The first weeks of the Harrows' marriage involved neither hotels nor days alone in a secluded lakeside cabin, but instead were lived in the guest room of the Darmody beach house and consisted of comforting Tommy and helping Jimmy. Some nights, when Clara lay alone in the guest bed listening to Jimmy talk to her husband she longed for the weeks spent at Richard's, weeks where she wore nothing to bed and didn't have to share his attention.
And nothing was resolved. Her father wouldn't even speak to her. She'd called the house and sent a note. Margaret had replied, sending best wishes and a lovely pair of silver candlesticks. Nothing, not even screaming, from her father. Even as a child Clara had particularly hated when her father punished her by ignoring her existence. Clara sighed. Silence was better than some of the alternatives, she thought. For weeks Richard and Jimmy had been searching for the butcher without luck and surveying the Klansmen. She knew what was coming. It must be done, she told herself as she bathed Tommy and burnt meals and tried to work out how households ran. Honestly, it would have been easier to take over running the entire Ritz (well, when there wasn't a strike) then trying to run one single house. But there were moments of happiness in the difficult, grief soaked days.
Still, she feared both what she knew was coming and the things that were only real in her darkest imaginings.
When Jimmy and Richard went to leave that August morning she could feel how far away Richard was from her even as he said goodbye and knew today was the day. Come back, she thought as he walked away. I don't care about the rest, just come back.
She was grateful for the inescapability of housework and Tommy's needs. They went swimming and played in the sand. Once more she made ham sandwiches and made Tommy drink milk and eat an apple to relieve some of her guilt over what she fed him, although she didn't refuse either of them Oreo cookies for dessert. Swimming wore him out, so he went down easily for his nap. Clara escaped to the sunroom to write while he slept. The deadline for her new Ruth Fielding novel loomed, but instead of focusing on Ruth's adventures she stared out the window and worried about what Richard and Jimmy were doing. The KKK. Clara knew they were made up of the baker, the paperboy, and the telegraph operator but she also knew they were crazy. Why else would they run around in sheets? Newly intimate with the struggle of laundry, Clara shuddered at what keeping those ridiculous outfits clean must entail. And then they were going into Chalky's territory, and…
Stop, she told herself firmly. Stop. Richard and Jimmy are more than capable. What must be done must be done. The strike must be brought to a close before the entirety of the summer was lost, before Jimmy lost all control of the city. He was going to try and save Father, save Eli once he made things right with Chalky White. And killing those horrid Klansmen could never be wrong, could it?
Clara tried to push away the image of her father and uncle being strapped to the electric chair. Or, her heart quickened, what if this all went wrong and it was Jimmy or Richard? The prosecutor's voice was back in her head, asking if every man she loved was a murderer. People like the prosecutor, life must be so easy for people like them, she thought. So black and white, so completely lacking in shading or complexities.
Jimmy and Richard were trying to save them all. That was what was important, she decided. That, and waking up with Richard's legs entwined with hers while Jimmy woke in the room down the hall from his son. That's what she held dear. That's what mattered. Everything else was just detail.
Tommy would be up soon, she thought and forced her mind to consider Ruth's most recent predicament. No more had she hit her stride than she heard Tommy's feet coming down the stairs. With a sigh, she covered her typewriter. She'd barely written a quarter of what she set out to write. Before she could do anything else, the messenger from the stationary store came with her order, and Clara was delighted with how her order looked. Rose must be the first person she wrote using her new stationery, Clara decided. She'd write to her tonight.
Errands, chores, and snacks took up the rest of the day. It didn't matter how she proceeded or how much Richard did, she always felt behind. There was never a moment she didn't feel guilty about ignoring some responsibility.
She started by gathering the laundry to take to the laundress. Richard had gathered his clothes and Tommy's, but she had to get the linen and Jimmy's. Clara sighed. Jimmy's room was a disaster. Tommy went and got a new box from the service porch, and Clara began throwing the rubbish in it. Countless empty bottles, and more of those damned paper packets. Ashes in everything but ashtrays. Jimmy's clothes were everywhere, and his undershirts, shirts, and sheets were all stained by the oozing blood of his wound. Shouldn't that be getting better, Clara thought? She should probably make Jimmy send for the doctor.
She was also slowed down because she couldn't find the burlap sacks for the kitchen laundry anywhere. Another box had to be procured. Tommy had a meltdown as they prepared to leave, and it occurred to her he was probably hungry so she made a piece of bread with jam and let him take it with him. She sent a silent apology to Richard about what was about to happen to the car. After leaving the laundry with the laundress, and visiting the library and grocery store, it was somehow time to cook again.
Back at home Clara had to face her least favorite task, lighting the oven. Lighting the burners wasn't terrible, but she couldn't shake every horror story she'd ever heard about people blowing up their houses just by lighting their oven. Richard had shown her how to use kitchen shears to cut up the chicken into pieces, but the feel of the scissors slicing through the meat made her think of the Commodore and made her hate the task even more. Giving into Tommy's entreaties to help her, she sat him on his knees in a chair and he dipped the chicken pieces in flour and seasoning. After she put the potatoes on to boil she remembered no bed had linen, so she and Tommy went upstairs to remake the beds.
Tommy put clean towels out in the bathrooms while Clara put sheets on the beds, pinning the corners into place because she couldn't figure out how to make the sheets stay in place otherwise. By time time she remembered dinner the potato water had boiled away. It didn't help, Clara thought bitterly, to try and do things efficiently. The potatoes weren't yet stuck to the pan, something that had happened a few nights before, so she added more water and hoped for the best.
Tommy played with his toy soldiers while she finished dinner. Clara leaned against the doorway and watched him for a moment as he told his soldiers some complicated tale that sounded like a compilation of her own stories about the mermaids of Atlantis, the book they read last night, and the war stories Jimmy told him. He really was such a darling boy, she thought, even if he ate all the time, had an amazing instinct for interrupting her private moments with Richard, and said her name at least ten thousand times a day.
"Dinner is ready, go wash your hands," she told him.
"Will it be as bad as last time?" Tommy asked seriously, and Clara winced as she remembered the abomination she'd served two nights ago.
"Hopefully not," she answered.
She watched Tommy carefully try the chicken (dark meat only, off the bone, cut into pieces), the peas, the potatoes, and the tomatoes. Nothing was touching anything else. She had learned that lesson.
He looked up at her and smiled. "It's not awful!"
High praise, she thought and started eating her own dinner.
Tommy ate strawberries and cream for dessert while Clara attacked the astounding pile of dishes they'd created in one day. One. Tomorrow they'd be another pile of dishes. And there was the whole kitchen to wipe down, she had to remember to set out the milk jugs for the milkman, and as always there was sand everywhere.
A noise startled them both. Clara turned and thought she saw someone in the yard. Was it the butcher, still looking for Jimmy?
"Tommy, go play the game," she whispered. Out of fear when they moved back into the beach house, she'd impressed on Tommy the importance of the game of hiding until only she, Jimmy, or Richard told him to come out.
As he ran up the stairs she grabbed the shotgun from the service porch and quickly loaded two shells. Her heart was pounding so loudly she couldn't hear anything else.
The silhouette grew clearer. Someone was definitely outside. Clara cocked the shotgun.
"Clara? You inside?" A familiar, young male voice called from the window. "I'm not sure what door to use?"
"Willie?" Clara asked, her heart in her throat. It was Eli and June's oldest boy. What was he doing here? "Come around back."
Clara sat the shotgun down, horrified that she almost shot her cousin.
"Hey, Clara. My mother sent a letter to you."
"Tommy, come down!" Clara called up. "Everything is okay."
Tommy hesitantly peered down the stairs and then ran down and attached to her leg. She knew he wouldn't let go for the remainder of the evening. Willie ate the rest of the dessert before he left, and she put the leftovers from dinner into the icebox and forwent finishing the dishes or sweeping sand off the floor (no matter how much she swept there was always more, she thought bitterly).
"How about I put you down in our bed and Richard can carry you to your room when he and Daddy come home?"
Tommy nodded, but by the time Clara got him bathed and into pajamas he was sobbing for his mother. Her head was slamming against her skull, and worry for Richard and Jimmy was souring her stomach and making her regret eating dinner. She lay next to Tommy, rubbing his back and telling him about the adventures of the mermaids until he finally fell asleep clutching his stuffed cow. She locked the bedroom door and placed the shotgun under her side of the bed.
From the sunroom she'd brought up her manuscript and the new box of stationary. She sat in bed and handwrote revisions and outlined the rest of the chapters until her hand ached. What she wanted to do was pace, and being trapped in the bedroom with the sleeping Tommy made her feel like a caged animal. She picked up a notecard to write to Rose, but couldn't think of what to say that wouldn't worry her.
It was well after midnight when she heard familiar footsteps on the porch. She lifted the shotgun and silently made her way to the bedroom door.
"Fuck a bear," Jimmy's voice drifted up the staircase. Clara wasn't going to classify what he was doing as singing.
"Clara?" Richard called out, hearing the bedroom door open.
"Just making sure it was you." Clara bit back a sigh. "Tommy's in our bed. When you come up, will you carry him to his room?."
First, she forced herself to be grateful they were back and well. Hopefully they accomplished what needed to be accomplished. That feeling lasted a few minutes.
We haven't even married a fortnight, Clara thought as she flopped down on the bed. So sure, I'm absolutely thrilled about my husband spending even more time with Jimmy, instead of coming upstairs to be with me. It's just perfectly fine. I absolutely wanted to spend the time we should be on our honeymoon cleaning house, cooking, taking care of Tommy, and being sent upstairs like a child while the men talk. It's exactly how I imagined these days would be. How many nights have I already gone to bed to the sound of them talking downstairs?
You are being unfair, she told herself. Jimmy's mourning Angela. Richard's being a good friend, he's just so loyal, he's just…
He's just not necessarily the most loyal to me, Clara thought and the idea burned at her. It was one of things they needed to talk about, but instead, they got married. Where were they going to live? Were they now tied to Jimmy permanently?
Tommy kicked her as she considered. She moved his legs away from her and fixed the pillow under his head. Oh, poor kiddo, she thought. How could she leave Tommy?
Shamefully, Clara felt hot tears slide down her cheeks. She looked at the wall, beyond which her friend-Jimmy's wife, Tommy's mother-had been slaughtered. A better person would be crying for her friend, Clara realized, for the child next to her, for Jimmy downstairs.
Downstairs Jimmy poured two more bourbons as he continued to tell war stories. The good ones, about the hijinks in the trenches. The ones where he told the center of the story but not the edges, not telling that as his friend sang Jimmy's feet were rotting from trench foot or all of their fingers were covered in rat bites from the rodents that snacked on them whenever they grabbed a few minutes of sleep.
"I'd be alone. Mmm. For days on end. Going from blind to blind. Just water. Rations. Rifle. And then I'd go back. To camp. And the boys would be joking. And I'd think. This is where I'm meant to be."
Jimmy stared down at his friend. Fuck that. The whole goddamn war was a mistake. The bodies in the trenches, the boy caught in the barbed wire, Clara under a table thinking she was going to die, the piece of his thigh that was now a permanent resident of France, the half of Richard's face that never came home. All a mistake. All things that shouldn't have happened.
"Nobody was meant to be there," Jimmy said, tossing back the rest of his drink.
"But that's. Where we were." Richard looked down at the floor for a long moment, testing out what he wanted to say. "We're still there. Aren't we?" There's still blood on my hands, Richard thought. You tell me to kill someone, I do it. Avenge Pearl, keep Clara safe, end a strike, right a wrong, benefit a liquor deal, I do what I must to protect you.
"It's time to come home, Richard."
"How?" Richard whispered. Upstairs, Clara lay waiting, expecting him to pick up Tommy and carry him to bed. The last skin he'd touched was that of the men they'd tied up, tossed in the truck, and delivered to Chalky White, so how could the next flesh under his hands be that of an innocent child or of his wife? He'd shot a man, threatened to shoot more, but it was those he trussed up who were in his mind tonight. Scalping Jackson Parkhurst had been his slowest death. He liked to be quick, just get the job done. The men they'd delivered to Chalky were going to die slow, were probably still dying. It wasn't even part of his job to decide if they deserved it.
Fuck, Jimmy thought. "I don't know. But promise me you'll try." He was silent for a moment.
"They need you, Richard," Jimmy said, and then motioned with his jaw towards the second floor. "Sometimes I think I should tell you to take them and run, go buy a hardware store and change your names and never tell me or Nucky where Clara and Tommy are. Angela...I never came back. Even with Pearl…"
It was the way Richard looked at him that made Jimmy think about Memorial Day. How Richard looked that night, Jimmy's decision to send him to Clara after they did away with Parkhurst. I owe you, Clara, Jimmy thought.
"You can't go away from her. Her mother did that. Long before Clara found Mabel on the bathroom floor, her mother abandoned Clara little by little. Don't do that. It'd kill her, Rich."
Jimmy kept Richard talking for longer, even though he knew he should let him go upstairs to Clara, because Jimmy knew what was waiting for him. The silence. The darkness. Nothing to hold back his guilt, nothing to stop him from thinking about Angela, about Pearl, about Gillian. Even in death, he couldn't bring himself to be faithful to Angela. But also his guilt about the rest. What happened with Nucky. The images of the war. His growing acceptance that he no longer had a future.
The gambit tonight needed to work to free Clara and Richard, to ensure Tommy's safety, even if his own life was already forfeit. Jimmy had made his peace with Chalky White. Now he had to just pray Chalky would convince Nucky to see him.
When Richard went upstairs he found Tommy asleep with his feet against Clara's hip. Moonlight glinted off something on the floor, and he saw the shotgun laying where Clara could easily grab it. The hairs on the back of his neck raised. Something had badly scared Clara.
When he lifted Tommy off the bed the boy curled against him. It's why he and Jimmy did what they did, he thought as he settled Tommy into his own room. Afterward, he tried to scrub the feel of the night off his skin. Coming back into their bedroom he picked up the pile of papers and pencil Clara had fallen asleep with and placed them on the dresser. A cardboard box sat there, the lid askew. When he went to close it he saw it was some kind of fancy paper. The variety of paper Clara used always fascinated him. What sort was this? He knew he was delaying getting into bed with her, but he was also interested. Lifting one, he saw they were made of the heavy, creamy paper all of Clara's stationery was made of, but instead of her name they were engraved with the letters R, H, C.
Clara wasn't certain what time it was when she felt the bed dip and heard the familiar sound of tin striking wood. Still half asleep she rolled towards him.
It was like rolling into a marble statue. He was absolutely rigid and she could feel the tension rise when she pressed against him. Still lost in a fog of sleep, her mind leaped to the idea he no longer even wanted this from her. She pulled back like his skin had scorched her.
Clara stretching across his side felt normal, like any other night. It wasn't, though, and he couldn't bear for her to touch him. He had bathed and was wearing clean linen. There was no outward sign of what he did, he knew, but the night after a kill was always tormenting. These nights invited the darkness back, darkness he knew he deserved. He didn't want the darkness touching her. Still, when Clara pulled away it felt like a slap. She knows, he thought, and now can't bear to touch me.
Waking up fully, the realization hit her like a gut punch. Oh, he's killed someone tonight, she thought, and remembered what he'd looked like when he showed up at the Ritz Memorial Day night. Was he like this after he'd saved her from the d'Alessios? She had been so out of it she couldn't recall, he'd just been there for her when she needed him. When he and Jimmy had gone to Philadelphia to take care of the rest of the d'Alessios he had largely avoided her until Thanksgiving.
Was this always the cost, she wondered. Was he okay while he drank and ate steaks with Jimmy, but then when he was alone the guilt crashed over him? Richard hadn't been raised by Nucky Thompson, Clara thought. She and Jimmy had learned how to rationalize any action they felt they needed to take. They had learned from the best.
Did her father have any guilt over ordering the death of Margaret's husband? No, of course not, she knew. In her father's eyes he did it to save Margaret and the children, and it never even occurred to him he was driven by his own desire for Margaret. After he sent Jimmy and Richard after the d'Alessios her Father never gave them another thought. And was she much better, she wondered? She knew Richard was the one sent after the boy who tried to pull her into that car and she pushed it from her mind. None of them were safe while the d'Alessios were alive, everyone did what they must. She wasn't going to judge Richard for carrying out her father's or Jimmy's orders, any more than she'd judge him for carrying out a General's battle plan.
She rolled over so she was laying on her back and moved her hand so that it was brushing against his. They were all simply doing what they must, she thought fiercely. "I'm so glad you are home, that you are here with me," she whispered and felt his hand move slightly.
"What. Scared. You?" he scratched out.
"My cousin Willie. He brought me a letter, but he was walking around the house and I didn't know it was him. I made Tommy play the game, so then he was scared the rest of the night and I…"
And I was terrified, Clara thought, because the butcher was here in this house, he killed Angela yards away from where we sleep and who else is after Jimmy, is after my father, and sees me as just a pawn in some game no one asked if I wanted to play?
She felt his hand move over hers, so she let her foot drift over to touch his leg.
"You got. New stationery," he said, and Clara could hear the hesitancy in his voice.
"Yes, we've gotten a few presents and I need to send thank you notes," she responded.
His throat clicked. "Mmm. Would you have. Ordered them. No matter who you married?"
Clara wasn't certain what he was asking. "Yes. But I...it's nicer doing things like ordering stationery with our monogram because it's us, you know?"
They lay silently.
"I know you are doing this to try and save my family," Clara started, and then she giggled.
The sound was so incongruous that he turned to look at her.
"Richard, I'm so sorry. Do you know what I've done to you? I've stuck you with my crazy family, now they are all yours as well."
He was silent for a moment, thinking about it. Nucky Thompson was his father-in-law. Until a year and a half ago, he didn't know men like Nucky actually existed outside of novels. He barely knew girls like Clara existed, and it still amazed him that Clara's friends were fancier than she. She knew a Lady. To him, that was a person who only existed in books, not real life, not someone that his wife would consider one of her closest friends.
"Am I. Your Family?"
Clara's breath caught, and she was suddenly glad they were laying so he couldn't see her face. "You know you are," she said quietly. "You've felt like family and you've felt like home for such a long time. And what scares me is I'm not sure that you see that our family needs to come first. I don't want you hurt or...worse trying to save someone else. Tommy makes things complicated, but we still have dreams and I still want them."
She felt his leg press against hers.
"Do you know what I'm thinking about?" she asked suddenly.
"Almost never," he answered honestly.
Clara rolled over so she was laying on his shoulder. At first he tensed, but then she felt him relax and his hand came up to trail along her back. "I read an article about a company in Ohio making steel kitchen cabinets. I saved it for you. They are apparently much easier to clean than wood cabinets, and considering what I'm like in the kitchen I thought those might be a good idea for us. I've certainly decided this month I want a sink with a built-in drainboard. I don't understand how people wash dishes without getting water everywhere."
Living among Clara's things, he had new thoughts about the amount of storage they would need. If their wedding presents from her friends were all going to be silver things for their table, they'd need places to keep them.
Clara's leg was now between his. He should push her away, he didn't want to want her on a night like tonight, but he also wanted to forget. As she climbed on top of him he chose forgetfulness.
Jimmy dropped another empty bottle to the floor. He should go to bed, try to spend some with Tommy tomorrow, he thought. After lunch, but that's what Clara was for, right? Getting Tommy up and starting his day.
He stumbled upstairs and stopped to look in at Tommy, tucked in and holding his stuffed cow. Who had done that, Richard or Clara? He should have come up and tucked him in. He really needed to do more, but wasn't it better if Tommy really didn't remember him? Just let him get used to having Richard and Clara care for him?
As he shut Tommy's door and stumbled towards the small guest room, he heard Clara whimper, and then he heard the rhythmic squeak of bedsprings.
Jesus Christ, he thought and fled to his room, going straight to the top dresser drawer, where he had more of Luciano's samples. Also there were spoons he bought at Woolworth's because Clara wouldn't shut up about burnt spoons. You'd think she bought them the way she carried on. An old tie tight around his bicep, the slide of the needle, and then blessed blankness.
The tie was still around his arm when he went to sleep.
The house was quiet when Richard returned. Jimmy was at his father's house, meeting with those still involved with the ruins of the conspiracy. It meant Clara was left without a vehicle, but she had insisted she was going to stay at the house and try to finish her book.
Standing in the sunroom he could see their towels on the sand and Clara and Tommy playing in the surf. They both looked happy. He wanted to go to them but decided to start dinner. They'd be hungry when they came in.
Even with the ocean breeze coming in it was still warm. He took off his jacket, vest, and tie, and rolled up his sleeves before opening the icebox and seeing about dinner. The mask was bothering him. He'd hear Clara bringing Tommy in, he decided. He could take it off.
Dinner was well underway when he heard someone outside the house. He had a split second to decide between grabbing his gun or grabbing the mask. The gun. Leaving the kitchen he crept through the service porch door and went towards the beachside of the house to make sure no one got near Clara and Tommy. One man stood looking towards them, and Richard couldn't see his face. The man didn't know Richard was near him until the barrel of the Glock pressed against his head.
"Harrow," an Irish voice said.
Damn it, Richard thought. He lowered the gun and covered his face.
"Mr. Thompson is here to see his daughter. Are you going to shoot us?"
"You shouldn't. Creep around. The house. I'll let you in the front door."
Richard went back through the kitchen, slid his mask on and turned the burners off.
Nucky Thompson glowered at him from the front door. It was the first time Richard had seen him since he and Clara married. Richard had wanted to go to Mr. Thompson and tell him in person about marrying Clara, tell him that he would always do his best to take care of her, and apologize for not asking him in advance.
Clara's eyes flashed when he told her. "No thank you. I don't require my father's permission to get married. No one expected me to trek to Wisconsin and ask your father, did they? So why would you need to ask my father about something I'm quite capable of deciding for myself?"
Jimmy looked at him like he had just started speaking Russian. "Jesus, Rich, are you trying to make Clara a widow? You can't go to Nucky's. It's amazing you and the Irishman didn't end up in a shootout when you went to get her. Let Clara handle this. There's enough going on with Nucky."
"Mmm. Mr. Thompson, please. Come in."
"I see this farce is continuing," Nucky said, gesturing towards Richard's left hand.
"I'm sorry. I didn't ask..." Richard started.
"Why? So I could have told you no to what's left of your face?"
The Irishman coughed but Richard could hear the barely disguised laughter. The side door creaked open.
"Richard's home!" Tommy's voice reverberated through the half-empty rooms. Another voice could barely be heard answering him. "'Cause dinner smells good!"
Tommy ran in wearing only a towel. "Clara says she has to wash the salt out of her hair. I helped Clara and was good all day but I didn't get one Oreo for lunch so can we make shortred cookies?"
Tommy stopped and stepped closer to Richard, who put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "You're Clara's daddy," he said finally after staring at Nucky.
"That's right," Nucky said, using the affable voice he saved for children and voters.
"My name is Thompson like yours. Clara lived with you in a big hotel and we ate waffles in her room when her name was Thompson but now it's not."
"Yes, Clara used to live with me," Nucky answered. "But now she lives with you."
The look Nucky shot Richard when he said this made Richard squirm.
Tommy nodded. "Uh-huh. She and Richard live in the guest room and I always have to knock I can never open the door, never, unless they say it's okay because married people need pirates and even if I hear a noise Richard says do not open unless they say I can. And you took a long time to say okay the other night," Tommy said, looking up at Richard accusingly. "The hall is dark and I heard Clara talking but no one said okay come in and my cow was scared."
The door to the beach squeaked again before anyone could answer him. "You're home," Clara called out. "That smells delicious, much better than what I was going to cook, I'm positively famished because…"
Clara came around the corner wearing only the underpiece of her swimsuit, having hung her swim dress and stockings with Tommy's swimsuit to dry, and she was using her towel to dry her hair.
Sleater once more tried to hide his amusement. Here he was, ready to go into battle with Mr. Thompson's feared enemies, and so far they'd walked into a picture from Ladies Home Journal. Quite the little domestic scene. Who knew, though, that Clara Thompson was hiding such great tits?
Why the hell was her father and Owen Sleater standing in the beach house, with Richard in his shirtfront, his mask askew, Clara wondered as she forced her face into a pleasant social mask and wrapped the towel around her body.
"Father, Mr. Sleater," Clara said in her brightest social voice, walking towards Richard and Tommy.
"Is this how you parade yourself?" Nucky snapped at her.
"We were hardly expecting company," Clara responded evenly. She kissed the side of Richard's mouth. "Let me get changed and we can talk. Come, Tommy. Let's go upstairs."
"But I'm hungry," he whined.
"We'll eat soon enough," Clara said and took Tommy by the arm. "I'll be right back."
Clara all but dragged Tommy up the stairs behind her. She convinced Tommy that being able to play with his soldiers before dinner was a great treat, and then promised they would read more of Princess of Mars and that yes, Richard would read the Martian parts and he could skip his bath if he would just get his pajamas on. She then quickly yanked on a step-in and pulled a chambray summer housedress over her head, ignoring the fact her skin was still damp. She stepped into her straw flats and tied a scarf like a headband around her head to hold her wet hair off her face, put her rings on, and raced from the room.
"Clara?" Tommy stood in the hallway.
"Kiddo, go play with your soldiers! We'll eat dinner soon."
"Is this the game?" Tommy asked seriously.
Clara stopped. "Tommy, no. We just need to talk about grown-up things, and then my father will leave and we will eat dinner."
"If your Daddy said my name would I stop hiding?"
Clara bit her lip and leaned down to his height. "Absolutely not. Your daddy, Richard, me. That's it. Those are the only people you ever stop playing the game for."
"So what would it take to make this go away?" Nucky asked when they were seated in the living room.
"Jimmy wants. To make things right. Wi-"
Nucky glared. "James can speak for himself. What will it take to make you go away before Clara's life is permanently ruined?"
Richard swallowed and looked down at his hands.
"It's not like this is a real marriage," Nucky continued. "You could end it and Clara's life would go on as it should. This would just be a little aberration. You wouldn't even need a divorce, just an annulment. It would be like this never happened. "
Nucky pulled something from his jacket pocket. "You'd have to leave Atlantic City, of course. For both your sakes. I'm not a cruel man, Harrow. I'm willing to pay. I'm willing to pay quite a lot so that you can both have the futures that are rightfully yours. Clara isn't going to be happy playing poor for long, she'll want the life she was born into. And you'll tire of this, won't you? You'll want to go back to the farm? Can you imagine Clara on a farm? She's never known a life without electricity, without ease." Nucky opened his checkbook and started writing. "I know farms have suffered since the end of the war. This should help either right your family farm or purchase one of your own. There must be some other girl that will take you on, one better suited for the life you were meant to lead."
The truth of Nucky's words ate at Richard. He couldn't imagine Clara in Plover. Maybe this was all just some rich girl's lark. But still, Clara wasn't a commodity to be traded.
"Do you think. I'd leave Clara for. Money?" Richard said, his anger rising.
"I certainly hope not," Clara said from the hallway in a deadly calm voice. "Trying to buy off my husband, Father?"
Richard's posture was absolutely perfect, his hands were still, and his eye was bright. He's absolutely furious, Clara thought and was glad he hadn't believed whatever poison her father was spewing. She moved over to the sofa and put her hand on top of Richard's and squeezed.
"This is obviously a family discussion. Could you ask your henchman to wait outside?" she asked, not breaking eye contact with her father.
"Will you ask yours to leave," Nucky asked, gesturing towards Richard.
"Richard is my family," Clara said pointedly.
Nucky glared at her. "How long is this going to continue, Clara?"
"Assuming we live to be seventy? About forty-five more years."
"How adorable you'll be. Three-quarters of your faces will be elderly, and then one-half of his will forever be frozen in time."
"How lucky for me that I'll always be able to see the man I fell in love with whenever I look at him, no matter how old we get."
Nucky shook his head. "I'm supposed to be happy about this, after you snuck around, lied…"
"No. I told you in March that I loved Richard, well before I even told him," Clara said heatedly.
"That most certainly never happened…"
"Yes, it did. We were having dinner at Margaret's and you accused me of being in love with Jimmy and then decided I was in love with Mr. Sleater, although I wasn't even aware of his existence! That's when I told you I was in love with Richard."
"Anyone in their right mind would have thought you were joking!" Nucky yelled, his control slipping for a moment.
"Margaret didn't think I was joking!" Clara only just stopped herself from telling about the trip to New York.
"It is time you end this delusion!"
Clara stood up, her cheeks flaming. "It's time I end my delusion! My God, Father, I've never known anyone with as little self-awareness as you possess. Has it ever occurred to you that you've recreated our family with three substitutes! You don't think that I see how much Margaret looks like Mother, how she's smart and clever like Mother? But how much nicer for you that Margaret doesn't share Mother's melancholy and terrible habit of miscarrying all over the upholstery. You don't think I see how Teddy is Jimmy remade? And while the only thing Emily and I share is curly hair, she's the daughter you'd like to have had, quiet and biddable."
"How dare you," Nucky began.
Everyone was distracted by a noise coming from the porch. Richard and Owen both moved quickly as Jimmy came through the door.
"Nucky, I'm glad you are here," Jimmy said, taking in the obviously tense scene. "You can wait outside," he said to the man that must be the Irishman Clara and Richard had both complained about. "It's okay, I used to do your job."
"You're the reason I do it now," Sleater replied, refusing to move.
"It's fine. And Harrow, I understand you are now apparently Clara's family, but perhaps I'm still allowed to speak to my daughter and James without your interference?" Nucky said in a voice dripping in sarcasm.
Clara glared but nodded at Richard. In the end, it's this she thought. Jimmy and I are in a fight with Father and only we can stop it. Well, Uncle Eli as well. Did her father know what was in the letter Willie brought her, that Eli was out of jail and confined to his house?
"You want to make things right with me? Convince Clara to get an annulment," Nucky said to Jimmy.
Clara and Jimmy looked at each other. Clara took a deep breath. "Father, I'm not getting an annulment. First, I don't want one. I know you don't understand, but I love Richard. He loves me. And second, there are no grounds for an annulment."
"Of course there are grounds, Clara. Luckily you had enough sense not to get married in the Church. A quick civil annulment and it's like it never happened. It hasn't happened. This is not a real marriage, Clara..."
"How is it not a real marriage? Because you didn't arrange it?"
"Must I spell it out for you?"
Jimmy looked between Nucky and Clara, and Clara drew a deep breath. She rather wanted to throw something at her father's smug face. That, however, would do nothing but make her feel better.
"Father, I wish for us to be friends. I do not want to quarrel with you. But I'm married to Richard. In every way, and that's not going to change."
"You want me to believe that?"
"Would you like the details?" Clara snapped back.
"Jesus, Nuck," Jimmy said softly. "Please stop before she starts telling us details."
"I won't allow my daughter to throw her life away."
"Won't allow it? Marrying Darcy would've been throwing my life away."
"Don't think you'll get any more money," Nucky threatened.
"I don't want any of your money! I just want you to let us fix what is broken between us."
"Your life will be very different, Clara."
"Marvelous."
Nucky turned and looked out the window. "Why, Clara? Out of every damn man on the planet, why him?"
"Perhaps because I don't want my children's relationship with their father to always feel like a chess match played at knifepoint! Maybe because he never makes me feel like I have to earn his love by being the best accordion-playing monkey on the Boardwalk!"
Jimmy sucked air through his teeth, and for a moment Nucky looked like he had been slapped.
"Children? Will they come out wearing little tin masks with mustaches painted on, or will the masks be part of their layette?"
Jimmy grabbed Clara's arm and squeezed. She looked at her feet and tried to regain her composure.
"I'm sorry about Angela," Nucky said to change the subject.
"I'm still looking for Manny Horvitz. He came looking for me, found her instead."
Manny fucking Horwitz, Nucky thought. Mickey Doyle was a never-ending nightmare, and Doyle offering to broker a meet with Horwitz was yet another complication, but one Nucky couldn't refuse. That disgusting man, whose vest didn't even fit properly, calmly talking about how he killed Angela Darmody. Here, in this house, where Clara now slept. Angela, who had nothing to do with James's business, who was always so grateful for his help, who looked like he had slapped when he ignored her on the Boardwalk back at the start of summer. Women and children were supposed to be sacrosanct. And yet Margaret had been shot at, the d'Alessios had tried to snatch Clara off the street, and Angela was murdered.
But Nucky knew he was going to make a deal with Manny Horwitz because more than anything Nucky wanted James dead. James, who according to Horwitz, had betrayed him yet again and made a deal behind his back with Waxey Gordon.
"I haven't ever heard of him, but I'll let you know if I hear anything," Nucky said smoothly
"Jimmy killed his father to save you," Clara said seriously, trying to swing the conversation back onto the path she and Jimmy wished to take.
"I should have killed him the moment he suggested betraying you. I thought about it, you know since I was a kid. Killing him. I don't know what stopped me."
"He was your father, James, nothing looms larger," Nucky responded, staring at Clara and James and trying not to see them as children.
"He told me I was a good son. Knocked the wind out of me," Jimmy said, lighting a cigarette, unable to meet Nucky's gaze.
You were the one Jimmy needed to tell him, Clara thought furiously. The Commodore was his father by a horrid biological trick. You raised him. As far as that goes, I wouldn't have minded hearing I was a good daughter.
"I know there's nothing I can say, Nuck. But maybe there's something I can do."
"How about telling the truth?" Nucky said furiously.
"I was angry."
"About what?" Nucky asked.
Perhaps the fact you prostituted his twelve-year-old mother out to an elderly man and he's the result of that rape? Clara thought. It's why I can't hate Gillian fully, as much as I want too.
"Who I was. Who you are. What I went through. Over there." Jimmy passed Clara his cigarette and lit another. He saw the tension on her face. She gave him a tiny nod.
"The shooting, I never meant for that to happen, Nuck."
"Then why did it?" Nucky asked, unable to keep the emotion out of his voice. How could you, James, Nucky thought. I did care for you as I did for Clara, I couldn't wait to see all your promise fulfilled. Look at the two of you standing here, even now you make more sense together than James ever did with poor Angela or Clara does with Harrow. If you two had let yourselves grow up you would be a formidable couple. Clara could smooth over James's rough edges like Mabel smoothed over his. And how could you, Clara. He tried to kill me and here you are in his house.
Neither answered him.
"You said you wanted to talk and suddenly you two have nothing to say."
"It was Eli," James said.
"It was Gillian," Clara said at the same time.
They glared at each other, and Nucky almost laughed at the ridiculousness.
"Let me make things right. Or as right as they can be," Jimmy said earnestly, and Clara nodded along.
"Perhaps you should go check on Tommy," Nucky said to Clara.
Clara made eye contact with Jimmy and left the room.
Jimmy grinned a little. Only Clara could boss him around silently. Time for him to help her, he thought. "Richard loves her, Nuck. She's important to him. All the things that drive us crazy about her, he likes. And she loves him." Jimmy took a long drag off his cigarette. "Clara doesn't talk to people, you know? She makes polite conversation. Even people like Rebecca Spencer, Clara's known her since we were kids and Rebecca thinks Clara is her friend. But Clara's never really talked to her, not really. But from that first day with Richard, she really talked to him. She even told him about Mabel. I know it looks unusual, but they are good together. You should see 'em with Tommy. Jesus, Nuck, you can just see them moving to some small city, having a batch of kids, and Clara terrorizing the city council."
Nucky lit a cigarette. James's impassioned speech bit at him. Was he right? Somehow, did Harrow fit with Clara? No, it was nonsense. Nonsense just like everything else James had thought since he enlisted. But he could pretend, Nucky thought. Just like he was going to pretend forgiveness was at hand and get James to start cleaning up the mess he made.
"There is something you can do for me," Nucky said, willing to use anyone and say anything to save himself.
Nucky was silent as Owen drove them to the house. Fuck he missed the Ritz. He'd enjoy sitting in his office, listening to the Boardwalk from a distance, no one in the suite but Eddie bringing him drinks and Clara off in her room, up to God knows what. Perhaps he shouldn't have left it to God and kept a closer watch himself, he thought. As they drove he realized he wouldn't even get to enjoy watching the chaos of the strike. James's gambit with Chalky White had worked. The strike was over. Thank god James was lost in a haze of stupidity, self-incrimination, and grief, Nucky realized. Because the boy was holding a winning hand, he was just too foolish to realize it.
The house was quiet when they arrived, and Nucky went looking for Margaret. His plan needed Jimmy, but it largely hinged on Margaret. If she didn't agree to marry him she could be compelled to testify, and he knew her towering Catholic guilt would drive her to confess not only all that she knew but all that she thought she knew. She was sitting knitting in the basement kitchen, trying to escape the heat in front of the new fans he'd put on every flat surface in the house.
He scripted his words carefully. About faith. About religion. About how he fulfilled his duty to God by caring, protecting, and providing for his family. He acknowledged the pain she was in, and how they could still work through it. He told her how much he adored her. Adored their family. That everything he loved was within the walls of their house.
"I've done bad things, horrible things, but I convinced myself they were justified. I can see how wrong that was. God or no God. No one is sorrier than I am. I'm afraid, Margaret, I don't want to die or spend the rest of my life in jail. I'd never admit that to anyone but you."
The tea kettle whistled, and Margaret walked to the range. "What of Clara?"
"I've lost her forever."
Your choice, Margaret thought. "Because she married Mr. Harrow? Daughters have made worse marriages."
"But she could have made better and at a better time," Nucky said, watching her make tea.
"You are always surprising," she told him and walked upstairs without the tea. Everyone he loves is within this house, she thought, but what of your first two children on the outside whom you shed so easily? When do you shed us?
Back at the beach house, Jimmy made a point to come out and eat dinner with Tommy when Nucky left. Tommy was angry about being sent upstairs, but the rare treat of eating with his father calmed his nerves. Clara arranged the chairs in the kitchen so she could eat with Richard while still giving him privacy. Dinner was indeed much better than anything she was capable of making.
"I'm sorry about my father," Clara said finally.
"He just. Loves you and wants. What's best for you," Richard said, and Clara heard the click in his throat, which meant he was upset.
"No, he doesn't. He wants what he thinks is best for me, which is rather a different thing. What's best for me is you, and leaving Atlantic City behind us." Before it destroys us, she thought.
"Richard, can I borrow Clara?" Jimmy asked when dinner was over.
"I'll put. Tommy to bed."
They walked outside and he lit a cigarette. Sitting on the beach, they passed it back and forth silently. It almost feels like high school, Clara thought.
"I thought Nuck was going to keep pushing you until you started sharing details," Jimmy said drily.
Clara laughed. "I'm perplexed why he thinks a facial injury means we can't, you know..."
Jimmy snorted. "He should try living with you." Even in the dark, he could see Clara blush. "It's not that bad. I just didn't know Richard's name had so many syllables in it," he teased.
"Dear God," Clara said, wondering if she should fashion a gag out of a scarf.
"You and Nuck'll get through this. He'll get used to the idea, you'll have a baby, he won't be able to resist the siren call of a grandchild."
Clara didn't answer.
"Leander Whitlock asked, are you happy about the money?" Jimmy asked.
Clara looked puzzled. "I received payment for the Bobbsey Twins book, is that what he means?"
Jimmy shrugged. "I didn't have time to ask, because of Ma. But I don't think he meant your book. Looks like I'll eventually get the Commodore's estate, though. I made a deal with Ma, that if she leaves Tommy alone I'll let her live at the house. It'll be a minute before all the money is free, though."
They smoked in silence for a little longer.
"Nuck has a plan," Jimmy said finally. "It's the only way, Clara."
"I don't think I'm going to like this much," Clara answered, anxiety making her stomach clench.
"It's not as bad as it could be. He has to get Margaret to marry him, and Neary's gotta rescind his accusations against Nuck and cast the blame for the election interference on Eli."
"Uncle Eli?" Clara asked. "He has eight children, but he's going to take the fall?"
"That's between Eli and Nucky."
Clara bristled. No, she thought, it was wrong. She thought back over Jimmy's words.
"How are you going to convince Alderman Neary?" she asked, already afraid of the answer.
"Acting Treasurer Neary," Jimmy said. He couldn't look at Clara. Neary was far from the worst. He'd been sympathetic over Angela. He'd been kind to Jimmy back when Jimmy was just a kid following Nucky around. "It's going to be his suicide note, Clara."
"We've known him our whole lives, Jimmy," Clara breathed out.
"Would you rather Nuck go to the chair?"
Jimmy reached for the cigarette.
"Light another," she said.
It was a blistering hot morning in Atlantic City. Across the city, people carried on with their lives. In one mansion, the children had been awakened, dressed, and fed by their new nanny. The man the boy still thought of as their new father took them to the side yard to work with the little girl, who was still trying to become accustomed to her leg braces, still trying to relearn to walk on legs she could no longer quite feel.
The cheers of the boy and the man as they encouraged her drifted up to the open windows of the master bedroom, where the mistress of the house slept. Margaret Schroeder walked to the window in her nightgown and regarded the scene unnoticed. Nucky was good with them, she thought. He was good with them when he tried, but that was more than most men were capable of, as she knew all too well. Yesterday he had told her he loved her and the children and asked her to marry him. But not out of love, but because he needed her to save him from the electric chair. He needed her to save him from the consequences of ordering the murder of her husband, of her children's natural father. She had said no.
She was reconsidering. How could she take them away from this life, she wondered. Emily would always have medical bills. Her children had known what was like to be hungry, to be cold, to go without. They knew what it was like to fear their father coming home. Whatever Nucky's faults, and there were many, the children never feared him. Did Clara, did Jimmy a voice whispered in her head, but she pushed the thought away. Clara and Jimmy were adults who had been caught up in a war and were spoiled and rebellious. Even if Nucky's relationship with Teddy and Emily soured, that would be in the future. First, they'd have years of...this. Years of plenty. Years of being a wealthy, respected family.
But the only way for them to keep what they had, these riches she had traded her body for, was for her to take a final step. Confess her sins. All of them. For a moment she could feel Owen's hand tracing up her thigh, the feel of his chest hair rubbing against her bosom. That too was a sin. That too she would have to give up. She closed her eyes against the image of Owen's body over hers, the feelings only he had ever wrung from her. What went on between her and Nucky was different. But this was the step she must make, she told herself. To save Nucky. To save their financial stability. To ensure her children's futures.
Margaret chose her dress with care and stepped into the bath.
Across town, in a house by the beach, another young woman attended to her newfound domestic responsibilities. She also awakened to the sound of the man she loved caring for the child in their keeping. Richard had slid out of bed, gotten Tommy dressed, and was feeding him breakfast by the time she made it downstairs. Jimmy was also eating breakfast with the boy, and the fact he was up and dressed so early twisted her heart. Even before he shot her a meaningful look, even before Richard barely kissed her goodbye, she knew what they would do when they left. The cost of what they were trying to do was staggering, but she didn't see another way out. The cost of failure would crush them all.
"Clara, can we swim?" Tommy asked her.
She closed her eyes and forced herself to focus. "This afternoon, absolutely. But we have errands to run this morning."
"The library?" the boy asked hopefully.
"Of course," she answered. "We both need to exchange our books."
First, though she had other tasks to accomplish, like calling in the lists to the grocer and the greengrocer so they could get deliveries today. Most importantly, though, she'd finished the last pass of her manuscript last night, so she packed it up, piled Tommy and their books into the car, and drove to the post office to mail Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence to the Stratemeyer Syndicate office in Manhattan. That done, she and Tommy headed to the Carnegie library.
As Clara and Tommy approached the library on Pacific Avenue, a Model T, much like Richard and Clara's, much like Jimmy's, much like so many other Model Ts on the road, parked in the driveway of a neighboring house to the Darmody beach house. The occupants of the car knew that the neighbors were out of town for the week. The occupants of the car set their sights on the beach house.
Richard and Jimmy ran through the plan one more time as they staked out City Hall.
Nucky looked at his watch. The children were playing a game at the table. How many more times would he be able to lookover and see the children, he wondered.
Margaret walked out wearing a white lace dress, more suitable for a garden party than a morning at home.
"Tell Mr. Sleater to bring the car," she directed. "We are going to church. I'm going to make a full confession..."
Nucky looked up sharply, "Margaret, we've been through this. You can not…"
"I'm going to make a full confession and be absolved of my sins. And then Father Brennan is going to marry us."
He was saved, he thought. Once married she couldn't testify against him. James was taking care of Neery. The prosecutor's case was about to implode right in her plain little face.
"Thank you," he said simply before heading upstairs to change.
Another Ford, one with a gouge on the side, pulled up in front of City Hall. The driver parked the car carefully. Close to the main entrance, but parked so as to not draw attention. One man moved with a distinctive limp, the other carefully arranged his jacket to disguise what was in his holster and his waistband. They both strode down the hallway with purpose.
The secretary wasn't at her desk outside the interim City Treasurer's office, so no one stopped them from busting straight in. They found the secretary bent over the desk with the Alderman with his pants down behind her pumping away.
"Go take a coffee break, don't come back," Jimmy instructed the secretary, who in her hurry to get away from the left her bloomers laying under Neery's desk.
"What the hell?" Neery asked as he attempted to pull his pants back up.
"Nucky sent us," Jimmy answered. "We've all made some mistakes this year. It's time to correct them."
Margaret confessed all of her sins. There were so many, she thought. No wonder God struck at her through Emily. She was now atoning, she thought. She was offering up her love and desire for Owen, the only man she'd truly desired since she was sixteen years old, so she could properly provide for children. Even if God couldn't understand, the Blessed Mother would surely intervene on behalf of a mother willing to do anything to care for her children, to make up for the chaos and pain of their earliest years.
Clara kneeled on the floor of the library and tried to focus on helping Tommy choose picture books. He's four, she thought, it's time I start teaching him his letters. Mother had Jimmy and I reading when we weren't much older. She found a book entitled My ABC Book of Ships that intrigued Tommy with its cover. That will be a good start, she thought. Tommy looked at it while she chose her own books.
"You don't have to do this," Owen whispered to Margaret as she stood in the vestibule of the church, waiting on Father Brennan to finish preparing for the ceremony. Nucky was on the phone with a local judge, getting an emergency marriage license.
"But I do," Margaret answered and steeled herself as she walked into the sanctuary and prepared to become Mrs. Enoch Thompson.
When they arrived home the grocery order was sitting on the porch..
"Did you get Oreos?" Tommy asked.
"Of course I did! Go upstairs, take your shoes off, put your books away, wash your hands, and then come down for lunch."
It was so hot that after dragging the groceries in she poured a glass of lemonade and drank half of it before she did anything else. She washed her own hands, took out two plates, cut four pieces of bread off the fresh loaf, and took the ham and mustard from the ice box. She pulled the tin of Saratoga Chips from the delivery box and put some on each plate.
Father Brennan began the marriage service. Both participants stared straight ahead. Nucky couldn't help but think of Mabel. He had been so nervous, so excited. Wanting Mabel had been a part of soul since he was thirteen. Standing there, watching her come down the aisle, it had felt like a dream. Like he couldn't possibly be so lucky that he was going to actually get to marry her. He smiled at Margaret. He knew he was lucky she was marrying him, but for different reasons. She was saving him from prison, from the chair. And he wasn't a young man any longer. His own daughter was married.
Clara, married. He'd always assumed her wedding would be here, with an archbishop officiating, with Clara in some frothy white gown ordered from Worth in Paris. He would give her away and think of the little girl with skinned knees who always ate the toast off his plate. Instead, she'd ran off the Elkton like common trash with someone she should have never even noticed. Did it without consulting him or his timetable. As per usual, she destroyed his plans with nary a concern.
Margaret was promising to obey. Any woman in his life obeying would be a welcome change.
The man in the backseat of the Model T drummed his fingers against his knee. He could delay no longer. Clara and the boy had walked into the house ten minutes ago. Time for the boy to be settled with some little kid nonsense and hopefully stay out of their way. He hadn't decided what he'd do if the boy interfered. He hoped he wouldn't have to decide.
"Let's go," he told the other men and they rolled the car closer to the beach house
Acting Treasurer Neary was trapped between Richard, who stood behind him with a Glock pressed against the back of his head, and Jimmy, who leaned against the desk and dictated exactly what the letter should say. The man pecked out the letter on a portable typewriter much like Clara's. Finally it was finished. Neery handed it to Jimmy to read over, and Jimmy nodded and handed it back for Neery to sign. The letter was word for word exactly what Nucky had asked for.
"What good is a confession signed at gunpoint?" Neery asked, weary of dealing with Jimmy, weary of it all. He was ready for Nucky to be dealt with, and then they'd overthrow Prince James here.
Jimmy pushed Neery so that the office chair tilted back. "It's not a confession," he said, holding the man in place.
Richard moved quickly. "It's a suicide note." The gun was in Neery's mouth almost before he realized what was happening.
Clara was cutting Tommy's sandwich into quarters when she heard the knock at the door. The greengrocer, she thought. Good, they could have something cold for dinner tonight. Upstairs, she heard Tommy banging around and singing the odd version of "Over There" Jimmy sometimes sang. Luckily, Tommy was skipping the more off color words.
When she saw a familiar face through the sidelight glass she smiled. "What are you doing here?" she asked as she opened the door.
"I now declare you man and wife," Father Brennan intoned. Owen Sleater looked at his feet while Nucky leaned over and gave Margaret a perfunctory peck on the lips.
Richard and Jimmy moved quickly to the car. As they climbed in, Jimmy said the words Richard had been expecting. "I feel like a steak. Let's go to the Knife and Fork."
Tommy was in front of his toy chest, holding the My ABC Book of Ships from the library and trying to find his toy boats so he could look for them in the book. He heard Clara talking, and thought she was calling him for lunch. He picked up his cow and walked into the hallway. He hadn't yet washed his hands, and he knew Clara would check when he came downstairs. Clara used to be more fun. Now she was always looking at his fingernails and asking about socks. But Clara was talking to a dark haired man who was standing on the porch, not looking up the stairs at him.
Suddenly Clara screamed and it scared Tommy so much he froze where he stood. Something crashed to the floor, and Tommy heard a man's voice saying bad words.
"The Game! The Game!" Clara yelled loudly. Tommy was still frozen as Clara's words turned into wordless screams.
"You little bitch," a man's voice yelled.
Tommy remembered the game, and ran into Richard and Clara's room. He crawled under the bed, holding onto his cow, laying all the way in the back against the wall. He hadn't sucked his thumb for a very long time, but as Clara's screams grew more distant and he vaguely heard the sound of a car starting he began again. Clara had said only Richard, Daddy, or her. So he waited and waited and didn't understand why Clara didn't come back.
He waited as the ice Clara put into glasses for their lunch melted and the ham left out on the counter grew warm. He waited until the sound of Clara's screams were just a memory. He tried to be good and quiet, just like she told him the game was played, but the longer Clara was gone the more scared he became. Finally he started crying, and he cried until he fell asleep wedged under the guest room bed of the Darmody beach house.
