Inside the frame was what appeared to be a page from some kind of notepad, charred, dirt marks on it, torn on the upper right edge. There were a bunch of random numbers scratched all over it, and a name.
Karen felt her breath stolen away.
The page read From the desk of Charles Friedman.
The writing on it was Charlie’s.
“Ees a gift?” asked Rita, picking up the wrappings.
Karen nodded, barely able to even speak. “Yes.”
She took it into the sunroom and sat with it on the window seat, rain coming down outside.
It was her husband’s notepad. The stationery Karen had given him herself a few years back. The sheet was torn. The numbers didn’t make sense to her and the name scrawled there was one Karen didn’t recognize. Megan Walsh. A corner of it was charred. It looked as if it had been on the ground for a long time.
But it was Charlie—his writing. Karen felt a tingling sensation all over.
There was a note taped to the frame. Karen pulled it off. It read: I found this, three days after what happened, in the main terminal of Grand Central. It must have floated there. I held on to it, because I didn’t know if it would hurt or help. I pray it helps.
It was unsigned.
Karen couldn’t believe it. On the news she’d heard there were thousands of papers blown all over the station after the explosion. They had settled everywhere. Like confetti after a parade.
Karen fixed intently on Charlie’s writing. It was just a bunch of meaningless numbers and a name she didn’t recognize, scribbled at odd angles. Dated 3/22, weeks before his death. A bunch of random messages, no doubt.
But it was from Charlie. His writing. It was a part of him the day he died.
They had never given her back the piece of his briefcase they’d recovered. This was all she had. Holding it to her, for a moment it was almost as if she felt him there.
Her eyes filled up with tears. “Oh, Charlie …”
In a way it was like he was saying good-bye.
I didn’t know if it would hurt or help, the sender had written.
Oh, yes, it helps. It more than helps…. Karen held it close. A thousand times more.
It was just a jumble of stupid numbers and a name scratched out in his hand. But it was all she had.
She hadn’t been able to cry at his memorial. Too many people. Charlie’s blown-up photo looming above them. And they all wanted it to be upbeat, not sad. She’d tried to be so strong.
But there, sitting by the window, her husband’s writing pressed against her heart, she felt it was okay. I’m here with you, Charlie, Karen thought. She finally let herself really cry.
Down the street a man hunched in a darkened car, rain streaming on the windshield. He smoked as he watched the house and cracked the window a shade to flick the ashes onto the street.
The UPS truck had just left. He knew that what it brought would send things spinning. A short while later, Karen Friedman rushed out, a rain jacket over her head, and climbed into her Lexus.
Things promised to get interesting.
She backed out of the driveway and onto the street, reversed, and headed back toward him. The man hunched lower in the car, the Lexus’s headlights hitting his windshield, glistening sharply in the rain as it went by.
Hybrid, he noted, impressed, watching in the rearview mirror as it went down the block.
He picked up his phone, which was sitting on the passenger seat across from him, next to his Walther P38, punching in a private number. His gaze fell to his hands. They were thick, coarse, workman’s hands.
Time to get them dirty again, he sighed.
“Plan A doesn’t seem to be moving,” he said into the phone when the voice he was expecting finally answered.
“We don’t have forever,” the person on the other end replied.
“Exactamente.” He exhaled. He started his ignition, flicked an ash out the window, and took off at a slow pace, following the Lexus. “I’m already on Plan B.”
One of the things Karen had to deal with in the weeks that followed was the liquidation of Charlie’s firm.
She’d never gotten deeply involved in her husband’s business. Harbor was what was termed “a general limited partnership.” The share agreement maintained that in case the principal partner ever became deceased or unable to perform, the assets of the firm were to be redistributed back to the other partners. Charlie managed a modest-size fund, with assets of around $250 million. The lead investors were Goldman Sachs, where he had started out years before, and a few wealthy families he’d attracted over the years.
Saul Lennick, Charlie’s first boss at Goldman, who had helped put him in business, acted as the firm’s trustee.
It was hard for Karen to go through. Bittersweet. Charlie had only seven people working for him: a junior trader and a bookkeeper, Sally, who ran the back office and had been with him since he’d first opened shop. His assistant, Heather, handled a lot of their personal stuff. Karen pretty much knew them all.
It would take a few months, Lennick advised her, for everything to be finalized. And that was fine with her. Charlie would’ve wanted them all to be well taken care of. “Hell, you know better than anyone that he practically spent more time with them over the years than he did with me,” she said, smiling knowingly at Saul. Anyway, money wasn’t exactly the issue right now.
She and the kids were okay financially. She had the house, which they owned clear, the ski place in Vermont. Plus, Charlie had been able to pull out some money over the years.
But it was tough, seeing his baby dismantled. The positions were sold. The office on Park Avenue was put up for lease. One by one, people found new jobs and began to leave.
That was like the final straw. The final imprint of him gone.
About that time the junior trader Charlie had brought into the firm just a few months before, Jonathan Lauer, called her at home. Karen wasn’t around. He left a message on her machine: “I’d like to speak with you, Mrs. Friedman. At your convenience. There are some things you ought to know.”
Some things … Whatever they were, she wasn’t up to it right then. Jonathan was new; he had started working for Charles only this past year. Charlie had lured him from Morgan. She passed the message on to Saul.
“Don’t worry, I’ll handle it,” he told her. “All kinds of sticky issues, closing down a firm. People are looking out for their own arrangements. There may have been some bonus agreements discussed. Charlie wasn’t the best at recording those things. You shouldn’t have to deal with any of that right now.”
He was right. She couldn’t deal with that right now. In July she went away for a well-needed week at Paula and Rick’s house in Sag Harbor. She rejoined her book group, started doing yoga again. God, how she needed that. Her body began to resemble itself once again and feel alive. Gradually her spirits did, too.
August came, and Samantha had a job at a local beach club. Alex was away at lacrosse camp. Karen was thinking maybe she’d look into getting a real-estate license.
Jonathan