Charlotte’s Story

by Benedict, Laura

  “I bet you feel a little funny.” Rachel looked far different from how she’d looked when I’d seen her at the hospital. Her hair was swept up and sleek against her head, not full and lush as I was used to seeing it. She didn’t need a mask like the others, because she wore exaggerated, Kabuki-like makeup. It made her look unusually childish, like an expensive doll. Her cheeks were heavily rouged as though to contradict the deathly pale ivory foundation beneath it, her eyes lined to freakish roundness, the lids painted a brighter white than the foundation. But there was something else unfamiliar about her. Her eyes were reddened from some drug or alcohol—in fact, she held a goblet (one of Olivia’s jewel-toned goblets from the butler’s pantry) full of wine—but there was also an edge to her voice. It was clipped and precise as though it pained her to speak.

  It all led me to wonder if maybe I wasn’t in a dream after all. The Rachel I knew loved to dress up in costume, but only if it was flattering.

  “Not to worry. It’s not permanent.” She gave a little giggle. “At least Jack and Press say it’s not. We trust them, don’t we? You just have to be very still for a while. Jack says you probably won’t even remember.”

  I tried to speak, but my tongue felt thick and useless. What if my lungs stopped working and I couldn’t breathe?

  “Shhhh. Shhhh.” Seeing panic in my eyes, Rachel patted my arm. I could feel her hand on me, but why couldn’t I push her away?

  “Before anything happens, we must have a talk. Just you and me.” She glanced around. Satisfied, she said, “I have a secret to tell you, darling. I’m afraid it’s a secret you’re not going to like very much.”

  I couldn’t stop her. God help me, I didn’t want to know any secrets from her. There had been enough secrets. Far too many secrets.

  “Listen.” Rachel came even closer and traced a finger over my cheek. “Eva was at my house that day, while you were sleeping off your indiscretion with the champagne. You know how much she loved the geese.”

  Eva! She was talking about Eva. She was going to tell me this thing, and I couldn’t stop her. I could barely move my head.

  I tried to say no, but it came out as an animal grunt.

  She touched my hair.

  “I was glad when you cut your hair. You’re not as pretty with short hair, Charlotte. Your jaw is too square. It’s too mannish.” When she glanced away, I knew she was looking at—or for—Press. Always Press. How had I not seen? She turned back to me, her painted lips a small moue of dissatisfaction. “I couldn’t deny her the chance to feed the geese, and she’d asked so nicely. She had such lovely manners for a little girl. That made you happy, didn’t it? Perfect little girl for perfect you.” Now her face was very close to mine, and I could smell the sour wine on her breath. Her lipstick was smeared and her false eyelashes untidy. I imagined her face pressed into one of the enormous pillows that lay strewn about the room, unspeakable things being done to her, her face hot against the silk. I felt as though I might retch.

  “Darling, what’s wrong? Are you thirsty? No one ever goes dry here, you know.” She held the glass of wine to my lips, and the thick bouquet of grapes made my stomach turn. I turned my head from it as far as I could and felt the wine slide down my chin.

  “You always were a baby about wine. Remember that time you puked all over your shoes the night before Easter break? You were all upset because Nonie had sent you the shoes from Richmond. Fucking Nonie. Fucking in-everyone’s-business Nonie. You know your father was fucking her all along, yes? Everyone knew but you. We used to laugh about it, Press and Jack and I. Couldn’t stop.”

  It was fine that she was insulting me. These words didn’t sting so much. If she was talking about Nonie and my father, she wasn’t talking about Eva. I hated to hear Eva’s name come out of her mouth.

  As though our minds were one, it was the next word she said. “Eva.” She repeated my daughter’s name again and again, as though tasting it. Taking it for her own. “Eva, Eva, Eva.” Shaking her forefinger at me, she scolded. “You coddled her, you know. You needed to let her be more independent. She liked coming to my house when you weren’t with us. I’d let her sit at my dressing table, and I’d comb her hair and let her put on my jewelry. Mama doesn’t let me play with her jewels, she said. Nonie brushes my hair. Mama hurts my hair when she brushes me. That cute little lisp. I loved that cute little lisp!” She shook her head with eloquent dismay. “I was a better mother than you were. Press would sit with us and tell us how pretty we were together. Salt and pepper. And she would put her tiny hand on my cheek and pat it, and then she’d kiss me. She always smiled, Charlotte, when she was with me. With us.” Her face turned pensive.

  The music stopped for a few moments and the sounds of the room washed over me: quiet moans, grunts. If it hadn’t been for the low laughter, we might have been in a barn instead of the candlelit theater. What was happening to J.C.? Where was Press? He’d left me to Rachel. Rachel in her costume with madness in her eyes. Why hadn’t I seen it before? But I knew the answer. I had loved her. I had thought I knew her, but I’d been so horribly wrong.

  “I used to think about you dying. I asked Press why you couldn’t just die, but he would never talk about it. He loves you, you know. In his own way. Not the way he loves me, of course. But I think he grew fond of you, Charlotte. You’re like some great yellow dog: obedient and friendly and cheerful. I hate how cheerful you are.” She mocked me. “You have to make the best of it, Rachel. You’ll have a baby in time, Rachel. Be nice to your mother, Rachel. Not all of us are so lucky, Rachel.” She shuddered. “I wanted to slap the smug little smile off your face. I had to watch you—watch Olivia make a fuss over you with your pretty blue eyes and your stupid pedigree. She didn’t really like you either, you know. She was as fake as she could be, but you ate it up. Poor, dumb Charlotte. She was just using you. Press was just using you as a brood mare. What did it feel like, brood mare? He almost left you when you had Eva first, you know.” She paused to take a sip of her wine, then put it aside. “‘Girls should be drowned at birth,’ he said.” Then she laughed, imagining her own joke.

  I tried to edge away as she climbed onto the cushion beside me, her warm body pressing against mine. Now it wasn’t just her breath that overwhelmed me, but the cloying scent of recent sex. Rachel smelled like sex. Rachel was sex. And I suddenly understood why Press had wanted her. What man wouldn’t want Rachel? Now that she’d given birth, she was fecund. Ripe. It was no use trying to get away from her. She pressed herself against my hip and laughed.

  “Press used to tell me about fucking you. He said it was like fucking a mannequin the first few times.” She pressed her lips against my ear, and her breath made gooseflesh run down my side. “Didn’t I teach you anything, Charlotte? I should have come into your bed. All those nights we were alone. So close. It was my duty to get you ready for Press, but I let him down, poor thing, because I don’t really care for girls.” I felt her teeth bite lightly down on the edge of my ear. “He told me you learned to give good head, though. It made me a little jealous when he told me about it. But do you know what he was doing when he told me about it? He was touching me here. . . .” She cupped my breast in her hand, running her forefinger slowly over the nipple, but I could hardly feel it. My head filled with the sound of a thousand bees—some horrible humming that rose in pitch, and then I realized it was a sound that I was making or trying to make, willing her away from me. I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing her away.

  “Jesus, Charlotte. Are you crying?” She took her hand away. “Aw. You poor thing. Am I scaring you? Did you think I was going to do something terrible to you? You poor stick.” She moved away slightly. “Don’t worry. Nobody wants you. Don’t you understand that now? Press didn’t want you from the beginning. He just got used to fucking you. And he wanted your stupid babies.”

  She climbed down from the pedestal. “No. Not your babies. Just sons.”

  I couldn’t move, but in that moment I’m sure I felt my heart stop. Eva. Press ha
dn’t wanted Eva. In my head, I screamed his name. Where was he? Why was he letting Rachel tell me these lies? But I knew the answer, didn’t I? They weren’t lies, and I had known it for a long, long time. It was in the way he looked at Michael. It was in the way Eva had followed after him, climbed onto his lap, begged for his attention. She had been so desperate. Deep down, she had known he didn’t love her.

  He’d taken her from the nursery, surely telling her they were going on a special adventure—just the two of them. Leaving Michael and me behind. A trip to Auntie Rachel’s and Uncle Jack’s. Off to feed the geese and enjoy whatever other pleasures Rachel had planned. When I had taken her there, Rachel had given her ice cream for lunch and teased her that Nonie and I probably only gave her nasty vegetables. I had laughed! How easily I had believed that Rachel was only being indulgent.

  Oh, God. Had they done things to her? We lived then in a world where few people—certainly not I—imagined that anyone would touch a child in a sexual way. It had been beyond my darkest, most suspicious thoughts. But I suddenly understood that it was a possibility. Looking into Rachel’s now-cold eyes, I knew she was capable of anything. What about Jack? Surely not a doctor. Who knew what these people were capable of? They had all become strangers to me.

  Michael? Where was Michael?

  Rachel was drinking more wine. A man wearing a horse mask and a white dinner jacket and red bow tie came up behind her. The wine in Rachel’s glass sloshed a bit as he pressed himself against her back and wrapped an arm about her waist. She wavered, but then pushed him away, nonplussed. She had no time for him.

  “I should let him have you.” She grinned wickedly. “He’s pretty good. Not Press good, but pretty good.” Then she was suddenly somber. The music had changed again. It was no longer classical music, but some sort of strange drumming. Behind Rachel, a kind of collective shout went up.

  “Everyone’s happy tonight. Do you know why? Because Press is in charge now instead of that old letch Zion. Everybody loves Press. Did you know that? Everyone loves Press, everyone wants Press. It’s this house, too. We belong here, Charlotte, because this is where Press belongs. He’s a part of us, and we’re a part of him.”

  There was a satisfaction in Rachel’s eyes that sickened me. When, God, would I be released from this horror? What had Jack done to me? My eyes were so dry, I felt they might wither in my head. Was Michael sleeping somewhere else in the house? Was he with Shelley? How seamlessly she’d fit into our life after Nonie’s departure. I prayed that they hadn’t hurt her as well. She was hardly a child, but she was so young and vulnerable, with no one but her brother to look out for her. Like me, she was alone. And at that moment, I felt alone in a way I’d never felt before. I had nothing. Not even Michael. How could I protect him? The truth was that I couldn’t.

  The tears began again. This time they slid down both temples and I felt them work their way into my hair.

  “Darling, darling, darling.” Rachel kissed my forehead and stroked my arm. “Eva didn’t cry, darling. Did you know that? She was such a brave little thing. Bold, even. She marched down to the pond with her bag of crumbs for the geese. So proud of herself. You would have been proud of her too. Like a little angel out among the geese. They’re obnoxious bastards sometimes, but at first I had the real sense that they were being careful with her. Isn’t that funny? Perhaps because she was so tiny—not much bigger than they were.” There was a faraway look in her reddened eyes. “I promise I told her to be careful. Those geese can bite. Well, you remember how that one nipped at her that last time you both came over. She knew better than to tease them with the crumbs. I mean, she was throwing them right at them. I don’t know. Maybe she accidentally hit one in the face? It was hard to tell from the porch.”

  I could see Eva at the water’s edge in her pink playsuit, hair pulled back with the blue velvet ribbon that Rachel had tied around her head, surrounded by hungry geese. Geese that snapped at her and honked. She’d stuck close by me the day she’d been nipped. I knew she was afraid of the geese, had wanted me to come with her to feed them. And I knew Rachel was lying. She’d made Eva go down to the pond alone. Afraid.

  “I shouted for her to get back from them, and she tried, bless her heart. She really tried. But those mean old geese were just determined to get at that bag, and she just wouldn’t let go. But she wouldn’t run away either! She was stubborn, Charlotte, just like you. If only she’d let go, they would’ve taken it and left her alone.”

  She was alone. My baby was alone by the water. Harried. Afraid.

  “You might ask where Press was during all this. Well, I called for him, and I called for Jack. I’m sure I did. But those two. . . .” She paused dramatically and whispered. “You don’t know what those two can get up to sometimes. They just don’t hear a thing, those boys, so it’s really not my fault, Charlotte. You didn’t think Jack was actually up to making a baby with me, did you?” She shook her head. “You don’t know how many times I wanted you to know, my dear. You’re almost too precious to live, you know that?”

  I hadn’t missed the lascivious look in Rachel’s eyes when she’d teased about what Press and Jack might “get up to.” It was all too much. Seraphina was Press’s child. Another girl. It explained the pitiful flowers in the hospital. They were a statement of his disappointment in her. No wonder she had looked unhappy, even in sleep.

  If only I could’ve closed my eyes to shut it all out. I couldn’t bear to hear any more. The drums played on, not quite drowning out the voices and the other hideous sounds beneath them. The drumbeat was in my head, thudding through my body, growing stronger.

  “They chased her right into that water and she fell. It was comical, really. You might have laughed. I almost did. I mean, I wasn’t afraid for her or anything like that. She was a big girl, and the water wasn’t all that deep.”

  Stop! Why couldn’t I stop her talking?

  “I finally went down there myself, and, oh, Charlotte, I was so big. So slow. You understand. I was huge!”

  With a vain touch, she smoothed her stomach, which was much smaller now. She wasn’t her old svelte self by any means, but she would have her figure back soon enough.

  Please, God, make her stop talking. Please, please, please!

  “Those birds!” Rachel’s face filled my vision. Tiny sprays of her saliva dotted my face. “I couldn’t chase them away. They were all over her, splashing and squawking. There was absolutely nothing I could do. Water was flying everywhere! Finally she let go of that stupid bag, though I’m sure there was nothing left by then. It was all wet and falling apart. But they went after it, every single one of those stupid birds.”

  I knew that water. I had even imagined Eva falling into it, a less dramatic fall, with me right there to stand her up again and warn her about getting too close to the pond. The kind of tiny drama that plays out in the heads of all mothers who see their children near passive dangers. But not this. Not this terror.

  Rachel closed her eyes, her sour breath spreading over my face. Her mascara was so thick that her false lashes clung together in fan-like arcs below her eyes. When she opened them, I saw madness.

  “It was so easy, my Charlotte. She was just as big as a minute, and such a polite child. She hardly fought at all. All the fight had gone out of her from wrangling with those silly birds.”

  I saw the water closing over my precious baby’s face. I’d imagined it a hundred times or more happening in the bathtub. But now the water was flecked with green and streaked with sunlight and the water far beneath her was as black as night. Rachel’s hand was spread over her chest. Pushing. Pushing down, until Eva closed her eyes forever.

  “Press raced like the devil to get her home and in the tub before you woke up.” Rachel sighed deeply as though expelling her own life’s breath. “I almost wish you could’ve been there. She was so peaceful. Because everything was okay after that. What’s that phrase they used to use in chapel at school? ‘The peace of God, which passeth all understanding.
’ That’s what she has now.”

  No. There was no peace for Eva.

  Chapter 42

  Revenant

  Before leaving me, Rachel wetted my lips with a finger-smear of wine and kissed my cheek with an exaggerated fondness. The small taste of that wine made me want to retch.

  Around the room, bodies moved in shadow: touching, writhing, creating strange silhouettes that will be forever burned into my mind. I watched, but after a while it all became oddly distant, like the scenes that Olivia had shown me. It was happening to someone else.

  For a long time, no one came near me. No one touched me, and I could imagine that I wasn’t really there. I didn’t want to close my eyes, because I would see Eva’s face. Eva’s vacant, water-ruined face, just as I’d been seeing it for weeks. Only now, Rachel would be there too. No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t save Eva’s life. She was gone. Maybe I could set her free from whatever haunted purgatory she was living in with Olivia, but I could do nothing beyond that. But Michael I could save. I was certain of it. Less certain, though, was I of my own survival.

  While I was grateful that no one had come near me, I felt as though I were waiting for something. In my heart, I understood that that thing—that person—was Press. Or whoever he had become.

  I must have slept, or at least I have no memory of someone putting me into darkness. No, not total darkness. I could see faint shapes beyond whatever piece of incense-fragrant fabric lay over me. The theater—if that was still where I was—had gone silent.