Sons of Fortune

“Are you pro-women’s choice for everyone except your daughter?” asked Lucy.

“It won’t last,” said Nat, staring at the headline in the Hartford Courant.

“What won’t?” said Su Ling as she poured him another coffee.

“My seven-point lead in the polls. In a few weeks’ time the electorate won’t even remember which one of us was on trial.”

“I guess she’ll still remember,” said Su Ling quietly as she glanced over her husband’s shoulder at a photograph of Rebecca Elliot walking down the courtroom steps, every hair no longer in place. “Why did she ever marry him?” she said almost to herself.

“It wasn’t me who married Rebecca,” said Nat. “Let’s face it, if Elliot hadn’t copied my thesis and prevented me going to Yale, to start with we would never have met,” said Nat, taking his wife’s hand.

“I just wish I’d been able to have more children,” said Su Ling, her voice still subdued. “I miss Luke so much.”

“I know,” said Nat, “but I’ll never regret running up that particular hill, at that particular time, on that particular day.”

“And I’m glad I took the wrong path,” said Su Ling, “because I couldn’t love you any more. But I’d have willingly given up my life if it would have meant saving Luke’s.”

“I suspect that would be true of most parents,” said Nat, looking at his wife, “and you could certainly include your mother, who sacrificed everything for you, and doesn’t deserve to have been treated so cruelly.”

“Don’t worry about my mother,” said Su Ling, snapping out of her maudlin mood. “I went to see her yesterday only to find the shop packed with dirty old men bringing in their even dirtier laundry, secretly hoping that she’s running a massage parlor upstairs.”

Nat burst out laughing. “And to think we kept it secret for all those years. I would certainly never have believed that the day would come when I would be able to laugh about it.”

“She says if you become governor, she’s going to open a string of shops right across the state. Her advertising slogan will be ‘we wash your dirty linen in public.’”

“I always knew that there was some overriding reason I still needed to be governor,” said Nat as he rose from the table.

“And who has the privilege of your company today?” asked Su Ling.

“The good folk of New Canaan,” said Nat.

“So when will you be home?”

“Just after midnight would be my guess.”

“Wake me,” she said.

“Hi, Lucy,” said Jimmy as he strolled into her father’s office. “Is the great man free?”

“Yes, he is,” said Lucy as she rose from her chair.

Jimmy glanced back as she slipped out of the room. Was it his imagination or had she been crying? Fletcher didn’t speak until she’d closed the door. “Good morning, Jimmy,” he said as he pushed the paper to one side, leaving the photograph of Rebecca staring up at him.

“Do you think they’ll arrest her?” asked Jimmy.

Fletcher glanced back down at the photograph of Rebecca. “I don’t think they’ve been left with much choice, but if I were sitting on a jury I would acquit, because I found her story totally credible.”

“Yes, but then you know what Elliot was capable of. A jury doesn’t.”

“But I can hear him saying, If you won’t do it, then I’ll have to kill you, and don’t think I wouldn’t.”

“I wonder if you would have remained at Alexander Dupont and Bell if Elliot hadn’t joined the firm.”

“One of those twists of fate,” said Fletcher, as if his mind were on something else. “So what have you got lined up for me?”

“We’re going to spend the day in Madison.”

“Is Madison worth a whole day?” asked Fletcher, “when it’s such a solid Republican district?”