The Confession

by Jessie Burton

  Eventually, she found a bodega that had a limited supply of children’s paints. She snatched it off the shelf, a little tub of forest green, the poorest quality but the best that Ridgewood was going to offer. The hands on the clock above the clerk’s head said nearly two o’clock. I can’t be flustered when she comes, she thought.

  *

  Back at Yoli’s, she opened the lid of the paint with Rose on her lap and dipped the baby’s right index finger lightly on the surface. Rose had no clue what was going on as her mother lifted her over the paper and began to dot the insides of the rabbit with the green paint, guiding Rose’s finger until a pointillist effect began to form inside the rabbit’s body.

  ‘It looks like measles,’ said Elise, but she was happy, because here was a present from Rose, too. Connie would have to acknowledge it. She washed the baby’s finger in the bathroom sink and saw a forest green crescent under Rose’s nail, the tiniest moon she’d ever seen.

  Elise wondered what to write under the drawing. WELCOME. No, Connie didn’t like fuss. For Connie, love Rose, she wrote at the bottom of the paper. The paint wasn’t drying quick enough.

  She put on the clean black dress and retrieved a lipstick from Yoli’s bedside table. She painted her face on like a mask, in as much of a likeness of her old self as she could. She loosened her tight bun and her hair sprang out in waves. She stood before the mirror, eyeing herself. It would have to do. She touched the necklace round her neck, Connie’s gift, dulled slightly now, from her endless fiddling.

  The buzzer went.

  *

  Rose was on her back on the small rug in the living room, gently buffing the air with shell-like fists. Elise scooped her up and padded down the short corridor to the front door. She realized then that she had bare legs – no tights, no moisturizer. It was too late to worry. She pressed the downstairs entry and waited, clutching Rose, her back to the wall, heart thumping. There was a knock right by her head, and without hesitation she pulled the door open.

  ‘Connie,’ she said. ‘Hi.’

  Connie’s hair was shorter as Elise’s had grown. Had she dyed it, to make it deeper, more of what was there in the first place? She was in a trench coat, with a black Chanel handbag over her shoulder, and large gold orbs clipped to each earlobe.

  Connie took a step back at the sight of Elise, as if she wasn’t expecting the woman who stood before her. Her eyes flickered to the necklace and over to Rose.

  ‘Elise,’ she said. ‘Hello. Can I come in?’

  47

  They didn’t touch. Standing aside to let Connie in, Elise saw, suddenly, the shabbiness of Yolanda’s apartment despite the attempts with the flowers and the bathroom’s sparkle. The place didn’t smell of roses, it smelled of cheap bodega bleach. She led Connie down the short corridor to the front room, which overlooked the noisy street.

  ‘Here we are!’ she said. The antique lampshade did not look quirky and individual as she thought it might. It looked like stained flesh. She put Rose on the floor and patted herself unconsciously. ‘Sit down, please,’ she said. ‘Tea?’

  ‘Lovely, thank you,’ said Connie. She sat against the sofa and instantly depressed the cushions.

  Elise went into the kitchen to fill a pan with water. She felt uneasy. They were supposed to have fallen into each other’s arms in a hug and forgive it all – everything said, everything done, everything foolish. But they were talking like strangers. Don’t rush, she told herself. She put the water on the hob and left it to boil.

  Connie hadn’t moved, but her attention was absorbed by the child on the carpet. She’d made no effort to pick Rose up. ‘This is Rose,’ said Elise.

  ‘Hello, Rose,’ said Connie, as if expecting a response.

  ‘She’s done you a drawing,’ said Elise, flourishing the piece of paper.

  ‘A green rabbit?’ Connie said. ‘How clever. Thank you, Rose.’

  ‘You can take it with you,’ said Elise, and Connie, realizing what she was supposed to do, took it from Elise’s hand. She didn’t look at it for long, but she did fold it carefully and place it in her bag. Elise feared the green paint might smear the inside of Connie’s Chanel. ‘Rose did it with the tip of her finger,’ she said, but Connie didn’t react.

  ‘How have you been?’ Elise went on, her chest tight with unspoken words as she knelt down beside Rose.

  ‘Never mind about me,’ said Connie.

  ‘But I want to know.’

  Connie hesitated only briefly, then proceeded to tell Elise how Green Rabbit had been a critical success back in the UK. Deborah and the publisher were relieved. Here, in the States, Heartlands had opened to great acclaim. The mention of Heartlands summoned Barbara into the room, and Elise, scrutinizing Connie for signs of discomfort, shame or even pleasure, discerned none. Connie did not allude to herself at all, only to her work. Everything was successful, acclaimed. The adjectives sounded strange in this dingy apartment, as if they had no place here.

  ‘Are you writing?’ said Elise.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What are you writing?’

  ‘What I always write,’ said Connie. Elise felt constricted.

  She was just busy, all the time, Connie said. In London mostly, bar an occasional visit to Shara in California.

  Now it was Shara’s name that sat unwanted between them. ‘I’m pleased it’s all going well for you,’ said Elise.

  ‘Are you really?’ said Connie, laying down a possible gauntlet. ‘I don’t suppose you think I deserve it to be going well.’

  Elise chose not to respond to this. They sat in silence, looking at Rose, who was on her back, doing nothing. ‘I saw the film,’ Elise said after a while.

  ‘What did you think?’ asked Connie.

  ‘Aren’t you surprised I went?’

  ‘A little. I’m pleased.’

  Elise placed her hands in her lap and smiled. ‘I thought Barbara was excellent.’

  ‘We were lucky to have her,’ said Connie. ‘I mean – you know what I mean.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s Oscar buzz,’ Connie said. Elise was silent. ‘I didn’t go to the Catskills,’ Connie said suddenly. ‘After I saw you in Mexico. I went home. I thought I should tell you that. In fact, apart from the premiere in LA, I haven’t seen Barbara since you left.’

  ‘Am I supposed to congratulate you, or say I’m sorry?’

  ‘Neither.’

  Outside, a car horn was blasted and a man blasphemed in a thick Italian accent. The apartment was opposite a traffic light and there was always conflict between pedestrians and motorists. ‘You were horrible to me,’ Elise said. ‘On the beach.’

  ‘I know,’ said Connie. ‘But I was angry.’

  Elise waited for an apology to follow, but none did. Jesus, Connie could be arrogant. She could never lose the upper hand, no matter what it cost. Rose gurgled and Elise patted her. ‘I read Green Rabbit,’ she said, feeling foolish saying the words, as if she was yet again trying to prove her worth by consuming all of Connie’s creative output.

  ‘I did wonder about the drawing,’ said Connie.

  Elise picked Rose off the floor, and sat on the hard wooden dining chair at right angles to the sofa. She refused to lubricate the conversation any more. She hadn’t invited Connie here – it was Connie and Matt, and Yolanda, who’d plotted this ambush. There was no one on her side. Why should she flatter Connie, why lionize successful, acclaimed Connie, when apparently the whole world was doing that anyway?

  She knew what Connie wanted her to say – The novel was amazing. Is Rabbit you, and the lover me? – just so Connie could laugh scornfully at her vanity in thinking herself interesting enough to be turned into a story. But Elise had read that book enough times now to know the truth; Green Rabbit was about their relationship: of that she had no doubt.

  ‘So?’ said Connie lightly. ‘What did you think of it?’

  Elise stared at her. Here she was, clutching a baby that Connie hadn’t even begun to acknowledge prop
erly or even enquire about – how was the birth, what is it like, can I hold her, do you sleep? – and all she wanted to hear about was her fucking book. ‘I thought it was good,’ she said.

  Connie straightened her back and the cushions got even flatter. ‘I see,’ she said.

  ‘You dedicated it to Shara.’

  ‘I did. Can I use the loo?’

  ‘Second door down the corridor.’

  Elise sat with Rose while she waited. Every minute that was passing was an assault on her composure, and yet she did not want Connie to leave.

  Connie returned. Standing by the door frame, she looked so anomalous in this brown room – like one of those extras on the Hollywood lots last year, she was existing out of space and time, a shining centurion in a nineteenth-century hovel.

  ‘Why have you come?’ said Elise, feeling her control beginning to break down.

  Connie sighed, moving to sit back down on the sofa. ‘I’m here to see you, Elise. That’s it. Simple. I said to Matt I’d see you.’

  ‘So you’re not even here because you want to be here, but because Matt asked you.’

  ‘He’s worried.’

  ‘I’m fine, Connie. We’re better apart.’

  Connie stood up again. ‘I’m going to make the tea.’

  ‘I’ll make the tea,’ said Elise. ‘Take her a moment.’ She handed Connie the baby.

  ‘Elise—’ said Connie, holding Rose at arm’s length.

  ‘All you have to do is hold her, Constance. She isn’t a bomb.’

  *

  In the kitchen, Elise attempted some deep breaths. She lifted two slices of the Turkish pistachio cake onto a plate and tried to remind herself that this was her life. It was not Connie’s. Connie was in her space. Connie could not narrate her life, nor change it. It was hers.

  But it was no good. Connie’s physical presence, so potent to Elise, always, was too close. She felt little to no will to defend herself against Con’s skin, her pristine clothes, her endless achievements clinging to her almost physically, like perfume. Those gold orbs on her ears, her vixen sleekness and her merciless gaze as she took in the stains on the second-hand sofa.

  She put her hands up on the kitchen counter to steady herself. No light came in from the dingy side window, lending the space a subaquatic feeling. She wanted to tell Con about her horror fantasies of abandoning Rose at JFK, with a one-way ticket to Malibu tied around her tiny foot. How she’d almost done it one day, beginning to pack a small bag of nappies before unpacking it again and lying with her face pressed against Yolanda’s carpet, waiting for the will to get back up. How she fought with these thoughts and actions on a daily basis, and how she didn’t dare tell the doctor the one time she was dragged to that awful room in Manhattan.

  She fumbled with the clasp on the necklace, under her newly waved hair. She lifted it off her neck, the reverse of winning a medal. She placed it on the kitchen counter, and went back into the living room with a tray of tea and cake.

  ‘No cake for me, but thanks,’ said Connie. She was still holding Rose, which was something, at least. She hadn’t dropped her on the floor or out of the window – and just like that, Elise closed her eyes against the ferocious, lifelike vision of Rose flying through the air to meet the sidewalk, the light sick thump as all her bones were broken. She could hear Rose’s skull popping like a fortune cookie, her brain, the size of an apricot, smashed on the concrete.

  All Elise could ever see or hear was bad things happening to this little girl, and she wanted to rip herself in two at how disgusting her mind was.

  ‘Are you OK?’ said Connie.

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Elise, opening her eyes, kneeling down by the coffee table and off-loading the tea cups. ‘But you love sweet things?’

  ‘Do I? Well, I’m trying to cut down on treats.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Will you take her?’ said Connie, and freed of the child, she reached for the teapot and began to pour.

  ‘It’s really a shame you’re not eating this cake,’ said Elise. ‘Don’t worry, I didn’t make it. It’s good.’ She broke a large piece off her slice and pushed it deliberately into her mouth, fingers everywhere, crumbs falling from her lips and into her lap and onto Rose’s head. ‘See?’ she said. ‘Delicious.’

  ‘Elise—’

  ‘So if you’re not going to eat it, I guess there’s more for me.’

  ‘You’re agitated.’

  ‘I’m not fucking agitated. It only agitates me when people tell me I’m agitated. And really, Connie. For the last time. Why are you here?’

  Connie narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re very thin.’

  ‘I’m always thin. Anyway, this is one of Yoli’s dresses. She’s bigger than me.’

  ‘Are you eating?’

  Elise held up the remains of her cake slice. ‘What am I doing right now?’

  ‘Exercising?’

  Elise thought about her day and night walks that went on for miles, yet took her nowhere. ‘Yep.’

  Connie sipped from her cup, sat back against the sofa and looked around the room. ‘Is Yolanda your girlfriend?’

  ‘She’s my friend.’

  ‘But where does she sleep? There’s only one bed.’

  For a moment, Elise was tempted to toy with Connie, to see if she could make her jealous, seeing as she could not make Con feel anything else. But she was tired, and she didn’t want to fight. ‘Yolanda lets me sleep in the bed.’

  Connie looked like she was going to say something, but she too appeared to hold her tongue. Her effort softened Elise. ‘I forgive you,’ Elise said.

  Connie gazed at her. ‘I don’t think it’s a question of forgiveness,’ she said. ‘Not any more. Not with a child.’

  ‘That’s exactly why it’s a question of forgiveness,’ said Elise. ‘And I want you to forgive me too.’

  ‘We’ve both made choices,’ said Connie, shrugging, sipping from her tea.

  ‘And I made the right one,’ said Elise.

  ‘I don’t believe you really think that,’ said Connie, replacing her cup precisely onto its saucer. She opened her handbag and pulled out a cheque. ‘Here,’ she said, holding it out towards Elise. ‘Take this.’

  Elise stared at her in disbelief. ‘I don’t want your money.’

  ‘It never stopped you before.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  Connie made a noise of exasperation and placed the cheque next to the teacup. ‘Look at this place, Elise,’ she said. ‘What happened? One minute you’re with me in California, with everything you could possibly dream of. Your life ahead of you, friends, me—’

  ‘That’s your life you’re talking about. I was only in California because of you.’

  ‘Well, you didn’t last long,’ said Connie. ‘And now you’re here.’ Elise felt a rising fury as Connie continued to regard her with a cool expression. ‘Did you know Shara was on suicide watch after hearing about your baby?’ she said. ‘Or did Matt decline to tell you that?’

  ‘What would have been the point in telling me?’ said Elise, but she felt disorientated by this information. She tried to mask her unease. ‘I was pregnant, Connie. He was protecting me.’

  ‘From what? You’re in a terrible apartment.’

  ‘Don’t talk about Yoli’s apartment like that.’

  ‘I had to step over needles to get into this place. You’re completely lost. And now you’ve got a baby who’s going to leach you for the rest of your life.’

  It dawned on Elise, then. All this – the aloof manner, the patronizing cheque – was because Connie could not forgive Elise for leaving. Her departure, possibly unprecedented in Connie’s experience of love, had wounded Connie’s pride so deeply. Not even writing Green Rabbit could expiate this wish of Connie’s to come to Brooklyn and humiliate her. No wonder Connie had looked with such disgust at the baby Elise and Matt had made together. Rose Simmons was a symbol of her failure to keep Elise at a disadvantage.

  ‘You’re jealous, ar
en’t you?’ she said to Connie. ‘You thought I’d never survive without you. That’s what all this is. You’re jealous.’

  ‘Jealous?’ said Connie, laughing. ‘You’re barely surviving. And that child is your responsibility for the rest of your life. Jealousy is very far off my list of feelings.’

  Elise held Rose tight, as if Connie might try and prise the baby from her grasp. Rose placed her head on her mother’s shoulder and began to kick her feet. ‘Do you think I don’t know that she’s my responsibility?’ said Elise. ‘Do you think I don’t think about that every single waking moment?’

  Connie sighed. ‘What happens when the money runs out, Elise. What then?’

  ‘Money isn’t everything.’

  ‘It is when you don’t have any. How are you going to rescue yourself this time? Are you going to take that child down with you as you try?’

  ‘Shut up.’

  Connie leaned forward, speaking quietly. ‘You’ve run away from every responsibility you’ve ever encountered. You get close and then you run. You ran away from your father, from me, and you ran away from Matt. God knows who else you’ve run away from in your life. You’ve never deigned to tell me. And I have a feeling you’re going to do it again.’

  ‘Stop telling me what I’m going to do,’ said Elise.

  Rose began to cry. Connie clasped her handbag, standing up as if to go. ‘You’re not well,’ she said. ‘That’s obvious. You need serious help, Elise. You can’t hide here for ever.’

  ‘Don’t turn this on me just because I’ve made a valid point,’ Elise hissed.

  At this, something seemed to snap in Connie. She slapped Yolanda’s sofa. ‘Your friend is sleeping on this piece of shit – for you. Matt called me – for you. You’re a spoiled brat, Elise. We all drop our lives when you decide it.’

  The pitch of Rose’s scream went higher. Connie winced, walking to the door. She turned back, and her face looked haggard. ‘You want to know why I’m here? I’m here to tell you to give Rose up.’

  Elise stared at Connie, automatically jigging Rose up and down. Quickly, the child’s sobs subsided, but Elise felt stunned. ‘Rose is fine,’ she stuttered. ‘She’s clean, she’s fine, she’s—’