The Woman in Our House

by Andrew Hart

  I stared. Then I read it all again, clicking on page after page to learn more, as if the next bullet point or text block would make clear what seemed inconceivable. The guilty parties were frequently—apparently—mothers, though anyone who functioned as a caregiver might have the disorder. The origins of the condition were unclear, though they often had roots in the abuser’s own childhood, and there was no clear agreement as to whether MSBP (one site called it a “psychiatric factitious disorder imposed upon another”) was a single condition or a collection of different conditions known by other names and only loosely connected by the motivation of the abuser.

  Several sites listed traits common to people with Munchausen’s by proxy. Such people often had medical skills or experience and seemed particularly at ease in hospitals and similar environments. They seemed to seek attention and attempted to get close to medical personnel. I thought of Oaklynn’s manner in the ER, her combination of attentive efficiency and the way she garnered sympathetic support from the nurses and doctors, the way she had returned to the hospital even after I had told her to stay home, though it had taken a cab ride to bring her back. Most worryingly of all, the websites all said that people with MSBP seem devoted to the children in their care and do not see their behavior as harmful.

  She’s such a treasure . . .

  I stared at the screen. Was this it, the explanation that proved me right, that said that everything Josh and the others had dismissed as delusion driven by guilt and inadequacy was in fact—?

  “Everything all right?”

  I jumped. Oaklynn was standing in the doorway.

  “What?” I said, closing the laptop. “Oh. Yes. Sorry, you startled me.”

  Oaklynn gave me an odd look, that catlike watchfulness settling unreadably into her face.

  “The girls are asleep,” she said. “I’m going to turn in.”

  “Sure,” I said with false brightness. “Great. Thanks. Sleep well.”

  Her hesitation was momentary, her gaze blank, but it chilled me, and I suddenly could not wait for her to leave any longer.

  “I guess I’ll head up, too,” I said, getting quickly to my feet, the laptop clamped to my chest like a shield. I turned my back on her, muttering, “Night” as I headed for the stairs, forcing myself to walk, not run, albeit briskly, and not making eye contact with the nanny, who I knew was watching me all the way.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Nadine sat in the dark with her laptop and Mr. Quietly on the bed beside her, typing, typing, typing. Again, the screen lit her face from below so that she looked like a kid on Halloween trying to scare her friends. In the shadows, she looked squat and ghoulish and knew it. She had never been what you would call attractive, had never turned heads like her sister might have. The only man who had ever been interested in her was Carl, and God knew that hadn’t been about attraction. Still, she had liked the attention for a time, looking past his many, many faults until his casual cruelties had become too much to bear, and the darkness inside him had finally revealed itself.

  She wondered if beautiful people realized the way others saw them, the extra license they attracted, the resentment they earned, and wondered which they thought they deserved. Both? Neither? She pictured Anna and Josh, Mary Beth and Kurt, but the thought originated in what she had been writing, and she added it to the chapter, working the rumination into the character’s head. It works, she thought, or at least it did to her, who shared her protagonist’s confused and jaundiced view of the world. She wasn’t sure what other people would make of it, but that was one of the reasons she had an agent, to help her see how ordinary readers would respond to the things that emerged from her head.

  Emerged? Maybe that wasn’t the word. Perhaps it was more like the things that her head produced, like a great clockwork engine, turning dispassionately over, cogs and springs ticking, adjusting and resetting, as words were stamped and minted on the screen. Or maybe it was less mechanical and more organic: the things that slithered from her brain, the words that uncoiled, pulsing on the screen like strange and amorphous sea creatures from deep, cold waters . . .

  Well, we’ll see, she thought.

  She opened her email, attached the chapter, and wrote,

  Dear Anna,

  I’ve made some changes to this section. See what you think. I hope to have a final chapter to you soon. Good luck with all the nanny weirdness.

  Best,

  Ben Lodging

  Chapter Forty-Two

  ANNA

  After the way he had made me feel stupid and belittled my concerns in front of our friends, then had professed not to understand why I was upset when we got home, I said nothing to Josh and spent the night on the floor of Veronica’s room. I lay there, wondering why he seemed to be giving Oaklynn the benefit of the doubt, taking her side even when I thought she was endangering our children. It made no sense. Yes, he thought I overreacted to things, and he didn’t always grasp the strength of my feelings, but this seemed out of character.

  It worried me.

  The next day, it rained, a cold and constant drizzle, so Oaklynn stayed in with the girls, and I sat in my study, trying to be inconspicuous, listening to the sound of their play. I was also stalling, trying to decide whether to risk making my calls on the home phone or not. Whatever else Oaklynn was, she was clever, and I did not want to tip my hand just yet. The bedroom was where I would get the most privacy, but the phone in there only worked about a quarter of the time, and I didn’t want to change locations in the middle of my calls. At last, I made my excuses and said I was going to the Myers Park library. I didn’t want to leave the house, leave the girls alone with her, but I had no choice.

  I got into the car, my hands trembling. I had to be fast. I couldn’t stay away along . . .

  I drove to the library parking lot, where there was a decent wireless signal, parked, and made my calls, which I did with my laptop open on the passenger seat beside me. Jill Cavendish answered on the third ring. She sounded polite but a little stiff, as if expecting me to be a sales call for which she didn’t have the time.

  “Hi, Mrs. Cavendish?” I said. “This is Anna Klein. I spoke to you a few months ago before I hired Oaklynn Durst.”

  Mrs. Cavendish’s manner changed immediately, as if a light inside her had been turned on, a light I could hear.

  “Oh, Oaklynn! Of course. How is she?”

  She sounded keen, solicitous, and very slightly pitying.

  “She’s well,” I said. “She’s working for me now.”

  “You must love her,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said, feeling suddenly stupid. What was I doing? “She’s wonderful.”

  “Isn’t she? I’m so glad to hear she’s doing well.”

  There it was again, that note of concern.

  “Were you worried she wouldn’t be?” I said, trying to sound casual.

  “No, not really,” said Jill Cavendish. “But you know. The world can be hard on good people. What was it you wanted to ask me about?”

  I nearly lost my nerve, but I swallowed, watching an old woman in a camel-hair coat as she emerged from the library and peered at me while walking to her little beige car, as if I were doing something suspicious and might need reporting.

  “I was just wondering if the kids had any issues with her . . . ?”

  “Dot and Max just loved her.”

  “Sure. Yes. And they were always, you know, healthy when she was looking after them?”

  “Healthy?”

  My heart seemed to be pulsing in my throat.

  “Right. They didn’t get sick or hurt . . . ?”

  “Hurt?” She sounded more than confused now, wary. “What is this about?”

  “Nothing,” I said airily. “So there were no medical issues with the kids?”

  “Oaklynn was always wonderful with the kids when they were sick. As good as a trained nurse.”

  She sounded defensive, but I couldn’t let the moment go.

  “So the kid
s did get sick?”

  “No more than usual. Minor stuff. Colds. Bumps and bruises.”

  “Nothing requiring visits to the hospital?”

  “No more than usual, no.”

  “Usual? You mean checkups?”

  “Well, Max has some issues requiring more frequent visits to the doctor than some kids, but she was always very attentive to his needs. The hospital staff thought she was an exemplary caregiver.”

  “What kind of issues?”

  “He was very premature,” she said, her voice clipped, brittle. “He has some breathing issues, some learning disabilities . . . I’m sorry, I don’t see the relevance of any of this, and I have rather a lot to do today.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m really sorry for disturbing you. You’ve been very helpful.”

  But she’d gone. I couldn’t really blame her. And I had learned nothing. Given what I had read about Munchausen’s by proxy, it was possible that Oaklynn had gotten some kind of fix from tending to a child with long-term health issues. Perhaps it had fed her need for medical attention, the sense of being an essential helper to little Max, but if Jill Cavendish had ever suspected her of somehow making the boy’s symptoms worse for her own twisted ends, she had buried such suspicions completely. More likely, she’d never had them.

  Again, I wondered what on earth I was doing. All this because I’d seen a screwdriver in Oaklynn’s bag? I blew out a long sigh and resolved to finish things quickly.

  I called Clara Hubert, who lived in Portland, mother of Janice and Arthur, almost hoping that she wouldn’t answer. She did, and I went through the same idiotic obfuscation while I tossed my lure into the water and watched for ripples.

  “Medical issues?” said Clara, who was positively bubbly despite the fact that it was ridiculously early on the West Coast. “No, nothing like that. Quite the contrary, actually.”

  “How so?”

  “She was quite the hero in our house, Oaklynn.”

  “Really?” I said, already keen to get off the call. “Why was that?”

  “One time there was a problem with the babysitter.”

  “A babysitter?”

  “We gave Oaklynn one night off each week. Usually, it was easy to work around her schedule—mostly church stuff, you know, but this one time she had a Bible study meeting on the same night Mark and I had a gala-dinner thing connected to his work, which we just couldn’t miss. So we got a local high school girl to babysit. A neighbor. I should have known better, but what are you going to do? We didn’t have a lot of options. The girl meant well, but . . .”

  “What happened?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.

  “Oaklynn went out for the evening and left the babysitter in charge. When she came home, the babysitter was downstairs playing with Arthur, but there was no sign of Janice. Turns out, the girl had left her alone in the bath. Only one year old, and she’d left her unattended! Well, Oaklynn goes running upstairs and finds my daughter under the water. Not breathing. She gets her out, calls an ambulance, and performs mouth-to-mouth—you know, CPR, the whole bit. Basically brought her back from the dead. Straight up saved her life. That’s what the doctors said.”

  “Wow,” I said, straightening up in the car seat and staring ahead at the library walls, unseeing. “And when she went up to the bathroom, the babysitter was still downstairs?”

  “Exactly,” said Clara, as if this made things still more impressive. “Didn’t think to come up until five minutes later. Found Oaklynn breathing life back into my drowned daughter’s body right there on the tiles. Scared me to death, I can tell you. From that night on, we never had a babysitter but Oaklynn. Well, you wouldn’t, would you?”

  “No,” I said. “You wouldn’t.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Josh knew that Anna had been waiting for him in the kitchen as soon as he walked in. He saw it in her eyes and the way she seemed to be listening out for Oaklynn downstairs.

  Christ, he thought. Not more of this. Not today.

  “I called her references,” she said, after theatrically making sure they were alone.

  “And?”

  “Nothing certain, but one had a kid with health issues, and one said she saved her daughter from drowning in the bath. But here’s the thing. No one else was there at the time. Oaklynn might just as well have held her under the water so that she could get credit for saving her.”

  “Anna,” said Josh wearily.

  “I’m serious, Josh.”

  “That’s what worries me! This is nuts, Anna. Everyone thinks so. Oaklynn is the best thing that has happened to us in ages. You said it yourself.”

  “That was before.”

  “Nothing has changed.”

  “Tell that to the ER.”

  “It was an accident, Anna. You have no evidence to suggest it had anything to do with Oaklynn. None.”

  “I don’t need any!” his wife shot back. “This isn’t a court of law, Josh. This is my house. I don’t need a reason to fire her if I’m not happy with her work.”

  “And are you? All this crazy stuff aside, are you happy with her work? Because if you aren’t, you’ve never said so.”

  “Why do you always take her side?”

  “What? I don’t!”

  “You do. Is it a pity thing? The need to look after the well-meaning Mormon? Mary Beth is right about you: you always have to play the white knight.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “What it says, Josh. Maybe you could take my side for once. Stand up for me. But no. It’s always, ‘Oaklynn is so great. Such a treasure.’ You know how fucking sick I am of hearing that?”

  Anna’s voice had gone up, and Josh reflexively put a finger to his lips. It was a mistake.

  “You’re afraid she’ll hear?” said Anna, disbelieving. “You’re afraid my anxieties about my children’s lives might be embarrassing to her?”

  “Our children’s lives.”

  “What?”

  “You said my children,” said Josh. “Meaning yours. They are ours.”

  “Right,” Anna snapped. “Because you are always around to help out with them.”

  “I work, Anna.”

  “So do I, Josh!”

  “Which is why we need Oaklynn,” he shot back in a stage whisper. “So unless you have real evidence . . .”

  “You think I’m delusional,” said Anna.

  “No.”

  “Then what? Why do you keep taking her side? What does she have on you?”

  The question seemed to catch Anna off guard as much as it did Josh, but she saw the weight of it land in his face. Her mouth fell open.

  “Oh my God,” she said. “She does. She knows something that you don’t want me to find out!”

  “She doesn’t,” said Josh, opting for bluster, but he couldn’t hold her gaze and opened the fridge, ostensibly to get himself a beer.

  “Oh my God,” she said again. “What is it?”

  “I told you: nothing.”

  “You’re lying. I sensed it before, but I wasn’t sure. Now . . . Josh? Look at me.”

  He turned reluctantly, closing the fridge and holding the beer bottle by the neck.

  “What?” he said.

  She looked at him then, read him like she used to, studying his face like it was a book she knew forward and backward. Her eyes narrowed slightly, as if trying to focus on some distant detail and then relaxed again, though she looked suddenly sad and tired.

  “You’re having an affair,” she said. “I wondered. With Mary Beth.”

  Josh blinked, genuinely surprised.

  “What?” he said. “No. Are you kidding? No. Mary Beth?”

  Anna looked momentarily confused but not relieved.

  “Then who?” she said.

  “I’m not having an affair!”

  “Then what is it?”

  Josh looked down, his defenses buckling in the face of her determination and the grief she was just managing to keep back. He moved to the kitc
hen island without speaking, opened his beer, and took a long pull.

  “Sit down,” he said.

  It was time. He didn’t want it to be, and he wasn’t ready, but it was time. Anna watched him, suddenly anxious, moving to the seat opposite him in what looked like a stunned haze. Her breathing was so shallow, she might have been holding it. She said nothing, but for all her former defiance, she suddenly looked young and hunted, almost meek.

  He waited, took another long slug of beer, then laid both palms down on the counter between them, fingers splayed.

  “So,” he said at last, “I’m in some trouble at work.”

  Anna frowned, as if unable to process what he had said.

  “What kind of trouble?” she asked.

  “Kurt—I can’t believe I did this,” he began, adding the parenthetical almost to himself. “Kurt was diverting funds from some of his biggest clients. Small amounts at first. Investing them into undisclosed stocks, and then, when the stocks appreciated, keeping what he had made for himself and replacing the principal in his clients’ accounts. He said it was a kind of bonus. The clients didn’t lose any money, and they didn’t know he had made anything off their money that hadn’t been disclosed.”

  “What does this have to do with us?”

  Not you, he noted with a lance of bitter pain. Us. He was telling her how much he had jeopardized their future, and she had immediately thrown her lot in with him, their previous row and the weeks of tension instantly forgotten.

  “I saw the accounts,” he said. “Realized what he was doing. I should have blown the whistle on him right away, but . . . well, it’s Kurt. So I said nothing. Just told him to cut it out before someone noticed. But you know Kurt. He figures everything is sort of a game, and as long as he doesn’t get caught . . .”

  “So he kept doing it.”

  “I told him to quit. I really did. Not right away, but I did tell him. He offered me an in. A chance to make some money.”

  “Illegally.”

  “Right.”

  “Tell me you didn’t.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “But you took your time to decide and didn’t speak to me about it.”