Fool Me Once

She flipped on the radio to get her own voice out of her head and replace it with whatever inanity was on the morning drive. People who host morning radio programs cannot believe how funny they are. She moved it to AM-did anyone listen to AM anymore?-and put on the all-news channel. There was comfort to the almost military precision and predictability. Sports on the quarter hour. Traffic every ten minutes. She was distracted, half listening at best, when a story caught her attention:

“Notorious hacker Corey the Whistle has promised a treasure chest of new leaks this week that he claims will not only embarrass a leading official in the current administration but also will definitely lead to resignation and, most likely, prosecution…”

Despite it all, despite what she said about being out of Corey the Whistle’s awful reach, Maya still felt a fresh shiver surge through her. Shane had wondered why Corey hadn’t released it all, if he was just biding his time to drop the bigger bomb-and yes, the word choice was worthy of a sad ha-ha-on her. She had, of course, wondered that too. Maya Stern was old news now, but the potential was there. Big secrets don’t stay secret. They have a way of coming back when you least expect them, rippling and reverberating and causing-again she recognized how often military lingo slips into our regular vocabulary-massive collateral damage.

Farnwood was an old-school rich-people estate. Before Maya met Joe, she had assumed such places were the stuff of history books or fiction. They are not. She drove up to a gate manned by Morris. Morris had been working the gate since the early eighties. He lived in the same workers’ compound as Isabella’s family.

“Hey, Morris.”

He scowled at her, as he always did, reminding her in his own way that she had just married into this family and really wasn’t blood. There might have been more to Morris’s scowl today, something that could be explained by either lingering sadness at the death of Joe or, more likely, the gossip surrounding Isabella and the pepper spray attack. Morris grudgingly pressed the button, and the gate opened so slowly it was hard to see with the naked eye.

Maya drove up the rolling hill, past a grass tennis court and a full-size soccer field (“It’s called a pitch,” Joe had told her), neither of which Maya had ever seen used, and arrived at a Tudor mansion that reminded her of Bruce Wayne’s on the old Batman TV show. She half expected a bunch of men dressed for a fox hunt to greet her, but instead, her mother-in-law, Judith, stood alone by the door. Maya parked by the stone path.

Judith was a beautiful woman. She was petite with big round eyes and dainty, doll-like features. She looked younger than her years. There had been some work done-Botox, maybe a little something around the eyes-but it was tasteful, and most of her youthful appearance was due either to genetics or her daily yoga routine. Her figure still drew second glances. Men were drawn to her big-time-looks, brains, money-but if she dated, Maya didn’t know about it.

“I think she has secret lovers,” Joe had told her once.

“Why secret?”

But Joe had just shrugged it off.

She was rumored to have been a West Coast hippie back in the day. Maya believed it. If you looked closely, you could still see a hint of something untamed in the eyes and the smile.

Judith came down the stairs but stopped on the second to last one, making her and Maya about the same height. They exchanged a cheek kiss, Judith looking past her the whole time.

“Where is Lily?”

“In day care.”

Maya waited for some surprise to register on her mother-in-law’s face. None did. “You need to work it out with Isabella.”

“She told you?”

Judith did not bother replying.

“So help me work it out,” Maya said. “Where is she?”

“My understanding is Isabella is traveling.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know. In the meantime I suggest you use Rosa.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You know that she used to be Joe’s nanny.”

“I do.”

“And?”

“I don’t think so.”

“So you’ll keep her in day care?” Judith shook her head in disapproval. “Years ago, I was involved in day care facilities, professionally speaking.” She was a board-certified psychiatrist and still saw clients twice a week at an office on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. “Do you remember all those child-abuse cases in the eighties and nineties?”

“Sure. What, you were called in as an expert?”

“Something like that.”

“I thought they were all found to be bogus. Child hysteria or something.”

“Yes,” Judith said. “The caregivers were exonerated.”

“So?”

“The caregivers were exonerated,” she repeated, “but maybe the system wasn’t.”

“I’m not following.”

“The children in the day care were so easy to manipulate. Why?”

Maya shrugged.

“Think about it. These kids came up with all these horror stories. I ask myself why. Why were these children so eager to say what they thought their parents wanted to hear? Maybe, just maybe, if their parents had given them more attention…”

That, Maya thought, was quite a stretch.