by Jess Lourey
“What happens if I leave and tell the whole story of what you two did?”
His eyes narrow, and his tone is mocking. “Like you tried at the Saint Cloud police station?”
My bravado drains out. “Kris will help me,” I whisper. It’s ridiculous, a child’s nonsense, but who else do I have?
“The man who pretended to be Paulie? We let him stay in town because he was harmless. A small-time con artist. We made sure he didn’t hurt you. Don’t you see how much we’ve done for you?”
“Regina, then,” I say desperately, but I ruined that.
“If she’s smart—and I think she is—she’ll be one of us soon.”
My mind’s racing. Ursula believes them, and Grover, if still alive, is hospitalized. Deck was always an invention, a lie I fell for like a dazzled schoolgirl.
“You want to be very careful,” Ronald says, his smile brittle, his resemblance to Deck the cruelest of quirks. He’s using the singsong voice of a kind teacher speaking to a naughty child. “The police in Saint Cloud think you’re crazy. The doctor’s records show that you’re unstable and have subsequently been prescribed heavy doses of Valium and sleeping pills. You’ve said some very odd things to several people, including your best friend in Minneapolis. She saved your message. The rantings of a paranoiac.”
The sticky, awful truth paints itself across my mouth and nose, suffocating me. I either follow their rules or I’m put away.
“If you stay and keep the peace,” he says, “we can all finally have everything. If you don’t, you know how it ends.”
“The obituary,” I rasp. The one my mother hadn’t wanted me to write.
Ronald raises an eyebrow and then smiles. “That’s right. All this time, Dorothy has been watching for news of the daughter she’d lost. The name was different, but she’d recognize Virginia Aandeg’s face—survived by one daughter, praise be—anywhere. By that time, Stan was lost to us, couldn’t be of assistance in retrieving his child, but she convinced Barbara and me to send Deck to bring you back. It would take only a few months of living in beautiful Lilydale to fall in love with it, and you and Deck would replenish the next generation of Lilys.”
As he tells me all of it, every detail of what happened leading up to my birth, I begin weeping.
Johann and Minna Lily were brother and sister as well as husband and wife. They left Germany to found Lilydale in 1857. They had twelve children, only two of whom lived to adulthood, a son and a daughter. The rest were born horribly deformed; those who survived childbirth were kept hidden until their deaths days or weeks later. To guarantee the Lily bloodline (which they thought was pure, and the reason for their intelligence and success) and keep their wealth intact and in the family, Johann got other women pregnant.
Minna raised the children as her own. In exchange for their half-Lily children, these women and their families got to live in Lilydale and be protected by the Lilys. By 1938, though, there were only ten Fathers and Mothers left, the lowest number since it had been founded, all of whom lived on Mill Street and ran Lilydale.
Stan Lily believed it was his obligation and right to sleep with any of the women of Lilydale, including Virginia Aandeg, my mother. The Fathers and Mothers were fine with it because it made more Lily offspring, but when Virginia would drink, she’d tell townspeople about the night visits. The Fathers and Mothers paid Virginia a small stipend to keep her quiet, and it was working.
Then, Dorothy spotted me in my sailor suit on the way to my first day of kindergarten and decided she wanted the beautiful child for her own; since I was half Lily, and since the Fathers and Mothers had done so much for Virginia and for the town, Dorothy felt entitled. She lured me to her house with candy. By the time Stan returned home that afternoon, Virginia had called the Lilydale police to report me missing.
Stan was furious when he found me in his house, said Dorothy should not have been so impulsive, but Dorothy stood up to him for the first time in her life. She wouldn’t give me up, so Stan created a plan. They would wait until everything blew over and then present me as their own daughter. The town would look the other way, as it always had, and if the state police or papers ever came back to Lilydale, they’d be looking for a lost boy, not a lost girl.
Stan gave Virginia a generous donation that very day. He said it was from the Fathers and Mothers to cover her heartbreak at the loss of her child and to give her enough for a clean start in a different town, where she wouldn’t always be reminded of her lost child. It was clear it was a bribe, though Stan never said as much. Virginia, drunk, took Stan’s money, and she stayed drunk for the next five days while Lilydale was overrun with papers and police.
On the sixth day, a Sunday, Virginia sobered up, broke into Stan and Dorothy’s house while they and all the Mothers and Fathers were at church, found me catatonic in the basement just as she’d suspected she would, and fled Lilydale with me. The Mothers and Fathers wanted me back because I was half Lily, but they didn’t want the police to find me, because Virginia could reveal that Dorothy had been the one who’d kidnapped me. So no one reported Virginia missing, they burned down her house to destroy any evidence she might have left, and they encouraged rumors that Virginia had killed me and then fled town to escape justice. Dorothy, for her part, kept reading the city papers for any word of Virginia and Paulie, because she believed I was hers.
I am still crying when Ronald finishes his story, because I know what he doesn’t. Virginia moved to Florida, taught me to paper over the bad memories and remember only the good until those years in Lilydale were a nightmare, changed her name to Frances and mine to Joan, and we would have made it . . . if I hadn’t written the obituary against her wishes.
Ronald makes an exasperated noise. “Stop all that blubbering. Deck is a good man. He doesn’t deserve all this worry. You really should be a better wife.”
The baby kicks my kidney.
He sees me flinch. He guesses what it is and rests his hand on my belly. I want to shove it off, but I’m too afraid.
“It won’t be so bad,” he says, flashing his teeth. “We’re going to have the biggest party when this baby is born! We’ll welcome him into the Mill Street family. We’ll all be there. Everyone who matters. We’ll restore order.”
That’s when I understand that not one part of me is my own.
Never has been.
Ronald turns away. He picks up the sailor suit and drops it into the trash. His back is to me as he speaks. “We’re all Lilys here, you know.”
I’m crying by now, but he won’t stop.
“All of us on Mill Street. Direct descendants of the only two of Johann and Minna’s children to survive. You have the purest bloodline in the nation.”
CHAPTER 58
July turns the air into liquid. I find myself constantly drenched in sweat. We have fans set up in every room of the house, but it doesn’t matter. My body is cooking in the world’s oven.
I’m living at Dorothy and Stan’s now.
They let Slow Henry move in with us.
Dorothy is thrilled to finally have her “daughter” home.
The Mill Street Mothers will not let me out of their sight, not even to use the toilet, certainly not long enough for me to escape. They take shifts watching me.
If I’m good, I can live, and I can hold my baby.
I must make them believe I’m good.
I laugh at my previous Nancy Drew plan, the idea that I could snap photos of Ronald’s questionable business practices and drive away. No, these people will not let me go so easily.
I finally know what I’m up against. I also have one chance of escape, a sliver of light in a raging sea of dark. Ronald unwittingly gave me the idea when he mentioned the party they’d have when my baby was born. The elegant, impossible timing, so much balanced on a razor’s edge. I can’t think about it. I just plod toward it, knowing there are only two ways it will end: I will be dead, or I will be free.
I seldom leave the sauna of the house. I grow mo
re ponderous in my pregnancy, and as I do, I write articles, but they are about the joys of being pregnant and cooking and gardening. I’ve not been asked again to join the Mothers.
They allow me to attend get-togethers at Catherine’s house. There, I let them teach me how to crochet. We make blankets for the less fortunate. There is talk of Shirley Chisholm, and we all make faces of disgust. I learn the value of saving flower seeds from one season to the next.
Sometimes I spot Regina around town, but I’m never without one of the Mothers. I hope they leave her alone, but I’m too deep in the soup to warn her. The heat and my growing body conspire against me, making me slow and clumsy. Mildred reminds me it’s a precious life I’m carrying and that I should be grateful.
She doesn’t need to tell me. I know it.
I’m leaving Dr. Krause’s with her when she realizes she left her purse in the examination room.
I’m momentarily alone when the car pulls up.
A woman steps out.
I cover my mouth to stifle my scream.
She looks at me, then past me. I’m used to this invisibility as a pregnant woman. Lilydale tells me I am serving my purpose and don’t deserve a second glance. But she gives me one. Her eyes widen.
“Joan?”
It’s Ursula. She will destroy everything by being here. I hiss and back toward the door. I hope Mildred comes out. Grim-faced Catherine would be better at getting rid of Ursula. Mildred will help me, though. I can’t do it alone.
“Jesus, Joan. Are you having quintuplets?” She’s walking toward me, staring at my belly, grinning. The smile falls off her face when she meets my eyes.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“Benjamin called me,” she says. She’s gorgeous, truly a Sharon Tate, so trim and cosmopolitan and out of place in Lilydale. “I’m sorry, Joan. I should have been a better friend. He said he’s worried about you, for real worried about you, and that he can’t reach you at your old number. He found something out. Something he wanted me to tell you.”
I peer over my shoulder again at the clinic. Mildred is laughing with the receptionist. She’ll be out any minute. I must get rid of Ursula.
I walk up to her and shove her. “You have to go.”
She stumbles back, her expression wounded.
“Joan?” It’s Mildred. Finally. She’s behind me, her voice uncertain.
I turn to reassure her, stepping away from Ursula. I grab Mildred’s hand and lead her across the lawn so we can avoid the intruder.
“Minna and Johann Lily were brother and sister, Joan. Their first child was born horribly deformed. Minna went mad and threw it down a well.” Ursula’s voice starts shaky but grows louder as we walk farther away. “That’s not the crazy part, though. She and Johann kept going, having one freakish child after another. Do you hear what I’m saying?” She’s yelling now. “That’s some Olympic-level incest. This town is haunted. Fucking haunted. You okay? You okay, Joan?”
Mildred wraps her arm around me, and we scurry away.
Clean. Rested. Hydrated. Fed.
I’m ready.
It’s time for me to join them.
It’s time for me to get my child (Frances, I will call the baby, boy or girl; God, what my mother sacrificed for me) and escape Lilydale, for real this time. Forever. This must work out. My plan balances on a pin—so much could go wrong—but I can’t think of that.
One way or another, I’m getting out.
Like my mom did. Taking her child, the child of rape, Stanley Lily’s daughter, who got his eyes, who recognized a bit of herself in an old newspaper photo of her real father. Changing her name. Always staying on the move.
I pat my pocket. It’s in there. My ticket out of Lilydale, the thing I’ve been meticulously collecting in the weeks since they brought me home from the Saint Cloud police station.
My short hair has already dried. My clothes are clean, all signs of giving birth disguised. My eyes are wide and gaunt. Can’t do a thing for that, so I pinch my cheeks, wet my lips, and leave the lemon-yellow bedroom.
I hear the murmurs and clinks of their party.
They’re celebrating a new baby.
Mine.
CHAPTER 59
It’s August 1.
The weather has grown so scorching that the state weather service issues heat warnings. We sit in front of fans blowing over bowls of rapidly melting ice, but it’s no use. The world’s on fire.
I’m practicing my crocheting at the dinner table, sweat soaking my shapeless shift. Though I’ve grown unspeakably huge, Dr. Krause has assured me there’s only one baby in there. I am so large that it is difficult to cook, but I still prepare all the meals for Stan and Dorothy.
“You’re very good at that.”
It’s Dorothy. I don’t know how long she’s been watching me knit. She steps behind me and pulls sticky hair from my neck. I shiver at the human touch. She begins twisting the short bits into tufts. “Catherine says you’re pretending.”
My needles click. “Pretending what?”
“Pretending to be docile.”
I can think of no answer that she will believe, so I keep silent.
She finishes twining my hair and taps my shoulder. “I think you’re not. You’ve always only wanted to make people happy. It was selfish Virginia who made everything so difficult.”
I think of Stanley. Dorothy cares for him, moving him from one room to another, bathing him, spoon-feeding him. And sometimes, when she’s not looking, I think he grins at me, a wicked, wolfish grin.
“I’m going to walk to Dr. Krause’s today,” I say. “I need more sleeping pills and Valium. I’d love to have company. I want to make sure the baby is getting everything he needs, and the exercise will be good for me.”
“That’s my girl,” she says. She makes a tsking sound in the back of her throat, as if I’ve pleased her. “How would you like to become one of the Mothers tonight?”
I turn in the chair as fast as my swollen body will allow. My eyes are full of tears. My emotions have been so close to the surface these last weeks of my pregnancy. “I would love that. I would love that before the baby is born.”
She pats my cheek matter-of-factly. “Then you better clean yourself up.”
CHAPTER 60
“For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death,’” Ronald intones, standing on a dais at the rear of the enormous basement.
The basement Dorothy hid me in for five days after she kidnapped me.
This basement once belonged to Johann and Minna Lily, if Rosamund Grant is to be believed. Like my memory of the lemon-yellow room, I recall only flashes of being held down here as a child, impressions of darkness and fear and a cot shoved in the corner of a tiny closet of a room.
Kris was right about the fugue state.
I followed the natural lines of the story Ronald told me, and then Ursula yelled at me. The ancestral poison began with Johann and Minna Lily, brother and sister. Only two of their children survived their deformities, and they concentrated the poison of the incestuous heritage by having kids of their own, and so on down the line. By the time the current Mill Street families came into the picture, all of them, every last one of those rotten, stopped-up Lilys, they couldn’t have kids of their own, not normal, healthy ones.
Because they were all, at best, first cousins to one another.
I think of how Becky Swanson described Quill Brody, pointing at her chin and ears, too polite to describe his deformities. Of the woman with the melted face that Deck and I encountered outside the furniture store. How many malformed Lily children—full-blood Lily children—are there, and where are they being kept, these “lifers” as Catherine described her son?
What have the Mill Street families done in the name of purity?
I see a glimpse of their commitment to this ideal in the basement they’ve taken me to for initiation. Ronald is speaking scripture.
All t
he Fathers are lined up on the left and Mothers on the right, facing away from him, staring at me. Was it the second or third generation of inbreeding that cemented the inability of descendants of the original settlers to have sound children of their own, that made the Lily husbands seek outside their Lily wives for “vessels”?
It doesn’t really matter. There are three times the people here that I’ve ever seen before. This truly stretches beyond Lilydale. This brittle, rotten old system has its veins threaded through all of Stearns County, maybe farther, and it’s fully alive.
That’s why Mildred is here with Angel.
Browline Schramel’s child, stolen from his mother to be raised in the Lily fold. Mariela had reported Angel missing. She’d paid the Lilydale price, not turning Browline Schramel in, but of course she couldn’t keep silent when Mildred demanded her child. Mariela had gone to the police, and I imagine she’d had as much success telling them her story as I had sharing mine. The system would not protect us.
“The Holy Word has taught us that children are a reward from the Lord, and we take that which He offers us,” Ronald is saying, his voice reaching the farthest corners of the large room.
I almost blow it, watching Angel’s fearful eyes.
I can’t bear his pain.
I will do nearly anything to end it, even if it means giving up my one chance of escape with my child.
I am moving toward him when Ronald strides forward, meeting me at the base of the stairs. He’s carrying a white Lily pin. The same pin that Deck came home with that first week we moved to Lilydale. The same design as the necklace I stole from Dorothy.
Ronald holds it aloft and faces the men.
“Who sponsors this woman?”
Deck is standing at the rear of the room, near the dais. He’s raising his hand, and I believe he is going to speak for me, but then he coughs into it.
“I do,” Dorothy says from behind me.
“And I,” Barbara seconds.
“And I.” Mildred.
“I,” Rue agrees.
Catherine is the last familiar voice to speak. She frowns as if she’s tasted something sour, but she says, “I.”