Mrs. Saint and the Defectives

Surely, too, there must be instructions in the will outlining Markie’s care of the bungalow. A list of approved paint colors she would be permitted to use. Instructions for how often she would be required to have the roof replaced. The woman hadn’t been able to hand over Lola for a single evening without five minutes’ worth of orders about baths and bedtime and teeth brushing. She would never be able to leave a house, forever, without a list one hundred times longer.

The temptation to laugh passed as the full force of the situation hit Markie. All these months, Mrs. Saint had been trying to get her own way, and Markie had resisted. The Frenchwoman had eventually won the vast majority of the battles: the dog, Jesse spending time with Frédéric and tutoring Lola, Markie’s artwork making it onto the walls, Markie and Jesse eating more vegetables and fewer frozen meals, Markie getting to know Mrs. Saint’s employees.

On only one matter—Markie taking over Mrs. Saint’s role as leader of the Defectives—had the old woman not been victorious. But had she been happy with her other successes and left that single point to Markie?

Mais non! Of course not! Instead, the old woman had made the one move she assumed Markie couldn’t counter. Because who could say no to a dead woman? Especially a dead woman bearing the precise gifts a person in Markie’s financial position would never be able to turn down.

And now Markie saw it all laid out before her clearly, all the timely coincidences and bits of “good luck,” or so she had thought. The bungalow that had been empty because of a “bad market,” leaving the landlord willing to cut a deal, the mysteriously appearing “free cable” that had not been in the lease and only materialized after Mrs. Saint took such a liking to Jesse and learned that “le pauvre” was missing his movie channels.

More secrecy and lies! There was no forgotten lease term offering free cable. There was no bad market. There was only a meddlesome, bossy, conniving old woman who, knowing her health was deteriorating and her Defectives would have to fend for themselves unless a new leader could be found, had been waiting for just the right person to rope into the job.

Mrs. Saint had been the spider and Markie the fly.

Now Markie didn’t want to laugh; she wanted to scream. She wanted to beat her fists against the wooden arms of her chair and yell, “No! Stop right there!” and then lunge across the top of Mr. Schanbaum’s desk, grab one of his pens, and strike through the language in the will that mentioned her and the bungalow and Jesse.

Only Frédéric’s presence and the way he sat slumped in his chair, despondent over his lost Angeline, kept her silent.



Once Simone and Frédéric were settled in the car, Markie announced she had left her book in the lawyer’s office and needed to run back for it.

“I will accompany you,” Frédéric said, as she expected he would.

“No, no. You’re all buckled in. You stay with Simone. I’ll be back in no time.” She shut the door against further protests and made her way back to Mr. Schanbaum.

“I only have a minute,” she said, “and I’m sure you have somewhere you want to be. I’d like to set up a time to see you on Tuesday, if you have time available.”

“You have . . . concerns,” he said. “I sensed this.”

“I do. Look, she must have updated it quite recently, because I only met her in August. I’m curious: before she changed it, who was to receive the bungalow and the money?”

He smiled placidly. “It is unfortunately not within my authority to discuss prior drafts of a client’s will.”

“Tell me this, then,” Markie said. “What would happen if I refused to accept what she’s left me? What would happen to it, then?”

Mr. Schanbaum’s eyes widened. “Are you saying you want to disclaim your bequest?”

“Possibly. But first I want to know what would happen to the bungalow and the money if I did.”

He steepled his hands together and closed his eyes momentarily. “In such an event,” he said, opening them again, “it would pass through her estate as though you had predeceased her. And since she made it clear that everything else was to go to . . .” He looked at the chair in which Frédéric had been sitting, as though trying to recall the name.

“Frédéric,” Markie provided.

“Yes. She made it clear everything was to go him, except for certain bequests delineated specifically, such as the ones to you and to her sister and certain charities. So the bungalow and sum of money set aside for you would go to him.”

“In that case,” Markie said, “I’d like to talk to you on Tuesday about . . . what did you call it? Disclaiming my bequest? I’d like to talk about that. Not just talk about it. I’d like to do it.”

Mr. Schanbaum unsteepled his hands and turned his palms out, facing her. “I suggest we not have such a discussion as early as Tuesday. That is the day after the funeral. I discourage people from making significant proclamations, one way or the other, about these kinds of matters when everything is still so . . . fresh. Give yourself some time to sit with this, to deliberate about it, I urge you. There is no hurry.”

“I don’t need time. I’d like to come in on Tuesday.”

He lowered his hands and opened an appointment book on his desk. “As you wish.”

“But you did not find your book!” Simone said when Markie returned empty-handed to the car.

Markie climbed in and patted her purse. “Stupid me. I put it in my purse before he called us in. I forgot until I got back in there. I’m certain he thinks I’m crazy.”





Chapter Thirty-Nine


After dinner that night, Jesse suggested a board game in the family room, and while everyone debated what to play, Markie motioned for Simone to follow her into the living room. They sat together on the spindle-legged love seat, Simone with her hands clasped between her knees, and Markie couldn’t tell if the other woman was nervous or relieved that it was finally just the two of them, alone.

“I want to ask you some questions,” Markie said. “I hope you don’t mind. But your sister was . . . evasive about some things. And instead of finding it easier to forget about, now that she’s gone, I’m . . . struggling with it.”

“You may ask,” Simone said. “And I will try to answer. But, of course, I did not know everything about my sister.”

“I saw a photo of the two of you when you were seven,” Markie said. “It was on your birthday. I asked her about it, and about you, and she told me . . .” She paused, wondering if she should go on. But she was tired of secrets. To get real information, you had to give real information. “She told me you had died,” she said. Putting a hand on Simone’s knee, she added, “I’m sorry if that’s a difficult thing to hear.”

Simone nodded, resigned but not crushed by what Markie had said. “This does not surprise me, I must say. We had not spoken in many years. To her, I might have seemed dead, I suppose.”

“After Thanksgiving,” Markie said, “when I asked her about it, she said you two had had a falling-out over an old boyfriend, and I’ve been wondering since last night if—”

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