The Commodore's Mansion
Clara crept into the bedroom where Tommy slept, not wanting to wake him. He was so tiny, she thought as she watched him from across the room, so little and absolutely defenseless in the huge bed topped with carved lion heads. Casting shadows on the bed like creatures from a nightmare were the stuffed corpses of big game animals his grandfather had slaughtered. It wasn't a fit nursery for any child. Tommy needed to be home, in his own little bed, with his own, less terrifying things around him.
"Clara?" a small voice called from the depths of the blankets.
"Hey, kiddo," she whispered and moved to sit on the edge of the bed.
"Where's my mommy?" Tommy asked fretfully.
Her heart skipped a beat. "Daddy is downstairs, Richard is coming soon, and I'm here now," Clara said.
Tommy looked up at her with sad eyes. "Mema said Mommy moved to Paris because she wanted to be with her friends. Mema says now she's my mommy."
Clara couldn't hide her sharp intake of breath. A cold chill ran down her spine at the idea of Gillian declaring herself Tommy's mother. She was grateful that the room was only lit by moonlight so that Tommy couldn't see her face. Damn Gillian to hell and back, she thought fiercely, how dare she tell this baby his mother had left him of her own accord.
"Tommy, your mommy would never leave you of her own choice, never ever," Clara answered while she rubbed his hands. "She loves you so much. And she'll always be your mommy, okay? She'll always be the only mommy you'll ever have. Mema is Mema, she's not your mother."
"But where is Mommy, Clara?" Tommy pressed.
Clara grasped for an answer. Jimmy needed to be the one to tell his boy Angela was dead, and she couldn't think of what to tell Tommy that wasn't a lie but that would comfort him so he could go back to sleep.
Screams shattered the quiet stillness of the night. Deep, guttural ones, but also a high pitched one. Tommy grabbed Clara's arm. Clara patted his hand as she tried to decipher the noises.
"It's going to be okay," she said in the most reassuring voice she could muster. "Tommy, do you know how to lock a door?"
Tommy looked scared. "Mema says don't lock doors in her house."
It's not, Clara thought angrily, her fucking house. Clara swallowed around the lump of fear and anger in her throat and calmed her voice before responding. "Well, Daddy said I'm in charge of you, and I say it's all right. Lock the door. Only open it for Daddy, Richard, or me, okay?"
Richard was making one last run to the warehouse to deal with the booze orders from Northern New Jersey, but she wished desperately he was at the haunted house from hell with her. From the second floor landing, she watched carefully before revealing herself. Jimmy was sprawled on the floor. Another dark shape lay slumped on the floor behind Jimmy. The Commodore. Gillian stood over both of them. The horror of the scene-the blood, the bodies-made her go silent and still. Clara shook off the feeling and ran down the stairs.
"What happened?"
Gillian looked up, and Clara saw pure, unadulterated triumph in Gillian's eyes for just a moment before Gillian softened her face. "Oh, Clara, I'm so glad you're here! The Commodore stabbed James. James killed his father."
Clara was already sliding to her knees next to Jimmy. You've never been happy for me to be anywhere around Jimmy, Clara thought bitterly as she examined Jimmy's wound. Blood was seeping out of a deep wound on the upper left of his back, but his pulse was steady under her fingertips when she touched his neck. It was a big, deep wound. She looked over at the Commodore and saw his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. There was no doubt he was dead.
"Have you called Dr. Surran?" Clara asked and looked back up at Gillian.
Gillian looked like a queen, Clara thought. Like she was assuming power as Jimmy's blood pooled under Clara's hand and the Commodore lay dead a few feet ahead. On the floor next to the Commodore, Clara noticed a piece of needlework and an open sewing basket.
Not that Clara mourned the Commodore, she thought as she tried to take it all in. She just wished he wasn't dead by Jimmy's hand, for Jimmy's sake, for Tommy's, because once more Gillian would hold power over Jimmy...a glimmer of a plan to started to form in her mind. Clara looked down at Jimmy's wound and pretended to be studying it while she weighed her options.
What would my father do? Clara thought. How would he use this situation to help him achieve his goals?
Her stomach turned and her heart rate sped up. She took a deep breath. Clara didn't see another option.
"Gillian," she said in a voice heavy with emotion and unshed tears. "You must call Dr. Surran, this is so much blood, Jimmy needs a doctor."
Gillian didn't move.
"You also need to call Mr. Whitlock," Clara said, desperation rising in her voice. "We have to protect Jimmy. Mr. Whitlock will know what to do about the Commodore."
Gillian nodded and moved towards the conservatory where the telephone was located.
Clara leaped into action. She reached into Jimmy's pocket and searched for his handkerchief. Instead, she found two more paper packets of heroin. Quickly, she shoved them into her brassiere and reached into his other pocket to retrieve his handkerchief and covered her bloody hand with the linen cloth. With great care she opened the sewing box and searched through the contents until she found what she needed.
Pinking shears.
Bile rose in her throat as she crawled over to the Commodore's prone body, picking up Gillian's dropped needlepoint and yanking it from its hoop as she went. Jimmy's trench knife rose from his father's unmoving stomach. Clara took a deep breath and steadied her nerves before she wrapped her hand around the trench knife and pulled it out with all her strength. The wet, gloppy noise as the suction of the Commodore's body gave up the knife made her gag. She carefully wrapped the knife in the needlepoint, grabbed the pinking shears, and plunged them into the existing wound. Clara closed her eyes and prepared for a spray of blood that never happened. Oh, of course, she realized. His heart is no longer beating.
Pushing the thought away, she pulled the shears out and repeated the process with the other wounds as quickly as she could, feeling the edges of the wounds give way under her hand as she purposefully changed the shape of the wounds. She tried to think of other things as she pushed the scissors into the Commodore's rapidly cooling flesh. The smell of the ocean as she walked across the Boardwalk. The swirls of paint as Angela mixed her colors. Just another smell, she thought. Just more colors mixing, that's all.
Clara grabbed a bottle of whiskey and poured some over Jimmy's trench knife, purposefully splashing whiskey on the ground and grabbing two glasses which she set rolling across the floor. As she ran back to Jimmy's side she cleaned the knife with the needlepoint. Feeling around the top of his boot she finally felt the knife sheath, inserted his knife, and pulled his pant leg back down. Grabbing both the needlepoint and Jimmy's handkerchief she held both against his wound, making sure they were soaked with blood. Looking down at her sensible navy blue knit sailor's dress, she was glad she chose a dark dress, what, forty hours ago? In a different life, she'd pulled this dress on in her guest room at Margaret's.
Gillian wasn't dressed sensibly, Clara thought. Gillian was wearing an acid green silk gown. Every drop of blood would show on it.
"Thank god you're back," Clara called as she heard Gillian's footsteps approaching and then Clara let every emotion flood over her and let them be heard in her voice. "Gillian, I think Jimmy might be dying. He's bleeding so badly, we have to get him sitting up, we need to slow the blood loss."
The terror on Gillian's face at the idea Jimmy was bleeding to death was real, and Clara felt a pang of regret.
'It wasn't the first time,' Jimmy had said in a haunted voice, and the burgeoning regret was replaced with fury over what Gillian did to her son, what power over him could still mean, and terror over what Gillian could do to the motherless Tommy.
"Why don't you help hold him up," Clara said sweetly. "He'll feel better knowing his mother is holding him." Forgive me Jimmy, Clara silently begged. Watching Gillian touch Jimmy's unconscious form made Clara want to retch.
When the doorbell rang, Jimmy was leaned against his mother, who was absolutely covered in his blood.
"Dr. Surran, please come in," Clara said and directed him to Jimmy. Please save him, Clara prayed. Please. Tommy can't be an orphan.
Clara ran up the stairs while Gillian was distracted. "Tommy, open the door," she whispered urgently. She needed to move Tommy to somewhere only she knew, and she needed him closer to the drawing-room in case she needed to leave quickly.
Tommy's eyes were red and he threw himself into her arms. "It's okay, baby," she whispered in the brightest voice she was capable of as she smoothed his hair back and kissed his forehead.
She smiled her best smile at Tommy. "Everything is okay, but you and I are going to play a game now. When your daddy and I were little, we'd play hide and go seek when Nucky would bring us here. I'm going to show you our best hiding place, and you are going to stay there and be very quiet until when?"
"Until you or Daddy or Richard finds me," Tommy answered, clutching his stuffed cow.
"That's right, kiddo. Just daddy or Richard or me, no one else."
Once Tommy was safely hidden on the landing in the armoire with the metal fretwork doors, Clara rejoined everyone, murmuring comforting words to Gillian as the doctor cut away the remains of Jimmy's vest and shirt. Jimmy loved that suit, Clara remembered as the fabric fell away. The first time she'd seen him wear it he'd shown her the peaked lapels.
The doorbell rang again. Please be Richard, please be Richard, she hoped as she opened it.
"Oh, Mr. Whitlock, thank god you are here," Clara said, the emotion in her voice real. Jimmy was pouring blood in the drawing-room and Tommy was in peril, she reminded herself. She looked up at Leander Whitlock with all the girlish urgency and fear she was capable of and prayed her story would hold. "Gillian has killed the Commodore and Jimmy was stabbed trying to stop the fight between his parents. I didn't know what to do other than call you."
"Louis is dead?" Mr. Whitlock with shock evident in his voice.
Clara felt a flash of sympathy. Mr. Whitlock was so old, and, although she found it hard to believe, truly was fond of the Commodore. Perhaps she shouldn't have involved him.
Nonsense, she thought. She needed him. Jimmy needed him. If Mr. Whitlock thought Jimmy killed his father it would lose Jimmy a valuable ally and all of the support of the Yacht Club. It would mean the man wouldn't be her ally in the fight. Needs must, she told herself, and then took a deep breath as heart beat so fast it felt like it was going to leave her chest, and told her story. She saw the anger rise in his face.
"Oh, Leander, thank you so much for coming," Gillian cried when they walked into the drawing-room.
Leander didn't answer, walking around the doctor bandaging James over to where Louis lay on the floor. Immediately he noticed the sewing scissors protruding from his friend's torso, and the empty glasses under the davenport. Damn Gillian to hell, Louis thought. Other than it bringing forth James, telling Nucky to bring him that harridan was the worst bit of business Louis ever conducted.
The doorbell rang again, and Leander watched the Thompson girl leave to answer it. Gillian stared at him from across the room.
"Leander, I knew you'd know exactly what to do," Gillian began.
Clara opened the door and stepped into Richard's space, wrapping her arms around him. The warm solidness of his body against hers almost made her resolve almost crumble, giving her a flash of comfort and safety in the midst of bloody insanity.
"Mmm," he swallowed. "Clara?"
She took a deep breath. It was one thing to tell Richard what happened. It was another to admit she had purposefully framed Gillian, that she had plunged shears into the Commodore's dead body in a desperate attempt to save Tommy and Jimmy. Her stomach twisted with anxiety at admitting everything to Richard.
"I did it to protect Tommy and Jimmy," she whispered in his ear.
Richard stared at his feet and didn't answer when she finished and stepped back. Clara's fingers twisted the now-limp pleats of her dress. He finally reached out and covered her hand with his.
"Take him. To my. Mmm. Place. I'm going to stay to help. Jimmy. Then I'll come home."
Clara laced her fingers through his and smiled up at him uncertainly. Even as they stood there together, fear that her actions had changed how he thought of her gnawed at her heart.
"Mr. Harrow, good," Leander said when they walked into the drawing-room, where blood covered the floor and the wallpaper. "We require your assistance."
You owe this to Angela, Clara reminded herself as she prepared to strike the final blow. This is the only way.
"Mr. Whitlock, this is not an appropriate place for Tommy. I'm going to take him until Jimmy recovers," Clara said in her best Princess of the Boardwalk voice, the one her father worked so hard to instill in her.
"What?" Gillian said in disbelief. "Clara, you are not taking my grandson anywhere."
The look Clara shot Gillian was the most dismissive glance she was capable of. "Mr. Whitlock, do you think we should leave Tommy with the woman who killed his grandfather?"
Please no one ask Richard anything, she thought. Please please please please please.
"What? I didn't kill Louis! James did!" Gillian cried out in shock and outrage.
"Gillian, try to hold onto some kind of honor," Leander said wearily. "Louis's heir will be safe with Miss Thompson until James recovers."
"She's not taking Tommy! Tommy is mine, that little boy, he's mine. I didn't hurt Louis, Leander! It was James! It was James!" Gillian cried out desperately.
"What kind of mother accuses her child of her crime?" Clara asked coldly, trying to infuse shock and disbelief in her voice. "And anyway, Tommy is not yours. He had a mother. He has a father."
"You aren't his mother either," Gillian hissed. "Is that what this is about? Your little rebellion with this remnant of a man, but not even you will go so far as to..."
The last strands of Clara's composure snapped. Before either man could react, Clara was moving across the floor towards Gillian. As her arm arched back for momentum, Richard caught up with her and pulled her back.
"Gillian, enough!" Whitlock said sharply. "You are incredibly fortunate that Clara didn't call the sheriff's office, that she told you to call me instead. I can fix this, but not if you'd been arrested for murder. She's going to take the child to safety. Please try to behave with some sense of decorum."
"No! She can't take Tommy!"
"I believe James would want her to take the boy, I believe it's what Louis would desire as well. She's taking the boy."
Richard followed Clara up the stairs, not bothering to ask why Tommy was in a cabinet.
"It's Richard and me," Clara whispered as she opened the doors to the armoire. Tommy was sound asleep, his cheek resting on the toy cow.
Richard carried the sleeping child with his left arm, leaving his right arm free. Mrs. Darmody cried in a chair in the drawing-room they walked towards the front door, but Richard pushed it from his mind. Clara had made it look like Mrs. Darmody killed the Commodore. She must have her reasons. Clara never even spared a glance for the crying woman.
For a moment he considered driving with them to his place, but he thought of the horror show inside the mansion. The Commodore's body needed to be dealt with, the mess cleaned up, Jimmy watched over. He carefully placed Tommy in the backseat of his car, and turned back to Clara, hesitating as to what he should do next.
"I want. To go with. You. Mmm. But..."
Even now, Jimmy's need of you outweighs mine, Clara thought. She tried to push away the thought-after all, what had she just done for Jimmy, for Tommy? She forced her voice to stay level and not show her fear and her need for Richard to go with them.
"Jimmy, I know," Clara said, even managing a small smile to make him feel better. "Tommy and I will be okay."
Richard hesitated, and then slid his hand into his waistband and brought forth the Mauser pocket pistol and pressed it into her hand.
"Do you think I need this?"
He couldn't meet her eye. "I think. You'll be fine. But. Hmm. I'd feel..."
Clara closed her hand around the gun. The butcher is still out there, she realized. Nothing has stopped. It stopped for me, because Angela was dead and Jimmy was in distress, and now this. But the Butcher, my father, Charlie, Capone...it's all still out there.
"You can. Shoot. There's extra ammunition..."
She leaned forward and kissed the side of his mouth. "We'll be okay. Just come home when you can."
Richard's
When Richard opened the door to his room he saw Clara sitting cross-legged on the bed, gun in her lap, the way she usually sat up with a book at night when he would come home. On the floor next to the desk, Tommy was sound asleep in the moonlight, on a pallet Clara must have made out of her pillow and extra blankets.
Clara smiled as he approached her, "I'm so glad you're here."
He sat on the bed next to her, looking down at his hands. The tiredness was washing over him, making it almost impossible to think clearly. The last time he slept was the morning he found out Angela was dead. Slowly he became aware of the feeling of Clara's fingers-warm, alive, moving-pressing against his.
"Jimmy is. Going to be. Okay." I cleaned his father's blood from the drawing-room, Richard thought. Once more in these days, I cleaned the blood of Jimmy's family member from the floorboards. There's no trace left. I cleaned the scissors you used. He looked at her small hand, and tried to imagine it plunging scissors into an old man's body. The hands that had tucked Tommy in, that slid into his, that typed out her stories.
He was a hypocrite, he realized. What did his hands do when he was away from Clara?
Clara nodded. "Good. Tommy thinks this is great fun, spending the night at your place."
Richard shook his head. "You should. Put him in bed. With you. I'll sleep on the. Floor."
"He's little, sleeping on the floor is an adventure. Besides, I..." She stared into the distance. "We just got each other back, and had maybe ten minutes of just being together. My friend is dead. Jimmy is injured. Everything is crashing down around us. I did a horrible thing to protect Jimmy and Tommy. You've been awake from days trying to protect Jimmy, I..."
Richard leaned against her. He couldn't remember the last time his brain had been so foggy, France, he supposed. Thoughts came into view and then disappeared just as quickly before he could grasp onto them. The silk of Clara's kimono brushed against his forearm. Her hair was slightly damp, and he could smell her orange soap. Her hands weren't as soft as usual, and he could see redness on the tops. She'd scrubbed them raw in an attempt to get the blood out, he thought and ran his thumb over them. He wanted to tell her so many things, but his mind wouldn't send the words to his mouth.
Clara had untied one boot and was busy on the second when he realized she had moved to the floor.
He jerked his foot away from her hand. "Mmm. What are. You doing?"
With one movement she moved so she was standing on her knees. "Richard," she said softly, "you've spent the last however many days taking care of everyone. Cleaning up Jimmy's mess. Keeping us safe. And now you can barely sit up you are so tired. Let me take care of you."
Richard shook his head, his mouth twisting, not able to meet her gaze, but finally letting his hands rest on her shoulders. "Mmm. You don't have..."
"No. I don't have to. I want to. You didn't have to do any of the things you did, tonight, yesterday, last week, this month, since the day you met Jimmy, either. You did it because you care about us, because you love us. " Clara reached up with one hand to cup his face, to pull him down so that he had to look at her, while her other hand smoothed the silk of her kimono as she tried to steady her nerves.
"I didn't think I would get this. I thought I'd spend my life would be trapped with someone like Darcy Blaine. Darcy, someone like Darcy, would have never helped me keep Tommy safe. I thought I had lost you, lost this, forever over my father and Jimmy's stupid war. Until you stood in my father's house and held your hand out to me."
Clara was silent for a moment, and she looked down like she was studying his knee. She spoke without looking up. "That moment meant I'm yours until the moment you decide you no longer want me."
Richard couldn't look at her. He wanted to tell her that her letter felt like a deliverance, that he was the one who needed to beg forgiveness. Instead, he said, "I would. Hmm. Never."
"I know we have to talk about everything that happened, all that we did. But right now, this is one of the worst times of our lives and I need to be with you. And right now, I'm going to take care of you. It's not like you won't do the same for me. It's not like you haven't done the same for me."
Her hands moved to his tie and she smoothly untied it. "See?" Clara whispered, and he could hear the smile in her voice. "I got better with practice."
It felt like the nights in the Ford, or wrapped in blankets in the woods. Clara warm and near and unbuttoning his clothes felt more like something from a dream than reality. He lost himself in the feel of her fingers swiftly unbuttoning his vest and pushing it off his shoulders. Carefully she lowered one side of his suspenders and then the next. She repeated the same actions with his shirt. The entire time, as her head hovered near his own, as her hands brushed across body, he thought he shouldn't let her do this. He didn't...he didn't deserve Clara's gentle caretaking. He had removed her from the safety of Nucky's house out of a moment of blind need for her, and thrown her into the hell of Jimmy's downfall. Angela had been brutally murdered in the beach house. He wasn't sure that anywhere was safe. So far he had subjected her to Jimmy strung out on drugs, the murder of the Commodore, covering up Jimmy's crime, fighting with Gillian, and, worse of all, fleeing at midnight with only Tommy while he tried to help Jimmy. And Richard had a sick feeling that this was just the beginning.
But the soft gentleness of Clara, of anyone, undressing him, brushing his hair from his face, and taking care of him wasn't something he ever expected to have again. She wasn't doing it because he was broken or bad, but because she loved him and he was tired.
Her hands moved up to his face and removed his mask while he was still in his reverie.
"Oh my god," Clara exclaimed. "What happened?"
Richard's hand flew to his face and his back stiffened. He knew he shouldn't have let himself relax into Clara. His face had finally horrified her.
"There's a rash, or sores..." her hands were on either side of his face, trying to tilt it so she could see better in the moonlight, and her voice was horrified. "Do you need a doctor?"
"Sometimes, the heat..." he started to explain. He had worn the mask almost nonstop for two days, scorching summer days, while cleaning multiple crime scenes, while driving back and forth to Princeton, while never having the time to sleep or take the mask off.
Clara left the room, and the bathroom door closed behind her. Richard let his head hang down, his left hand still shielding the damaged side of his face from view. He had always feared that even for Clara the injury would be too much to deal with, and now it was proven to be so. She was hiding in the bathroom, he thought, unable to look at him but without anywhere to take Tommy. He'd sleep in the car, he thought, and then tomorrow he'd make sure she never had to see him again. His right hand twisted into the fabric of his pants.
The door opened and then she was back with linen and a jar in her hand. She sat everything on the bed next to him and leaned before him with one towel in her hand.
"Is it okay if I clean your face and put salve on it? It looks so painful."
When he didn't respond she tried again. "Richard?"
He couldn't answer. No one had touched the bad side of his face in years, not like that. Not even Clara, when they were wrapped around each other and her hands and mouth slid across every other part of his body. He nodded, finally. Clara leaned forward and softly pulled at his wrist until he moved his hand, and then she began gently dabbing the ruins of the left side of his face with the damp towel.
"Tell me if I hurt you, or if there's a better way," she whispered
He felt her start patting his face with a dry towel, and then heard her open a jar. He could feel the uncertainty in her touch, and it caused him to swallow, once more convinced that the reality of touching his face was proving to much for her. Instead, he felt her fingertips slowly work their way around the perimeter of where the mask sat on his face, carefully patting in the lotion, and working her way across his face. He groaned without meaning to, causing her to stop.
"Am I hurting you?"
He shook his head, unable to answer so she continued. The sound of the lid closing over the jar made him realize she was done. He grabbed her, suddenly, kicking off the boots she had already unlaced and pulling her down on the bed with him. They couldn't do anything, he knew, with Tommy asleep on the floor beside them. It didn't stop the need to wrap himself around her, to get as lost in the smell and feel of her as possible. Without thought, he put his hand under her top knee and wrapped her leg around his hip.
Clara sighed.
"I love you," he said in a gravelly whisper. "I still. Want. Flower boxes. And a hardware store. With a desk. For you to write. At."
Wrapping her hand around his head she whispered back "I love you, too. That's exactly what I want."
Richard's heartbeat and breathing slowed as they lay together, but Clara's didn't. She kept replaying everything, trying to find her mistakes, identifying the flaws in her plans. How, she castigated herself, how had she not truly seen Gillian and Jimmy's relationship? Why had she not acted sooner? Why hadn't she insisted Angela leave with her the day Angela told her she was scared? Angela would still be alive, Clara thought. Tommy would have a mother.
Every part of her body went stiff. It was her own fault her mother was dead, of course. It was her oldest sin. If she had come straight home from school, if she hadn't stopped to play in the park with Jimmy, if she had walked upstairs to check on her mother when she got him, her mother would still be alive. Still be alive, she reminded herself, if she had been enough for her mother. If she'd been a boy, if she'd been better, then her mother wouldn't have gone mad. If Clara had been enough, she thought, her mother would still be alive. Jimmy and her father would have stopped the war when she begged, they wouldn't be in this hell, they wouldn't be...
The feel of Richard's hand moving up to rub her shoulder startled her, but the warmth of his sleepy body next to her finally relaxed her slightly. She tried to match her breathing to his as she settled into his embrace, but even as she finally drifted off to sleep it was to a litany of all the mistakes she'd ever made.
Someone was looking at him. Richard's hand reached for Clara, assuming she was awake, but he realized he was on his back and in the bed alone.
Tommy stood next to the bed, his eyes moving between the mask Clara had set on the bedside table the night before and Richard's face.
"Your face is on the table," Tommy said quietly.
Richard's hand flew up to the damaged side of his face, the memory of the screaming Emily Schroeder coming back in a flash.
"You snore," Tommy continued.
The snoring was terrible, Richard knew, due to the destruction of his sinus cavities. He didn't know how Clara bore it.
"Why is your face on the table?" Tommy asked, still standing still.
Richard tried to find his voice. "The mask. Hmm. Is uncomfortable. To sleep. In."
"You take it off when you put on your jammies?" Tommy asked.
Not knowing how else to respond, Richard nodded. Where was Clara, he wondered.
Tommy looked back at his pallet. "Can I lay down with you?"
Richard moved over, and Tommy and the cow sat on the bed next to him.
"Daddy says you lost your face in the war," Tommy said, staring at Richard, who still had his hand over his face. "Did it hurt?"
Swallowing nervously, Richard tried to come up with a good answer.
"Does wearing your other face make it feel better?" Tommy asked, using his cow to gesture towards the mask.
"Mmm. It makes it. Easier."
"Your elbow is hitting me," Tommy complained as he squirmed around on the bed and kicked Richard's leg repeatedly.
"I'd. Have to move. Mmm. My hand," Richard said, completely unsure of what he should do.
"Okay."
Richard took a deep breath and slowly moved his hand from his face. He felt Tommy's eyes on him, looking with great interest at the mass of scar tissue that made up half his face. The seriousness of Tommy's expression made Richard think of Angela, and his heart ached for his friend.
"It looks melty," Tommy announced. "Can you tell me the mermaid story?"
"Mmm. I don't know..."
"Yes, you do. A long long time ago Atlantic City was a kingdom under the sea called Atlantaca..."
"Atlantis," Richard corrected.
"See! I knew you knew it!"
The door opened, and Richard sat up with a bolt. Clara stood in the door with a box of drinks and food in one hand and a shopping bag over her other arm.
"Richard's face is over there," Tommy announced. "Also, he says he doesn't know about mermaids, but he does, Clara."
Clara's eyes went to Richard, and then she smiled the bright smile she saved for Tommy. "Richard's mask is on the table because he doesn't sleep in it. His face is on his head, silly."
Tommy looked like he wanted to follow that statement up with more questions, so Clara quickly continued. "I brought breakfast! I went to Formica Brothers."
"You got lobster tails!" Tommy said excitedly but saw Clara raise an eyebrow. "You got sfogliatella."
"Close enough, here, come eat. Try not to make a mess." Clara put his drink and food on the desk and helped him into the chair before crossing to sit next to Richard, who had slipped his mask on.
"Are you okay?" she whispered, knowing what he was thinking about. "Tommy's not Emily. He's known you for over a year, and you are one of his favorite people. It's not the same."
After Tommy changed into the play clothes Clara had bought at Woolworth's, he took his new ball and went to play in the yard. Clara took her breakfast and coffee and sat on the porch, feeling that Richard could use time away from the chaos of the Darmody-Thompson clan to eat and get ready in peace.
She heard the Ford-Jimmy really did need to get that clutch fixed, she thought-before she saw it.
"Daddy," Tommy said, and threw himself at Jimmy before he could get out of the car.
Jimmy wasn't wearing a shirt, just his suit jacket over a complicated bandage covering his chest. He looked so awful, Clara thought, his pupils still dilated and his eyes rimmed with red.
"Hey, Skeezix," Jimmy replied, ruffling the boy's hair.
"I ate a lobster tail, and slept on the floor, and Richard keeps his face on the table."
Jimmy looked up and smiled at Clara, who was trying not to laugh. "I'm glad you are having a good time. I need to talk to Clara, okay? Is that a new ball?"
Tommy went back in the yard to show off his new ball tricks, which to Jimmy looked like Tommy was throwing the ball straight up in the air, rarely catching it, and laughing hysterically when the ball fell back down to Earth.
Jimmy sat next to Clara silently, lit a cigarette, and passed it to her. They were on the second cigarette before either spoke.
"Outta all the things we have in common, both of us stabbing my father on the same night wasn't something I foresaw," Jimmy said quietly.
"Well, needs must," Clara responded. "Want to tell me what happened?"
"Not particularly. She was just sitting there, Clara, talking about Tommy wouldn't remember Angela and how she was his mother now and we would raise Tommy together. Like Angela never even existed, like..."
Clara grabbed Jimmy's hand and squeezed.
"That's when I had my hands around her throat. I just wanted her to stop. For once, I just wanted her to stop. And then the Commodore stabbed me, and I had my trench knife out. Ma, she was cheering me on, she wanted me..."
Of course she did, Clara thought. Angela was gone, and now she was getting rid of the Commodore. You and Tommy were going to be all hers.
"She'd already told Tommy Angela had gone to Paris and left him with Gillian, and that Gillian was his mother now. I'm just sorry you didn't finish her," Clara said, with a tone in her voice Jimmy had never heard before.
"I don't think..." Jimmy began, the need to defend his mother strong.
"Are you willing to bet Tommy's well-being on that, because I'm not. I'm serious, Jimmy, I'll kill her myself before I let her get near Tommy again. I'm sorry for everything that happened to her, but that doesn't mean I can't see she's a monster in her own right."
"That's why you did it? You set it up so Leander would think she murdered the Commodore to get Tommy away from her?"
Clara looked at him. "I did it for you, too. The look on her face, Jimmy, as she stood over you and the Commodore laying on the floor. Like a new queen reaching for the scepter. She was going to hold it over your head for the rest of your life. Plus, it was going to weaken Mr. Whitlock's support for you, and cost you what's left of the Yacht Club's backing."
Jimmy snickered. "These are the things you were thinking about as you stabbed the Commodore's dead body?"
"I did what I had to do. Just like you do. Just like Richard does. Just like my father does. I'm supposed to apologize because I'm a woman?"
"No, I'm just lucky you are a girl. God help me if you'd been a boy and sided with Nucky."
Clara took a long drag off the cigarette. "Glad that worked out for you. Look, I have a plan."
Richard opened the door.
"Just in time," Jimmy said. "Clara's about to tell us her plan."
Richard moved to Clara's other side.
"Look, Tommy needs to go home. So I'm going to call Margaret and ask her to send my things to the beach house."
"Your father. Will put the word. Out the beach house. Is off-limits," Richard said, realizing Clara's idea.
"That's right. If not out of love for me, then out of concern for his own reputation."
"Any other plays?" Jimmy asked.
"Yes. Richard, I'm assuming Mr. Whitlock paid off the coroner's man to write up the Commodore's as an accident?" Clara asked.
Richard nodded, uncertain where Clara was headed.
"Jimmy, you are going to thank him, and then you are going to tell him you are going to tell one man the truth. Well, part of the truth. Tell Mr. Whitlock you are going to tell Nucky that your father is dead and you killed him."
Jimmy stared at her, then smiled. "You want me to tell the actual truth to Nucky?"
Clara shook her head. "No. I want you to tell him the Commodore was recovering, that he wouldn't stop trying to bring Nucky down, that the Commodore was making the war worse. To save Nucky, to stop the war, you killed your father. I want you to offer up the Commodore's death to my father as a peace offering."
"The two of you, you are moving into the beach house?"
Clara and Richard looked at each other and nodded. All three of them sat on the porch and watched Tommy play, pushing away reality for a few quiet moments.
