The Woman in Our House

by Andrew Hart

  “Sippy cup,” said Oaklynn, holding it up.

  “Even so,” I said.

  I didn’t know why I was pushing back against her, but I could feel her watchfulness again, that sense that she was taking her time to do whatever she had to because she was monitoring me.

  You’re being paranoid.

  Josh’s voice in my head. I scowled, and the phone rang.

  “I’ll get it,” said Oaklynn.

  “It’s OK,” I said, crisper than I had meant to. I moved to the phone decisively so she could see I wasn’t just being polite and snatched the receiver.

  My house. My phone.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Anna, it’s Tammy.”

  She sounded emotional, but for a moment, I couldn’t tell if she was happy or sad. An extreme of one or the other. I braced myself.

  “Hi, Tammy. What’s up? You OK?”

  “It’s Angus,” she spluttered. “He came back! All wet and half-starved, but he came back! I just had to let you know because you were so worried.”

  My heart did a little jump, but it wasn’t so much relief as panic, as if I had been caught. The dog was alive. It wasn’t in the storm drain, skewered by a crossbow arrow.

  “He came back!” I managed. “Oh, that is good news.”

  Oaklynn drifted into my field of view, her eyes locked on mine. I swallowed, trying to look normal, just a person talking to her friend on the phone.

  “Angus,” I mouthed to her. “He came back.”

  I tried to look pleased and slightly amused, like I was letting her know that things had worked out just as I had expected, and that Tammy’s anxiety had been stupid and needless. Oaklynn smiled that expansive, beatific smile of hers, but it only moved her mouth. Her eyes stayed on mine, thoughtful and appraising. Knowing.

  See? they said. I didn’t kill the dog, after all. Doesn’t that make you feel better?

  “Well, that’s a huge load off my mind,” I said to Tammy, contriving to turn a little so that Oaklynn couldn’t see my face.

  I didn’t feel better. I just felt transparent, and for reasons I couldn’t pinpoint, that scared me.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  ANNA

  It might have been the last day when it was still warm enough to sit outside. There had been a cold snap at the end of September, and though the weather had warmed up again afterward, the end of October had been positively wintry. Now it was November, and the trees were mostly bare. While it still got into the sixties during the day, and the sky was clear and blue, it cooled fast in the evening, the nights hovering just above freezing. Each day took longer to warm up, and the turkey vultures sat like scarecrows for most of the morning before taking to the air.

  I had been surprised to receive Mary Beth’s invitation. She rarely entertained—let alone hosting anything as casual as a cookout—and the emailed invitation had specified that the kids and even Oaklynn were welcome. A few weeks ago, I would have taken this simply as a concession designed to make sure the adults could do their own thing while the nanny handled the kids, but it was unusual enough to increase my anxiety. I hadn’t seen Mary Beth since Josh’s trip to New York. It was impossible not to wonder if she was engineering a situation in which we would meet but would not, could not, get into anything messy.

  Not that I thought there was anything messy to get into. Not really. I just wondered occasionally—the thought of her being away when my husband was felt like a cold draft in the sun, like my thoughts about screwdrivers. Stupid, unearned, needless worries born of nothing more than a dark imagination and a sense of . . . what? That something bad was coming. Something I deserved.

  When I mentioned the invitation to Josh, his face tightened with thought and surprise, but he just said, “Sounds good. But if it’s no warmer than today, I’m not standing around freezing my ass off.”

  I didn’t know what to think beyond the clear sense that I didn’t want to go. I knew I would spend the whole party tense and uneasily vigilant, my attention moving from Josh to Mary Beth and Oaklynn and back, not sure what I was looking for, not sure which of them I could trust, or whether I was just being idiotically paranoid.

  Again. Still. Whatever.

  “At least Oaklynn can come along and look after the girls,” said Josh.

  I gave him a mildly surprised look.

  “What?” he said.

  “No cripes jokes?” I said, half teasing. “No snark about the crates of food she will take with her?”

  “Of course not,” he replied, flushing slightly. “She’s great. Part of the family, right?”

  The phrase sounded so odd in his mouth that I could only nod and smile.

  When the day came—brighter and warmer than we had any reason to expect—I approached the Wilsons’ house with a sense of foreboding, trying not to think that I would spend the afternoon watching the way Josh interacted with Mary Beth but knowing that I would, anyway.

  As it turned out, I barely saw them speak to each other at all, though that, too, felt odd, loaded with unreadable significance. They seemed to actively avoid each other, always sitting apart, not meeting each other’s eyes, talking to other people, though the group was small. A falling-out? Or an effort to hide something?

  Or nothing at all, which I was seeing as something only because I was determined to . . .

  In fact, the only person Mary Beth seemed interested in was Oaklynn.

  “So you’re a Mormon,” said Mary Beth with customary frankness and a level, sardonic stare. “What’s that all about?”

  “LDS,” said Oaklynn, clearly embarrassed by the eyes of the group turning onto her. “Yes. The Church of Latter-day Saints.”

  “Huh,” said Mary Beth, her gaze still fixed and snakelike so that Oaklynn looked down. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

  “What question was that?” said Oaklynn stiffly.

  “The Mormon thing,” Mary Beth pressed. “What’s that all about?”

  “It’s the faith I was raised in,” replied Oaklynn carefully, smiling, as if looking for a way out. I felt sure that, assuming she was capable of the feeling, she didn’t like Mary Beth Wilson, and especially didn’t like being cornered by her.

  “We don’t all stick with the faiths we were born into. I was raised Methodist,” Mary Beth shot back with a raised eyebrow as she swilled the wine in her glass pointedly. “Anna was some kind of Japanese druid or some shit.”

  “Hardly,” I replied, feeling embarrassed and needled. Mary Beth was one of those people who exploited other people’s politeness, their desire to avoid conflict. “My parents were Buddhists, but they had some Shinto practices, too.”

  “Which you don’t follow,” said Mary Beth, as if closing a steel trap.

  “Not as such,” I said, soft-pedaling it. “We keep a little family shrine to our ancestors upstairs.”

  “But you don’t really believe it all,” Mary Beth pushed.

  “Well, I’m not sure all of it is supposed to be literally true in the modern sense of—”

  “In the sense that Oaklynn believes her—what would you call it—Moronism? I mean, Mormonism?”

  Kurt chuckled. Josh frowned.

  “Well, I know the church is true,” said Oaklynn carefully, “for me. Other people have other ways to God.”

  “Like Anna’s incense and dead relatives, you mean?”

  “I think that’s enough, Mary Beth,” I said, irritated and confused. I had my own issues with Oaklynn and with religion generally, but I was suddenly tired of Mary Beth’s love of drama and need to tear other people down. “We all have our different beliefs and traditions.”

  “But it’s interesting, don’t you think?” said Mary Beth, deliberately perky, like she was discussing the weather. “That your employee might think you are going to hell or whatever. You not being Christian and all. So she thinks you’re damned, right, Oaklynn?”

  Oaklynn flushed.

  “I’m not much of a theologian,” she said.


  “But that’s what you people do, right?” Mary Beth persisted. “Go around converting the world because if you don’t, we’ll all burn, right?”

  “I should really check on the girls,” said Oaklynn.

  “They are right there,” said Mary Beth, nodding across the immaculate lawn to where the neighborhood kids were all playing together.

  “Thanks, Oaklynn,” said Josh, “that would be great.”

  It was odd to see Josh going out of his way to look after her, and I wondered—with just a hint of pleasure—if he was deliberately trying to piss off Mary Beth. Oaklynn nodded, apparently relieved, and fled, though I was sure she caught Mary Beth’s arch remark to Josh, “Well, aren’t you the knight in shining armor?”

  It was an odd remark, and my gaze lingered on each of them in turn, trying to decipher what had just passed between them. If anything.

  “Miss Oaklynn! Miss Oaklynn!” called Veronica delightedly. “Chase us!”

  “What?” said Mary Beth as soon as Oaklynn was out of earshot, meeting my look head-on and unflinchingly. “You people! Why do you have to tiptoe around her? She works for you! You pay her wages. She’s not your little Mormon buddy who you have to look after. She’s not anyone’s little anything.”

  “OK,” said Josh.

  “Yeah,” said Kurt. “You’re starting to let your inner bitch show.”

  “Doubtless that’s a huge surprise to everyone,” said Mary Beth cheerfully. “Speaking of, are those damned burgers not done yet, Kurt? You’ve been cooking for, like, a year.”

  “Took me a while to get the coals going,” said her husband. “Hot now, though.”

  “Finally,” said Mary Beth, rolling her eyes. “Have you seen that guy who is always walking around the neighborhood with that huge white dog that looks like a goddamned dire wolf? Like, constantly. Does he work or what?”

  “I think he’s a professor or something at the university,” said Tammy. “Lives up on Harris, I think. Dog seems nice. Angus doesn’t usually like big dogs, but that one . . .”

  She broke off, looking to where the terrier was yipping and chasing the kids around the yard contentedly. She looked desperately relieved, as if the safe return of the animal had been the kind of relief without which she couldn’t have gone on. On impulse, I reached out and patted her hand. She gave me a startled, slightly teary look and smiled, embarrassed.

  “I’m so silly,” she said, wiping her eyes.

  “Dogs and kids,” said Mary Beth, shaking her head. “I don’t get either.”

  “No shit,” said Kurt. Mary Beth gave him a venomous look, and he shrugged, so that she made a little disgusted noise in her throat and rolled her eyes.

  “How is the nanny thing working out?” she asked instead, keen for more gossip.

  “Good,” said Josh, turning deliberately to me, as if we were speaking with one voice, as a couple. “Yeah, Anna?”

  “Yeah,” I said, a tad less enthusiastically. “At least I’m getting some work done.”

  “The kids seem to like her,” said Tammy, watching them.

  “They love her,” said Josh.

  “What’s not to love?” said Mary Beth dryly, speaking over the rim of her glass.

  “Anna was worried that . . . ,” Josh began. I shot him a shocked, fierce look, and he froze.

  “What?” said Mary Beth, pouncing. “You think she’s making moves on hubby or stealing your earrings or something?”

  I shook my head dismissively, still staring at Josh.

  What is he thinking?

  “What, then?”

  “It’s nothing,” said Josh, though he obviously felt obliged to explain. “But Gracie got sick a few times, and then there was that thing at the park.”

  “The slide,” said Tammy. “That was awful.”

  “And you think Saint Oaklynn wasn’t being super vigilant,” Mary Beth said to me, clearly disappointed. “You thought she should have been sitting by their bedsides day and night—”

  “No!” I said. “It was nothing. Forget it.”

  “Come on, Anna,” said Mary Beth, scenting something fun in the air. “You can tell us. We’re all friends here. Well, mostly.”

  She gave Josh a wicked grin, and I pressed my fingertips together.

  “Go on, Anna,” said Josh. “It’s over now.”

  I stared at him, but with Mary Beth’s eyes pinning me to my seat, I felt I had no choice if I wasn’t going to make a scene.

  “I just wondered if it wasn’t a bit of a coincidence that they were suddenly spending so much time at the hospital,” I conceded at last. Mary Beth and Tammy looked baffled. “I was just being overprotective. Paranoid.”

  “Wait,” said Kurt. “You mean you thought she was doing it? She was hurting them on purpose?”

  Tammy’s mouth fell open. I shook my head and held up my hands, saying, “I said I was being paranoid,” but it was too late.

  “Oh my God, that is awesome!” said Mary Beth, gleeful. “The Mormon angel of death!”

  “She doesn’t think that now, do you, Anna?” said Josh.

  I stared at him wide-eyed.

  “What’s that nutso condition people have who hurt kids to get attention?” said Tommy, the first time he’d spoken in a while.

  “Munchausen’s!” said Mary Beth. “Like the baron who used to make shit up.”

  “But isn’t that people who just lie to get medical attention for themselves?” said Kurt. “It was on a House episode.”

  “Right,” Mary Beth agreed. “People who do it through someone else have . . . Wait. Got it. Munchausen’s by proxy! Pretty sure that’s it. Oh, this is so cool. You have your own pet psycho!”

  “Can we drop this?” I said, conscious of Oaklynn not so very far away playing with the kids.

  “Watch out when you shower,” said Kurt, making stabbing motions and shrill little chirping sounds with each thrust.

  “You don’t really think she’s a loon, do you?” said Mary Beth. “Mormonism notwithstanding.”

  “No, I don’t,” said Anna. “And ease off on the religion thing. She’s a good person.”

  “A second ago, you were thinking she was trying to waste your kids,” said Mary Beth.

  Josh winced at the phrase.

  “I said I was being paranoid,” said Anna. “Can we let it go?”

  “I think she seems lovely,” said Tammy.

  “I’m astonished,” said Mary Beth, giving her a withering look.

  “I need a beer,” said Kurt. “Anna’s delusions are starting to get to me.”

  “Thanks,” I said, shooting Josh a look that made him shrug and say, “What?” like he was some frat boy being called out for a stunt.

  “The Munchausen Mormon,” said Mary Beth wistfully, taking my hand and patting it with mock sympathy. “You have to admit, it’s pretty cray-cray. You need to get out more. Still, I almost wish it were true,” she added, considering Oaklynn as she lumbered around after Tammy’s kids at the bottom of the yard. “It would at least make her interesting.”

  “I think things are plenty interesting around here without that,” said Tammy sweetly.

  “Yeah?” said Mary Beth, turning her piercing gaze on Tammy until she flushed. “You would. And you know what?” She took a sip of her wine. “You’re not wrong.”

  I think Tammy felt the ripple of unease through the group, even if she didn’t know what it meant. In the same instant, we heard the rumble of a car engine on the road out front, a deep, throaty sound quite unlike the whisper quietness of the neighborhood’s usual hybrids and other state-of-the-art modern vehicles. It was a defiant snarl in the peaceful fall air, and I half turned toward it, thinking vaguely that I had heard the sound before. Even as I did so, I was conscious that I wasn’t the only one to respond to the sound. Down near the creek, there among the laughing children, Oaklynn had stiffened and become very still, craning to hear.

  Chapter Forty

  ANNA

  I sat on the couch with my laptop
, clicked on Oaklynn’s application folder, and scrolled through page after page of glowing references. I was being crazy. Josh had said as much. And, following his lead, so had my friends.

  And yet . . .

  I couldn’t shake the image of the screwdriver in the diaper bag. And now, however mockingly Mary Beth had raised the idea, I had a few new magic words to fuel my anxiety.

  Munchausen’s by proxy. It was little more than nonsense: a meaningless term I would have ignored that morning but that now had an aura of menace and power in my head. I thought that I should probably pour myself a glass of wine and go to bed, allow myself to forget those words, let them turn again to nonsense . . .

  But I couldn’t.

  I googled Munchausen and was surprised to see the by proxy part autofill in the search options. Was I the only person who had never heard of it? I clicked the first item in the list that came up and pulled up an overview on a medical site, bracing myself. It read:

  Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSBP) is a mental health condition in which someone in a caregiving role invents symptoms, causes injuries, or otherwise generates actual or simulated health problems in a child, elderly adult, or disabled person in their charge. The person suffering from the disorder seeks attention—particularly from health-care professionals—through the proxy victim as an end in itself rather than, for example, in pursuit of money or other material advantage. While the person with the syndrome may be genuinely ill, their actions are still considered a form of abuse.

  I felt suddenly cold and sat very still.

  The site began with warnings that my online browsing might be accessible to others, as if anyone looking at this page had good reason to think they were being watched by someone potentially dangerous. It went on to say that someone with this condition or disorder might lie about a child’s symptoms or fabricate test results to make a child seem sick. The goal of the abuser was, it said, to receive sympathetic attention from other people, particularly health-care professionals. In some cases, the abusers would hurt or mistreat children in their care in order to receive this attention, and victims could suffer serious, even fatal, consequences as a result.