Yesteryear: A GMA Book Club Pick: A Novel by Caro Claire Burke - 51

Shannon’s hair had been highlighted. The nose ring was gone. She was wearing a prairie dress from one of the clothing lines that frequently sent me massive clothing hauls. She looked less like herself and more like a girl from Brooklyn who had raided a roommate’s closet an hour before she had to attend a steak dinner with her boyfriend’s Midwestern parents.

The anchorwoman sitting across from her was the same one from the week before. Erin something. She was wearing less eye shadow, and her general demeanor had shifted from the breezy composure of an evening news summary to something more somber and investigative. A woman in search of the truth. She leaned forward, pressed a hand to Shannon’s knee, and offered her a look of blazing solidarity. “Shannon, I want to start this conversation by asking you a personal question: How old are you?”

Shannon shifted in her chair. “I’m twenty-one years old.”

“And how old were you when you first began work at Yesteryear Ranch?”

“Nineteen.”

Erin gave the camera a long, sideways look. Everyone shifted uncomfortably. Caleb, Doug, Amelia, and I were all squished tensely on one stretch of sectional. The lawyers were sitting in chairs behind us. The nannies were with the children, having received firm instructions: Stay out of the living room. I’d been waiting all day for this moment, and still I felt unprepared for it and a little bit woozy. My phone hadn’t stopped buzzing in days. My mother was a liar. My sister was a useless bitch. And the Angry Women, oh—

“That’s pretty young,” Erin said.

“Yeah. It feels like a really long time ago.” Shannon pushed her bottom lip out into a delicate pout. Remarkable. The girl was rich, the lawyers had learned. Her father was in finance. Her mother was a civil rights lawyer. Shannon, it turned out, had traveled to more countries already than most people do in their whole lives. I’ve never seen the Pacific Ocean! Oh, please, she’d seen practically all the others—and now some publicist had dressed her up and slapped her around to make her look as vulnerable as a five-year-old foster child. She might as well have been wearing pigtails.

“And how old is your employer, Caleb?”

“ I’m her employer,” I said, right as Shannon said regretfully, “He’s thirty-five.”

The shot cut away to preroll footage of Shannon walking mournfully through a city college campus. Erin’s voiceover drifted somberly in: “Shannon was a bright young student with the whole world ahead of her when she saw a callout for a producer on the Yesteryear Ranch account. Professors in the film program described her as sharp-witted with a critical eye—so when Shannon told them she was dropping out for what she described was a huge opportunity, they assumed she was moving to Hollywood. They couldn’t have been more wrong.”

What? She’d already dropped out before she got the job with me. They were getting the timeline all wrong.

“Would you say, Shannon, that you gave up a lot in order to work for Natalie Heller Mills?”

“I would.”

Erin gave another sideways look to the camera. My brain felt hot, literally hot; if a drop of water were to land on my forehead, it would have hissed steam. Erin was asking Shannon about Caleb now: how they met, when things shifted from professional to “decidedly less so.”

“Caleb is a really great guy,” Shannon said. “He’s smart and kind, a really good dad.”

“Perhaps not as good of a husband,” Erin offered, and Shannon blushed, looking appropriately guilty. “Perhaps not,” she admitted. She started to cry.

“Let’s change the subject,” Erin said gently. Shannon nodded, accepting a tissue that Erin had procured from thin air. “In your lawsuit, Shannon, you mention several other…unsavory, let’s say, aspects of life at Yesteryear Ranch. There are some instances of alleged animal abuse—”

“Outrageous!” Caleb cried.

“—related to the number of dairy cows the family has moved through, for example. Is it correct, Shannon, that the family has witnessed the unnatural deaths of at least four dairy cows, just over the two years you worked there?”

Shannon nodded. “I can’t say whether that’s normal,” she said, “but I did find it creepy that the cows are always called Sassafras.”

“It’s a good name!” Caleb protested. “And it’s perfectly normal for animals to die on a farm!”

In my periphery, Doug placed a hand on Caleb’s shoulder, and Caleb fell silent. Then Doug noticed I was watching, and his hand slipped easily off Caleb’s shoulder and onto the spine of the couch.

“And is it true, Shannon, that the children don’t want to be filmed?”

Shannon nodded. “They hate it.”

Lying bitch.

“Do you have some footage to show us, Shannon?”

Shannon nodded.

Then my brain ceased the work of forming coherent thoughts altogether, because I was staring at Clementine’s face, on the screen, pixelated and morose, staring right at me. The footage was recent, she’d already had her growth spurt, but still: the last year, I’d been thinking near constantly about how grown-up she seemed, how close to adulthood she was—and now the truth smacked me in the face: she was so young. The screen flashed to another image: Jessa, crying in the barn, mouthing Mama, Mama, her hands and shirt covered in mud, or was that cow shit? And then just as quickly: Samuel and Stetson standing by the paddocks, their little cowboy hats backlit by a big blue sky. They were fighting over control of a nail gun. And then back to Clementine, shaking her head at—me. There I was. Standing in the kitchen, saying something sharp to my daughter. Pointing at her, and then her sisters. Junebug was on the floor, wrapped around Clementine’s leg. I was telling Clementine to watch them, probably. And she was saying quietly, repeatedly: No. And now I was saying, unmistakably: Yes.

What day was this? I didn’t remember this moment. As I watched myself on the screen, I felt like I was watching another woman I used to know. Offline Natalie. Ugly and sharp and awkward and old. Like some fairy-tale witch. What was she doing here? Who let this woman online?

And then I was staring at—darkness. Shadows. Car sounds. Doors opening and closing, buckles clicking. Where were we?

Suddenly a horribly sharp voice filled the darkness. On the other side of the couch, Amelia jumped from the sound. “Vanessa, that bitch, is undoubtedly going to run home to post about me in one of those stupid snarky online forums— bet you didn’t think someone like Natalie would shop at Target!!! —and then I’ll have to suffer a whole week of online commentary, and Shannon! The nerve! The absolute unbelievable nerve of that spoiled uneducated morally bankrupt little son of a—”

I couldn’t breathe. My hand was frozen on my swollen stomach, but the baby wasn’t moving. Distantly, I wondered if she was holding her breath, too.

“Yes,” my voice carried on mercilessly in the black. “That would be nice. I could share the moment myself and take the wind right out of Vanessa’s stupid little sails…Girls! What did you get at our very special trip to Target today?”

No, was all I could manage to think.

“Stop filming me,” Clementine said.

“I didn’t know you were unhappy being filmed, Clementine. I’ve always told you to tell me if you felt that way. Haven’t I?”

The footage cut away to a flickering montage of videos of Clementine, hundreds of them, rapid-fire, starting when she was just a toddler, and slowly moving toward the present. Fall, winter, spring, summer. Babies springing up all around her. And her expression, Lord; miserable, miserable, miserable.

Then we were back to the interview, and Erin was giving Shannon a tissue, and Shannon was sniffing, saying how much she loved the children, how much she loved the nannies and the farmworkers, how much she loved me, and how worried she was for everyone involved. “I know that’s hard to understand, given everything that…happened, but I mean it.”

“I have to say, Shannon,” Erin said, “I’m surprised to hear you voice gratitude to Natalie after what she allegedly did to you.” She paused, a perfect anchorwoman expression on her perfect anchorwoman face. “Can we talk, Shannon, about the incident?”

Shannon nodded. I leaned forward.

“The thing you have to understand,” Shannon said quietly, “is that Natalie is not well.”

“ Allegedly, ” Erin added nervously. “She’s allegedly not well.”

Shannon began to describe, in halting stutter steps, a different world than the one we were living in. An upside-down land. A straight shot into Hell.

“…called me all these terrible names…straddled me…my jeans were around my feet…screaming…”

Doug said suddenly, “What is this?”

“I felt so terrified, and she wouldn’t get off me—”

“Natalie,” Doug said, “what is she saying?”

“—felt so violated—”

“ Natalie. ”

“I told her to get off me, I was screaming for her to get off me—”

She didn’t scream.

Caleb looked at me. Amelia looked at me. Doug and the lawyers looked at me. I hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but it was true, wasn’t it? “She didn’t,” I said, suddenly defensive, “because there was nothing to scream about. She’s lying. Obviously she’s lying. I mean—”

In the background, Erin went on. “—certainly sounds like a moment that was…erotic in nature—”

I felt insane. I laughed, or tried to laugh.

“I can’t speak to her sexuality, but I can say it felt very violating for me—”

Next to me, Caleb said quietly, almost to himself, “I don’t get it.”

Upstairs, my phone was buzzing. I could feel it in my veins. A steady wave of comments, flooding the computer chip, threatening to short-circuit it. Millions of opinions, rising in my ears, a deathly choral scream.

I reached for the remote control and pressed the power button. Shannon and Erin disappeared.

“Hey,” Doug snapped. “We need to watch this.”

“Come on,” I said, “this is ridiculous. She’s spewing lies!” I forced out a laugh. “Does anyone actually think I’m gay?”

One of the lawyers cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Well, I imagine some people will absolutely think that, yes.”

“This is a problem,” Doug said. “This is a very, very big problem. And I like to be fully aware of problems.” He reached across Caleb’s lap and snatched the remote from my hands, then turned the television back on, right as Erin was saying, “Do you have anything you’d like to say to Natalie, if you could?”

Shannon looked straight at the camera, at me, and smiled a perfect—and I mean perfect—smile. Soft, smart, feminine. The holy trinity. “I forgive you, Natalie.”

A swell of fury rose in me, so sudden it knocked my thoughts off-kilter, sent them spilling over the levies of my mind.

Liar. Homewrecking cunt bitch—

“Natalie,” Caleb said. “My God. Stop.”

I froze.

“Well,” Erin said, “I think we can leave the conversation there today. Thank you so much, Shannon, for coming tonight and speaking your truth…”

Doug pressed mute and Erin fell silent. Then he turned to me and said, “You didn’t tell me the whole truth. And now, little missy, all of us are fucked.”

He stood up and stormed into the kitchen, the lawyers trotting nervously after him. Then Caleb stood up. He looked confused. “I need to think,” he said. I watched him slowly walk to the front door, open it, and step out onto the porch. For a moment he just stood there, staring out at our property. Then he shut the door behind him, and it was just me and my mother-in-law, who was looking at me with an expression like a cocked shotgun. “And may God have mercy on your soul,” she said softly, almost like she was finishing a prayer on my behalf. Then she leaned in, so close that I could see the flakes of dead skin peeling off her Barbie-pink lips, and whispered, “Bad girl.”

If only my husband had raped our producer. That was basically what Doug said that night—what he roared —for hours and hours, while a rotating cast of side characters (me, then Amelia, then finally just the lawyers) stared numbly at nothing. If only his stupid little son had raped our stupid little producer. If that had happened, it would’ve been over with and forgotten in two weeks. But a predatory woman? Unthinkable. A good Christian mother and wife who (allegedly!) found other women attractive? Who took what she wanted without asking?

Kill the witch. Burn her.

Upstairs, I sat on my bedroom floor and watched my phone light up on my bedside table, again and again, in little Morse code bursts.

Go-to-hell

Stu-pid bitch

I-hope-so-cial-ser-vi-ces-takes-ur-fuck-ing-kids

It wouldn’t stop buzzing. Finally I crawled over to the table, reached for my phone, then hesitated, my hand hovering over the phone as it twitched. It looked like it was in agony.

I could turn it off. Throw it into a fire. Delete my account. But it wouldn’t go away. All that furious energy—it had to go somewhere, and I could feel it, even now, vibrating up into the air in waves, rising like a mist, absorbing into my skin. Filling my bloodstream with toxins. I could feel it, physically feel the hatred multiplying inside me like cancer. Online Natalie was optimized for resentment, adoration, jealousy, obsession—but hatred? Pity? Disgust? It was unbearable for her. For me. For us.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I picked up the phone and began reading the notifications. As I scrolled through the waves of fury, I found myself unable to discern between the progressive women who hated me and the good Christian women who hated me. For once, they were aligned in their fury. And then there were the texts.

From my mother:

Natalie call me right now please

From my sister, a torrent of misspelled rage:

I just findit reelly interesting that u were soooo jugmental of me for getting a divorce n being such a “sinner” and meanwhile—

From an unknown number:

I’m going to slit your throat in the middle of the night you stupid fucking lesbo bitch

And then more unknown numbers, dozens of them, piling up in my phone like envelopes slipping through a mail slot.

I will pray to God for your horrible sins

U will burn in hell for this

Disgusting faggot bitch

I stared wildly around. How had these people gotten my phone number? What other private information had they uncovered? Were they going to come to the farm?

Go, Natalie. Run.

But run where? I had fanatical followers who lived in Brazil, New Zealand, Mongolia. The whole world was a spotlight. Even my sweet little farm was rigged against me, bugged with phones, riddled with ungrateful children and disloyal workers. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere safe to hide. A terrible drowning sensation fell over me. All the safety I would ever feel in my life was now firmly rooted in the past.