Love and Other Consolation Prizes(68)

Ernest felt relief wash over him that Maisie was at least fighting back now.

“You’re just going to scare her,” Miss Amber was arguing.

“Mama,” Maisie kept calling. “Mama, it’s me.” She was trying to push her way past Miss Amber, reaching for her mother, but Miss Amber held her back.

Madam Flora turned her head slowly and looked on in surprise.

Miss Amber pulled Maisie back. “Stop this ruckus and stop being so selfish. She doesn’t even know you anymore, girl—you’ll only set her off. She barely knows me in her present state. This is why we couldn’t ask you, we had to tell you. Her treatment will cost a bloody fortune, but it’s her only hope.”

Maisie kept struggling.

“You have to do this—for all of us—there’s no other way.” Miss Amber held Maisie by the shoulders and spun her around so she faced Madam Flora. “Look at her!”

“She’s my mother!” Maisie shouted. “She’d never do this to me! She’d never turn me out like one of the other girls—I’m her hummingbird…”

Maisie broke free and shook her mother, yelling, “MAMA!”

Madam Flora grimaced, put her hands up, and recoiled in fear—her wide, panicked eyes rolling away as she curled up into her chair.

Miss Amber grabbed Maisie by an arm and by the hair on the back of her head and wrestled her, kicking and screaming, until the girl stumbled and fell to her hands and knees.

“Don’t you do this to her,” Miss Amber hissed as she towered over the fallen girl and reached for a leather belt. “You’re only making it worse.”

Ernest jumped between them.

“Oh, get out of the way,” Miss Amber said, more annoyed than angry.

Ernest drew a deep breath and stared back, unmoving.

Miss Amber coiled the end of the belt around her fist and raised the dangling, buckled strap high in the air. “I’ll fire you.”

Ernest slowly shook his head.

Miss Amber hesitated, her arm trembling in anger before she realized her bluff had been called. She gritted her teeth in frustration and then dropped the belt. She walked away with her hands on her wide hips. “Glory, what a spectacle we’ve become. And look at you. The truth is, girl,” Miss Amber said, “Flora didn’t even want you—do you know that? But she had you and she kept you around, hoping to get more money later. When that fool went flat broke her plan got washed away. You should count your lucky stars that she kept you, somehow grew to love you, because you owe her everything, from the roof over your head to the custom-tailored clothes on your back, to your pretty little figure and your dimples and your button nose—everything.”

Ernest helped Maisie to her feet. From the look on her face, he could see Miss Amber’s words had wounded her more deeply than the belt ever could. She shook off his arm.

“What about the man who gave us the motorcar?” Ernest interrupted. “Fahn once said that he offered thousands of dollars—”

“For Maisie,” Miss Amber cut him off. “Louis J. Turnbull offered five thousand dollars for Madam Flora’s little sister. Five. Thousand. Dollars.”

Ernest watched the fight drain from Maisie’s face.

Miss Amber kept speaking. “For you, dear—he couldn’t have Flora, so he wanted the next best thing—he wanted you when you came of age. And Flora said no. She protected you. She always protected you, didn’t she? But these are desperate times. Just look at her—now she’s all but lost to us, and the bloody French disease has gone to her head. And you’re right—the great, elegant, magnanimous Madam Florence Nettleton would never do such an unthinkable thing on her own, would she? So I had to make the hard, thankless decision for all of us.”

Maisie stared back, her shoulders rising and falling with each weary breath.

“But you’re so stubborn, so mule-headed. We both know I can’t do this to you if you don’t agree to go along willingly.” Miss Amber rubbed her scalp beneath her wig, her voice trembling with emotion. “So there it is, I’ve said my piece. I said what I think should happen, and it’s the only way I know to make this better, the only way to save her. That’s why you must decide for yourself now. Whether she sees the proper doctors, goes to a decent hospital, whether she lives or dies—it’s all on you now.”

“Maisie, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Ernest said quickly. “There’s got to be some other way—we’ll sell the car…”

Maisie approached her mother again, and this time Miss Amber didn’t stop her. Slowly, lovingly, Maisie reached out and placed her hands atop her mother’s hands.

Madam Flora smiled. She held her daughter and then ran her fingers through Maisie’s hair as though she were a porcelain doll, a child’s plaything to be dressed up and served finger sandwiches and petits fours at make-believe tea parties.

Ernest watched Maisie look into her mother’s eyes, seeking recognition in Madam Flora’s vacant expression.

“Mama, don’t you know who I am?”

Madam Flora smiled and nodded. She took a deep breath and exhaled. “Of course, my dear, I’m going to take care of you. My girls are my family.”

“Who am I, Mama?” Maisie asked. “Say my name.”