Quiet As It's Kept

by Monique Miller

  “Okay, okay, you caught me,” Phillip said.

  “I must say, applying it to the current test of life that I am going through was very crafty.”

  “Why totally reinvent the wheel? But, in all seriousness, what you said to me has applied to much in my life, so much so that I never forgot the words you said to me. And this is the first time I’ve been able to return the favor. So I guess it is sort of like you are encouraging yourself.”

  “Thanks,” Will said.

  Will laid his head back on the headrest. He’d barely slept the night before, having nightmares that Morgan was poisoning everything he ate, even his toothpaste. With heavy eyes, he said, “Do you mind if I take a nap?”

  “Nah, go ahead,” Phillip said.

  Will turned his head to the side and was asleep before he knew it.

  Will felt the momentum of Phillip’s SUV decreasing. He turned his head and opened his eyes, seeing a sign that said EXIT 364 WARSAW.

  “Are we here already?” Will asked.

  “Yeah, the GPS said to take exit 364.”

  Will sniffed the air. “What is that smell?”

  “I thought you were passing gas or something,” Phillip joked.

  “It smells awful. Do you think it’s Isaiah’s diaper?”

  “He’s your son. You should know what his diapers smell like,” Phillip said. He acted like he was holding his breath, and then busted out laughing.

  “What is so funny?” Will asked, barely wanting to open his mouth due to the smell.

  “It’s not Isaiah, it’s that pig truck we’ve been trailing for the past five miles. Luckily it kept going on the interstate.”

  Will rolled his eyes. “That was horrible. I hope we don’t find any more of those trucks.”

  “I second that,” Phillip said.

  At the bottom of the exit, both men looked left and right. To the right they saw gas stations and fast food restaurants. To the right they saw another gas station and a rest stop.

  “Which way?” Phillip asked.

  “Take a left. It looks as if there are some houses down that way.”

  Phillip turned left when the traffic light turned green. They rode in silence as they passed a gas station and a few houses, before they reached a town limit sign that welcomed them to Warsaw, North Carolina.

  They continued to ride, passing more houses, a middle school, a little white church, a Laundromat, a dollar store, a car wash, and more gas stations. They passed houses with people working in their yards and sitting on their porches. Many of the people waved at them. Before they knew it, it looked as if they were headed out of the town.

  “Pull over right here,” Will said.

  He pulled out the address for the high school he had printed out, and realized they were on the same road the school was on. He punched the address of the school into the GPS, and within minutes they pulled into the school’s driveway.

  “This is a high school?” Phillip asked.

  “Yeah, that’s what the sign says.”

  “This looks more like my junior high did.”

  “Yeah. The town only has about three thousand people,” Will said.

  “Are you serious?”

  “You saw that it only took us only a few minutes to drive through it.”

  “So what now? We can’t just go busting up into the school asking if anybody knows Ci Ci Jackson.”

  “Won’t work, huh?” Will asked.

  “Nah.”

  “Well, in a town of only three thousand people, I’m sure somebody knows Ci Ci Jackson if she does exist. Let’s go back the other way and see if we can find some townies to see if they want to share some Southern hospitality and tell us a little more about this town and its inhabitants,” Will suggested.

  “This is a cute little town. I might have to bring Shelby back here one day to see it. I could retire in a quiet little place like this. I’ll just bet they’ve got some fishing ponds around here somewhere, too,” Phillip said.

  “You would go fishing?” Will had a puzzled look on his face. In all the years he’d known Phillip, he’d never known him to fish.

  “Yeah, I’d try it.”

  “Now that’s something I’d like to see,” Will said.

  “Do you think you’ll find someone who’ll talk to a couple of strangers like that?” Phillip asked.

  “Why not? You know we Southerners are known for our Southern hospitality. And since we are even farther south, they’ll probably be even more hospitable.”

  They turned the car around to face the road, ready to turn back toward town.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Will asked.

  “Yeah, that is what you think it is.”

  “Wow, creepy,” Will said as he saw the sea of graves in the cemetery in front of them. “Can you imagine going to school every day and seeing a graveyard?”

  “Nope,” Phillip said.

  “Me either.”

  They pulled into the parking lot of a Bojangles fast food restaurant, where they saw a group of men standing outside of a truck, admiring its rims. After pulling up next to the truck, both Will and Phillip got out and spoke to the men.

  “Hey, good morning,” Will said to the guys.

  “Mornin’,” a couple of the men responded.

  “Nice rims,” Will complimented.

  A guy with a gold tooth in his mouth said, “Yep, I just got ’em.”

  The men looked over at the rims on Phillip’s SUV.

  The man with the new rims said, “I like your rims. Where’d you get them?”

  “From a shop in Charlotte,” Phillip answered.

  Will racked his brain as he tried to remember the names of any towns that were close to Warsaw. Then he remembered there was a town called Turkey.

  “Hey, uh, we are trying to get to Turkey. Can you all point us in the right direction?”

  One of the other guys spoke. “Oh, you ain’t that far. It’s just a few miles down the road here. Take a right out of this parking lot and keep going until you see the sign with a turkey on it. You can’t miss it.”

  Another guy spoke. “What on earth could you all need in Turkey? Ain’t too much there.”

  Will thought quickly, thinking it was his opportunity to ask the guys if they knew of anyone named Ci Ci. “Well, we went to college with a couple of girls who were from Dumplin County.”

  “It’s Duplin County,” one of the men corrected Will.

  “Oh, sorry. Well, one girl was from Turkey and the other one was from Warsaw.”

  “What are their names? We live here in Warsaw and James here is from Turkey. We probably know who you are talking about. I mean, the towns ain’t but so big.”

  Will made up the name of a fictitious woman. “The girl from Turkey was named Tamika Smith. At least, I think that is what her last name was.”

  The guy who was from Turkey thought about it for a moment. “I can’t say that I know anybody named Tamika Smith.”

  “I could have the name wrong. Shoot, it could have been something else.” Will acted as if he hated the fact that he couldn’t remember the girl’s name.

  When he got ready to ask about Ci Ci, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Phillip stepped in and picked up where he’d left off.

  “The other girl is named Ci Ci Jackson,” Phillip said.

  The men looked at Phillip and Will in disbelief.

  “Are you serious?” the man with the new, shiny rims asked.

  “Uh, yeah.”

  They all busted out laughing.

  “Are you sure it was Ci Ci you went to college with? Where did you guys go to college? The Ci Ci we know ain’t never been to college.”

  A few of the men nodded in agreement.

  “That is, I am sure she never went as a student. She might have been at college for some other reasons, but not to get an education,” one of the men said.

  “Maybe to get a man,” another man said.

  Will didn’t know what to think.

  P
hillip cleared his throat. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, you see, Ci Ci wasn’t the schoolgirl type. And unless she got her GED somewhere, she couldn’t get into no college unless she paid somebody.”

  Still speechless, Will started thinking the entire trip to the town was a big mistake. His wife had not been to college, it was true, but she was a very intelligent woman. The only reason she had not been able to go to school was because she didn’t have anyone to send her to school.

  “If I showed you a picture of the girl I think is Ci Ci, would you know her?” Phillip asked.

  The shiny rim guy smirked. “Yeah, I’d say so.”

  Phillip nudged Will. Will pulled a picture of Morgan out of his wallet. It was the picture she had given him when they were dating, before they got engaged.

  The shiny rim guy took the picture from Will and squinted at it. “Yeah, this looks like Ci Ci.” He handed the picture around as all the other men began to agree with the first man.

  Once the man got the picture back, he looked at it one last time before handing it back to Will. “I am almost ninety-nine percent sure that is Ci Ci. She looks a little different. If so, she fixed herself up real good. The hair is different. But I’d know for sure if I saw that heart-shaped birthmark—”

  The other men finished the man’s statement. “On her inner thigh.” Then they all laughed.

  Will’s stomach began to feel queasy. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing and he felt as if he were frozen solid. He couldn’t move. He didn’t know how much time had passed before he came out of his trance, hearing Isaiah start to cry in the back seat of Phillip’s SUV.

  As if a heat wave had melted his frozen state, Will moved quickly to retrieve his baby boy from the back seat. Will figured the baby must have been scared, waking up in the unfamiliar surroundings. He held the baby, who stopped crying in the comfort of his father’s arms.

  “So you are saying the woman in this picture is Ci Ci?” Phillip asked.

  The men looked at Phillip as if he were crazy for asking a question about the woman they had been trying to find.

  “Yeah, that’s Ci Ci. She’s fixed herself up, but I would know that face anywhere,” the shiny rim guy said.

  Will listened on, as he was still speechless.

  “Cute baby,” the shiny rim guy said. “He looks a little bit like Ci Ci’s oldest child.”

  Both Will and Phillip did a double take.

  “Say what?” Phillip asked.

  “That baby looks like Ci Ci’s son. The oldest one.”

  Phillip and Will now looked at the man blankly.

  “Oh, that’s right, I guess you all knew her a while back. You probably don’t know she has kids. Well, she had kids. The oldest one is being raised by Ci Ci’s mom and the state took the other two kids.”

  With nervousness, Phillip chuckled. “Wow, you sure do know a lot about Ci Ci.”

  “This town ain’t but so big. Almost everyone knows everyone else. But Ci Ci is well known around here. You can best believe that.”

  All the men looked at each other conspiratorially.

  “Does Ci Ci live here?” Phillip asked.

  Will still could not bring himself to utter a word and was glad to have his best friend there with him. Phillip was keeping a level head and asking the same questions Will would ask if he had the presence of mind—but he didn’t.

  “Nah, I don’t know where Ci Ci is now. She moved a few years ago, but I can’t say as to where she went,” the shiny rim guy said.

  Phillip looked around at all the other men. They shook their heads to indicate that they didn’t know where she was either.

  “You said her mother still lives here?”

  “Yep. Ms. Geraldine lives over on Gum Street.”

  “Do you know what number?”

  “Nah, but you can’t miss it. It’s the only purple house on the street.”

  “Okay, thanks, man,” Phillip said. “I appreciate your help.”

  “No problem,” the shiny rim guy said.

  Phillip turned to return to his SUV, and, as if in a trance, Will followed suit. He buckled the baby in the car seat and then sat in the passenger seat. His mind reeled, unable to wrap itself around everything he had just heard—unable to accept what the men had said.

  Phillip drove down the road to a gas station out of sight of the Bojangles.

  “So what do you want to do now? Head back to Silvermont or go over to Gum Street?”

  “Drive over to Gum Street. I have to know. I have to see for myself,” Will said.

  Chapter 23

  Will’s head was spinning as he pulled into his garage at home. He barely missed hitting the garage door before it was fully opened as he pulled the car in. All he wanted to do was get into the house, pack some things up for him and the baby, and get back out before Morgan got home.

  He tried to make a mental note of the important items that the domestic violence safety plan listed as things to take when preparing to leave home. Once he was in the house, he pulled Isaiah’s playpen out and placed him in it. Isaiah whined a little, wanting to have free range of the den, but Will wanted to make sure he didn’t wander off and hurt himself as he packed as much as he could into two of his large duffle bags.

  Will walked around the house grabbing things. He grabbed his checkbook, ATM and credit cards, insurance papers, medication, his social security card, his computer flash drive, birth certificates, medical records, his address book, clothes for himself and the baby, and also the baby’s favorite blanket and toys.

  He’d also thought about packing some baby food, but knew he didn’t have but so much room in his bags. But he did grab as many diapers and wipes as he could. Phillip had offered to let him stay at their home while he got things straight with Morgan; things like his leaving her and how they were going to start the legal proceedings.

  His thoughts kept returning to the words of the guy with the shiny rims on his truck and the other guys as they spoke. “I’d know for sure if I saw that heart-shaped birthmark.” Will used to love that heart-shaped birthmark, but now that he knew that half the population of Warsaw also knew about that birthmark, it repulsed him.

  He was still reeling from all the information he’d learned while visiting Morgan—or Ci Ci’s—hometown. He didn’t know what to call her. It was as if the past two years had been part of a complete and total lie. He didn’t know who the woman was who he had married.

  Will stepped out to the garage and placed both duffle bags into the trunk of the SUV. He looked at his watch. Morgan wouldn’t be home for at least another hour, so he went back into the house, pulled out a suitcase, and went from room to room, gathering little mementos he wanted. Since he didn’t know who this Ci Ci person was, he didn’t know if the woman would try to destroy his things once she found out he was gone.

  In some ways he thought he might be a little paranoid, but in other ways he knew he wasn’t, because he’d just left a little town in eastern North Carolina that held secrets from Ci Ci’s past. Secrets she didn’t want him to know about. As far as he was concerned, everything she had ever told him had been a lie.

  Inside the house, he remembered that he had not packed any of the baby’s formula. He pulled out all ten of the cans of formula that were in the cabinet and put them in grocery bags. He also packed a dozen bottles and a few sippy cups.

  Like a man on the mission that he was, Will went from room to room, picking up fraternity memorabilia, his college degrees, the first trophy he got in little league, and he packed it all in a suitcase. By the time he finished finding things and stuffing them into the car, he had just enough room for himself in the driver’s seat and the baby in his car seat.

  His phone beeped, indicating that he had a text message. He looked at the phone display, seeing that his sister had sent him a text.

  Hey, big brother. I am on the Web cam. Where are you?

  Will had forgotten that he was supposed to have logged on to the Web ca
m that afternoon. He tried to text his sister back, but his hands were shaking so hard that he gave up. He figured it would be quicker and easier to log on to the Web cam and talk with her for a moment. There was no way he was going to be able to coherently text anything in his state.

  Will took a deep breath before sitting down in front of the computer screen. He tried to compose himself as much as possible to mask the turmoil he was going through. His sister was all smiles when he logged on to the Web cam. But her smiling face was quickly replaced with a frown as soon as she saw her brother’s face.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Will lied. The last thing he wanted to do was upset his little sister. If she knew everything that he was going through, she’d no doubt drop everything she was doing and fly back to the East Coast. But in the meantime she’d just about worry herself to death in the process of trying to get to him.

  “Don’t tell me ‘nothing.’” She sat back and crossed her arms. “Are you having complications from the car accident?”

  He had only talked to his sister a few times since the car accident, and each phone call had only lasted a couple of minutes.

  “No, I’ve recovered pretty well from the car accident.” Remarkably, he had recovered exceptionally well after the accident. His doctor had even told him that he was amazed by the minimal amount of injuries he had received in the accident.

  “Well, then, what is it?” Nicole waited for Will to tell her what was going on.

  “Nicole, there is something going on but I can’t go into it right now,” Will said, trying to offer her something. He hoped it would appease her.

  “I’ve got time.” Nicole continued to sit and wait for more of an explanation.

  “Dada, Dada, Dada,” Isaiah said.

  “Is that the baby?” Nicole asked.

  “Yeah, hold on.”

  Will stepped over to the playpen and picked the baby up. Then he returned to his seat in front of the computer.

  “There’s my little nephew. Hi, Isaiah.” Nicole scrunched her face up and said, “Googey, googey, googey, daba, daba, daba, doo, doo, doo.”