Chapter 8
The tension at Seth and Sarah's house on Divisadero on Monday morning was palpable and overwhelming. As he had since the earthquake, Seth tried all their house phones, their cell phones, their car phones, even his BlackBerry, to no avail. San Francisco was still completely cut off from the world. Helicopters were still buzzing overhead, flying low to check on people and report back to Emergency Services. They could still hear sirens throughout the city. And if they were able to, people stayed in their homes. The streets looked like a ghost town. And inside their home, there was a sense of impending doom. Sarah stayed away from Seth and kept busy with her babies. They still had their usual routines. But she and Seth hardly spoke to each other. What he had confessed to her had shocked her into silence.
She fed the children breakfast, although their food supplies were dwindling. She played with them in the garden afterward and pushed them on the swingset they had there. Molly thought it was funny that the tree had fallen down. And Oliver's cough and earache were better, from the antibiotics he'd taken. Both children were in good spirits; the same could not be said about their parents. She and Parmani made them peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch, with sliced bananas, and then put them down for their naps. The house was quiet when she finally went to see Seth in his study. He look ravaged, and was staring blindly at the wall, lost in thought.
“Are you okay?” He didn't even bother to answer. He just turned to look at her with broken eyes. Everything he had built for them was about to come tumbling down. He looked devastated and gray. “Do you want lunch?” she asked him, and he shook his head, and then looked at her with a sigh.
“You understand what's going to happen, don't you?”
“Not really,” she said softly, and sat down. “I know what you told me, that they're going to audit Sully's books, and find the investors’ money gone, and then they'll trace it to your accounts.”
“It's called theft and securities fraud. Those are federal felonies. Not to mention the lawsuits that will set off among Sully's investors, and even mine. It's going to be a hell of a mess, Sarah. Probably for a long, long time.” He had thought of nothing else since Thursday night and she since Friday morning.
“What does that mean? Define mess,” she said sadly, thinking that she might as well know what was coming. It was going to be happening to her too.
“Prosecution probably. A grand jury indictment. A trial. I'll probably be convicted and go to prison.” He glanced at his watch. It was four o'clock in New York, four hours past the time when he had to have the money back to Sully in time for his investors’ audit. It was shit luck that their respective audits had been so close together, and even worse luck that the San Francisco earthquake had shut down all communications and the city's banks. They were dead in the water, and sitting ducks with no way to cover their tracks. “By now, Sully has been caught red-handed, and sometime this week the SEC will start an investigation of his books, and mine when this city opens up again. He's in the same boat I am. The investors will start suing in civil suits, for misappropriation of their funds, theft, and fraud.” And then as though to make matters worse, he added, “I'm pretty sure we'll lose the house, and everything else we have.”
“And then what?” Sarah asked in a hoarse voice. She wasn't as horrified about losing their property and possessions as she was about discovering that Seth was a dishonest man. A crook and a fraud. She had known and loved him for six years, only to find out that she didn't know him. She couldn't have looked more shocked if he had turned into a werewolf in front of her eyes. “What'll happen to me and the kids?”
“I don't know, Sarah,” he told her honestly. “You may have to get a job.” She nodded. There were worse fates. She was more than willing to work if it would help them, but if he was convicted, what was going to happen to their life, their marriage? If he went to prison, then what, and for how long? She couldn't even get the words out to ask him, and he just sat there, shaking his head, as tears rolled slowly down his cheeks. What scared her too was that he seemed to be thinking of himself in all this, and not of them. What was going to happen to her and the children if he went to jail?
“Do you suppose as soon as the city opens up again, the police are going to show up?” She had no idea what lay ahead. In her worst nightmares, she could never have conceived of anything like this.
“I don't know. I guess they would start with an SEC investigation first. But it could get very bad very quickly. As soon as the banks open, the money is going to be sitting there, and I'm screwed.” She nodded, trying to absorb it, remembering what he had said.
“You said you and Sully did this before. A lot of times?” Her eyes were bleak, and her voice was hoarse. Seth had been dishonest not just once, but maybe for several years.
“A few.” He sounded tense as he answered.
“How many is a few?” She wanted to know.
“Does it matter?” She saw a muscle in his jaw go taut. “Three … maybe four. He helped me set it up. The first time I did it was right after we started, to give us a little push and get investors interested in the fund. Kind of like window dressing, to make us look good. It worked … so I did it again. It brought the big investors in, thinking we had that kind of money in the bank.” He had lied to them, cheated, committed outright fraud. It was inconceivable to her, and accounted now for his rapid and astonishing success. The wonder boy everyone talked about was a liar and a thief, a con man. And even more horrifying was the fact that she was married to him. He had fooled her too. She had never wanted all the extravagant luxuries he had provided. She didn't need them. They had even worried her at first. And Seth had insisted that he was making money hand over fist, and they deserved all the toys and the fabulous lifestyle he was providing for her. Houses, jewelry, fancy cars, his plane. And he had built all of it on ill-gotten means. Now he was about to get caught, and everything he had worked for would disappear, out of her life too.
“Are we in trouble with the IRS too?” she asked, looking panicked. If so, it might implicate her as well since they filed joint returns. What would happen to their children if she went to prison? The mere thought of it terrified her.
“No, we're not,” he reassured her. “Our tax returns are clean as a whistle. I wouldn't do that to you.”
“Why not?” she said, with tears bulging in her eyes, and then spilling slowly down her cheeks. She was overwhelmed. The earthquake that had just hit the city was peanuts compared to what was about to happen to them. “You've done everything else. You put yourself at risk, and you're going to take all of us down with you.” She couldn't even imagine what she was going to tell her parents. They were going to be horrified, and deeply ashamed once this hit the press. There would be no way to keep it quiet. She could easily see the story being a major item on the news, even more so if he was convicted and went to prison. The newspapers were going to have a field day with it. The higher he had climbed, the harder he would hit when he fell. It was easily predictable, she realized as she stood up and walked around the room. “We need a lawyer, Seth, a really good one.”
“I'll take care of it,” he said, watching her stand staring out the window. The neighbor's window boxes had fallen, and were still lying all over the sidewalk, with dirt and flowers everywhere. They had gone to the shelter in the Presidio when their chimney fell through their roof, and no one had cleaned up any of the mess. There was going to be a lot of cleaning up to do in the city. But it would be nothing compared to the mess that Seth was going to have to deal with. “I'm sorry, Sarah,” he whispered.
“So am I,” she said, turning to look at him. “I don't know if it means anything to you, but I love you, Seth. I did from the minute we met. I still do, even after this. I just don't know where we go from here. Or even if we do.” She didn't say it to him, but she didn't know if she could ever forgive him for being so dishonest and having so little integrity. It had been a horrifying revelation about the man she loved. If he was in fact so different than she had believed him to be, who in fact did she love? He looked like a stranger to her now, and in fact, he was.
“I love you too,” he said miserably. “I'm so sorry. I never thought it would come to this. I didn't think we'd get caught.” He said it as though he had stolen an apple from a cart, or failed to return a book to a library. She was beginning to wonder if he fully realized how major this was.
“That's not the point. It's not just about your getting caught. It's about who you were and what you were thinking when you set it up. The risk you took. The lie you were living. The people you were willing to hurt and lie to, not just your investors, but me and the kids. They're going to be damaged by this too. If you go to prison, they'll have to live with that for the rest of their lives, knowing what you did. How are they going to look up to you when they grow up? What does this tell them about you?”
“It tells them that I'm human and I made a mistake,” he said sorrowfully. “If they love me, they'll forgive me, and so will you.”
“Maybe it's not as simple as that. I don't know how you come back from something like this, any of us. How do you forget that someone you completely trusted turned out to be a liar and a fake, a thief …a fraud … how do I ever trust you again?” He said nothing, and sat staring at her. He hadn't come near her in three days. He couldn't. She had put a wall between them ten feet high. Even in their bed at night, each of them had huddled toward their respective sides, with a vast expanse of empty space between them. He didn't touch her, and she couldn't bring herself to reach out to him. She was too wounded and in too much pain, too disillusioned and disappointed. He wanted her to forgive him, and understand, and be supportive of him, but she had no idea if she ever would, or could. It was just too huge.
She was almost grateful that the city was cut off. She needed the time to absorb it before the roof fell in on them. But then again, if the earthquake hadn't hit the city, none of this would have happened. He would have sent the money back to Sully, so he could cook his own books. And then, at some point, they would have done it again, and maybe gotten caught later. Sooner or later it would have had to happen. No one was that clever, or got away with a crime of this magnitude forever. It was so simple it was pathetic, and so dishonest that it boggled the mind.
“Are you going to leave me, Sarah?” That would have been the icing on the cake for him. He wanted her to stand by him, and she didn't look as though she would. Sarah had extremely rigid ideas about honesty and integrity. She set extremely high standards for herself and everyone else. He had violated them all. He had even put their family at risk, which he suspected would be the final straw for her. Family was sacred to her. She lived by the values she believed in. She was a woman of honor, and she expected and believed the same of him.
“I don't know,” she said honestly. “I have no idea what I'm going to do. I'm having trouble getting my mind around the whole concept. What you did is so enormous, I'm not sure I even get it yet.” Nothing that had happened in the earthquake had shocked her as much as this. She looked as though the world had collapsed in on her and their kids.
“I hope you don't leave,” he said, sounding sad and vulnerable. “I want you to stay.” He needed her. He didn't think he could face this alone. But he realized he might have to, and at some level, recognized that it was his own fault.
“I want to stay,” she said, crying again. She had never felt as devastated in her life, except when they thought their baby was going to die. Thank God, Molly had been saved. But she couldn't imagine now that anything would be able to save Seth. Even if he had a brilliant lawyer and they negotiated like crazy, she couldn't imagine him being acquitted, not with the proof they would have from the bank. “I just don't know if I can,” she added. “Let's see what happens when we're in communication with the world again. I imagine that the shit will hit the fan pretty fast.” He nodded. They both knew that this time of being cut off from the world was a reprieve for both of them. There was no way that they could act, or react. They just had to sit there and wait. It added immeasurably to the stress of the days after the earthquake, but she was grateful for the time it gave her to think. It did more for her than for Seth, who prowled the house like a caged lion, thinking about what was going to happen to him, and worrying about it constantly. He was desperate to talk to Sully, to find out what had happened to him in New York. Seth checked his BlackBerry constantly, as though it would suddenly come alive. It was still as dead as everything else, and possibly their marriage.
As they had for the three nights before that, they stayed well away from each other in bed that night. Seth wanted to make love to her, just for the comfort it would give him, the reassurance that she still loved him, but he didn't go near her, and didn't blame her for how she felt. He lay awake on his side of the bed, long after she fell asleep. Halfway through the night, Oliver woke up, crying and pulling on his ears again. He was teething, and Sarah wasn't sure if his ears were hurting or his teeth. She held him in her arms for a long time, rocking him in the big comfortable rocking chair in his room, until he finally went back to sleep again. She didn't put him back in his crib, she just sat there, holding him, looking at the moon, and listening to the helicopters patrolling the city through the night. It sounded like a war zone, as she listened, and as she sat there, she realized that it was. She knew this was going to be a terrible time for them. There was no way to avoid it, change it, turn the clock back to before it happened. Just as the city had been shaken to its roots by the earthquake, their life had come down around their ears, or was about to. It had fallen from the sky, hit the pavement, and been smashed to bits.
She spent the rest of the night in the rocking chair, holding Ollie, and never went back to bed. She couldn't bring herself to go back and lie next to Seth, and maybe never could again. She moved out of their bedroom into the guest room the next day.