“You should have seen Gran’s face whenever she was out here,” Isabel continued, following some trail of thoughts only she could see. “There was no telling her, you know. She had no idea, what it meant to run this kind of house. It was a totally different life for her, hers was. And I should have been the one giving you your goddamn breakfast every morning? I don’t know how she justified Frank and Antoinette, they weren’t there on a volunteer basis. Do you even remember those first few years out here?”
Madison thought of the enormous, unmanicured yard, of the swimming pool so dark and murky, its surface clotted with leaves. She thought of the plaid blanket her mother used to spread beneath a tree for them both, the tea sandwiches in an actual picnic basket, and of falling asleep in the sun, opening her eyes to follow the swaying patterns the leaves of the tree cast down on her skin, the landscape marking her in the haziness of the afternoon. And of her father’s car, the older Mercedes he used then for a station car, sputtering to a stop beyond the house and then her father himself, jogging down the slope of the lawn like an athlete to pick her up and press her sun-warmed hair to his cheek.
“What do you mean,” she said, “like, our picnics?”
“Everything,” Isabel said. “Our picnics. Just the two of us out here, and your father in the city. We never should have built this house, I should have never let him convince me. But your father wears everyone down. The Plaza, of all places. That has nothing to do with us, we don’t need that. I don’t know what he was thinking.”
The words folded something in Madison’s stomach, for she hadn’t given the new apartment any thought at all in the week since the news, and of course she should have known that it was causing her mother distress. The year before, Madison’s father had taken one of the new penthouse apartments in the Plaza. They hadn’t sold the old place yet, but he said they’d have no trouble unloading it. He’d brought her into the city once, with her brothers, to see the place just after the deal closed, but Isabel had refused to come along. She’d said that chopping up the Plaza into condos was a travesty.
It was beautiful, the apartment, but Madison had felt nothing much for it. Despite its views, despite Central Park laid out beneath the soaring windows like their own personal carpet. Because she’d never expected to live there in any significant way, any more than she “lived” at the ranch in Idaho. Even her mother went only once a year with the other partners and their wives for the firm retreat. Sometimes she brought Madison and the twins out for a week of skiing afterward, but the rest of the year it existed for them like the setting of a dream: somewhere they remembered, thought of sometimes, but mostly did not mention.
Isabel’s head had begun to nod, making short, abbreviated movements through the air, as though she were tracing shapes with the point of her tiny, sharp nose. It was not a gesture Madison recognized.
“In any case,” her mother said, “I’m aware. I haven’t been around much these days.”
“Well,” Madison said, “haven’t you been down there every night?”
Isabel sighed, as though she’d been holding the air deep in her lungs, and even the sound of the sigh had edges.
“Some things are easier to take care of while you guys are sleeping,” Isabel said.
“Like the black cars outside?”
Isabel slid down in the tub, letting her chin graze the water.
“Mina gave me these pills,” she said. “She said they would help, but they’re not. I’m going to throw them away.”
Madison knew that she would not get another chance, to ask about the pills, and she knew that was why her mother had brought them up in this moment. But see, she thought, it’s fine, she’s taken them once, she won’t take them again. I won’t give her the satisfaction of asking for more.
“There were more cars today,” she pressed. “There were, like, two of them around back, behind the hedge. By Lily’s house.”
Isabel lifted one hand to her own chest, just at the dip of her clavicle. Madison couldn’t see any other part of the arm; the hand just lay there against Isabel’s neck as if a stranger lurked beneath the surface of the water.
“Someone tried to get into the apartment. In the city. So we wanted to—an abundance of caution. There’s no reason not to.”
“The apartment? While Dad was home?”
Isabel said nothing.
“Was he home? Is he being careful?”
“Madison, I’m not going to discuss it further. Plenty of people are worrying about it right now. Adding your name to the list doesn’t help me at all.”
Madison crossed the room, crawling onto the steps that led up to the bathtub and folding her elbows on the edge of the tub. She rested her chin there on her arms. She might have been doing this all her life, she thought, sitting above her mother as she floated in the bathtub, telling her stories. Isabel said nothing, though, just plucked a washcloth from the fragrant basket on the ledge.
“Have you talked to Daddy?”
There was only the slightest stutter to Isabel’s movements, and she began to dunk the washcloth into the water. “He’s very busy right now. It’s been chaos in the city, or so I hear.”
“Did he ask about us?”
“Madison, it’s a very complex process. He can’t do it from Greenwich.”
“What is? What’s complex?”
Isabel didn’t answer. She put her palm to one of the frothy peaks of bubbles and sliced it in half with a slow motion, like a karate chop played at delayed speed.
“You mean when a company gets liquidated.”
The word had the exact effect Madison had hoped for. She saw that her mother was wondering what she’d read, how much she understood.
“I just thought he might have asked about us. About me.”
“Your father misses you, sweetheart, do you really need me to tell you that?”
Yes I do, she thought, why don’t you know that?
“You know I leave the business to your father. Unless he needs me.”
Isabel spread the wet washcloth across her chest and breastbone, leaned her head back, and closed her eyes again. Speaking to her mother this way, eyes closed, nose and chin in the air, felt to Madison like they weren’t really speaking at all. The bathroom had become a pale bubble of untold strength, as though Madison could talk and talk without piercing its surface, without exposing them both to the world beyond.
“What have people been telling you?”
Who, Madison thought, who could she possibly think I’ve been talking to this week?
“He signed up for it,” her mother continued, having barely left Madison any time to respond. “When he agreed to be the CEO. You can’t get the worship without the blame. That’s something your father’s always struggled with. He wants all of one without any of the other. But where are you getting this? Jake Levins?”
“Did you read his column today?”
“Please. You think I care what that little man has to say?”
“I love Jake and Lori,” Madison whispered, peering down at her toenails, at the chipped purple polish she’d applied a month ago, five years ago, it was impossible to tell the difference.
“I know you do. But in this particular area, Amanda’s father is a man possessed, Madison. He thinks it’s a good thing that he’s the lone voice crying out in the wilderness.”
“But that doesn’t mean he’s wrong,” Madison said. “Just because he’s thinking for himself.”