The Deepest Secret

by Carla Buckley

  “Mom?”

  Eve wheels around, panting, to see Melissa standing on the bottom step, staring at her, frightened.

  Eve picks Albert up from the hospital around noon. He looks small and defeated as the nurse pushes him in a wheelchair out to Eve’s car. “I got it,” he says irritably as the nurse tries to help him up. He’s not himself, either. Driving out of the cul-de-sac that morning, she had felt the change. Charlotte’s curtains were closed. Neil’s newspaper lay on the driveway, well past the time Neil usually carried it inside.

  Eve helps Albert into his house. The emergency room doctor had pulled Eve aside the night before and confided that broken bones in the elderly were serious. All sorts of complications could set in. It had taken a lot of persuasion on Eve’s part to convince Albert to listen to the doctor and stay overnight. He’d wanted to go home; he’d wanted to sleep in his own bed, surrounded by Rosemary’s things.

  “How about some soup?” she suggests.

  “I’m fine. You don’t need to mother me.”

  “You sound like my kids. Let me mother you, okay?” She goes into the kitchen and opens the pantry door. Her heart sinks at the sight of the few cans and boxes. “Pea soup or chicken noodle?” she calls into the family room, where he’s in his recliner, a pillow propped beneath his arm.

  “You choose.”

  “Chicken noodle it is.” She pours some kibble into Sugar’s bowl and checks the water level. When the soup’s heated, she brings in a bowl on a tray. Her toe’s throbbing; she’ll have to change the bandage when she gets home. “I’m going to the store later,” she says, though she hadn’t planned on it. “You should make a list.”

  “It’s not your fault, Eve.”

  She’s in the process of setting down the tray. Her heart squeezes, and she looks at him, afraid to see the accusation she knows is there. But he reaches out and pats her hand. “I shouldn’t have turned to Charlotte’s boy for help. I should have known better. I could have gotten him in real trouble.”

  A shiver of relief, followed by dismay. He’s admitting he gave the pills to Rosemary. Did Rosemary know, or did he hide them in her food? Did he have a chance to say good-bye the way he wanted to? “I think David’s going to leave me,” she hears herself blurting out.

  “He say that?”

  “No, but all we do is argue about every little thing. And all the big things, too.” He thinks I’m a murderer and he’s right. “I don’t know what to do.” Those early years, she slept beside Tyler, stretched out on a mattress on the floor, her days reversed to match his, to keep him from getting up and wandering out into the daylight. She and Melissa made a magical world, just the three of them. David would go to work and come home right as they were getting up. He would join them on their picnics and their little field trips, but then he would have to go to bed and it would be just the three of them again. Was that when she started to lose David? She didn’t notice it. She was too focused on Tyler and keeping him safe, on Melissa and giving her as happy a childhood as possible. And now she wonders if she’s been kidding herself about how much time she’d truly given Melissa. Something had to give, in either case, and it had ended up being her marriage.

  “Talk to him.”

  I can’t. “I want to.”

  He’s staring at her. “You’ve never been afraid to say what’s in your heart. What’s going on, Evie?”

  Her mother calls her Evie. She feels disoriented. She doesn’t think Albert’s ever called her that. Is she imagining things? Is she losing her mind? She’d been on the verge of confiding everything. She pushes herself up. “I forgot to get you a napkin.”

  In the kitchen, she opens drawer after drawer. Silverware, cooking utensils. She can’t remember where Rosemary kept the napkins. Here’s the junk drawer, filled with rubber bands, takeout menus, batteries, pencils. She’s about to push it closed, too, when she catches sight of the slim black flashlight, zipped into a plastic bag.

  “Albert?” she says, going back into the family room. “Where did you get this?”

  He pauses, his spoon halfway to his mouth. “That fellow dropped it, the one I caught snooping in Farnham’s window.”

  It’s an ordinary flashlight, sold everywhere. There’s nothing the least bit special about it, except for the green duct tape she’d wrapped around the handle so that Tyler could grip it with his gloved hands.

  THE BEAST

  The message pops up on the corner of his computer screen. Someone’s chatted him on Skype. Tyler minimizes his teacher’s talking face and mouses over to the icon and taps it. It’s from Dante: Get on the Forum. There’s only one thing it could be. Tyler’s hand is shaking as he clicks on the tab. The Forum opens and he sees the thread that Yoshi’s mom posted just a few minutes before.

  “Tyler?” His math teacher’s looking at him from the classroom, her hands on her hips.

  He taps on the Skype icon, makes the image full-screen. “Here,” he says automatically.

  “That’s not what I asked. Haven’t you been paying attention?”

  Some of the kids are turning around to look at him. What do they see? He clicks the video button and the screen goes blank. Now he can’t hear or see any of them.

  A sharp knock on the door. “Tyler?”

  He hadn’t even heard his mom come up the stairs. She never interrupts while he’s in class. She must have heard the news about Yoshi, but her voice doesn’t sound weepy. “Hold on.” He goes into his bathroom. “Okay.” When he comes back out, his mom’s there, holding up a plastic sandwich bag. Inside is a black flashlight. Where did it come from? How much does she know?

  She gives the bag a shake. “What were you thinking? Why would you do something so dangerous?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You can’t know that.” She drops the bag and comes over, lifts up his shirt to see his back. “Let me check.”

  He squirms away. “I’m fine, I said.”

  “Did their lights go off? Were you anywhere near them?” She’s got him by his elbow, holding fast. “Stand still. I have to check your head, too.”

  He yanks free. “Will you leave me alone?”

  “I would love to, believe me, young man. Take off your shirt.”

  “I won’t.”

  “This is serious, Tyler. I need to check you over.”

  “No.”

  She stands back. He’s taller than she is. She can’t make him take off his shirt, not if he doesn’t want to. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “Nothing.”

  “It had to be something. Why would you go out in the middle of the night? What on earth were you doing? The Farnhams’, of all places!”

  “It’s no big deal.”

  “It is a big deal. How can you say that?”

  “I was careful.”

  “You can never be careful enough. Never. You know that. Look what happened when you and Dad went to the park that night.”

  “It’s my life.”

  “Yes, and I want you to live a long one.”

  “Stop it! Stop saying that. It’s not going to happen.”

  “What’s gotten into you? What’s upset you? Is it Amy? Is it Yoshi?” Her expression changes. “Oh, honey. I didn’t know.”

  She moves toward him, but he stumbles back. “You don’t know. You just don’t know.”

  “Tell me. Let me help you.”

  “You can’t. No one can.”

  “What happened to Yoshi isn’t going to happen to you.”

  “That is such a lie. All you do is lie.” He’s yelling. He can’t help it. He’s exactly like Yoshi.

  “Tyler, listen to me. Remember that scientist I told you about?”

  He wants to know. Does it hurt? Is there a place after, or is this it? Is this all he’ll ever have? “I don’t want to hear about your stupid scientists.” His hands open and close. He wants to hit something. “Fuck your stupid scientists.”

  Her face is soft with sympathy. “Oh, sweetheart.”
/>   He doesn’t feel anything anymore. Maybe this is what it’s like to be dead.

  He crouches in the darkness of his old fort littered with dead leaves and beetle carcasses, the planks soft and splintery, and watches his mom through the bright kitchen windows. She’s talking on the phone, moving from stove to refrigerator to cabinet to pantry. She’s called the doctor and asked if she could bring Tyler, immediately, on an emergency basis. She’s made an appointment for him on Monday. Now she’s talking to his dad. Every so often, she’ll stop and look outside. She can’t see him, though. To her, it’s all blackness.

  Next door, Holly’s windows glow with light. Shadowy figures move around inside. They’re talking, their voices coming out through the opened window. Holly’s voice is low. It’s Mark’s voice that’s loud. “You have to stop.”

  He remembers when this fortress smelled new, and the nailheads shone. He and Zach used to play war in it, hunkering down below the windows and pretending there were enemy soldiers approaching from all corners. Amy had whined about playing with them, so they made her their scout. She’d go off and come running back to report all sorts of lame things. After a while, they stopped listening to her, and then they’d stopped playing in the fortress altogether.

  His mom comes out to stand on the patio. She’s a dark shape against the brightness of the kitchen behind her. “Ty,” she calls softly. “Aren’t you hungry?”

  He doesn’t care if he never eats again. Everything’s been chopped around him, slicing away big chunks until all that’s left is a narrow tunnel only big enough for him. And who wants that?

  “Ty?” she tries again.

  But he still doesn’t answer, and after a minute, she goes back inside. The sky’s darker now. The stars are coming out. Smells drift across the air. Someone’s barbecuing.

  What if he could have a do-over? He’d have left the flashlight at home. He’d go back in time and stand behind the car so that Melissa couldn’t back out of the garage. Maybe he’d go all the way back and not be born at all.

  A sob rises up from deep inside him. He misses Yoshi. He never even got to say good-bye. He’s crying, big choking gasps that roll through him, dragging everything up and up and up. She would be mad. She would tell him to cut it out, but he can’t. He just can’t. Furiously, he rubs his face against his sleeve.

  Something’s standing there on the grass, staring at him through the little door of the fort. They’re only a few feet apart. The Beast.

  He’s gray with white patches on his chest. His bushy tail hangs down. He’s just a coyote. A stupid, dirty dog. “What are you looking at?” Tyler hisses. He picks up a stick and hurls it with all his might. It clatters to the ground.

  The dog whirls and runs away, melting into the darkness.

  EVE

  She sits on the couch by the front door, lamps burning like sentinels on either side of her. She has a direct line of sight to the stairs that lead up to Tyler’s bedroom. If she falls asleep—and the chances of this are remote, given how much high-octane tea she’s consumed over the course of the past few hours—she’ll be awakened by the click of the French door unlocking. If Tyler tries to sneak out the front door, she’ll feel the air swirling around her, the heat from the night coming in and dispelling the coolness of the room. She’s always been sensitive to temperature. If Tyler somehow makes it undetected to the kitchen and goes out the door there, the garage door will moan and creak along its tracks, and alert her to full consciousness.

  In the morning, she’ll call a security company and have an alarm system installed. Cost be damned. She won’t tell them she’s not afraid of people breaking in.

  Melissa’s alarms go off and are smacked into silence. Ever since the dollhouse, her daughter’s been avoiding her. She’d left early for the bus; she’d gone to Brittany’s house after school. When she’d come home, she hadn’t wanted to hear Eve’s pathetic attempt at explanation. Whatever, she’d mumbled, and slammed her bedroom door.

  Eve puts her feet on the cold floor and walks up to Tyler’s room. He won’t tell her why he’d gone over to the Farnhams’. He’s remained stubbornly stoic about it. It makes her wonder if he’s hiding something bigger, a deeper secret. She misses David with a piercing longing. He’s always been her partner. He’s always helped her find her way.

  When Tyler slides into his chair at the table, he won’t look at her. He doesn’t answer when she asks if she can make him something to eat. He takes a banana from the bowl and peels it. With a pang, she sees the shadows under his eyes.

  “Grow up,” Melissa tells him, as she slides books into her bag. Her eyes are red, her lips pinched. It’s hard on her, too, when another XP child dies.

  “Mind your own business.”

  She slings her backpack over her shoulder. “How could you be so selfish? After all that Mom’s done for you? She gave up her life for you.”

  This is terrible, that she would think this. “I didn’t give up anything, honey. It’s okay. Tyler knows.”

  Tyler pushes back his chair, leaving his banana half-eaten on the table. His footsteps thud up the stairs.

  The phone rings as she’s getting ready to go to the store. She lets it go to voicemail. She can’t be sidetracked or distracted. This is how she gets through each day, by putting one foot down after another. She’ll be in the grocery store and stand there, wondering. Why had she made the trip?

  The garage door rolls up on another relentlessly sunny day. She flips down the visor and slides on her sunglasses. She looks into the rearview mirror. Someone’s there, blond hair flying. For a heart-stopping second, she thinks, Amy? But it’s not Amy. How could it be? It’s her older sister, Nikki, running barefoot down the sidewalk toward her.

  Charlotte’s in her front hall closet, going through coats, yanking them off hangers and dropping them on the floor. “Where the hell are they?” She doesn’t look up as Eve and Nikki come in. Nikki gives Eve a look. See? As if Eve is the sane one. As if she can take control.

  “They’re not in your pockets.” Gloria’s picking each coat up, a bundle of black and tan and brown and red in her arms. “Tell her, Eve. Tell her to forget her car keys and sit down.”

  “Stop, Charlotte,” Eve pleads. “Just stop for a minute. Tell me what’s going on.”

  Charlotte shuffles through a pile of mail on the hall table, pulls open a drawer. “Detective Irwin’s arrested Robbie.”

  Which is what Nikki had said, but that makes no sense. “Are you sure he didn’t just bring him in for questioning?”

  Charlotte turns in a circle. “Where are they?”

  “The police aren’t going to let you see him, Charlotte,” Gloria reasons. “What do you think you’re going to do—hang around the police station until he’s released?”

  Charlotte pulls things from drawers, drops them on the floor. Batteries go rolling, coins. “I have to see him. I have to see his face when he tells me he didn’t do it. Because that’s what he’ll say. That’s exactly what he’ll say.”

  “But maybe he didn’t do it,” Eve says before she can stop herself. Isn’t this what she wants, for the finger of suspicion to be pointed somewhere else?

  “Let the police handle it.” Nikki’s huddled in a corner of the sofa.

  “You need to try and calm down,” Gloria says. “This isn’t helping.”

  Charlotte upends the magazine holder. Magazines go sliding. “I never saw a thing, not one thing. What kind of mother does that make me?”

  “It’s not your fault, honey,” Gloria says. “It’s his fault. He tricked you. He tricked all of us.”

  “Not Aunt Felicia,” Nikki says. “She guessed. She said Robbie was a creep. She asked me if he’d ever been alone with me. God.”

  Eve stares at the girl in horror. Nikki’s holding a pillow against her chest. Tears slide down her cheeks. Had Robbie touched Amy? Had he hurt her? She feels sick. “No,” she says, shaking her head. It can’t be true. It’s impossible. She stops herself. Isn’t that what people
always think?

  After Nikki’s boyfriend comes to pick her up, Charlotte and Eve sit alone in the kitchen. Gloria’s lying down in an upstairs room. She’s aged these past weeks—the heavy way she goes up the stairs, clutching the banister, the measured click of the bedroom door. Let me know if the police call, she’d told them.

  “Detective Irwin wouldn’t come right out and say it,” Charlotte says, “but I’d have to be an idiot not to put it together.”

  Eve takes Charlotte’s hands, icy cold in hers. She tries to rub warmth into them. How could things be any worse? Somehow, they are.

  “He asked me if I’d ever left Amy alone with Robbie. Of course I had! I wanted them to be close. Close!”

  Eve had judged Charlotte for this. Privately, she had thought Charlotte didn’t know Robbie well enough to be trusted watching a child. She had worried about neglect. She had never once considered this.

  “He asked if Robbie had ever handled Amy’s backpack. I said no. I’d just gotten it for her that afternoon.” No need to explain which afternoon she meant. That afternoon would forever mean only one point in time. “Robbie hadn’t come over that day. So why would he ask that?”

  “I don’t know.” Eve doesn’t. She can’t imagine.

  When Charlotte swallows, it’s a hard motion, like stones sliding down her throat.

  “He wanted to know if Robbie had ever driven Amy anywhere in his truck. I told him, all the time. He picked her up from soccer practice if I was with clients. He took her to the movies if I had an open house. He was trying to make Amy like him. He wanted us to be a family. That’s what he said, and I believed him. What an idiot!”

  “But you would have known if something was going on—”

  “Would I? Would I really? I don’t think so.”

  “Yes, yes.” Eve believes this. “Amy would have told you.”

  “Our kids don’t tell us everything. They don’t. You know that. They keep things from us, secrets.”