“That is right,” Iris said.
Billie looked somewhat uncertain as she’d only recently started potty training. After sitting in the bathroom for ten minutes, Billie finally did her business and seemed quite triumphant as she walked back into the nursery with Iris. She followed Iris to the youngest Wiseman additions, Ella and Langston, eight-month-old twins. Billie stuck her arm through the crib bars and poked her sister. Ella started and looked at Billie, but did not cry.
Iris picked up Ella. “Good morning, little Ella. Time for a new diaper.”
Ella blinked at Iris with her big, brown eyes as she was carried to the changing table. Billie insisted on helping and eagerly handed Iris the wipes, powder and a clean diaper. Iris placed Ella on the carpet with her big sister. Billie promptly hugged Ella’s head and yelled, “Hey, Ella!”
As usual, Langston had already pulled himself up into a standing position. “Rise… and shine… Iris.”
He held out his arms and Iris picked him up. “Yes, rise and shine, Langston.”
At the changing table, Langston pointed at the window. “Storm.”
“Yes, it is a storm, Langston.”
He smiled at her. “Okay.”
Iris took Billie, Ella, and Langston downstairs where the rest of the family had already started breakfast. Eve and William kissed all of their children.
“How did you sleep, Iris?” Eve asked as she helped Agnes serve the children.
“Great, thank you.” Iris helped herself to a glass of orange juice. “I checked on Billie at around two and her bed was still dry. She used the potty with no trouble this morning.”
Eve kissed Billie again. “I’m so proud of you, baby girl.”
Billie giggled.
“I don’t wet my bed anymore,” Garvey announced sulkily around a mouthful of pancakes.
“We’re proud of you too, son,” William said, winking.
After breakfast, Iris usually liked to take the children outside, but it was still raining, so they all went back up to the nursery to play for a while. Garvey went to his collection of toy cars, trucks, trains, and planes. Billie sat down at her table laden with watercolors, construction paper, plastic scissors, and Play-Doh.
“Peter… and the Wolf,” Langston said.
The children had a vast classical music collection, but Langston insisted on Peter and the Wolf several times a week. Iris pushed “play” on the MP3 player and tried to entice Ella to play with the toys attached to her Jumperoo. Instead of joining in play, Ella craned her neck to see out of the floor-to-ceiling window.
Agnes walked in. “Still won’t play, huh?”
Iris shook her head, took Ella out of the Jumperoo, and placed her facing the window. “She will play with a toy for a few minutes, then she goes straight back to the window. I do not know what to do.”
Agnes glanced at Ella, then took the bags out of the hampers. “Yeah,” was all she said before she left.
Langston settled next to Ella on the floor and held her hand. He chattered at her, though Ella didn’t seem to pay much attention.
“The bird, whose name is Sasha, by a flute,” Langston recited along with the narrator. Ella glanced at him before turning back to the window. Langston leaned against her and they both fell over. Langston squealed with delight.
Iris laughed. “Silly baby.”
Langston and Ella pushed themselves back into sitting positions. Iris checked on Garvey, then sat down with Billie who had pulled out her paint bottles. Billie swung her foot up and rested it on Iris’s leg as she hummed to the music and finger-painted. Iris looked down and saw the quarter-inch black crescent under the child’s inner ankle. She traced it with her fingertip. Billie giggled and cringed a little, but didn’t remove her foot.
The first time Iris had seen the mark on Garvey’s shoulder blade, she hadn’t thought much about it. She’d seen much more elaborate birthmarks in Laos, but when she noticed the mark on Billie, she’d asked William about it. He simply smiled and patted her shoulder. No answer. No explanation. When she discovered the markings behind Langston and Ella’s right ears at bath time, Iris asked Eve about them.
“They’re just birthmarks,” Eve said.
Iris nodded, but even she wasn’t naïve enough to believe that. They weren’t just birthmarks. The crescents were all the same, perfect, little shapes. To Iris’s knowledge, no one else had seen them. If they went out, Billie’s was hidden by her socks and Garvey’s by his shirt.
“Can I have some ice cream?” Billie asked.
“It is too early for ice cream, sweetie. Maybe later.”
Billie sighed loudly and sprinkled glitter on her paint. A loud snap startled Iris and she looked in Garvey’s direction. He looked bewildered at the broken wooden piece he held in his fist. The other half of the car was on the floor.
Iris got up and inspected the car. “What happened?”
Garvey threw his half down. “It broke.”
Iris picked up the pieces and turned away.
“That’s my car.”
She turned back to him. “I have to take this one.”
“No.”
Iris pointed to a splintered area on one of the pieces. “This is sharp and you could hurt yourself.”
“No!” Garvey yelled. “Fix it!”
She indicated the four wooden cars in front of him. “You have more cars.”
Garvey launched at Iris and caught her wrist. “No! No! No! Fix it!”
Iris had been dealing with these meltdowns for the last few weeks. She knew it was just the nature of children Garvey’s age and hoped that he’d learn restraint sooner, rather than later. Garvey pulled on Iris’s arm in an attempt to get his car back.
“Okay. We are going to have a time-out.”
“No!” Garvey grunted as he yanked on her arm again.
Iris slammed into the floor, knocking Garvey down in the process. The two car pieces flew out of her hand and bounced across the carpet. Iris scrambled away from the child as she held her aching shoulder. Garvey sat up and looked behind her. Iris turned around. Agnes was standing in the doorway, holding the empty hamper bags.
“Iris, are you alright?”
“Yes. Yes, I am okay. I just lost my balance.”
Agnes eyed Garvey as she returned the bags to the hampers. “Mrs. Wiseman sent me to get Garvey and Billie. The Junior League is having that play date thing for the kids.”
Iris looked at the clock. “Right.”
She stood and walked into the closet to find the children’s galoshes and raincoats. She could feel her neck and cheeks burning under Agnes’s scrutiny. Garvey got up slowly and followed Iris to the closet. She tried to control her panic when she saw the child approaching. She chided herself. There was absolutely no reason to be afraid of an almost-three-year-old. He had a perfectly normal tantrum and she tripped. That’s all. She handed him his rubber boots.
“Put these on,” she said. “Your mother is taking you to see your friends.”
Iris helped Billie with her boots and handed them their backpacks.
“Bye,” Billie said. She grabbed her brother’s hand. “Come on.”
“Have fun, you two,” Iris said.
Iris closed the nursery door after them. She rubbed her shoulder and looked at her arm. There was a small, red handprint on her wrist. She quickly averted her eyes and concentrated on the twins, still seated on the floor. Peter and the Wolf started again. Langston got out his plastic building blocks and began stacking them according to color. Ella watched him for a while. He pushed a few blocks over to her so she could play too.
Agnes knocked on the door perfunctorily before re-entering the nursery. “We need to talk.”
Iris covered the handprint on her wrist with her other hand. “What about?”
“You know what,” Agnes said.
“Do you need help with the laundry?”
“I saw him pull you down.”
“Garvey? No, he was upset because his toy broke. When I told
him he needed a time-out, I tripped.”
Agnes narrowed her eyes. “You were standing still and Garvey pulled you down. I was right here when he did it. I saw the whole thing.”
Iris shook her head.
Agnes plucked one of the car halves off the carpet. “How do you think this happened?”
Iris’s voice cracked. “Toys break.”
“This car is solid wood.”
Iris didn’t know what to say. She tried to concentrate on the CD playing and hoped that if she didn’t answer, Agnes would just leave.
“Iris.”
“I do not want to talk about this.”
Agnes smoothed her hands over the front of her uniform and sighed. “I know, but I think it’s time, don’t you?”
Iris looked away and shook her head.
“Yes.” Agnes’s tone was firm. “Come with me.”
Iris placed the twins in their cribs. She moved slowly, delaying the moment she had to be alone with Agnes, away from the distraction of the music and the children.
She followed Agnes to the master suite. “Where is Dr. Wiseman?”
“He went to his lab when Mrs. Wiseman left.”
Agnes opened Eve’s walk-in closet. It was a plush room painted robin egg blue and lined with snow white carpentry and shelves. There was a wall of Eve’s high heels, each shoe placed neatly and evenly spaced. A small chandelier threw prisms of light onto the racks of clothing. Iris could smell the bouquet of fresh flowers on the dresser.
“Why are we in here?”
“Remember when we went to the spa and I told you about my old jobs before I came to work for the Wisemans?”
Iris nodded.
“I saw a lot of things. Affairs. A wife with a drug habit. A son who wore women’s underwear.” Agnes picked up a stepstool from the corner. “Every day, I’d arrive on time and work like I didn’t know or see anything. I was the help. If I wanted to keep my job, I had to be invisible and silent.” She slid a hatbox off the highest shelf and gingerly stepped off the stool. “Sometimes I’d talk to the other staff about it. Sometimes I didn’t, but I knew that whatever went on in those houses stayed within those walls.” She placed the box on a tufted ottoman and looked at Iris.
Iris fidgeted. “What?”
“I love the Wisemans.”
“So do I.”
“I know.” Agnes eyed the hatbox.
Iris looked at the hatbox, wild thoughts running through her mind. Was there something dead in there? Whatever it was, from the look on Agnes’s face, she knew she wasn’t going to like it.
“We’re friends.” Agnes sounded tentative and Iris couldn’t tell if she didn’t believe they were friends or was just apprehensive to continue.
Iris nodded. She stepped back as Agnes lifted the hatbox lid, afraid that the thing Agnes pulled out would not be dead, but very much alive.
It was a brown half sphere of rubbery looking material. Iris leaned in closer for a better look. Agnes held it out to her and Iris ran her hand along the curve of it.
“That looks like a bellybutton,” she observed, poking at a little indention.
“That’s exactly what it is.”
Iris looked up at Agnes, searching her face for that amused smirk she sometimes wore when Iris missed a joke. She wasn’t smiling.
Agnes held up the sphere against herself and Iris cocked her head to the side.
“It’s a stomach? I do not understand.”
Agnes placed it back in the box. “There are more up there too. Different sizes.”
“Why?”
“Before you got here, Mrs. Wiseman had several miscarriages.”
“Yes. She told me.”
“Iris, she never carried a baby to full term.”
Iris laughed. “That is crazy. Of course, she did. I was here. I saw her.”
“No.” Agnes pointed to the fake belly. “You saw this. You saw her wearing this.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m the housekeeper, Iris. That’s how I know.”
Iris’s smile faded. “But the children look very much like Mr. and Mrs. Wiseman. Are you saying they are not theirs?”
“No, I’m pretty sure the children are theirs. I think Mrs. Wiseman had a surrogate, a woman who has a baby for another person. I know they had embryos, so the babies are biologically theirs, just carried by someone else.”
Iris stared into the hatbox. “Why did she pretend? Is it bad to have a surrogate?”
“No, it isn’t bad, but some women don’t want anyone to know.”
Iris nodded slowly, trying to process the information. Agnes placed the lid on the box and put it back on the shelf. She sat on the ottoman.
“I thought about telling you before.”
“Why did you not tell me?” Iris asked.
Agnes shrugged. “Lots of reasons. You were still getting used to being here. Garvey was still a baby. I didn’t want to breach the trust with Mrs. Wiseman even though she and I never actually discussed it. Plus, I was still having a hard time believing it. She used to tell me everything.”
Agnes looked sad and Iris felt bad for her. “But Mrs. Wiseman still seems to like you very much.”
“And that’s why I feel so… so…”
“So…?”
“I don’t know. I’ve always been loyal to my employers, but when Agent Roswell started asking me questions”
Iris perked up. “Jake?”
Agnes nodded.
“What did he ask?”
“He asked what I knew about Dr. Chang, or if I’d seen anything suspicious here, things like that. At first, I told him no. Mrs. Wiseman’s condition was none of his business and I certainly wasn’t going to say anything to get Dr. Wiseman in trouble.”
“At first?”
Agnes opened up her hands as if she were at a loss. “He gave me his card, so I called him.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him I thought something was off here. Not bad, just off. I don’t know why I called him, Iris. I think I panicked. Dr. and Mrs. Wiseman were acting so strange. It’s not normal to send the help away every time you have a baby. You know that, don’t you?”
“What did Jake say?”
“We need to talk about the children, Iris.”
“What did he say?”
Agnes stood. “I saw those books you got from the library. The ones about abnormal child psychology.”
Iris’s jaw dropped.
“I swear I wasn’t snooping. I was vacuuming and the cord knocked the books off your nightstand.”
Iris leaned on the dresser and closed her eyes. She did not want to talk about them. She inhaled deeply and the scent of the wildflowers reminded her of the picnic she and the children recently had. The sun had been shining brightly and she and Mrs. Wiseman spread out a blanket under an oak. A ladybug had crawled onto Langston. He’d panicked, pointing at it as he looked up at Iris. The expression on his face had been so funny. Iris laughed.
“Iris!”
She snapped to attention. When she opened her eyes, Agnes had her hands on her hips, looking agitated.
“What is wrong with you? I’m trying to talk to you about the children.”
“I do not want to talk.”
“Well, we have to. Garvey almost ripped off your arm. You and I have got to work as a team. We need to look out for each other.”
“It was just an accident,” Iris said.
“And how many other accidents do you think there’ll be before someone really gets hurt? These children are different, and you already know that. I’ve seen the way you look at them.”
Iris looked at her feet.
“An eight-month-old isn’t supposed to line up his toys by color, Iris. And talking the way he does?” Agnes shook her head. “Have you noticed that Mrs. Wiseman never lets them out of her sight unless they are here? I bet she only allows them to stay at that play date thing for less than an hour. These kids are pretty much housebound. I don’t think
she wants anyone else to see what we’ve already seen.”
Iris fidgeted. She wanted to get out of this closet and back to the nursery.
“Did Demetri ever tell you what Dr. Wiseman does?”
Iris spoke slowly. “A little. He cures cancer in the blood.”
“It’s called gene therapy. He can change a person’s DNA, who they are.”
Iris thought about Langston. She babysat her relatives in Laos for years, but no one Langston’s age ever looked at her the way he did. Most toddlers smiled when they saw her, and offered a half-eaten cookie, or pointed to something familiar like a chicken in the yard. They laughed when they were happy and cried when they were sad.
Langston didn’t do that. He was deliberate, aware. He looked at Iris like he knew her, as if he empathized with her, and knew what she was thinking. The weight of his gaze was always heavy and pointed. That’s why Iris borrowed those books from the library. Because of Langston, her favorite.
“What else can Dr. Wiseman do?” she asked.
“Anything he wants.”
Iris swallowed. “Did he change the children?”
Agnes smiled. It was a sad smile. “What do you think?”
They sat in silence for a while. Iris picked at a thread on the hem of her shirt and Agnes waited patiently with her hands clasped in front of her.
“What about the girls?” Iris asked. “Billie and Ella seem more normal.”
“Billie seems normal. You said yourself that Ella can be listless.”
“Listless?”
“It means not active. Slow.”
Iris nodded. “What do we do now?”
“We keep doing what we normally do. We’ll keep watch and see what happens, but from now on, let’s tell each other if we see something strange, okay? We need to protect ourselves and maybe even them from each other. We will wait and see.”
Iris nodded. Agnes walked into the bedroom, but Iris lingered, brushing her hand against one of Eve’s faux furs. “Agnes?”
“Hmm?”
“How do you see Dr. Wiseman?”
“How do I see him?”
“Yes. He saved me from Dr. Chang. But he was friends with Dr. Chang. He saved people from being sick, but he may have changed his own children. Is that good? Is it bad?”
“I think he’s both. Dr. Wiseman is very good… and very bad.”
Mark of the Wiseman (The Wiseman Series Book 1) Page 13
