Vanished

“Andre drowned.” She squeezed her eyes shut and fought for composure, but unlike John Taylor, the night before, Malcolm Patterson did not approach her. “He ran onto the lake … it was frozen …and he fell through …with two little girls. I saved them.” Her voice was almost a monotone as she went on, trying not to see his face again, trying not to feel his icy face next to her own as she tried to blow life into him, trying not to smell the same powdery flesh she had loved so much …just like Teddy …and if Teddy died too …how would she survive it? She fought to go on as Malcolm watched her. “I couldn't reach him. He was under the ice.” It was a breathless whisper, and then her voice grew stronger again. It was like climbing a mountain just telling him and the air seemed to be getting thinner and thinner and thinner. “Charles always held me responsible for it. He felt it was my fault, because I wasn't watching him. I was, but I was talking to someone …the mother of the two little girls …she said it wasn't my fault, but I suppose it was. And Charles thought so too. He was skiing that day, and when he came back, he tried to kill me … or maybe not …maybe he was just so out of his mind with pain …anyway, I lost the baby. I probably would have anyway, because of the icy water. I had jumped in to get Andre.” Malcolm nodded, mesmerized by the horror of her words, and in spite of himself, his face had gone pale as he listened. “Charles always felt that I had killed both of them, that it was my fault that we lost them. And I …I …” Her voice trembled and she couldn't go on as she bowed her head, and then looked at him, her face filled with anguish, her eyes filled with a horror he could never know and no one would ever take from her. “I suppose you could say I had a nervous breakdown. I was in a hospital … a clinic … a sanatorium … for more than two years. I was twenty-one when it happened, and I tried to kill myself several times.” She had decided to tell him all of it. He had a right to know now, and there could be no more secrets. “I didn't want to live, without Charles and my babies. I did everything I could to die, and they did everything they could to save me. I never saw Charles during that time …or actually I only saw him once during that first year. He came to tell me my father had died, a few months after Andre. They say the shock of the Crash killed him, and I suppose it did …they didn't tell me that my mother killed herself six months later. I suppose without Daddy, and without me …” Her voice trailed off, and Malcolm understood her meaning. “They didn't tell me that for another year, and by then, I suppose I was better. They said I had to go finally, that I had to go back out in the world and live with what had happened. That it wasn't my fault, that I wasn't responsible, and if Charles still felt it was, then it was something that he had to work out for himself.” She took another breath and seemed a little calmer as she looked unseeingly out the window. “He came to see me once at the end before I left, and he told me how sorry he was, that he had been out of his mind with pain, that it wasn't my fault, and he hadn't meant it. But I could see in his eyes that he did mean it, that he still believed I had killed his children. I still loved him.” She looked back at Malcolm honestly. “I always had, but I knew that if I stayed with him, I would always feel guilty. It would always be between us. I couldn't go back to him. I had to be alone. So I left the hospital, and came back to the States, and that was the last time I saw him. And then I met you,” she sighed, “and you were so good to me. You gave me a job, and you did so many things for me. You took care of me, and you were always so kind to me. And we got married. I never really wanted to get married again. I didn't think it would have been fair to anyone … I had so much on my conscience. But you seemed not to mind …and …” She felt suddenly guilty. “I had no one …and I was so frightened sometimes. And you made me feel safe … I thought I could be good to you too …and maybe make you happy.” She lowered her eyes then, thinking of when Teddy had been born, and the tears began to slide down her face again. She had given him a lot to absorb in a single moment. “I was so happy when Teddy was born.”

“So was I.” His voice was a croak in the small room. “He's all I lived for. I always thought there was some small mystery in your past, Marielle. But I never suspected it was quite so ugly.” She was filled with shame as he said it.