Mrs. Saint and the Defectives: A Novel Read online

  She opened the door, and before she or her neighbor could speak, a blur of black-and-white fur reared up, its huge paws hitting Markie in the chest. She stutter-stepped backward to maintain her balance, and her head, not happy with being jostled so fast and without warning, screamed at her. She gently pressed a palm to her temple as the dog, its front feet back on the floor now, pushed its rib cage into her legs and licked her other hand, her wrist, her forearm—its entire body wagging.

  She pulled her hand away and held it out of the dog’s reach, but this only made it bark, a piercing sound that tore through her cranium. It jumped up, trying to reach her hand, and let out another excruciating bark as it rose onto its hind legs, planted its front feet on her chest again, and dove its snout into her armpit. Markie glared at Mrs. Saint, hoping the older woman would read Get this thing off me and out of my house in Markie’s eyes so she wouldn’t have to injure her head by saying the words out loud.

  “She is the Australian kind of sheepdog,” Mrs. Saint said. “A pure one, even, which is rare for finding at a dog pound. But she arrived yesterday only, and because Frédéric has been very early this morning, before anyone else had a chance to see her, this is why he was able. They are very intelligent.”

  Markie pushed the dog off her chest, and it barked, ran around her, barked again, and ran in the other direction. “And very active,” Mrs. Saint said. “So she will take a lot of Chessie’s time for training and exercising. A big responsibility.” She held a leash toward Markie.

  Markie refused to take it. “A lot of Jesse’s time?” she said.

  She couldn’t believe it—now the woman expected Jesse to walk her dog for her? And then it hit her. Her brain, caffeine deprived, wasn’t processing quickly. Of course the woman wasn’t there to show off her new dog.

  “Ohhhhh no,” Markie said, backing away from the woman and the leash. “No, no, no!”

  “Mais, do you not now agree he needs something to occupy his time?” Mrs. Saint asked. “Or someone who will love him like this?”

  She nodded to the dog, now licking Markie’s hand, hitting all the spots between her fingers before moving on to her wrist and then her forearm. She had given up trying to keep them under her armpits, since it only made the dog jump up and bark, and her head couldn’t take either.

  “I love Jesse,” Markie said, and even in her compromised mental state, it sounded as ridiculous as Mrs. Saint’s expression conveyed. Man’s best friend is not his mother.

  “And also this,” Mrs. Saint said, holding out her other hand to offer a folded piece of paper.

  The dog’s records, Markie assumed. She was curious, nothing more, so she took the paper. But when she opened it, she saw a to-do list, a dozen or so jobs to be done around Mrs. Saint’s house. The words “Help Frédéric with” preceded at least half of the tasks.

  “I know he has a father,” Mrs. Saint said, raising her hands in defense. “It is only that Frédéric has been saying he could use some help. He would pay Chessie for the work, of course.”

  “Frédéric would pay?” Markie didn’t know why she was asking about this detail, since she wasn’t about to let her son spend a minute on the other side of the fence.

  “Och, I mean of course I would pay him,” Mrs. Saint said, as though one thing were the same as the other.

  Markie waited for an explanation, but Mrs. Saint turned, pretending to check on something at the door. When she turned back, Markie handed her the list.

  “No. Absolutely not. Jesse has enough on his plate with schoolwork and friends.”

  “But surely you do not still like these friends?”

  Markie was about to lie when Mrs. Saint added, “Frédéric saw.”

  “Saw what?”

  Mrs. Saint pressed her lips together and lowered her chin slightly. Let’s not do this, she seemed to be saying.

  “So Frédéric was at your house at three in the morning?”

  Mrs. Saint lowered her chin again—this wasn’t about where Frédéric spent the night. But she fake-checked the door again, and while her head was turned, she said in a thin voice, “He saw the graffiti at the pharmacy. When he was there first thing, for the paper. He spoke to Ben and found out who.”

  Liar! Markie wanted to scream, but her head wouldn’t permit it. Mrs. Saint turned back from the door, but she wouldn’t make eye contact, and instead, she glanced from the leash, which she held in one hand, to the list in the other, and extended both again.

  Markie ignored both items and basked in the glow of victory. I’ve caught her! She wanted to push the woman on this, this Nosy Parker who was always so eager to push everyone else on everything. But the dog had tired of licking her and was now back to running circles around her, trying to get her to chase it; and Markie, sensing another round of barking coming on, cradled her head in anticipation. She needed the dog to stop, and she needed coffee—those were her priorities. Mrs. Saint’s secret relationship with Frédéric would have to wait.

  She turned to the kitchen, waving a hand vaguely in her neighbor’s direction to let her know she was done talking. She was headed for the coffeemaker when a thumping on the basement stairs created a new assault on her brain, and a second later the door burst open, and Jesse stood in the opening wearing only jeans, his hair a mess, glasses clutched in one hand.

  “I thought I heard barking,” he said, in a voice that showed he knew that couldn’t possibly be what he heard.

  He pushed his glasses on, peered around the kitchen and family room, and spotted their visitors. “Oh, hey! It was barking!”

  The dog, on hearing the new voice, barreled through the kitchen toward the boy, and before Jesse could prepare himself, it leaped up, planting its front paws on his chest. The skinny teenager was no match for the running dog, and he toppled over backward, landing hard on his nonexistent rump. All Markie could see of her son was his jeans and bare feet as the dog stood over him, its tail wagging furiously.

  She heard panting and licking, and “Hey! Hey! Stop!” and prepared herself for the moment when Jesse recovered from the shock and started complaining, maybe even cursing, about the unexpected assault. She wouldn’t blame him for being angry, and she glared at Mrs. Saint herself, ready to add a few choice words to her son’s. The dog was out of control. It was a wonder Jesse hadn’t hit his head and gotten a concussion or stumbled farther backward and all the way down the stairs.

  But Jesse’s protests gave way to giggling, and soon his hands appeared on each of the dog’s sides as he first patted its fur, then buried his hands in it. The dog’s legs folded as it lay flat on top of the boy who, still laughing, lifted his head off the floor and peered over the animal’s back at Markie and Mrs. Saint. This exposed his neck, which the dog immediately attacked with its long tongue, sending Jesse into hysterics.

  His “Stop! Stop!” was the same fake protest Markie had many times heard before, when he was a little boy, begging her and Kyle to stop tickling him while at the same time hoping they would keep it up. His hands moved up the dog to the crest of its back, where they joined, his fingers interlacing as he hugged the animal close. Markie could see his head moving side to side as he burrowed his face into the dog’s fur.

  She dreaded turning back around and facing Mrs. Saint, who would surely be smiling smugly, waiting for Markie’s concession that the older woman did indeed know what was best for Jesse. She gritted her teeth and faced her neighbor, and she was shocked to see that the old woman’s eyes were glassy, not triumphant, and her lips, which didn’t seem to know if they should form a happy arc or a regretful one, trembled from one shape to the other. She was looking at the boy and the dog, but at the same time, she seemed to be looking through them to some other place and time.

  Was it her own childhood she was remembering? Markie wondered. Or one she had once hoped to witness and never did? Markie recalled Mrs. Saint’s curt “Non” when she had asked about children. But was curt the correct word? Or was it that the topic was a painful one for her neighb
or, and she simply hadn’t wanted to discuss it? Not every woman is heartbroken to not have children, but plenty are.

  How did I overlook that possibility? Markie asked herself. Why had she allowed herself to leap straight to a conclusion that was completely devoid of compassion? And she had done the same thing with her neighbor’s evasiveness about the topic of how she knew Frédéric; for all she knew, there could be an equally reasonable justification for why Mrs. Saint didn’t want to discuss it. Yet all this time, Markie had been irritated by her refusal to answer. She had been five parts suspicion and zero parts sympathy. So eager to blame, so slow to try to understand.

  God, Markie thought, when did I become so hard?

  She regarded her son, still laughing as he hugged the dog. She didn’t want a dog. But then, she also hadn’t wanted to give things another try with Kyle, and now he had dissolved into vapor in his child’s life. She hadn’t wanted to borrow more money from her parents to keep Jesse at Saint Mark’s, either, or to stay in town near his old friends, so she had moved him away, stuck him in a big public school with a new batch of kids—and look how that was turning out.

  She reached for the leash. “But that’s all,” she said firmly. “No jobs for Jesse.” She pointed to the list in the woman’s other hand and shook her head.

  Mrs. Saint tucked the paper away in her jacket pocket, and Markie waited for an indication that the bossy old woman was thinking to herself that the dog was not all, in fact, and there would indeed be jobs for Jesse. But Mrs. Saint’s wistful expression didn’t change, and when she withdrew her hand from her pocket, it clutched a tissue, which she touched to the inside corner of each eye.

  “I have left food and bowls outside the door,” she whispered, turning to leave. “And Frédéric will come soon with a cage—I mean to say a crate—in case you . . .” She bowed her head and gave up the end of her sentence. Reaching the door, she gave Markie a quivering smile, then let herself out.

  Markie rushed to the window and watched as Mrs. Saint made her way slowly home, stopping several times to lift the tissue to her eyes. Frédéric appeared then, carrying a dog crate out of the garage. When he saw Mrs. Saint, he stopped midstride, dropped the crate, and ran to her, a hand extended. Markie waited for the old woman to wave him off, annoyed, but instead, she allowed him to take her arm.

  When she was safely on the other side of the fence, the old woman tilted her head and rested her cheek on his chest. Markie’s jaw dropped, and her mouth stayed open for a long moment as Frédéric and Mrs. Saint stood there, his lips moving as he said things that made her nod her head or shrug or lean harder against him. From time to time, she raised the tissue again, until finally he took it from her and touched it to her eyes himself.

  Markie couldn’t breathe. Her own eyes filled, and as she reached up to wipe them, she realized her head no longer pounded. The ache had moved to the left side of her chest.

  Finally, Mrs. Saint extricated herself and continued toward the house. Frédéric called something after her, and she held up a hand without turning back, then let herself in the side door and disappeared while he remained at the fence, staring after her. He pressed the tissue to his own eyes and held it there for a moment before he shoved it in the pocket of his dress pants and trudged, slump-shouldered, to retrieve the crate.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The dog was finally, blessedly, asleep. Jesse had wrestled with her for an hour in the backyard, then fed her and took her for a long walk. She was on high energy for all of it, with no signs of tiring, and Markie wondered what feat of strength it would take for him to force her into her crate. But when they returned from their walk, he simply pointed to the bed waiting inside the metal enclosure and said, “Crate,” and she walked in happily and plunked herself down, exhausted. When he latched the door closed, she looked up, mildly curious, and then laid her head back down. She was snoring moments later.

  Markie sent him immediately to the pharmacy to apologize to the Levins, telling him their discussion about consequences could wait. She had no intention of being home alone when the animal was fully rested and back into jumping/running/barking/licking mode. Along with the food and bowls, Mrs. Saint had left a long tie-out leash for the yard, a luxurious-looking dog bed and matching blanket, a thin file about “Angel” that the pound had handed over, and a book about Australian sheepdogs. Markie glanced at the table of contents, and when she saw the chapter titled “High Intelligence, Higher Energy,” she closed the book, frowned at the sleeping animal, and silently cursed her neighbor for forcing on them the exact thing she didn’t need in her life right then.

  She decided that when she and Jesse did get around to their consequences discussion, part of it would include a threat that if the dog became too much for her son to handle, they would take it straight back to the pound. Her capitulation had come during a moment of mental weakness, brought on by her hangover and caffeine withdrawal. Now that she had partially cured herself with two cups of strong coffee and three ibuprofen, she was thinking more clearly, and she was prepared to set some firm limits.

  At about the time she was beginning to wonder how things were going at the pharmacy, Jesse walked in. She didn’t have to ask how it went: he was crying. She stood and opened her arms, but he evaded her hug and flopped onto the family room rug beside the crate. He unlatched the door and Angel rushed out, ready to play.

  “No,” he told her quietly. “Just lie down.” To Markie’s surprise, the dog folded her legs, landing on her stomach, and nestled her nose into his neck. He pushed her gently on her side and buried his face in her furry chest, and Markie silently cursed her neighbor again—for forcing on them the exact thing her son needed in his life right then.

  She gave him what she hoped was enough time, and then asked, “So I guess the Levins didn’t want to listen to your apology?”

  “They listened,” he said, his voice muffled by the dog’s coat.

  “Oh! Good. But then why are you—”

  “He was devastated, Mom!” It wasn’t easy to make out his words, but he had his face pressed into the dog for a reason, so she wasn’t about to ask him to sit up and face her so she could hear him more clearly. After a while, Jesse rolled his head away from Angel and looked at his mother with red-rimmed eyes.

  “He’s almost eighty,” he said, “and of course he has that German accent. I never added it up before.” He made a guttural noise then, his mouth twisting in self-hatred. “I’m such a jerk!” He waited for her to catch on, and when she didn’t, he said, “Have you heard of Kristallnacht?”

  “Oh my God,” she said, and now she felt like the jerk.

  “He told me all about it. He said it was the most terrifying night of his life!” Jesse cried, his voice in splinters. “They lost everything, including the store his father had spent a lifetime building! And guess what kind of store it was? A pharmacy!”

  “Jesus.”

  “And we had to go and fucking spray-paint all over the store he built here! I am such an asshole!”

  He didn’t apologize for the language, and Markie made no comment about it as she watched him pull the dog closer, its wide, pink tongue lapping across his eyes over and over as his rib cage jumped up and down with his sobs. Finally, his body stilled and the pink tongue moved to his neck. He cleared his throat and spoke in a voice he struggled to keep from breaking.

  “Mrs. Levin told me that when the police called them last night, they both drove straight over to look, and for the entire ride over, they held each other’s hands and cried. She said when Mr. Levin saw the store all covered with paint, the whole thing came back to him so loudly he actually covered his ears. He could hear it like it was happening again, right there—rocks going through windows, and people crying and yelling in the streets.

  “And he could see it, too—old men getting beaten up right in front of everyone, his sister crying, his parents shouting at them to hurry up and pack, they were leaving right away—” Jesse’s voice cracked, and his whole
body shook. He sniffed, dragged an arm across his nose, and tried to compose himself.

  “He set it up inside to look just like his dad’s. The pharmacy, I mean. His parents never saw it. They never made it out. Only he and his sister did, and before he left, he promised his dad he’d do this—set up another store, make it look exactly the same. Carry on what his dad had started. Mrs. Levin told me she’s known all along that he’s more proud of the store than he was when their kids were born. And it’s never bothered her, because the kids were for the two of them, but the store was for”—his voice broke again—“everyone who came before them.”

  He rolled onto his back and raised his right arm high into the air before bringing it down fast, slamming his hand on the floor. It made a loud thwomp! on the area rug, and Markie gasped—if he had done that on the wood floor, he surely would have broken bones. Before she could ask if he was okay, he rolled back onto his side and shoved his face into Angel’s fur again. The dog wagged her tail and licked the top of his head as he howled into her chest.

  It was shameful, what Jesse and his friends had done to Mr. Levin’s store, what they had put that lovely old couple through. But as she watched her son crying into his dog’s fur, she felt no shame. Jesse had sucked all of that emotion from the air inside the bungalow, leaving none for her to grab on to. Instead, she felt sadness that this sensitive boy felt lost enough, insecure enough in his new friendships, desperate enough to do whatever it took to cling to them, that he had allowed himself to go along with something that was anathema to the person he really was.