Chapter 72
NOW
“So who is Daphne?” Adeem asks.
I’m surprised to feel that my cheeks are damp. “Daphne,” I say, “is my friend.”
My voice betrays me by cracking. Libby and Adeem are quiet a moment.
“Records show that there was a child called Daphne Barton enrolled in your kindergarten class,” Libby says gently. “From what we can see, she returned to England with her parents after kindergarten, but we have been unable to find any evidence of her return when you were fourteen.”
I don’t reply.
Adeem looks at his notes. “The court expert called it multiple personality disorder. It made sense given the traumas of your childhood—losing your mother and sister while you were so young. This finding allowed you to go to a mental facility rather than a prison, and only be held for five years before you were released.”
“I know,” I say.
Adeem looks up. “Were you insane, Elsie?”
“You mean was I mad, Mabel?” I say, laughing blackly. “What do you think?”
“I think you were perfectly sane then, and you are perfectly sane now.”
“Thank you.”
Now the tears are falling in earnest. Adeem stands and takes a tissue from the box on the mantel and hands it to me.
“So, she is a … fictional friend?” Adeem asks. “Someone from your early childhood that reappeared to bring you comfort?”
I shake my head.
Libby and Adeem exchange a look. “You do know that Daphne isn’t real, Elsie?” Adeem says.
“I’m not senile, Adeem,” I say sharply. But I stop short of saying she isn’t real.
It’s true that I can’t see or hear or smell her.
I can’t touch her. And yet, like a character in a novel that continues to exist in your mind after you’ve finished the book, she can’t be simplified into real or not real.
I know her innermost thoughts, I know what she would do or say in any given situation.
I know that without her, I never could have survived.
It’s hard to imagine anything more real than that.
“I suppose you could call her an imaginary friend,” I admit finally, wiping my eyes with the tissue. “But when that’s the only kind of friend you have, you don’t need to make such a disclaimer. Even to yourself.”
It sounds mad, and I understand this. I think about making a joke about how I earned my name Mad Mabel. But I’m distracted by the perplexed looks on Libby’s and Adeem’s faces.
“But it’s not the only kind of friend you have, Elsie,” Adeem says. “In fact, in the very short time we’ve known you, it’s already become clear that you are surrounded by friends.”
“Really?”
The pair nod like a couple of bobbleheaded toys.
“And I don’t mean to speak for Ads here,” Libby says, “but if you’ll have us, we’re kind of hoping you’ll have room for two more.”
I’m embarrassed at the way my heart swells at this, even at my age.
“I’m not sure about Adeem,” I say. “But I’ll take you, Libby.”
Adeem’s jaw drops. Libby chortles.
“If we’re going to be friends,” I say to Adeem, “you’re going to have to work on your sense of humor.”
He smiles. “You’ve got a deal.”
I feel sad the story’s over. Sad that I won’t have the undivided attention of these two intelligent young people, desperate to hear what I have to say. So when they tell me they have to shoot a few monologues before they go, I hurry to the kitchen to put on a fresh pot of tea.
“What happened to Rosehill?” Libby asks. “I assume you couldn’t inherit it, and with Cess and your father dead …”
I pour the hot water into the mugs. “It went to a second cousin of my mother’s in England. She was already the owner of a stately home in the Cotswolds, so she leased it to the council. It’s been used for community events, art gallery openings, and such since then.”
“Is your mother’s cousin still alive?”
“As far as I know she’s in her nineties.” I put the kettle down slowly.
“And after she dies?”
“It will go to the next descendent in line.”
“And who is that?”
I shrug. “In my experience, when there’s money to be inherited, someone always materializes.”
“True,” she says. We take the mugs over to the table and I sit in front of the camera. “Ready to record?”
“Ready.”
“This is actually a great little afterthought,” she says. “It might be the place to end it.”
She nods at Adeem, who presses Record.
“I read that you gave birth to a child while you were incarcerated,” she says to me.
The comment throws me. “Wow,” I say. “You did go deep with your research. That one isn’t commonly reported.”
“That was me,” Adeem says proudly.
“All right,” I say. “No one likes a clever dick, Adeem.”
Libby snorts.
“Well,” she says. “Don’t leave us in suspense. What happened to the baby? And whose was it?”