, the disappearance of Emerson, and the confusion of their finances.

Caroline interrupted only once. “Mercedes, are
you
all right? Are you HIV positive?”

“It hasn’t shown up yet. But the odds are next to nil that I will remain this way.”

“I see.” Caroline’s eyes filled with concern.

She continued describing Jack’s state, his personality changes, his dependence on her, and having to stop practicing law. She spoke about Darrel settling the Taylor case, Melanie contacting clients, Matthew Spencer evaluating the practice. She recited the history of Jack and Janine, and some of what she’d learned from Emerson about Jack’s probate cases. Finally, she described Jack’s behavior and admissions of the previous two evenings. Caroline, who was normally stoical in her response to her clients’ sad stories, clapped a hand over her mouth in shock.

“Caroline, what should I do? Germaine’s away at summer camp and doesn’t know any of this.”

“Distance yourself immediately. Your therapist is exactly right. Even though you have a prenuptial agreement, it may not protect you completely. The less you know about his business dealings, the better. I want to see a copy of the prenup, the estate plan documents, and anything else you can dig up. Have you kept your money separate?”

“My pay goes into my own checking account, if that’s what you mean. The house and cars are in Jack’s name. I pay for the groceries and most of Germaine’s and my expenses. Jack pays for everything else.”

“Good. Keep it that way. I want you to keep yourself as far as possible from Jack’s practice and his affairs with Janine. You should separate physically, too. From a business standpoint, you should get a divorce. I don’t know how you feel about that, but you have only a small window of time before word gets out. If Melanie has been calling clients for the last two weeks, time may be very short. If Jack’s been embezzling from Janine, there’s no telling what else he’s been up to. Stop investigating. Go to his office and get copies of all the insurance policies, the trust document, your will, whatever pertains to you and Germaine personally, whatever will give me a picture of
Jack’s assets. Don’t say anything to Melanie about this. We don’t know what she knows or how she may be involved. If there are legal malpractice actions, she could be a key witness.”