I waited for Missy after school that day and brought her home—to my home, on the fifth floor. I feared that the emptiness downstairs, the mute sculptural figures, the faint lingering smell of resin, might profoundly spook her.
Without delay, I sat the girl down on a chair in the front room and told her everything, from beginning to end.
Oddly, nothing seemed to surprise Melissa very much. She had a fixed exasperation that came naturally with her approaching teen years. Whatever adults did seemed equally inconsequential, equally stupid. She sat there in her Bradford School uniform, with her long legs crossed, saying nothing.
“Angela wanted me to tell you exactly what she did today. How she confessed.”
“What, Uncle Jack? That she did the right thing? OK, fine. You told me.”
“Are you angry at her?”
“Not really.”
“She’s worried about how all this will affect you.”
“Why?”
“She put you in the middle of something grisly, something insane.”
“No big deal. We helped each other out, that’s all. It’s what mothers and daughters do.”
I couldn’t tell if Melissa was incredibly brave or simply in shock.
“You and your mom against the world—is that it? Like you told me once?”
“Yeah, sisterhood.” Melissa sighed deeply, looking down. Her blond hair covered her face.
“Sometimes I feel like just myself,” she said, “and sometimes I don’t know where Mom leaves off and I begin.”
“What did Angela say to you afterwards?” I asked. “After the murder?”
Melissa looked up. “A lot of junk. Kind of loud, because the windshield wipers were on. She just kept saying how horrible it was, what had happened, but that it just had to be. It was kind of monotonous.”
“You were in the car with her? She took you along? How awful for you, Missy. What did you say?”
“I said, ‘OK, Mandy is dead now. Calm down.’ ” The girl shrugged. “I said it a couple of times. It wasn’t a major issue really. Mandy was half dead anyhow from the cancer.”
“Half dead? No, no. Amanda was halfway well. She’d been successfully treated.”
“Oh, you don’t know anything.” The girl shifted in her seat, keeping her eyes on me. “Mom gave me the 411 before we drove into SoHo.”
“If Mandy was sick again, she never told me.”
“Why would she? You’re not real family. Not one of us. You’re not in anybody’s family, are you?”
“No, not for a long time now.”
Melissa gazed at me with a look that resembled pity.
“But Amanda was getting better,” I said. “Her hair was growing out.”
“Don’t you get it?” the girl demanded. “It was just one of those dumb stories that adults tell each other when they’re scared. They told Aunt Mandy the cancer wouldn’t come back, but it did. Bad things always do, don’t they—sooner or later?”
“No, not always. They’re not going to come back to you. I’ll see to that.”
“Will you, Uncle Jack? That’s so sweet.”
Her hair fell forward in waves on both sides of her face.
“Your father’s lawyer will make sure I’m confirmed as your legal guardian,” I told her. “It’s in Philip’s will.”
“Then everything’s fine, isn’t it?”
“But you must be terribly afraid for your mother now.”
“Not really. Mom can handle herself. She’s a killer, right?”
Melissa kicked off her shoes and rolled down her knee socks, crossing and recrossing her legs to pull the white stockings off one after the other.
“That’s better,” she said. “My legs were so itchy, you know.”
She bent forward, looking steadily up at me, rubbing her calves slowly as she spoke. “And Uncle Bernie will see that I get my money?”
I must have shown my puzzlement.
“Daddy’s money. My inheritance.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Good.” She sat straight again. “But we might have to fight with Amanda’s family first.”
“Who told you that?”
“Mom did.”
I watched as Missy rummaged through her purse, searching for a mint. Once she retrieved the little plastic box, she offered me a round white candy before taking one for herself. Always the polite Bradford girl.
“I didn’t know you cared about money so much,” I said.
“I don’t care about it at all—not the dirty paper, the numbers in columns. I just care about being free. That, I care about really a lot.”
“How much?”
“Gobs. I’ll do just about anything for it.” She looked at me defiantly yet earnestly, making sure I had heard. “As long as I can choose whatever I want afterwards. Whenever I want.”
I had heard her, all right.
“You shouldn’t think that way,” I said. “No one is free completely, Missy. To be that free you have to stop caring if anyone loves you.”
“But I’m pretty, Uncle Jack. People will always love me. Until I’m really old anyhow, and then who cares?”
“You can’t live that way. It’s too sad.”
“But you do. I mean, the way I want to live. Free.” She straightened her skirt, without taking her eyes from me. “I need to be the boss of my own life. No one else.”
“Well, a fortune will certainly help, once you’re old enough.”
“Of course, in eight years. When I’m twenty-one.”
There was a glint in her eye for a moment, or I thought there was.
“It will be about time, after all the waiting and stuff I’ve had to do for it.” She put a white lozenge on her tongue. “I’ve had like eons of waiting already.”
“When did you start thinking about all this?”
“When Daddy got sick.”
“He told you his plan?”
“No, I had to ask him. I made him promise.”
“All by yourself?”
“No, Mom said I should.”
“And was making me your guardian also your mother’s idea?”
“No, dummy, she totally hates it. It was mine.”
“Why?”
“At first daddy wanted to put in my grandparents or some nice couple he knew. I said, ‘Oh please, no. They’ll just try to make me ordinary.’ I mean, bleh, gag, how boring. ‘But Uncle Jack won’t.’ ”
“Right. Uncle Jack couldn’t.”
“It’s the best part, don’t you think—me and you? Besides the money, I mean.”
“You should be very grateful to your father, Missy. Philip was wonderfully generous.”
“Well, what did you expect me to do when I grow up? Get a stupid job or something?”
I had never thought of Melissa’s life in quite those stark terms. She gave me a long unreadable glance. As I watched, her tongue worked the mint around methodically inside her mouth.
“Luckily,” I said, “you don’t have to worry about that now. Not ever.”
“Good.”
“While you’re in school, you can keep your place here. With a live-in nanny and housekeeper. With tutors. And I’ll be here, right up above.”
“Like a guardian angel.”
“Of sorts.”
“Will you really take care of me, Uncle Jack? Always?”
“If that’s what you want.”
“You know what I want.”
“Do I? Tell me.”
“I want us to be together. Just us.”
“All right, we’ll put all this horror behind us.”
“You’re the best. It will be our secret now, honey.”
“Will it?”
“You always wanted that, didn’t you?”
“What?”
“To have a secret with me. I wanted it, for sure.”
“Well, you’ve gotten your wish then, Melissa.”
“Of course. I always do.”
For some reason, my right hand had begun to tremble.
“Don’t worry,” Melissa said, noticing. “I’ll be good.”
“I can only hope.”
“You’ll see.” Smiling, she shifted restlessly again in the chair. “But why are you so far away, Uncle Jack? Let’s sit on the couch together.”
She moved swiftly to the sofa. Drawing a deep breath, I followed in my own slow way. We sat side by side. It was not a cure for my trembling.
“And what do you wish for now?” I asked
“For you to come see me every day.”
“All right, then, I will.”
“Anytime, Uncle Jack. I’m right downstairs.”
“Yes, I’ll come down every day.”
“Or sometimes I’ll come up.”
“Whatever you want, Missy.”
“I know.”