Girl One(22)

Deb maintained steady eye contact with me as she sat, smoothing her skirt over her thighs. “Well! To the point. Just like our Margaret. Little Miss Holier-Than-Thou. Let me clue you in about your mother: For all her brains, she never understood how to reach common ground. A little diplomacy goes a long way, but your mother couldn’t be bothered. I see the apple doesn’t fall far from that tree.”

I was speechless for a second, hearing my mother described by someone who’d known her in a way I never could. Holier-Than-Thou. As a kid, I’d wanted to meet the other Homesteaders so I could piece together more about Bellanger, but this was unexpected. Seeing my mother as a brainy, self-righteous young woman, a pre–Mother One.

“We’re so sorry, Deb,” Tom said, smooth. “Josie is going through a lot right now.”

“Sorry,” I echoed, trying to calm down. Flies and honey: I knew this. I was usually pretty good at hiding my bluntness under a layer of politeness, something my mother had never taught me, something I’d had to learn from the world around me. “I didn’t mean to snap.”

Deb nodded, mildly appeased.

A framed photo of the 1982 reunion caught my eye, and I stepped closer. A significant chunk of us were missing from the image. My mother and me; the Grassis; the Kims. Only five Mother-Girl pairs had made an appearance. The women had changed drastically since the Homestead. Hair trimmed, breasts stiffened by bras, mouths lipsticked for the camera. Bellanger was a glaring absence. He should have been there. Our organizing principle. The man who’d brought us all together, who’d made us.

Behind me, Deb clapped her hands briskly. “Let’s get this over with.”



* * *



“It’s so amazing to have all of you in this room together. Three women with such a unique history.”

Deb leapt out ahead of me, answering before Tom’s last syllable had faded. “Unique as it may be, I always remind our fans that we’re just like anybody else. You may be too young to remember the things people were saying when the Girls were first born—”

“I’m familiar with some of it,” Tom said.

“Some predicted that these Girls would bring about the end of civilization. But here we are. I think Dr. Bellanger would be proud of the way these young women have managed to overcome their circumstances…” They were words that had come through Deb’s mouth so many times they were polished to sleekness, purely decorative.

Frustration grew under my breastbone. I was realizing that Deb’s version of the Homestead was just as opaque as my mother’s. She talked so much and so charmingly that she usually tricked me into ignoring all the silence underneath. Her role was to take our origin story, blood-soaked, flame-licked, and sanitize it. I was suddenly so tired of cowering, of simplifying our existence into something safe.

Tom was beginning another softball question, but I interrupted. “Why were you part of the Homestead if you wanted a normal child? There are easier ways to go about that, Deb. Or so I’ve heard.”

Bonnie, in my peripheral vision, straightened. For a second I thought she was going to interject, but Deb was speaking: “All that talk of miracles seemed so silly once I had a baby in my arms. Bonnie shifted my priorities. Surely any mother can relate to that. All nine of us wanted the same thing for our Girls. An ordinary life.”

I spoke without thinking. “But not all of us were ordinary children.”

The silence felt prickling, stinging. Deb pressed her lips together briefly. “I’m sorry?” Every syllable a warning.

“I’m talking about Fiona.” Just saying her name was a thrill now. “I know that my mother was in touch with you recently, asking about Fiona.”

Deb stood and moved toward the door. “You’re here under false pretenses. Time to go.”

“Look, this is a misunderstanding, we can—” Tom said, placating.

I stood too, moving in front of her, instinctive. “This big beautiful house, your designer dresses. It’s all because you give people fluffy quotes. I’m not looking for fluff. I want the truth.”

A rough scoff of a laugh. “You won’t like it any more than anybody else does.” I was transfixed. In all her televised interviews—60 Minutes, Late Night—I’d never seen Deb like this. “The truth is that your mother loved to pull all the strings, then play innocent when it suited her. I always wondered how long Margaret could last in an ordinary life. There was something in her that wanted to destroy everything. I don’t know if she could help herself.”

I saw my mother sitting at home, lost in a book: I saw her keeping a slight distance from her coworkers clustered together, chatting, laughing, while she busied herself at the circulation desk with some solitary task. Blunt when necessary, but quiet. Focused. Not at all the woman Deb was describing.

Deb went on, her private anger turned visible. “Margaret loved it when I was just one of the background faces, doing what I was told. Now I finally get to tell the story, and I do a damn good job. Of course, Margaret resents me for taking over her pet project.”

“Pet project?” I repeated. “What does that even mean? My mother was only one part of it—just because she was the first—”

“There’s a reason your mother was the first,” Deb said. “She was our ringleader. She drew us together, the nine of us, and then she tore us apart. She was the one who contacted Dr. Bellanger first, even when some of the girls begged her not to.”