“Go ahead,” Ellis told her. “I’ll use another bathroom.”
There was another cleaning woman in the boys’ bathroom. She would have to use the bathroom attached to Viola’s nursery.
No, she couldn’t go in there. She never did anymore.
She went downstairs, where two more cleaning women were dusting and vacuuming. She used the half bath, then entered the kitchen. Mary Carol was there, her shoulder-length, chestnut-dyed hair perfectly sleek, her jeans and button-down shirt close fitting to show off her figure. She was at the stove cooking breakfast—or was it lunch? The boys were seated at the table, absorbed in the new video gadgets their grandmother had given them.
Before either woman uttered one word, The Hammer, the human one, hit Ellis with a look of crushing blame.
“Finally up?” Mary Carol said.
“The cleaning woman woke me.”
“Did she?”
“I didn’t get to sleep until past six in the morning.”
“The sleeping pills don’t work?”
She could only know Ellis’s doctor had prescribed sleep medication if Jonah had told her. Mary Carol looked at Ellis smugly, as if to verify that her son was now more in her confidence than in his wife’s.
Ellis went to the boys and touched their soft, dark hair with both hands. “Hi, guys.”
“Hi, Mom,” Jasper said, glancing up from his game.
“Hi,” River said, keeping his eyes on his screen.
Her boys didn’t even want to look at her now—because of what she’d done.
She pushed away the thought, told herself they were preoccupied with their games.
She poured a cup of coffee and turned to face her mother-in-law. “I can clean my own house, you know,” she said in a quiet tone.
Mary Carol put on a wounded countenance. “I was only trying to help. I know it’s difficult for you—to keep up—under the circumstances.” As proof, she said, “The boys said they were hungry. I’m making grilled ham-and-cheese sandwiches. Would you like one?”
Ellis looked into the frying pan. “Ham? You know this house is vegetarian!”
“Jonah isn’t.”
“He is when I cook. And River and Jasper are.”
“But you aren’t cooking, are you?”
The little thread that had been keeping Ellis attached to civility broke. She grabbed the grilling sandwich out of the pan and threw it in the trash can. She burned her hand, but the pain hardly registered. She opened the refrigerator and found the deli ham.
“That’s expensive meat,” Mary Carol said.
“I don’t care,” Ellis said, thumping the wad of flesh into the can.
“Boys, I’m sorry to say your lunch is gone,” Mary Carol said.
The boys had stopped playing their video games. They looked almost as if they were frightened of their own mother.
“I’ll make grilled cheese, okay?”
“Okay,” Jasper piped up.
River said nothing. He had that new look in his eyes, the resentful stare that made Ellis want to weep. He was angry that everything had changed. All the crying. Police. Detectives. Everyone in the house on edge—especially since Mary Carol had arrived. Almost daily, friends and neighbors came over with food or just to lament with them. River hated it. He hated her. He hated her for losing Viola and ruining his perfect life.
Ellis turned away from the three piercing gazes. She was dizzy from lack of sleep and near vomiting, but she got to work on the sandwiches. “Where is Jonah?” she asked.
“He had to run to the office,” Mary Carol said.
On a Saturday. He was probably with Irene. Being consoled by her. Because he got no comfort from the increasingly deranged wife who’d left his baby daughter in the woods.
Mary Carol took a seat at the table with a cup of black coffee. She drank coffee all day to keep her appetite low. Attendance to her figure, to anything related to her appearance, had been Mary Carol’s main occupation most of her life. Ellis could imagine how her mother-in-law viewed her current state. Ellis didn’t even look in the mirror anymore.
She added apple slices to the boys’ lunches, set the plates down, and sat across from them. “Put the games away and eat,” she said. When they continued playing, she said, “Now.”
River shot her another look. Ellis wondered what poison Mary Carol fed them when she wasn’t around. And Ellis often wasn’t around lately, she had to admit. She tried to keep herself, her increasing instability, away from the boys. She knew how it felt to see a parent lose her mind.
“Tomorrow the boys and I are going to church to pray for Viola,” Mary Carol said. “You’re welcome to come with us. If you get up in time. Service is at eight.”
Talk about kicking someone when they were down. Mary Carol was unloading all her ammo on her this afternoon.
Ellis set down her coffee, looked into the steely-blue gaze of the woman who had accused her of deliberately “trapping” her son with pregnancy. She and her husband had bitterly opposed Jonah marrying a plant biology student who’d grown up in a trailer. With an addict mother and unknown father, no less. Ellis assumed his mother often used the words trailer trash to describe her, though Jonah would never have told her. Mary Carol even warned Jonah that his marriage to a woman who’d taken part in Pride marches might bring negative attention from the media and cause trouble for his father, a renowned conservative senator.
Ellis held The Hammer’s challenging gaze. She saw it clearly. The woman who’d waged battle against Ellis since the day Jonah told her of their engagement would now do everything in her power to win that war. Ellis’s shield wall was down, and Bauhammer was charging at her in full armor.
Ellis rose, pushing off the table with shaking arms. “Will you please come talk to me in the office?”
“Jonah’s office?” Mary Carol said. “He prefers that room to be private.”
“It’s my goddamn house, my office!”
Mary Carol raised her eyebrows at her language, or perhaps to remind Ellis that she and her husband had given Jonah the
