When I didn’t respond, her eyes turned a little glassy all of a sudden, and she said, “I always felt like I missed out on something really wonderful when you left Iron Mountain.”
We weren’t going to have a reckoning, not really. Not yet. She wasn’t going to bring up the fact that her not-dead father had paid me off to take the fall for her, so that she could have this mansion, this senatorial husband, and all these expensive things. We were, I understood, being polite.
“But now you’re here!” she said. She poured sweet tea, and I drank it down in, like, two gulps. She didn’t even look surprised, just filled my glass up again. I ate one of the sandwiches, and it was gross, but I was hungry. I ate two more. I didn’t even realize that there were tiny plates stacked on the tray. I’d held the sandwiches in my dumb hands. I didn’t even want to look down at my lap because I knew there were crumbs there.
“Where is Timothy?” I asked, expecting to see her son walk into the room with a coonskin cap and a wooden popgun, his skin pale like old royalty’s.
“He’s taking a nap,” she said. “He loves naps. He’s lazy, like me.”
“I love naps, too,” I said. How many sandwiches did you eat at something like this? There were nearly twenty more on the trays. Did you leave some for propriety’s sake? She hadn’t touched them. Wait, were they decorative?
“I bet you want to know why I asked you to come all this way,” she said.
It sank in that this was temporary, that I’d have to leave, so I became curious as to what had been so important that we finally had to see each other face-to-face after so many years of correspondence.
“You said there was an opportunity for me?” I continued. “Like a job, maybe?”
“I thought of you because, Lillian, this is honestly very private, what I’m about to tell you, regardless of what you decide to do. I needed someone who could be discreet, who knew how to keep a secret.”
“I can be discreet,” I said. I loved this stuff, bad stuff.
“I know,” she said, almost blushing, but not really.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
“Yes and no,” she said, twisting her mouth like she was rinsing it out. “Yes and no. Did I ever tell you about Jasper’s first family?”
“I don’t think so. I read about them, I think. Do you mean his first wife?”
She looked apologetic, like she knew she was pulling me into something that might ruin me. But she didn’t stop. She didn’t send me back to my mom’s house. She held on to me.
“Well, he had a first wife, a childhood sweetheart, but she died. She had a rare kind of cancer, I think. He doesn’t talk about her at all. I know he loves me, but I know he loved her the most. Anyway, after that, there was a long period of grieving. And then he ended up marrying Jane, who was the youngest daughter of a really powerful man in Tennessee politics. Jane was—well, she was strange. She had darkness inside of her. But, not to speak ill of my husband, it was politically advantageous to be married to her. She knew the world he moved in and could do the things that he needed done. And they had twins, a girl and a boy. And that was their life, you know? Until he met that horse woman, and everything went to shit.”
“But then you met him,” I offered. “It all worked out.”
She didn’t even smile. She was in this now. She was doing it. “It did. We had Timothy. I still get to be involved in politics, just from a different angle, a kind of support position. And it’s nice. Jasper listens to me. Honestly, policy kind of bores him. It’s just his family’s legacy. He likes the fame, but he’s not big on laws. Anyway, things were fine.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Okay, well, Jane died. She died a few months ago.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. I tried to figure out what kind of grief Jane’s death would inspire in Madison. None, probably. But I still said that I was sorry.
“It’s tragic,” she said. “She never really recovered from the divorce. She had always been so brittle, so strange. Honestly, she went a little crazy. She’d call late at night saying the most awful things. Jasper never really understood how to deal with her. I’d have to talk to her all night long, walking her through her new reality. I’m good at that stuff, you know?”
“What happened to her?” I asked.
Madison frowned. Her freckles were so beautiful. “Here’s what I need to tell you, okay, Lillian? Here’s where I need you to promise to keep a secret.”
“Okay,” I said, growing a little irritated. I’d already said I’d keep the fucking secret. I needed the secret. I needed to eat it, for it to live inside me.
“Now that Jane has passed away,” she continued, “there is the matter of Jasper’s children. They’re ten years old. Twins. Bessie and Roland. Sweet kids— Shit, no, I don’t know why I said that. I don’t know them. But, you know, they’re kids. And now, well, they’re Jasper’s kids. They’re his responsibility. And so we’re making adjustments in our lives in order to accommodate them.”
“Wait,” I asked, “you’ve never even met your husband’s kids? Has he seen them?”
“Lillian? Please,” she said, “can we not focus on this?”
“Are they not already here?” I asked.
“Not yet,” she admitted.
“But if the mom died a while ago, what are they doing? Are they on their own?” I asked.
“No, of course not. Jeez. They’re with Jane’s parents, super-old people and not good with kids. We just needed time to get everything prepared for their arrival. In just over a week, they’ll be here with us. Living with us.”
“Okay,” I said.
“They’ve been through a lot, Lillian. They’ve not had the best life. Jane was a difficult person. She kept the children in the house with her and never left. She homeschooled them, but I can’t imagine what she taught them. They’re not used to people. They’re not prepared for change.”
“What do you want me to do about it?” I asked.
“I want you to take care of them,” Madison finally said, the whole reason I’d taken a bus to see her.
“Like a nanny?” I asked. “I don’t understand.”
“Like a nanny, I guess; okay,” Madison said, more to herself than to me. “I thought maybe more like a governess, like more old-fashioned.”
“How is it different?” I asked.
“I think it’s mostly just the way it sounds. Really, though, you’d handle all aspects of their care. You’d make sure they were happy; you’d teach them so that they can get up to speed with their lessons. You’d monitor their progress. Make sure they exercise. Make sure they stay clean.”
“Madison, are they, like, mole people or something? What’s wrong with them?” I wanted so badly for something to be wrong with them. I wanted them to be mutants.
“They’re just kids. But kids are so fucking wild, Lillian. You have no idea. You don’t even know.”
“Timothy seems pretty easy,” I offered, so dumb.
“That’s just pictures,” Madison said, suddenly wired. “I’ve trained him, though. I kind of had to break him in.”