The Deepest Secret

by Carla Buckley

  “Kill it.”

  He looks at the grub coiled in his palm. It had given no resistance to being plucked from its home. It lies there with its shiny little brown head and its miniature antenna, its front legs curled peacefully by its round tail, as though it’s sleeping. How can he kill something that has no idea its end is so near? He nudges it with his finger to wake it up and give it fair warning, but it lies perfectly still. Is it feigning death, or is it really and truly dead? Amy had been alive one moment, then dead the next. She would have appeared to be sleeping, too.

  He heaves the grub into the air. It lands on the sidewalk, tiny legs churning. The grass is coming alive, every blade defining itself, turning greener right before his eyes.

  The rocks that line the flower bed are rosy; birds are singing. Colors begin to emerge from the darkness: the blue of Dr. Cipriano’s shutters, the red of the Farnhams’ car, the green of Sophie’s mailbox. This is the world hidden from him.

  The sun’s coming up, the earth rolling toward it like a marble across the floor.

  EVE

  Detective Irwin had been on his way out the door when he stopped and looked as though a thought had just occurred to him. Mind if I look in your garage? She had answered right away. Sure. Later she wondered if she should have protested out of feigned innocence, but instead she had led the man meekly through the house and out to the garage. He had crouched and studied both cars, shined his flashlight all around. When he stood up his face showed nothing at all. Just a formality, he’d said. We’re checking everyone’s vehicles. Thank God she’d been driving her car around. Thank God the fender had some wear on it.

  After Charlotte left, Eve had opened a bottle of wine. She never drank when David was out of town—what if there was an emergency?—but she twisted the corkscrew in and pulled the cork out with a resounding pop. She stood at the kitchen counter and drank down half a glass before refilling it, then went back in to sit with the children. They all felt bruised. Charlotte’s accusations spun around and around them, the conviction in her voice when she said, That detective, he’s getting to the bottom of this. He’s close. Thinking of it, Eve had gotten up and poured another glass.

  After Melissa leaves for school, Eve goes into her daughter’s room, breathes in a feral tangle of aromas—the bitter tang of nail polish, sweet floral shampoo, baby powder deodorant. Papers lie in drifts across the floor, covered with her daughter’s tiny cramped handwriting. She picks up a sheet, an essay about President Lincoln. Melissa’s doodled in the margin, a series of interlocking hearts with her initials, ML, and AB. Adrian’s. Eve glances at the date scrawled at the top right-hand corner, sees this paper’s from last spring. Melissa and Adrian had only started dating over the summer, so these hearts were wishful thinking.

  Clothes, slippers, the cookie-shaped pillow Melissa sewed in middle school, belts, purses, the rhinestoned shoes she wore to Homecoming freshman year with heels as thin as pencils. Her pony-printed umbrella, the huge floppy cloth doll with long yellow yarn hair that Eve’s mother had given her for Christmas ages ago.

  Under the bed lie textbooks, more papers, shiny silver CDs.

  Her dresser drawers hang open, overflowing with underwear and bras and shirts. She pokes around the back of the sock drawer—not one of them bundled into a matching pair—and feels the smooth surface of glass. It’s a bottle of hard lemonade. Four of them, all empty, fitted neatly into the drawer like puzzle pieces and covered up by the mishmash of socks.

  She stands there, holding one, and thinks about this. Melissa had somehow gotten hold of alcohol, brought it into the house, and consumed it, all without Eve’s knowing. She’d been clever about it. She could have sneaked these bottles into the trash or the recycling, taken them somewhere else entirely, but she’d hidden them here, within easy reach. It’s as if she wanted Eve to find them.

  Eve drives to school to pick up her daughter. When Melissa comes out of the school building and sees her standing there, her step slows. “What happened? Is it Tyler?”

  Eve feels a wash of sorrow. Always this. Look what she’s done. “Tyler’s fine.” She has the impression of something hurtling toward her. Her daughter has needed her, and Eve has been absent. That detective, he’s getting close. “I thought we could spend some time together.” These past days have been a murky blur. She has no memory of them. She feels her grasp on her daughter’s life loosening. She wants desperately to pull her child close.

  Melissa adjusts her backpack over her shoulder. Her face becomes implacable. “Why, so you can yell at me some more? Dad already did.”

  “No, not so I can yell at you. Want to go to the barn? It’s been years since I’ve been there.” Taking Melissa to her lessons has been David’s purview, their special time together.

  “You’re acting weird. What is it? Is it the police?”

  That terrible scene with Charlotte. That terrible, terrible scene. I thought you were my friend! “No, I just want to meet that mean horse Sammy you’ve been talking about.”

  “I don’t want to go to the barn.”

  Eve holds up the remote and unlocks the door. “Are you sure? Didn’t you tell me one of the horses is about to have a foal?” This detail comes to her, bobbing amid a sea of disjointed impressions and conversations.

  “You don’t even like horses.”

  “Sure I do.” But it made Eve nervous, watching Melissa bounce in the saddle. She was always worried the animals would pick up on that.

  “No, you don’t.” Melissa gets into the car and slams the door.

  Eve takes a deep breath. “Melissa,” she says. “I talked to Brittany’s mom.” Nancy had been quick to leave work to meet Eve for coffee. I promised Brittany I wouldn’t say anything, but we mothers have to stick together.

  “So?”

  “So I know Brittany’s been drinking.” Brittany wouldn’t get out of bed. I thought she had the stomach bug. Turns out she was hungover. Can you believe it? “I know you have, too. I found the empties in your drawer.”

  Melissa straightens. “You were in my room? You went through my things?”

  All those times Melissa kept her bedroom door firmly closed. Eve had had no idea. “How long has this been going on? Have you been drinking at other people’s houses?”

  “Like it’s such a big deal. Everyone drinks in high school.”

  “I don’t care about everyone. I care about you.” She reaches out to tuck a dangling strand of hair behind her daughter’s ear, but Melissa jerks away.

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “Of course you can’t. You’re only sixteen. I understand you think that’s all grown-up, but it isn’t.” Melissa scowls and crosses her arms. She looks the very picture of her toddler self. “I love you. I love you so very much. You know that, don’t you?”

  Some kids clatter by; their laughter reaches them through the closed windows. Melissa scrunches down in her seat. “Mom, stop.”

  “I know I focus on your brother. I know I don’t pay as much attention to you. I’m sorry about that.”

  “I’m fine!”

  But she’s not. “You’ve been so moody lately. Something’s bothering you. Tell me. Talk to me.”

  “If we’re not going anywhere, then I’m going back to class.” Melissa puts her hand on the door handle, and Eve reaches out without thinking for her daughter’s arm. Melissa shakes her free. “Seriously, Mom?”

  “Honey, please.”

  “I had sex. S-E-X. Okay? You happy now?”

  Eve sits back, stunned. She can’t speak. Melissa’s face is twisted with triumph.

  “Adrian?” Eve manages, but this isn’t what she really wants to know. What she wants to know is, Are you okay? Was he kind? What she wants to say is, This can never be undone.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “We have to talk about it. Are you using birth control? Please tell me you are.”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “Of course it’s my bu
siness.”

  “Sure it is.” Melissa is staring steadfastly out the window. “God.”

  Her mind is spinning. She isn’t prepared for this. She hadn’t seen it coming. She’s never even met Adrian’s parents. “Condoms aren’t enough. You know that, right? You need to get on birth control.” She doesn’t want her daughter having sex in the backseat of a car or somewhere where she might not take the time to be careful. “I’ll call my doctor and get you in right away. She’s very nice. You’ll like her.” She doesn’t want this. She doesn’t want to be talking to her little girl about going to the gynecologist. She wants to go back to when it was the pediatrician and stickers if Melissa was good and lollipops when there were shots.

  “Just forget it.”

  “Of course I can’t forget it.”

  “I knew you’d be like this.”

  “Do his parents know?” What do people do? Do they discuss this; does she tell them their son’s been sexually active?

  “Oh, my God. You can’t call his mom. You can’t!” Something small and silvery falls onto Melissa’s jeans-clad thigh and darkens the denim.

  “Oh, honey. I know you’re embarrassed …”

  Melissa’s shaking her head, scrubbing her eyes with her fingers. “I thought he loved me.”

  Her heart just sinks. “Who? Adrian?”

  “He won’t even text me. What did I do wrong?” Her voice is so small. She sounds so lost and confused. Her head is bent, her hair falling forward to hide her face.

  “Oh, my darling.” She takes her daughter’s hand in hers, warm and soft. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “He’s dating Sherry now. Sherry!”

  “I know it hurts. I know.” She remembers all those moments that felt like the end of the world, when everything loomed so large.

  Melissa looks at her. “I hate him.”

  Eve nods. “I hate him, too.”

  “He said I was special.”

  “You are special. He’s a jerk.”

  Melissa’s face crumples. “Don’t tell Dad.”

  Eve leans across the console and pulls her daughter into her arms. There had been a time when it would have been unthinkable not to tell something so important to David. “I won’t,” she promises against the soft silkiness of Melissa’s hair. “I won’t say anything.”

  Eve’s mother had worried the entire time Eve was pregnant with Melissa. Are you taking your vitamins? Are you sleeping on your left side? What does the doctor say—is he worried about how little weight you’ve gained? When Eve’s due date had come and gone, Eve’s mother went into a frenzy of phone calls. Are you having any contractions? Can you feel the baby moving? And Eve had smiled and reassured her mother. The baby’s fine. I think it’s going to be a girl. We heard the heartbeat. She’ll come when she’s ready. She’d never felt so at peace. It had been magical, the deep and intimate connection she’d felt to this tiny creature known only by a flurry of kicks and hiccups. And when Melissa finally arrived, eleven days late, Eve had cradled her infant daughter to her—her wide blue eyes and plump rosy cheeks, one hand beneath her chin, her perfect, tiny fingers grasping. Here you are, she’d whispered.

  Now Melissa’s teetering on the verge of becoming a woman. She needs her mother more than ever. Who else can help her navigate these treacherous waters and find her balance through all the emotional upheaval and heartache to come? All those times Eve didn’t see. All those moments she let slip by.

  Melissa’s sobbing, her breath hot against Eve’s neck. Eve tightens her hold on her daughter. “I’m here,” she says. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  DAVID

  Suspicion is an oily substance. It clings to him at night, soaks into his pores, fills his vision. It trails behind him as he talks to clients. It sloshes in his ears, dulling other noises, making him ask people to repeat things, until Renée looks at him with a worried frown and says, “You okay?”

  He should call the police. That detective will tell him what’s going on. It wouldn’t seem suspicious for David to ask. After all, he has a vested interest. It’s his neighborhood, and his wife and Charlotte are best friends. But he doesn’t even know the man’s name. He tries to convince himself that he’s imagining things. Eve’s no coward. She would never lie to protect herself. She would never allow their daughter to be suspected for a crime she’d committed. He has no reason to doubt her, but still he finds himself going over and over her description of how she’d damaged the fender, and try as he might, he just can’t see it.

  He calls her on his cell phone. He’s standing in the stairwell. It’s a small landing, three paces by three, but it’s private.

  “David?”

  His knees go weak at the perfect ordinariness of her voice. This will be okay. He’d made a mistake. Amy’s death has affected him more deeply than he’d realized. It’s pushed him into a very dark place. “Hey, I had a few minutes. I thought I’d check in, see if you’ve heard anything more from the police.”

  “No, nothing. Charlotte came by last night. It was awful.”

  “What happened?”

  “She’d heard that Melissa lied about going out that night. I tried to talk to her, make her see, but she wouldn’t listen. The kids were so upset. And David—Melissa’s been drinking. I found empties in her room. Can you believe it? She won’t tell me where she got it from, but it must have been someone’s older brother or sister. I had no idea. Did you?”

  “Well, no, but I’m not that surprised. All teenagers drink.”

  “You sound like Melissa. But they don’t, you know. I didn’t. Not at sixteen.”

  “I only meant it could be worse. You don’t think she has a problem, do you? Is that why she’s been acting out these past few months?” They haven’t talked like this in a long time, close, confiding, united in their concerns and on the same side.

  “No, I think she was experimenting. She’s not hanging out with that crowd anymore. And now she knows we know. I can’t punish her. I’ve already taken away her phone, the car, Facebook. I hate to make her more miserable. I mean, she’s a good kid. She’s a really good kid. She’s just made a few mistakes.”

  “Right,” he says. “Everyone makes mistakes. Like driving into the air pump.” He hears the soft intake of breath, a hiccup of surprise.

  Silence. “I said I was sorry about that, David.” Her voice is suddenly cool. It helps to hear the change. It braces him to say, “Tell me again. How exactly did you run into it?” He wishes he could see her face.

  “I took the turn too quickly. I was upset. I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “Did anyone see?”

  “What are you getting at? Why are we talking about this?”

  “You had to get the fender fixed.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Her voice is pitched high, breathless. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  He can’t tell. He can’t tell. She’d embraced him at the airport. God help him, he thought it was because she’d been worried about him. “You were on that road around that time. You were wet.” Tell me. Convince me. “The police are looking for a hit-and-run driver.”

  “And you think it’s me? Do you really? Do you really think I could do something like that and not tell you? That I could let Charlotte suffer the way she has? Is that what you think of me?”

  A long, shocked second that holds everything weightless. He feels ashamed. She’d never allow their daughter to be suspected for something she’d done. What had he been thinking? He hadn’t been. All rational thought had left him. What kind of man would suspect his wife of killing a child and covering it up? “I’m sorry, honey.” And he is. He’s sorry for all the things that have gone wrong between them. Too many to count.

  VANISHING POINT

  It’s not Detective Irwin at the door but Albert, clutching a bunch of black-eyed Susans in a twist of waxed paper. “Hey, Tyler.” Tyler looks beyond Albert to the street. There’s no car headed toward him; there’s no tall man with square shoulders coming up the
path in the darkness. Everything looks normal: the cars parked in driveways and the porch lights shining.

  “Oh, Albert,” his mom says, taking the flowers. “They’re lovely. Thank you.”

  She’d been talking loudly on the phone that afternoon, so loudly that the sound had pulled Tyler over to the vent in the floor of his room, where he’d kneeled and tried to hear what was going on. She wouldn’t tell him why when he came out of his room. She just waved a hand and said it was a difficult time, but he suspects it’s much more than that. Is it Melissa? he wanted to know. Did the police arrest her? That would be just like it, for something big like that to happen while he sat around trapped in his room, staring at the clock. His mom’s face had changed and she’d stopped and put her hands on his shoulders. I don’t want you to worry about Melissa. Nothing’s going to happen to her. I promise.

  That’s what she’d said about Yoshi.

  They sit around the patio table, the flowers standing stiff in a glass vase his mom pulled out from beneath the sink. Brittany’s over, which should make everything feel normal but now it just feels like an echo of how things used to be. No one’s laughing or talking, not even Albert, who likes to tell stories about when he was a kid. Tyler’s heard the one about how he had to walk three miles to school each day or how he used to deliver both the morning paper and the evening one. Brittany keeps sneaking looks at Melissa, who sits there with her chin in her hand.

  “How was the barn?” his mom asks.

  Melissa doesn’t say anything. Brittany glances at her, then answers. “We got to see the new foal. She looks exactly like Vi. She has the same spot on her nose and everything.”

  “What did they name her?”

  “They’re having a contest. I put in Polka Dot.”

  “Oh, how cute.”

  It’s not cute. It’s a stupid name.

  “How’s photography going?” his mom asks him.