Fortune's rocks_ a novel - Anita Shreve [148]
In the distance, she can see Tucker coming toward her from the opposite end of the long corridor, a spindly dark figure emerging from a kind of dusk. She catches a flash of his spectacles before she can see his face. And beyond him now, there are other persons entering the corridor as well, as if a trolley had made a stop. The fur collar of Tucker’s overcoat is frosted with snow, and his spectacles fog in the sudden warmth of the building, so that when he reaches her, he seems a face without eyes. He sets down his cases in front of her.
“Miss Biddeford,” he says, taking off his spectacles and wiping them with a handkerchief from his pocket.
“Mr. Tucker.”
He unwinds his muffler, and a radiator hisses beside them.
“Are you ready?”
“I hope I am,” she says.
“I shall call you first, as we have discussed. Although it may not happen straightaway. It will depend on what motions and so forth are put forward by Mr. Sears.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Dreadful storm. I hope they do not postpone this hearing yet again.” Tucker looks away a moment and then back again. “There is something we need to discuss before we go in,” he says, “because I do not want you to be surprised or caught off guard in any way.”
“Yes?”
He sits beside her on the bench. He smells of wet wool and again castile. “I have summoned your father,” he says.
Her face must register her considerable shock, because he immediately puts his hand over hers.
“I have been trying to reach him for weeks,” Tucker says, “but he has been abroad with your mother.”
“Italy,” Olympia says. “But why have you done this?”
“I cannot prove your case without him and Josiah Hay as witnesses.”
“You have called Josiah as well?” Olympia asks, suddenly hot inside her coat. She withdraws her hand and unfastens the top several buttons. “How could you do this without consulting me?”
“Miss Biddeford, you have hired me to put your petition before the court,” he says, sliding his arms from his own overcoat.
“Yes, but — ”
“And I must do so in the best way known to me. And that may require actions or words or maneuvers that you and I will not necessarily discuss.”
“My father is coming here? Today?”
“Yes. I trust he might. If he can get through in the storm. I hope he came last night before it began.”
She turns her head away. She has not even told her father that she knows of the boy’s whereabouts, never mind that she has requested a custody hearing.
“If you truly thought you could put forth your petition without help from any other persons,” says Tucker, “then I fear I have misled you.”
“My father knows nothing of these proceedings,” she says.
“Well. Yes. He does now. Now he does.”
“Was he shocked by this news?”
Tuckers ponders the question. “He seemed a bit taken aback, but not as much as I had expected. You, however, may be surprised to learn that he was most eager to help in any way he could. In fact, I rather imagined he sounded relieved.”
“You spoke to him?”
“I wrote to him initially — and repeatedly, I might add. I spoke to him yesterday morning by telephone.”
“My father has a telephone?” she asks.
• • •
The room is small, wood-paneled, a chamber meant for hearings and not for audiences. Its intimacy is unnerving to Olympia, for within minutes Albertine and Telesphore Bolduc enter the room and sit, as instructed by the bailiff, across the aisle from Olympia and Payson Tucker. The Franco-Americans are as close to Olympia as they might be in a church. Though Olympia has twice seen Albertine, the Franco woman has never seen Olympia, and so for a long moment the two women regard each other across the aisle. Their mutual gaze is disconcerting, but Olympia forces herself not to glance away. If she would go forth with her petition, she tells herself, she must be able to look this woman in the eye.
And such deep-set eyes they are. The features of the woman