“They were boring,” she said. “I’ve seen them. ScoobyDoo is for babies, anyway.”
“There were some other movies, too,” Esme said. “But I guess the reporters were more interesting.” She added this last bit casually, even sighed a little, like: Oh well, this country’s romance with the press has been in evidence for centuries untold, no harm done.
Ida perked up slightly. “Yeah, they were nice to me.”
They. So before it was one; now it was many. The DoD had arms.
“So you talked to them through the gates, honey? That’s a long walk from the house, and it’s cold out!”
“Mo-om,” Ida said, annoyed. “Don’t you listen? They came up to the lawn. The back patio, too.”
Crystal popped a candy in her mouth. She said, “I guess it won’t surprise you to find out Rita fired me.”
Esme shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
“You got fired?” Ida said. She was gauging the mood of the room, trying to decide if this was funny or not. It was not.
“Yes. Because when your boss’s husband gets abducted, sometimes your boss thinks it’s your fault. She fired me from her bed. How humiliating.”
“What’s abducted?” Ida said.
“What, indeed,” Crystal said. “Sometimes it means being stolen from your perfectly honest life in foster care and thrown in with people you don’t know at all.”
“Sometimes,” Martin said, getting into the spirit of things, “it’s like those alien movies, you’ve seen those, where people get invited to hang out on another planet for a while.”
“Invited,” Crystal said.
“Enough,” Esme said. “Can we just talk about the reporters, please?”—forgetting she was trying to finesse her daughter and blowing the effort because Ida gave up on the adult discourse and retrieved an activity book from her knapsack. Esme could not help but notice that not a single animal was colored solid or even coherently. Why couldn’t her daughter keep to the lines?
“Ida, you only just got here. Don’t you want to pay me a little attention?” Esme was being weighed against the Little Mermaid and found wanting. “Just for a second?”
Ida rolled her eyes and said, “Ohhhkay,” and then, without prelude, knocked her head against her mother’s shoulder. Not hard, but insistent.
“Turtle, it’s okay. It’s your birthday soon, maybe we’re going to take a vacation. Just us two. Maybe sooner, if you can tell me something about the reporter you talked to.”
“Can we visit Ma and Pop?”
Esme nodded, and the words came out before she could stop them. “Sure, honey bun. Sure. Your grandparents miss you a lot.”
She was glad to be pressing Ida’s forehead to her neck, because in no way could she make eye contact with her. Already Crystal was remonstrating with jaw open and lids drawn so far back in disbelief they looked ready to dip behind her eyeballs. Even Martin shook his head.
What was worse than manipulating your daughter? Than lying in ways for which she would never forgive you? What was worse was your unstable DoD contact come to snatch your kid as collateral lest you cough up his name to the press. Jim had already left Esme unconscious on the bathroom floor. Who knew what he’d do next.
“So, the reporter,” she said. “Was he fancy? Like, in a suit and tie? Did he know your name?”
But Crystal had had enough. She said, “No, okay? No. Just normal press guys.”
“Okay, good.” It was the answer Esme wanted, the tension chased from her body, the lights gone out, only Ida saw it wrong and so, pawing in the dark, she said, “Yeah, but you didn’t see the one guy talking to me. You can’t see everything I do!” followed by her storming the bathroom. Slam went the door, though it was broken already.
Esme stood. Tried to think. Were there any safe places left to send Ida? School was out; even the English-speaking lycée in Haiti was out, because that was where all the spook kids went. As for the few at the DoD who had been briefed on the Taskforce for the Infiltration and Dismantling of the Helix, they were smote with amnesia — Esme Haas? Never heard of her — and thus unavailing of protections in vogue among mafia turncoats and spies. So that was out. Only place she could think of was her parents’ cabin in North Carolina, though Ida could hardly stay there alone.
Crystal said, “I’d better take her home,” and motioned at the bathroom. They could all hear Ida crying. Esme shook her head; there was only one thing to do. “Why not let Martin take her to the mall first. Buy some new clothes. Toiletries, too. Pajamas are fun.” Then, raising her voice, “That sound good, Ida? How about we take that trip right now.”
The door opened a wedge, the child nodding, eyes floorward.
Esme squatted. “Now, listen,” she said. “I know things seem a little weird, but everything’s fine. Even if they don’t seem fine, they are. Also, I have a surprise for you. Martin will tell you in the car.” And as Ida looked warily at her mother and her mother at Martin and Martin at his phone, to make sure it was on for when Esme texted him instructions the second they left the hotel, an NPR commentator broadcast the news: the FBI had just issued Thurlow Dan an ultimatum. Come out or we’re coming in. And, by way of subtext: If the hostages die, it’s on you.
By now it was nighttime, which meant nothing would happen at the Helix House until dawn. Chances of a botched raid were high, higher still in the dark. The feds would wait.
When Esme saw Ida had fallen asleep, the release in her chest was awful. Had she really not been breathing? She was, quite obviously, afraid of her child. The child who was assiduous in the upgrading of her rage, so that by the time she got to Esme’s age, she would have rarefied her temper into a bid for the sublime. Already, it was bracing. In sleep, though, people forget themselves, or come into the selves they’ve spent most of their lives trying to repress. Ida was fetal, with knees and forehead sewn to Esme’s side. She had released the day’s hatred and said with the array of her body what she’d been feeling in secret: Mom, I need you; Mom, don’t leave. Her hair was in a twist, clutched in her palm. Esme checked her forehead, and, yes, she hoped it was warm, because whatever chance the world gave this mother to source her child’s problems elsewhere, she would take it. Ida mumbled and flung her arm around her mother’s waist. Esme felt Ida’s nails dent her skin and thought that if she could just break Ida of need in sleep, it would do wonders for her awake. Also, she could not write like this. She freed her hand from her hip and slipped out of bed. For a second, Ida cast about the mattress; then she rediscovered her hair.
In every life, an unraveling. Esme’s had started at her parents’ just a few weeks ago. Surprise! She had dropped in for a visit. She had taken a bus and ended up calling from the road. Her dad answered. He was hard of hearing, so it was: Who? Leslie? About what? And then her mother, who said, Hello, Esmeralda, though this name was not even on her birth certificate; it was simply what Linda called her when she was angry. Esme didn’t get a word in before she was hissing about Ida. Yes, of course they hadn’t told her about her father, because, duh, instructions from the butler — P.S. Don’t tell Ida she is cognate with a cult leader—were binding in every universe, except, Jesus, who taught Esme to parent like this? Because, as far as her mom knew, she’d done a good job with Esme, and her father had, too.
Their cabin was an hour afield of a sizable community in any direction. A two-bedroom in the woods. Esme understood wanting to live modestly despite their wealth, but she could never understand the privation of their lifestyle. Her dad drove an ’88 Chevy pickup. The clutch was shot; the truck wouldn’t go over forty or, who knew, might blow up if it did. When he got to the bus stop, it took him many tries just to get out of the cab. It had been months since her last visit, but he looked the same. When you are seventy-seven, what difference does the fluting of your skin make? She tried to give him a hug. One of his hands alit on the small of her back, while the other — and then she realized he wasn’t wearing his arm.