Mrs. Saint and the Defectives: A Novel

by Julie Lawson Timmer

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. Mrs. Saint had reached the doorway, and Markie reached out to her. “I can imagine why you would pretend she didn’t exist.”

  Mrs. Saint nodded and kept going.

  “You don’t have to leave,” Markie said. “I overreacted. I was annoyed. I still am, about a number of things. But not about that. I’m sorry. I was completely out of line, and I feel terrible about it.”

  “I should go.”

  “When did she die?” Markie asked. Mrs. Saint was on the patio now, moving toward the fence, and Markie followed behind her.

  “A long, long time ago.”

  She didn’t look back when she said it, and Markie could tell by her tone that that was all she planned to say about her sister. And for once, she didn’t think there was anything wrong with that.

  When Mrs. Saint reached her side door, she turned. “I have known Frédéric for many years. More than you have been alive, even. We met when we were children. He is . . .” She stared past Markie into the distance. “He is family, for me. This is why he insisted on staying overnight in the hospital. This is why they would allow it.”

  Markie’s mouth fell open. She could think of a thousand questions, but no words.

  “I should have told you this before,” Mrs. Saint said. “I am sorry I did not. And I should not have asked you about Lola. You are not . . . wanting people in your life. Wanting to be involved in their lives. I have known this. And I should not have pushed about it.”

  Markie cringed. It made her sound so selfish, so coldhearted. “Well, not now,” she said. “I might’ve had a different answer a year ago, but for right now—”

  Mrs. Saint held up a hand to stop her. “I am not asking you to explain this. It is your information.”

  Markie waited, scanning the other woman’s face for some indication she was trying to lure Markie into spilling her story by pretending she didn’t want to hear it. But Mrs. Saint only looked sad. Maybe she regretted pushing Markie so hard for so long, or maybe she was lamenting her lost childhood with Frédéric, or maybe she was thinking about Simone.

  “You said you do not want to always be asked about things anymore,” Mrs. Saint said. “And so, I will not.”

  She nodded, as though that finalized the matter, then turned and disappeared into her house.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Markie was hobbling outside to put Angel on the tie-out when Ronda called from the screened porch, asking her to wait. When the cook finally reached the fence, Markie saw worry lines on her normally smooth face.

  “What is it?” Markie asked.

  “Carol’s over. I needed to get out of there for a minute.” Ronda shuddered as though she had narrowly escaped certain death.

  “Oh,” Markie said.

  No wonder she hadn’t seen Frédéric tinkering near the garage. He must be conveniently at one of his meetings/classes/appointments/who-knew-whats.

  “Does she come over often? I’ve heard Lola calling to her a few times, but I’ve never seen her.”

  “Oh no,” Ronda said. “Just every blue moon or so, when she needs money.” She bent her head to watch as the toe of her shoe dug into the garden.

  “Mrs. Saint gives her money?”

  “Oh, goodness no,” Ronda chuckled, shaking her head. “No, she don’t, and she never will, and she made that durn clear to Carol first time she asked. Oooh,” she laughed again, “that was an awkward day for everyone, let me tell you. No, she gets it from Patty. Usually, she hits her up before Patty goes out at night.

  “Plays the Lola card. You know, ‘You sure you don’t want to lend me money? Well then, I’m not so sure I want to mind the kid. Maybe you’d best stay in tonight.’” Ronda shook her head. “Real nice for Lola to hear that from her own grandma, I’m sure. Anyway, she must’ve forgot last night, or maybe she had some big financial emergency come up today, after Patty already left to come over.”

  “And that’s why Frédéric’s never around when Carol comes over!” Markie guessed out loud. “Because he said something to her about borrowing money from her own daughter or about holding it over Lola’s head. And Carol got mad.”

  Ronda looked up, surprised, and Markie blushed at her overexcitement about figuring out the mystery. And for making it so obvious that she had been trying to solve it.

  “Well, now, I couldn’t say about that,” Ronda said, “but it sure sounds like something Frédéric might do. He looks at Patty and Lola like they’re his own, in case you never noticed. Looks at all of us that way, really, but especially them.

  “And I wouldn’t be surprised if he stuck up for Patty in some kind of way like that, about the money or some of the other stuff Carol does. I never seen him do it. But Carol never asks about him, that’s for sure. Acts like she don’t even know he exists. And I guess it might be because he opened his mouth up and she didn’t like it. You make Carol mad, and that’s it. She’s not one to forgive.”

  Markie felt foolish at the realization that the “big mystery” about Frédéric and Carol wasn’t significant at all. They were simply two people avoiding each other because they’d had words once. Where was the great secrecy in that?

  “Not that he asks about her, either, if you want the truth,” Ronda said. “And Mrs. Saint is always reminding us not to mention her name or anything about her when he’s around. Lola had a picture of Carol once, and Mrs. Saint about had a fit, making her shove it in her backpack before he saw it, telling her never to bring it over again. So maybe he’s acting like Carol don’t exist, too.

  “Only with Frédéric, you know there’s more to it than just being mad about some argument they maybe had. It’s about those girls”—Ronda smiled—“his girls, he calls them. He’s always worried about them, and I imagine he worries more because of all the things Carol puts them through, and that’s why he don’t want nothing to do with her. Not that he’s told me any of this. It’s just how I’ve pieced it together.” She nodded, satisfied with her own theory. Her gesture reminded Markie of Mrs. Saint.

  “With Carol, though,” Ronda went on, “it’s likely to be pure grudge, through and through. She’s one of the tough ones. She’s . . .” She gazed at the back of her hands for the right word. “Hard,” she settled on. “She’s a hard, demanding woman. Patty can’t do anything right, if you ask Carol. But then, if you ask just about anyone who knows Carol, they’ll tell you she hasn’t done a lot right in her life herself.

  “And she sure ain’t doing right by her family these days, always messed up and borrowing money. Or stealing it, if Patty’s not around to lend it. So why she’s so hard on Patty . . .” She turned her hands over and examined her palms for the rest of her sentence. Not finding it there, evidently, she started a new one. “I’ve probably made more Carol totems than any other kind. Patty has a drawerful, I think! Not that it’s helping.”

  Markie thought of her own hypercritical mother and considered asking Ronda for a Lydia totem. Then again, she only had to deal with hers on the phone or over Skype. Patty, forced to see Carol every day, was the one most in need of the totems.

  “I wonder why Patty doesn’t just move out,” Markie said. “I assume she makes enough money to get her own place.”

  “She does,” Ronda said. “It’s Carol that don’t have enough to get by. And since Carol raised Patty on her own, Patty feels like she owes her. Or at least, Carol’s told her enough times that she owes her. Plus, there’s the fact that Carol’s the go-to for minding Lola while Patty’s out in the evenings. And you don’t move out on Carol and then ask her to look after your kid. That’s not how things work with Carol. Like I said, you make her mad, and that’s it for you.”

  Ronda gestured to the house and said, “I should get back in there. I’m burning some muffins, but I don’t want to let them go too long or it might make it obvious.” Noting Markie’s surprise, she winked and said, “Carol’ll do some yelling and cursing about my terrible cooking and lay off Patty for a minute. Works every time.”
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  It was the Thursday after Halloween, and Markie was working at the dining room table. She was trying to work, anyway, but mostly she had been staring out the window, trying to keep herself from obsessing about the fact that the gig was likely up for her work-from-home position. She had eight days, including the weekend, to get her numbers up before she was scheduled to meet with Gregory for their mind-mapping session. There was no way for her to get out of it, and at this point, she couldn’t see herself coming away from that meeting with good news. Her numbers were still down, thanks to Angel.

  She had considered staying up all night to work while the dog was happily cuddling in bed with Jesse. But she had never been able to pull off late nights, even when she was young. It took her days to recover from even a single night of missed sleep, as she had been reminded after Patty’s middle-of-the-night Lola pickup. And anyway, she couldn’t imagine having to deal with Angel all day when she was tired.

  She looked down at her yoga pants and oversize T-shirt and let out a breath. The weight loss she had been so excited about after her short period of dog walking had reversed itself, thanks to her sprained ankle. She might not even be able to squeeze into her lime-green post-baby dress next Friday. And although she had been trying to avoid the mirror in the bathroom, it hadn’t escaped her that her gray roots had now grown so long that her hair seemed to belong to two people—the bottom six inches to a young blonde, and the top six to an old brunette.

  Not that a slimmer physique, a new wardrobe, and a day at the beauty salon were all that was standing between her and the ability to work in public once more. Emotionally, she still wasn’t there. And it wasn’t just Gregory and the cube prairie she couldn’t face. It was any location, any boss.

  Her limited interactions with Mrs. Saint and her employees took more out of Markie than she had. She had taken to buying groceries only on Wednesdays, and only late at night, because that was the shift worked by the least-talkative cashier in the store. The others wanted to chat about the weather or her purchases, innocuous enough in terms of subject matter, but it was torture for Markie, the way they smiled and waited for her to respond. There was no way she would be able to withstand workplace banter in the cube prairie all day long, and the idea of department lunches, with the requisite get-to-know-you pudding-cup trades Gregory was so keen on, made her break into a cold sweat.

  Noise from the other side of the window caught her attention. Jesse and Lola were outside on one of their homework breaks. Lola waved her arms above her head and squealed while she ran laps around the yard, Jesse chasing after her, bent forward, his arms hanging limply in front of him, making deranged-creature noises. Angel, who was allowed to lie at their feet under Mrs. Saint’s kitchen table while they worked, ran after them, barking.

  Markie stood, crossed to the window, and watched as the kids ran in circles. Every few minutes they stopped and pitched forward, hands on their knees, ribs moving in and out as they caught their breath. No matter how far apart they were when they stopped, Lola always moved closer to Jesse. Markie could see their mouths move as they talked and laughed until finally, one of them would swat the other and they would both take off running again.

  A few minutes into their game, the side door opened and Frédéric came out. He said something to Jesse, pointed toward the bungalow, and started for the fence. Markie, always eager to stop any cross-lawn travel when she could, hurried out to meet him.

  “I have not yet thanked you for taking Lola the other night,” he said, reaching across the fence to take both of her hands in his. “What a wonderful thing you did. Thank you.” He bowed stiffly.

  “It was more Jesse than me,” she said.

  Frédéric turned to watch the children, who were now turning in tight circles with their arms straight out, like airplanes. “He is a remarkable young man, to do these things for her,” he said. “These childish games of which I am sure he wants no part.”

  “It’s good for him to get the fresh air himself,” Markie said, “not to mention the exercise. I think his video game playing has been cut in half since he started spending time with her. Maybe more.”

  “He has a good mind,” Frédéric said. “He is interested in things. Not the same as many his age.”

  “Listen, I should be the one thanking you, for spending so much time with him,” she said. “I can’t tell you how thrilled he is to be learning about carpentry from you. The Sundays he’s been spending with you have made such a difference. He tells me you’ve been talking to him about World War Two, as well. He got a terrific grade on his history midterm. Did he tell you? He told me most of his answers came from talking to you. I know he read the chapters, but the written words weren’t nearly as interesting as your stories. You made it come alive.” Because she couldn’t help herself, she added, “You really should have been a professor.”

  Frédéric smiled. “I enjoy talking about these things with him. There are some who refuse to ever discuss the past. But this does not make it go away.” Before Markie could decide if he was talking about Mrs. Saint and Simone or simply making an innocuous remark about people in general, he said, “Angeline tells me she did a very poor job of asking if you could have Lola in the evenings. She feels badly.”

  “Because I didn’t say yes?”

  He smiled again. “Certainly, she is sad about your answer. But I believe she feels most badly that her . . . quirks, shall we say, have gotten in the way of what is best for a child.”

  He turned again to watch Lola and Jesse running in the yard, and so did Markie, and for a few moments they were quiet as they stood together grinning at the two human airplanes and their yapping four-legged wingman.

  “Such fun they have,” Frédéric said. “Even at such different ages. I have often had the thought that they each would have enjoyed a sibling.” Quickly, he turned to Markie and said, “Please. I am not Angeline. I am not asking if you thought of another child or why there is not one. I am only sharing what I have thought about each of them. I hope it is not an offensive thing.”

  “I know you’re not Angeline,” Markie said. “I’ve never lumped the two of you together. You are very different.”

  “She does mean well,” he said. “But she is unfortunately not so able to relate things the way she intends. So tough and bossy! But this is not who she is, in her core.”

  “Well then, who is she, at her core?” Markie asked.

  But Frédéric only smiled and let out a quiet laugh and gave Markie a look that said he would sooner face a firing squad than reveal something private about Angeline. It didn’t surprise Markie, and just like when Ronda had refused to engage about Mrs. Saint’s secretiveness, it didn’t annoy her the way it did when it was the old woman herself who avoided the questions. The Defectives weren’t the ones prying into Markie’s life while refusing to open up about their own. They were simply being loyal. Markie respected them for that, and in a way, she envied Mrs. Saint for having so many people in her life who were that devoted to watching out for her.

  She smiled agreeably at Frédéric and decided to change the subject, but before she could speak again, the side door opened and Patty walked out, calling to Lola that it was time for them to leave. Lola’s face sagged, and to Markie’s surprise, Frédéric’s did the same.

  “Two minutes,” Patty told Lola, who groaned, then took up running again after Jesse as Patty headed for Frédéric and Markie.

  Angel stopped chasing the kids and darted to Patty’s side, walking with her. “Hi there, Angel girl!” Patty said, reaching down to touch the dog’s head. At the fence, she asked, “What are you two huddled up about?”

  Frédéric shifted positions to include her in the discussion, but Patty squatted and took Angel’s head between her hands, scratching her behind the ears. “You behaving?” she asked. She planted a kiss on the dog’s forehead, then stood. Angel tried to jump up for more attention, but Patty held a flat palm to her. “Down,” she said, “and sit.” The dog sat. “So?” Patty asked,
looking from Frédéric to Markie.

  “Only visiting,” Frédéric told Patty. “I was going to ask Markie how her job is going.” To Markie, he said, “You are enjoying working from home, Jesse tells me.”

  Markie frowned. “I was enjoying it, but I’m afraid I’m not going to be for much longer. I’m not getting enough done at home, so I’m going to be forced to work downtown soon. I’ve been looking for other work-from-home options, but so far, no luck. I think there’s about to be a cubicle at Global Insurance headquarters with my name on it.” She pictured the cube prairie and scratched her arms.

  “But why is this?” Frédéric asked.

  “Because she refuses to accept help,” Patty said. “She’d rather drag herself downtown and be miserable in a cube all day than let me take Angel off her hands for a few hours.” She smiled at Markie as if to say she still didn’t get it but was still cool with it.

  Frédéric looked at Markie for confirmation, and she shrugged.

  “You do not like help,” he said, and his tone was so matter-of-fact that it caught her off guard. Her parents had said the same five words to her many times, but it was always as an accusation, a judgment.

  “Not when I can’t pay for it,” she said.

  He inclined his chin. He understood—or at least, he acknowledged her feelings on the matter. “And do you feel payment for help must always be made in cash?” he asked.

  “No,” Markie said, “but I . . .” She stopped. She was going to say she couldn’t think of a non-cash way to repay Patty, but of course, that was no longer true.

  Markie locked eyes with Frédéric, and she could tell from the way he held his neck, stiffly and slightly to the left, that he was listening to the children playing behind him but was determined not to turn around and look at them. To bring her attention to the obvious. To use their laughter against her. That was something Mrs. Saint would do, and he was not, as he had said only moments ago, the same as she was. Mrs. Saint, who let her own quirks—her bossiness, her nosiness, her insistence on barging into other people’s lives—get in the way of what was best for Lola.