It didn't take very long to get down to the marshes. Once she was there she slipped between the reeds. They were tall and feathery, silver gray. Everything smelled foul. Maddy's boots made a sloshing sound as she walked along the shore. She could hear things that were alive: snails, nesting birds, the rising wind. There were probably spiders and leeches as well; there were most likely bats in the trees. Maddy was the sister who was always afraid, who cried when she was left alone, who pouted, who didn't know how to cook or clean or even button her heavy winter coat. She was nervous about the thornbushes in the marsh and the crabs that might bite your toes, but for once she didn't think about these things. It took a while, but at last she found it, the place where her mother said the blue heron lived. She made her way through the brambles and there was the nest, up in a willow tree.
Maddy wore a blue nightgown under her coat. She slipped off her rain boots. She was good at climbing trees; she was light and much stronger than she looked. She was breathing hard when she got up to the nest. She thought it would be made of long grass and moss, but it was made of sticks. Some were silver and some were black. The heron wasn't there, so Maddy crept into the nest. It could have crashed and then she would have fallen to the ground and broken every bone. But the sticks held her weight. Maddy wanted to see if what her mother said was true, if the heron would watch over her. Herons had no choice but to be loyal, her mother had said, it was in their nature.
When Maddy woke up, her legs were cramping from sleeping in the tree. There were red bug bites on her elbows and knees. The sky was breaking with the first streaks of light. She heard water and what sounded like her sister's voice. Maddy looked down at the marsh and there was Allie, standing in the shallow water with the blue heron. Anyone would guess that a heron would be afraid of a girl and that a girl would be afraid as well, but that didn't seem to be the case. Allie got so close she was almost touching him before he flew away. She turned to wave at the sky and when she did she saw Maddy, up in the tree. Allie's pale hair was the color of the reeds. Of course he had chosen her.
PAUL DIDN'T COME to the Lion Park the next day, even though she had left a message on his answering machine making it clear she would consider phoning Allie to tell her everything. She had resorted to threats. She didn't care how low she'd sunk. Maddy had left word at the desk that she was expecting a visitor; they could ring her room when he arrived. She had the impulse to say it was her husband she was waiting for, but even she couldn't tell a lie that big.
She sat in the hot room until she felt dizzy, then she went out and walked around London. When she returned, she ate her dinner in her room, still waiting, at least for a phone call. She drank a bottle of wine and fell asleep while it was still light. She didn't wake until she heard something out in the hall. Another argument; a man's raised voice. When the shouting stopped, she took a shower and found there was only cold water, with intermittent bursts of warmth. The soap was grainy and smelled like Lysol. Maddy got out and wrapped a towel around herself, then flopped onto the bed. It was nearly eleven when he finally arrived. The front desk hadn't bothered to call Maddy to let her know she had a guest; they just let him up. He could have been anyone, a madman out for revenge, a serial killer. Paul knocked on the door and called out her name. For a moment Maddy forced herself to remain still. She didn't want to reveal herself as desperate, not even to herself. Let him suffer. Let him wait.
He knocked again. Maddy went to open the door. She had only the towel wrapped around her.
“Jesus,” Paul said, “who were you expecting?” He laughed. “Hello, little sister.”
He had shaven his head and had lost weight. He looked all skin and bones. Good, Maddy thought. She hoped he was miserable, just as she was. She hoped he was regretting this marriage he'd committed himself to.
“You didn't write, you didn't call,” Maddy said, trying to be lighthearted. It didn't come out that way. It sounded pathetic. Just what she didn't want. But he didn't seem to notice; he was blank and distracted. His eyes looked filmy, as though he had conjunctivitis.
“We were never anything to each other, Maddy. You knew that. Let's leave it at that. If you call me again, I won't call you back.”
Maddy had hung up her silk dress over the window and a weird azure light came into the room.
“I feel sorry for Allie,” she said. “I really do.”
“So do I,” Paul agreed.
“Are you always such a selfish egomaniac?”
“Are you?”
“If I tell her, she won't understand. She won't forgive you.”
“She shouldn't,” Paul said. “Neither should you.”
“Maybe I won't,” Maddy said.
He left without saying anything more. She wasn't even worth that much to him. Maddy got dressed. She felt used and bitter. She went down to the hotel restaurant and sat in a booth in the bar. There was an elderly gentleman having a drink and a couple laughing and sharing dessert. The waitress came over. It was closing time, but Maddy explained that she had recently arrived from the States and her schedule was off. The waitress brought her a salad and a piece of quiche along with a glass of Pinot Grigio. It was a little cooler in the restaurant, but she was still burning.
“Quiche all right?” the waitress asked.
It happened to have no taste whatsoever, but the salad was fine, and the wine even better.
“Not bad,” Maddy said.
She sat there for nearly an hour drinking wine. When she finally got up to go, only the old man and the bartender were left. The couple and even the waitress had gone. Maddy took the lift to the seventh floor and promptly got lost in the hall. At last she found her way to 708. She unlocked her door and wondered if anyone else was staying on her floor. She hadn't seen another person since leaving the bar. She turned off the malfunctioning air conditioner and opened her window, even though soot and the sound of traffic came into the room. Then she curled up on the bed in her clothes.
THEIR FATHER LEFT when Maddy and Allie were eleven and twelve, while their mother was still in treatment. He moved into a house in town, about three miles inland. Their mother said not to blame him. She told them some people couldn't deal with illness; the very thought of a hospital made them dizzy with fear and grief. Allie and Maddy didn't believe her. If their father was dizzy with anything, it was with his own selfish desires. The girls rode their bikes past the house he'd moved into, but no one ever seemed to be home. When they telephoned, a woman answered. Allie said it was probably a friend or a housekeeper. Maddy may have been younger, but she knew better. Secretly, she had begun to make little cuts on her arms and legs. She didn't know if she wanted to hurt herself or somebody else. She began calling the woman their father was living with every night. Revenge was an acquired taste, but it was addictive if you didn't watch out. Maddy was the mystery avenger. She didn't even tell her sister. Even at that age she knew that revenge was a private act.
Then one day the girls' father reappeared. He parked in the driveway and called Maddy and Allie out to the lawn. He was angry, as if he were the wronged party.
“You are terrorizing an innocent woman. You are never to call her again,” he told them. “If you do I'll have my number changed. She's just my landlady, you know. She's nothing more than that.”
Allie knew nothing about the phone calls. But she didn't blame Maddy. She stood up to her father.
“Instead of changing your number, you should come back. We need you here.”
“Did your mother put you up to this?” he wanted to know.
“Our mother wouldn't stoop to that,” Allie said.
Maddy hung her head. She didn't say a word.
Their father got back into the car. Allie went after him. He was crying and he wouldn't roll down his window. He drove away. He went through a stop sign and didn't look back.
Later, up in their room, the sisters lay in one bed, their heads on the same pillow, holding hands.
“I feel bad for him,” Allie said.
“Don't,” Maddy told her. “He doesn't deserve it. He left us with a sick woman.”
“He was crying.”
“Crocodile tears. Crocodile father.”
“Do you really call every day?” Allie wanted to know.
“At least twice.”
“Do you think she's really his landlady?”
“Do you think he's really a crocodile?”
They both laughed. Allie was surprised that Maddy could keep a secret so well.
“There's a lot about me you don't know,” Maddy said. “You should hear what I say to her.”
Allie had become the one who went to all the doctor's appointments with their mother. She could be relied on to sit in the chemo room for hours, pouring glasses of ginger ale, looking for saltines at the nurses' station, reading aloud from magazines. Back then, there was some talk that Allie would be a doctor. As for Maddy, she already knew what she would be best at: betrayal and revenge.
“I say I'm going to kill her and hang her bones out to dry in our backyard,” Maddy told her sister. Their knees were touching. “I'm going to make soup out of them.”
Allie was shocked. “Maddy!”
“I tell her I'm going to drink her blood and put a hundred needles in her eyes. If she really is just his landlady, she'll kick him out.” The woman on the phone hadn't sounded like a landlady. She sounded like somebody's flustered girlfriend.
“You probably shouldn't do it anymore,” Allie told her. “You'll get us both in trouble and Mom and Dad will be mad.”
“Who cares? I hate them both.” Their mother didn't seem to notice anything—the razor cuts on Maddy's arms and legs, the phone calls she made in the middle of the night. “Maybe they'll disappear and we can live alone in this house,” Maddy said. “Maybe the blue heron will come and we can go and live with him.”
“We can't,” Allie said. “The police would come for us and there'd be a social worker who would put us in foster homes. And anyway, who would take care of Mom?”
“Somebody else,” Maddy had said stubbornly. “Not me.”
THE GROOM'S DINNER WAS crowded. It was held at a French restaurant where they were seated at an enormously long table so it was nearly impossible to talk to anyone. So much the better. When the bride- and the groom-to-be arrived, quite late, actually, which was not Allie's style, everyone stood and applauded. The first course had already been served, a cold pâté with garlic toast. Paul's parents, Frieda and Bill, seemed nice enough, and there were several other relations and friends from Reading. Maddy recognized Mrs. Ridge, the older woman who lived in Kensington. She wore a black Chanel suit, and again, a hat; from certain angles she appeared ageless. Thankfully, she hadn't seen Maddy close up on that unfortunate day in April.
“Hey,” Allie said when she found her sister in the crowd.
“Hey, yourself.”
“You're not staying at the Mandarin?”
“I'm just around the corner. At that place Mom used to talk about.”
“Well, I'm glad you're here.” Allie looked exhausted. She'd lost weight. Maddy wondered if her wedding suit would still fit. “Paul hates this kind of thing. I think he's made his escape.”She nodded toward the bar. “God, maybe I should take off as well. Permanently.”
“What's that supposed to mean?” Maddy asked. When Allie didn't answer, she pressed on. “You're not happy?”
Allie wasn't wearing any makeup. She looked especially pale, run-down. “Do I seem happy?”
Allie was scooped up by her friends, who wanted to know all about the celebrations to come, so she waved and went off with them. There was only one way to get through this event; Maddy drank too much. Enough so that her father noticed.
“What's wrong with you?” Bob Heller asked.
“Why does everyone always assume there's something wrong with me? I'm fine,” Maddy told him.
As soon as she could, she sneaked into the bar. Paul was there, drinking a scotch. The lamplight was yellow and fell in little moon-shaped pools. His eyes seemed weirdly large.
“She knows about us,” Maddy said. “She said she's not happy.”
Paul looked at her blankly, almost as though he didn't recognize her.
“I'm serious.” Maddy began to realize just how drunk she was. “She knows, doesn't she? Are you glad that you've hurt her?”
“I did everything in my power to get her to leave me. Only she wouldn't. She's not disloyal. I don't think she'd know how to be.” Paul looked drained. “So we're getting married. You really should congratulate me.”
“Just tell me. Why me? Why couldn't you have cheated with someone else?”
“You were there. You were willing. You would have hurt her the most.”
“You really are a sick bastard.”
“I am. Precisely. I thought you knew.”
Maddy stood and left the bar. She thought he would try to stop her, but he didn't. She made her way downstairs to the exit. If she fell and broke her neck no one would care. The younger sister who has nothing. Compare and contrast: the dark and the light, the full and the empty, the lost and the found.
She took a taxi back to her hotel. Before going up to her room, she stopped by the bar. There were a few more people than usual, some businessmen, the same young couple as the night before and the older man at the end of the bar with both a whisky and a coffee in front of him.
“I'll have what he's having,” Maddy said.
“Teddy Healy?” the bartender said. “He's here every night, you know. He's cut back on his drinking. One coffee for every two whiskies.”
Maddy raised her glass, then drained her whisky. She took the lift up and made her way to her room. Later, she didn't remember how she'd gotten there. She had never drunk as much as she had in London. Betrayals bred betrayals. She hadn't meant to hurt anyone, and she'd wound up hurting everyone, including herself. She got up and went to the window. From this vantage point all she could see were the angles of brick buildings and a series of rooftops and chimneys. She could barely see the sky. She leaned her head out. The air was sultry. She could spy the main road now and the traffic roaring by, streaks of white and red.
Maddy thought about the sycamore tree in their backyard. She and Allie would stay there for hours, hidden in the branches. Once their mother came out to the lawn and sank down to the grass, where she began to cry. They knew she was waiting for the heron; Allie watched the sky, but Maddy was certain he'd never come back. She was afraid of heights and of the taste of her own disappointment. Her fear must have shown through her skin.
You don't have to look, Allie had whispered. Just keep your eyes closed. I'll let you know when he's here.
MADDY WAS ASLEEP when she heard the man across the hall, shouting. She looked at the clock: ten-thirty again. She went to the door. It sounded like the same fight every night. Maybe all lovers' quarrels were the same hurts repeated over and over again. Maddy put her hand on the doorknob. She could hear her own raspy breathing as she listened to the couple's dispute. It sounded as if it was the end of something.
She sat down cross-legged on the floor, her ear against the door.
“How could you do this?” the man said.
Maddy started to cry even though the quarrel had nothing to do with her. She should have opened her eyes when she was up in that sycamore tree. Maybe then she would have loved her mother. Maybe her mother would have loved her back.
She fell asleep on the carpet, curled up by the door. In the morning, her bones ached. On her way to breakfast she stopped at the desk to complain about her noisy neighbors to a young woman named Kara Atkins who seemed to be in charge of guest services, however limited such services were at the Lion Park.
“The people across from me are making a huge racket. They're ridiculous, the way they go at it. I can't sleep.”
“I'm so sorry. Let me check.” Miss Atkins went to the registry and looked up Maddy's room. “Oh, you're on the seventh floor, 708.”
“They're at it every night. It's en
dless fighting. I know it's none of my business, but it's very disturbing.”
The hotel management would be happy to move Maddy to another floor, Miss Atkins said, but Maddy told her not to bother. Paul might come looking for her; she didn't want to chance not being there.
When she went in to have her breakfast there was Teddy Healy, asleep in one of the booths. He was curled up like a mouse, snoring lightly. He'd been there all night. The hotel management treated him kindly; he was their oldest customer and they seemed to take care of him. Seeing him like that, Maddy decided to pull herself together. Then and there. She did not want to end up drunk in some hotel bar. She was not going to waste away like the heron's wife.
She had coffee and toast and jam and went back upstairs to collect her dress. It was time for the bridesmaids' prewedding fitting. On her way back to her room, she noticed that the door of 707 was open. She peeked in. Hopefully the fighting couple was at last checking out.
The room was empty. Not only were there no guests, there was no furniture. No dresser. No bed. Several mattresses were stored up against the wall. It was freezing. When Maddy exhaled, her breath turned to smoky air. Maddy remembered that her mother's bedroom was always cold. She never wanted to go in there; she was afraid. Maybe she was like her father, ready to run at the first hint of a crisis. Allie had to take her by the hand and pull her past the door. It's just Mom, you silly, she would say. She won't bite.
Maddy went downstairs to the front desk.
“It turns out I don't have neighbors,” Maddy told Miss Atkins. “There's no one in that room where all the fighting's been going on. There's not even a bed in there.”
“Well, they say it's Michael Macklin,” Kara Atkins explained sheepishly.
“Is he famous or something? Am I supposed to know who he is?”
“He's a ghost,” Miss Atkins explained. “Or at least that's what people say. You understand, I don't believe in such things.”
“That's great,” Maddy replied. “I'm glad he's moved.”