Bad Marie

by Marcy Dermansky

  “Marie?” she said.

  Marie picked Caitlin up. There was dirt on Caitlin’s face. Her nose was pink from the sun.

  She looked from Juan José’s mother to Carmelita, searching their faces. She realized, then, that she had entered their house uninvited. It had been Juan José’s home. He had brought her here, to this hateful cement-block structure. Marie understood, now, that she was not welcome. She understood.

  “You must know who I am?” Marie asked. “Marie? Juan José’s esposa. I used to live here. With you. You cooked me chicken stew the night I arrived. In celebration.”

  “Sí,” Carmelita said.

  The mother spoke to Carmelita in Spanish. They went back and forth, like Lili Gaudet and Benoît Doniel had gone back and forth in French, as if Marie, standing there, waiting, did not matter. If she could have, Marie would have told them that Caitlin was theirs, hers and Juan José’s, a piece of him, still alive.

  Except that it wasn’t true.

  And Caitlin had that blond, blond hair.

  “Where are all the chickens?” Marie asked, saying something, wanting to prove that she was there, had been there.

  “Chickens?” Caitlin said. “I like ducks. And chickens. I like dogs.”

  “I don’t know where the chickens went,” Marie said. “They used to be everywhere. In the house, outside of the house. I once stepped on a chicken and it made the loudest noise.”

  The house, though, was surprisingly quiet. No chickens, no radio, no babies crying. No Uncle Roberto. He was the one who had liked the music.

  “Where is Mommy?” Caitlin asked.

  Marie felt powerless, unable to stop this, Caitlin’s never-ending desire for her mother. She kissed the top of Caitlin’s head. Her hair tasted salty, though they hadn’t made it to the beach.

  Marie noticed Carmelita take in the meaning of Caitlin’s question. Marie smiled but Carmelita did not return her smile. Had she hated Marie before? Marie couldn’t remember. Everyone had seemed to live and breathe to please her, before, in those months of euphoric bliss. Though Marie was no longer sure. If it had been bliss. She wished she had been in that photo, too, with Juan José, above the faded yellow couch.

  “Mommy?” Caitlin repeated.

  Marie was starting to believe that Caitlin might actually miss her mother. Maybe, one day, after Caitlin had been safely returned, Marie would tell Ellen that her daughter had missed her. Maybe it was still possible that Marie could get out of this mess that she had created for herself. She could return Caitlin, unharmed, with a slightly pink nose. Ellen would know that her daughter loved her, that her husband was a plagiarist and an adulterer. Marie could be forgiven.

  Marie knelt down, to look Caitlin in the eye.

  “She went back to the office, Sweet Bean. You know Mommy. She is always working late.”

  “Where is Daddy?” Caitlin asked.

  This question was brand new. Marie decided to ignore it. Marie looked at Carmelita, imploring her with her eyes. The kindness that had come from this family, it would return, as soon as the shock wore off. Until then, Marie and Caitlin remained planted in front of Juan José’s photograph, unable to move forward or backward. This was the kind of reception Marie had always gotten from her own mother.

  “Can I have some water, Carmelita?” Marie said. “Agua, por favor?”

  Marie looked at Juan José, who didn’t acknowledge her plea for help, because he was just an image, because he was dead. He had done a poor job of looking after her, hadn’t he? How had Marie managed to forget that? She had trusted him with nothing less than her life. She had not been unhappy before they met. She might have watched a lot of daytime television, she might have felt a little lost, but Marie had been confident that eventually, when she was ready, she would figure something out. She had believed that.

  Now Marie was thirty. Thirty years old and on the run. Again. Her taste in sneakers had not changed. Juan José’s family did not love her, did not want her, would not keep her. Marie had remembered that all wrong. She couldn’t keep answering Caitlin’s questions, day after day after day. But Caitlin couldn’t stop asking them. Marie had used the last clean Paris diaper on the airplane.

  Carmelita motioned for Marie to follow her, and they went into the kitchen, leaving Juan José in the living room, young and smiling and dead. In the kitchen, Marie recognized the appliances. Flush with bank robbery money, Juan José had bought the refrigerator, the dishwasher, and the microwave. The blender on the counter was in the same place it had been, six years ago.

  Carmelita turned on the tap, filling a blue plastic cup with water. Marie refused it.

  “Do you have bottled?”

  She made the motion of opening a water bottle with her hands. Juan José had warned her not to drink the water. What had been good enough for his family had not been good enough for Marie. Marie had forgotten that, too. Carmelita shook her head.

  “Leche?” Marie tried. She pointed to Caitlin. “For her? Not for me. For my little girl.”

  Carmelita opened the refrigerator and took out a box of milk.

  “Gracias, Carmelita,” Marie said.

  Caitlin had not entirely recovered from her crying fit on the público. Her eyes were red, her pale white skin mottled. Carmelita poured milk into another plastic cup and gave it to Caitlin.

  “Yellow cup,” Caitlin said.

  Carmelita offered a tight smile to this astute observation.

  “You’re right,” Marie said. “It is a yellow cup.”

  “At home,” Caitlin said. “I have an Elmo cup. And I have a cup with dinosaurs on it. I have a purple straw. My daddy drinks from bowls. Not cups.”

  Juan José’s mother and a teenage girl entered the kitchen. The girl was tall, her black hair long and shiny. She wore a tight T-shirt and was holding a sleeping baby in her arms. It was Maribel, six years older. Marie used to swim with Maribel after the girl had come home from school, after she had finished her chores; they used to go to the store together, after they went swimming, and Marie would buy her candy.

  “Maribel!” Marie said, reassured, relieved to have someone at last on her side. Maribel, who she had always liked, who had always liked Marie.

  But the cold expression on Maribel’s face matched the other women’s. She was one of them now. She had joined the other side.

  “You remember me? Marie? I was engaged to your uncle Juan José? I bought you candy.”

  “I know who you are,” Maribel said. “You are the gringa who convinced my uncle to rob a bank. You are the reason my uncle is dead.”

  That was what they thought.

  That Juan José’s death was Marie’s fault.

  Marie shook her head, but she had no words to defend herself. Marie had not robbed the bank. She hadn’t known, when she first met him, a stranger at a bar, that later that same week he would rob a bank. Marie would never have encouraged him. She would have told him that he would get caught. Marie had been caught every time, for everything she had ever done wrong in her life. There was nothing, Marie thought, watching Caitlin drinking her milk, that she could do right. She had loved Juan José. She had loved him and trusted him. She could not be blamed for his death.

  And Marie remembered, finally, standing in the kitchen, as Caitlin drank her milk from her yellow plastic cup, that she had always hated being in this house. That Juan José’s mother had sewn the wedding dress with an abiding silence, because she hadn’t wanted Juan José to sleep in the same room with Marie until they were married, and Juan José had refused to sleep anywhere else. Marie had been fed the best pieces of chicken, and then was resented for having eaten them. The women, they had taught her to make tortillas, a task normally reserved for children. Otherwise, she had been deemed useless, always in the way.

  Marie had forgotten all of that.

  Caitlin drank her milk standing up, holding her plastic cup carefully.

  She looked up and smiled.

  “I have a plate,” Caitlin said, “with
a cow on it.”

  And then, she continued to drink her milk.

  Marie did not know what to do about the silence that filled the room. In the eyes of these women, she had murdered Juan José. They were not going to offer her a bed to sleep in. They were not going to offer her a meal. She could not expect, even, the use of their bathroom.

  “Where is Roberto?” Marie asked.

  “He’s at work,” Maribel said. “At the new resort. He washes dishes for white people.”

  “He has a job,” Marie said, hopefully.

  Roberto had not had a job six years ago. There had been no jobs.

  “He leaves when it is still dark in the morning,” Maribel said. “He comes home late at night. His skin burns from the chemicals in the dishwashing detergent. They pay him little. Not nearly enough to support his family.”

  Marie was disturbed by all the anger directed at her. It had made sense for her to congratulate the family for Roberto’s having found a job. She did not run the resort. She did not exploit the local workers. She looked at Caitlin, who had finished her cup of milk.

  “All gone,” Caitlin said.

  No one moved to give Caitlin any more.

  “This is all we have,” Maribel said. “We need it for our family. For my child.”

  Marie tried to calculate how old Maribel was. She had been a little girl when Marie left, maybe ten, which would make her sixteen or seventeen, much too young to have a baby. She had been the smart one, the pride and joy of the family.

  “That’s fine,” Marie said, still trying, though it was not fine. It had to be a shock for all of them, Marie showing up like this, without warning. Until the day before, she herself had never considered going back to Mexico. “We have traveled a long way,” Marie said.

  “Did you bring us anything?” Maribel asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Did you bring us anything?”

  Juan José had arrived like he was Santa Claus, the trunk of Marie’s mother’s car loaded with presents they had picked up along the way. He had robbed a bank, not for himself, but for them. For this roomful of women. These people, Juan José’s family, they were still struggling.

  “Weren’t you going to go to school, Maribel?” Marie asked. “You speak such good English. You can go to college. Having a baby, that doesn’t have to stop you.”

  “I don’t know why you came here,” Maribel said. “But we can’t help you. We have our own problems. Go back to your own family.”

  Marie blinked.

  Caitlin looked down into her empty cup.

  “More?” she said.

  “There is a resort on the beach,” Maribel said. “For people like you.”

  “People like me,” Marie said. Once Marie had thought she was one of them, part of the family. “There are no resorts.”

  “They have built them. You know nothing. They have taken over our beach. They work Roberto to the bone. Go and see.”

  “Where are the chickens?” Marie asked.

  “What do you think?” Maribel said. “Where do you think they are?”

  Marie didn’t know. She said nothing.

  “We ate them.”

  “All of the chickens?”

  There were always more chickens. That was what Marie remembered most vividly about the house. A cousin could come home drunk, run down two or three in Marie’s mother’s car, they could slaughter a flock for Sunday dinner, and still there would be more chickens.

  “You didn’t breed them? Save the eggs? You didn’t eat the last chicken? You wouldn’t do that?”

  Maribel shook her head. “Times are hard.”

  The sleeping baby in Maribel’s arms had woken up, opening her big dark eyes. The baby that Marie and José didn’t have. Marie would have wanted that baby. She would be six years old now.

  Marie rested her hand gently on top of Caitlin’s head. She closed her eyes, taking a moment’s pleasure in that soft hair, just another second, because soon they would be on their way out the door. Homeless once again in a foreign country. More than anything, Marie wanted to keep Caitlin, but she was no longer sure that she could. She had run out of places to run to.

  “Hi baby,” Caitlin said to the dark-haired infant in Maribel’s arms. “Hi.”

  Marie reached into her back pocket and offered Maribel what little money she had left. The second it passed from her fingers, she wished she had it back.

  The beaches in Juan José’s hometown had been perfect, pristine except for the trash of the locals, beer cans and skeletons of gutted fish. These beaches had once been magic. Now, making her way along the coast, what Marie saw was a bunch of pickup trucks on the sand and a tall crane, a massive construction site, the metal shell of a building. The water was that same aqua blue, the sand just as fine, white, but the beauty of the place had been ruined. The quiet was gone, replaced by the blare of chainsaws and hammers, the unrelenting beeping of machinery operating in reverse. There were workers poised on iron beams, dripping sweat in the sun, working, making all that noise. Sea gulls fought viciously over a pile of trash on the sand. A Mexican woman was cooking food over a grill constructed out of a metal garbage bin while more workers hovered nearby.

  Marie wanted to buy a cold beer. A cerveza. The word came back to Marie as she stared at the men. Juan José used to buy the beers, cold and delicious in the hot sun, served with a wedge of lime. They would walk along the sand, drinking, talking. They would wade into the water, holding their beers, as the gentle waves rose and fell.

  Marie could not buy herself a beer. She had given Maribel all of her money. She had really done that.

  “My ears hurt,” Caitlin said, covering them with her hands.

  “My ears hurt, too,” Marie said.

  “Where is Mommy?”

  Marie looked at the round curves of Caitlin’s small ears. They were a new shade of pink, much like Caitlin’s nose, which was also pink. Marie took a T-shirt from her backpack and wrapped it around Caitlin’s head.

  “No,” Caitlin said. “That’s a shirt. That doesn’t go on my head. No no no.”

  Caitlin tried to tug the shirt off, but Marie put her hand firmly on top of Caitlin’s head and tied a knot with the short sleeves while Caitlin struggled.

  The one thing that Marie had not done was yell at Caitlin. She had never done that. Could she tell that to a judge? Could she explain that fact to Ellen? She had never yelled at Caitlin. She had gotten her milk and good things to eat, changed her diapers. She had been good to Caitlin, this entire time. It had been hard, but Marie had tried. She had tried.

  “Leave the shirt,” Marie said. “Just leave it. Please. You look like a rock star.”

  “No.”

  “Please. Please, Caitlin. I don’t want you to get burned. Please.”

  “No.”

  “Caitlin, please, please leave the shirt on your head. Kit Kat. Caty Bean. For me. Please.”

  “I want Mommy.”

  Marie had never hit Caitlin. Not once. That was another thing she had never done.

  “I want Mommy.” Marie mimicked Caitlin’s words. Where was Ellen, anyway? Mommy wasn’t there, tying a T-shirt over Caitlin’s precious head, doing everything she could. It was Marie, protecting Caitlin from the sun. Worrying about her, night and day. Only now that Marie had become the new Mommy, Caitlin didn’t appreciate her anymore. Marie had stopped being fun.

  “What if I told you I was your mommy now? What do you think? That I am Mommy? Marie.”

  “No,” Caitlin said.

  “Yes,” Marie said. “Your mother is never going to leave the office. She isn’t.”

  Marie watched the tears start, watched Caitlin’s face twist out of shape as she wailed uncontrollably on a loud and polluted beach in Mexico, a dirty T-shirt tied on top of her head. Marie wasn’t Caitlin’s mother. She shouldn’t have said that. She could never replace Ellen. She had not wanted to. She only wanted to be herself. Marie thought that would be enough.

  Marie didn’t kn
ow what to do. How she could comfort Caitlin? Marie couldn’t remember ever wanting her mother. That could not have been Marie’s fault. Her mother must not have been a person worth wanting. She must have been the failure. Not Marie.

  None of this was Caitlin’s fault.

  It wasn’t her fault that Marie had taken her to Mexico without any sunblock. That Marie had given away all of their money.

  And Marie, she wasn’t to blame for her own childhood. She had been a child, after all, no more responsible for her circumstances than Caitlin. She had always wanted Ellen’s mother, more than her own, but the truth was Ellen’s mother had never wanted Marie. She had led her on, introducing her to artichokes and taking her to art museums, writing her clever poems on her birthday, but she never took Marie’s side when it counted.

  “Oh Caty Bean,” Marie said, kneeling in front of the little girl in the sand. “I am sorry.”

  Caitlin stood there, in front of Marie, and she cried. Her pink face turned red. Streams of thick yellow snot ran down her nose. This was Marie’s fault, all her fault. She remembered Ellen lecturing her in the Vietnamese restaurant, telling Marie that she was not to be trusted with her daughter. Ellen couldn’t have foreseen the future, this moment on the beach, but she turned out to have been right. Marie was taking deplorable care of her little girl.

  “Oh baby, I’m so sorry.”

  If Marie could have handed Caitlin over to Ellen, right then, she would have done it. Without hesitation. Instead, Marie reached for Caitlin, with the idea of cradling her in her arms. Caitlin pushed her away.

  “Not you. Not you. Not you.”

  Marie stepped back, stunned.

  “Not you,” Caitlin repeated.

  “Not me,” Marie said, arms at her sides.

  Marie had nothing left. She was out of tricks. All out of ideas. There was nothing left in her backpack. No milk. No chocolate. No fresh diapers. No stuffed animals. No books to read. Nothing. She handed Caitlin the green glass rabbit from the French villa, watched as Caitlin let it slip through her fingers, drop down to the sand. Marie had thought it was a fine rabbit, comparable to the dead sister’s silver bangles or Ellen’s red silk kimono. Caitlin did not want it.