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The truth is better than any religion. Mary knows this like every scar on her boy. Like every dimple and smile he’s ever given her. Hope is dirtier than any truth and despite her wishes she still clung dearly to it.
When Mary awakens to a room she hasn’t been in for years she does not hope. Does not assume. She takes the truth of her state: a rib is broken, her nose has been reset. There is blood leaking onto the sheets. She is alone. Moving hurts but she does not let herself feel the pain. Gets swiftly out of bed like nothing is wrong, like her husband is hidden in the closet watching her every move. She will not show weakness, not to the drapes or the pillows. Certainly not to herself.
The curtains are pulled back, the sun is shining. With a dull creak the window can be pushed open and the smell of rain fills the room. She breathes deeply and does not hope.
The first aid kit is where it should be. Right where she left it under the bathroom sink. She does not grit her teeth when the needle sinks into her skin. Her breathing does not fall short when she slides it through herself again and again, restitching open wounds.These bathroom walls will not know her pain, never again. The needle stitching her up is not an act of self preservation, it is simply cleaning up a mess.
The silk robe is still on the back of the door, and she pulls it over herself like armor before she walks out into the hall. The floorboards creek like she remembers, she remembers the pattern, how to not make sound, but she walks freely over every single one. Let them hear her coming.
Her son’s room is just as they left it. Someone has been in here, has dusted but not picked up any of the toys that still lay cluttering the floor. The bed is unmade like it was the night that she had pulled him from his sleep.
He is not here.
Mary does not let herself hope.
She descends the stairs, lets her feet fall heavy. Hears, surprisingly, only silence. She does not know the last time this house has been silent. She doesn’t think it ever has been. There were always people coming in and out, even in the dead of night. Always people talking loudly in the foyer, the light patter of the maids and the chef. Always thumping coming from just behind the basement door despite their best attempts at sound proofing.
The kitchen is clean. Well stocked, their staff is absent. She runs her hands along the marble countertops. They had the kitchen remodeled in the summer, when a body had sat too long and the smell of its death had wafted up into the home and everyone was too sick to eat. Nobody complained, nobody admitted to the way they could feel the smell clinging to their skin. They ate on the patio and told each other it was because they shouldn’t waste a sunny day. Lola had spent the next week cleaning the basement until the smell was choked out by bleach and still it wasn’t enough to rid the kitchen of its remnants. The smell had set into the wood of the cabinets contorting their doors and stained the black counter tops. Until, if even by looking at the kitchen you’d think the appliances were rotting and bloated.
And suddenly Mary is angry. Maybe it's the emptiness, the silence of the house building in the canal of her ears. A pressure that refuses to leave and instead insists on building and building and building, never granting release. Maybe it's the anticipation of when someone will come home. Mary needs someone to hear her, to feel her presence, to see her, here again. The matron is home, and she will let her displeasure be known.
The plate hits the ground, shattering. The sound piercing in the stillness of the house. And still nothing.
Mary grabs a handful of them and throws them to the floor, their intricate details breaking and skittering across the hardwood. She goes for the glasses next: the drinking glasses, the wine glasses, the ones reserved for hard liquor and the teacups.
No one appears, no one screams, no one yells. Suddenly the house is hers. Mary lets the rage consume her, feels her breathing grow faster and ragged until she's surrounded by a sea of glass and porcelain. Until walking from one end of the island to the next threatens to cut her feet.
And when she has broken everything to break she goes for the pots and the pans, lets them clatter to the floor, lets them mercilessly grind the plates to dust on impact. Mary laughs, and still her destruction of the room laughs louder.
She almost doesn't hear the phone ring. Its shrill note quieter than her mirth and then echoing off the walls deafeningly in its absence. Mary picks her way through the rubble, kicking aside the wreckage before approaching the landline.
She watches as it rings and dies out. Reclaims her breath. Listens as the message comes through, words that don’t mean anything to her but must to someone. To whoever was supposed to be here to answer it. It’s coded, full of phrasing she doesn’t understand to explain things she doesn’t want to know. Mary picks up the phone.
She knows the numbers by heart, she could call him in her sleep.
“You’ve reached the Hatford residence, how may I assist you today?”
“Stuart, put Stuart on.” Her voice sounds soft to her ears. She sounds weak.
“I’m sorry ma’am but I can’t just—“
“Yes you can. Tell him Mary is calling. Tell him if he doesn’t pick up the phone I won’t call again.” And suddenly Mary is herself again, the edge to her voice is back, she demands a presence. She will be heard.
Silence from the phone, muffled speaking as a hand lightly blocks the microphone.
“One moment.” The lady on the other end says hurriedly and then a clack as a phone is placed on a table. And then haggard breathing.
“Mary?”
She almost smiles. “Tell me the state of affairs”
Her brother coughs, clearing his throat. She can almost see the wrinkle in his brow and the scrunch of his nose.
“You are safe where you are. Immunity has been granted.”
“I did not ask for —“
“But we gave it anyway. Mary just listen.” And then when she doesn’t speak, “Please.” He takes her silence as relent and continues, “We saw the news, feds cleared it out before we could get people there. Nathan is awaiting trial for your assault and whatever else they can dig up on him. Unless the Moriyamas step-in he’ll rot.”
“And Abram?” Mary does not choke the words out, she does not let herself hope. She curses herself for even asking.
“We’re um… well…uh…”
“Stuart.” Mary presses, the phone's plastic creaking in her hand as she grasps it, “Where is my son Stuart?”
“We’re waiting for him to call.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“He probably thinks you’re dead. He’s fifteen, probably thinks his father is still after him. He'll call.”
Mary laughs, unamused and grits out again, “And if he doesn’t?”
“Mary, we’ll find him. Feds are looking and so are we, he’ll turn up eventually.”
Mary sighs and presses her fingers into the bridge of her nose. Does not let herself hope, instead takes in the truth. Her son is safe, Nathan is handled, she is safe. Her boy was too smart to call and too stupid to not get caught.
“His people?”
“You were bought out, you’re safe. Both of you.”
“Again I did not ask.”
“Noted. It was the safest option. We had the money for it and your safety became a priority.”
“I told you I would handle it myself.”
“And look where that got you.” Silence. The line hums. When Stuart realizes she will not acknowledge the sentiment he continues, “I’m sorry Mary, but we couldn’t just let this—“
“Why are we a priority?”
“What?”
“Why now Stuart, we always had the money. Why now are we a priority?”
“Mary—“
“No. You could have bought us out at anytime. If you were happy to let me handle it why change your mind. Why now?”
Stuart sighs over the line, and Mary can practically hear his inner monologue as he debates telling her. “He’s getting older. We don’t have any other options at the moment and experience like his can’t be bought—”
“And yet you've managed to anyway.” Mary scoffs and slams the phone back into the receiver, forearms pressed against the wall, Mary shakes with rage. Stupid Stuart, stupid Abram, stupid Nathan, stupid fucking Mary. Stupid for the dirty shreds of hope that still live in her despite the all too clear truth, that they have been nothing more than pawns. Stupid anyone who thinks she’ll let her son be heir to any of this.
Her Luckies are still in the drawer where she left them. Mary inhales clean rain air, turns up the radio. Let’s the chatter wash over her while she smokes. The house will not be hers forever, someone will be home soon and she will be here waiting.
Groceries. They used to have someone to do this for them but most of the staff had been released for a paid vacation. Damage control at its finest. Lola bickers with herself as she pushes open the front door. Somewhere in the house a radio is playing near full volume but Lola gives Mary’s renewed presence in the house no mind as she makes her way to the kitchen. And stops.
The cabinets have been left open, every single one of them bare and what’s left of their contents lies scattered across the kitchen floor. An inch of glass protrudes from the hardwood and Lola picks herself across the sea of it to set her bags down before making her way towards the source of the destruction.
“I thought you would have left by now.” Lola says, ripping her eyes from the woman laid out on the couch and motions with her head towards the one woman disaster in the kitchen, “You sure did a number on the place.”
Mary hums and flicks the ash off her cigarette, “I'm thinking of burning it down.”
“I can't allow that.” Lola says in a huff, sweeping her eyes across the living room but finding Mary’s destruction relegated only to the kitchen.
“I’ll wait till you leave,” Mary says before wrapping her lips around the end of her cigarette and Lola pretends desperately that she isn't mesmerized by the way Mary's lips pucker and her eyes flutter shut. The moment is over and Mary is glaring again at her too soon. “You are leaving right?”
“Ive been asked to watch over you.”
Marry grimaces and flicks cigarette ashes onto the couch. They glow briefly and fade out, seemingly, much to Mary’s annoyance. “You seem to do every job except the one you were hired for. Don't you have some puddle to clean up?”
Lola scowls and decides to move on from the jab, “I’ll get someone to clean up the glass in the kitchen. You didn’t wreck any of the other rooms did you?”
“Dont, leave it,” Mary says, ignoring her question. “I'm hoping you accidently stab yourself in the foot and bleed out.”
Lola huffs, she hates this woman, “Seems a rather impractical way of getting rid of me”
“I have a lot of faith in your stupidity; I'm sure you'll manage to see my plan through”
Lola almost stalls before the words come out, a last ditch, hindbrain attempt at self preservation but she can’t help herself from picking at old wounds. “I think you just don’t have the guts to kill me yourself Mary.”
Mary's eyes widen and she ashes the cigarette. “Now what gave you that impression?”
Lola’s eyes slide off of Mary's and to the smoke leaking from the ashtray.
“It couldn't have been the bodies I've left behind for you. Surely not my work for my family.” There's a pause and Lola clenches her jaw to keep from screaming, “Oh! I know!” she exclaims with what Lola thinks must be her usual brand of mocking cheer but it sounds off. False. “But Lola, dear, you can't really think you’re that important to him? You can't really think he'd be mad at me for that? Lola, I took his son and his money and he still doesn't have the guts to kill me. You shouldn't have such confidence about these kinds of things, there are more lives than yours on the line here“
Lola's eyes snap to Mary’s as she grits out, "Don't talk about my brother.”
Mary is on the couch one moment and slamming Lola against the wall the next, kitchen knife pressed to the soft flesh of her jugular. The jagged one used to cut bread, one that will rip her flesh unevenly. Mary's favorite knife to threaten her with.
She reacts out of instinct, throwing the flat of her palm up to Mary's jaw and the other hand to Mary’s wrist. The older woman grunts and Lola can see blood dripping out of her mouth, down her chin. She can't help but like the way the blood clashes against the woman's warm skin tone.
Her appreciation is cut short as Mary twists out of her grip and throws her to the floor. Lola grunts in surprise and is stopped short by the pain in her wrists as they’re held down above her head, Mary's warm body pressed against hers and the knife once again pressed against her skin.
“I am not the pampered girl who you knew Lola. I will not feed into your petty competition over my husband, take him; I have outgrown him. I thought you would have learned that by now. I will not hold back to save face, I will not accept your taunts and jeers, I am sick of your shit and it’s time you learned your place. I may not be a Hatford anymore, but you are nothing but a glorified maid. Don’t look so high and mighty, dog. Your master will not save you, Nathan wouldn’t even bat an eye at your death.”
Lola clenches her jaw and lets the almost familiar words fuel the anger flooding her veins, using the adrenaline to kick up against Mary, but the older woman holds fast. Panting, Lola lets her body go lax and glares up at the face looming over her. She expected a smile, mocking her in the older woman’s victory but Mary just looked down at her, the corners of her mouth curled down. Considering her, seeing her.
The lack of it just makes Lola angrier. Lola could remember when Mary would smile, a small merciless thing. Genuine cheer and unrelenting. Lola remembered the way it would grate against her ears as Mary mocked her efforts to steal her husband’s affection. The same jagged edges of the knife pressed to her stomach, the only knife she’d ever been scared off. The only one that stole her breath away. Her laughter now was tinged with misery, with desperation, her joy at Lola's expense was fake. Lola mourned it, mourned the fighting. It wasn’t weakness Lola knew, it was indifference and that hurt worse than she knew the knife would.
Mary hadn’t lost her husband, hadn’t given him away. She had left him. There was nothing for them to fight over now. Lola was not a threat to Mary anymore; she was nothing
“Running has made you ugly.” Lola spits.
It's a lie. Lola has never seen anyone so beautiful. Mary is nothing like the young clean, porcelain skinned woman that came to them years before. Nothing like the shadow that had haunted Lola’s master’s house, insisting Lola bow to her on name alone. Now, her skin is reminiscent of leather from hours in the sun and shows her age plus more – wrinkles forming at her nose, and eyes, and the corner of her lips. Lola can see tinges of white at the roots of her strawberry blond hair. And then of course there were the scars that laced every inch of the woman, the scraped together muscle from someone who was strong but never ate quite enough, the way the very being—every bone, every breathe, every cell— of her rebelled against death. The sureness and confidence that gleamed in her eyes now, refusing to die no matter how many times Nathan and his men had tried to beat it out of her over the years.
This Mary was nothing like the girl Lola had grown to hate for her privilege. Nothing like the smirking bitch whose smile had mocked Lola, making them peel back every layer of armor to poke at petty insecurities over and over again, like children on a playground. Nothing like the woman who whispered, a smile pressed into Lola's cheek, “You think you can take him because you’re younger? Please Lola, I am everything you could only hope to be. It would take a miracle for him to even look at you.”
Now Mary plays in violence. She is war torn and desperate, an animal on her last legs. She used to only see it in Nathan, that blood hungry starvation. That fight for survival, that clawing for power. Every new glimpse of her over the years it was clear to see it had grown more and more. Lola had longed for those moments during long stretches of nothing, where they hunted and killed to get even an idea of her and the boy’s whereabouts. And now, with the woman finally in front of her again, Lola wanted to worship every piece of skin Mary would let her touch.
Maybe Lola was just in love with the whole family.
“Oh? Has it?” Mary whispers, digging the knife further into Lola's neck until she feels the skin break. Lola shuts her eyes against whatever emotion is playing against the woman's face and cringes away as Mary leans down to whisper in her ear, “You are just as beautiful as ever.”
Lola feels the blade of the knife lift from her neck and her eyes find Mary’s again, widening in shock as the woman’s tongue flips along the smooth side of the blade. Blood against pink tongue against red lipstick. Lola hasn’t seen Mary wearing lipstick in years. The last time… must have been in France. Her and the boy had been hiding in a small town in the south. Mary had been wearing the black apron all the employees wore, mascara, knock off loafers with a half-inch heel. Purple lipstick. She had still been young then but she was obviously overwhelmed, hair disheveled, lips pulled down in a frown that had aged her, sweat beading in her hairline.
Lola still remembered rummaging through the cabinet in the home they had been hiding out in. The makeup had been left, but no purple lipstick. Lola had thought a lot about where Mary had gotten it from. Who Mary had gotten it from.
“Do you want to know a secret Lola?” Mary says, and she’s close again. Lips inches from Lola’s own. Eyes crinkling, almost smiling, something like a grimace. Again, not meanly. Not like Mary was laughing at her. Lola shakes her head in spite of it.
“I’m going to tell you anyway.” And now she does smile, a real, soft thing. Something that Lola can hold on to, something she can keep in her back pocket. For what she is not sure yet but Lola is sure she’s never seen Mary smile like that. “Killing you would be a waste, and not just because you’re pretty.”
Mary’s lips meet hers as she says it, tickling the skin there in a way that makes Lola want to kick her off. But Lola doesn’t dare. Couldn’t if she wanted to, shell shocked and wide eyed, staring up at a predator, her eyes still bright with something silent. Something she can only recognize as the fear that came from wanting.
Mary straightens out. The knife disappears and a second later so does the woman’s weight, but before Lola can push herself up, get a wall behind her, get some goddamn distance, Mary speaks again, “A word of advice from an old woman Lola, one who’s been doing this far longer than you: it’s time you reconsider where your loyalties lie. What’s coming next won’t be pretty, and if I were you I’d hitch myself to the power that isn’t a sitting duck behind bars.”
“And loyalty to you, what does that look like?” The betrayal leaks from her lips like a prayer.
Mary smiles now, cocks her head and her eyes wander upwards towards the ceiling fan. “Oh you wouldn't be doing anything too different. We’re going to go find my son.”
Lola watches her leave. Considers. Mary has no connections, no real influence or power. She has rebuked the Wesninski and Hatford name. Mary stands alone now, still reeks of power. She considers the lean frame of the woman, the savage brilliance of her mind, the softness of her smile where everything else is hard and rough and jagged and comes to the conclusion that she wants Mary to trust her enough to kiss her with her eyes closed.