The evening flew and crawled by. Tess made Crow-approved fish tacos. Carla Scout picked out the pieces of canned corn, leaving behind the halibut, shredded chard, and avocado. They had two shows, a Dora the Explorer and Wonder Pets!, which was Tess’s favorite. She liked to sing along when the duck cried: “THIS IS SEWIOUS. THIS IS SEWIOUS.” Carla Scout allowed—there was no other word for it—Tess to rub her back as they watched. These days, Carla Scout was prone to demand “Daddy do” even when Daddy wasn’t there. Tess didn’t have the heart to ask Crow if the tables were turned when she was gone, if Carla Scout ever insisted that “Mama do.”
At 8:30 Tess crawled into the bath with her daughter, held her tight against her body. Damn, Melisandre was in good shape, she thought, remembering the taut body in those sleek leggings. But then—Melisandre had given birth to her last child eleven years ago, not three. Melisandre, according to the overview of her life she’d provided for the security assessment, had a personal trainer, worked out every day. Tess was lucky to work out three times a week these days, and she was eating more without realizing it—Carla Scout’s rejected fish tacos tonight, for example.
But the bath was the one place where Carla Scout was completely Tess’s. They rocked together, talked about their day to the extent that they could. (“Mommy and Mr. Sandy saw Uncle Tyner and met a lady.” “A friend?” “No, not a friend. Just a lady.”) Because of Carla Scout’s early weeks in the NICU, Tess had never really known her daughter as a newborn, had not experienced the exhilarating terror of holding a child so fresh and fragile. The girl was sturdy now, strong and thin, a lanky string bean. Her father’s genes.
The bedtime book was Bear at Home, which had been the running choice for seven nights now. How Tess yearned for the day when they could read chapter books—the Shoes stories by Streatfeild, Betsy-Tacy, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, perhaps her all-time favorite, although she had been less enchanted by his subsequent adventures in the Great Glass Elevator. Tonight, she found herself envying Bear’s orderly, well-kept house. Carla Scout insisted on turning the pages, holding the book at an angle that made it difficult to read. Book finally finished, there was a brief disaster when Clownie could not be found. Someone—Tess suspected Dempsey—had hidden the doll under a chair in the living room. “I can’t close my eyes,” Carla Scout announced dramatically, as she did almost every night. “Then don’t,” Tess told her. “I’ll be back to check on you every fifteen minutes.” She showed her daughter on the bedside clock when she would return. Carla Scout seldom made it past the second bed check.
Still, true to her worst-case scenario, it was ten o’clock and Tess needed an hour to set the kitchen to rights—so it could be destroyed again tomorrow. She fell asleep on the sofa, too tired to finish her second glass of wine, and that was where Crow found her when he returned at two. She would be up at six with Carla Scout, seven if she was lucky, out the door at eight and en route to the babysitter they used for a few hours every morning, so Crow could get a decent amount of sleep.
And now Crow was lobbying for another child and he had enlisted Carla Scout in the campaign, although she wavered when Crow admitted he couldn’t guarantee a sister. A second child would mean finding a new house, as Tess’s beautiful little cottage simply couldn’t hold yet another person, and it had already been expanded as much as possible. Maybe, she thought, as she drifted back to sleep in her bed, she should tell Crow it would ruin the gestalt if they had to move because of a second child.
Transcript of Interview with Poppy Widdicombe,
Tremont Hotel, March 11
SPEAKER 1: Pauline “Poppy” Widdicombe
SPEAKER 2: Harmony Burns
INPUT: HB
PW: Hi! Thank you so much for the hotel room. This was almost like a vacation for me. And the breakfast was great. So what do you want me to say? They said it was a coincidence, although I don’t think either one of us ever believed it. And then they said, You know what? Maybe you’ll be friends. Those two ladies down in Texas, they became friends. And that’s when Melisandre said to me—
HB: Okay, okay, that’s great. I know I told you just to start right in and tell the story your way. But let’s get the context first, okay? The things that happened before you met Melisandre? Introduce yourself, as if you were giving a talk to a group of people interested in what you have to say. Because this will be seen by a group of people very interested in what you have to say.
PW: I hate telling that part.
HB: I know, but it’s important. I wouldn’t ask you otherwise.
PW: But— Okay. For Melisandre. My name is Poppy Widdicombe and, in 2002, I, I, killed my eight-month-old daughter. I was found not guilty by reason of criminal insanity. I had postpartum psychosis. I was sent to a psychiatric hospital in western Maryland, near Frostburg. My roommate was Melisandre Dawes. She killed her daughter, too. She was famous, all over the news, though, because she had a trial and a mistrial before she was found not guilty. By reason of criminal insanity, but—that’s still NOT guilty. A lot of people don’t get that. That’s part of the reason I’ve had so many problems. By the way, Melisandre told me I’ll be paid for this?
HB: We’ll talk about that later. Off-camera. Also, Poppy? A little slower. If you talk too fast, the transcription app makes errors.
PW: The thing about Melisandre is that people thought she made it up. The whole being-crazy thing. Whereas with me, people knew I had to be. What I did—it was so awful. Only I didn’t do it, as my doctors always tell me. I have to understand that wasn’t me, that when you are as sick as I was, you can’t blame yourself for the things you do any more than you would blame yourself for throwing up when you have the flu, or having bad diarrhea with food poisoning. I was sick and the thing that I did was a symptom. My husband took me to church, where they were all Hell this and Hell that, and you must strike at the Devil when he speaks to you. I needed a doctor, not church. But my husband wouldn’t take me to a doctor when I got sicker and sicker. He just yelled at me, said I was a bad wife and mother. And then, you know, Satan started talking to me. That is, I thought it was Satan because whenever I tried to talk to people about my problems, they said God didn’t give you more than you could handle and I was being tested by Satan and if I would just listen to God, I would know what to do. So one day, I realized Satan was in my baby and I had to get him out. So I did it.
HB: Did what, Poppy?
PW: Do I have to tell this part?
HB: I’m afraid so. Part of doing what we’re doing, what Melisandre is trying to do, involves speaking hard truths. Because if we don’t, others will speak them for us and we will look as if we’re trying to be duplicitous. False.
PW: Sometimes you sound just like that preacher. Not the same words, you understand. But the way you say things.
HB: Well, I’m not saying you have to do anything. I’m just explaining why things need to be done a certain way.
PW: Is there a difference between those two things?
HB: I think so, yes. I’m just telling you what Melisandre wants. Your friend, Melisandre.
PW: My friend. Yeah. Okay. I took a kitchen knife and I stabbed my baby. More than once. She bled to death. [Walks o/c] I’m going to need a minute, okay? You might think it gets easier to say that. But it gets harder. Every time. It gets fucking harder, okay?
HB: Camera going off here.
HB: Camera back on. I’m sorry, Poppy. I know that was hard. You’re very brave.
PW: Well, I guess I have to say it. To get paid.
HB: I need to tell you again, for the record, Poppy, that you are not being paid to say anything. You are being paid for your time away from work, and your travel here.
PW: I wish I got a thousand dollars a day at Sheetz. It was nice, sending a car for me. I’d never been in a Town Car before. And this hotel last night. It was really nice. I had room service for dinner, too. I hope that’s okay. I know you told me I could go out, but it was like a vacation for me, to sit in a room and have so
meone bring me dinner on a tray.
HB: We wanted you to be rested. And, as agreed, we’re not going to tell people where you live now, or even where you work. We’ll edit out that part about Sheetz.
PW: But if people see this, someone who knows me, but doesn’t, you know, know, might figure it out.
HB: Probably. But it’s been in the newspaper, how you became friends in the hospital. People know the story.
PW: People forget stories. Faces not so much. Can I change my mind?
HB: Withdraw your release? Sure. You might have to pay the production back for certain costs, though.
PW: Really? I hadn’t thought about that. Okay, so—surprise surprise—the two women who killed their daughters end up as roommates. They didn’t expect us to be friends, or comfort one another. They expected us to rat each other out. They wanted me to find out if Melisandre was really crazy.
HB: Did someone tell you that?
PW: Melisandre told me. She said: They put you in here to find out if I was crazy. They’re after me. And I’m not paranoid! That’s the kind of joke you make, when you’re in one of those places. I liked her right away for making a joke because it had been so long since anyone had made a joke to me. That’s one of the weird things about being me. Being us. There’s this whole piece of life that people think you don’t want to have anymore, when you need it more than ever. Jokes, silliness.
HB: But didn’t someone on staff corroborate what Melisandre said? That you were there to spy on her?
PW: You know, I’ve been thinking about that. I mean, I thought someone did, but the more I think about it—and, you know, my memory isn’t great because there’s a lot of stuff I want to forget—the more I’m not so sure. Would it make a difference?
HB: We just want you to tell us what you remember. There are no right answers.
PW: But do I get more? If I say someone on staff told me that?
HB: Poppy, you are not being paid to say anything. You are being paid for your time. It’s important only that you tell the truth. That’s the only thing that matters. You are not being paid for your appearance in the film, but for your out-of-pocket costs.
PW: My pocket’s never had a thousand dollars in it. There was this one TV producer who got in touch with me, but no one wanted my story. Everyone wanted Melisandre’s, but she could afford to say no. She was the hot ticket. Although if they had made a movie, I would have been in it. I mean, an actress would have played me. Not like this.
HB: Let’s talk about the technical stuff off-camera. What did the staff say to you, if anything?
PW: I don’t remember anyone saying anything to me, word for word. But everyone knew, you know? A lot of people doubted Melisandre was ever sick like I was. For one thing—and this is kind of interesting—there was no religious angle. Turns out that’s really common. And she didn’t have an official diagnosis. Before, I mean. That was kind of a big deal. How did a guy like her husband not see that she needed real help, why had he taken her to see his old friend, that doctor who ended up being a liar face? But the main thing was, you know, how she did it. It was kind of all over the place. She tried to get the older girls. Did she know there was a field trip or not? She signed the slip, but did she remember? I mean, when you’re in a bad way like I was and like she was, there is stuff you plain don’t remember. Leaving the baby in the car—that’s a weird way to kill a kid if you’re hearing those voices telling you to save her. She said she was going to drive right down that pier into the river. Only she didn’t.
HB: Did you ever doubt that Melisandre had a psychotic episode?
PW: Me? No. But a lot of people did. And they wanted me to tell them if she wasn’t—if she was faking. When she explained that to me, I said, “I have your back.” I have ever since. I’ve had hers, she has mine. When I got fired from my first job because a local TV station told people I was working at the Discount Warehouse—Melisandre sent me a check. She even said she was going to fly me over to Cape Town or London, although that never happened. But that was because I could never get enough time off work. I’ve never had more than a week off. By the time you fly all the way to South Africa, a week is practically gone, that’s what Melisandre always said.
HB: Why are you so sure that Melisandre, like you, was psychotic?
PW: Well, you have to be, right? If you’re not sick, you’re evil. You know those women, the ones who make up stories because they just want their kids dead? Because there’s money in it for them or because they have a new boyfriend or because they want to get back at their husbands. They’re evil, they have a reason.
HB: I don’t actually know of a case like that. One where a woman killed her child to get back at her husband. Are you thinking of something in particular?
PW: Well, Melisandre, of course. That’s what some people said about her. But I never believed it. Hey, is it okay if I ask the car, when it takes me back, to stop for lunch? Can a Town Car use the drive-through? There’s a Roy Rogers in, I think, Hagerstown, and we don’t have any of those where I live. You hardly see them anymore. It’s such a treat. They have the best fries. I’ll buy the driver some fries, out of my—what did you call it? Per diem. Out of my pocket!
HB: I’m sure that’s fine.
PW: And do you think I’m going to see Melisandre before I leave? We haven’t talked in forever.
HB: I’m not sure. I’ll text her.
Wednesday
7:00 A.M.
“One more,” Silas said
“Last one?” Melisandre said.
“Last one.”
The final combination was two crosses, two uppercuts, two jabs. It would be easy to get sloppy. Who cared about the last minute in a ninety-minute workout? Melisandre cared. She believed it was the final set that showed one’s mettle. She focused on form, making sure to put her full weight behind each punch, pivoting so her midsection was engaged, especially on the uppercuts, trying to land the punches so that each one made a sweet, perfect thud when she connected with the flat pads that Silas used.
Melisandre wore her own gloves, ordered after her first session with Silas because she didn’t like having her hands in gloves that others had used. But the real offense had been the color of the gym’s boxing gloves, a bright, girlie pink. It took Melisandre a while to find what she wanted—gray gloves, with black trim. The good thing about owning her gloves was that Silas had to tell her, in advance, if they were going to do a boxing workout. He couldn’t spring it on her.
Melisandre liked to know, as much as possible, what was going to happen each day. She made a schedule every night, writing down not only the appointments but everything she expected to happen—the hour she would awaken, the times at which she would take her meals, what she planned to eat, television shows she might like to watch, time for reading. Her calendar could be mistaken for that of a very busy person.
She had begun keeping this detailed daybook after her release from the hospital and the move to Cape Town. She had wanted to be as far away as possible. To be in a place where it was hot when Baltimore was cold, where there was almost no shared popular culture—that helped, as much as anything could have helped. She regretted giving up the girls, but it was too late. She had tried to talk about it with the psychiatrist assigned to her at Frostburg, but she couldn’t explain the entire situation, so it made no sense. “Legal custody, whatever you signed—it may curtail certain rights, but nothing can stop you from being a part of their lives,” he would say, well-meaning man. She couldn’t confide in Poppy, either.
Poppy. Although Melisandre generally didn’t watch dailies, she had gone into Dropbox and opened that file last night. It was a shame Poppy kept talking about money. And that she didn’t remember anyone on staff affirming that there were suspicions about Melisandre. Harmony had taken Poppy through the interview four times, but just as Harmony had warned Melisandre, such retellings flattened the stories out, made them seem more rehearsed. In the hospital, Poppy had been able to talk for what felt like twent
y minutes straight without a pause. She had driven Melisandre crazy sometimes with her incessant chatter. But she had been a friend, in her way. Melisandre really had believed the friendship might continue once they were both released. But it was hard to know who you were going to be, once outside again. It wasn’t that she had been insane before she was admitted. Melisandre was stabilized long before she was sent to Frostburg. The hospital had been a sop to the judge, a way of letting him acquit her without causing a political uproar. It was sometimes reported that it was part of a plea bargain, but that was inaccurate. The judge had found her not guilty by reason of insanity, after receiving assurances that she would seek treatment.
“Good work,” Silas said. He was at least fifteen years younger than Melisandre, maybe twenty, with the long, lean look of a yoga teacher. She didn’t want a muscle-bound trainer. She didn’t really want a trainer at all, but she couldn’t achieve the stamina and strength she wanted without someone else pushing her. That hadn’t been an issue until she hit her forties. She had followed her mother’s example—walking, gardening—and that had been enough to stay thin. Then her metabolism had taken the hit of age and other things, and she’d had to find help. She hated the fact that Stephen was married to a trainer. An ex-trainer now, from what Melisandre could discern, not that she had ever met the woman. If she had, she would have probably said something like “Oh, honey, Stephen makes all his wives quit their jobs. You think it’s your choice, but it wasn’t.”
“Tea?” she asked Silas. To pacify Brian, who disapproved of this off-site workout, Silas picked Melisandre up at the hotel and then walked her back, staying for tea if he didn’t have another appointment. She suspected that he had begun to plan his mornings around having tea with her, not out of some cougar fascination but because he liked this glimpse into a privileged life—the view from her suite, the porcelain cups that Melisandre had unearthed from her storage locker when she returned to Baltimore, the matching sugar bowl.
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