Bad Marie (13 page)

Caitlin snatched the tickets from Marie’s hand.

“Be careful, Caty Bean,” Marie said.

She would not fight with Caitlin, not there, in the airport.

Marie took the glass rabbit from Caitlin’s lap and tucked it between clothes in her backpack. They had only so many nice things left between them.

There was a McDonald’s in the airport in Nice. Marie gave Caitlin a choice between McNuggets and a cheeseburger. Caitlin chose the McNuggets. She dipped them in the sugary dipping sauce and they shared an order of fries. They did not go to the bathroom. Caitlin boarded the airplane like an experienced traveler. She took her seat and she buckled her own seat belt.

“I am a big girl,” she told Marie.

Staring out the window of the airplane, crossing back over the Atlantic Ocean, Marie let herself remember all of them: Juan José’s family, their names and faces coming back in a rush. Uncle Roberto, who had lost a leg in a traffic accident. His older sister, Carmelita, who had three different children from three different men. Maribel, Juan José’s favorite niece, the smart one who wanted to go to college in America. His nephews, Tito and Diego and Ernesto. And Juan José’s cousins, though Marie had never bothered to learn their names. Marie remembered the chickens, in front of the cement-block house, running behind it, sometimes making their way inside. Marie missed the chickens and the beautiful blue ocean.

Mexico was where she belonged. What she had been searching for, all along. The idea made Marie feel happy. There was a place she would be wanted, loved. She belonged with Juan José’s family. She was his widow. They would embrace her, make Caitlin one of their own, just one more child thrown into the mix. They could disappear in Mexico, live out their lives in peace and tranquillity. They would learn Spanish, Marie and Caitlin.

Caitlin would love the chickens.

Marie had forgotten so much.

She had remembered the name of the small town, but she had forgotten about the público, the van from the airport that traveled along the ocean highway, picking up a seemingly never-ending stream of passengers along the road.

Juan José and Marie, they had arrived in relative luxury, in a car, an air-conditioned car. It was her mother’s car, and that had made Marie’s mother angrier than anything else, more than the fact that she had run off to Mexico with a bank robber, that she had been arrested. Marie’s mother had tried to add the theft of the car to the list of charges against Marie, but the prosecutor had not been willing. She had not visited Marie in jail. Even the parents of murderers visited their children in jail.

“You won’t remember this,” Marie whispered, smoothing Caitlin’s hair, looking out the dirty window at the stray dogs lining the roads, at the children selling oranges and packs of Mexican gum.

From the moment they’d gotten off the plane, Caitlin didn’t seem to like Mexico, where strangers touched her blond hair and she was blinded by the bright light of the sun. In the público, crammed between passengers, squashed onto Marie’s lap without a car seat or a seat belt, Caitlin wailed, her screams rising above the mariachi music blaring from the radio.

Marie had remembered the beach, only steps away from his mother’s cement house, but she had forgotten the poverty. How could she have forgotten? Juan José had robbed a bank to help his family, and all of that money had been confiscated once he was caught. Juan José’s family had only gotten poorer since then. His mother’s black hair, pulled back into a tight bun, had turned gray. Juan José’s older sister, Carmelita, had become old. She was both fat and pregnant.

These two women stared at Marie, standing on their doorstep, carrying a little blond girl. They seemed to take in the backpack and the stroller, Marie’s exhaustion. And yet the expressions on their faces were blank. There were no chickens in the yard.

“It’s me,” Marie said. “Marie.”

Marie looked into the cement house. The first thing she noticed was the long crack in the plasma TV mounted on the wall, the same TV Juan José had insisted on buying so many years ago, despite his mother’s objections. Marie also recognized the frayed armchairs, the yellow velvet sofa. The woven rug on the floor. A framed photo of Juan José hung on the wall above the couch, a photo Marie had never seen before. Marie walked into the house, past Juan José’s small, frowning mother and his large, forbidding sister; she wanted to look at that photo.

She had not imagined him after all. All these years, in prison, missing him, he had been real. Marie sometimes worried that she had made him up, that their happiness had been a fabrication of her imagination. All that passion. But there she was, standing in his living room. Juan José was grinning at Marie from the wall, so young and so beautiful. He was wearing a dark suit, a white shirt, a bow tie still untied, he was standing on the beach. Barefoot.

Marie remembered that day, that moment on the beach. She had never seen the photo before, but she had taken it; it must have been the day before the police arrived. Marie had been wearing the white dress she would get married in. Following his mother’s orders, they had dressed in their wedding clothes to make sure that everything would fit. And then, when Juan José’s mother had left them alone for a second, to get more thread, they had snuck out of the house, giddy as children, running to the beach. Because they had wanted to see how they would really fit, together, and they had, of course, fit just fine. They had kissed, wearing their wedding clothes, and maybe that was almost the same as being married. The dress, Marie remembered, was too long, trailing all the way down to the white sand. Marie had forgotten that, too.

She had forgotten that moment on the beach, before Juan José’s mother had come after them, furious. She had screamed at them, cursing them in Spanish, and they had ignored her, because they had been happy. Juan José loved his mother, he had robbed a bank for his mother, but he also had never paid her much mind. Marie stared at that beautiful picture, the groom, her groom, and she felt relief but also a fresh wave of sadness, a flood of grief for Juan José. She
was
going to marry him. That had been real. They had been real. The devastation she had felt, waking up day after day, staring at the ceiling from the top bunk of her prison, knowing that she would never see Juan José again.

She had loved him.

He had loved her.

She should have never come back. She should have stayed in France where baguette sandwiches were overpriced, where movie stars were everywhere for the taking. She should be back in jail where it didn’t matter what she ate, how she was dressed, what she accomplished. Where every single day was planned, unexceptional and unexamined, sheets and towels, uniforms in industrial-sized hampers waiting to be washed and folded. It would not be so awful to go back. It would not be the very worst thing. If her job in the laundry was waiting for her. If Ruby Hart was still there.

Marie was standing in Juan José’s living room and she was crying. It was embarrassing, tears streaming down her cheeks, frozen in front of his photo. Caitlin tugged on Marie’s hand, worried.

“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.”