Silent Partner

“Another sun-room,” I said. “A latticed pool house.”

My knowing shook her further. She swallowed hard. “You seem to know everything. I really don’t see the need-”

“Far from everything.” Refill. I smiled. She looked at me with gratitude. Boozer’s version of the Stockholm syndrome. “Bottoms up.”

She drank, shuddered, drank some more, said, “Here’s to glorious, glorious truth.”

“The drowning,” I said. “How did it happen?”

“It was the last day of holiday. Early autumn. I was up in my sun-room- I love sun-rooms- merging with Nature. I’ve had sun-rooms in all of my homes. The one at The Shoals was the finest, more of a pavilion, actually, an Old English look, comfy and warm. I was sitting there, looking out at the Atlantic- it’s a more intimate ocean, the Atlantic, don’t you think?”

“Definitely.”

“Compared to the Pacific, which is so… undemanding. At least that’s what I’ve always believed.”

She held her glass up, squinted, sloshed vodka.

I said, “Where were the girls?”

She tightened her grip on the glass, raised her voice: “Ah, where were the girls! Playing, what else do little girls do! Playing down on the beach! With a nanny- a slab-faced English pudding! I paid her passage from Liverpool, gave her my best old gowns, lovely quarters. She came with recommendations, the slut. Flirting with Ramey, with the hired help- with anything in pants. That day, she was batting her lashes at the groundsman and took her eyes off the girls. They snuck into the pool house- the latticed pool house- which was supposed to be locked and wasn’t. Heads rolled that day. They rolled.”

She emptied her glass, belched softly, and looked mortified.

I pretended not to notice, said, “Then what happened?”

“Then-finally- the pudding realized they were gone. Went looking for them, heard laughter from the pool house. When she got there, Sherry was standing by the side of the pool, slapping her knees. Laughing. The idiot asked where Sharon was. Sherry pointed to the pool. The stupid pudding looked over and saw one arm sticking out of the water. She jumped in, managed to pull Sharon out. The pool was filthy- ready to be drained until spring. Both of them got slimy- it served the slut right.”

“And Sherry kept laughing,” I said.

She let go of the glass. It rolled down her lap, hit the stone floor, and shattered. The shards formed a wet gemlike mosaic that transfixed her.

“Yes, laughing,” she said. “Such merriment. Through it all.”

“How seriously was Sharon injured?”

“Not seriously at all. Just her pride. She’d swallowed some water, the dumb cluck fiddled with her, and she vomited all of it up. I arrived just in time to see that- all that brown water shooting out of her. Revolting.”

“When did you realize it hadn’t been an accident?”

“Sherry marched up to us, thumping her little chest, saying ‘I push her.’ Just like that: ‘I push her,’ as if she was proud of it. I thought she was joking away her fear, told Ramey to take her away, give her some warm milk and soft biscuits. But she struggled, began screaming: ‘I push her! I push her!’- claiming credit! Then she broke away from him, ran over to where Sharon was lying, and tried to kick her- to roll her over, back into the pool.”

Shake of head.

Smile.

“Later, when Sharon was feeling better, she confirmed it. ‘Sherry push me.’ And there was a bruise on her back. Tiny little knuckle marks.”

She stared at the liquid on the floor with longing. I dribbled some martini into another glass and handed it to her. Eyeing the miserly portion, she frowned but drank, then licked the rim with the look of a child flouting table manners.

“She wanted to do it again, right in front of me. Wanted me to see it. That’s when I knew it was… serious. They couldn’t… had to be… separated. Couldn’t be together, ever again.”

“Enter brother Billy.”

“Billy always took good care of me.”

“Why the Ransoms?”

“They worked for us- for Billy.”

“Where?”

“In Palm Beach. Making beds. Cleaning.”

“Where did they come from- originally?”

“A place. Near the Everglades. One of our acquaintances- a very fine doctor- took in the feeble-minded, taught them honest labor, how to be good citizens. Trained properly, you know, they make the best workers.”

Everything scrubbed down with lye soap… all the clothes folded neatly, beds you could bounce a dime on… as if someone had trained them in the basics a long time ago.

Living near the swamps. All that mud. They’d have felt right at home on their dirt patch. Green soup…

“The doctor and Henry were golf chums,” she was saying. “Henry always made a point of hiring Freddy’s- the doctor’s- imbeciles, for grounds work, fruit-picking, repetitive things. He believed it was our civic responsibility to help.”

“And you were helping them further when you gave them Sharon.”

She missed the sarcasm, seized on the rationalization. “Yes! I knew they couldn’t have children. Shirlee’d been… fixed. Freddy had all of them fixed, for their own good. Billy said we’d be giving her- them- the greatest gift anyone could give while solving our problem at the same time.”

“Everyone comes out a winner.”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“Why did it have to be done?” I said. “Why not keep Sharon at home and send Sherry away for some kind of treatment?”

Her reply sounded rehearsed. “Sherry needed me more. She was really the needy one- and time’s borne me out on that.”

Two progeny in the Blue Book, 1954 through 1957. After that, only one.

My guesses turned to fact, the pieces finally fitting. But it sickened me, like a bad-news diagnosis. I loosened my tie, clenched my jaw.

“What did you tell your friends?”

No answer.

“That she’d died?”

“Pneumonia.”

“Was there a funeral?”

She shook her head. “We let it be known we wanted things private. Our wishes were respected. In lieu of flowers, donations to Planned Parenthood- thousands of dollars were donated.”

“More winners,” I said. I felt like throttling a little insight into her. Instead, I slipped on the therapist’s mask, pretended she was a patient. Told myself to be understanding, nonjudgmental…

But even as I smiled, the horror stayed with me. The bottom line, just another sickening, sordid child-abuse case, psychopathology fueling cruelty: a weak, dependent woman, despising her weakness, projecting that hatred onto the child she saw as weak. Seeing another child’s viciousness as strength. Envying it, feeding it:

One way or the other, Sherry was going to triumph.

She was tilting her head back, trying to suck nourishment from an empty glass. I was cold with rage, felt a chill in my bones.