“Silly?” She turned on him. “You think that's what this is? You think having stuff like that out is silly? You think it's silly to destroy your husband's career and get to the point that your children hate you?”

“They don't hate you. They don't understand. None of us does. It's hard to understand why anyone wants to hurt you.”

“They just do. They've done it all my life. I should be used to it by now. It's no big deal. And don't worry, without me, you should win the election.” She sounded hurt and angry and defeated.

“That's not as important to me as you are,” he said gently.

“Bullshit,” she said, sounding hard. But at that moment she hated herself for everything she'd done to him, for ever loving him, or thinking that she could leave the past behind her. She couldn't leave anything behind. It had all come with her, like clanking tin cans tied to her tail, and they reeked of all that was rotten.

Charles went back downstairs again, thinking that she needed to be alone, and they both spent a lonely night in their separate quarters.

She made breakfast for him and Andrew and Matt the next day, and Charles made a point of telling her again not to go anywhere. He was referring to the night before and the suitcase, but she pretended not to understand, in front of the boys. And then they all left. Charles had a lot of important meetings, and press fires to put out, and he never had time to call her till noon, and when he did there was no answer.

Grace was long gone by then. She had written to each of them the night before, sitting up in bed, crying over the words until her tears blurred her eyes and she had to start again and again, just to tell them how much she loved them and how sorry she was for all the pain that she had caused them. She told them each to take care of Dad, and be good to him. The hardest one to write was to Matt. He was still too young. He probably wouldn't understand why she had left him. She was doing it for them. She was the bait that had brought the sharks, now she had to get as far away from them as possible, so no one would hurt them. She was going to New York for a few days, just to catch her breath, and she left the letters for Charles to give them.

And after New York, she thought she'd go to L.A. She could find a job, until the baby came. She would give it to Charles then … or maybe he'd let her keep it. She was upset and confused and sobbing when she left. The housekeeper saw her go, and heard her wrenching sobs in the garage, but she was afraid to go to her and intrude. She knew what she was crying about or so she thought. She'd cried herself when she'd seen the tabloids.

But Grace didn't take the car. She had called a cab, and waited for it outside the house with her bags. The housekeeper saw the cab pull away, but she wasn't sure who was inside. She thought Grace was still in the garage, getting ready to do some errands before she picked up Matthew. In fact, she had called a friend to pick him up, and she had left a long, agonizing letter for Charles in their bedroom, with the ones for her children.

The cabdriver drove as fast as he could to Dulles Airport, chatting all the while. He was from Iran, and he told her how happy he was in the United States, and that his wife was having a baby. He talked incessantly and Grace didn't bother to listen to him. She felt sick when she saw that he had the picture of her on the cover of Thrill on the front seat of the cab, and he was looking over his shoulder to talk to her, when he ran right into another cab, and then was rear-ended hard, by two cars behind him. It took them more than half an hour to get unsnarled. The highway patrol came, no one appeared to be hurt, so all they had to do was exchange all their numbers, driver's licenses, and the names of their insurance carriers. To Grace, it seemed endless. But she had nowhere to go anyway. She was taking a commuter flight, and she could always catch the next one.

“You all right?” The driver looked worried. He was terrified that somebody would complain to his boss, but she promised she wouldn't. “Hey,” he said, pointing to Thrill as she felt panic rise in her throat, “you look like her!” He meant it as a compliment, but Grace didn't look pleased. “She's a pretty girl, huh? Pretty woman!” He gazed admiringly at the photograph that was supposed to be Grace but somehow didn't seem right whenever she looked at it, “she's married to a congressman,” he continued. “Lucky guy!” Was that how people looked at it, she wondered. Lucky guy? Too bad Charles didn't think so, but who could blame him?

He dropped her off at the airport, and she felt a little twinge in her neck from when they'd been hit, and she felt a little stiff, but it was nothing major. She didn't want to make any trouble for him. And she just managed to catch her flight. It wasn't until after they landed in New York that she realized she was bleeding. But it wasn't too bad. If she could just get to the hotel and rest, she'd be fine. She'd had a few incidents like that with Matt and Andrew when she was pregnant, the doctor had told her to rest, and the bleeding had always stopped quickly.

She gave the cabdriver the address of the Carlyle Hotel on East Seventy-sixth Street and Madison. She had made the reservation from the plane. It was only half a dozen blocks from where she used to live, and she liked it. She had stayed there once with Charles, and she had happy memories there. She had happy memories everywhere with him. Until June, their life had been idyllic.

She checked in at the desk. They were expecting her, and she had registered under the name of Grace Adams. They gave her a small room filled with rose-covered chintz, and the bellboy put down her two bags. She tipped him, and he left, and no one had said how remarkable her resemblance was to the porno queen in the tabloids.

She wondered as she lay down on the bed if Charles had come home by then and found her letter. She knew she wouldn't call. It was better to leave like this, if she called and talked to them at all, especially Charles, or Matt, she knew she couldn't do it.

She was exhausted as she lay on the bed thinking of them, she felt drained and utterly worn out, and her neck still hurt, and she had little nagging cramps low in her abdomen and in her back. She knew it was nothing. She didn't have the strength to go to the bathroom. She just lay there, feeling weak and sad, and slowly the room began to spin around, and eventually she drifted off into the blackness.

She woke again at four a.m., and by this time the cramps she'd felt earlier were really bad. She rolled over, and moaned in pain. She could hardly stand them. She lay there curled up for a long time, and then she looked down at the bed underneath her. It was soaked with blood and so were her slacks. She knew she had to do something soon, before she passed out again. But standing up was so painful, she almost fainted. She grabbed her handbag, and crawled to the door, pulling the raincoat she'd brought tight around her. She staggered out into the hall, and rang for the elevator. She rode downstairs huddled over, but the elevator operators said nothing.

She knew the hospital was only half a block away, and all she had to do was get there in a hurry. She saw the bellmen watching her, and the clerk at the desk, and when she got outside into the warm September air, she felt a little better.

“Cab, miss?” the doorman asked, but she shook her head and tried to straighten up, but she couldn't. A flash of pain made her gasp, and suddenly a cramp of unbelievable strength buckled her knees, as he reached out and caught her. “Are you all right?”

“I'm fine … I just have … a little problem …” At first he thought she was drunk, but when he saw her face, he could see that she was in pain. And she looked vaguely familiar. They had so many regulars and movie stars, sometimes it was hard to know who you knew and who you didn't. “I was just going … to the hospital …”

“Why don't you take a cab? There's one right here. He'll take you right across Park Avenue and drop you off. I'd take you myself, but I can't leave the door,” he apologized, and she agreed to take the cab. She could hardly walk now. The doorman told him Lenox Hill, and she handed the doorman and the driver each five dollars.

“Thanks, I'll be fine,” she reassured everyone, but she didn't look it. After they'd crossed Park Avenue, and pulled into the space for the emergency room, the driver turned to look at her, and at first he didn't see her. She had slipped off the seat, and she was lying on the floor of his cab, unconscious.





Chapter 15

As they wheeled Grace into the emergency room, she saw lights spinning by overhead, and heard noises. There were metallic sounds, and someone called her by her first name. They kept saying it over and over, and then they were doing something terrible to her, and there was awful pain. She tried to sit up and stop them. What were they doing … they were killing her … it was terrible … why didn't they stop … she had never felt so much pain in her life. She screamed, and then everything went black, and there was silence.

The phone rang in the house in Washington. It was five-thirty in the morning. But Charles wasn't asleep. He had been awake all night, praying that she would call him. He'd been such a fool. He had been wrong to react the way he had, but they were all worn down by the constant attack of the tabloids. And it had been a shock. But the last thing he had wanted to do was lose her. He had told the kids she'd gone to New York for a conference for “Help Kids!” and would be back in a few days, which would give him a little time to find her. He wasn't sure where she was. He had tried calling the house in Connecticut all night and she wasn't there. He'd called the Carlyle in New York and there was no one registered by the name of Mackenzie. He wondered if she was at a hotel in Washington somewhere, hiding. And when the phone rang, he hoped it would be her, but it wasn't.