Threading The Needle Part 2

We didn't talk on the drive home. Sterling seemed to pull into himself. I kept going over the weekend in my mind, thinking that maybe, just maybe, we might be happy, that Sterling had undergone some transformation, decided to be a real husband to me. I wondered if that could be true. And I wondered if it wasn't too late.

Returning home, we were met by stern-faced FBI agents who handcuffed my husband and took him away while I stood watching, hoping I'd wake up from this nightmare soon. I didn't.

Sterling seemed unfazed. With his hands behind his back, half hidden by the starched whiteness of his French cuffs, he calmly told me to call Mike Radnovich and cancel their golf game and then to ask Gene to meet him at the police station.

Gene has never liked me. The feeling is mutual, but he's very good at his job. If anyone could get us out of this mess, it was Gene.

"Seriously, Gene, can't you do something? Talk to the judge, get me some more time? You did it before. I didn't do anything wrong, so why am I being punished? Where do people expect me to live? On the street?"

Gene leaned forward, his forearms resting on his desk. "Madelyn, don't you get it? No one cares. Over the years, Sterling took twenty billion dollars from his clients, told them he was going to invest it for them, all but guaranteed them a minimum ten percent annual return, and then sat on the money. Compared to Madoff, Sterling is small potatoes, but still . . . a billion here, a billion there, sooner or later it adds up to real money. People are angry and they're looking for someone to blame."

None of this was news to me, not anymore. Gene had given up referring to the charges leveled against Sterling as "allegations" weeks before. Eugene Janders is a brilliant litigator, but he's not a magician. Even his talent has its limits. After looking at the evidence, Gene said that Sterling's only chance of not dying in a prison cell was to plead guilty, display remorse, and hope for a lenient judge.

He was probably right. Even so, I couldn't help but notice that Gene offered this advice right after our bank accounts had been frozen. You can call me cynical (and you'd be right), but I couldn't help but wonder. Would Gene have been quite so ready to throw in the towel if Sterling still had access to an almost unlimited supply of cash to pay for the services of Blackman, Janders, and Whipple? Sterling's admission of guilt might be his best shot for a lighter sentence, but it was also the cheapest way for Gene's firm to rid itself of an unwinnable case and a client whose pockets weren't nearly as deep as they'd been. It was all very convenient.

"Sterling kept the game going by reeling in new fish and using their money to pay off his longer-term investors. As well as," Gene said after a dramatic pause-he had a habit of always speaking as if he were addressing a jury-"financing his lavish lifestyle . . . and yours.

"A lot of people have lost a lot of money, Madelyn. Little old ladies don't have enough to pay rent at their a.s.sisted living communities. Folks who were looking forward to a secure retirement on a golf course are realizing that they're going to have to keep working for years to come. Parents who had scrimped and saved to make sure their kids could go to college are filling out applications for educational loans that will leave them in debt for years. Families are losing their homes. Charities that entrusted their endowments to Sterling are being forced to cut back programs or even close-"

"I know that!"

Gene shook his head sorrowfully and continued, ignoring my interruption. "And every time those people turn on the television, or boot up the computer, or flip through a tabloid, they see a picture of Sterling coming through the door of his private plane-with you behind him. Or Sterling at the helm of his yacht-with you sitting next to him. Or Sterling, in his custom-made tuxedo, walking down the red carpet at a Broadway premiere-with you on his arm, wearing a diamond choker from Harry Winston-"

"I don't have it anymore! I had to give it up. All my jewelry, everything Sterling ever gave me. Even my engagement ring," I said through gritted teeth. The loss of the ring didn't bother me. If I hadn't had to surrender it to the court, I'd have happily thrown it in Sterling's face.

"No judge who cares about public opinion," Gene droned on, "and that's all of them, is going to stick out his neck to help the wife of Sterling Baron right now. No one cares about your problems, Madelyn. People have problems of their own."

"I understand that! And I feel terrible about it, but it's not my fault. If I'd known what Sterling was up to, I'd have left him, or stopped him, or . . . something, but I didn't know! I'm as much a victim of his schemes as anyone else," I said, ignoring the twitch at the corner of Gene's mouth.

"I've lost everything too. What am I supposed to do now? Where am I supposed to go? The government has seized all our a.s.sets, frozen all our accounts."

"So you were paying attention."

"Yes!" I snapped. "I know I'm not a Rhodes Scholar, Gene-Sterling was always so quick to remind me-but even I can understand words like 'Madelyn, you're broke'!"

Gene reached into the breast pocket of his jacket.

"Don't bother getting out your handkerchief, Gene. I'm not going to cry."

He stared at me, to see if I meant it. I stared back.

"Just tell me what I'm supposed to do now. What have I got left? There must be something."

Gene's eyes flitted over the surface of his desk as he looked for and eventually found a blue file folder. "There is," he said, opening the file. "You've got an account in your name, and your name only, which is a good thing, at the Connecticut National Bank."

"I do? Oh, wait! I do! I remember now. The money I'd saved before I married Sterling. I'd forgotten. It's been sitting there all this time?"

Gene nodded. "And gaining interest."

"Really? It can't be that much, though."

"It isn't," he said. "New Bern National is pretty conservative. Still, your average return over the last thirty years was a little more than seven percent, which means your little nest egg is now worth $119,368.42."

A hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Less than the cost of my surrendered diamond choker. Less than the annual maintenance fee on the penthouse apartment I had to vacate by the end of the month, leaving everything behind-my furniture, my paintings, my china-everything but my clothes and what few possessions I could prove had been mine before my marriage.

"Cheer up, Madelyn. It could be worse. You could have invested your money with Sterling. Then you'd really be broke." Gene started to chuckle, but I shot him a look filled with such loathing that he dropped his eyes and mumbled an apology.

"I was just trying to help you see the bright side."

"I'm sure."

He cleared his throat and shuffled the papers in my file. "I've got some more good news," he said officiously. "I lit a fire under my a.s.sociates, got them to hurry along the probate of your grandmother's estate. It's done. You can claim your inheritance free and clear. Good timing, don't you think?"

My inheritance?

"What are you talking about? She cut me out of her will years ago, even before I met Sterling."

I felt a flush of heat in my chest. Even from the grave, Edna Beecher, the meanest, most disapproving old woman who ever walked the earth, could still upset me.

"She was bluffing? I can't believe it. How much did she leave to me?"

Gene held up his hand. "No money. She split that between her church and the Humane Society. Not that there was much to begin with. She left you the house-"

"The house? On Oak Leaf Lane?"

"Yes." Gene drew his brows together. "Did she have another house?"

"No . . . I just . . ." I said quietly, laying my hand over the warm place on my chest, "I'm just surprised. It's known as Beecher Cottage. Our family is distantly related to Harriet Beecher Stowe, the famous abolitionist who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin, and her father, Lyman Beecher, and Henry Ward Beecher, her brother, preachers who were nearly as famous as Harriet in their day. They lived in Litchfield, east of New Bern.

"You see what pious Yankee stock I'm descended from," I said with a hollow laugh. "My grandmother was almost as proud of her Beecher heritage as she was disappointed in me. The cottage is the last remnant of that heritage. I never thought she'd leave it to me."

"According to her will, she didn't want to," Gene said, picking up a yellowed paper and scanning it. "But it seems the old lady couldn't bear to leave the family house in the hands of strangers, so, as the last Beecher standing, she felt she had no choice but to leave it to you. Along with many admonitions about avoiding the bad end she felt sure you'd come to." He lifted his gaze. "Shall I read them to you?"

"No, thanks. I've heard them all-a million times."

Gene closed the folder. "Ghostly harangues aside, it's all good for you. Gives you somewhere to go."

"Somewhere to go? Where?"

Gene blinked and shook his head slightly, as if amazed by my denseness. "New Bern, of course. You need a place to live and now you've got one-Beecher Cottage."

The hot spot on my chest grew hotter and larger, spreading up my neck to my cheeks. "New Bern? I'm not going back to New Bern!"

"I don't see as you have a lot of choice, Madelyn. You've got to live somewhere. Why not New Bern? I hear it's very picturesque. Lots of trees. Lots of scenery . . ."

Lots of memories.

"Most people would be thrilled to inherit a nice cottage in Connecticut."

"I'm not most people!" I snapped. "And I'm not going back to New Bern! Call a Realtor. Tell them to sell the house. Tell them I'll consider any offer."

Gene took off his gla.s.ses, revealing his impatience. "Don't be an idiot, Madelyn. The housing market has. .h.i.t rock bottom. Or hadn't you heard?"

"Yes," I said, loathing Gene at least as much as he loathed me, "but there's got to be someone out there who is willing to buy it if the price is right."

Gene shook his head. "I talked to your grandmother's attorney, Franklin Spaulding. He told me that there hasn't been a real estate closing in New Bern for the last seven months. n.o.body is buying, not at any price."

"But . . . there has to be . . . surely there's . . . I can't live in New Bern. . . ."

Gene smacked his hands against his mahogany desk. I jumped, startled.

"Madelyn! Will you listen to yourself? Not five minutes ago you were asking where you were going to live and what you were going to live on. I've gotten you a check for a hundred grand and a house and all you can do is gripe! If not for me, you'd be living in the state women's prison. I think a little grat.i.tude is in order here, don't you?"

"I'm sorry, Gene," I said stiffly, knowing he was right, hating him for it.

I've been around the block enough times to know that the truth isn't always enough to protect the innocent. If I'd had a lawyer less talented than Eugene Janders, it was possible Sterling and I would both be living at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.

"I don't mean to appear unappreciative, but this is hard for me. I haven't had time to adjust."

"You'd better adjust, Madelyn, and quickly, because the party is over."

His tone was unsympathetic and his speech was frank. Clearly he thought this would be our last meeting and felt no need to mince words.

"You had a good ride with Sterling. When he married you, I thought you'd last a couple of years. Five, if you were lucky." He looked me up and down, slowly, insultingly. "Clearly you possess talents that can't be seen with the naked eye."

Four months ago, he'd never have dared to look at or speak to me that way. The balance of power had shifted. He knew it. I knew it. I said nothing.

Gene stood up at his desk. The meeting was over. He handed me a manila envelope.

"What's this?"

"A check, made out to you; a deed to the house; contact information for Wendy Perkins, the Realtor who is holding the keys; and a bill for legal services."

I looked at the papers. My jaw dropped open. "Nine thousand dollars?"

"I gave you a discount. No need to thank me."

I didn't.

I picked up my purse and my papers and turned to walk across Gene's hand-knotted silk rug, out the door, and into a future that would force me to return to the one place I'd hoped never to see again-New Bern, Connecticut.

2.

Tessa Woodruff Thirty-four years ago, Lee Woodruff and I promised to love each other till death did us part, in sickness and health, for richer or poorer. As a bride, I'm not sure I fully grasped what that was all about, but I do now. There's a reason they make you take vows-to hold you together through times like these.

It's not the fact that we're celebrating our anniversary over breakfast at the Blue Bean Coffee Shop and Bakery instead of dinner at a white tablecloth restaurant that's bothering me. I don't mind that. But I do mind that there's very little celebrating being done. We've never had an anniversary like this.

Lee rubbed his chin and narrowed his eyes as he stared at the legal pad. "I'm going to have to pull some money out of the 401(k) to pay Josh's tuition."

"That's supposed to be our retirement."

"The way things are looking, we'll never be able to retire anyway."

"Won't we have to pay a penalty if we take it out early?"

Lee looked up. "Can you think of another plan? If you can, I'm all ears."

"Honey," I said gently. "Don't be so hard on yourself. We're not the only ones this has happened to. A lot of people are in the same boat."

Lee picked up his coffee cup. "I should have seen this coming."

"How? You're an accountant, not a fortune-teller. Even the economists didn't see this coming."

Lee shook his head before taking a slurp of coffee. I looked at his plate. He'd hardly touched his food.

"My dad always said a man's first and last job is to protect his family. Right now, I'm almost glad he's not alive to see how far off the job I've fallen."

"Hey!" I said, giving him a nudge under the table. "This isn't all your doing. We've worked hard, side by side, all this time. Up until now, we've done all right. In fact, I think we make a pretty good team."

I smiled, hoping to steer the conversation onto more romantic ground. Lee wasn't picking up on my cues.

"We should have played it safe," he mused. "We should have stayed in Boston and let well enough alone instead of putting everything on the line for a crazy dream."

"Don't say that! I mean it, Lee! Don't ever say that!"

Lee put down his cup and looked at me with surprise. I'm not generally given to emotional outbursts. "I just meant that . . ."

"I know what you meant, but you're wrong. Moving to New Bern, finally working up the courage to start living our own dream instead of somebody else's, is the best thing we've ever done. When I look back and think what our lives were like before we started talking about the farm and the shop and what we wanted out of life . . ."

I shook my head and smeared a piece of toast with strawberry jam. "It's practically a miracle that we got to be married this long."

Lee frowned. "What are you trying to say? You think we'd have ended up divorced if we'd stayed in Ma.s.sachusetts? You never said anything about being unhappy. . . ."

"I'm saying I didn't even know I was unhappy. And so were you. Admit it, you were."

"Well," he said slowly, "I don't know if I'd have put it in those terms exactly."

"How about bored? How about wondering if this was really all there was to life?"

Lee looked at me, a little smile of admission crossing his lips. "Well. Maybe sometimes. But I never thought of divorce."