HER PERFECT SECRET a totally gripping psychological thriller

by T. J. Brearton

  Her raised voice echoes in the trees, off the mountains. Remote as we are, I worry that the neighbors can hear. Sound carries, especially across the lake.

  “Do you understand that?” she asks. “I mean, you talk about me. Just like always, the focus is on me. But you’re running around these past two days, hitting animals with the car, acting like a nutcase! We came up here to tell you our plans, and it’s just been a wall of skepticism!”

  “Keep it down, Jo,” I say. I’ve simmered down some, listening to my daughter while chasing multiple thought strands.

  “I don’t need your approval of Michael,” she growls at me. “I don’t need your projection — either of you. Your own shit, your own infidelity issues a million years ago —”

  “Watch it,” warns Paul. There’s ice in his voice.

  “Fine. But you’re so far gone, Mom . . . I can’t even. I mean, I think you need help.”

  Somehow, in the midst of her tirade, I’ve found calm. “So tell me who was in the car.”

  Joni stares at me with that defiant look. She doesn’t want to satisfy me with a response.

  She doesn’t need to.

  As if on command, the headlights appear again in the distance, stuttering through the trees. The sound of the engine drifts toward us. Joni starts for the road.

  “Hey,” Paul calls. Both of us follow our daughter.

  She spins on us. “They’re our friends, guys. Madison and Hunter. Remember Madison Tremont?”

  I do. Madison is one of Joni’s childhood friends. Stuck for a response, I stammer, “I didn’t know they . . . do they live up here?”

  “Yes. They live up here. We came up the night before — Thursday night — and stayed with them.”

  It explains why Joni and Michael had enough time to for a tour before meeting us at the lake house at eleven a.m. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Joni takes a moment. She’s calmer now, too, maybe now that she’s gotten in a few shots at me — the guilt of that tends to mollify her. We’re not so dissimilar. “Because of what you do, Mom. Because of how involved you get in everything. If I told you we were going there, you’d have a million questions. A million suggestions. How long are you staying? When did they move here? Why don’t they come over to the lake house? I was going to tell you; I just didn’t get around to it yet.” A moment later, she adds, “They built a yurt.”

  Paul: “A yurt?”

  Joni sighs. She turns her back to us. She says, “Yeah, a yurt,” and continues walking.

  The SUV pulls up at the base of the driveway. I feel like things have taken a turn for the bizarre, and I’m rushing to complete the thoughts in my head and make sense of what’s just happened. Only thing stands clear, one sharp feeling: I want to rush over, to tell Michael I’m sorry. I want to ask when they’ll be back. I want to know, need to know, but my daughter’s words ring in my head: Because of what you do, Mom. How involved you get in everything.

  The back door opens. I peer in and glimpse Michael. The front passenger window comes down, revealing a pretty, young woman. Her dangling earrings sparkle in the light.

  Paul waves. “Hi, Madison.”

  “Hi, Mr. Lindman.”

  I hear Joni say something quiet which sounds like, “Let’s just go,” as she gets into the back.

  Madison gives us a sheepish smile and a wave, then sends up the window as the car backs into the driveway, turns, and leaves again.

  I stand beside Paul a moment, dimly aware of his hand on my upper back. Speechless, I turn and trudge back for the house.

  Paul doesn’t ask any questions. Relevant ones, at least. He just says, “They have a yurt and drive an Escalade?”

  I want to crawl into bed and not emerge for days.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Sean is sitting at the table when we come in. He’s bent over his phone, then he looks up and tosses the phone on the table, offering a sympathetic smile. “What was that all about?”

  “Joni and Michael went out with some friends,” I say.

  Sean looks at me, reading my body language. He can tell I’m tense. He says, “Joni told me Madison lives up here now on property owned by her parents. She and her boyfriend have a yurt. They built it themselves with steam-bent wood, or something. It’s like a house.”

  I survey the dining area and kitchen. All is sparkling clean. Sean has done all of the cleanup, it seems. Suddenly, I’m on the verge of tears.

  Sean hurries to me. “Mom, come on . . . It’s okay.”

  I take his arm. Looking around, I wonder where Paul has gone. Did he come in with me or did I just imagine it? Maybe he’s out in the garage, admiring his handmade boat.

  Yurts in the woods? Paul’s beloved boat? These are the things we’re thinking about after what just happened?

  I’m seized by the urge to smoke. “Hey,” I ask Sean. “You got anything?” I put fingers to my lips and draw air.

  “Weed?”

  “Just a cigarette.”

  “I don’t smoke, Ma. You know that.”

  I consider it. “How about the other thing?”

  “Just sit down. I’ll get you some wine.”

  I let Sean lead me to the table and sit. He gets the white wine from the kitchen, pulls a fresh glass from the cabinet. He pours me a half glass. I shouldn’t, but I take a sip anyway. Then I manage to look at my son. How did this happen? He’s barely twenty-five and Joni is twenty-two. But while she still feels like a child to me, he seems mature. Sure, he can be hard to get a hold of, unpredictable, but he’s figuring things out.

  He takes my hand. “It’s gonna be okay,” he says again.

  “Yeah.”

  “We’ve been here before, right?”

  “What do you mean? With Joni?”

  He shrugs: Yes.

  “I don’t know. I think this is different. I think I really screwed up.”

  I tell him about it as best as I can, keeping details private. Sean listens, his brow furrowing with empathy, nodding his understanding. But instead of feeling unburdened, a new spirit of frustration rises up in me. How can this be happening? How can someone who seems so much like my former patient . . . how can I be wrong about this person?

  He has a credible alternate life from the one I expect him to have. Even if he admits to a hazy memory — surely something would spark in him at my prompting.

  Or maybe it has, and he’s suppressing . . .

  Or — wait — maybe he’s told Joni the real story, not knowing she was my daughter? Is that possible? But then why would she act so bewildered by my suggestion of his mother?

  “There I go again,” I say.

  Sean frowns. “What?”

  “Nothing.” We change topics. I ask him about his life. He tells me about surfing in the Pacific Ocean.

  “You were in California?”

  “Just for a couple of weeks.”

  “I don’t remember that.”

  “I posted a couple of pics. Nothing big.” He tells me he was out there looking for work — the fruit-picking kind. But when he got the sense that nearly every farm sought migrant labor, which was cheaper, he moved on. He’d met a girl, though, a young woman, in Venice Beach. She was the one who suggested Colorado. “You wouldn’t associate Colorado with organic produce, but it’s huge out there.”

  “Tell me about the girl.” I’m happy to be distracted by Sean’s life. It’s so free and romping, it’s like a romance novel. Her name was Chloe, and she was a Colorado girl who made trips to the Pacific Coast in the winter to warm up and stay with friends. “Once we got back to Denver, though, she left my ass,” Sean says.

  I give his hand a squeeze and stick out my lower lip. “She doesn’t deserve you.”

  “It’s all good. We had some fun. I’m not ready to settle down right now anyway.”

  The notion sends my thoughts back around to Joni. I was never one to pressure my kids to get hitched and give me grandbabies. Of course, grandkids would be great. Someday. For Paul and me, it�
�s important that our children have a chance to live life. To sow some oats. We’re believers that this promotes a healthy, lasting union once one is established. There’s no I wish I would have done . . . before putting down roots and growing a family. I had my time as a young single woman, experiencing the world. Paul had his gadabout days. Other than the one trouble spot many years ago, it’s been mostly smooth sailing for us.

  Hasn’t it?

  “I’m happy for you, Sean,” I tell my son. “Living life on your own terms. It’s important.”

  I’m about to say something else when I hear a sound: a car. Getting up from the table, I glance at the clock on the kitchen stove — Sean and I have been talking for nearly an hour. There are voices outside, faint but getting louder. Footsteps on the gravel. I walk to the entrance and stand at the screen door. The night air is perfumed with pine and alders. With the sun gone a couple of hours, the breeze is cool on my skin.

  Paul is definitely in the garage; the open bay throws out a bleaching white light. Emerging from the darkness into that brightness are my daughter and her fiancé.

  I don’t know who else I expected, but seeing them suddenly makes me nervous, like a schoolgirl whose prom date arrived. It’s because I have some apologizing to do, some divisions to mend.

  I watch a moment as Paul comes out and talks to them. He draws Michael into the garage to look at the boat. Joni stays in the driveway. She turns to look at me and I freeze.

  Then she raises her hand in a wave.

  I wave back. Right after, I hug myself, suddenly chilled by a cool breeze. My emotions are jumbling together — gratitude, suspicion, anticipation. It’s all I can do to stay there, not go barging into the garage and demand to know why they’re back so soon.

  “Hey, look who it is,” Sean says. He’s moved beside me, sipping his wine.

  Paul can be heard boasting about his boat. Michael mumbles his admiration. Then Michael retreats, and Joni takes his arm, and Paul says, “See you inside,” from somewhere within the garage.

  I move back from the door and enter the kitchen, unsure what to do with myself. Sean returns to the table and sits down.

  The dishes are done but for my wine glass, so I scoop it off the table and wash it. By the time I’m placing it in the drying rack, Joni and Michael have come in.

  It’s a little hard for me to make eye contact. It was such a difficult scene in the driveway. I’m still processing it. Yet the two of them seemed to have come to some sort of consensus about things. It’s in their movements, the deliberateness of their demeanor. They both say “Hi” to me, and their voices are whispery, light. Michael pulls out Joni’s chair and she sits. Then he takes his seat — where he was at dinner, facing the kitchen, his back to the windows and the dark lake beyond them.

  I finally manage to find my voice. “Back so soon? Everything okay?”

  Joni answers. “We didn’t feel like going out. We were supposed to have drinks with them later. When things . . . when you and Michael were outside, I called them, asked them if they could come a little sooner. That’s when they picked up Michael.”

  “Okay,” I say. I lean on the sink, feeling somewhat back in familiar territory: listening to my daughter explain her actions, justify things.

  But there’s more. And it’s written all over Michael’s face.

  “Dr. Lindman,” he begins.

  “Emily.”

  He clears his throat. His eyes dart between me, Joni, and Sean. Finally, they stay on me, beaming sincerity. “I’m sorry about what happened earlier.”

  “It’s okay. Listen, guys—”

  Joni holds up her hand. “Mom. Just hear him out. Okay?”

  I zip my lips.

  Michael says, “You’re right. I’m not sure what happened when I was younger. All my life, people kept it mostly quiet. About my parents. But I always knew something was off. I just figured they were . . . you know, sparing me certain details. Like why I never went to a funeral. I thought maybe their bodies were . . .” He clears his throat again, as if on the edge of emotion.

  It triggers my maternal instinct, and I leave the kitchen for the dining room. I sit down between them as he finishes.

  “Like their bodies were too badly injured, or something.” After he finishes the thought, he faces me. I can tell it requires effort. “But there are other things. Things I can’t square. I have . . . other memories. They’re blurry. They’re . . . It’s like they’re the memories of someone else. And when you . . . When we talked in the driveway, it touched a nerve. That’s why I just got in the car and left. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I manage. “I understand.”

  And then Michael, after glancing at Joni one more time for support, tells me this:

  “I’d like to do what you suggested.”

  I draw a breath and wait.

  “I’d like to try hypnotherapy,” Michael says. “You know, regressive therapy. Whatever it is. And maybe see what’s there. Maybe I’ll get to the truth.”

  I exhale and say, “I think that’s a good idea.”

  His bright eyes lock on mine.

  He says, “But I want you to do it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  A light rain has started to fall, spitting against the picture window. Our boathouse light reveals white chop on the lake, wind blowing hard on the water.

  “There’s no way,” I say to Michael. “It would be a conflict of interest. You’re my future son-in-law, and therapists don’t practice on their own families. And anyway, I can’t help you because I’d have a preconceived idea. I’d be trying to lead you to what I believe is true.”

  “But what if you didn’t, though?” Joni asks. She’s enthusiastic. Joni has always liked a bit of drama.

  I shake my head. “I can’t.”

  Michael, who hasn’t said anything since asking me to perform the therapy on him, gets up from the table. He unsnaps his pants.

  “Babe?” Joni looks between us, her eyes wide. “What are you doing?”

  He pulls his pants down. He’s wearing red boxer briefs beneath. I can already see it, snaking out the left leg of his underpants: the scar. He rolls back more of the fabric to reveal it all. It has a crescent shape to it, more hooked at one end.

  “That?” Joni says. “Why are you showing her that?”

  “Because she knew it was there.”

  Joni gives me a suspicious look. “She didn’t just see it?”

  “No. Look where it is. She knows because she has a file on me somewhere. Is that right, Dr. Lindman?”

  “That’s right. Which is why I can’t help you with this. I would only be . . .”

  I trail off as Michael steps toward me. “You asked me to help you. Outside, you asked me to help you. Now I’m asking. Please. Let’s just see. Just one time. If I’m not . . . if it doesn’t work or you’re uncomfortable, we’ll stop and I won’t ask again.”

  He looks at me, longingly, as the rain picks up outside.

  Sean has been so quiet, I’ve almost forgotten he’s here. “I think you should do it, Mom.”

  I look around at him. My voice of reason. And then I wonder where Paul is, but then I hear a creak above my head, the sound of running water; at some point, he returned inside and went to the upstairs bathroom.

  “All right,” I say. “We’ll sleep on it, and if we all still feel the same way, maybe we can try it tomorrow.”

  But Michael is shaking his head. “I think it should be tonight.”

  “Michael . . .”

  Joni cuts in again: “You’ve already stirred stuff up in him, Mom. He was remembering things, saying things to me in the car. If we sleep, it could cloud it all over. You know that’s exactly what happens with sleep.”

  I only stand there, breathing. Watching Michael, seeking the truth in his eyes. Looking at my two children, who seem as anxious for me to get started as Michael is.

  Finally, I break. “Okay. But I need to do a few things first.”

  The relief i
n Michael’s eyes is unmistakable.

  * * *

  We go through it. I’ve brought Michael into Sean’s room on the second floor. Like Joni’s room, it views the lake. The rain is coming harder and the wind has picked up. Right on cue, like some kind of movie. But a white noise in the background aids the process. Michael is able to relax. He seems to trust me.

  Hypnotherapy doesn’t work on everyone; some people are more suggestible than others. It’s hardest for those with high situational awareness, those who have trouble letting go, or who are compulsive or obsessive by nature. Michael actually strikes me as easygoing and has since Joni introduced him. Though Tom Bishop was full of anguish — and full of rage — it was the kind you knew to be righteous. Even if it could be toxic, left unchecked. I knew — or sensed — while working with Tom, that a decent, kind boy was there amid the trauma of what he’d witnessed. A boy in a terrible situation.

  “Now, Michael,” I say, leaning forward slightly in my chair, “you’re fully and completely relaxed. You know that you’re safe. That you’re looked after. You know that everything is in its right place. The rain is soothing you, and you feel completely at ease. Completely comfortable.”

  He is on the bed, lying down. It’s not necessary to lie down for hypnotherapy — in fact, sometimes it’s discouraged, lest the patient drift off into sleep — but Michael suggested it. I watch his chest rise and fall, evenly, steadily. The light comes from a small lamp on the bedside table. The room is slightly musky, damp from underuse.

  The rain drums on the room. It patters against the windows and streaks the glass.

  “Michael, I want you to listen to my voice. Everything around you is quiet and dark. Even the rain is fading away. Hear it fade . . . Just my voice is left, the volume of everything else turned down until it’s nothing. Pure tranquil silence. My voice is sort of pulling you along. We’re going to go back in time, Michael, we’re going to go back to your house on Pondfield Road. Can you see that house? Do you remember it?”

  Michael, softly: “Yes.”

  “Can you describe it to me? What color is it?”

  “It’s white. With black around the edges.”