But she had such an enormous sense of loss, as though something important had slipped through her fingers.
Then it hit her. It wasn’t time she had lost. It was Sadie. Somehow Sadie was gone. The opium had made her oblivious to the effects of the murder. She was being treated for her possible reactions and guilt and horror and anxiety, but she’d also been cured of thinking about Sadie. She suddenly realized something had happened to Sadie. Sadie had disappeared from her reach. She had left Montreal imagining Sadie was confined to her room reading a book, which was something she loved to do. But she knew with a terrible, alarming sense of calamity this was not so.
She would feel that bullet hit her again and again throughout her life. It struck her. The bullet that was meant for her. It continued through space. It entered her heart. She put her hands to her chest. The hole was so palpable. It was the empty spot where Sadie belonged.
She went to see her father in his room. There was a maid in the bedroom who was wearing only a pair of white stockings while dashing about looking for the pieces of her maid’s uniform. Marie was used to maids in her father’s bedroom. She looked at the maid impatiently, waiting for her to hurry up. The maid gathered her clothes and slipped out.
Louis was sitting up in his bed reading the newspaper. Although this seemed like an intelligent activity, in truth he enjoyed looking at comic strips and illustrations of attractive starlets. He also relished reading about the scandals. As long as they concerned other people and not himself, he found it cathartic.
“Where is Sadie?” Marie exclaimed.
Louis looked up. He thought they had established an implicit agreement not to talk about it.
“Darling, Sadie has been sent to England to attend a boarding school there.”
“I didn’t want that to happen! Oh, Papa, Papa. I beg of you. Make her come back. This isn’t fair. I’m as much to blame as she is.”
“Something had to be done.”
“Then send me away too. Send me to her. I want to be with her. I want to share the punishment. I can’t live without Sadie. She is my best friend. Everything will be boring without her. I don’t want to be in Montreal without her.”
“You would choose her over me, Marie? That disappoints me in a way I can’t begin to express. You are my whole life.”
“Then why are you making me choose?”
“Marie!” he yelled. He stood up. He threw a vase against the wall. She stopped. She rarely saw her father get angry that way. He was always so indulgent with her. When you were that rich, you didn’t have to be angry with your child. You hired a governess to do it.
She knew her father had been aware all along that she was lying and had betrayed her friend. Having betrayed Sadie was morally much worse than shooting the maid. The maid’s death had been an accident. She could have stood on a chair in any room and yelled, “Accident!” at the top of her lungs, and felt good about herself. Whether people accepted this or not, she would feel justified yelling it. She would be an idiot, but she would also have the moral high ground.
She felt thoroughly chastised and ashamed for having pinned the murder on her friend. She had done this herself. That was always the hardest pill to swallow. If only we could have the luxury of blaming other people for the situations we find ourselves in. She had to swallow her pride. And she experienced the effect of digesting it. Her shame was absorbed in every part of her body. She felt it in her toes. The female body was particularly absorbent when it came to shame. If you wrung out any woman’s body, you would discover it was soaked in shame.
She could not bear to have her father bring it up again. She would have to act as though it had not happened. Then her father would forget about it.
Louis observed Marie as she fell deflated on the couch. He was happy to see she was dropping the subject. He had no interest in being angry with Marie. Louis was able to be callous to everyone else because he had Marie. He had no fear of being alone. Because Marie would always, always be there for him. She was the only person who loved him unconditionally.
She had been sitting on his lap one day when she was five years old. Her hair was a bundle of gorgeous curls, with a bow stuck on top of them like a butterfly on a plant. He had looked at her and said, “Do you think Papa is a bad man?” And she had looked at him shocked and hurt. Her eyes welled up with tears and she’d exclaimed, “No, Papa! I will never leave you! I will never marry!” And he had believed her. And he would always hold her to it.
The maid hurriedly got dressed in the kitchen and went back to making soup. She wiped a tear from her cheek. But neither of the Antoines remembered she existed.
CHAPTER 11
A School for Girls Who Refuse to Smile
The girls gathered around to see the new student. Sadie stood before them in her one dress, with her heavy, stained cloak around her shoulders. She could feel them assessing her appearance. She straightened her back and raised up her chin. She could not let them see she was frightened by them.
She felt self-conscious about her status. She knew she wasn’t only comparatively less wealthy than they were. She was poor now. She was poor because of her lack of money and also a lack of love. She knew from the way they were looking at her they knew she had been accused of murder.
Walking down the large hallway behind the headmistress, she couldn’t remember ever feeling so tiny. The heels of her boots made an echo on the floors. She wanted them to be quiet and not draw attention to her. But they were curious and nervous and so would not.
The headmistress’s heels, on the other hand, made the sound of a gavel striking the block with every step she made. Guilty, guilty, guilty, they kept saying.
The headmistress showed her the classrooms briefly on the first floor and then the cafeteria with its large tables. She then led her up to the second floor, where all the bedrooms were. Each room had three beds in it. There was a small table next to each of the beds on which each girl had displayed her collection of most impressive items. There were vases with flowers painted on them, small bottles of perfume, bell jars with stuffed birds in them, rows of combs lined up neatly like utensils, dolls wearing dresses that looked fancier than anything Sadie had ever worn herself, jewelry boxes with ballerinas stretching their arms up to the sky. Sadie didn’t have any of these pretty things in her suitcase.
The two girls she was sharing a room with stared at Sadie when she walked in. Sadie decided it was best not to say anything and began to unpack. She reached into her bag and took out her notebook and put it into the drawer. She took out her few books and placed them on the desk, hoping they’d take up more space than they did.
“So you are a murderer, are you?” one of the girls asked.
“I’m not.”