Cassandra looked at Gretchen like she was a crazy person. “You think I’m just going to go to work now? With Dad in jail formurder?”
“Well, if you needed to.” Gretchen stood, pulling her daughter to her feet and guiding her with admirable determination toward the curb—a taxi, an Uber, anyplace that was away from Gretchen. “You also have Oppy to worry about. You need to keep your focus there. You don’t want to upset her or Tom. I’ll be in touch as soon as I know anything more, any details at all. I promise.”
“Mom, you just passed out! I don’t think you should be alone.”
“The doctor said I’m fine, Cassandra. Overwhelmed, that’s all. I just need a good nap.” Gretchen’s breathing had steadied. “Besides, you know me—I’ll feel much better after I’ve taken care of logistics. Which reminds me: I need to get in touch with your father’s office.”
“His office?” Cassandra huffed. “Have you told Becks andElizabeth yet? That seems way more important than Goldman Sachs. What if they hear about Dad on the news?”
“The news?”
“If this woman was on the trip with Dad, she has—had—money. Somebody killing her will be newsworthy. And Dad? The co–head of investment banking atGoldman Sachsaccused of murder? TheNew York Postis going to go crazy when it gets out. Hopefully, they don’t release names right away, but who knows how that works?”
Gretchen nodded, her head throbbing. She had not let herself consider the press. The thought of a rag like thePostdigging its fangs into this tawdry mess made her want to vomit. “I was going to call Becks and Elizabeth as soon as I got home.”
Of course Gretchen was dreading it, calling Elizabeth, especially. Her middle child was prickly on a good day, though if Gretchen were completely honest, she recognized a similar sharpness in herself sometimes. But Gretchen knew how to maintain a polite veneer. And Elizabeth…well, if she knew, she did not care. Even when she was little, she had assaulted people with her opinions and her bad moods, no matter what Gretchen said. In fact, the more Gretchen said, the worse Elizabeth got, right up until her “transformation.” Also known as her entrance into a cult called the Community that preached the intersectionality of economic disparity, environmental damage, and racial injustice—according to the word of Nascent Moon, the affluent, white Berkeley graduate who’d founded the stupid thing.
Gretchen couldn’t deny that Elizabeth had seemed almosthappyever since she joined the cult. To be clear, she disdained Gretchen and Richard more than ever. She judged them, their lifestyle, their money, their morals—they were capitalists of the first order. Never mind that she’d helped finance her group’s “off-the-grid lifestyle” with her trust fund.
But Gretchen had decided long ago to simply wait out this chapter in her daughter’s young life. Elizabeth would eventually tire of washing her hair in a foot basin. When people asked what her middle child was doing these days, Gretchen told them shewas working at a nonprofit upstate. No one in their circle cared to dig much deeper.
Richard, on the other hand, made a big show of trying to understand Elizabeth’s unhinged point of view. There had been a whole back-and-forth about whether or not climbing Kilimanjaro was ethical, which involved a great deal of research into the racial, environmental, ethical, and socioeconomic implications of the expedition. In the end, he’d made several substantial donations to worthy Tanzanian causes and made sure that the company Brooks had hired paid local Tanzanian guides generously and was known for leaving no environmental traces. If you did all that, apparently, your climb was a real boon to the local economy—but Elizabeth had been, for some reason, even more disgusted.
What would she think now? A dead woman? Richard in jail? If speaking to Cassandra had made Gretchen feel stressed, telling Elizabeth might result in her having an actual stroke.
And poor Becks, her baby. He would just be— What if he fell apart again? He was so sensitive and fragile. It was never clear what might set him off, but this definitely could. Luckily, classes hadn’t even started yet at Dartmouth. He was only up there now for crew preseason.
Gretchen’s phone vibrated. She glanced down. A blocked number. She felt a surge of adrenaline as she silenced the call.
“Who was it?” Cassandra asked, motioning to the phone.
A blocked number could be anything, anyone. But she had a bad feeling she knew exactly who was calling. What if the timing wasn’t a coincidence?Calm. She needed to be calm.
“Oh, just Ilya,” Gretchen lied. “I have a session later.”
“You’re going to do Pilatestoday?”
“No, no. Of course not. I do need to cancel, though. This is my point.”
Cassandra made a face. “You’re sure you don’t want me to come home with you?” But the last thing Gretchen needed was her hovering.
“What will help me most is you getting back to work and your family.”
“Mom, I don’t think—”
“I mean it, Cassandra,” Gretchen said firmly. “This isn’t going to be solved today. I am going to need your help and support, believe me. I’m already counting on it. But right now, the best thing you can do for me, and Dad, is go home and take care of your own family.”
—
The apartment was largely put back together. Lita and her sister were dusting tranquilly in the living room as Gretchen headed straight for the stairs to avoid having to explain anything to Lita’s sister, with whom there was absolutely no language barrier. She closed the bedroom door behind her and leaned against it for a long moment. Like she was holding the entire awful situation at bay.
She’d avoided looking at her phone the whole Uber ride home, but now she dug it out of her purse and checked for a voicemail from the blocked number. Nothing. Maybe it was a misdial.
Of course it was them.
Gretchen dropped down onto the bed, bag in hand, shoes still on. Shoes on in their bedroom! Proof of how completely out of control her life had become. On the opposite wall was the small abstract collage they’d bought on the trip to Paris they’d taken to celebrate Richard’s first big promotion, twenty years ago now. They’d been to Paris several times since, but Gretchen still remembered that trip (which they could have afforded to take years earlier), mostly for the ways in which it had not gone how she had wanted. It was supposed to be a celebration: Richard finally a senior vice president! At the time, the vice president title had seemed like the summit of Manhood Mountain. And, at long last, they had finally arrived! Gretchen had been sure it would mean Richard would be home more. As it turned out, there had been several more peaks to come.
Richard had been miserable on that trip. “Succeeding” didn’t feel the way he thought it would—that was all he could say, which Gretchen found baffling. They were in Paris, for heaven’ssake, surrounded by fresh croissants and newly blooming tulips! Though perhaps a certain amount of ennui was to be expected from Richard, given that he didn’t really care all that much about material things, and he lived—or, rather, they lived—in a world centered on acquisition. Not that Gretchen could relate to his disappointment. She’d never thought she’d bejusta wife and mother. But once she’d decided to pivot away from law school, she’d been fully satisfied by her one and only purpose in life—to take care of Richard and the children. To love her family. Everyone made choices. The key was to choose to see them as the right ones.
