Page 53 of The Six Murders of Daphne St Clair

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Ruth woke up to a text from her mother telling her that Daphne was dead. She grabbed her laptop and began streaming the coverage, her mouth dry from sleep and her head hot and clouded.

Ruth sat there, unsure of what she was feeling, or even what was appropriate to feel.

She had felt so many different things about Daphne: rage, resentment, protectiveness, it all swirled together in an emotional quagmire.

Daphne had done a lot of cruel things in her life.

She knew what it was like to look in the eyes of someone who loved her and make them die.

She had also likely killed Ruth’s father.

But she wasn’t born that way, Buzzy’s memories made that clear, and Ruth would always wonder who she would have been if she had grown up in a different time and a different place.

Still, Ruth had to admire the dramatic flair.

Daphne had taken her final victim. In doing so, she had guaranteed that Ruth’s exclusive really was just that.

She had changed Ruth’s life, both for the better and the worse, and Ruth knew that someday, if she ended up as an old woman in a nursing home, reporters might still occasionally visit to ask her what it had been like to interview the Gray Widow.

She suspected that Daphne would continue to define Ruth’s days, long after her death.

“Don’t record me today,” Diane said as soon as she opened her door. She looked more muted than the last time they’d spoken, dressed in navy chinos and a striped top, with very little jewelry. It was as if she’d turned the volume down on everything, from her clothes to her makeup.

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Ruth replied.

Ruth had set up this meeting with Diane to play her some of the podcast episodes and answer any questions she had. Ruth had arrived shortly after Harper had left for school so that Diane would have time to listen to the episodes in peace.

“How are you doing?” Ruth asked, acutely aware that she was visiting someone who had just lost her mother, the only parent she’d ever known. Diane’s face turned frosty and she gestured to a stiff armchair for Ruth to sit in.

The same water pitcher full of Gucci ice cubes sat on the table, the condensation shimmering in the morning light.

“Let’s just play the episodes, since it meant so much to my mother,” she replied formally. Ruth nodded and got out her phone. Diane clearly had as much tolerance for emotional discussions as Daphne had.

Ruth played her the first five episodes: the ones covering her life in Lucan, Winnipeg, and, most explosively, the murder of Geoffrey, Diane’s father.

Diane sat unmoving on the couch throughout the episodes, pausing only for bathroom breaks and the occasional water refill.

Ruth studied her out of the corner of her eye, trying not to make her feel watched.

She looked nothing like her mother but there was something in her stillness, in the way Diane sat with every muscle tensed, that reminded her of Daphne.

The only sign that she was stressed were her fingers twitching, and Ruth wondered if she was a former smoker experiencing a long-dormant craving.

It was early afternoon when the fourth episode ended and the two sat in silence, the only sound coming from an antique carriage clock in the hall.

“So, she really did kill my father,” Diane muttered in a strange, detached voice. “Harper warned me but it’s different hearing her confess to it. She always told us he had cancer.”

“Well, he did have cancer,” Ruth said and then immediately regretted it. She had spent so long with Daphne that sometimes she felt as if she had absorbed her voice, that she would spend the rest of her life seeing the world through two sets of lenses.

“And I find out when it’s too late to confront her,” Diane said with a bitter laugh. “That is classic. My mother was a master at dodging consequences.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know if this changes anything,” Diane said finally. Ruth wasn’t quite sure what she meant by ‘this’: the podcast? Daphne’s death? How she felt about her mother? She waited but Diane didn’t expand.

“What do you think of the podcast?” Ruth asked.

“Well, having listened to it, I like my mother a lot less, but I understand her a little bit more. So, it’s probably accurate,” Diane said finally.

“I should have said earlier, I’m sorry for your loss,” Ruth said awkwardly. She didn’t know how to deal with death. Every person she lost had sent her into a tailspin, giving her a secular anxiety that made her wish she had a set of reassuring beliefs about the afterlife.

Diane sighed and took a sip of her water. Her eyes seemed to grow dull, and she didn’t acknowledge Ruth.

“How are your kids coping with the loss?” Ruth tried again.

“The older ones are fine. Harper’s a bit shaken. My mother left her a huge inheritance, probably just to spite me as she didn’t leave me a red cent. When Harper turns eighteen, she’ll be able to do whatever she wants. I won’t be able to tell her anything.”

“And I saw that Reid lost his election,” Ruth said.

“Yes, but I don’t think you can blame that on my mother, no matter how much he’s trying. It’s just a fact. The longer Reid talks, the less people like him.”

Ruth smiled and laughed obligingly. Diane relaxed and went on.

“You know, when James was born, my mother didn’t have much money.

But by the time we came along, she did. I grew up in lovely homes, with beautiful dresses, and anything I might like,” Diane said.

She glanced down, staring at her perfectly manicured hands, as if she was confessing to a priest. “Of course, we didn’t keep much when we moved.

But I always knew there would be more dresses and dolls in my future, each more beautiful than the ones we left behind.

“Now I think about how she got the money for all those beautiful things and it just spoils everything,” she said.

Ruth pictured all the porcelain dolls with rosy cheeks, shining hair, all the frilly dresses as foamy as cotton candy, all those treasures slowly being submerged in filth.

“You’re probably not surprised to hear that my mother wasn’t the easiest person to live with.

In some ways she was a nice mom. She would let us eat ice cream sundaes for dinner in expensive restaurants.

She liked seeing us happy. But a good mother would have made us eat vegetables.

My mom never worried about what was best for us, what would help us become healthy, well-adjusted people.

She just liked to see us smile. And whenever my mom was faced with a choice of what she needed versus what we needed, she always chose herself. ”

Ruth knew that it was the truth. She hadn’t known Daphne for long, but she knew that Daphne always chose herself. Even when there was no choice necessary, Daphne still chose herself.

“In some ways I understand. No one makes the mother a priority. She did. But I’ve spent my whole adult life unsure what was normal or how I should parent.

And that was when I only thought my mother was a narcissist. Not a murderer.

But she was my mom. This was a woman who took us on adventures, and always made sure that we had warm coats and bought us a dog even though she hated pets. ”

Ruth didn’t say a word, fascinated by the things Diane was saying. She wished that she could record her but knew that Diane would revert back to her old, prickly self if she saw a microphone. But it amazed her how much more depth there was in a woman she had originally judged as a Bravo knockoff.

Women were so much more than how the world saw them, their secret lives so much more complicated and frustrating than the lives of men, because they had to constantly wrestle with the fact that they had more power than they thought but less power than they deserved.

“I used to see her as this survivor, this person who was born poor, who really made a life for herself. But when she confessed, I felt like we lost the right to be proud of her. But even as we’ve lost her, we’ve gained something.

My brother James has reached out. But don’t mention that on the podcast, he deserves his privacy, even if Rose and I have been robbed of it. ”

Ruth ignored the slight, too stunned by this revelation.

“James? Really? How is he?”

“He’s fine, he seems quite happy actually, even though he’s not particularly well-off,” Diane said, as if the idea of anyone being happy with a middle-class income was baffling.

“I won’t tell you anything more as I don’t think he’d like it, but I thought you’d like to know he was okay.

I think we’ll be in regular contact now. ”

“Well, at least one good thing has come out of all this.”

“Yes, not that you deserve any credit for it,” Diane said acidly. She shook her head and stood up, the spell broken. Diane stood by the doorway, a clear hint that she wanted Ruth to leave.

“You know, it’s probably for the best that she’s dead. Now my family can move on,” Diane said.

She sounded certain but there was a waver in her voice, a little bubble of hesitation. Because now there were no more chances to fix the relationship, no more chances to get it right. And any more understanding or reflection on who her mother had been would have to come from Diane alone.

Daphne had once joked to Ruth that when she died, she wanted a headstone that read “Mother. Fucker.” But in the end, she was cremated, and her ashes were scattered on the beach near her old apartment, just beyond the building where Ruth’s father died.

No one knew if that was what Daphne would have wanted, although Ruth suspected she might have preferred her ashes being scattered on Fifth Avenue.

Ruth didn’t attend of course. It was only Daphne’s daughters and a couple of her grandchildren, including Harper.

And James. After decades apart, he had finally come back to say goodbye.

Diane told her later that they had tried to throw the ashes into the waves, but a sudden wind had thrown them back into the family’s faces, leaving them sputtering and gagging.

It seemed like a fitting tribute to Daphne .