“Why would you do that, though?” Margot asked. “I just don’t understand.”
“To keep a family together, for one,” Beverley replied. “Some women—they see their husbands’ crimes as a sickness. That’s whatDr. Garvey said. They see it as something that’s afflicted them, and they’ve got to support them through it.”
“Idiots.”
Elsie knew her and Margot’s experiences were very different from Beverley’s; they had no children to steer through post-disaster fallout. She could not imagine what it must be like to know that you’d carried a child for someone who could do these things.
“Then there’s fear,” Beverley continued. “Fear of confrontation, fear for their own safety, fear that they won’t be believed.”
“Hmm,” Margot half-conceded.
“And did Dr. Garvey ever talk to you about dissociation?”
“Bev, I was just trying to get through those sessions.”
Beverley shook her head disapprovingly. “She said there’s a link between trauma and dissociation, that the brain can sometimes protect us from the truth, from ourselves, from others, like…an involuntary detachment from reality, a way of burying memories in order to survive.”
“So…denial,” Margot argued flatly.
“No, not denial. It’s more complicated than that.”
Elsie’s head filled with a strange sound as they talked. This concept, dissociation—it wasn’t something she’d ever heard of, yet it felt discomfortingly familiar. Buried memories—she knew those. She knew what it was like to remove your mind from a situation as a means to survive it. She’d had to do that so much as a child.
“Not only that, but it’s difficult to extricate yourself fully from someone you’ve already spent half a lifetime with,” Bev was saying as Elsie’s attention returned to the conversation, “especially as a woman with no income and with kids to look after. You know how many women I know who don’t even have a bank account?”
“Okay, but I don’t think staying together for the kids is going to cut it if your husband’s an axe murderer.”
Elsie had never met anyone who spoke about murder the way Margot did. She was electric with it, tossing the concept around like a kitten batting at yarn.
“I’d argue that it’s incredibly healthynotto want to have anything to do with a man who murdered people in cold blood. Wouldn’t you, Bev?” Margot gibed. “Look.” She’d turned to them both. “I say we make a pact, something that will be good for all of us.” She looked pointedly at Beverley. “We cut them out of our lives completely.”
Elsie noticed Beverley raise her eyebrows.
“No visits,” she continued. “Easy for me, obviously. No correspondence, no second thoughts. They’re dead to us. Again, easier for me, but you girls need to move on. This way, they’re out of our lives forever. Deal?”
Margot held her hand out to them both. Slowly but firmly, Elsie shook it.
Thirteen
Margot has news.Elsie can see it in her as soon as she steps through the doorway, joining them in Beverley’s house.
“What is it?” Elsie asks, closing the door behind her friend—although she knows it’s likely gossip about some actor she’s never heard of disgracing himself at a party.
They make their way to the living room. The children are watching aFlintstonesrepeat; Wilma and Betty are performing lawn maintenance while Fred and Barney recline against a rock, smoking Winston cigarettes.
Margot raises her eyebrows at Bev and tilts her head toward the backyard.
“Kids, go and play outside,” Bev responds. Then she calls after them, “Stay by the door!”
“Elsie”—Margot points firmly at her—“get something to drink. We’re going to need it.”
Reluctantly, Elsie goes to the kitchen. She casts her eyes around the space, worthy of the pages of a magazine. The refrigerator is mintgreen, as are the laminate countertops, the percolator and the toaster. There’s a bowl of lemons arranged neatly on the breakfast bar. She’s not quite sure why anyone would need that many lemons, but they look pleasing, she supposes. Mustard-colored geometric tiles climb the walls behind the stove, and a chrome Sunbeam Mixmaster has been positioned near the sink. Elsie is almost certain that Bev has never used it, just like she’s never used the hostess trolley tucked into a corner of the room. Bev is a horrible cook.
Elsie moves to the refrigerator. The blare of the television being flicked over to the news winds its way into the kitchen. There are photos stuck to the fridge door with magnets: Beverley and her children; Benjamin and Audrey playing with the garden sprinkler; the kids with their grandmother, Alice; Elsie, Beverley and Margot at the beach. She raises a hand, tilts her head. The bottom of a photograph is peeking out from behind the rest. She grasps it and starts to pull it out, catching a glimpse of a wedding dress, the middle buttons of a man’s best suit.
“Hello? We’re dying of thirst in here!”
Elsie rolls her eyes, opens the refrigerator and takes out a jug of iced tea. Margot will complain, but it’s far too early for cocktails.
