Bad Marie (14 page)

Marie was disturbed by all the anger directed at her. It had made sense for her to congratulate the family for Roberto’s having found a job. She did not run the resort. She did not exploit the local workers. She looked at Caitlin, who had finished her cup of milk.

“All gone,” Caitlin said.

No one moved to give Caitlin any more.

“This is all we have,” Maribel said. “We need it for our family. For my child.”

Marie tried to calculate how old Maribel was. She had been a little girl when Marie left, maybe ten, which would make her sixteen or seventeen, much too young to have a baby. She had been the smart one, the pride and joy of the family.

“That’s fine,” Marie said, still trying, though it was not fine. It had to be a shock for all of them, Marie showing up like this, without warning. Until the day before, she herself had never considered going back to Mexico. “We have traveled a long way,” Marie said.

“Did you bring us anything?” Maribel asked.

“Excuse me?”

“Did you bring us anything?”

Juan José had arrived like he was Santa Claus, the trunk of Marie’s mother’s car loaded with presents they had picked up along the way. He had robbed a bank, not for himself, but for them. For this roomful of women. These people, Juan José’s family, they were still struggling.

“Weren’t you going to go to school, Maribel?” Marie asked. “You speak such good English. You can go to college. Having a baby, that doesn’t have to stop you.”

“I don’t know why you came here,” Maribel said. “But we can’t help you. We have our own problems. Go back to your own family.”

Marie blinked.

Caitlin looked down into her empty cup.

“More?” she said.

“There is a resort on the beach,” Maribel said. “For people like you.”

“People like me,” Marie said. Once Marie had thought she was one of them, part of the family. “There are no resorts.”

“They have built them. You know nothing. They have taken over our beach. They work Roberto to the bone. Go and see.”

“Where are the chickens?” Marie asked.

“What do you think?” Maribel said. “Where do you think they are?”

Marie didn’t know. She said nothing.

“We ate them.”

“All of the chickens?”

There were always more chickens. That was what Marie remembered most vividly about the house. A cousin could come home drunk, run down two or three in Marie’s mother’s car, they could slaughter a flock for Sunday dinner, and still there would be more chickens.

“You didn’t breed them? Save the eggs? You didn’t eat the last chicken? You wouldn’t do that?”

Maribel shook her head. “Times are hard.”

The sleeping baby in Maribel’s arms had woken up, opening her big dark eyes. The baby that Marie and José didn’t have. Marie would have wanted that baby. She would be six years old now.

Marie rested her hand gently on top of Caitlin’s head. She closed her eyes, taking a moment’s pleasure in that soft hair, just another second, because soon they would be on their way out the door. Homeless once again in a foreign country. More than anything, Marie wanted to keep Caitlin, but she was no longer sure that she could. She had run out of places to run to.

“Hi baby,” Caitlin said to the dark-haired infant in Maribel’s arms. “Hi.”

Marie reached into her back pocket and offered Maribel what little money she had left. The second it passed from her fingers, she wished she had it back.

The beaches in Juan José’s hometown had been perfect,
pristine
except for the trash of the locals, beer cans and skeletons of gutted fish. These beaches had once been magic. Now, making her way along the coast, what Marie saw was a bunch of pickup trucks on the sand and a tall crane, a massive construction site, the metal shell of a building. The water was that same aqua blue, the sand just as fine, white, but the beauty of the place had been ruined. The quiet was gone, replaced by the blare of chainsaws and hammers, the unrelenting beeping of machinery operating in reverse. There were workers poised on iron beams, dripping sweat in the sun, working, making all that noise. Sea gulls fought viciously over a pile of trash on the sand. A Mexican woman was cooking food over a grill constructed out of a metal garbage bin while more workers hovered nearby.

Marie wanted to buy a cold beer. A
cerveza
. The word came back to Marie as she stared at the men. Juan José used to buy the beers, cold and delicious in the hot sun, served with a wedge of lime. They would walk along the sand, drinking, talking. They would wade into the water, holding their beers, as the gentle waves rose and fell.

Marie could not buy herself a beer. She had given Maribel all of her money. She had really done that.

“My ears hurt,” Caitlin said, covering them with her hands.

“My ears hurt, too,” Marie said.

“Where is Mommy?”

Marie looked at the round curves of Caitlin’s small ears. They were a new shade of pink, much like Caitlin’s nose, which was also pink. Marie took a T-shirt from her backpack and wrapped it around Caitlin’s head.

“No,” Caitlin said. “That’s a shirt. That doesn’t go on my head. No no no.”

Caitlin tried to tug the shirt off, but Marie put her hand firmly on top of Caitlin’s head and tied a knot with the short sleeves while Caitlin struggled.

The one thing that Marie had not done was yell at Caitlin. She had never done that. Could she tell that to a judge? Could she explain that fact to Ellen? She had never yelled at Caitlin. She had gotten her milk and good things to eat, changed her diapers. She had been good to Caitlin, this entire time. It had been hard, but Marie had tried. She had tried.

“Leave the shirt,” Marie said. “Just leave it. Please. You look like a rock star.”

“No.”

“Please. Please, Caitlin. I don’t want you to get burned. Please.”

“No.”

“Caitlin, please, please leave the shirt on your head. Kit Kat. Caty Bean. For me. Please.”

“I want Mommy.”

Marie had never hit Caitlin. Not once. That was another thing she had never done.

“I want Mommy.” Marie mimicked Caitlin’s words. Where was Ellen, anyway? Mommy wasn’t there, tying a T-shirt over Caitlin’s precious head, doing everything she could. It was Marie, protecting Caitlin from the sun. Worrying about her, night and day. Only now that Marie had become the new Mommy, Caitlin didn’t appreciate her anymore. Marie had stopped being fun.

“What if I told you I was your mommy now? What do you think? That I am Mommy? Marie.”

“No,” Caitlin said.

“Yes,” Marie said. “Your mother is never going to leave the office. She isn’t.”

Marie watched the tears start, watched Caitlin’s face twist out of shape as she wailed uncontrollably on a loud and polluted beach in Mexico, a dirty T-shirt tied on top of her head. Marie wasn’t Caitlin’s mother. She shouldn’t have said that. She could never replace Ellen. She had not wanted to. She only wanted to be herself. Marie thought that would be enough.

Marie didn’t know what to do. How she could comfort Caitlin? Marie couldn’t remember ever wanting her mother. That could not have been Marie’s fault. Her mother must not have been a person worth wanting. She must have been the failure. Not Marie.

None of this was Caitlin’s fault.

It wasn’t her fault that Marie had taken her to Mexico without any sunblock. That Marie had given away all of their money.

And Marie, she wasn’t to blame for her own childhood. She had been a child, after all, no more responsible for her circumstances than Caitlin. She had always wanted Ellen’s mother, more than her own, but the truth was Ellen’s mother had never wanted Marie. She had led her on, introducing her to artichokes and taking her to art museums, writing her clever poems on her birthday, but she never took Marie’s side when it counted.

“Oh Caty Bean,” Marie said, kneeling in front of the little girl in the sand. “I am sorry.”

Caitlin stood there, in front of Marie, and she cried. Her pink face turned red. Streams of thick yellow snot ran down her nose. This was Marie’s fault, all her fault. She remembered Ellen lecturing her in the Vietnamese restaurant, telling Marie that she was not to be trusted with her daughter. Ellen couldn’t have foreseen the future, this moment on the beach, but she turned out to have been right. Marie was taking deplorable care of her little girl.

“Oh baby, I’m so sorry.”

If Marie could have handed Caitlin over to Ellen, right then, she would have done it. Without hesitation. Instead, Marie reached for Caitlin, with the idea of cradling her in her arms. Caitlin pushed her away.

“Not you. Not you. Not you.”

Marie stepped back, stunned.

“Not you,” Caitlin repeated.

“Not me,” Marie said, arms at her sides.

Marie had nothing left. She was out of tricks. All out of ideas. There was nothing left in her backpack. No milk. No chocolate. No fresh diapers. No stuffed animals. No books to read. Nothing. She handed Caitlin the green glass rabbit from the French villa, watched as Caitlin let it slip through her fingers, drop down to the sand. Marie had thought it was a fine rabbit, comparable to the dead sister’s silver bangles or Ellen’s red silk kimono. Caitlin did not want it.

Marie picked up the glass rabbit and flung it into the ocean. She watched the rabbit land with a splash and then disappear. Caitlin did not stop crying, her tears turning into hiccups.

Marie started to walk.

She started to walk, walking away from Caitlin, who did not want her. Away from the sound of Caitlin’s hiccups and incessant wails, away from the piercing noise of the construction crews. She stopped for as long as it took to take off her high-top sneakers, and then she kept going, barefoot on the sand.

Marie walked, not knowing where she was headed. She could walk to the fancy resort she would never be able to pay for. She had no money. She couldn’t afford a
cerveza
. But if Uncle Roberto worked in a resort, so could Marie. She could work in the laundry room, live up to her potential, labor side by side with the Mexicans she was so busy oppressing.

How could Maribel think that of Marie?

Benoît, he had blamed her for ruining his life.

The movie star hadn’t even wanted to have sex with her.

Everyone thought the worst of Marie. Ellen had never forgiven Marie for Harry Alford. She would never forgive her for this, for taking her husband. Her daughter. Marie had been an idiot to think for a second she could be forgiven. Marie had never wanted forgiveness, not from Ellen. It had been Benoît Doniel who’d betrayed her, who left them alone, in Paris, practically forced them to go on the run. Marie had left prison only a month ago, guardedly optimistic, with no idea that she would end up back on the same beach where she had once made love with Juan José. Juan José had killed himself, hanged himself with a bedsheet, the kind she had laundered. She had not been reason enough for him to live. Marie had thought she could keep Caitlin, only she couldn’t do it.

“Not you,” Caitlin had said. “Not you.”

Marie kept walking, leaving Caitlin farther and farther behind. Step after step. Leaving her entire life behind. Like
Virginie at Sea
. Marie could disappear. Become a girl in a book. It was as if Nathalie Doniel had gotten back inside Marie’s head, providing Marie comfort when she needed it most. Marie could create her own ending. Like Juan José. Like Nathalie Doniel. Like Virginie herself. Marie dropped her backpack on the sand, and began to stride, determined, into the ocean.

The water never rose past her waist.

Marie walked and walked, but the sea never rose any higher. Marie looked back toward the shore. The sand was barely visible, there was only turquoise blue water from every angle, a flock of sea gulls flying overhead. Marie did not see how she could drown in this calm, shallow water. Small yellow-and-blue-striped fish swam in circles around her legs.

“Pretty,” Marie said out loud, and then she remembered, again, what she needed to do.

Marie held her breath and sank down to her knees, and finally, she was submerged beneath water. Marie closed her eyes, felt the water flow over and around her, the push and pull of the gentle waves. She waited. Marie wondered what would happen next. She felt a fish swim into her leg and then dart away.

Marie stayed beneath the surface until she couldn’t. She had to breathe. She wanted to breathe. She came up for air. It was all very romantic for Virginie to poetically disappear off the page, but the ending of
Virginie at Sea
, it was complete and utter bullshit. Marie had been deceived. Deceived by Benoît Doniel. Deceived by his dead, suicidal sister. Anybody could write a better book than that.

Marie headed back to shore, swimming feverishly through the shallow water. She had abandoned Caitlin, left her all alone. On a beach. In Mexico. Her favorite person in the world. Of all the wrong choices she had ever made in her life, this was the worst possible thing. Caitlin’s small ears exposed to the sun. Her little nose, her pale and delicate scalp. Marie had left her.

Back on the beach, she couldn’t see Caitlin anywhere. Marie’s backpack lay on the sand in the place she had left it, but Marie didn’t deserve to have her things, not the red silk kimono or the Chanel halter top, not the letters from Juan José. Marie left all of her worldly possessions behind and started to run. Marie ran as fast as she had ever run, not knowing how she would be able to live if something had happened to Caitlin. Marie ran faster still, ignoring the piercing cramp in her side, running through it. She had left Caitlin all alone to die, and she would have to live with that knowledge for the rest of her life, not in a watery, poetic blur, but behind bars, this time for murder, first-degree murder, knowing what she had done to her Caty Bean.

And then Marie saw Caitlin, exactly where she had left her. Caitlin had managed to take the T-shirt off her head and was burying it beneath the sand.

Caitlin looked at Marie and she smiled.

“Hi Marie,” she said.

Marie bent over, hands on her thighs, catching her breath, taking a moment until she was able to speak. “Hi Caitlin.”

“Hi Marie.”

“Hi Caty Cat.”

“You are all wet,” Caitlin said.

Marie gazed at Caitlin in disbelief. Caitlin, playing in the sand as if nothing had happened. Not burned to a crisp. Not raped and murdered. Not kidnapped. Playing. Happy. Marie collapsed onto the sand, putting her arms around Caitlin, kissing her all over. Her blond head, her chubby arms, her shoulders, her beautiful face. Marie made loud smacking noises, kissing Caitlin and then kissing her some more.

“Stop,” Caitlin said, but she was laughing.

“I’m sorry I put a T-shirt on your head,” Marie said.

“It’s all gone,” Caitlin said.

She pointed to the small mound of sand on top of Marie’s T-shirt.

“You are so smart,” Marie said.

Marie picked up a handful of sand and watched it fall through her fingers, landing on top of Caitlin’s pile. She scooped up another handful, and began in earnest, building a sand castle.

“Look at our beautiful castle,” Marie said. “It’s getting tall, isn’t it? Do you think it’s tall?”

“Tall,” Caitlin said. “Very tall.”

Caitlin smashed the sand castle with her fists and started to laugh. Marie loved that laugh.

“You don’t hate me?” Marie said.

Caitlin looked at Marie.

“Silly Marie,” she said.