Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Do What We Must Part Two-July 1921

 Author's Note: Trigger Warnings for Canonical Mentions of Suicide, Incest, and Molestation

New York City June 1918

"I'm beginning to regret my decision to go," Clara told Angela while Angela slipped more of Tommy's belongings into a box." Tommy just started walking, and now I'm going to miss his first birthday. He'll be talking in complete sentences and have a favorite chop suey order by the time I get back."

"You've been plotting to get yourself to Europe since the moment I met you," Angela said, pushing down her anxiety about leaving the little world they had made on the Upper East Side and moving to Atlantic City while Clara steamed across the ocean. "There's no way you aren't going to go."

"Thank goodness Daddy is such a relentless social climber. The letter from Rose's mother, telling him how much they hoped he'd let me come to Europe and how I could spend my leaves at their manor house was like catnip. He couldn't resist. The fact that they've allowed Rose to work as a nurse on the front lines also helped, although he's still made me swear to stay away from France. I'm fairly certain Daddy's busy planning my marriage to the eldest son of a duke, and how he'll spend the rest of his life talking about his daughter, the Duchess of A Drafty Old Castle."

Angela laughed. "You're horrid. Your father loves you."

Clara smiled a little sadly. "He does love me. But Daddy... he's like a gambler, the kind who can't stop gambling."

Angela looked up at her, puzzled.

"The casino, sometimes Daddy would take us and I'd sit and watch people gamble. Some people gamble because they were having a night out and it was a fun thing to do, some people gamble to show off to their friends, but some people gamble because they couldn't not gamble. They were incapable of not making a bet. Daddy's incapable of not seeing the world by what advantages are available to him. So, yes, he loves me, but he's planned my entire life by what advantages I can bring him. When I was little, my mother and I made him look like a dependable family man. Then I was the motherless daughter holding her brave father's hand, which bought him votes. Sending me to Foxcroft brought a new echelon of people into his social circle, and gave me entry into social levels that he can't reach. Even working at the War Department, he pulled strings and found me a job where I meet people he considers desirable. Uncle Eli says he talks in hushed tones about letting me leave school and work for the good of the country when that's not anything like what he thinks. I know he basically smacks his lips when he thinks about marrying me off, to someone who will raise Nucky Thompson's profile, or bring him new political contacts, or get him written about in the society pages of the New York Times."

"What advantage does looking after Tommy and I offer Nucky?" Angela asked quietly.

It puts Jimmy in Daddy's debt, Clara thought with a flash of clarity. We won't be children when this over, and Daddy's still furious with Jimmy. He'd like Jimmy to feel indebted.

"Daddy takes his responsibilities very seriously," Clara answered.

Princeton July 1921

Clara woke up with the side of her face pressed against the floor and her blue knit sailors dress clinging to her body. She peered at the clock on the mantel and saw it wasn't quite midnight. Some days last years, Clara thought. It was just that morning she'd bathed, dressed in this blue dress she now never wanted to wear again and went with her father and Margaret to retrieve Emily from the hospital. It was just after lunch that Richard appeared in Margaret's foyer and said he loved her, that he needed her.

You were right, Angela, Clara thought. You'll be pinning flowers in my hair for my wedding. A wave of grief slammed against her so hard her body clenched in pain. It was selfish grief, she knew, but it still sliced against her with razor-sharp blows. Who was she going to tell about Richard in that foyer, who was going to celebrate when her Bobbsey Twin book was published, who would she giggle with over red wine or whiskey sours? Who knew all her little secrets?