The Secrets We Keep

by Nikki Lee Taylor

  Right now, he will be down there, cleaning and cooing and making sure they have everything they need. Their backpacks will have water bottles, he will take a small medical kit complete with Band-Aids, disinfectant, a bandage, and tweezers. He will take three pieces of fruit: a banana, an apple, and a pear. Harry will want the banana, its disregarded skin to be packed away in a ziplock bag if no bin is nearby, and Harlow will devour the apple, tossing the core when no one is watching. To anyone else it would appear almost scripted, but Bastian is just like that. He’s organized, thoughtful, and prepared. I can only imagine it’s the result of growing up in a loving, well-managed home, where everyone got their favorite snack, and no one ever went without.

  In a few short hours, my community will be logging on to read the regular Sunday blog post on Love Mommy. It’s my weekend update, a recap of how I spent time with my family, what activities we enjoyed, and tips for when they bundle up their own children to carry out the same activity next week. There are the odd occasions I go out with Bastian and the twins and take pictures of them, but most weekends my photographer takes care of that. I take credit for the images to make it look like I was there, and when my subscribers ask why I’m not in the photos, I always tell them the same thing: I was just too focused on capturing the joy of my family. Isn’t that the trait of any devoted mother, after all – to stay in the background while her husband and children shine?

  When Bastian and the children tumble back into the house, I head downstairs, completely unaware we are about to get caught up in our first out-loud argument of the year. And all because of a string of ducklings on the pond.

  He is at the sink, busy rinsing their water bottles away, and despite the awkwardness hanging between us when he left, I smile and touch him gently on the shoulder. “How was the park?”

  “Interesting, to say the least,” he says. “Can I talk to you outside?”

  I follow him out and he sits down on a seater by the pool. “There was a mother duck and a string of ducklings on the pond,” he begins. “Cute as all hell, but it got Harry thinking. Eventually he asked where babies come from.”

  “So, what did you tell him?” I ask, as a tiny brown bird flits and hops from branch to branch in the tree beside us.

  “Well, I considered going with egg, because they were ducks, and it’s still the truth, even for human babies,” he smiles. “But instead I told him about the Guf.”

  “The Guf? What’s that?”

  “The Tree of Souls.”

  “Like in Avatar?”

  “Not like in Avatar,” he grins. “I mean the Jewish version.”

  “The Jewish version? I thought your family were Lutherans?”

  “Well, that’s a long and slippery slope… According to Jewish scripture, the Chamber of Guf is like the Tree of Souls in the Garden of Eden.”

  “Okay… And this helps Harry how?”

  “The Tree of Souls is supposed to be where all souls reside before descending to Earth. Each soul has its own purpose, its own role to fulfill. When a set of circumstances presents itself that will allow the soul to fulfill its destiny, like a bird, it descends from the tree, ready to be born in human form.”

  “Like a bird?” I think about how babies are really made, and never once have I considered conception to be anything like the graceful flight of a bird. “Are you joking?”

  “In fact,” he continues, “sparrows are said to be the only living creatures able to see the soul as it descends from the Guf and onto the earthly plain.”

  “Sparrows?” I cast my eye back to where only moments ago the tiny bird was hopping from branch to branch, but it is gone. “And you actually believe that?”

  Bastian is thoughtful for a moment. “I’d like to. It makes a lot of sense.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Well, it’s like fate, I suppose. The theory that everything happens for a reason.” He stands up and nods to no one in particular. “When bad things happen, it allows us to fall back on the theory that it’s all part of the journey we were meant to have, the one God chose for us. It’s a lot better than thinking we experience things that are painful, just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. How could we ever make peace with an ideology that random? It would scare people.”

  “I hope you didn’t tell him that?”

  “I told him we are his parents by design. That his soul saw us and knew it was meant to be.”

  I rub at the scar on my wrist the way I always do when I’m nervous. “And he bought it?”

  “Bought it? Why would I have to sell it?”

  Memories of my own parents find their way in, and I know without a doubt I would never have chosen them for myself – or anyone else. “Because there are some parents that no one would choose, Bastian. Not for any reason, and not ever.”

  “You mean because yours died when you were young? That wasn’t their fault, Madelyn-May, and maybe—”

  “And maybe what?” I snap. “I wanted the experience of having no one love me for most of my life?”

  He bites down on his lip – his way of not saying something he might regret later. “Madelyn-May,” he begins calmly, “you never talk about your family, so I can’t really comment, can I? You never say anything about your childhood, so how would I know how you think or feel? It’s like…”

  “…what?”

  “It’s like you were a ghost before I met you. You never talk about anything that happened in your life. I don’t know a thing about you.”

  “My parents are dead.” I fold my arms across my chest and stare back at him, my eyes daring him to argue. “There’s nothing else to say.”

  “Fine, Madelyn-May, whatever…” he sighs. “But it’s pretty hard to understand something if you won’t tell me what it is.”

  If he screamed. If he shouted. If his family had been through even one scandal. Then there might be a chance he’d understand. If his shirts weren’t pristine, and he didn’t always have the right answer. If he cut corners, or, dare I say it, told a lie, then maybe I would consider letting my heels crack the eggshells we walk upon. But how could a man like Bastian ever understand a woman like me? I am stained from the inside out.

  “Bastian, I’m so tired of this,” I sigh. “It’s exhausting. Leave it be.”

  There are times that I want to shout, and cry, and let him see the ugly version of who I am: the unloved, broken, hideous girl, the girl that on a hot Californian night ran from her parents trailer covered in sweat and shame and never looked back. There are times I feel exhausted from the repetition of asking myself over and over if he still love me if I ever let the veil drop. But the things Bastian longs to know, the secrets that threaten to shout their way out of my heart, are things I can never tell him. He might think of me as a ghost, but he is wrong. I am not some phantom floating out in the ether. My soul did not choose its parents and descend to earth amid the sparrow’s song. I fought my way here. I scratched and dug and clawed my way out from ashes. I made myself into the wife he wanted me to be, and not a moment too soon, because he is unequivocally the love of my life.

  “I wish you would let me in,” he tries one last time. “Tell me what it is that’s haunting you.”

  “There’s nothing to tell,” I shrug, my secrets drifting back down into the dark. “I wish you would just accept that, and leave the past where it belongs.”

  “Fine, Madelyn-May, have it your way,” he says with a sigh. “I’m sick of going around in circles.”

  I search his eyes for any glimmer of the love we once shared. Seeing none, I drop my head and turn away. As usual he will go his way and I will go mine, both of us lost in a house so big it’s all but impossible to find our way back to each other.

  Chapter Six

  Madelyn-May, 1990

  The night was hot, even by Californian standards. A small electric fan balanced on a pile of old magazines by the door. My sisters had gone with Mommy and Daddy to a tailgate party, but I stayed home because of a pain in my
stomach. I was stretched out on Mercy’s bed, which was totally against the rules. She was the oldest, and would have killed me if she ever found out, but I was home alone so I pretended I could do what I liked.

  It was eight pm when the screen door of our trailer slammed. I knew because the big hand on my watch was pointing straight up and the little one was on the eight. Mommy had given me the watch last year for my seventh birthday. It had a green frog on the face and a grown-up leather strap. She had given one to Melody too, because we were twins and shared the same birthday, but I liked mine better. Hers had a dog on it. I didn’t like dogs because the brown one two trailers over pulled so hard against its chain whenever I walked by that its two front legs lifted from the ground.

  When I heard the fridge door open and close, I knew Daddy had come home by himself. If my sisters were back they would have been shouting and arguing, and Mommy would be yelling at them to pipe down, but all I heard was the popping of a beer can. It wasn’t unusual for my daddy to drink a whole case of beer most days, and when he and Mommy shouted at each other he would always say it was better to be drunk than look at her 24/7 with 20/20. I didn’t know what 20/20 meant, but it was no secret he would rather be drunk that look at Mommy. I never understood why, because she won the 1979 Miss Sonoma Sexy Shorts and Swimwear pageant, down at the local tavern. It was before any of us were born, and she loved to remind everyone that if it hadn’t been for us, she could have moved to Hollywood and been a star in all the movies. She said if we hadn’t come along the way we did, she could have been an actor, maybe played a starring role in her favorite movie Flowers in the Attic. It made me feel bad when she said things like that, because she was so pretty. Her dark hair almost reached the bottom of her T-shirt, and her eyes sparkled like winter dew on the grass outside our trailer.

  When Daddy’s footsteps, one, two, three, came toward our room, I sat up. As he rounded the corner and loomed in our doorway, the stink of beer and cigarettes got all caught up in the fan and blew across my cotton nightie, like a stain. “Hi Daddy…,” I said.

  He didn’t answer, and instead stood leaning on the door frame, the beer can hovering at his lips.

  “Daddy? Are you okay?”

  “The question is, pumpkin,” he replied, “are you okay?”

  I shrugged and touched my tummy. “I think so.”

  “Is my little girl becoming a woman? Is that what’s got you all churned up in the tum?” He sat on the edge of Mercy’s bed, semi-circles of sweat drawn beneath his armpits.

  “I’m only eight,” I reminded him.

  “Well, sweetie, some girls become women earlier than others. Happened with your big sister.” He leaned in close, his breath sour and old. “Did you know she got her first period when she was only ten-and-a-half? You didn’t know that, did you?”

  I shook my head and pulled my nightie down over my knees. It was pink, and on the front was a unicorn with sparkles on its horn.

  “It’s true,” he said. “One day just out of nowhere, bang, there it was.”

  “She told you?” It felt weird to think of Mercy telling Daddy she got her period. She was three years older than me, and had always been the same way: angry. She had never hugged me, not once, and not Melody either, even when Melody broke her arm on the swings at the back of the trailer park. Mercy had just dragged Melody up off the ground by her other arm and pulled her along screaming until we found Mommy.

  “Your big sister tells me everything, Madelyn-May,” he said. “She used to, anyways, before she turned into a pain-in-the-ass teenager. All she cares about now is letting boys… Well, that doesn’t matter…,” he trailed off. “What matters is I still have you, don’t I, Madelyn-May? I still have my sweet girl.”

  I shifted around on the bed, and glanced toward the door. “Is Mommy coming back soon?”

  “Mommy? I thought you and I might spend some time together, just the two of us.”

  “But I feel a lot better now,” I told him. “Maybe we could go meet them?” From the way he looked at me, I couldn’t tell if he was going to cry or raise his hand. He had never actually hit me before, but he had threatened, usually when I wouldn’t go to bed on time. Some nights, when he and Mommy were fighting, I would hear her fall, and the next morning she’d have a swollen eye, or a purple welt along the side of her cheek. She always told us she had been clumsy and fell. We were kids, but we weren’t stupid.

  “I just wanna spend some time with you, and all you can think about are your mom and sisters,” he said. “Don’t you love me, Madelyn-May? Don’t you care about your Dad?”

  I felt guilty, like a rock had sunk to the bottom of my belly. I was being mean. “Daddy, no, I didn’t mean it like that.”

  But he shook his head, and stood up. “You’ve always been my favorite, Madelyn-May. I try to hide it so the others don’t see, but I thought you knew. I thought you understood that I love you the most. Maybe that was a mistake.”

  “Daddy, no,” I cried. “I’m sorry, I do understand.”

  He took a long mouthful of beer, crushed the can, and dropped it onto the old drawers beside our bunks. “‘Forget it. I’m going back to the party. You should stay here.”

  “No, please take me with you. I didn’t mean it. I want to be your favorite. Please, I do.”

  I leapt from the bed and wrapped my arms tight around his leg. Mercy hated me, and Mommy wished she could be in Hollywood instead of with us. I loved my twin sister Melody so much, she was my best friend, but it hurt that Mommy was always brushing her hair and letting her try different colors of lipstick. Whenever I asked to try on make-up or if I left a hairbrush on the couch beside Mommy, she was always too busy or said my hair hadn’t grown as well as Melody’s. She’d say there was no point brushing it because it would never be like my sister’s. I wanted so bad to be somebody’s favorite. I had to be, because if I wasn’t, why did I even exist?

  “Please, Daddy,” I tried again. “I want to be your favorite. Please….”

  “You do, huh? Then think about what you say, Madelyn-May. Your words can hurt people. I know you’re young, but you understand, don’t you, that you can’t go around saying anything you like to people?”

  I nodded obediently, and let go of his jeans.

  “I need to be sure you understand, otherwise you can’t be my favorite girl.”

  “I do,” I promised. “I understand.”

  The single mattress groaned as he sat back down. “Because if you’re going to be my favorite girl, then we have to keep it a special secret. You can’t go telling anyone, because your sisters and your mother, they’ll get jealous.”

  He traced his finger across the soft, pale skin of my leg. “They won’t understand, and if your Mom thinks I love you more than her, she’ll make me leave. Then there’ll be no one to pay for the trailer. You understand? Everyone will be out on the street, and it will be all your fault.”

  My eyes dropped as his fingers slid further toward the edge of my nightie. “I do, but….”

  “Madelyn-May,” he sighed, “I should’ve known you’d be too young to understand. Your sister Melody, she’s just like your mother. They look alike, and they act alike. She’s just as pretty as your mother was, and she’s more mature than you. Maybe I made a mistake coming to spend time with you instead of her. I even brought you a present, but I guess you don’t want it.”

  “A present?” My eyes lit up, and for a moment I forgot about his hand on my leg. “What is it?”

  “Forget it. You’re too young to wear lipstick, anyway. I’ll give it to Melody.”

  “But we’re the same age!”

  “Well, technically she is older than you.”

  “Only by a minute and a half,” I protested. “Please, Daddy, please let me have the lipstick.”

  He grinned, and I saw he had chewing tobacco stuck in one tooth. “Okay, but you have to promise me two things. Can you do that?”

  I got to my knees on the bed so my face would be the same height as his. �
��Anything, just please let me have it.”

  “Okay, first thing is, you can’t tell anyone I gave it to you. I’ll keep it safe, and you can wear it when no one else is around, alright?”

  My shoulders dropped. I wanted so much to show Melody that I had a lipstick, but I didn’t want to let him down, not when he was being so nice. “Okay, I guess. What else?”

  “You have to let me put it on like Mom does with Melody. Do we have a deal?”

  “But only girls know how to put on lipstick,” I giggled. “You’re not a girl.”

  “Well, that’s the condition. What do you say? Will you let your dad have a go at putting lipstick on his favorite girl? You’ll look so pretty, Madelyn-May. We might even take a photo. What do you think?”

  He reached into the back pocket of his jeans, and pulled out the lipstick. It had a shiny gold case, and when he twisted it, I saw that it was bright-red.

  “Now, Madelyn-May,” he began, “this is a color for grown-ups, so when I put it on you have to act like a grown-up. Do you understand?”

  “I could put on some of Mommy’s high heels?” I suggested.

  “No need for that. Just pucker up your lips, like Mommy does in the mirror.”

  I puckered up, and felt the lipstick slide across my lips, smooth and glossy. “How does it look?” I asked.

  “You are even more beautiful than your mother when she was a girl,” he smiled. “Let me get my camera, we need to take a photo.”

  While he went to get the camera, I jumped off the bed and stared at my reflection in the mirror. Could it be true? Was I really as pretty as Mommy?

  “Alright, Madelyn-May,” he announced as he came back into the room. “Jump back up on the bed so I can get a picture of how pretty you look.’

  I posed for Daddy, first with my lips puckered, like I was blowing a kiss to the air, and then with my hands on my hips. But when we were done, he looked at me and furrowed his brow.