Privilege- Chapter Six: Creating a Monster or Becoming One?

Spring arrived before Addy had another visitor.

By then, Emmet called less frequently.

They were both happier for it.

Sometimes several days passed without either bothering to contact the other. Their marriage had settled into a strange arrangement in which distance accomplished what affection never had: peace.

Addy read.

She painted.

She took long hikes through the property as the snow retreated into the shadows beneath the trees.

She had become, by any reasonable definition, a recluse.

Even the delivery driver from McGlenn's Mart and Bar became someone she preferred to avoid. When the truck came up the drive, Addy sometimes waited inside until the groceries had been deposited and the vehicle disappeared.

It wasn't that she disliked the driver.

She had simply had enough of people.

The world had been remarkably eager to judge Addy when she was miserable and remarkably reluctant to help her. Friends had called her foolish. Her mother had called her ungrateful. Emmet's acquaintances treated her as decorative trash. His employees whispered about her.

Eventually, Addy decided that society was considerably more pleasant when observed from a distance.

Alice called one afternoon with news.

Frances was finishing her graduate degree that summer.

Addy winced.

“Oh.”

“Apparently she's done very well.”

“Good for her.”

Alice either didn't notice the frost in her daughter's voice or chose to ignore it.

“And Emmet hired some professional placement service for her.”

Addy's fingers tightened around the telephone.

“What?”

“One of those executive firms. They send résumés around to corporations and make introductions. Very expensive, from what I understand.”

Addy said nothing.

The information found a particularly tender place inside her and struck it.

Emmet had forbidden Addy from working.

He had mocked her education.

He had dismissed every attempt she made to establish an identity outside their marriage.

Yet for Frances, he hired professionals.

For Frances, doors opened.

For Frances, Emmet apparently possessed an interest in the future.

“How did you hear about that?”

“Someone told someone who told me.”

Of course.

Frances hadn't told Alice.

Emmet hadn't told Alice.

Neither had told Addy.

Once again, Addy was standing outside the glass, watching the people in her own family

conduct lives she knew nothing about.

Still, the gossip had accomplished something useful.

It had given Alice a reason to call.

They had spoken less and less since the Madisons moved away. Addy blamed Emmet for that too.

He had somehow scattered everyone.

Her parents to Mexico.

Frances into whatever peculiar orbit she now occupied.

Addy into the wilderness.

And Emmet remained precisely where he had always been.

At the center.

By the final week of June, Frances's transformation was complete.

She arrived at the little airport with fresh bandages around her ears.

Addy stared at her from inside the SUV.

So that was it.

The final procedure.

Emmet had altered Frances as much as modern surgery reasonably allowed.

The resemblance was no longer something Addy could dismiss.

It was there.

The face wasn't identical. It couldn't be.

But Emmet had worked toward something.

Addy's nose.

Something near Addy's jaw.

The proportions of her face.

Her figure.

Even the ears, apparently.

Piece by piece, Emmet had revised Frances until she had become an imperfect echo of his wife.

Addy climbed out.

By now she understood the lodge's secondary purpose.

Recovery.

This was where Emmet sent Frances when he didn't want her wandering through the city swollen, bruised, bandaged, and obviously fresh from surgery.

Which apparently made Addy the nurse.

How convenient.

She pasted on the smile Alice had trained into her years ago.

“Hi, Frances.”

Frances approached the SUV.

She was wearing high heels.

Addy noticed that immediately.

Frances had always been shorter than she was. The heels compensated for some of the difference.

Addy rarely wore anything so high herself unless Emmet demanded it for an event.

An unwanted memory surfaced: stilettos, Emmet's bedroom, the top of his bald head with its collection of liver spots.

Addy shuddered.

She opened the passenger door.

Frances climbed inside.

This visit would be different.

Emmet wasn't coming.

A merger involving his practice had collapsed spectacularly, and he was now embroiled in litigation sufficiently ugly to consume most of his attention.

Addy had assumed he would postpone Frances's final surgery.

He refused.

The timeline mattered to him.

Frances had to be finished when she entered the professional world.

Finished.

That was the word Emmet used.

Addy had never forgotten it.

Rest did nothing to make Frances more pleasant.

By the fourth day, she removed her own dressings.

Soon afterward, she discovered the bar again.

Then came the drinking.

Frances seemed determined to remain there until she could no longer reliably stand.

Addy became the chauffeur.

Forty-five minutes into town.

Forty-five minutes back.

Again.

And again.

Frances drank until closing.

She flirted with local men.

She occasionally vomited in the SUV.

Once, she vomited directly onto Addy while Addy was trying to maneuver her into the passenger seat.

Emmet did not care.

That infuriated Addy more than Frances's behavior itself.

She called him once.

“She's drinking every night.”

Silence.

“Emmet?”

“What do you want me to do about it?”

“She just had surgery.”

“She's an adult.”

Addy nearly laughed.

An adult.

How remarkable.

Frances was an adult when she wanted to get drunk.

Addy, meanwhile, had apparently never reached the age at which she could select her own sweater.

The only reason Addy continued collecting Frances from the bar was fear.

If Frances disappeared, got hurt, froze to death, or climbed into the wrong man's truck,

Emmet would somehow make it Addy's fault.

He possessed a talent for that.

One night Addy arrived to find Frances preparing to disappear into a portable toilet with two local men.

Addy stopped her.

Frances cursed her all the way to the SUV.

As Addy drove home, she kept asking herself the same question.

Why?

Why did Frances receive permission to be awful?

Why was every vulgarity excused?

Why was every failure overlooked?

Addy had spent years being punished for the wrong lipstick.

Frances could apparently debase herself above a chemical toilet and remain Emmet's favored little project.

The unfairness festered.

The following night, Addy stopped intervening.

If Frances wanted to humiliate herself, let her.

Addy sat at the bar and watched her disappear with a local man.

Good.

Let Emmet's masterpiece make a spectacle of herself.

The surgeries had changed Frances.

Or perhaps they had merely revealed something already there.

Addy remembered Emmet admiring his own handiwork after the final procedure.

He had seemed almost giddy.

Everything had gone according to schedule.

Frances would be healed just as she finished school.

Ready for her career.

Ready for whatever came next.

Addy had never liked the satisfaction in his voice.

Now Frances was using her newly reconstructed body to work her way through the local population.

The thought disgusted Addy.

She had spent years protecting the Taylor name.

Smiling when she wanted to scream.

Dressing as instructed.

Sitting silently beside Emmet.

Enduring dinners.

Enduring parties.

Enduring humiliation.

Frances did none of it.

And Emmet didn't care.

So Addy waited.

She imagined the look she would give Frances when she returned.

No lecture.

No argument.

Just a look.

She wanted Frances to understand exactly what Addy thought of her.

Filth.

But something happened while she waited.

One of the men at the bar approached.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

Addy glanced behind herself.

He meant her.

“No, thank you.”

Another man smiled from farther down the bar.

Someone asked whether she was visiting.

Another complimented her hair.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the men in the room began orbiting her.

Addy hadn't expected it.

She had abandoned most of Emmet's exhausting beauty regimen months earlier. Her makeup was lighter. Her clothes were simpler. She had gained weight.

She looked more like herself.

Apparently, that was enough.

The attention awakened something old in her.

A memory of being twenty.

Of entering rooms and knowing people had noticed.

Of being wanted before Emmet had transformed desirability into another form of punishment.

Addy smiled.

Not the smile Alice had taught her.

A real one.

Then Frances returned.

She entered wearing a cheerful, satisfied grin.

She saw Addy.

Saw the men around her.

The grin disappeared.

Addy almost laughed.

There it was.

All those surgeries.

All Emmet's work.

And somehow Frances still felt second-rate merely standing beside her.

“Can we go?” Frances asked.

Addy took her time finishing her drink.

“Certainly.”

They drove home without speaking.

Addy enjoyed the silence.

She felt victorious in a way she knew was childish but couldn't resist.

Frances had spent years resenting her.

Now there could be no question.

Emmet could alter the face.

The body.

The proportions.

He could not manufacture whatever quality made people look twice.

At least that was what Addy told herself.

They reached the lodge.

Addy put the SUV into park.

Frances didn't move.

Addy looked at her.

For one fleeting second, she wondered whether Frances might finally say something sincere.

Something about Emmet.

About the surgeries.

About why they had spent their entire lives circling one another with resentment neither fully understood.

Frances leaned toward her.

Then stuck two fingers down her throat.

Addy had barely enough time to recoil.

Frances vomited directly into her face.

Warm liquid struck Addy's mouth, nose, hair, eyes, and chest.

She screamed.

Frances pulled away.

For one second, the two women stared at each other.

Frances smiled.

Then she opened the door.

She walked toward the lodge as though nothing had happened.

Addy sat frozen behind the wheel.

Something inside her went very still.

Years of humiliation.

Years of silence.

Years of being corrected.

Managed.

Mocked.

Dressed.

Abandoned.

Diagnosed.

Years of swallowing every ugly thought because someone richer, older, or more powerful had taught her that anger was unbecoming.

Something snapped.

Addy climbed out.

“FRANCES!”

Frances was already inside.

Addy ran after her.

She caught her halfway up the stairs.

Her hand closed around Frances's hair.

She yanked.

Hard.

Frances screamed and tumbled backward.

She struck the floor.

Addy rushed after her.

Before she could think better of it, she kicked Frances in the ribs.

Frances curled inward with a groan.

“If you think you can fuck with me, you little bastard, you've got another thing coming!”

The words echoed through the lodge.

Addy barely recognized her own voice.

For years she had pitied Frances.

Then resented her.

Then despised her.

Now all of it came boiling out together.

Frances clutched her side.

“Emmet is going to hear about this, bitch.”

Something unexpected happened.

Addy laughed.

Not politely.

Not nervously.

She laughed in Frances's face.

Emmet.

The name no longer possessed the magic it once had.

He was thousands of miles away.

An aging man with lawsuits, a failing body, and an ego large enough to conceal both.

The king had become ridiculous.

“If Emmet leaves me,” Addy said, “I'll send you flowers.”

Frances stared at her.

The threat had failed.

She pulled herself upright.

“He'll leave you.”

“Good.”

“You'll get nothing.”

“Then I'll have nothing.”

Frances's face twisted.

“He wants me anyway.”

Addy stopped.

There it was.

Something old.

Something Frances had apparently carried for years.

“He wants me,” Frances repeated. “I'm younger.”

Addy stared at the reconstructed face.

“And I'm better-looking now.”

For several seconds, neither woman moved.

Addy knew Frances didn't believe it.

That was the cruelest part.

Frances had allowed Emmet to cut her apart and reconstruct her piece by piece, and she still needed Addy to believe she had won.

Addy grabbed her collar.

Frances was stronger.

Stockier.

Had she chosen to fight back, Addy wasn't certain what would have happened.

But Frances didn't.

“No one wants you,” Addy hissed.

Frances's expression changed.

Addy saw the wound.

And instead of stopping, she pushed deeper.

“You fish-smelling regret.”

Frances's eyes filled.

“Do whatever you want. I'll make sure Emmet cuts you off, and you can crawl back to the whorehouse your mother shit you out in.”

Frances jerked free.

She was crying now.

Addy stood there breathing heavily.

For one instant, some distant part of her understood how monstrous the words had been.

Then came something stronger.

Euphoria.

She had fought back.

It scarcely mattered against whom.

Addy moved quickly.

Before fear or guilt could catch up with her, she called the charter company.

“I need a passenger returned to the States.”

She arranged the flight.

Then she called McGlenn's.

She offered one of the clerks enough cash to drive to the lodge immediately.

The money came from a secret reserve Addy had accumulated over the years.

Hundred-dollar bills hidden from Emmet.

Emergency money.

Escape money, although she had never permitted herself to call it that.

Tonight she used some of it to remove Frances.

Once everything was arranged, Addy marched upstairs.

Frances's bedroom door was locked.

Addy pounded on it.

“Get your shit out of my house!”

Nothing.

“Do you hear me?”

Silence.

“Or I'll get the guys from the bar to drag you out by your fat fucking cankles!”

The door opened.

Frances stood behind it.

Her suitcase was already packed.

Addy stopped.

Something about that unsettled her.

There had been almost no time.

Yet Frances was ready.

Not hurriedly ready.

Ready.

As though some part of her had expected this.

Perhaps even planned for it.

Neither woman spoke.

Frances carried the suitcase downstairs.

Addy opened the front door.

Frances stepped outside.

Then Addy locked it behind her.

She watched through the window as Frances sat on the porch beside her luggage.

No tears now.

No rage.

She simply waited.

Addy should have felt guilty.

Instead, she felt powerful.

For years, doors had closed in Addy's face.

Now she was the one standing on the inside.

The feeling was intoxicating.

And because it felt so good, Addy never stopped to wonder why Frances had packed her suitcase before Addy told her to leave.