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He was right about that. Sometimes when Eliza found herself exhorting Albie to wash up, she remembered Walter’s criticism of her young hygiene.
Peter asked Blanding: “Does the fact that he’s been given an execution date give us more or less leverage?”
“A little more,” Blanding said, looking pained. He was sad that Walter was going to die, Eliza realized. Was it a personal sadness, a professional one, or a combination? “But not if there’s publicity. If you want to come in there with a reporter, or if you give interviews before or after the fact-they won’t want to have anything to do with you.”
“Mr. Blanding, I’ve spent my entire life avoiding this topic. I wouldn’t want anyone to know that I’ve visited Walter.”
“Oh, people will know,” the lawyer said. “It’s a state agency, but it’s also just another office, where people gossip about anything out of the ordinary. And it’s extremely unusual for a death row inmate to receive a visitor, especially from one of his-” He paused, groping for a word.
“Victims,” Eliza supplied. “But then, I guess that’s the paradox of death row. They don’t tend to have many living victims.”
The lawyer was not particularly handsome, but he had pale blue eyes, made more vivid by his shirt, and a touching earnestness. “Mrs. Benedict, I understand that you are Walter Bowman’s victim. I never forget that. I also don’t allow myself to forget that he killed Holly Tackett and Maude Parrish.”
Maybe more.
“That makes two of us,” she said, and even Peter looked startled at the brittle glibness of her voice, not at all like her, although it was a tone she found herself using more and more with Iso.
“I’ve represented a lot of men on death row,” Blanding said. “They’re not monsters, not a one of them. It would be easier, in some ways, if we could say that of them. They have done monstrous things and most don’t deny that. Some are mentally ill, although they don’t meet the standard that would allow them to plead insanity. Others have IQs so low that it’s hard to imagine how they functioned at all in the world. But they all are capable of remorse, and that’s what most feel. Especially Walter.”
She wanted to believe him. Yet-if Walter had changed, could he answer her other questions? Would he remember the man he was and why he had treated her differently from the others? Assuming there was a new Walter, could he explain the old one?
“Let’s cut to the chase,” Peter asked. “How does she get in to see him?”
Blanding played with a pen and pencil set on his desk, the kind of item that a child gives as a present, thinking it grand. And his coffee mug was a lumpy, garish green thing, made by loving if not terribly skilled hands. “It wouldn’t hurt if you knew someone with some clout in Virginia. Co
Peter stiffened. “I was a journalist before I went into finance. I don’t have those kinds of relationships and I’m still not comfortable with them. I don’t like trading favors.”
“But your bosses, their friends-”
“They don’t know about me,” Eliza said. “About Walter and me.”
“Mrs. Benedict-”
“Eliza, please.”
“My two cents? As the execution approaches, your ability to remain anonymous recedes. I’m not saying you’re wrong to want to live a life that isn’t defined by what happened to you as a teenager. And if you were still in London, or even on the other side of the country, maybe you could do that. Maybe. But the execution is going to shake memories loose, excite interest. People will almost certainly try to track you down through your parents and sister, who haven’t changed their names.”
“You make it sound like I went into hiding,” Eliza said, bristling. She had never denied her past. She simply had chosen not to let it be the single thing that defined her.
“Didn’t you?” Blanding asked, his ma
“No. I shortened my name in high school to avoid…complications. Then I met Peter, and we decided to marry, and, well, do you know your Jane Austen? Can you imagine what it’s like to be wonderfully close to Elizabeth Be
“It seems to me,” Blanding said, “that a woman who loved Austen would be more excited by the prospect of being Elizabeth Darcy.”
This was the moment, small and charged, in which Eliza could tell they were deciding if they were going to be allies or adversaries. She laughed, choosing to be an ally. It was an astute comment, fu
“I’m sorry,” Blanding said. “I didn’t mean to suggest you were hiding. I suppose it’s more correct to say that you don’t wish to be found. Yet sitting in Sussex I, Walter did find you. What makes you think that the Washington Post can’t?”
“I’m not worried about saying no to the Washington Post. I am worried about finding the right way-and time-to talk to my children about this. Our son is already prone to nightmares, and Iso went through this terrible obsession with mortality when she was five or so. There never seems to be a right time to tell them about me.”
“And what will you tell them about the death penalty? Will you say that you agree with the commonwealth of Virginia ’s decision to execute people for certain crimes? Will you inform them that most civilized countries don’t put their own citizens to death?”
“How we parent,” Peter put in, “is a private decision. Do you have children, Mr. Blanding?” He, unlike Eliza, had missed the clues: the pen and pencil set, the coffee mug.
“Two, an eight-year-old and a three-year-old,” he said.
“Well, then you understand that some things are off-limits, not for others to comment upon.”
Blanding started to say something, checked himself. “I’ll do what I can do because I know it’s what Walter wants and I can’t see how it will harm him.” Again, Eliza felt guilty, wondered if the guilt read on her face. She didn’t like deceiving this man. “I don’t expect you to understand this, but I’ve really come to like him. He has such an interesting mind. I like the way he turns over words and phrases. He sees more than most people.”
But what, exactly, does he see? What did he see in me?
Peter and Eliza walked back to the hotel, hand in hand. “I could live in Charlottesville,” he said, but it was the only time either of them spoke during the walk, and he was just making conversation. Eliza didn’t think she could live here, although she didn’t blame Virginia for the memories she had of it. Still, it had been odd, skirting Middleburg on the way here. She could tell she and Peter were both weighed down by the secret they had withheld from Blanding. If Walter did confess to her, Blanding would not think her well intentioned. He might, in fact, believe her to be completely disingenuous, a glory hog who had considered only herself in this enterprise. But she could not allow herself to be affected by what Blanding, or anyone, thought of her. She was doing the right thing for the right reason. Almost.
The children wanted to spend the rest of the afternoon at the indoor pool, delighted as only children can be by the steamy, almost fetid room, with its fogged windows and chlorine smells. Eliza had never really liked swimming. She could do a passable bastard stroke, somewhere between breast and fly, and she was strong enough to swim in the currents of the Atlantic. It had been nice, when Iso was small, to go to the flat, friendly beaches of South Texas, where the steady stream of cars posed far more risk than the lazy wavelets that lapped the shore. But she didn’t really care for water. Whereas Peter was in his element, joining the children in the pool. She admired his body, still trim and athletic despite the fact that he had less time to exercise. She wondered if he still admired hers and decided to decide that he did.
“Mommy. Mommy? Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy?”