The Address(105)

Mind’s eye. It was better than reality. If she tried hard enough, she could remember the scent of Christopher’s baby breath, the sound of his cooing. The way he’d wiggled around inside her belly when they were one person.

A bell rang. The door to her cell clanked open. Then she was walking down the cellblock, to the jeers and yells that she usually could shut out. The cacophony of the incarcerated.

She hadn’t been sent back to Blackwell’s after her trial. Instead, she’d been put on a wagon, shackled hand and foot, and carted a hundred miles north of the city, to a prison in the woods.

Sometimes, Sara revisited the day Mrs. Camden killed Theo, in her mind’s eye. Where she’d gone wrong. If she could have made it right. But she’d been caught off guard by Mrs. Camden’s attack. Then she’d made mistakes.

After Theo had fallen, Sara and Mrs. Camden had stared at each other for what seemed like ages, before Mrs. Camden began to shake, trembling as if she was about to fly off into the air and out the window. So Sara took over. She told her to go to the children, close the door to the nursery while she figured out what to do, what to say.

There was no way to make it look as if Theo had accidentally fallen on the knife. But the night with Daisy and the intruder came to mind. Yes, that would work. An intruder had broken in. They’d found him here, dead. She left the library, closing the doors behind her, and directed Mrs. Camden and the children to go up to the roof promenade. Take the stairs, stay there. Don’t come back down until I say so.

Back in the library, the stolen knife lay in the very center of the rug, where Mrs. Camden had dropped it. That wouldn’t do; it would raise too many questions. She slipped it into the pocket of her dress and walked downstairs, through the courtyard, and into the park, where she buried it beneath a thicket of bushes. No one must find it.

Back inside, past the porters who gaped at her and asked if she were all right. She caught her reflection in the apartment’s foyer mirror, noticing for the first time that her skirt and her cheek were stained red, as if she’d been out picking raspberries. Theo lay in a pool of blood, his mouth open, face white. A glint of metal caught her eye, lying on a litter of linen drawings splattered with blood. The knife’s sheath. In her haste, she’d missed it.

And next to it, a ghastly stump of a finger, covered in blood.

She picked up the sheath and dropped it into one of the leather tubes that held drawings. Drawings that would no longer come to fruition. All of Theo’s ideas, buildings. Lost.

The finger was soft, still warm. He’d drawn masterpieces with it, the sure, even lines issuing from the nub of the pen in its clasp. She had an irrational desire to put it back on his hand, to try to make him whole again. At a loss, she placed it in the tube as well, closing the lid tightly. The tube went back under his desk. She’d tell Mrs. Camden to dispose of it later.

Voices in the hallway. Men’s voices.

The door to the apartment opened. She’d locked it behind her, but Fitzroy had the master key. He and two policemen stepped inside. Carefully, politely, like they didn’t want to make a fuss, didn’t want to muss up the silk rug and shiny floorboards. Not expecting to see blood and mess and a body. A woman in a dress with red stains on it, red stains on her hands and face.

Fitzroy spoke for her when she didn’t answer any of their questions. Her name, who she was, who Theo was. That he didn’t know where the rest of the family was. One policeman had rushed off to search the other rooms, fearful at what he might find.

No, she wanted to say. Everyone else is safe. It’s just Theo who’s dead.

And Sara who was red. Red with blood.

“Sara.”

She was in the visitors’ room of the prison. Not sure how she’d gotten here, not remembering the walk from her cell to here.

Mrs. Camden stood before her. She looked pale and thin. Not good. She had to stay healthy for the children. For Christopher. She’d promised.

“I’m sorry it took so long to come. I didn’t want the newspapers to know. I had to wait.”

“Of course.”

They sat down on either side of a small wooden table. Once, Daisy had been the one in shackles and Sara had been free. Theo had brought everyone down with him that he possibly could.

But not Mrs. Camden. Nor the children. Sara had made sure they were all right.

“How is Christopher?” Her voice creaked from disuse.

Mrs. Camden smiled. “He’s lovely. We celebrated his first birthday two weeks ago. Growing fast, healthy. A good boy. You have a good boy.”

Sara nodded. She rarely spoke these days. Figuring out which words to say took too much effort.

“Sara, I should have confessed.” Mrs. Camden looked about the room, her eyes red and wet. “I should be here, not you. I should have taken the blame. You did nothing, nothing at all.”

“No. We agreed when you came to see me before the trial. It’s better that Christopher is raised by you. I wouldn’t have been able to give him everything you have. Such a chance at a grand life.”

“I will, I promise.” She trailed off.

Blinded by love. The phrase had always seemed silly to Sara, something poets invented. Yet nothing could have prepared her for the devotion she’d felt for Theo. He’d enveloped her in his intellect and his charm, making her feel she was an indispensable part of his life. And maybe she had been, for a time. He had needed her around, as a reflection of all the good qualities of himself, because his wife, by that time, reflected the worst. His irritability, his spite, and his thirst for success. Sara had refused to see the shadows in his temperament or question why his relationship with Mrs. Camden was so strained. Most likely, he’d lavished similar attention on Mrs. Camden early in their relationship, before turning on her when she failed to live up to his high standards.