If Sadie had stayed and thought about things with her, she probably would have come up with some different solutions. But Sadie had left her all alone. She had left her to face the music. She had left her to take all the blame for these actions herself. If Sadie was going to look out for herself, Marie decided, then she should look out for herself too.
So when her father came in and sat on her gold divan, she fell to the floor, onto her knees. “Sadie” was what she said.
She said Sadie had tried to shoot her. She said Sadie was jealous because she had won the poetry recital and she felt the results had been unfair. She said she had already been wary of Sadie, as she had murdered a cat in the backyard for no reason. And she hadn’t cared at all. And she had buried it in a pet cemetery in the woods that had stone markers above where all manner of animals had been buried.
This almost seemed too farfetched to be true. Louis had the inspectors go to the burial ground Marie had described. Naturally, Sadie seemed like a calculating murderer from a novel. They found the guns buried in a fresh grave, which could only be the actions of a murderer who had engaged in predetermination. This act was deliberate. She was culpable.
There were inconsistencies in the story. The main inconsistency was that although at first glance there appeared to be one hole in the maid’s chest, the examination of the body revealed there were two bullets. Who could say whether it was one bullet or the other that had killed the maid? Louis was certain Marie was complicit. It did not make him turn against Marie the way she thought it would. All Louis knew was that he would protect his daughter at all costs.
Marie could not believe she had denounced her best friend. She felt as though it changed everything in her body. She would be a different person after this. She knew what she was capable of. That was perhaps a definition of innocence: not knowing what one was capable of.
CHAPTER 7
A Visit to the Lowly Home of Agatha
When Louis went to visit Agatha’s family, he found the maid lying on the living-room table for a wake. How monstrous and grotesque, Louis could not help thinking. But the other visitors did not feel this way at all. They all remarked on how young and pretty and lifelike she looked. No one could afford the services of a mortician. There was a woman who lived on Dandelion Alley who would come and fix up a body for a nominal fee. She wore a black kerchief with red cherries on it, wrapped tightly around her head. She came with a small beaten-up doctor’s bag and asked to be left alone with the body. All she had in her bag were scraps of old cotton and a bit of costume makeup she had found behind a theater. She opened up the girl’s mouth and tucked bits of cotton into it, then she put makeup on her face. She put a thick smudge on her lips and she applied pink to the cheeks. Since it was considered improper to wear makeup, no one was aware of its magical properties. Agatha had so much color in her!
Agatha also had a crown of daisies around her head. Louis thought about how daisies were so much like young girls. They hung around where you didn’t expect them. They seemed perfectly unaware of their environment. You might see one of them in a garden standing prettily with its face turned toward the sun. You might equally see one leaning against a wall in the city, all by itself.
Everyone but Louis found the halo of daisies to be a wonderful tribute. They thought it made her look like an angel. They believed they had never seen her look so beautiful. And many of the older women made the sign of the cross and thanked God she had not been shot through the head. For her mother’s sake, at least.
Louis did not want to look at Agatha’s face. He had always found her very pretty. But he could not find her pretty anymore. It wasn’t because she was dead either. It had to do with the house he was standing in now. It was dark and cramped. The ceilings were low and the wallpaper had water damage. This was the type of house she had grown up in. This was the type of house she had taken her first steps in. This was the house she had lived in up until she showed up at his door. He chose to believe the girls showed up fully formed as though by magic on his doorstep. It made him shudder to think they all came from this.
When all the guests left, Louis sat down with Agatha’s parents. Monsieur Robespierre had a French accent, whereas madame had an Irish one. He was surprised Agatha had managed to have neither. Despite their different accents, Louis had trouble following who was saying what.
“She had such beautiful red hair,” the father said.
“It was a shock! We never knew where she got it from,” the mother said.
“She’s got blond hair and I have dark. So we were expecting one or the other.”
“He thought she wasn’t his.”
“I thought she wasn’t mine!”
“She had his eyes though.”
“I never understood how I could have a daughter that pretty.”
Louis loathed how married couples ended up speaking as though they were the same person. He thought it rendered the couple asexual, and that seemed horrifying to him.
“She was very tidy,” the mother said. “She always tidied up.”
“She couldn’t stand to see a crumb on the floor.”
“I was in service myself,” the mother added confidentially. “And I found it hard. So I wanted something different for her. But she never seemed to mind it.”
Louis looked around the room. He couldn’t imagine how anyone could tell whether this house was dirty or clean.
“I was never afraid of getting old,” the mother said, “because I knew she was going to take care of me.”
“I almost wish she worried less about us,” the father said. “But she couldn’t help it. She was always taking care of us.”
They both cast their eyes downward but then looked up at Louis slightly, in order to see if they had led him to offer more money than he’d originally imagined.
“We also need a new breadwinner in the family,” the mother said. “You were so good to give Agatha a job in your household. Would you consider taking on our granddaughter Mary? She has no once since her mother died. We don’t have anyone either now that her mother is dead.”
“Should you like us to call her in?” the father asked.
“No, no,” Louis answered. “I don’t need to see her.”