The Thousand - Kevin Guilfoile [118]
Jameson, whom she had trusted, seemed like all secrets and shadows to her now. She didn’t feel anywhere near the truth. Nothing was green. Everything was all black.
At her mother’s building, she announced herself to the doorman, who called up and let her pass, and she rode the elevator wearing needles of anxiety and dread. Nevertheless, she felt there might be resolution in her mother’s apartment. Canada Gold was chasing answers, horrible as they might be.
On the twenty-second floor Elizabeth Gold, so surprised, opened the apartment door and tears exploded from her eyes as she reached out to embrace Nada. Icy air blasted from inside the apartment and Nada began to tremble, and her mother responded by holding her tighter. When she pulled away, Elizabeth sniffled and led Nada into her chilly home.
The apartment smelled like cigarettes and air freshener. It was all ivories and blues, more like a beach house than an apartment, Nada realized, and she remembered that if you pressed your temple to the living room window and looked northeast, you could see a sliver of calming lake between buildings. “I heard you were in town. I wondered if you would come to see me,” Elizabeth said.
Not hoped. Wondered. “How did you hear I was in Chicago?”
“Gary Jameson called me.”
The circle of conspiracy in her head was getting tighter. “You know Gary Jameson?” It was not an expression of surprise. It was more like a prosecutor’s question, one to which she already knew the answer.
Elizabeth said, “He’s donated money to your father’s foundation. Gary called this morning to say you were sick. He thought I should know.” It was undoubtedly the truth, but truth tangled in so many lies, Nada wasn’t sure how she’d begin to unravel them.
Nada found a knit blanket on the back of the couch and wrapped herself in it. There were many photos in frames, most of them of Elizabeth. Others were of Nada’s cousins. There were none of Nada as a child, perhaps because Nada had never sat still for a picture, but there was a photo of grown-up Nada sitting at the final table of a World Series of Poker side event. It had been clipped from a magazine and there were creases across it, as if a friend of the family had folded it before slipping it into an envelope and mailing it to her mother. There was also a photo of her father. The muscles of Nada’s face formed an imperceptible cynical smile. Elizabeth would always keep up appearances. The cost of being the grieving widow was a few visible photos of the man she despised.
Her mother’s eyes refocused and she must have just now noticed how dirty and tired Nada looked. “Honey. Do you need help? Do you need a bath?”
“I’m fine.”
“Do you want to sit? Do you want something to eat?”
“I’ll stand.” She paused. “But I could eat.”
Elizabeth led her from the living room into the kitchen, which was more up-to-date than her mother required. She was a competent, if unenthusiastic, cook. “I’ll make you a sandwich.”
“Thanks.”
A pause. “So why are you here?”
Nada didn’t answer.
“I assume you didn’t come just to be short with me. It’s so embarrassing.”
“I know a little something about being embarrassed by your family,” Nada said.
Elizabeth Gold conceded with a nod. “So what do you want?”
Information. “It’s not easy to come out and say.”
“What isn’t?”
Nada watched her mother pull sliced turkey, roast beef, cheese, mustard, onions, lettuce, and tomato from the refrigerator. Almost as if by muscle memory, she remembered exactly what her daughter liked, how she preferred her sandwich stacked. “Have you ever heard of Wes Woodward?”
“Wes Woodward stairs?”
“Yes.”
“Expensive.”
“I know. I’m talking about the man. Did you know him?”
With the ends of her lips turned down, she said, “They’re just the name of a kind of staircase to me. Spirals. You see them in magazines. Why do you ask?”
The familiar background sounds here—the air conditioner, refrigerator, microwave, dehumidifier—formed a nostalgic major chord. “Because I’m stalling.”
Her mother said, “What are you mixed up in, Canada? What are you even doing here?