by Annie Ward
That’s not a conversation you forget.
Joanna and I argued as we planned. I hadn’t wanted her to pinch Charlie. I said, “We’ll call 911 after Ian’s dead. No need for Charlie to cry.”
She was adamant. “No. We need to pretend the call was before. Hurry! Help! Before something bad happens! Please help! Whoops. You took too long. We were forced to do what we did and forced to go and hide. He’s dead. Your fault.”
We were both frankly astonished to learn that Ian’s body was found in the basement. We had assumed that he would die then and there in the kitchen. It was a lucky, lovely thing that he’d walked all the way across the house and down into his man cave. It gave credence to our claim that we’d stayed upstairs for fear of the man staggering about down below. I still can’t believe he walked across the whole house bleeding like a stuck pig. Physically he was so strong. Mentally so weak. To look at him you would never have guessed that the sight of an ordinary child’s sippy cup could send him into a spiraling depression that could last a week.
It was, of course, necessary to create a valid reason for Joanna to show back up in my life within a week of Ian’s death, hence all those sappy letters to her in Cami J’s office. “Dear Jo, I’ve been through something very traumatic, and it has made me question my choices. I want you back in my life. I miss you so much. Blah blah blah. I was so wrong to let you go.”
I knew from the moment that I came up with the idea of working with a writing therapist that it was the best way to spin my tale. Once I found Cami Toe, the world’s most unprofessional psychologist, I had to be very self-aware during my assignments. I needed to come across as helpless and fretful, while portraying Ian as a frightening figure as opposed to just tragic. Thank God I remembered, just in the nick of time, not to write about Ian’s bunker in the basement for her when I had not yet staged my grand reveal for Wayne with the sump-pump honey trap. And of course, there was that outright lie about me being chased the night I fell.
Oh Joanna. She was perfect. Without Joanna’s Albanian “friends,” I wouldn’t have been able to get the new travel documents for me and Charlie or make Ian’s money vanish using a Hawala transfer through Dubai.
Now I don’t have her to talk me down with the voice of reason, and my fears are spiraling out of control. What if Cami Toe decides it just might be worth calling the police to tell them I came in two weeks after Ian’s death and told her I was finished because I didn’t need her anymore?
“Finished! Don’t need me anymore? But this, this is your greatest time of need,” she said, pleading, holding my hand. “We were making progress.”
I snatched my hand away and left. Such a stupid thing to do, I admit, but so liberating to be rid of her and her ridiculous, touchy-feely belief in basket-weaving and fish-fostering for the soul. All those assignments to get in touch with my emotions, to grow and to really and truly feel. What makes you mad? What makes you sad? What makes you scared? Good God, Charlie could have come up with that shit. It’s true that I liked her at times. She was so easy and useful. And even more predictable than Wayne.
A teenage boy is here to collect payment for the beach umbrella and chairs. As he tucks my money into his belt bag I look up to see that Charlie has enlisted a cute, tubby-tummied, half-naked girl in braids in the construction of his castle. I glance toward the public bathroom, and tell myself no. I can’t leave him, though I feel like I’m going to vomit. I force myself to swallow down the taste of lake water and the rising terror of what they could discover. I fold in on my pain, slug the Macuá and wipe the sweat from my brow.
Things back home, they’re not looking good. I wonder, has anyone spoken to the woman at the gym who I hurt in that Cardio Kickboxing class? I imagine her face looks something like mine right now. I’d also be interested to know if there is any CCTV footage of the tussle I had with the security guard down at the Plaza, after I ripped up the black peasant dress at Anthropologie and told the rude salesgirl to use it to wipe her ass?
My anxiety was and still is real, but I used my terror as an impetus to do what was necessary to live more and live now. Before the inevitable. I wanted to give Charlie a remarkable existence every single day, knowing that any day could be the last. Any day can be a sunny family outing to the lake that goes horribly wrong. I just wanted to be alive and be with Charlie, the one good thing that had come of all this mess. Sometimes it feels like that is all I’ve ever wanted.
Look at him. Oh I want to eat him up. He’s tan now, a caramel color to complement his chocolate eyes. He looks like Ian, but with my wild hair. I ache with love as I watch him abandon his plastic trucks to build turrets for his sand castle with two torn clear plastic cups, refuse from the Iguana Bar.
The little girl is called back to her beach towel by a mother offering a banana, and Charlie comes to me.
“Mommy,” he says brightly. “Help me find seashells to make the walls pretty!”
“Yes, baby,” I answer. “Two minutes. Let me finish my drink.”
He doesn’t ask very often about Ian. I’ve thrown his superhero bracelets in the garbage and told him sadly that they’re lost. Ian was gone more than half his life anyway. I get a lot of questions about when we might get to visit Gramma and Papa, and just last night he asked what happened to Joanna.
“She never came back from her swim,” I said.
“Why?” he asked.
“She swam too far away from the boat,” I answered. “She shouldn’t have done that, should she have?”
“No, she was bad.” His expression went stormy and thoughtful for a second, and I knew he remembered that pinch.
And he was right. She’d been bad. The amount of money that Ian thought he could retire on was laughable. How were we supposed to live the next thirty to forty years on a few million dollars? Oh yeah, we were going to grow our own vegetables and stew them with the bunnies we killed in Montana.
It was never about the money for Jo. She didn’t do it because her career had gone sideways and she was broke. She did it because I told her Ian hurt us and because of the lie I told her about Ian being glad she lost her baby.
Though it hadn’t been the reason she agreed to help me, Jo didn’t mind luxury. Once we’d been cleared and it was over, once we had our new identities and our rental on the coast of San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua. She got greedy. She wanted to stay.
But she did something worse. She did something even more unforgivable than forcing me to watch her pinch my child. She became worried about me.
“Maddie,” she would say, when she found me in the bathroom staring in the streaked mirror. “Are you okay? You’re clenching and unclenching your fists, and your eyes look weird.”
“Maddie,” she would say, when she found me with the sink full of water and me with my face plunged into it, trying to remember what it felt like to take it into my lungs. “Let’s get you some help, okay?”
She started to wonder if maybe she should spend more time with Charlie. So I could rest.
She started trying to be his mom. “Let me give you a break, Maddie. I’ll take him down to the beach for a little. Why don’t you have a nap, and Charlie and I will go see if his friend Pedro is at the playground? Pedro’s dad is a hottie! Would it be okay if I buy a soccer ball and start teaching Charlie to kick it around?”
No fucking way. Besides, the savings we had were for me and Charlie, not for Joanna’s Nicaraguan fantasy holiday, which required a daily allowance for costly wet suits, swim goggles and scuba gear, aromatherapy massages, new rock-climbing paraphernalia and “salsa lessons with Enrique.” I guess she thought it was blood money.
Wrong, bitch. My money. My kid. You don’t get to swoop in at the last minute and have it all. I know what you want after all this time. Ian’s baby. The one you lost.
She was an excellent swimmer and always had been. Charlie and I were accustomed to her disappearing into the ocean f
or long stretches of time. One day we rented a little fishing boat to take Charlie out for some fun. When Jo left for her swim I gave Charlie a dose of Benadryl and made him comfy in a pile of life jackets and towels. It turns out it is almost impossible for someone in the water to board a small fishing boat if you don’t throw down the ladder. It’s even harder to get out of the ocean if someone on the boat has an oar they can use to just keep pushing that swimmer away. It gets easier and easier to nudge a person back into the water when they start yelling and calling you a bitch. That makes you want to give them whacks on the head, which bloodies the water. Are there sharks off the coast of Nicaragua? If so that would be convenient. The hardest part is at the end when they reach out, crying and begging, blood and hair everywhere. I did it, though. Charlie needed me to do it and my good boy, my sweet little sugar booger? He slept through it all.
I watch him. He is serious and particular as he searches for the rare exquisite little rippled shell-fans to adorn the facade of his fairyland castle.
He’s in his own little world. He and I are so much alike.
Everything I have done is for Charlie, which is why the seven emails that were waiting for me this morning are so infuriating that I can’t see straight. My dad’s emails were the first I saw.
* * *
From: Jack Brandt
To: Madeline Wilson
Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2018
Subject: Hi from Dad
Maddie, listen, Ian’s brother John has just left the house and your mom is very upset. He’s here in Meadowlark looking for you. He had no idea you and Charlie are in Bulgaria. Can you please call me and mom as soon as you get this?
* * *
From: Jack Brandt
To: Madeline Wilson
Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2018
Subject: Trying again
Maddie. John’s here at the house again. We are all waiting to hear from you.
* * *
Then there were more from John himself.
* * *
From: John Wilson
To: Madeline Wilson
Sent: Wednesday, 17 January 2018
Subject: Urgent message from John
Hello. It’s John. I need to speak with you. Please get back to me as soon as possible.
* * *
Of course my mom had to get involved.
* * *
From: Judy Brandt
To: Madeline Wilson
Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2018
Subject: This is Mom, write or call ASAP
Your dad and I are starting to get very worried. Ian’s brother is asking us all kinds of questions. Why is there no answer when we call the number you gave us? I have called you twenty times! I spoke with the rental lady in Bulgaria. They said you left ages ago. Are you even in Bulgaria? Why aren’t you answering our emails? Ian’s brother John is getting very angry and he’s scaring me and I think scaring Dad. We want to talk to Charlie. I want a phone call. Get back to us the second you get this message.
* * *
From: Jack Brandt
To: Madeline Wilson
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2018
Subject: Serious trouble
Well, guess what? Ian’s brother John has been to the police station. Mom’s friend Kathy from book club whose husband owns Prime Liquor says Diane Varga has been down there asking if an Englishman was around last spring buying giant amounts of vodka. When Kathy’s husband said no she showed him your photo. He said he knows you. I want to know what the hell is going on. If you don’t get back to me TODAY you are going to be in BIG trouble.
* * *
From: Judy Brandt
To: Madeline Wilson
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2018
Subject: Where are you? Where is Charlie?
Maddie, what’s going on? I’m at my wit’s end. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. Where are you and are you okay? My heart is breaking. I need to know you and Charlie are all right. I can’t take this. Please call or write one word. This is so painful. I love you, honey, whatever has happened can be fixed. I don’t know where you are or if you’re hurt or if you’re in danger. I will help you whatever it is. Please let me know what’s going on. You have always run off but you’ve never taken my precious grandbaby with you. Think of how we feel. We are so scared, Maddie. Please sweetheart, please. I’m waiting by the phone.
* * *
From: John Wilson
To: Madeline Wilson
Sent: Saturday, 20 January 2018
Subject: Last message
Madeline, this is the last message I’m going to send you. I want to know the whereabouts of my nephew. I’m now officially concerned for his safety. You need to bring him home to his grandparents. Do what’s best for Charlie. If I don’t hear back from you, the next time we communicate will be in person. That will not work out well for you. You can take this as a warning.
* * *
How could they doubt me? Of course I will do what’s best for Charlie. I would never hurt him.
I stand up and walk over to my little boy. I take him in my arms and hug him tight. So John’s after me now. And the pretty dark-eyed police officer has found a few of the holes in my story. It’s only a short amount of time before she moves on from the vodka bottles to the fingernails and the phone, the pen, the knife. Fingernails, pen, knife, phone, boat, murder. Murders.
That’s why we’re here after all, isn’t it? In hiding. Just in case.
Should I see a therapist?
I sometimes feel like my mind is possessed by another person or creature.
That quiz seems like such a long time ago.
So it’s just us now. Forever. That’s okay. I’ll show Charlie the whole world and teach him all the languages, and no one from home will ever see either of us again. This is the life I wanted for us anyway.
Don’t worry about Charlie.
We’re fine.
* * *
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A special thanks to my agent, Madeleine Milburn. Her surprise entrance into my world was a miraculous and life-changing moment. Thank you also to Anna, Alice, Hayley and Giles at the Madeleine Milburn Agency for believing in this project and working so hard to make it happen.
To Erika Kahn Imranyi, please know how incredibly grateful I am to you for holding the torch as I tried to find my way. Your encouragement and advice were truly invaluable. Stefanie Bierwerth and Jennifer Lambert, I am so lucky to have found a home with you. Thank you for your kindness and support.
Mom and Dad. Everything I have ever accomplished is quite simply due to the two of you and your boundless capacity to offer love and support. Russ, Wendy, Laura and your families: thank you for never giving up on me. You are the best. Thank you also to the close circle of friends who have been there for me through thick and thin, triumph and failure and a few very dark days along the way. You know you are family as well, and to all my family I say, “Is there a word bigger than love?”
To the local police officers who patiently sat and answered all my questions, I owe you so much. You were such gentlemen, so forthcoming and charming. Thank you for your time and sincerity in helping me find ways to make the impossible possible.
Caidan and Jude. You gave me the happiness and hugs that I needed when writing alone was too hard. Everything I do is for the two of you.
Finally, for Jos... No one else besides you read the book as many times as me. You stayed up countless nights helping me with dialogue, coming up with ideas for plot, editing new pages and doing much of my research. You ended up being not just my life partner but my writing partner. There would be no Beautiful Bad without you. (I’m sorry about how Maddie killed Ian at the end, but then again, wasn’t that your idea?)
ISBN-13: 9781488099595
Beautiful Bad
Copyright © 2
019 by Annie Ward
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