The Secrets We Keep

by Nikki Lee Taylor

  Chapter Eighteen

  Sophie, 2006

  By the time I got back to the house, Mom was already in an ambulance. The tumors had caused urine to build up in her kidneys, and they were losing function.

  As I followed the ambulance to the hospital, a million thoughts collided in my mind. Would she require dialysis? How much would that cost? Could we do it at home, or would she have to sit in a treatment center for hours every week?

  When I arrived, they directed me to the waiting room, where I folded myself into a seat, surrounded by an eclectic mix of patients and the people who loved them. After what felt like an eternity, Mom’s oncologist came out, and asked that I follow him into a small white-walled room.

  “Your mother is stable, but she will require dialysis until we reach end-of-life,” he said. “I am recommending hemodialysis, a process which uses a machine to remove waste products and water from the blood, just as functioning kidneys would do. She can have these treatments performed at home, and that is our recommendation, if it’s financially viable for you, because patients usually require treatment three times per week, for about four hours. That kind of routine can become exhaustive, and will have an impact on patients who are at your mother’s stage of cancer.”

  I nodded, and rubbed at my temple. “But she’s okay for now? I mean, she’s not….”

  “She’s stable.”

  “And the treatment you mentioned, the hemo….”

  “…hemodialysis.”

  “How much does it cost?”

  He hesitated, and I held my breath. “Annual treatment can run in the area of $70,000, minus any healthcare benefits she may qualify for.”

  “$70,000?”

  “It’s unlikely your mother will maintain life for more than six months, Sophie. Maybe less. You should prepare yourself for that.”

  I searched my mind. What preparations were there for this, for life without the one person who had cheered on all my accomplishments? Even before I could walk, she had been by my side to celebrate every milestone, from my first mouthful of solid food to sleeping an entire night in my crib. I knew because she had documented everything in my baby book. “But she needs this right now?”

  “She does.”

  “Can I see her?”

  When I eventually called my father, the exhaustion in his voice stopped me from telling him the cost of her dialysis treatment. I had one parent being taken against her will. My fear was watching the other one follow, a victim of utter defeat. Six months of dialysis treatment and end-of-life care meant I had to come up with $50,000. If I didn’t, the alternative was unimaginable. At the time, Jane’s proposal in the park had seemed insane, but I suddenly found myself wondering. Would she pay $60,000 to use my frozen eggs? It was three times the amount we had discussed. I’d need the additional $10,000 to make my plan work, and I quickly reminded myself this was not about morals. It was about necessity – for her, and for me.

  I called the number Jane gave me, let the phone ring once, then hung up, as she’d instructed, wondering every moment what the hell I thought I was doing. But inevitably a voice kept whispering back, saying, What you must. When I called back the second time, fifteen minutes later, she answered in a voice brimming with hope and disbelief.

  “You actually called.”

  “Yes. But there’s been a development,” I told her. “Things have changed.”

  “Alright,” she said. “Tell me.”

  “I think I know how we can do this without your husband ever finding out. But the thing is, my situation has changed. I now need $60,000.” I held my breath as the line fell silent. “Jane? Are you there?”

  “I’m here,” she said, eventually. “When can I give you the money?”

  She insisted on paying in cash. On my way to meet her at the same park bench where our lives collided, I was overcome with a mix of excitement and apprehension. I had no clue if my idea would work

  “I didn’t know if you’d show,” she said, as I sat down on the bench. “I’m glad you did.”

  I stared straight ahead, unable to look her in the eye. “My mother has gone into renal failure. She needs weekly dialysis, as well as end-of-life care. There’s no other way we could ever afford the treatment she needs.”

  Jane nodded and stared at the same imaginary spot in the distance. “What will you tell your family about the money?”

  “I have no idea,” I told her, honestly. “The main thing is that my mother will get the care she needs. She will be out of pain, and at home for as long as possible. After that, she can leave us peacefully without ever having felt like a burden. Right now, that’s all I care about.”

  She nodded again, and nudged a tote bag toward me along the bench. “There’s $30,000 inside. I’ll give you the rest once the doctor begins the process. You understand, right? I need to be sure.”

  “Of course. I’ll speak with the doctor, and let you know when it’s all organized,” I said. “In the meantime, you should talk to your husband. Won’t it seem strange that suddenly you want to do this?”

  But she shook her head. “He’s been wanting—no, hounding me, actually—to do this for the past eighteen months. I’ve been making excuses, because I knew I could never fall pregnant with IVF alone. If he ever found out I couldn’t give him kids of our own….”

  I nodded, and wondered what kind of man would be willing to leave the woman he loved, instead of considering egg donation or adoption.

  “You’ve saved our marriage,” she continued. “I want you to know that, Sophie. There’s no way I can ever really thank you for this.”

  “I don’t think I could have ever found a way to give my mother what she needs, if it hadn’t been for you. I know I was skeptical at first, and truth be told, I’m not at all comfortable with what we’re doing, but it’s a lot better than the alternative.”

  “Remember, there are no coincidences,” she smiled. “A part of you and I will be forever linked now, Sophie. I’ll always believe this was meant to be.”

  I threaded the tote over my shoulder, and made my way out of the park. What we were doing was wrong, and yet there were so many ways to justify it, at least to myself. Lying to a man about the very DNA of his children was unforgivable, but what kind of man would cast aside his wife as punishment for having unviable ovaries? Taking money, far more than was legally or morally acceptable, for my frozen eggs, was reprehensible, but if I didn’t, my mother would suffer horrendously every day until she died. Still, living with the knowledge that one of my eggs would be used to conceive a child I would never know was heart wrenching, but what kind of child was I if I could save my mother from a painful death and chose not to? And yet, what I was about to do – asking my best friend’s husband to keep a secret like this was the worst thing a friend could do, but if I didn’t then there was no other way to make this work. I wondered about the math of coincidence. Statistically speaking, what were the chances of Jane being there on that very day at that very time? I wondered whether fate was stronger than morality, and whether the purity of good intention was tarnished if it required keeping a secret as big as this one.

  The bag was heavy; by the time I got to the car my shoulder ached. As did my head, and my heart. This wasn’t me. I didn’t do things like this. I was a good girl, a soldier’s daughter. My father had taught us to be accountable for our actions, so if this all went to shit, I knew there was only one thing I could do: put my hand up and ask for mercy. After all, mercy lived at the heart of all this. It was the one thing I was trying to give my mother, the woman who had loved me all my life. I would just have to hope that in a worst-case scenario, I might be afforded the same thing.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Madelyn-May, 1997

  My eyes immediately fell to my sister’s stomach. “You’re pregnant? But you’re fifteen.”

  “Sixteen weeks,” she huffed. “Too far along to get rid of it now.”

  “Sixteen weeks….”

  “Forget that for now, it d
oesn’t matter,” she spat. “What matters is we get that son-of-a-bitch. Tonight. Alright? We have to. He has to pay for what he’s done to us.”

  “But what will you do? With the baby, I mean?” I caught myself staring at her stomach again, and quickly pulled my eyes back to hers.

  “Don’t know,” she shrugged. “Adopt it out maybe?”

  “Melody—”

  “I’m doing this tonight, Madelyn-May. You can either help me, or not, but I’m doing it.”

  It struck me how hard her eyes had become, like two shields ready to reflect anything that might come her way.

  “Are you in, or not?”

  Unable to say yes out loud, I nodded instead, a wave of guilt instantly flooding over me.

  “Alright, here’s what we have to do…”

  As she explained her plan, it was clear Melody had thought out every detail, and I wondered how long she’d been planning all of this.

  “Are you going to be okay with helping hold down the pillow?” she asked. “Like, you’re not going to freak out on me, are you?”

  The door to our parents’ room was only a few steps away, and I imagined my Daddy’s body lying in there, cold and quiet and dead.

  “Madelyn-May?”

  “Okay, alright,” I agreed. “I’ll help hold the pillow. I won’t freak out.”

  “Alright, so when he comes in, I’ll make his drink and you distract him. Now, come and help me crush the pills. We don’t have much time.”

  We used the backs of two spoons to crush the pills, the way we’d seen in the movies, and when it was all turned to powder, we swept it off the edge of the counter and into an old envelope. “Are you sure this will be enough?” I asked.

  “Should be.”

  “It should be? You don’t know?”

  “They said it would.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “Doesn’t matter, just trust me. It’ll work. It has to.”

  “Maybe we should wait. Maybe we should ask Mercy if this is a good idea? He’s her daddy too.”

  Melody screwed up her face the way she did when she was five and had tasted her first olive. “Mercy wants him gone as much as we do, Madelyn-May. What do you think he did to her all those years when we were still babies? He’s a filthy child molester. A pedophile. We’re his daughters. Have you forgotten this isn’t normal?”

  Had I? It had been happening for so long that when I tried to think back, there wasn’t a time I could recall when I wasn’t Daddy’s ‘special girl.’ There were times I hated it. There were times it hurt, and made me cry, especially when I was little. But it also felt nice to be loved, and held, and noticed by him. Sometimes it was hard to separate what he did from the emotion of it all.

  “Madelyn-May… You don’t actually like it, do you?” Her eyes were slits, and the word ‘like’ dripped from her lips like poison.

  “Of course I don’t like it, Melody,” I snapped, shame coiling around me. “What he does to us is gross. I hate….”

  “…You hate what?”

  The sounds. The smell. The taste. “How he gets all sweaty. Like I said, it’s gross.”

  “It’s not gross, it’s disgusting,” she spat. “Unforgiveable. And now I have one of his filthy little seeds growing inside me. How do you think that feels?”

  I wondered as she stared hatefully at her own stomach. Weren’t we also his ‘filthy little seeds?’

  “I’m sorry, Melody,” I whispered. “Does Mom know? About the baby I mean?”

  “God, no. Can you imagine?”

  I shook my head. “No, I actually can’t.”

  “Anyway, let’s get this done. After that, I’ll figure out what to do with the baby.”

  When Daddy came home, it was in a cloud of stale bourbon, and with a look in his eye I had seen too many times.

  “Well, here’s my two girls,” he grinned. “You’re both here together. How about that?”

  “Hi, Daddy,” I managed. “How was the tavern?”

  “The tavern?” he slurred. “Now, why would you go mentioning the tavern right off the bat? Who are you, your mother?” He glanced around the trailer. “Where is that old bag of bones anyways? She ain’t here.”

  “She’s at the evening salon, remember?” Melody told him. “How about another drink before she gets home?”

  A grin tugged at his lip, and he lent down so he was face-to-face with my sister. “You’re a smart girl, you know that? Smart and pretty. You might just be my favorite.”

  Melody cast her eye toward me, and I knew she had no intention of changing her mind.

  “In that case, I’ll make it for you,” she beamed. “Bourbon, with lots of ice.”

  If it was true that our mother had acting in her blood, she had definitely passed the gene on to my sister. I knew inside that she was a churning turmoil of rage and hate, and yet she was smiling at our daddy like a dutiful and loving daughter.

  “And what about you?” He pointed to me with a half-drunk can of bourbon. “What are you going to do for me?”

  From the fridge Melody shot me another glance. Distract him.

  “Well Daddy, why don’t you tell me about your day?” I began.

  “My day?”

  “Sure,” I smiled. “What did you do?”

  “Funny you should ask.” He placed his can on the edge of the table, and it immediately fell, and splashed across the floor. “Shit! Now look what you made me do.”

  “Sorry, Daddy, that was my fault.” I hurried to the sink, and picked up a towel to clean the mess.

  “Look at both my girls taking care of their old man, treating me like a goddamned king.” He sighed and sat back in his chair. “You know, your mother could learn a thing or two from you girls. I’ve taught you well. You know how to take care of a man. I did good.”

  In the kitchen, ice clinked against the side of the glass as Melody stirred his drink.

  “In fact, since your mother’s not home, I think you both deserve a treat,” he continued. “Something extra special this time.”

  Melody handed him the drink, and he took a long mouthful. “You’re both so good to your old dad. There’s no need for me to play favorites anymore.” He looked us both up and down. “How’s about you both come and have a lie down with me, in the bedroom? Together, this time.”

  I swallowed hard and glanced at Melody. He had never asked us to do anything like that before, and I had no idea how to respond. All I could do was pray the drugs would kick in before I had to see something I would never be able to exorcise from my mind.

  “No, Daddy,” Melody chimed, in a pretty sing-song voice. “I don’t want to share our special time.” She rubbed his arm, and I was immediately filled with a mix of sadness, and, I hated to admit it, jealousy.

  “Now, don’t be selfish, sweetie,” he told her. “Madelyn-May is your sister, and I’ve got enough love for the both of you. Now, come on, I’m not asking you again.”

  Reluctantly, we followed him single file into the room he shared with our mother. We stood awkwardly, side by side, as he lay down and stacked the pillows behind his neck.

  “You two shared a womb once,” he smiled. “There’s nothing more intimate than that, so this shouldn’t feel strange to you girls. It’s a beautiful expression of your love for each other, and for me. You do love me, don’t you?”

  We looked at each other, and I fought my bottom lip as it began to quiver.

  “Tell me something,” he tried again. “You both like boys, right? Have you ever practiced kissing, you know, with each other? It’s one of the best ways to learn.”

  I fiddled with my heart-shaped necklace. There had to be some way to buy time until the pills kicked in. But it was Melody who broke the silence.

  “I don’t need any practice,” she grinned. “I know how to kiss just fine.”

  We both knew where it would lead but at least it would buy us some time.

  I stood frozen to the spot as they began to kiss, slowly at first, and then harder.
His hand reached under her skirt, and he scooped her up and onto the bed.

  “Daddy….”

  I had planned to say stop, but no more words came out. I wanted to shout at him that I couldn’t watch. I wanted to scream that I hated him and loved him. I wanted to howl that I didn’t understand why he was doing this to us. But there wasn’t enough air in my lungs. My forehead burned, and my knees trembled. When he peeled off her underwear and covered her body with his, something inside me cracked. I was overcome by the indecency, the violation, and the sickness of it all. But mostly I was outraged that he had left me standing there like an afterthought, like something he could so easily forget. I hated myself for thinking it, for feeling it, and the last thing I wanted was to trade places with her, but jealousy coursed through me like a fever. I wanted to peel off my skin and gouge out my eyes. I hated myself, and her, and him, and everything about my stupid, messed-up life. I wanted him to see me, to notice me, to love me, and to never, ever touch me like that again. But I didn’t want him to want her either – or anyone else. He was my father. What was the right way to love him, or was it wrong to love him at all? My head was spinning, and all the questions started splitting apart. Sentences broke down, and letters jumbled. I couldn’t think. My vision blurred, soft and out of focus at first, then sharp shards of darkness cut through. I rubbed at my eyes, and willed myself not to stumble. I had to stay in control. Had to take control. Had. To. Make. It. Stop.

  “No more,” I mumbled. “Please, stop….” I covered my eyes, but all I could hear were the sounds coming from the bed. “Stop…,” I tried again, my voice barely a whisper. “Both of you, please, I can’t….”

  But they didn’t hear me. And they didn’t stop. And then it happened.

  Like a robot, I reached down and picked up a hammer Daddy had been using to repair the closet. I raised it up over my shoulder, and stepped toward the tangled mess they had formed on the bed.

  Sometimes on Sunday mornings, if Mom was in a happy mood, she would make eggs. When I was little, I used to climb up onto a box and watch her crack them on the side of the frying pan. I loved to see the yolk and egg white spilling and oozing out all over the place. A big delicious mess, served sunny-side-up.