Except for Nora.
When Nora opened her door, her hair a cloud of tangles encrusted variously with vomit, snot, and milk, wearing a robe liberally splattered with some previous night’s dinner, holding two screaming two-month-olds while a third howled from a laundry basket lined with towels and deposited in the middle of the kitchen floor, Mr. Russo introduced himself and inquired without irony whether she had any complaints regarding the recently shuttered Belsum Chemical plant. She handed him one of the babies—me—not in answer to his question, but because she imagined that with one hand free, she could put on coffee, and while that wouldn’t solve the problem, it would at least help matters. And matters needed helping.
He came in. He sat down. He took all three babies into his lap. It is true we were very small, and he was—is—a large man with big arms and a lot of real estate on his lap when he sits, but we still have trouble picturing all four of us piled together. Though Monday has many times pressed Nora for specifics as to how he managed it, our mother is vague on the details. She was sleep deprived and also breathtaken. Here her knight in shining armor had shown up at her door. Had she been limitlessly granted her most wondrous, most extravagant, most dearly held dream, there was nothing she would have wished to open her door to more than the offer to join a class action lawsuit against Belsum Chemical, especially one with an extra set of hands who wasn’t put off by a house full of screaming babies.
Russell Russo was gentle and kind and surprisingly good with children. He talked so quickly Nora’s ears ached trying to keep up. He informed her, deadly serious, that Belsum Chemical had wronged the citizens of Bourne. He broke this to her as if she didn’t know already, as if she wouldn’t believe it unless he explained it to her like a child or someone not from Bourne, someone unBourne, but she didn’t feel talked down to. She felt broken open with gratitude that it was just that simple, just that clear, and to someone from out there in the rest of the world. It wasn’t just in Nora’s head, the crimes done unto her, the crying-out sense that justice should be done, at least some, at least trying. He made it so she could put down the burden of being the only one who knew.
Russell Russo spoke of wrongful death, criminal negligence, perjury, failure of oversight, buried memos, biased reports, and attempted cover-ups. He had spoken already to many of her neighbors. He had a pledge from the senior partners at his firm that he could take the case on contingency. He had associates and paralegals and interns back at his office who were already wading through boxes and boxes of documents. He was certain that somewhere in them was the smoking gun, the damning evidence, the indisputable proof of what Belsum knew and when they knew it that would force them to hand out significant, much deserved, desperately needed, only fair cash settlements which, Russell admitted, would not make up for her losses, for nothing could, but which would make it easier to get on with her life, both financially and the part where she didn’t walk around all day long feeling like she’d been royally fucked and no one gave a shit. He was smart and passionate. And handsome, of course. Was there any chance she was not going to fall in love with him?
There was not. It was the knight-in-shining-armor stuff. It was that he was intelligent and kind and going to save her. It was that he eased her way and carried her load. It was that he had never seen her other than she was now. It was that her husband was well and truly gone. And though the same could not be said about Russell’s wife, that wasn’t Nora’s fault because she didn’t know he had one. At least not at first.
“Belsum has wronged you,” he told her, but of course she already knew that, “so they have to pay.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do they have to pay? You’re saying otherwise it’s not fair?”
“It’s not fair.”
“It’s not, but things usually aren’t. You’re not a five-year-old, Mr. Russo.”
“Russell,” he corrected her.
“You’re not a five-year-old, Russell. ‘It’s not fair’ isn’t a reason for adults.”
“It’s the best reason there is.” Russell truly believed this.
She found his conviction touching, but she didn’t buy it. “This is really about money,” she guessed. “Not fairness.”
He kept his eyes on hers—would not allow them to wander over her meager home—when he said, “You’re going to need it.”
“I don’t want their money.”