Mrs. Saint and the Defectives: A Novel

by Julie Lawson Timmer

  “All I did was work and drink,” Frédéric said, and to Markie’s surprise, she saw Simone nod as though this part of his story was not new to her. “Until the drinking got too much and I lost my job. I had been a promising engineer with a beautiful wife, maybe children someday soon, and now I was renting a room in a house, passed out most of the day. Going nowhere.

  “I stayed away, as she told me. But she heard things, and she came looking for me. She dragged me home and pointed to the basement stairs and told me I could stay as long as I did not drink. I quit right away. Well, with help. This was a condition she set: I had to promise to go to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings every day and to keep no alcohol in the house.

  “I did not want to live there without making a contribution, so we agreed I would look after the house, the property. And when she began to bring in people to work for her, I served as the foreman, of a sort. Kept them organized. Kept them on the tasks that she set.”

  “She went out and found you?” Markie asked. “After everything? And brought you home? She must have still loved you.”

  Frédéric sighed. “She was careful to tell me it did not matter if she loved me anymore or not. She told me that when my parents allowed her family to hide in our barn, they did not love them, or like them, for that matter—they did not even know them. But they took them in anyway. Angeline told me she must do the same for me or it would be a dishonor to her parents for choosing our barn, for trusting our family with their little girls.”

  “It was not only that,” Simone said. “Of course she still loved you. I do not believe she could have ever stopped. She had every bit as much need for you as you did for her.”

  Frédéric smiled at his sister-in-law. “Perhaps. I would certainly like to believe that. But perhaps it is simply that she saw someone in need of help and wanted to provide it.”

  Turning to Markie, he chuckled softly and said, “I was the original Defective, you might say.”

  “Did she tell you about all this?” Markie asked Simone. “The affair, and . . . all of it?”

  “Non. We were not talking, her and I. But him and I”—she nodded to her brother-in-law—“we have always kept in touch. Only maybe once per year, and not in any big detail. I did not know about these other people she has taken in, for one. But I knew he was in the basement, and I knew why. He told me this.”

  Mouth open, Markie looked from Simone to Frédéric. She barely knew Simone, but she was amazed Frédéric would have kept up secret communications with someone without Mrs. Saint’s knowledge.

  “What is it?” Frédéric asked, before she could turn away or erase the puzzled look from her face.

  “I’m just a little surprised,” Markie said. “You two have been talking behind her back?”

  Frédéric faltered, and Markie wished she could take her question back. He had confessed a major indiscretion. Did she need to point out a minor one?

  “I’m sorry—” she began.

  Simone cut her off. “I do not believe any of this was behind her back,” she said. “I think she knew. I think she expected it.”

  “She would wonder aloud sometimes,” Frédéric said. “And I would posit a guess. ‘I suppose she married a wealthy man in New York.’ ‘I imagine they have had children.’ ‘I expect it was sons.’” He smiled at Simone. “She always listened intently, you know.”

  “So it sounds like she did forgive you,” Markie said to Simone. “For whatever reason she thought you needed forgiveness. And even though she didn’t think forgiveness could be granted by a person . . .”

  “She did not think she could be forgiven by a person,” Simone said. “She thought her sin, her disloyalty to our family, was too great for that. In her mind, this”—she gestured to Frédéric and the affair he had confessed to—“did not rise nearly to the level of what she had done.”

  Frédéric agreed. “She blamed herself for my affair and for the drinking,” he said. “She said she had driven me to it by forcing me to hide my own past all these years. I told her of course that it was not the least bit true, but she remained convinced. Allowing me to live in the basement was in part her way of trying to make up for the wrong she felt she had done me.”

  “But I don’t understand,” Markie said. “If she felt it was wrong, why did she continue the charade? Calling herself French Canadian. A Catholic.”

  “She was not a simple woman, our Angeline,” Frédéric said, his eyes on Simone. “She felt it was the right thing to do for herself. But she knew it came with consequences. Painful ones. To her and also to other people.” He gestured to Simone, then himself.

  “Why wouldn’t she have reached out to Simone years ago, then?” Markie asked him. “Why, if she was doing so much to try to make things up to you, would she not have done the same for her sister?”

  “She was not without her faults,” Simone said. “But I am not without mine. I did not contact her when I heard that her marriage”—she gestured to Frédéric—“their marriage, had ended. I knew, and I could imagine how devastated she was, and yet I did not call or write. It was a big, terrible moment in her life, and her own sister did not offer solace.”

  “You were still so angry with her for betraying your family,” Markie offered.

  “Non,” Simone said. “If it were that, maybe I would feel a little justified, but at the time, I was not even thinking about that. I was thinking that a few months earlier I had asked her to come to my son’s bris. It was important to me to have her there.

  “She is my only family, and he was my first boy, and I was feeling alone and weepy about such a significant event passing with only my husband’s family and our friends to see it. I wanted someone from my life. She did not come. She did not even respond. Later, of course, the same thing happened with my second son. And with both of their bar mitzvahs. I invite. She ignores.”

  “She was worried people would tell,” Frédéric said. “People would see her there and immediately know she was Simone’s sister. And word would get back here. Her past would be exposed.”

  “Would word have gotten all the way back here, though?” Markie asked.

  “This is what I told her,” Frédéric said. “That I could not imagine the identity of the mother’s sister would be a topic of conversation. But Simone speaks truth when she says Angeline was not without her faults. She had a very inflated view of her own importance.

  “She assumed if she showed up in New York, all eyes would be on her and all mouths would talk about her. It did not occur to her that these events—the bris for each, the two bar mitzvahs—would remain about the children. She feels every event she attends is about her.”

  “So,” Markie said to Simone, “you were upset with her for a few reasons. I can understand that. She wasn’t there for you when you needed her, so when you heard about her marriage, you didn’t jump at the chance to be there for her. It’s sad it happened, but I don’t think you should blame yourself so much.”

  “She hid her true identity,” Simone said. “And she was not a good aunt, a good sister, when it came time to be. But he . . .” She looked up at Frédéric, smiling. “Her dear, beloved Edouard. He understood her. Accepted her decision, even if he didn’t agree with it. Stuck by her. While I did not.

  “I reached out when I wanted something from her. I did not reach out, ever, to offer her something—my support about her marriage, my understanding about how she had chosen to live her life, my apology for not understanding sooner. She was selfish, but so was I. I was no better a sister than she was.”

  Simone hung her head, and Markie was filled with sorrow for the two sisters, having spent all of these years apart when they were both in such pain. Before Markie could express it, Simone touched the final two pictures in her lap and looked at Frédéric for permission. He nodded, and Simone handed one of them to Markie.

  It was Frédéric—Edouard—as a young man in his midtwenties. He was about Patty’s age, Markie guessed, and if the photograph weren’t old, if his
clothes weren’t from a different era, if his hair weren’t cropped short, she would have thought the picture was of Patty herself.

  “Wha—?” Markie held the picture out to Frédéric, her expression a question.

  “Show her the other,” he said to Simone.

  Simone handed Markie the final picture. It was Frédéric/Edouard at around eight. The spitting image of Lola.

  “You had an affair with Carol?”

  “She was a young waitress at a place near my office,” he said, glancing from Markie to Simone, who was leaning forward, listening intently. She had clearly not heard this part of the story before.

  “We went all the time for lunch, a group of us. One day I stayed after the others to finish a report. It was a tough time for me at the office. I was working all the time, trying to get a promotion, trying to balance so many projects so I could impress my boss. I had taken on too much and could not admit this.

  “She asked if I wanted coffee, and I asked for a scotch instead. She brought one for me and one for herself and sat with me while I finished the report. Her shift was over. I don’t know what came over me that day, but I stayed all afternoon, drinking with her. I was two days late with the report, and it was filled with mistakes because I was too busy drinking and flirting to think about my job.

  “Or my wife. I offered to drive her home and . . .” He shook his head. “I cannot blame the liquor. I simply was not myself that day. I have no excuse for this. I did not see her again for over a year. I stopped going to that restaurant immediately. And then one day, I saw her near a shop by my office. I was walking out with some things I had bought, and she was on the sidewalk, pushing a stroller with a baby girl inside. My baby girl.

  “She let me give her money, but she would not let me see the baby after that day. I begged her, but she was insistent—I was never to go near my child. That was when I lost . . . everything. My mind. My discipline over alcohol. My focus at work. My wife. Angeline could tell something was wrong with me, and she would ask me over and over what it was, what she could do to fix it. When I finally told her, she . . .” He grimaced. “It was terrible. Not a thing I could ever forget.”

  “But somehow you managed to keep track of the baby,” Markie said. “Of Patty.”

  “Non,” Frédéric said. “I did not. Her mother never changed her mind on it.”

  “Then how . . . ?”

  “Angeline. She was working at a food pantry some years ago. Five, I guess it was now. And she saw Patty, with little Lola, waiting in line. And she knew.”

  “She did? Because I don’t think you look all that much alike now. I can see it in these old photos, but I’ve seen the three of you together . . . how many times in the past few months? And I’ve never noticed a resemblance.”

  “Ah yes,” Frédéric said, “but Angeline knew me when I was younger.”

  “So she recognized Patty and brought her home?” Markie asked. “Even though the affair ruined your marriage?”

  “Le Chambon,” Simone said. Frédéric nodded. “And, also, I believe, out of guilt for her insistence that I go along with her story and never tell anyone my own.”

  “So she brought you your daughter instead,” Markie said. “Because she felt guilty about making you hide your past.”

  “Oui,” Frédéric said. “At least, this is my belief. To this day, we have never discussed the fact that Patty is my daughter, Lola my granddaughter. I think Angeline thought I did not know. She told me about this young woman and her child who she had met, how the woman seemed in trouble. She had a crazy mother, one always involved with drugs.”

  “She recognized the resemblance, but she didn’t think you would?” Markie asked.

  Frédéric shrugged. “Angeline always felt she knew more and better than everyone else.”

  Markie tried not to smile, but when Simone burst out laughing, she couldn’t help joining, and soon Frédéric was smiling, too.

  “More true words were not spoken before, I think,” Simone said.

  “Does Patty know?” Markie asked.

  “I do not believe so,” Frédéric said. “I cannot think of why Angeline would tell her. She knew that Carol did not want me near my daughter. I believe if Patty found out who I was and told Carol she had found me, Carol would have forbidden them from ever coming over again.

  “I think Angeline believed this as well. I think she kept the truth from Patty to protect me from losing my child again. And to protect Patty and Lola from losing us. We have been the steady hands in their lives.”

  Markie nodded slowly, and despite herself, despite how exasperated she had been with her secret-keeping, sneaky, pushy neighbor since the day they met, she felt her mouth curving into a smile as she looked up to where Frédéric was standing. It was the same place Mrs. Saint had stood on move-in day, Frédéric to her right and Bruce to her left.

  Markie had been annoyed by the old woman already by then; she had pushed into the house while Markie was away, rummaged in Markie’s moving boxes for a glass, elicited personal information from Jesse, and made it known she felt it was a mistake they didn’t own a dog. Markie had vowed to herself that day that she was not going to let some irascible old Frenchwoman barge into her house on a regular basis and try to exert influence over her life.

  That she would not accept one more offer of help from the pushy old woman, or from any of her employees, and that she didn’t plan on helping them, either. That she wasn’t going to get involved, because she didn’t need any of them, and neither did Jesse. That they were fine, the two of them, keeping to themselves with their frozen dinners in their separate rooms, and that’s how things would remain.

  Markie smiled wider as she imagined Mrs. Saint in heaven, standing primly in her St. John suit and her pearl earrings and heels, God and her parents and brother and sister at her side as she peered down into the bungalow, raised her fists in the air, and said, “Och! Can you believe this one, thinking she knew better than me?”

  Epilogue

  “Good morning, Markie!” Frédéric called from the open door of the screened porch as Markie stepped from the bungalow onto the patio.

  From a chair on the other side of the screen, the shadowy form of Patty rasped, “Hey, neighbor.”

  Markie called a greeting back as she made her way across both lawns and up the steps to the porch. She reached up to kiss Frédéric’s cheek as she passed through the door. “Lovely day, isn’t it? Finally, some warmth!” She tugged at the hood of her sweatshirt. “Don’t think I need this after all.”

  “Indeed,” Frédéric said. “I have been admiring the garden. Finally, the beginnings of flowers.” He gestured to some newly sprouted growth bordering the fence. “She loved this time of year. All the color, the new life, after months of drab and cold.”

  Markie squeezed his arm. “I’m not surprised. She was the opposite of dull and lifeless. Hey, did Jesse tell you yesterday? He aced another history test. I really should be paying you for this.”

  “You are,” he said. “My granddaughter is now in the second-highest reading group in her class, thanks to your boy.” Jesse had long since paid his debt to the Levins, but he was still walking Lola to and from school, and helping her with her homework. He refused to let Frédéric pay him for either.

  “So I heard,” Markie said, looking from him to Patty and smiling. “Congratulations.”

  “Not so fast,” Patty said. “She’ll be smarter than me soon, and I don’t know if I need that.”

  “Of course, this is not at all true,” Frédéric said, taking the chair to Patty’s right.

  To Patty’s left sat Kyle, who, at Frédéric and Markie’s urging, had recently taken over Frédéric’s roles as overseer of employees and general handyman responsible for both properties. Frédéric was too old for the job, he told Kyle, and he wanted to spend more time with Lola. He was eager to hire someone to replace him, so he was thrilled when Markie told him about Kyle’s construction experience. Kyle had resisted at first, wo
rrying aloud that he lacked the work ethic to adequately fill the older man’s shoes. He had a long history of letting people down, he said. He didn’t want to disappoint his ex-wife and son again, or the people who had become so important to them.

  Frédéric gestured to the bungalow and the rebuilt home on the other side of the fence and said, “In these two houses, we believe in second chances.” Markie nodded her agreement, and when Kyle asked if there was really enough work to justify a full-time salary, she said, “Actually, I’ve been thinking it could be a good idea to rebuild the garage and put an apartment on top. Seems like the kind of job that could keep a builder and his teenage helper busy for a long time.”

  Kyle’s daily presence hadn’t made Trevorandtheguys disappear, but a few weeks earlier, Jesse had brought Glenn home, a well-mannered boy who, Jesse told his mother later, was on the honor roll and student council and had plans to go to law school. Kyle put the two boys to work for a while and then took them to dinner, and Jesse told Markie after that it was the best afternoon he’d had in a long time. Glenn had come back several times since, enough that although Markie still cringed when she saw the name Trevor light up on Jesse’s phone screen, she was feeling hopeful, if not entirely confident, about the path her son would ultimately choose.

  Now Markie took the porch seat next to her ex-husband and exchanged good mornings with him and Patty before asking if there had been any word from Carol. Patty’s mother had been rushed to the hospital after an overdose weeks earlier, and when Patty and Lola tried to visit, a nurse informed them Carol had requested they not be allowed into her room. They had driven her to the overdose by abandoning her for other people, Carol claimed, and she feared seeing their traitorous faces would push her to OD again.

  Lola was crushed, while Patty, who had dealt regularly with her mother’s silent treatments, was incensed. She returned on her own the following day to let her mother know she needed to stop her passive-aggressive tantrum immediately, for her granddaughter’s sake. But when she arrived, the nurse informed her Carol had had a male visitor in the morning, and she had (against medical advice) walked out with him, refusing to leave a phone number or address. Since then, Carol hadn’t answered Patty’s calls or come to the door on the many occasions her daughter had gone to her apartment to check on her.