Privilege- Chapter Five: Freedom in Solitude

Emmet was at work when Addy packed for Canada.

She laid the sweaters he preferred across the top of her suitcase where they would be plainly visible if he happened to inspect it. They were tight, expensive things that clung to her body in all the places Emmet considered important.

Beneath them, hidden inside a zippered compartment, she packed her real clothes.

Loose sweaters.

Soft pajamas.

Comfortable pants.

Things she had secretly purchased for the hours when Emmet was away.

She expected there would be many of those in Canada.

When she finished packing, Addy reached automatically for the telephone.

She should call someone.

Say goodbye.

Tell a friend where she was going.

Her hand stopped.

Who?

Addy stood beside the bed.

She searched through the names in her mind as though flipping through an empty address book.

Her parents knew. They were somewhere in Mexico on a fishing trip, beyond reliable telephone service.

Jocko was gone.

The sorority girls were gone.

The acquaintances she had made through Emmet were not hers at all.

There was no one.

The realization arrived without ceremony.

For the first time in her life, Addy had no one to call.

Her eyes filled.

She put down the telephone.

Some stubborn impulse made her leave the bedroom and walk downstairs. Perhaps she simply needed to speak to another human being before leaving.

In the kitchen, the cook was flirting with one of the maids.

They stopped when Addy appeared.

She stood awkwardly in the doorway, tugging at the hem of a top Emmet liked because it exposed her midriff.

“I'll be out of town for some time,” she announced. “Please make sure my mail is forwarded to the address Dr. Taylor left.”

They already knew.

Everyone knew.

The staff had been informed weeks earlier.

Still, both nodded professionally.

“Yes, Mrs. Taylor.”

“Of course, Mrs. Taylor.”

Addy smiled.

Then she walked away.

Behind her came two muffled sighs.

Relief.

Her face burned.

Even the servants were happy to see her go.

Addy couldn't entirely blame them.

She had become the ghost mistress of Emmet Taylor's immaculate house, drifting from room to room in a perpetual state of misery. She rarely smiled anymore. She complained.

She sulked. Sometimes she snapped at people for reasons that had nothing to do with them.

Her sadness had become something the staff treated as contagious.

Once, believing she had left the house, two employees had taken bets on when Mrs. Taylor

would finally kill herself.

Addy had listened from the hallway.

Neither had wagered that she wouldn't.

She could not get out of the city fast enough.

The private jet felt less like one of Emmet's luxuries than an escape vehicle.

His friends would not be in Canada.

His colleagues would not be there.

Neither would the women at the club who inspected Addy as though she were an embarrassing purchase Emmet refused to return.

She felt almost cheerful when she greeted the flight crew.

The jet would take her to a small airport nearest the lodge. From there, a four-wheel-drive

SUV would be waiting for her.

Most importantly, she had one full week alone.

Then Emmet intended to send Frances.

Addy tried not to think about that part.

Frances had become increasingly difficult to look at.

Every time Addy saw her, Emmet seemed to have performed something else.

Her nose.

Her jaw.

Her chin.

Her figure.

Subtle changes individually.

Collectively, something stranger.

Addy had not noticed it until Alice received a photograph of the two women together.

Her mother called almost immediately.

“Have you looked at Frances lately?”

“Unfortunately.”

“No. Really looked at her.”

Addy had.

Afterward.

That was when she saw it.

Frances was beginning to look like her.

Not perfectly.

Emmet could reshape bone and flesh, but he could not correct everything Addy considered wrong with Frances.

She still waddled.

She still had nothing interesting to say.

She still picked her nose at dinner beneath the laughable assumption that holding a napkin near her face made the act invisible.

Her voice still possessed all the musical delicacy of a drunken baseball fan.

Addy privately wondered what possible good it did to reshape Frances's drooping breasts

when the woman still had thick wrists and moved as though she might begin dragging her knuckles at any moment.

Yet Emmet kept working on her.

Refining.

Adjusting.

Correcting.

And each time, Frances looked slightly more like Addy.

A thought occurred to her aboard the plane.

Perhaps this was flattering.

Maybe Emmet did love her.

Perhaps he admired Addy's beauty so much that, when presented with Frances, he unconsciously used his own wife as the ideal.

The thought comforted her.

So Addy allowed herself to believe it.

The plane landed after dark.

A black SUV waited on the tarmac.

The roads were icy, and Addy drove slowly.

At first she was terrified.

Then a deer darted across the road.

Addy slammed on the brakes.

The SUV skidded.

Her hands locked around the steering wheel.

For several seconds, she heard nothing but her own breathing.

Then she looked around.

Darkness.

Trees.

Snow.

No cars.

No police.

No neighbors.

No Emmet.

No friends of Emmet.

No one to report what she had done incorrectly.

Addy began to laugh.

She was alone.

But for once, being alone did not mean she had been abandoned.

She was alone because there was no other human being for miles.

Something inside her broke open.

Addy threw back her head.

“YES!”

Her own voice startled her.

She laughed harder.

Then she shouted again.

No one heard.

No one cared.

No one could tell her she was behaving abnormally.

She drove the rest of the way smiling.

I'm never going back.

The thought appeared with startling clarity.

Never.

The lodge was fully stocked.

Someone had arranged groceries before her arrival. The cupboards were full. The refrigerator was full. Firewood had been stacked neatly outside.

Best of all:

No live-in staff.

Addy walked through the rooms twice to make certain.

Nothing.

She nearly danced.

There was a satellite telephone, cable television, unreliable internet, and complete privacy.

The town nearby barely qualified as one. It existed primarily to service truckers and seasonal lumber workers: a post office, a motel with a bar, and a tiny grocery store attached to the only gas station.

Fewer than a hundred people lived there.

During the off-season, perhaps half that.

The weather would keep Addy from traveling very far.

Oddly, she didn't mind.

Isolation had frightened her in the city.

Here, it felt clean.

During the first week, Addy behaved like a prisoner who had escaped but did not yet believe the guards were gone.

She made a chocolate cake.

Then she became afraid to eat it.

She stood in the kitchen staring at the frosting.

Ridiculous.

She cut herself a slice.

Before taking the first bite, she looked toward the doorway.

Nothing.

Addy laughed nervously.

She ate it.

Then another piece.

That evening, she wore soft pajamas.

No makeup.

Her hair remained unstyled.

She sprawled across the sofa beneath a blanket and watched television.

Once, she caught herself wondering whether Emmet could see her.

The thought became impossible to dismiss.

She checked the house for cameras.

Smoke detectors.

Bookshelves.

Light fixtures.

The corners of rooms.

She found nothing.

Perhaps she was paranoid.

Perhaps caution and paranoia had become impossible to distinguish.

Eventually, Addy began deliberately committing little offenses.

She ate dessert.

“Oops.”

She wore sweatpants.

“Oops.”

She left dishes in the sink.

“Oops!”

Soon she was shouting the word into empty rooms and laughing.

Every mistake that would have earned Emmet's contempt became a tiny celebration.

She tried inviting her parents.

Emmet immediately objected.

He didn't want the Madisons “squatting there all season.”

As though Tom and Alice could simply appear in the Canadian wilderness without transportation or assistance.

Tom still blamed Emmet for destroying what remained of his business reputation.

Addy increasingly suspected her father might be right.

Still, Tom Madison's history of failed ventures made certainty difficult.

Emmet was controlling.

Petty.

Vindictive.

Addy knew that.

She simply never said it aloud.

Within weeks, Addy gained weight.

Not much.

Enough.

She stood naked before the bathroom mirror one morning and turned sideways.

Her hips had returned.

Her breasts looked fuller.

Her ribs no longer seemed determined to introduce themselves through her skin.

Addy smiled.

Emmet worshipped the skeletal ideal of models from another decade.

For the first time in years, Addy looked at herself and preferred what she saw to what he

preferred.

That frightened her almost as much as it pleased her.

All good things in Addy's life seemed to contain the mechanism of their own destruction.

Emmet arrived shortly after Thanksgiving.

He brought Frances.

Addy met them at the airport.

Emmet walked directly past his wife as though she were the hired driver.

Frances followed.

Her chin was bandaged from another procedure.

Addy stared at her.

Another change.

Another small adjustment toward something increasingly familiar.

Emmet stayed only three days.

Three days were enough.

He criticized the food.

The temperature.

Addy's clothes.

Her weight.

Her routines.

Her posture.

Her attitude.

He worked diligently to restore the old hierarchy between them.

But something had changed.

The spell was weakening.

In the city, Emmet's contempt had made Addy feel small.

Here, she began noticing how small he was.

Physically.

He was shorter than she remembered.

Balding more severely.

When he became angry, flecks of saliva escaped his mouth.

His breath had turned sour.

His body stooped.

The imposing Dr. Taylor who had once seemed capable of controlling entire rooms became, in the Canadian wilderness, merely an aging man who complained constantly.

Addy found herself grateful their sexual relationship had mostly died before their second anniversary.

She avoided the bedroom whenever possible.

She particularly dreaded his requests for a “lower-back massage,” which inevitably meant rubbing the mole-covered, patchily haired flesh of his buttocks while he complained that she wasn't applying enough pressure.

He never thanked her.

He simply instructed.

For years, Addy had mistaken authority for superiority.

Distance was beginning to teach her the difference.

On the night she drove him back to the airport, Emmet seemed almost indecently eager to leave.

Addy watched him walk toward the plane.

“Goodbye!” she called.

He lifted one hand without turning around.

“See ya, Franny.”

Addy froze.

The cockpit crew glanced toward her.

Franny.

That was what he called Frances.

Addy felt heat crawl up her neck.

She pretended not to have heard.

The crew waved.

Addy waved back.

Then she climbed into the SUV and drove away.

Perhaps he had simply misspoken.

Perhaps he was tired.

Perhaps he had been thinking about Frances.

She should have corrected him.

Instead, she found herself too relieved by his departure to care.

Almost.

Unfortunately, Frances remained.

When Addy returned to the lodge, she found her sitting at the master bathroom vanity examining Emmet's latest work.

Frances touched the bandage beneath her chin.

“How are you feeling?” Addy asked.

A shrug.

“Do you need anything?”

Another shrug.

Then:

“I wanna go out.”

That became the pattern.

Frances discovered the local bar.

Addy became her chauffeur.

Night after night, Frances drank with retired lumberjacks and whoever else happened to

occupy the place.

Then Addy drove through the snow to collect her.

Gratitude was rarely involved.

More than once, Addy arrived to find Frances entertaining strangers with complaints about her.

“My self-righteous, stuck-up sister thinks she's better than everybody.”

The men laughed.

Addy stood near the entrance holding Frances's coat.

She hated her.

By Christmas, she could hardly wait for Frances to return to the city.

Frances, strangely, expressed no desire to leave.

Emmet returned for Christmas.

That was when Addy saw something she had never witnessed before.

Emmet and Frances together.

Not doctor and patient.

Not brother-in-law and sister-in-law.

Together.

They laughed.

Constantly.

There were private jokes Addy did not understand.

Glances exchanged across rooms.

Fragments of conversations that seemed to continue from somewhere else.

Emmet relaxed around Frances.

That was what hurt most.

Addy had spent years trying to discover the correct combination of words, clothing, manners, and obedience that might cause her husband to relax in her presence.

Frances apparently accomplished it by existing.

One evening, Addy heard laughter from the dining area.

She followed it.

Emmet and Frances sat together at the table.

Both were laughing.

Addy felt something inside her lift toward the sound.

Human warmth.

She wanted it desperately.

She sat down.

The laughter stopped.

Not gradually.

Instantly.

Emmet looked at Frances.

Frances looked at Emmet.

Addy pretended not to notice.

She smiled.

Waited.

Perhaps someone would continue the story.

Perhaps she could laugh too.

No one spoke.

Finally, Emmet pushed back his chair.

“Goodnight, ladies.”

He walked down the hall toward his bedroom.

Not theirs.

His.

Frances stood too.

As she passed Addy, she muttered:

“Way to kill the mood.”

Then she disappeared.

Addy remained at the table.

She refused to move.

Moving would mean admitting that they had driven her from the room without even asking

her to leave.

Her hands began trembling.

Why?

The word repeated itself.

Why?

Why couldn't Emmet love her?

Why couldn't Frances be the sister Addy had spent her entire childhood expecting her to become?

Why did affection seem to exist everywhere except wherever Addy happened to be

standing?

There were no answers.

Only the empty chairs.

Addy had thought she no longer cared whether Emmet approved of her.

Then she saw how easily he gave Frances the warmth he had withheld from his wife.

Years of old wounds opened at once.

She sat there long after they had gone.

Addy did not particularly want Emmet anymore.

She was beginning to understand that.

What she wanted was proof that she had once been worth wanting.

And Emmet had spent years making certain she never received it.

He left shortly after Christmas.

Addy drove him to the airport again.

This time, she watched carefully.

Emmet climbed the steps toward the plane.

He turned.

“See ya, Franny.”

Addy stared at him.

Again.

He smiled faintly.

Then disappeared inside.

The door closed.

Addy remained beside the SUV.

The first time could have been an accident.

The second time felt deliberate.

She wondered whether Emmet enjoyed it.

Perhaps confusing her with Frances was merely another way of diminishing her.

Another little cruelty.

Another reminder that even her own name existed at his discretion.

Frances remained for several more days before leaving for a New Year's Eve party with friends from school.

Friends.

Addy hated the word.

Frances had friends.

A graduate program.

Parties.

A life.

Addy had once regarded Frances as the pathetic one.

Now she watched Frances's plane disappear and realized that she envied her.

The recognition was almost unbearable.

Addy remained at the lodge.

She had no New Year's party.

No invitation.

No one waiting for her in the city.

Winter stretched ahead.

She could return to Emmet's house whenever she wished.

But there was nothing there she wanted.

The city contained her husband.

That had once been the reason to return.

Now it was the reason to stay away.

So Addy remained in the wilderness.

Alone.

And for the first time, she began to understand that solitude and imprisonment were not the same thing.