No Perfect Secret

by Weger, Jackie

  “Well put. In a way it is an intervention. You’re my patient. I’m concerned for both your physical and mental well-being. The way Clara is behaving is a long-standing pattern. She’s shrewd and cunning and a snoop. I would bet my license to practice that she knows things about her son she feels obliged to keep secret—whether he told her, or she learned them on her own. Whenever someone gets close to ferreting out those secrets or asking questions that she feels compelled not to answer, she acts out. She presents with wholly aberrant behavior knowing full well that it instantly detracts the focus from her son onto herself.

  “And, it works.” She gestured with her hand into the gray and cold night. “Because—here we all are.”

  Anna heard the words, the explanations, and still felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold winter air. “What’s going to happen when she learns Kevin is dead?” she said in a voice that did not carry beyond the two of them.

  “Fabulous question. We will see a sea change in Clara’s behavior. She is extremely worried that Kevin has done something that will put him in prison. If he were alive, of course that was a strong possibility. Bigamy is against the law. However, he’s dead. When she learns that, she will no longer be obliged to keep his secrets to keep him out of trouble—whether it’s with you, or the law, or his work place. She will have an immense sense of relief. She will not be compelled to act out. She’ll grieve, I won’t discount that—but then her focus is going to be on her own life...but she still won’t like you, Anna. Her rage toward you has been building for years. I haven’t been able to fathom her reasoning.” She looked back toward the group waiting to enter Anna’s home. “Well, everybody is cold and stomping their feet.” She waved to Phipps and Caburn. In turn, Phipps signaled the EMTs to follow them.

  Anna stood on Lila’s darkened porch with Louise and Lila as they watched the entourage cautiously enter her home. “I don’t know whether to cross my fingers or pray.”

  “Do both,” suggested Louise.

  They waited. Lights came on all over the front of Anna’s house; the porch light, the foyer light, the living room, her bedroom. It spilled out in narrow bands across the yard. Still they waited. Anna hugged herself—not against the cold, but worry, and a deep yearning for her life to right itself.

  Voices echoed across the front yards. The EMTs emerged supporting Clara-Alice by her elbows, though she appeared ambulatory and her steps brisk. She looked neither right nor left. One of the EMTs carried a suitcase. Clara-Alice was helped into the back of the ambulance, the doors closed, and the driver climbed behind the wheel. He did not turn on the siren or the spinning lights.

  “Well, that’s that,” said Lila. “I’m old and cold and going to bed. Louise, it was nice meeting you. Anna, if you need anything...”

  “Thank you, Lila. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  Trailed by Louise, Anna walked across the yards.

  Dr Neal met them at the door. “I’m going to walk through the house with Anna. I’m sorry, but it’s not pretty.”

  In the living room, Anna did not at first notice anything amiss, then her eye fell on her boning knife on the huge coffee table, and from there to her heirloom sofa. The upholstery was shredded. Anna was stunned into silence.

  Louise Phipps gasped. “Oh, my. And such a lovely piece.”

  “It was my mother’s.” The violation she felt was much greater, much deeper than when Clara-Alice had destroyed her clothes.

  “Did Clara know that?” asked Dr Neal.

  Anna nodded. “She went with me to pick out the fabric to reupholster it.”

  They moved on to Anna’s bedroom. The fertility goddess on the night stand was broken, the pieces scattered across the floor. “No great loss,” murmured Anna.

  “Have you been using this room?”

  “Not since...no.”

  Louise, hard on their heels, sniffed. “Do I smell mustard?”

  “You do,” Anna replied. “It’s part of the reason Clara-Alice landed in the hospital in the first place. “She spritzed my clothes, the bed and the walls with mustard, ketchup, and honey. I’ll have to paint to get the odor completely out.”

  “Meanwhile, burn a little sage and try some fȅng shui.” Louise opened the closet doors. Inside was bare. Anna was hanging all of her newly laundered and dry-cleaned clothes in the laundry room. “Oh, these are especially nicely designed. I love built-ins inside a closet.”

  “I visited a renovated villa in the south of France when I was in school there,” Anna said. “There was a closet similar to that in the bathroom. I’m ashamed to say I took a photo of it. The carpenter I hired worked from it.”

  “He did a fabulous job.”

  The guest bedroom was as Caburn had left it. The spread tossed over the pillows.

  Clara-Alice’s room was in the kind of mess one leaves after hurriedly packing for an impromptu trip. Closets were open, drawers half-shut, odds and ends scattered across the dresser. Every photo of Kevin was gone, except for those in which Anna was included in the shot. Those were torn into confetti.

  When they re-entered the wide hall Anna noticed the linen closet door ajar. She pulled the door wide open, looked in, and laughed.

  Dr Neal and Louise exchanged worried glances.

  “Clara-Alice took her Christmas presents. I wrapped them and put them in here.”

  “How utterly ironic,” said Louise as they returned to the living room.

  Dr Neal picked up her bag. “I have to get back to the hospital. Anna, shall I give you something for nerves, apprehension, or to help you sleep?”

  “No, the adrenaline rush is wearing off. I think I’ll sleep fine.” She walked Dr Neal to the door and thanked her for coming.

  “You won’t forget our appointment on Wednesday,” the doctor reminded.

  “I’ll be there,” Anna told her.

  Louise had joined her husband and Caburn in the kitchen. “It can all be repaired,” said Louise as Anna stood just inside the French doors and gaped.

  But Anna wasn’t looking at the cracked counter tops, the broken chair, or the foods from the fridge that were scattered all over the floor. Her eyes went past the laptop draining water that had been put on the table. Next to it, lying on a towel was her family photo album.

  “Oh,” she said. She grabbed the towel edges and began to dab the cover, and went back to another time. It was an old-fashioned album, faux leather, the black pages tied together with black, faux leather ribbon. The very first picture in the album was a tintype of a very old man on a huge mule with a little boy perched behind the saddle. The man wore buckskin pants with fringes. The little boy wore a shirt with full, blousy sleeves and canvas pants cut off at the knee. He was barefoot. Below the picture was inked in a very fine script: Indian Territory. Arkansas River, 1862. It was a pride-of-place picture. Neither she, nor her mother knew who were the man and boy. Perhaps her mother’s great, great grandfather. Perhaps that little boy was her grandfather.

  From second through sixth grade, every essay she had been required to write had featured the little boy and the huge mule. They were stories of bravery, fighting Indians, rescuing orphans. Her mother had pasted some of those essays in the back pages of the album. “Who knows?” she had said. “Just because you made it up doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

  Later photos were tintypes of elderly family members neither she nor her mother had ever known. Then came black and white photos of grandparents, Anna had never known. Next were snaps of her mother as a child, several of which had been hand-colored in the fashion of the forties and fifties. There was her parents wedding picture. Her mother wearing a pale blue suit, her dad spiffy in a black suit, blue shirt and blue-striped tie. There were snapshots in the album of her with her parents; her dad holding her as an infant while leaning against an old Ford Fairlane. There were photos that told of the life she and her mother had lived after dad had died. School pictures, vacation pictures, silly pictures, graduation...

  Anna felt a hand
on her back, the touch returning her to the present, her hands still upon the unopened album. Caburn slipped his arm around her waist, holding her to him. Phipps got a chair and pushed it against her knees. Anna sat. The photo album was gently moved aside and a coffee cup filled with fresh brew placed in front of her. Caburn added cream. Anna held the cup under her nose a moment, then took a sip. The coffee returned her fully into the world surrounding her. The real world. Her heart ached so badly she thought it might pop.

  “Destroying my album is the worst Clara-Alice could do to me. It’s all I have left of my family, my heritage.” Tears welled up, but she forced them back.

  Louise pulled up a chair and sat next to her. “Anna, would you let me take your album? Our daughter works in New York. She restores old books, photos, sometimes artwork. Not the great artists, not 16th and 17th century works, but she’s very, very good. She’s coming home for Christmas. I’d like to show her your album. If she can’t restore it, she’ll know who can. Will that work for you?”

  Anna was scared to hope. “You think it can be saved?”

  “Well, some of it. The album itself looks done for.”

  “If the very first tintype could be restored; the pictures of my dad, and my parent’s wedding photo—those are the main ones.”

  “Let’s wrap it up then,” Louise gently lifted the album off the towel. “Old newspapers would be best, I think.”

  “In the sunroom in the recycle bin,” Anna told Caburn when he asked, “Where?”

  After the album was wrapped securely, Louise went into the pantry and came out with a spice bottle of sage. She poured the cotton-fluffy herb into a saucer. “Albert, give me one of your matches.”

  “Louise, please. Don’t do your New Age stuff here.”

  “There’s nothing New Age about it, Albert. Sage has been around for thousands of years. It’s a cleanser. It cleanses bad energies, and broken auras.”

  “Carry this through the house, Anna. Leave it in your bedroom. That’s where I felt the worst energy.”

  A few minutes later, there were only Anna and Caburn in the house. Anna picked up the saucer and wandered through the house, trailing the sharp, pungent odor of smoldering sage. She carefully placed the saucer on her bedside table where the fertility goddess had once resided. She felt suddenly depleted, almost faint. Tears rose in her eyes. She had wanted a baby so badly—something of her own—to love and in turn, be loved by, to be needed in all the right ways. In fact, she’d wanted several. She allowed herself a moment to glimpse the past ten years, nine of which had been contained within the brick walls of this house. She had done all that she knew how to make the house into a home—warm, inviting, cared for. It had been all of those things, but it was not the home or the life she had once dreamed, not a life her younger self would ever have imagined. She didn’t think she loved Kevin any more. In fact, she was certain she did not. His choices had shattered those feelings into dust. What she felt for Kevin now was beyond anger.

  Caburn was trying to sweep spattered sour cream into a dust pan when she returned to the kitchen. She realized with a current of electricity that she was being given a second chance. She was afraid she would take a wrong step, afraid that her confidence would fail her, afraid that his feelings for her were more kindness and pity than anything else. Afraid that she was conjuring his affection from her own deep feelings of loneliness and wishful thinking.

  “This stuff is like an oil slick,” he said. He emptied the dustpan, and put the broom back in the pantry.

  Anna opened the fridge. The carton of milk was lying on its side, but it hadn’t spilt. “After that meal we ate, I’m as full as a pumpkin, but I could do with some hot chocolate.”

  “Sounds good,” he answered, moving to lean against the far counter.

  Anna felt his eyes on her as she poured milk into the double boiler, measured out sugar and cocoa.

  “Have you made a decision about Cancun?”

  She couldn’t get the word out, but she nodded even as her cheeks went pink.

  Caburn stood very still. Oh. He had a guardian angel with a direct line to God. As if it was the most ordinary of things, he said: “We leave Friday morning. Is your passport up to date?”

  “Yes—always. You and Louise are right about the feeling in this house. It’s enmity, or rancor, or something. I want to leave it and return fresh. Break the cycle, I guess.” She finished preparing the hot chocolate and poured it into two huge mugs. “Let’s take these into the sun room,” she said, passing him one of the mugs.

  The sun room was chilly, but not freezing. Anna turned on a lamp by her favorite chair, then switched on a small ceramic heater before curling up in the old, comfy, cushioned chair. She smiled suddenly and looked at Caburn.

  “I’m feeling really close to my mom right now. The two best vacations we ever had were at Padre Island, Texas. We lathered on the sun block, but not often enough. We burned to a crisp and peeled skin for two weeks afterwards. We were scared to death we’d end up freckled.”

  “Did you?”

  “Nope. Well, maybe a few.” A dash of anxiety caused a dip in her self-assurance. “This is a good thing, isn’t it? I mean—us going to Cancun?”

  “Don’t doubt it, Anna. It’s a very good thing. We all want you safe. Suppose you’d been home alone when Clara showed up?” Caburn closed his eyes. He did not like the image that flashed into his mind. That boning knife was scary sharp. He stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles.

  “Is an exotic vacation what you usually do at Christmas?”

  “Not at all. I go home for three or four days, have dinner with the family.”

  “And your family consists of?”

  “Mom, dad, two grandmas, one grandpa, three older, bossy sisters, two younger brothers, and a bunch of nieces and nephews and one cranky old aunt.”

  “I can’t imagine what that’s like.”

  Caburn laughed. “Imagine a half-dozen tornados colliding in one big kitchen.”

  “It sounds like fun.”

  “Not. My brothers and I grab a six pack and spend the day in the barn oiling tractors, sharpening plows, retooling motors.”

  “So you really are a farmer at heart.”

  “At heart. You could say that.” He put his empty cup on the round wicker side table. “It’s getting really late. Will you be okay here by yourself? Or would you like to come home with me? My place is a man cave, but I do have an extra bedroom.”

  The air in the sunroom was now as warm as breath. Anna watched Caburn’s large hands as he put aside the cup, smoothed his hair, then placed them palm down on his knee. For a dreamy moment she saw those hands caressing her body, felt her nipples grow erect between his thumb and forefinger, and started when she realized her nipples actually were erect against the lace fabric of her bra. “I’m fine here.”

  She walked him to the front door. After he put on his coat, she surprised him by sliding her arms inside it and around his waist. “Do you mind? Don’t kiss me or anything. I just need a hug.”

  A few moments later Caburn stood on the stoop until he heard the dead bolt shoot home. He was filled with mixed emotions and cursing a certain body part that had behaved badly as soon as he had Anna in his arms. The damn thing rose up like a pumped up silo. He knew Anna felt it. She didn’t say anything, but that was when he got his hat handed to him.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  An agitated Helen leaped to her feet when Caburn entered the office. “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you all morning.”

  “Shopping. What’s up?”

  “I’ll tell you what’s up,” Helen fumed, trying to push stray hairs back into her chignon. “Albert called and told me to drop everything. We’re to find a placement for Clara. Anna has called three times. You haven’t been answering your phone!”

  “It hasn’t rung.”

  “Hand it over.”

  Caburn slipped it out of his coat pocket. Helen flipped it open. “Dead! Frank, sometimes
you are so late to the party it doesn’t bear thinking about.” She turned to the shelves behind her desk that served as a credenza, untangled some wires and plugged in the phone. “That’s how you do it.”

  “Helen, for crying out loud.”

  “You do the crying. I don’t have time. Albert’s not here, you’re not here, we’ve got a brick load of work to do, most of the offices upstairs are closed and the lights weren’t even on when I got to work! I had to borrow a flashlight from security to navigate the halls.” She pointed to his desk and the old-fashioned black telephone. “You’d better call Anna. She needs those papers for the bank.”

  Caburn slapped his jacket pocket. “Oh, my God. I forgot to give her the de mort certificate.”

  “Yes, you did. And if you’d get your head out of your pants—we could get some work done.”

  “Hey!” Caburn moved around Helen’s desk and stood in front of her. “Helen, I’m gonna hug you. Don’t hit me.” Hesitantly he put his arms around her and patted her back.

  She sniffed. “Oh stop. You’re pounding the breath out of me. We’ve got two days before we shut down for the holidays. And we have to use one of those going to Ellicott City. I dread it. I just plain dread it. If Kevin Nesmith was standing in front of me right this minute, I’d skewer him right through his you-know-what.”

  “You and me, both. Is that what’s made you lose your cool?”

  “I don’t know. For some reason I woke up overwrought and my brain fried. Everybody is going somewhere for Christmas holidays, but me—I’m going to deliver food bags to the elderly. And here’s the funny. Some of those old folks are younger than I am.” She held up a hand in warning. “Don’t comment on that.”

  He went around it. “Delivering food baskets is a good thing.”

  “I want some goodness in my life.”

  “Well, here’s a suggestion. Go upstairs and see Mr Charles. He’s a wizard. Tell him you’re stressed.”

  “Great idea. I could tell him Albert is having second thoughts about sending Anna off alone with you. He wants me to chaperone.”