Thicker than Water
“Iknow what you’re doing.”
Startled, overwhelmed by the sudden, profound change in the room’s atmosphere, even Hanna didn’t know what she was doing. She yelped and stumbled to her feet, thrusting her hands with their old paper prize behind her. In the back of her mind, she knew she had to look guilty of something, though she wasn’t sure what that something was.
Vandalizing the floor? Stealing old mementos from the house? Talking to myself, except it wasn’t to myself, but to a lost soul? Where did Stuart go? He probably ran off. It doesn’t sound like a bad idea.
A good idea, in fact, if only she could. A middle-aged woman with what looked like a perpetual scowl stood between Hanna and the door. The woman wore nice clothing from a high-end store, but she reminded Hanna of a lizard wearing a bird of paradise’s plumage. Expensive fabric and fashionable design meant less than posture and carriage. No brand name could save this woman from agate hardness in her eyes, or the ugly pucker she sucked her mouth into. Her hair had been dyed and styled into a very expensive demand to speak to the manager immediately about every grievance she could muster, from cold food to climate change.
Hanna had dealt with viperish people before. Yet the woman’s very presence seared the air around her, loomed larger than the physical confines of her body.Is it her? Or is there more? I can’t tell if–
“Pretty face. Fake smile. Probably enough fake friendliness to choke a cat.” Perhaps the woman meant to smile, but it looked more like the aforementioned cat lifting her lips to hiss. “Don’t think I don’t know women like you. Show some cleavage and some leg, put on a smile and flatter the rich man, you think he’ll give you whatever you want. I know a gold digger when I see one.”
“I’m– I’m sorry?” Hanna stammered. “I don’t know who you think I am, ma’am, but I was asked here.”
“I’ll just bet,” the woman sneered. “The question isn’t whoIthink you are. It’s, who doyouthink you are, coming into my home, trying to whore your way into my son’s bed.”
“No!” Hanna held up both her hands to forestall further accusations. “No, no, I’m not here for that! I’m the new governess! At least, I hope I am. I just arrived today for my interview. I’m Hanna Sparrow. You must be Gregory’s mother.”
“Mister Piercehas no need for a governess. I’ve told him over and over again that it’s a stupid idea. That woman doesn’t need a governess. She needs to go to a home where all demented old bats should go.” The woman took a step forward. “But you were glad to take advantage of his kindness, weren’t you. I’ll bet this is right up your alley. Humor an old lady so you can suck up to the one with the checkbook.”
Hanna fell back a step. “Listen, you have the wrong idea. I answered an advertisement. I’m just here to do a job.”
“You’re not here to do a job.” Another step forward. “You’re here to be a leech. What kind of person takes a job to be the governess of nothing? To lie to an old hag who thinks she’s taking care of a child who didn’t even live outside her filthy old womb?”
Hanna bristled. “I’ll thank you not to talk about Vivian that way. It’s disrespectful, and she deserves better than that.”
“Disrespectful. You’d know, wouldn’t you? Disrespectful slut. Let me tell you how it’s going to be.” Three steps forward this time.
Hanna held her ground. “I don’t think you have any control over how it’s going to be.”
“Don’t you talk to me like that! I’ve got a taser, you know, and I wouldlovean excuse to use it on you. Now. You’re going to pick up your bags. You’re going to apologize to Mister Pierce for being a two-faced shit of a person. Then you’re going to crawl back into whatever gutter you came from. I’ll see to it. Or else I’ll–”
“That’s enough, Mother. If anyone is leaving Greenhill Hall, it’s you, and I will personally slam the door behind you so you don’t hit yourself in the ass with it,” Gregory growled from the door.
The woman spun. Her expression had transformed from the aftereffects of sucking down a lemon to the gape of a landed fish. Startled, Hanna tore her eyes away from her would-be adversary to see Gregory’s angry glower fixed on his mother. Had that expression fixed on Hanna, her jaw would have dropped, too. Instead, warmth suffused her to drive away the last of the cold.
He defended me. Against his mother.
“Greg, you can’t mean that,” she said, tone shifting with little hesitation from a snarl to a simper. “She disrespected me. She’s here to take advantage of your grandmother. You don’t want someone like that around.”
“How would you know what I want? You were never there to get to know me. If my grandmother, the ‘old hag who thinks she’s taking care of a child’ in case you were confused, wants me to hire her a team of jugglers with bells hanging from their dicks, I will ask how many she wants in the team I hire. She has earned it. Unlike some people. Did you want to talk more about people who ‘think they’re taking care of a child’? I could get you a mirror.” Gregory raised an eyebrow.
Fat crocodile tears formed in the woman’s eyes. “I’m trying to make up for that every day. You know I am. I did the best I could, son.”
“That, I believe. You left me with my grandmother. That was, in fact, the best you could do, and I thank God every day you realized it.” He folded his arms across his chest. “As for trying to make up for it, you have a shitty way of doing so. Insulting my grandmother. Berating Hanna.”
“But she’s–”
“She is an employee, and a member of this household, and you will treat her with kindness oryouwill not be a member of this household. You are here because you keep saying you want to try to have a relationship with me. To get to know your son, to build the bridge that never should have been missing. Then you act like this, and I start to think I don’t want a relationship with you.”
More tears. These spilled over onto the woman’s cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to protect you.”
“That’s not your job anymore.” He fixed her with a hard stare. “It stopped being your job when you abandoned me to work your way across the country, one party at a time. Your job is to show me you’ve changed. That you’ve come around to wanting to try that ‘mother’ thing.”
“I’m trying to be a good mother. She–”
“Mom. Quit while you’re ahead. I just came from a nice talk with Gran, and that means my better nature is riding high at the moment. She keeps telling me I should be gracious with you. Forgiving. Open-hearted, because there’s been enough tragedy and loss in your life. You need a son. I, God help me, love her and listen to her. But don’t push me.” He glanced at Hanna, then back at his mother. “Apologize.”