“Ida,” she said, calmly touching the old woman’s hand. “Did she kill her?”
“Did she—”
“Ida… I know that she killed her. Isn’t that what you wanted to tell me? Isn’t that what was so ‘urgent’?”
“Oh — no! No! No! Good Lord, no…” she said, aghast.
“You can tell me now — you won’t get in trouble.” She felt grounded and alive. “Because it’s over. Reina is dead and it’s all over. It doesn’t matter anymore, Ida, so don’t be afraid.”
“But she didn’t! No no no, no one killed that little girl! Oh, mercy! Oh, you poor, poor thing! Mercy, mercy, mercy! And it’s my fault for not calling you — I should have called a long, long time ago! Oh, Lord have mercy on our souls!”
Dusty caressed the spinster’s bruisy arm, and flashed on paramedics invading the house; Ida’s end of days.
“Your mother told you that your little girl was adopted — she told me that — but it just wasn’t true! She gave her away! She paid a girl to take her away! I saw the woman and her man-friend steal it. Steal the baby! I watched from my window! Arnold — your father — the dear man — this was years later, just before he died — he used to write me the most beautiful letters — your father told me — oh and it broke his heart! — that Reina paid the gal to take her. He begged her not to do that, Arnold said, ‘Please take the little thing to a hospital! We dasn’t do this, please!’—because he knew it wasn’t right—but she — Reina — wouldn’t — well, you know what she was like! And you knew the young gal, you knew her, she sat for you, and oh Dusty, I just never thought the gal was fit. I thought she was unbalanced and somewhat of a — well, she was a whore. She had different men at the house when she looked after you, many men, you were so little, and Reina turned a blind eye, but I watched from my window. I just don’t think that gal was fit, and I don’t see how she could ever have been fit to be a mother to that — to your little girl… I always thought she was a very disturbed young lady and could not understand — I could not understand how Reina let her in that house the way she did, to look after you! And none of it was legal, you see, I would have had no trouble with an adoption, no trouble at all, it would have been the best thing, but this was not legal and that is what has bothered me all these years! And that is why I wrote to you, to tell you, and clear my conscience. Oh Lord have mercy! It was not legal. You see it just wasn’t right, and should have been handled quite differently.
“One must always obey the law.”
—
Ida’s news dismantled her on a number of levels.
After the shock engendered by Livia’s inference of homicide had subsided, Dusty experienced what she could only describe to her therapist as a feeling of intense relief. The grisly “solution” of her daughter’s murder tied everything up in a silver bow, letting Dusty off the hook. It no longer mattered that she never went looking for her baby — in fact, she was far better off for having done nothing. An added bonus was the shower of fresh blame she could unleash upon her mother’s corpse, a pastime that always rejuvenated. With the polished stone of rage born of the terrible suffering both had caused, she killed two birds: demon mother and martyred child. It was a win-win.
But now she was robbed of such closure. That familiar, lifelong fetish of self-hatred, only recently banished, rose in her throat like vomit. She excoriated herself for “wishing” her baby dead — her Aurora! Her beloved, whom she’d recently disinterred, rhapsodizing over her corpse with Ronny! Aurora: holy grail of her rapturous quest for motherhood, mother love, completion! She had looked spinster Pinkert right in the eye, so certain that Baby Rory was dead, daring her not to tell her otherwise… The hubris! Her revulsion was unbearable. Reina once said it and Reina was right: she, Janine Whitmore, was unfit to be a mother—or anything else.
In an instant, the burgeoning, self-proclaimed hero of her own story was covered in horror and shame, less than human.
Again.
She regressed and became undone.
Dusty told her wife that she needed to sleep alone for a while. She stopped sharing information with Allegra about the search. The actress was amicably distant. Allegra thought she knew why.
—
During this time of withdrawal, Allegra began seeing Larissa. She was playing with fire but felt justified. She strongly suspected Dusty and the stand-in were having an affair — that would explain so much.
She was on an information-gathering mission, or so she told herself.
Today, instead of the invisible Miracle Mile IHOP where they’d had a few rendezvouses, they met at Larissa’s house in Mar Vista. Even though they hadn’t fooled around since that time at Soho, Allegra knew it was dangerous. The irony of a covert dalliance with Dusty’s “double” wasn’t lost, amplifying the frisson of guilty arousal; if nothing about it felt right, it felt sexy, and she didn’t want to overthink. (She wasn’t thinking at all.) Apart from the fact-finding aspect, the clandestine get-togethers with her wife’s probable lover were an antidote to Allegra’s jealousy, furor, and confusion. Besides, there could only be consequences — real consequences — if her suspicions were unfounded. Which they weren’t. Because why else would Dusty have lied about seeing Larissa in the weeks following the notorious ménage?
If she couldn’t confront her wife, her wife’s stand-in would do.
“Are you having an affair?”
They were on the couch in the living room of the modest Spanish bungalow, whose furnishings and general vibe had seen better days.
“With Dusty? No!” protested Larissa, in dinner theater — style outrage. “Allegra, please.”
“Well, I think that you are,” said the guest, determined to hold ground.
“We have tea. After yoga. We talk.”
“What about?”
“Just… stuff. Oh come on, Allegra! I think she’s just lonely.”
That hit her like a fist in the stomach because they used to talk all the time, about everything. Bunny + Leggy — Best Friends Forever…
“Stuff like what?”
“I don’t know, just… things. We just talk about—I talk about — my son. Or my ex, who almost just died.”
“What does she talk about?”
“Her life… her mom. Stuff.”