Hush Hush

by Lippman, Laura

  “Brian, there has been no significant threat to Melisandre since she returned to Baltimore. Those notes—”

  “You make your movie,” he said. “I’ll take care of her.”

  “Yeah, well, the movie we’re making is not The Bodyguard, Brian, okay?” But he was already off the line, as she knew he would be.

  Fuck me, she thought. She should have pushed for the girls first, before the meeting. She didn’t believe Alanna had a migraine, just a father who had ridden her for three days now, determined to keep the girls from seeing their mother despite saying it was their decision. What a creep. But he was a smart creep. Stephen Dawes was very smart to do whatever he could to interfere with this film.

  4:00 P.M.

  “Alanna?”

  “Yes?”

  The voice on the other side of the door was persuasively wan. Except Ruby wasn’t persuaded. “Can I come in?”

  “No. If you open the door the light will bother me.”

  “Then close your eyes,” Ruby said.

  A pause. Alanna was probably trying to come up with an argument for that. But one reason that Ruby had success with Alanna, where so many grown-ups failed, was that she took a no-nonsense approach, one she had learned from the various nanny programs on TV. Stay calm, stand your ground, don’t criticize. Be consistent. Yes, it was weird for a fifteen-year-old girl to be using Supernanny techniques to deal with her seventeen-year-old sister, but the Dawes family was so beyond the country of weird that Ruby didn’t worry about it. She was her sister’s keeper. People expected it to be the other way, because Alanna was older. Maybe it had been that way, once, but Ruby had no memory of it.

  “Okay,” Alanna said, and Ruby opened the door and closed it quickly behind her, walking with the softest possible tread into her sister’s room. She knew, from past experience, not to sit on the bed. Alanna would claim that aggravated the migraine. So Ruby sat cross-legged on the floor. The room was very dark. Blackout blinds had been installed when they moved into the new house, something Alanna had lobbied for since the migraines were diagnosed, three years ago. Alanna had felt vindicated, briefly, by that diagnosis. For years, her headaches had been dismissed as simple tension headaches, a convenient way to avoid doing anything she didn’t want to do. But years of being called a fake had, in Ruby’s opinion, persuaded Alanna that she was owed some fakeness.

  “I could have gone without you,” she said.

  “That wouldn’t be right.” Alanna’s words were muffled. She had her face pressed into her pillow.

  “No.” It wouldn’t be. But if Alanna was faking today, then that wasn’t right, either. Not that Ruby would ever say anything like that out loud to her sister. And if not to Alanna, to whom? Not her father. Not Felicia, never Felicia. Sometimes, when she was in a room alone with her new baby brother, Joey, she unburdened herself to him. Joey was six months now, so he just smiled and gurgled approvingly, no matter what Ruby told him.

  She sat in the darkness, listening to her sister breathe. No point in asking any questions, such as Why did you change your mind after you promised you’d do it? Did Dad get to you? I thought you were going to stand up to him, for both of us. That’s what you promised. She could not ask Alanna larger questions about their past. Do you really think she meant to hurt us that day, too? Why did she give us up and move so far away? No point in revisiting wistful arguments, either. Maybe we could have saved her that day. Saved her and saved Isadora. She couldn’t have left us in the car. We would have gotten out and run, gone for help.

  Ruby was four the last time she saw her mother.

  “I have to go away for a while,” her mother said. “To get better.”

  “Daddy said you are better.”

  “I am. But they want me to get treatment. Just in case.”

  “I thought you had a sickness that women get after having a baby.”

  “I did.”

  “Were you sick when you had me?”

  “No.”

  “What made you sick?”

  “They don’t know. It’s a sickness they don’t understand.”

  “Are you still sick?”

  “No, I don’t think so. But we have to make sure.”

  “Do you miss Isadora?”

  “Of course I do. Every day. Don’t you?”

  That had been a tough question. “She was just a baby and I was a big kid. I loved her—”

  “Of course you did.”

  “But I don’t miss her. Is that bad?”

  “No. Ruby, you haven’t done anything bad, okay? You and Alanna—you are very good girls.”

  “We weren’t always good. When you were sick. We made noise sometimes.”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered, sweetie. It wouldn’t have mattered.”

  Ruby did not understand then that her mother was never coming back. That became clear only later, and even then Ruby wasn’t sure why. Why couldn’t her mother come back? She said she was going to South Africa because she had lived there as a child, but it felt as if she had picked the farthest location possible. For years, Ruby kept thinking she would come back, just walk through the door one day, the way the song promised. Mommy always comes back. Of course, she was thinking of the door of the old house, back in Bolton Hill.

  In this house, you couldn’t hear anyone coming through the door unless you were in the living room or dining room. This house was large, almost too large, with strange acoustics. If it weren’t a new house, built to spec, Ruby might have thought it haunted. Right now, she could hear Joey crying—well, not exactly crying, but making the odd seagull noises he made when he was happy. That meant Felicia and Joey were nearby, probably in Joey’s room, the smallest of the four bedrooms on this level, but also the only one with its own bathroom. Felicia wasn’t awful. She was just—Felicia. Their father’s second wife.

  They still owned the old house. It sat empty. No one wanted to buy the house where the lady had gone crazy and murdered her kid, even if it hadn’t actually happened in the house. Ruby knew enough about real estate to understand that if her father lowered the price enough, someone would buy it. But he kept the listing artificially high. So while it was true that no one wanted to buy it, it was also true that her father, for some reason, wasn’t ready to sell it. He said he needed to find a special buyer, someone who appreciated what he had done to the interior. He said he might convert it to apartments. One day. It made Ruby sad that her childhood home sat empty. She couldn’t have said why. She just knew it was terribly sad. Maybe it was because an empty house could hold only one memory, the big memory, the thing that no one wanted to remember. Whereas if a new family moved in, perhaps the house could start over. Her father had started over, with Felicia. New wife, new house, new baby.

  How would Alanna and Ruby start over? When?

  She decided to risk putting her hand on her sister’s bed, as softly as possible, palm up. Seconds passed, but Alanna finally rested her palm, damp and sticky, on Ruby’s. It was uncomfortable sitting that way, with her wrist bent back. But Ruby sat there for a very long time, listening to her sister breathe in and out.

  Interview with Elyse Mackie, filmed March 5, at her home

  SPEAKER 1: Harmony Burns

  SPEAKER 2: Elyse Mackie

  INPUT: HB

  HB: Please introduce yourself and start by telling me when you were hired by the Dawes family.

  EM: My name is Elyse Mackie. I was a nanny to the Dawes family. I started a month before Isadora was born. They poached me.

  HB: Poached? And don’t forget, try to keep talking without prompts, if you can. Just tell the story. Women are so polite. They always want it to be a conversation. Pretend you’re a man and just talk and talk and talk. I’m kidding. A little.

  EM: They hired me when I was working for another couple. It happens. And to be truthful, they were far from the first people to try. They were in Washington, D.C., at a park on Capitol Hill, with the older girls, Alanna and Ruby, and they saw me with the children I was carin
g for at the time. Mrs. Dawes slipped me a note, saying she liked the way I handled myself and suggesting she could do better by me, if I were interested in a change. Like I said, it wasn’t the first time someone had tried that. I hate to say it, but I think it’s because I’m white. All the other nannies in that park tended to be African-American or Latina.

  HB: To clarify—you think that’s why Melisandre Dawes tried to hire you, or you think that’s why other families, in general, tried to hire you?

  EM: All families. That and my age. I was in my mid-twenties, then. Old enough so people assumed I had chosen to be a nanny as a career. And I did have a good résumé. I spoke Spanish, although that’s not as in demand as French. I’m very good at what I do. Mr. and Mrs. Dawes made it clear that they wanted me to help primarily with the older children, that Mrs. Dawes was keen to stay home with the new baby because she hadn’t done that with Ruby and Alanna. So they were to be my charges, to free up Mrs. Dawes to care for the baby. Lots of driving, to activities, to school and back. And then, when they were in school, she needed help with errands, maybe an occasional break with the baby. I always wondered—Well, I really shouldn’t speculate. That makes me nervous. I told you about the agreement, right? I have to be very careful.

  HB: Don’t censor yourself. I promise if you say something and you regret it, you can tell me and I can edit it out. We’ll also have a lawyer review your interview, make sure you’re not in violation of your confidentiality agreement. What was it that you wondered?

  EM: I always thought that the arrangement must be a little odd for Alanna and Ruby. Their mother hiring help so she could be devoted to the new baby. I don’t know if they thought of it that way. They never said anything. But they were very bright, those girls, and sensitive. Alanna’s the one that everyone thinks of as sensitive, because she wears her heart on her sleeve, but Ruby is just as affected by things. I loved those girls. I was so glad when Mr. Dawes hired me back. After—you know, after. I had really missed them.

  HB: We’ll get there. Let’s try to follow the chronology. Tell me about the Melisandre you met, in the park that day. What did she look like, what was she like?

  EM: Well, it was like a movie star had walked up to me. I honestly thought she must be someone famous. She had that way about her. You know, the hair, the clothes. I have to admit, that’s part of the reason I took her card and called her. Like I said, it wasn’t the first time someone tried to poach me, and I am generally pretty loyal. But the family I was working for—they wanted me to do more and more housecleaning as their children got older. That’s not why I worked as a nanny. I liked kids. And Mrs. Dawes—she asked me to call her Melisandre, but I never quite could—she seemed so nice. I mean she was nice. She was maybe six months along, but she was one of those women who looked beautiful pregnant. She carried high and round, and seemed unaffected by it. It really was like she was just walking around with a basketball up her dress. I liked her. And they made me such a good offer. I was almost suspicious. An apartment, rent-free, and not on their property, which is tricky. Living with a family. They say you’ll have privacy, but you never do. I lived in one of Stephen’s buildings, a mill redevelopment. They even gave me a car. They said they wanted to make sure that Alanna and Ruby were safe. They didn’t like my little Datsun. They bought me a two-year-old Jeep Cherokee. Set hours, Monday through Friday. And, eventually, I was to travel with them, although that never happened. They had thought they might go to Europe that summer, or rent a place on Nantucket, but Mr. Dawes couldn’t afford the time off from work and Isadora was colicky. Bad colicky. It would have driven anyone crazy. Sorry. Oh, God, I’m so sorry—

  HB: It’s okay.

  EM: I didn’t mean to say it that way. I know it wasn’t the colic. But I doubt the colic helped. We were all a bit on edge. Even the girls. But we got through the end of the school year, and they were in camp, and suddenly, Mr. Dawes told me they didn’t need me anymore.

  HB: Just out of the blue.

  EM: It felt that way.

  HB: Why?

  EM: Why did it feel that way?

  HB: Why did he say he had to let you go?

  EM: He said it was at Mrs. Dawes’s insistence. I don’t know. Maybe that was when—her problems were starting. That would make sense, right?

  HB: Are you asking me?

  EM: No. I guess I’m still—still confused. About who asked me to leave. But Mr. Dawes was the one who asked me to come back. After. Only I had to sign a confidentiality agreement. Of course they were sensitive about people talking, given what was going on. I mean, factual stuff, that’s not in dispute—the dates of my employment, my job description—that’s okay. And when I talked to Mrs. Dawes—I guess she’s not Mrs. Dawes anymore, but I don’t know what to call her—she said I can say anything I want to about her, anything. But I wasn’t there, when it got really bad. I was fired in June. Wait, I don’t think I can say fired. I left in June and returned in September.

  HB: Certainly that agreement doesn’t apply retroactively. We checked. You signed that in September 2002.

  EM: I don’t have the, uh, luxury of finding that out. My first day back at work was September tenth. I remember because the next day—people were talking about the first anniversary of nine-eleven. I remember that Stephen—Mr. Dawes—told me that when nine-eleven happened, Alanna, she asked that everyone stop talking about it. Within, like, two weeks. She said, “Would everyone please stop talking about nine-eleven?” That was so like her.

  HB: That’s a good detail. I wonder if Alanna will remember that about herself.

  EM: How’s she doing? Alanna. And Ruby. She was adorable. I think about them a lot. I thought—Well, it doesn’t matter. But I really loved them. Do they like their stepmother? I’m sorry, I guess that’s none of my business. I always thought Stephen would marry—if he remarried at all—someone like, well, someone more like Melisandre. He cares about appearances, Mr. Dawes. I thought that might have been the reason he didn’t get help for Mrs. Dawes.

  HB: I don’t want to press you, but about Mr. Dawes? He offered no reason at all when he asked you to leave the first time, in June, said only that it was what Mrs. Dawes wanted?

  EM: It just came out of the blue. Also, it was summer. The girls had fewer activities, only the day camp. And it was around the time Mrs. Dawes began to get so strange. I guess, if she was psychotic, that was when it started.

  HB: If? Do you doubt the diagnosis? Are you one of the people who believe she was faking?

  EM: Oh, no, well, it’s just that, it’s like OJ, right? He was acquitted, but lots and lots of people think he was guilty.

  HB: Do you, in particular, have a specific reason to believe that Melisandre Dawes was not clinically insane the day her daughter died?

  EM: No, I didn’t mean that. I was just talking in a general way. Don’t put words in my mouth.

  HB: Okay, in your own words, describe the woman for whom you worked that year.

  EM: She was troubled. At first, she just seemed unhappy. I’ve worked as a nanny long enough to know that’s not unusual. She was tired and Isadora cried all the time. It was as if the household had split in two, with her and the baby on one side, Stephen and the girls on the other. Like there were two families. And the more isolated she became, the stranger she seemed. But if she was hearing voices or having delusions—I missed it. She was unhappy and angry. I mean, that’s what I thought. And she threw things when she got mad. I’d never seen anyone do that before, but I’m not sure it means you’re crazy. Insane, whatever we’re supposed to say. But she managed to hold it together around the girls, at least while I was there. I was let go in late June. I guess a lot can happen in six weeks. It must have. The woman I worked for—I can’t imagine her doing what she did. It would make more sense if it were just a complete accident, if she forgot, like some parents do, you know? I can see her forgetting. I can’t see her doing it on purpose. Or maybe I just don’t want to. Are we done? I have an appointment at four.

&
nbsp; HB: Sketch in your biography for me quickly. What you’re doing now, if you’re married or have kids?

  EM: I manage a gourmet store in Belvedere Square, a place that imports food and olive oil from Spain. So my Spanish finally came in handy. I got married, but it didn’t work out. I’m engaged to marry again, though, and I hope I can have kids of my own. I’d hate to think I’d missed out on that. I always thought I’d have kids. It was a real disappointment, you know, when things didn’t work out. With my first husband, I mean. But I guess that was for the best, right? That wasn’t the right situation for me, so it’s better that I waited, that it didn’t happen then. That’s why I need to go. I have a meeting with my wedding planner and, I swear, it’s like I work for her. I don’t dare be late. She’s really in demand and we’re meeting with the caterers today for a tasting. I know it’s silly, but my first marriage was such a rebound thing. I was young and I didn’t really think it out. So this is my first wedding. I want it to be perfect. I know—people make fun of women, call us Bridezillas. But if you know anything about marriage, you know the wedding is the only thing that has a shot at being perfect, so why not?

  HB: Camera off, end tape.

  Tuesday

  10:00 A.M.

  “Danish?” Tess asked. “We’re having a big platter of pastries and Danish? And bagels? With a carton of fresh-brewed coffee from the Daily Grind?”

  “Nothing wrong with Danish,” Sandy said, helping himself.

  Tess continued to stare down Tyner Gray. Or try to. When it came to avoiding eye contact, Tyner’s wheelchair was a distinct advantage. If she wanted to force him to meet her gaze, she’d have to crouch the way she did with Carla Scout, who also had a genius for avoiding eye contact when it suited her.

  “I have been to, what, maybe three hundred meetings here over the years and you have never so much as offered someone a Luna bar and now you’ve put out a spread? What is so damn special about this woman?”