5. Percival

5

Percival

" P apa, where do you go on Saturday mornings?" Clara looked up at me as I perched on the side of her bed. "Is it to see my mother?"

I swallowed my alarm. She'd not asked me about where I went, seemingly oblivious to the difference between a weekday and a weekend. I'd decided a long time ago that if she expressed interest in learning more about her mother that I would tell her as close to the truth as possible while sparing some of the more sordid details. Faced with her question, I wished my mother was by my side. Mother was much better at explaining difficult things to this small person entrusted to our care.

"Your mother's ill. She has to live in a place where nurses and doctors care for her."

"Why can't she live here? You're a doctor. You could take care of her."

I brushed a lock of Clara's fair hair from her cheek. She was small for her age and lissome and willowy like a dancer. "I'm a certain kind of doctor. Your mother needs one who helps people with maladies of the mind." I tapped my temple, as if that would make any sense to a six-year-old.

"What?" Clara eyes widened but never left my face.

"Your mother's confused. She doesn't remember much of her life before she went to the asylum. She's not well enough to live outside of there."

"Does she know about me?"

My chest tightened. God, I hated this. How did I explain to my daughter that her mother didn't know who either one of us was. The truth. I must tell her the truth, even if it's hard. "She doesn't remember that she had a baby or that she was married to me."

"What does she remember?"

"She's under the illusion that she's still sixteen. For whatever reason, she's unable to remember anything that happened after that."

"Why?"

"No one's certain," I said. "Some of my patients become ill with certain diseases while others don't. It's just something that happens."

"Will it happen to me?"

"No. You mustn't worry about that," I said.

"Can I come with you to see her?"

"No, not now," I said. "It's not a place for a little girl to visit."

"But I'd like to see her."

I smoothed the quilt over her small frame. "Maybe when you're older."

"How old?"

"Let me think about it. For now, it's time for you to go to sleep. When I come home tomorrow afternoon, I'll take you out to the park."

She rolled over onto her side, placing both hands under her cheek. "I like it when you take me to see the ducks."

"We'll do that tomorrow." I leaned down to kiss her forehead. "Good night and sweet dreams."

"Good night, Papa. I love you."

"I love you." Another kiss and then I rose to my feet, watching for a moment as she drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes. My daughter tugged at my every heartstring. As I stood watching her drift into slumber, I thought about how bleak my life would be without her. She brought sunshine into our home and helped Mother and me to stay young. Even though her birth had contributed to Mary's illness, I could not be sorry she'd come into this world.

She would be asleep within minutes. How I envied her ability to sleep when she was supposed to.

I sneaked out of her room, leaving the door ajar in case she woke in the middle of the night. My room was across the hall from hers, so I could easily hear her, especially given how lightly I slept. Mother's bedroom was next to Clara's, but she tended to sleep soundly and was not accustomed to waking. While I was away at the war, the nanny, Miss Lisk, had slept in the same room as Clara, but she'd moved into chambers of her own upon my return. If I were away at night taking care of a sick patient, she kept an ear out for her, but luckily Clara rarely woke. It still amazed me what a happy little girl she was. Mother had done well with her, and I was grateful. If not for my mother, Clara would have had only me, and it was obvious to everyone how inadequate that would have been. Fortunately, my mother was healthy and in good physical shape from traipsing all over the city to look in on my patients and other poor souls who needed regular medical attention.

Mother was not a nurse, but she might as well have been, given how excellent she was with helping patients with minor injuries and illnesses. Before the war, she'd asked if she could come along on my house calls to assist me. While I was gone, she'd taken on more responsibilities to make up for my absence. What we'd thought was temporary had turned into nearly a full-time job for her. She spent every afternoon caring for the sick and poor, bringing me in when she needed a doctor. We made an excellent team.

I was proud of her. She didn't have to do what she did for others. My father had left us a lot of money when he'd died. In addition, Mother had brought money of her own into the marriage. There was no need for her to do anything but entertain and attend social engagements like the other women in her circles. But my mother was a rare breed, easily bored by the mundane. She was in her element helping others. In fact, she claimed working had saved her from wallowing in self-pity after the embarrassing scandal that came after Father's untimely demise in the arms of his mistress.

It was nearing eight, which meant our supper would be served shortly. When it was just the two of us, Mother and I didn't bother changing into evening attire. Instead, we enjoyed casual meals in the dining room, sitting next to each other rather than on one end of a long table as she and my father had done.

I went downstairs to the sitting room, poured myself a brandy, and settled into my favorite chair. The weather had been too warm for a fire. We had the windows and French doors open to let in the summer air, but it did little to cool the room. The July weather had been unusually hot. In August, we would go up to my summer cottage by the beach for a few weeks. Until then, we suffered through the hot nights.

Mother came into the room, carrying a book in her arms and looking uncharacteristically flustered. "Darling, I've just received a call from Simon. He's coming for supper tonight."

"Tonight?" Simon Price was Mary's brother. Since the war, we'd not seen him often. He'd come home physically intact, but he'd seemed troubled these days. It was nothing overt in his behavior, but sometimes I caught a glimmer of the horrors he'd seen reflected in his eyes and the permanent tremble in his hands.

Like me, he never spoke of the war. We weren't the only ones who wanted to forget and simply get on with the rest of our lives.

Before Mary's father was killed in 1914, he and Simon had become estranged. Like his sister, Simon not been aware of the details of his father's business enterprises. Simon had been appalled to learn the truth—he had a strangely acute sense of right and wrong. He and his father had argued, and Mr. Price had cut all ties with Simon. A few months later, both Mr. and Mrs. Price were dead.

Although Simon had been primed to take over his father's businesses, he'd gone to law school instead. Now that he was home from the navy, he'd opened his own practice in downtown Manhattan focusing on contracts and agreements. He had several large corporate clients as well as a handful of small businesses. "All legitimate, legal business," he'd said to me recently.

"He's coming tonight?" I asked Mother again.

"Yes, he's on his way over now. I've told the staff to set another place at the table. Cook said she has plenty of food for three, thank goodness." Mother rubbed her hands together, a habit she did when nervous.

"What's wrong, Mother? You seem agitated."

"No, it's nothing. I'm just exhausted from my visits today. I'd have not chosen to have Simon of all people to dinner on a weekday evening."

"I understand," I said, letting out a sigh. "But thank you for checking on Mrs. Clark. How's the baby?"

"He's better. As of this afternoon, he was able to nurse. What a relief." Mother tended to fret over the babies. Not surprising, given the loss of my infant sister. Although decades had passed since Molly's death, Mother's grief remained.

We spoke for a few more minutes, updating each other on various patients while I poured Mother a sherry. A few minutes later, Robert announced Simon's arrival.

"Show him in," Mother said.

"Yes, ma'am." Robert, who served as our butler and my valet, had come to us soon after my marriage to Mary. Although younger than myself by a few years, he had proven to be unflappable during our times of distress. He seemed to instinctually know when to present himself and when to stay in the background, silently taking care of us as best he could.

"I'm sorry to barge in like this," Simon said, shaking my hand. "But I was in the neighborhood and realized how long it's been since I've seen the only family I have. Am I too late to see Clara?"

"Yes, she's in bed already," I said.

"Another time, then," Simon said.

"She always loves to see you," Mother said.

My brother-in-law accepted a glass of brandy before taking a seat. He and Mary shared the same eyes, but he had a darker complexion. I'd expected him to marry by now, but he seemed in no hurry to end his life as a bachelor.

We chatted about the weather and other mundane subjects for a period of time before he finally admitted the real reason for his visit.

"I've come with news. You remember my friend at the NYPD?" Simon asked.

I nodded, although the memory was a fuzzy one. "Sure."

Simon tossed back the entirety of his drink. "He came by yesterday to give me an update on my father's case. He does that from time to time."

"And?" I asked.

"He believes the hit came from a mobster called Sean Sullivan."

The name meant nothing to me. "Is he a bad man?"

"Apparently, they've been watching him for years now. He's a powerful crime boss, mostly illegal gambling operations, bookmaking, and underground casinos. He's also a well-known loan shark, offering high-interest loans with violent methods for debt collection, if you know what I mean."

"I'm afraid we do," Mother said.

Simon continued. "Sullivan hides his illegal enterprises well, along with bribes and payoffs to the authorities to stay out of trouble. To look at him, he appears to be an upstanding citizen with the good fortune to have been in the right place at the right time. However, his lovely family and charitable foundation are a front. Recently, he's gotten into the illegal booze business. Before that, he and my father were in the same game. In fact, they were in direct competition. It's the detective's belief that it was essentially a turf war. Sullivan ordered the hit as retaliation or a warning."

"But they don't have enough evidence to arrest this Sullivan?" Mother asked.

"No. That's one of the reasons he came by," Simon said. "He said they can't pin it on him."

"What a shame," Mother said.

"As you know, Mary wasn't supposed to be with him that night, or he probably would have arranged the hit for a different time." Simon got up to pour himself another drink, splashing a few fingers of whiskey into his glass before returning to sit with us. "It does no good, but I wish she hadn't been there. Maybe everything would be different."

I thought about what this meant and came up with exactly nothing. The damage to my wife had already been done, regardless of who did it. Knowing who killed her father was of no consequence now. She was lost to her delusions. Had they been brought on by her father's murder in combination with Clara's birth? The doctor at the asylum thought so. His theory was that she'd been unable to cope and had become separated from reality. She now thought of herself as sixteen, with no memories intact from the years since she was a teenager.

My mother must have been thinking similarly, because she asked Simon what he wanted to do with the information. "Does it give you any peace knowing what happened?"

"Not really." Simon settled back into the armchair, holding his drink between both hands. "But I thought you two would want to know. If I ever had any doubts about whether I made the right decision to walk away from my father's life and livelihood, they're certainly put to rest. This was a dangerous way to make money, and he paid the ultimate price. Not to mention that the authorities seized all their assets and bank accounts. Even if he'd lived, they were onto him by then. He would have likely gone to prison, and Mother would have been left penniless."

Mother tented her hands. "I thank God every day you were able to get out and start a life of your own. One you could be proud of."

"If only my sister had," Simon said. "When you first married, she seemed so happy. I thought she'd outgrown what our mother used to refer to as her ‘episodes.'"

"I didn't know anything about the episodes before we married." I was speaking more to myself than to Simon or my mother. They knew that before our marriage Mary's parents had purposely kept their daughter's fragile mental health from me. "The truth about her previous mental health issues and your father's crimes were not conveyed to me. I was naive, to say the least. Too besotted, perhaps, to see the forewarnings of what was to come."

"Would you have married her had you known she would become ill?" Simon asked.

I'd asked myself that question many times and always came up with the same answer. "If I hadn't married her, we would not have Clara. So, it's impossible to imagine otherwise. It fills me with sadness when I think of my daughter growing up without a mother, but I cannot imagine life without her."

"Have you given up on her?" Simon asked. "I can't say I'd blame you if you had. Seeing her like she is now—it's nearly impossible to fathom." He rubbed his cheek with the pad of his thumb.

"When was the last time you visited?" Mother asked Simon.

"Last month. She was having a bad day, became confused and agitated the moment I greeted her. I'm ashamed to say I haven't been able to return since."

"I don't blame you," I said. "It's hard to see her that way. Some weeks I leave feeling pretty low."

"It takes a toll, I imagine." The rims of Simon's eyes reddened. "You have my admiration—never giving up on her when most men would have."

"I vowed to take care of her for better or worse," I said. "Simply abandoning her because it's not convenient to me is out of the question. Even if she has no idea who I am."

"Sometimes she knows it's me," Simon said. "When she's lucid enough, she comments about how tired I look. I don't bother explaining to her that a lot of time has passed since we were in our teens. I'm not tired, only older."

"I think it might be a blessing that she thinks she's at boarding school," Mother said.

Unlike me, Mary's brother had been part of her life and memories before the age of sixteen, thus she often recognized him. In fact, oftentimes, she thought her brother was visiting her at boarding school on one of his school breaks, as he had when they were younger.

Robert interrupted us to announce that it was time for supper. The three of us, subdued, got up and headed toward the dining room. I couldn't speak for the others, but I'd lost my appetite.