Chapter 9 - The Anatomy of a Clean Slate
Six months later, the spring arrived along the Georgia coast with a sudden, fragrant violence of yellow jasmine, salt marsh grass, and humid breezes blowing off the Atlantic.
The county courthouse in Savannah was built of gray Savannah gray brick, surrounded by live oaks draped in long, ghostly tresses of Spanish moss.
I sat on a wooden bench outside Courtroom 3B, wearing a simple linen sheath dress of pale sage green, my hair cut into a sharp, chin-length bob that moved freely with the warm draft from the open windows at the end of the hall.
My divorce was finalized at ten-fifteen.
It had taken eighteen minutes.
Eric had sat across the aisle from me, flanked by a court-appointed public defender from the legal aid society. He had lost twenty-five pounds. His midnight-blue Brioni tuxedo had been replaced by an off-the-rack poplin suit that hung loosely from his narrow shoulders, the cuffs frayed at the wrists. He didn't have a car; he had arrived on the municipal bus from an extended-stay motel near the interstate.
He had not looked at me once during the proceedings.
When the judge asked if there were any marital assets remaining to be adjudicated, my attorney had simply laid the certified forfeiture decree on the clerk’s desk.
Zero.
Eric had signed the waiver of claims with a five-cent plastic pen, his hand shaking so badly that the bailiff had to steady the clipboard.
The heavy mahogany doors of Courtroom 3B swung open.
Natalie walked out into the corridor.
She was eight months pregnant now. Her scarlet silk was long gone, replaced by a cheap cotton maternity dress that had faded along the seams from too many washings. She had no makeup on; her face was pale, puffy with water retention, her hair pulled back into a ragged ponytail with an elastic band.
She was carrying a plastic grocery bag containing her medical records and two bottles of generic iron supplements.
Beside her walked Eleanor.
My mother looked seventy years old. Her jade rings were gone—sold three months ago to pay the retainer for Marcus’s corporate defense counsel—and she wore an old beige cardigan that had a missing button at the throat.
When Natalie saw me sitting on the wooden bench, she stopped.
Her breath came in short, heavy gasps, her hand resting over the massive curve of her stomach. The doe-eyed helplessness had curdled into an exhausted, hollow defeat.
"Clara," Natalie whispered.
I did not stand up. I sat with my hands resting in my lap, looking at her with the quiet, detached curiosity one might afford an overturned boat on a mudflat.
"The baby is a boy," Natalie choked out, the tears immediately welling in her tired eyes. "The doctors say... they say he has a heart murmur. Marcus won't return my calls, Clara. His lawyer sent me a cease-and-desist letter from Philadelphia. He said if I file a paternity action, he’ll counter-sue for malicious prosecution."
She took two shuffling, uneven steps toward my bench, her plastic grocery bag rustling against her shins.
"I have six hundred dollars left, Clara," she wept. "Dad had to sell the car to pay the property taxes on the house. We’re living on his pension, and the pharmacy won't give me the blood pressure medication without a co-pay. Please... you’re my sister. You have millions now. You have the whole shipping terminal. Just... just five thousand dollars. For the hospital deposit."
I looked at her.
I looked through her flesh, through the tears, through the swollen belly, straight into the dark, hollow core of the girl who had taken the microphone at the Grand St. Regis and told three hundred people: "This time, I won."
"The city hospital on Montgomery Street has a public charity ward, Natalie," I said. My voice was calm, conversational, entirely devoid of malice. "The doctors are residents from Emory. They are very skilled. They don't require a deposit if you present your Medicaid card at the admissions desk."
"Medicaid?" Eleanor shrieked, stepping forward, her aristocratic drawl cracking into a shrill, hysterical fishwife’s wail. "A Carter child in a charity ward? With the common people? Clara, have you lost your Christian mind? Your grandfather was a state senator!"
"My grandfather," I said, standing up from the bench to my full five feet nine inches, "was a farmer who worked sixteen hours a day in the dirt so his daughters wouldn't have to beg. And you sold his land to buy Natalie a boutique that lasted eighteen months."
I looked down into my mother's bitter, ruined face.
"You wanted an heir, Mother," I told her. "You spent ten years telling me that a woman’s only worth was the child she put into the family registry. Well, here is your heir. Raised on county vouchers, delivered in a public ward, carrying the Vance bloodline that Marcus threw into the street."
I picked up my leather portfolio from the bench.
"Do not call my office again, Natalie," I said, looking my sister in her wide, terrified eyes. "And do not come to Brooklyn. If you cross the perimeter of Pier 4, the port police will process you under the federal maritime security statutes. You will spend your third trimester in a holding cell in Elizabeth."
May you like
I turned on my heel and walked down the long, cool marble corridor of the courthouse.
Behind me, Natalie’s ragged weeping echoed off the plaster walls, mingling with Eleanor’s shrill, useless curses, until the heavy brass-mounted double doors of the exterior entrance swung shut, cutting off the noise of the past with the clean, absolute finality of an iron latch falling into place.
