Jennifer loved holding Joshua, bathing and diapering him, taking him for airings in his shiny new perambulator. She talked to him constantly, and when Joshua was four weeks old he rewarded her with a smile. Not gas, Jennifer thought happily. A smile!
The first time Ken Bailey saw the baby, he stared at it for a long time. With a feeling of sudden panic, Jennifer thought, He’s going to recognize it. He’s going to know it’s Adam’s baby.
But all Ken said was, “He’s a real beauty. He takes after his mother.”
She let Ken hold Joshua in his arms and she laughed at Ken’s awkwardness. But she could not help thinking, Joshua will never have a father to hold him.
Six weeks had passed and it was time to go back to work. Jennifer hated the idea of being away from her son, even for a few hours a day, but the thought of returning to the office filled her with excitement. She had completely cut herself off from everything for so long. It was time to re-enter her other world.
She looked in the mirror and decided the first thing she had to do was get her body back in shape. She had been dieting and exercising since shortly after Joshua’s birth, but now she went at it even more strenuously, and soon she began to look like her old self.
Jennifer started to interview housekeepers. She examined them as though each one was a juror: she probed, looking for weaknesses, lies, incompetence. She interviewed more than twenty potential candidates before she found one she liked and trusted, a middle-aged Scotswoman named Mrs. Mackey, who had worked for one family for fifteen years and had left when the children had grown up and gone away to school.
Jennifer had Ken check her out, and when Ken assured her that Mrs. Mackey was legitimate, Jennifer hired her.
A week later Jennifer returned to the office.
30
Jennifer Parker’s sudden disappearance had created a spate of rumors around Manhattan law offices.
When word got out on the grapevine that Jennifer was back, the interest was enormous. The reception that Jennifer received on the morning she returned kept swelling, as attorneys from other offices dropped by to visit her.
Cynthia, Dan and Ted had hung streamers across the room and a huge Welcome Back sign. There was champagne and cake.
“At nine o’clock in the morning?” Jennifer protested.
But they insisted.
“It’s been a madhouse here without you,” Dan Martin told her. “You’re not planning to do this again, are you?”
Jennifer looked at him and said, “No. I’m not planning to do this again.”
Unexpected visitors kept dropping in to make sure Jennifer was all right and to wish her well.
She parried questions about where she had been with a smile and “We’re not allowed to tell.”
She held conferences all day with the members of her staff. Hundreds of telephone messages had accumulated.
When Ken Bailey was in Jennifer’s office alone with her, he said, “You know who’s been driving us nuts trying to reach you?”
Jennifer’s heart leaped. “Who?”
“Michael Moretti.”
“Oh.”
“He’s weird. When we wouldn’t tell him where you were, he made us swear you were all right.”
“Forget about Michael Moretti.”
Jennifer went over all the cases that were being handled by the office. Business was excellent They had acquired a lot of important new clients. Some of the older clients refused to deal with anyone but Jennifer, and were waiting for her return.
“I’ll call them as soon as I can,” Jennifer promised.
She went through the rest of the telephone messages. There were a dozen calls from Mr. Adams. Perhaps she should have let Adam know that she was all right, that nothing had happened to her. But she knew she could not bear hearing his voice, knowing he was close and that she would not be able to see him, touch him, hold him. Tell him about Joshua.
Cynthia had clipped news stories she thought would be of interest to Jennifer. There was a syndicated series on Michael Moretti, calling him the most important Mafia leader in the country. There was a photograph of him and under it the caption, I’m just an insurance salesman.