It was clear that wasn’t what Mrs. Saint had known when she first saw Patty and Lola, but Markie decided not to press. It wasn’t like her neighbor would admit the truth anyway, given her track record of disclosure thus far, and accusing her of dishonesty hardly seemed like the right thing to do during their first real conversation.
“The tables all were empty,” Mrs. Saint went on, “and there was not many food left, but they were happy for a place to sit. Patty was not in such a hurry to go back home. They live with her mother, and that woman has . . . challenges. Patty was telling to me all the list of where she was taking Lola every day, only to get a break from this mother. So I make the suggestion to spend time at my house instead of all these places they are going where a young child does not need to be so all the time. I already had the others to help, but you can always find more things, non? Vacuuming and the such?”
Markie looked sideways. The only time she had heard the vacuum running inside, Patty was outside, smoking and sunning on the old metal lawn chair.
“Or helping Ronda to remember to look at the pots so there is not so much boiling over every time,” Mrs. Saint said. “And cleaning up in the kitchen when things get spilled on the floor, which is a thing Ronda is doing always. And then later, I suggest maybe it would be very better in the school over here for Lola, not the one near their apartment, and Patty agreed. So, that is why those two.”
“And then Frédéric?” Markie tried again. She was as annoyed with herself for asking again as she was with her neighbor for not answering the first time.
“I have a special skill, you see,” Mrs. Saint said, “in finding what thing a person needs most in their life. Noticing what is their défaut, which is to mean their . . .” She turned her hands over and examined her veins for the English translation. “Flaw. I am good at seeing what is the flaw they have that needs to be fixed and then helping them to fix it. Sometimes people want to agree about this, and sometimes they do not. But this is a thing I am good at.”
Mrs. Saint gazed around the patio, looking everywhere but at Markie, who was certain the woman was thinking of the many terrible failings her new neighbor possessed, starting with forcing her son, “le pauvre” Jesse, to suffer the deprivations of life without five daily servings of vegetables or a dog. Markie wanted to roll her eyes at the lack of subtlety, but instead, feeling defensive, she decided to attack from another angle.
“Did you say défectueux?” she asked. “When you first started telling me about them? And does that mean what I think it does? Because, I have to say—”
“Oui. Défectueux. Or to say in English, I think, day-fec-tif?”
“De-fec-tive,” Markie corrected, dragging it out not to accentuate the correct pronunciation but to make clear how inappropriate a term it was.
“Defective,” Mrs. Saint repeated, nodding her thanks for the English lesson and missing the rest of the point.
“Don’t you think it’s a rather insulting label?” Markie said.
“Och”—Mrs. Saint waved a hand—“I would never say it to them. Oh, and here comes Bruce with his mulch. I guess Frédéric has started on something else.”
Markie, unwilling to let the matter drop, leaned closer and whispered, “But to even say it about them—”
There was a loud noise behind her then, and Bruce said, “Oh, for Pete’s sake!” Mrs. Saint winced, and Markie turned in her chair to find the gardener standing beside an overturned wheelbarrow and looking glumly at an ugly swath of dark mulch that now covered two square feet of Mrs. Saint’s formerly pristine lawn. Muttering, he righted the wheelbarrow, dropped to his knees, cupped his hands, and started scooping the offending dirt back where it belonged. It was a finely mixed substance, though, and much of it sifted through his fingers. At the rate he was going, it would take him hours to clean it up.
Markie swiveled back around, expecting her neighbor to be wincing still, or even jumping to her feet, ready to bark instructions for a faster cleanup. But all traces of displeasure were gone from the older woman’s face, and instead of leaping up and shouting, she sat still, watching him silently—almost, Markie thought, contentedly.
After a moment, Mrs. Saint called, “Or a shovel?” She pointed to the side of the garage, where a shovel leaned against the outer wall. “Would it be more quickly, do you think?”
There wasn’t a trace of annoyance in her tone, and she leaned forward, her expression eager, as though she had no idea if a shovel would be faster and was waiting for him to solve the dilemma for her.
Bruce followed the aim of her finger to the shovel and considered it for a moment. “I think a shovel will be faster,” he announced. He retrieved the tool, and after he had deposited two shovels’ worth into the wheelbarrow, he faced his employer again. “I’ll have this cleaned up in no time. Don’t worry.”
Mrs. Saint spread her arms wide, palms out. “Why would I worry?”
Bruce beamed and resumed his work as Markie took in her neighbor’s pensive face. She could almost hear Mrs. Saint’s internal plotting as the old woman constructed a plan involving Frédéric and a trip out to the yard after Bruce left—there would be a flashlight, Markie imagined, and possibly a pair of tweezers. She could almost hear the curse words Mrs. Saint must surely be thinking to herself, too. There was no way such an affront to her perfect grass wasn’t causing a significant degree of mental anguish.
But if any of this was going on inside the older woman’s head, none of it was apparent from the outside. Rather, there was a softness around Mrs. Saint’s mouth and a brightness in her eyes as she watched Bruce work. It was the same expression Markie had noticed on move-in day when her neighbor stood under the oak tree, watching the two men unload the truck.
“Look,” Markie said, her voice low, “it’s clear how much you care about all of them. You’ve given them jobs, you give them no end of second chances. You’re worried about their future without you. And all of that is really sweet. It’s just that it feels . . . not right, your calling them your defectives. I know it’s none of my business, but—”
Mrs. Saint patted Markie’s knee. “I apologize. I am not one for . . .” She made a circular motion with her hand as she tried to recall the correct English phrase. “Making a mincemeat with my words. They need help, these ones, in different ways. That is all. Or even to say it a different way, they each have a break—they each are broken. And if a thing is broken, you say it is defective, non?”
“Well, you say that about a thing, sure,” Markie said. “You don’t say it about a person.”
Mrs. Saint pursed her lips and nodded, but not in the manner of someone conceding a point. “What is your way of helping people?” she asked.