Vera
I remember the first time I saw Agnes go out to the garden. I didn’t sleep much those first few weeks, still trying to understand
the things that had happened to Ana and me, lying awake at night listening to the sounds of the old house. It seemed to have
a heartbeat, to shift in sleep like an old crone, moaning and creaking. Ana had burrowed herself into the crook of my arm
and curled into a fetal position, the way she did most nights, sneaking into my bed after she thought I’d drifted off. It
was like sleeping with a warm, soft stone, she was so still. I never told her that I needed that comfort as much as she did.
The smell of her hair, the baby-soft soles of her feet pressed against my legs.
I heard Agnes on the stairs, then banging around the kitchen. The back door opened and closed. I shifted away from Ana and
went to our window. It looked out on the path that led into the woods. Agnes was wearing a set of protective coveralls that
would become familiar over the years, carried a burlap sack. There was something about the way she moved, cautious, watchful.
Where was she going?
“Your mother and I slept here,” she’d said when she’d showed us to our room.
Two twin beds with clean pink comforters, a wicker bedside table between.
The walls were papered, pink roses on a white background, wood floors worn, the windows cloudy.
My mother’s equestrian trophies on a shelf.
There was a picture of her straight-backed on a gleaming black horse; she looked so powerful, so confident.
It was hard to reconcile her with the woman I’d so fiercely defended from my father’s rages, the one who was always afraid.
Ana and I would spend hours in that room over our years there, piecing together our mother’s childhood, our ancestry, by poring
over the books and pictures we’d find, the journals and letters stuffed in drawers and keepsake boxes. But that wasn’t until
later, when we had our bearings. When we understood ourselves better.
That night, I watched Agnes disappear into the woods, wondering how we were going to survive the fact that my mother was in
jail for poisoning my father, that he now lay in a coma clinging to life. And if he died, she’d likely be in prison for the
rest of her life, or worse. The injustice of it was acid in my gullet. Because everyone who knew my dad, a gambler and a con
man with a violent streak who’d brutalized my mother for years, knew he had it coming. I didn’t know whether to pray for him
to live or die. If he died, my mother would be gone forever, too. If he lived, she’d probably go back to him, and we’d have
to go with her. Which was worse? I don’t remember feeling grief or pain or sadness. I don’t recall missing them, or our life
as a family. All I felt was a cold calculation as to how Ana and I would survive, and under that was the heat of a simmering
anger.
Over the next couple of weeks, I watched Agnes leave the house almost nightly after she thought we were sleeping and head
into the woods. The curiosity of the situation distracted me from my nighttime litany of worries and fears.
Finally, one night I followed her.
“Help me get her up,” I say to Ana now, who is looking at Iggy on the floor like she’s something she wants to scrape off her
shoe. I’ve always puzzled over their friendship. I can’t imagine two women more different.
“I’m sorry,” says Iggy as she gets to her feet, leans heavily on me. I help her to the couch where she sits, head in her hands. Her skin has a grayish tinge, eyes glassy.
“Get her some orange juice,” I say to April, who hustles off.
The detective, weirdly stiff about the shoulders, and just—tall—in my foyer, seems mildly amused, also curious. Esme joins Iggy on the couch; she’s managed to make a cold compress out of
a hand towel she must have found in the guest bathroom. Which annoys me. We have ice packs if she’d only asked, items designed
specifically for this function. That Italian linen hand towel will never be the same.
Iggy leans her head against Esme. “Just take some deep breaths, Ig. You’re okay,” Esme soothes.
Ana hovers over Iggy, her back to us.
“Does she know Paul Hayes?” the detective asks me, nodding toward the obviously shaken Iggy.
“Only as someone Ana was dating,” I say. “I think.”
But maybe that’s not true. Did they work together once? Another entry-level job, one that Ana helped her get. I can’t remember
the details of everyone’s life.
He asks for her name, and after a moment’s hesitation I give it to him. Iggy Rose. Ignatia, actually. It means “fiery one.”
Which doesn’t suit her, really. She’s as meek as a lamb. Or so she seems.
He offers a kind of squint and tight smile; I don’t like it. It’s somehow condescending, like he knows more than other people.
It strikes me as very typically male.
“Iggy just had a baby,” says Payton, mercifully placing her body between the detective and the living room so that he doesn’t
feel like he can follow us. “She’s not back to form. The shock must be too much. Why are you still here, Detective?”
“I have questions for Ms. Blacksmith,” he says.
“My client is happy to cooperate with the police.” Payton hands him a card; her manicured nails look like claws. “Please call
my office to make an appointment.”
“It would be easier if I could just talk to her now.”
“Easier for you, you mean,” says Payton crisply.
He turns up his palms. “Well, yeah.”
“Detective, may I see your ID and have your shield number? Did you know that the police commissioner and my boss are old Harvard
Law School friends?”
“Seriously?” The corner of his mouth ticks up, an almost smile.
“Quite serious, yes.”
He reaches into his pocket and opens a cheap pleather identification wallet. That gold shield shines, though. Payton snaps
a picture with her phone.
“We don’t need to play games,” he says, putting it away.
“I assure you that I am not playing.”
Payton has a bearing. It’s not her height, or the boost her three-inch heels gives it. It’s not the width of her shoulders,
or even that searing gaze. It’s confidence, a finely tooled knowledge of the law and how to navigate it. She wields it like
a honed blade.
The detective releases a sigh. He’s a full head taller than Payton, but she backs him to the door like they’re doing some
kind of dance.
“Thank you for coming and sharing the news, Detective.”
He’s only just stepped outside as she shuts the door quietly behind him and turns the lock for good measure. When he’s gone,
everyone seems to exhale.
I move into the living room and take my sister into my arms. “I’m so sorry, honey. What a shock,” I say loud enough for everyone
to hear.
“I didn’t do anything,” she whispers fiercely into my ear, sounding slightly panicked. “I swear.”
That’s the thing about Ana. You never know when to believe her.