Hush Hush by Laura Lippman Page A

six with Carla Scout, seven if she was lucky, out the door at eight and en route to the babysitter they used for a few hours every morning, so Crow could get a decent amount of sleep.
    And now Crow was lobbying for another child and he had enlisted Carla Scout in the campaign, although she wavered when Crow admitted he couldn’t guarantee a sister. A second child would mean finding a new house, as Tess’s beautiful little cottage simply couldn’t hold yet another person, and it had already been expanded as much as possible. Maybe, she thought, as she drifted back to sleep in her bed, she should tell Crow it would ruin the gestalt if they had to move because of a second child.

Transcript of Interview with Poppy Widdicombe
    Transcript of Interview with Poppy Widdicombe, Treemont Hotel, March 11
        
SPEAKER 1: Pauline “Poppy” Widdicombe
 
 
SPEAKER 2: Harmony Burns
 
 
          INPUT: HB
 

    PW:
 
Hi! Thank you so much for the hotel room. This was almost like a vacation for me. And the breakfast was great. So what do you want me to say? They said it was a coincidence, although I don’t think either one of us ever believed it. And then they said, You know what? Maybe you’ll be friends. Those two ladies down in Texas, they became friends. And that’s when Melisandre said to me—
HB:
   
Okay, okay, that’s great. I know I told you just to start right in and tell the story your way. But let’s get the context first, okay? The things that happened before you met Melisandre? Introduce yourself, as if you were giving a talk to a group of people interested in what you have to say. Because this will be seen by a group of people very interested in what you have to say.
PW:
 
I hate telling that part.
HB:
 
I know, but it’s important. I wouldn’t ask you otherwise.
PW:
 
But—Okay. For Melisandre. My name is Poppy Widdicombe and, in 2002, I, I, killed my eight-month-old daughter. I was found not guilty by reason of criminal insanity. I had postpartum psychosis. I was sent to a psychiatric hospital in western Maryland, near Frostburg. My roommate was Melisandre Dawes. She killed her daughter, too. She was famous, all over the news, though, because she had a trial and a mistrial before she was found not guilty. By reason of criminal insanity, but—that’s still NOT guilty. A lot of people don’t get that. That’s part of the reason I’ve had so many problems. By the way, Melisandre told me I’ll be paid for this?
HB:
 
We’ll talk about that later. Off-camera. Also, Poppy? A little slower. If you talk too fast, the transcription app makes errors.
PW:
 
The thing about Melisandre is that people thought she made it up. The whole being-crazy thing. Whereas with me, people knew I had to be. What I did—it was so awful. Only I didn’t do it, as my doctors always tell me. I have to understand that wasn’t me, that when you are as sick as I was, you can’t blame yourself for the things you do any more than you would blame yourself for throwing up when you have the flu, or having bad diarrhea with food poisoning. I was sick and the thing that I did was a symptom. My husband took me to church, where they were all Hell this and Hell that, and you must strike at the Devil when he speaks to you. I needed a doctor, not church. But my husband wouldn’t take me to a doctor when I got sicker and sicker. He just yelled at me, said I was a bad wife and mother. And then, you know, Satan started talking to me. That is, I thought it was Satan because whenever I tried to talk to people about my problems, they said God didn’t give you more than you could handle and I was being tested by Satan and if I would just listen to God, I would know what to do. So one day, I realized Satan was in my baby and I had to get him out. So I did it.
HB:
 
Did what, Poppy?
PW:
 
Do I have to tell this part?
HB:
 
I’m afraid so. Part of doing what we’re doing, what Melisandre is trying to do, involves speaking hard