Family Pictures

by Jane Green

  37

  Sylvie

  Sylvie has driven her own car to the airport to meet Eve, despite Angie’s insistence that it was crazy for the two of them to drive separately.

  “Something is wrong with Eve,” Sylvie said. “I feel that she knows.…” She sighed. “That’s crazy. She can’t know. But I sense something. I need to drive her home alone.”

  Sylvie stands at the airport, next to Angie, vaguely aware that around her there is a sea of people whose lives are continuing unchanged, whereas she is pretending to be normal, is as uncomfortable in her skin as she has ever been, knowing that everything in her life is a fraud.

  “You’re okay,” Angie keeps saying. “You’re okay.” But Sylvie doesn’t know if this is true. She must be okay for Eve, must be strong, must somehow find the words that Eve will be able to hear, but how can she knowingly cause her daughter—already in such a fragile state—yet more pain.

  Claudia is first out, with Eve—so painfully thin, seemingly more so, although this may be because Sylvie hasn’t seen for her a few days—lagging behind.

  The girls are subdued, quiet, Eve’s eyes swollen, and the two mothers meet eyes across the heads of their daughters as they hug them, Eve not wanting to let go. As Sylvie holds her, she feels Eve’s tiny, frail body shudder, a silent sob that Eve must have been holding in, and Sylvie waves to Angie that they should leave.

  Everyone in the airport recedes. Angie and Claudia quietly leaving them as Sylvie rocks her daughter, her own face wet with tears.

  “Let’s go to the car,” she says finally. “We can talk then.”

  * * *

  But by the time they have reached the car, Eve has clammed up. She has pushed the emotion away and is sitting staring blankly out the window as Sylvie tries to reach her.

  “Were the girls unpleasant?”

  “No.”

  “Did something happen with a boy?”

  “No.”

  “Eve, what happened? I can’t help you unless you tell me.”

  Eve turns to look at her mother, her face stricken. “I can’t tell you,” she whispers.

  Sylvie pulls off at the next exit and parks, turning to her daughter. “Eve, whatever has happened, whatever you might have done, I love you, and I won’t judge you. You have my word that I won’t be mad, but something is wrong, and you need to tell me.”

  Sylvie watches the confusion flit across Eve’s face, waiting silently until Eve opens her mouth again.

  “It’s Dad,” she says eventually. “I found something out—”

  “He has a family in Connecticut,” Sylvie says dully, knowing that Eve knows.

  “How—? You knew?”

  Sylvie shakes her head. “I found out yesterday. How did you find out?”

  Eve starts to tell her the story, haltingly at first, then a rush of words, ending with her sense of horror as she walked through the house and noticed the photographs, saw her father with another family, her explosion at Grace and running out, wanting to be anywhere but there, wanting to do anything to stop the pain.

  “There is some pain that can’t be stopped.” Sylvie holds Eve’s birdlike hand, stroking her fingers, feeling every bone and joint through the skin. “And you and I need help with this.”

  “What has he said? How has he explained it?” Eve is less interested in help, more interested in an explanation, but Sylvie gently brings her back.

  “I haven’t spoken to him. His phone is switched off. But Eve, I need to talk to someone about this,” she is lying. The thought of sitting with a therapist and exposing her shame is horrifying, but this is the only way to have Eve agree to see someone.

  Looking at her now, seeing just how frail, and how sick Eve looks, Sylvie knows that this is likely to push her over the edge, and that isn’t a chance she can afford to take.

  “And you need to talk to someone too.”

  Eve’s eyes harden; she pulls her hand away as Sylvie notices, suddenly, her protruding collarbones, the sharp planes of her shoulders, the hollow pockets around her eyes.

  How could she not have noticed Eve had gotten this bad before, compounded by her doubtless eating next to nothing in New York.

  “Is this about the food?” Eve says, wary now. “Because I’m not sick. If this is a trick to get me to see a therapist, it won’t work. I’ve told you a million times, I’m just not hungry. Especially not now.”

  “I know,” Sylvie said, careful to acknowledge Eve. “That’s what concerns me. You’ve been through a tremendous amount, more than any teenager should have to go through, and you don’t have to go through this on your own.”

  “I’m fine,” Eve mutters. “I’m coping.”

  “Coping isn’t the same as living,” Sylvie says. “Trust me. I know.” She watches as Eve, struggling to be strong, to prove to her mother that she’s fine, suddenly sags, her face crumpling as she bursts into tears.

  38

  Sylvie

  Dr. Lawson is sympathetic and kind. Old enough to be unthreatening, he has twinkling eyes and a shiny, bald pate. He is, fortunately, nothing like Eve’s father, number one or number two.

  Sylvie has already had a lengthy telephone conversation with him. She has explained about Mark, is relieved when he now asks if he might have some time alone with Eve.

  That was an hour ago. Sylvie is starting to lose patience, sitting in the waiting room, flicking through out-of-date People magazines, sighing heavily as she looks at her watch repeatedly, as if that will make the appointment end sooner.

  What are they doing in there? Why is it taking so long? Should she demand to be let in? She is Eve’s mother, after all.

  “Mrs. Haydn?”

  She looks up to see Dr. Lawson in the doorway. “Eve’s just getting some bloodwork done,” he explains. “Come into my office. Please,” he gestures to a chair, “have a seat.”

  And he begins to explain.

  “Eve is, as you suspected, suffering from anorexia nervosa, but more lately it seems, bingeing and purging in a way that suggests bulimia nervosa. We will know much more about the state of her health when the bloodwork comes back, but there are certain markers that indicate she is in need of immediate inpatient treatment.”

  Sylvie forces herself to stay calm. “What kind of markers?”

  “You will have noticed her body is covered in a downy hair, and her hair is thin and stringy. Her last menstruation was five months ago. Mrs. Haydn? Mrs. Haydn?” The doctor leans forward, knowing what her unresponsive gaze means, having seen this so many times before. “This isn’t your fault.”

  Sylvie looks back at him, and like every mother who has ever sat in this chair before her, does not believe him.

  “The girls I treat are very clever at hiding these disorders, masters of deception, in fact. They’ll tell all the lies in the book, making all of them sound just plausible enough that you begin to distrust the evidence you can see with your own eyes.

  “You wouldn’t have known Eve hasn’t menstruated for months, nor that she has fainted twice in the last month. I’m telling you this not to make you feel guilty, but to ensure you know that for an anorexic, this is normal. They will do everything they can to blind the people they love to enable them to continue controlling their food.”

  Sylvie wipes away a tear and nods. “Is this about control? I keep reading it is, but I don’t understand what that means.”

  He nods back. “This is the age when teenage girls start to feel overwhelmed. They’re getting ready to leave home, and however excited or mature they may seem on the outside, the truth is, many feel utterly out of control, which is when they start to control the one thing they feel they can. Add more complications to that—moving, divorce, loss— and these things can spiral quickly.”

  “She told you about her father?”

  “She told me about both her fathers.”

  Sylvie swallows and nods again.

  “That must be very hard for both of you. Part of Eve’s treatment will involve sig
nificant therapy, both individual and group, and these are some of the issues we’ll get to the bottom of. But, Mrs. Haydn? I’m also concerned about you. To have discovered this betrayal at the same time as your mother is seriously ill is going to be very hard, psychologically, for you to deal with on your own.

  “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but is there someone you are considering seeing as well?”

  * * *

  Sylvie is used to pushing down her feelings. She is used to pushing pain, and fear, and loneliness aside, focusing on projects to take her mind off however bad things might be, distracting herself until the pain has subsided enough for her to carry on with life.

  Mark’s disappearance has been like that. She has busied herself making candles, shipping them off in boxes to whomever Angie tells her to, insisting she is fine, refusing to give in to the fear.

  The regular phone calls from Mark’s other wife have helped. They have cast Sylvie as unofficial therapist rather than evil other woman: the strong one, the one who can help heal.

  It is a role Sylvie was born to do—hasn’t she, after all, spent her life trying to heal her mother? When Maggie breaks down in tears on the phone, Sylvie is the one able to talk her through, to point out that life will get better, that there is a life beyond Mark, beyond his betrayal.

  Sylvie is the one able to help her husband’s other wife in order to save herself.

  Staring at Dr. Lawson, she is about to smile, reassure him she is fine, for she is the caretaker. Why would she need to see a therapist?

  His eyes are full of compassion as he looks at her. “Mrs. Haydn?” he repeats. “Who is taking care of you?”

  Sylvie starts to cry.

  39

  Maggie

  “Mom? Who are all those people in our yard?” Buck is walking past the window, crunching on an apple as he calls through to the kitchen.

  “Landscapers?” I call back hopefully, because the landscapers had to be fired, and the grass is of a level that may not ever have been seen before in New Salem. Buck offered to cut it himself, but of course I haven’t owned a lawn mower my entire adult life, and now a lawn mower is the last thing we can afford.

  “Do landscapers drive News 12 trucks?” I hear Buck say, before groaning under his breath. “Shit. This isn’t good.”

  I gasp when I join him at the window, seeing the NBC and CBS news trucks outside, the crowds of people standing around my front yard, reporters speaking into cameras, gesturing toward the house, crews setting up, even having the temerity to eat their bagels and rest their paper coffee cups on my goddamn lawn.

  “That’s her!” someone shouts from outside. The crowd turns as if one, breaking into a run toward the house as I dart back from the window and lean against the wall, breathing hard.

  Safely in the kitchen, my heart pounding, I phone the police station.

  “They are trespassing on private property. Please come and get them out of here immediately.” I’m angry, and scared, and panicking, when the doorbell starts ringing.

  “Just ignore it,” I hiss urgently to Buck, who, well-brought-up boy that he is, was almost certainly just about to answer the door and politely tell them his mother is not willing to talk.

  The phone rings. Lara. I snatch it up.

  “Are you okay?” Lara’s voice bursts down the phone. “This is just awful! Oh, Maggie. I am so sorry.”

  “Lara, why is the press here? What’s going on?”

  There is an awkward silence before Lara speaks. “Oh, Maggie. You’re all over the news.”

  “What news?”

  “Everything?” Lara says timidly. “It’s been a couple of days now. I guess because Mark got arrested, it was on the local police blotter, but it’s gone national.”

  “What does that mean, ‘gone national’?”

  Lara hesitates, but how can she not tell me. “It’s the big story on all the morning shows today. The Today Show is running a piece on bigamists, and Good Morning America has a piece coming on all about you and Mark and his life of cons, in about ten minutes.”

  “Do they actually have pictures of me?” I am aware that my voice is a whisper.

  “I don’t know where they got them from. Tons. And they’re speaking to people who know you, although none of your real fr— Oh my God! Is this live?” She stops. “They’re reporting from outside your house right now?”

  “Oh yes. Just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does.” I hear a noise in the basement and tell Lara I have to go, heading down to the basement where I find Buck glued to the TV, the entire screen of which is currently occupied by a picture of our house and a reporter speaking live on camera.

  “His wife, Maggie, is described as a pillar of the community—” The reporter sweeps her hand to take in the house as the camera pans. “—and up until this past week, queen of the ladies who lunch out here on Connecticut’s Gold Coast. But it’s a far cry from where she grew up, in a humble blue-collar home—” I don’t hear anything else, for a picture of my childhood home suddenly flashes on-screen, more derelict and disgusting than it was then, chain-link fence in the front, a snarling dog leaping and barking at the camera.

  I am not proud of myself for what happens next. Shame and rage combine to a force that is too overpowering for me to control, and before I even think about it, I’m running up the basement stairs to the front door and flinging it open, marching down the steps and straight to the reporter who is still speaking, live, into the camera, and my fury is pulsing through my body, a red vein of rage.

  “How dare you!” I shout. “How dare you trespass on my property and embarrass my children. Get off my property now.”

  The reporter is unfazed. “Mrs. Hathaway, did you know your husband was embezzling money?”

  “Get the hell out,” I demand, searching for the police to help, but there are none to be seen.

  “Can you at least tell us how you found out your husband has another wife and daughter?” the reporter continues in her smooth, professional, modulated tones.

  “Get the fuck out!” Oh, sweet Jesus. Did I have to curse live on the air? Did I have to curse while standing in my graying bathrobe, my not-too-clean bra clearly visible, my hair, unbrushed and tangled, framing my fury as I advance to the reporter, ready to kill if anyone takes a step closer?

  She backs down, and I take a deep breath, knowing my dignity will never be restored after this; knowing that all around town, women are glued to their televisions, cell phones in hand as they call everyone they know, eyes wide with horror—and thrill—at my public humiliation and downfall.

  Me. The woman I used to think they had all aspired to be.

  40

  Sylvie

  Sylvie hugs Eve good-bye and walks out of the room with a smile and wave, as if she is perfectly fine, waiting until she is safely in the elevator before collapsing against the wall, emotionally drained.

  Eve has been begging and pleading all day for Sylvie to get her out of here. She is crying, screaming, wailing, hiccuping, promising to eat, swearing on everything she has that she means it: that this time will be different. The regimen they have agreed to with Dr. Lawson involves prescribed eating during the day, with intravenous feedings at night to ensure Eve gets the nutrition she needs, and Eve is terrified.

  They are aiming, he said, for a weight gain of two to three pounds per week, which is when Eve started to lose it.

  Sylvie cannot stand to leave her alone, but it is time for her first therapy, and Sylvie has to see Clothilde and figure out this financial mess.

  Sylvie strides through the foyer of the clinic, digging in her purse for the car keys, not noticing a couple sitting on chairs by the door. The woman nudges the man, who jumps up and whips a camera out, taking Sylvie’s picture.

  Startled, Sylvie is about to ask what on earth is going on when the woman approaches, holding out a tiny black tape recorder.

  “Ms. Haydn? We’re from the Star. We understand your daughter has just been admitted to thi
s rehab clinic. Is this collateral damage from her finding out about your husband?”

  “What?” Sylvie’s voice is like stone. “How did you find out … I was here?”

  “Is it true, then?”

  “I’m not answering anything until you tell me how you knew I was here.” Someone who works here, an admitting nurse, someone. How could they have been so indiscreet?

  “Facebook,” the woman admits. “Some of your daughter’s friends have been posting about it.”

  “Oh shit.” Sylvie closes her eyes for a second, then turns on her heel and walks out the door, blanking the two reporters as if they had never existed at all.

  * * *

  She can’t go to Clothilde. Not until she finds out what’s on Facebook and gets it taken down immediately. Turning into the driveway, she sees a slew of vans by the house with antennas on top, scores of people milling around her house.

  Reporters.

  Shit.

  She reverses quickly, driving straight to Angie’s, who opens the door before Sylvie has even parked the car.

  “Where’ve you been? I’ve been calling you all morning.” Her usual smile is missing, her face deadly serious.

  “Where do you think I’ve been?” Sylvie snaps. “I’ve been admitting Eve into rehab and planning to go and see my mother, but I can’t. The press have gotten hold of the story.”

  “I know.”

  “What do you mean, you know?”

  “Because it’s all over the fucking news.”

  “Oh, Jesus. Is it bad?”

  “It’s worse for the other one. She’s being portrayed as a snooty social-climbing bitch. ‘Superior’ and ‘cold’ are words I remember.”

  “She doesn’t sound superior. She sounds devastated.”

  “Sylvie, have you seen any of this stuff?”

  Sylvie tilts her head. “Only a tiny bit. I couldn’t watch.”

  “Did you see his house?” Angie shakes her head. “It’s insane! It’s fucking huge! What the—? Who the hell is this man? This other Mark is all Porsches and diamonds, and she’s all Chanel and this crazy moneyed lifestyle. This isn’t the man we know at all.”