Young Wives (64 page)

“This is my apartment,” Angie said. “
He
is my father.”

Anthony stood up. “You didn’t tell me about this,” he said.

Natalie got nasty and Anthony grew defensive. It took her ten minutes to calm them both down, get them to their seats at the table, and place food in front of them. She could get mules to brunch, but she couldn’t get them to graze. They sat across from each other, ridiculously hostile, her mother glaring at her father, her father glaring at her. This was something important to remember about marriage: once you had children together, it was never over. There were kids’ graduations, there were weddings and funerals and birthdays. There were all the events that brought families together, where you had to stare across a table at a person you never wanted to see again.
Ah yes
, Angie thought. She was glad Reid wasn’t going to know about the baby.

Finally Natalie turned to Angie, about to remove the untouched salad. “This is totally inappropriate,” Natalie said. “If I need to see him, which I don’t, I can see him without your intervention.”

“Yeah? Since when? I don’t need to see you. Just because you need to see me sometimes doesn’t mean you
get
to see me,” said Anthony. “What am I? An exhibition in a museum?”

Angie couldn’t stand it. They were like Jenna and Frankie fighting. No wonder she was immature. She got it from both sides of her family. “Look, this isn’t about what
you
need. Either of you,” she told them. “What you needed to do was break up our family, so you did it. Maybe that wasn’t what I needed, but I understand. And even though you’ve both been there for me, you haven’t been there for me
together
.”

The two of them looked at her as if she were ranting. Then both of them assumed guilty looks. Well, let them. Angie unpacked the bag her mother had brought, putting the artichoke hearts and the beet root salad on the counter, banging the little plastic containers one on top of the other.

“Look,” she said. “I am grateful to both of you because you helped me through a really bad time.” She put her arms around her father and kissed his cheek. “You gave me courage to walk out, Daddy,” she said. “And a place to stay.” She turned to her mother. “And you got me motivated, and gave me a job. And introduced me to new friends.” She thought of Michael and smiled. “I want you to know that I am really grateful. But I’m really sad because we don’t have a family left. America, I don’t know, everything just…American family life is dissolved. There are no more family holidays, dinners all together at night, just a person alone in front of a TV eating take-out food. That’s how you guys live, and it’s how I was going to live, except for my friends.”

“Look,” Natalie began, “I don’t think I have to apologize for your father’s behavior—”

“Don’t say it was me who broke up our marriage,” Anthony interrupted.

“Oh, shut up. Both of you,” Angie said. “I’m trying to say something
new
. I’m going to have a baby. I
am
having a baby, and Reid doesn’t know it. Anyway, he’s getting remarried. I don’t have a husband, but I will have a baby. And I want the baby to have a family. You’re it.”

This was so weird, so not as she imagined it. Angie had thought this would be a session where her parents yelled at her, and instead she was yelling at them. Why did that make her feel bad? Perhaps because she felt like the adult, and she wanted the comfort of being their child.
Ah
, she thought,
get used to being the parent
, she said to herself.
It’s going to start in about four and a half months and not quit till you’re dead
.

Natalie stood up. “You’re having a baby?” she asked. “Oh my God!” Anthony didn’t say anything, but he stood up also and came over to hug her. The hug felt good. No yelling? No screaming? No cries that she was ruining her life, or throwing away all her education, or being unfair to an unborn child?

“When’s the baby due?” Natalie asked. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me before! What’s the due date? Who’s your obstetrician?”

Her father just kissed her and then hugged her again. “So now I guess I can’t have anyone kill your ex?” he asked.

“Sure you can,” Angie said. “’Cause he’s not going to have anything to do with this. But you two are. I’m going to need help, and honestly, I think you need a little family connection yourselves.” Angie looked from one to the other. “I know how impossible this seems, but I want you to try to be mature,” she said. “Get along. Be grandparents. Is that too much to ask?”

Natalie walked over to her daughter, put one arm around her shoulder, and stretched the other one out to her belly, ready to feel it. “May I?” she asked. And Angie nodded her head. This wasn’t the family she’d imagined, but it was one that she’d make work.

During which DA Douglas gets the dirt and the dough

Michelle did not want to go back to Douglas, that nasty district attorney, but she didn’t really have a choice and she supposed that what he had said was more right than not. All of the insulting things he had ranted about women in her situation had applied to her. She had kept her eyes closed to a lot of what Frank must have been up to. So as the next part of her plan, she and Angie met with Michael Rice and made another appointment to see Douglas.

“You know, Michelle,” Michael had said, “I feel that I didn’t really prepare you for him. He was tough, and he’s not going to be willing to see you again unless you’ve got some hard evidence. And it’s going to have to be pretty compelling evidence.”

Michelle had told no one about the money, not even Jada. The very idea of it terrified her. She had it hidden now in the Lexus but she knew if she was found with it she would be implicated in the drug dealing itself. And if it was stolen, or if she lost it, all of their plans would be threatened. She was haunted. Each night she woke up half a dozen times to check that the Lexus was safely parked and undisturbed. She almost asked Angie to park her old wreck on the street and let Michelle park in Angie’s spot closer to the apartment, but she was afraid that if—for any reason—the police found the car on Angie’s property, it would ruin her friend. They were all taking risks for one another, but it ought to be risks they agreed to.

The blood money was an awful burden. Michelle just wanted to get rid of it.

“I have compelling evidence,” she told Michael, without going any further. “Make the appointment.” She didn’t like Mr. Douglas and it was going to be humiliating to see him again, to admit that he had been right and she had been foolish. It would be worse yet to be virtually assigning her husband to a prison term. But Michelle knew it had to be done. “Tell him I have evidence,” she said, but she didn’t respond to the question in Angie’s eyes.

Michael merely nodded. “Is there some kind of deal that you want cut?” Michael asked. “If there is, tell me now. The only way you’ll get it is before you produce evidence.”

“I’ll give him evidence. I’ll testify only if I have to. The only thing I want is to be allowed to leave town, to leave the county, right away, and not return until the trial date. I’ll give him my address, but I want it to be kept secret. I want full custody of the children and I want to change my name. I want protection when I return for the trial. That’s it.”

“I don’t think there’ll be a problem with any of that,” Michael said. “Douglas can’t guarantee custody, but if your husband—”

“My future former husband,” Michelle corrected.

“Well, if Frank Russo is imprisoned, you’ll get custody. I can assure you of that, and I’ll handle your case personally. It’s a modest request. You can actually get much more from Douglas.”

Michelle shook her head. “This isn’t about barter,” she said. “And I’m not doing this to punish my husband. I just want to make things clean.”

When they met this time, the district attorney was just a little more civil, probably because Michael had warned him to be. But Douglas’s attitude was as arrogant as before, and his office just as spotless. Michelle wondered who polished all of the plaques and trophies that were on display, because each one glistened and not a single fingerprint defaced any of them.

Only Douglas himself was defaced. His shiny head still had his combed-over eight strands of hair. “Well, we meet again, Mrs. Russo. Mr. Rice assures me that today you won’t be wasting our time,” he said.

Michelle clutched her bag on her lap. This was her last moment for second thoughts, the last chance she had to possibly stop her husband from going to prison, to stop her children’s father from becoming a jailbird. Against the brown leather of her purse, her hands were wet with sweat. She doubted that anybody in her Irish family had ever cooperated with the police for any reason. Well, what had that got them? Poverty and alcoholism for ten generations!

She went face-to-face with Douglas, forcing herself to look straight into his eyes. They were surprisingly blue, but small and buried very deeply in the flesh around his cheekbones. She could save Frank, she told herself, but she couldn’t save her family, not unless she did this. And Frank was guilty.

“Well, Mrs. Russo?” Douglas asked. “What have you got?”

“I found something,” Michelle said. “I found something that your officers missed.”

Douglas made a face of disbelief, his lips pouted, his chin lowered. “We did a
very
thorough search of your house, Mrs. Russo.”

“Well, you didn’t find this,” Michelle said. She took out the bundle of money and put it on the buffed coffee table between them. Michael Rice leaned forward.

“Drugs?” he murmured. Michelle didn’t even bother to shake her head. Douglas stood up, and without even touching the bundle, went to the desk and punched in a number on his phone.

“I possibly have new physical evidence here,” he said. “I need an officer, a stenographer, and a court clerk immediately.” He turned around and sat back down in his chair. “What’s in the package? Is it money?” Douglas asked. Michelle nodded. “So you opened it?” he asked. She nodded again. “Hundred-dollar bills?”

Michelle nodded once more. “I didn’t look through all of them,” she said. “I didn’t know if I should even touch it. Fingerprints or whatever. You know, Frank threatened to involve me in this if I brought this to you. We have a tape of him doing that.”

“So he knows you found it?”

Michelle nodded again.

“But he doesn’t know you’re turning it in.”

“No.” There was a knock at the door and two men and a woman joined them.

“Pick up Frank Russo. We have evidence,” Douglas told one of them. “This is Mrs. Russo. I’d like to take her statement.” The woman sat down and pulled out some kind of a machine. “I’d like to record it as well,” he added, and the uniformed officer brought out a recorder, plugged it in, and set the microphone on the table in front of her, while the other man left, ready to give the order to jail Frank. Poor Frank.

Michael Rice spoke up. “I would like it to be understood that my client has been unaware, until this recent find, of any illegal activity on the part of Frank Russo, her husband. I would also like to make it clear that she gives this testimony and evidence voluntarily. In return she would ask the court for immunity, permission to relocate, and physical protection if required. There’s already a restraining order in place against the man.”

When the DA nodded, Michael said, “I would like to hear a verbal response to that, Mr. Douglas, just for the record.”

“I don’t foresee a problem with it,” the DA agreed aloud. “No charges have ever been pressed against Mrs. Russo.”

They discussed preliminaries for a few more minutes, which allowed Michelle to space out. This was it, then—the end of her marriage. Michelle looked down at the purse on her lap. Having Angie process divorce papers and the rest of it meant nothing. Once
this
happened there would be no turning back. And Michelle didn’t want to turn back, not to a comfortable life built on lies. She clutched the bag to her. How many other lives had been ruined by money? So many that hers hardly mattered to anyone but her.

When Michelle looked up, Douglas and Michael Rice had finished and were both looking at her. “Are you ready?” Michael asked. Michelle nodded. She looked at the brown-paper-wrapped parcel on the DA’s sparkling coffee table.

Douglas began his questioning. “This package in front of you is something that you’ve found, independently and on your own?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Mark it exhibit two for now,” he told the clerk. “And I’ve been told it contains money,” he said.

She nodded. “Please state your answers verbally,” the stenographer requested.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Michelle said. “Yes, I found this money. It’s packages of hundred-dollar bills. At least that’s what I think it all is.”

Douglas picked up the package and gave it to the court clerk. “Could you please count this?” he asked. Then he turned to Michelle. “Where did you find this money?” he said.

“Under the carpet in the floor of the closet in my daughter’s room,” Michelle told him.

“Didn’t our officers search your home, including the closet?” Douglas asked.

“Yes,” Michelle agreed. “They wrecked my whole house.” For a moment, her lip trembled as she thought about it—about the way her house had been torn apart, as her life had been.

She took a breath. “It was very well hidden. I didn’t find it right away,” she said. “You see, for days and days I was cleaning up the terrible mess they left.” She told the entire story while the tape recorder rolled and the stenographer pecked away at her odd machine and the court clerk counted silently at the other side of the office.

Douglas interrupted her a few times, but now that he was getting what he wanted, he was surprisingly cordial. “Could this money represent savings?” he asked.

“No. I don’t think so. We have a savings account.”

“And it’s money you didn’t know about?”

“Yes. I mean, yes I didn’t know it was there.”

The questioning went on. Michael patted her hand once or twice, but Michelle felt confident, sure now that she was doing the right thing. It took more than two hours, and Douglas repeated some questions over and over, but Michael would remind him he’d already been there, and Michelle kept it simple, giving short answers as Michael had advised. She told them the truth, leaving out only the parts she had to—like the entire safety deposit box episode. Finally she was done. She felt like a limp rag by then.