“I never thought of it as being a legal matter,” Piper declared. “I only wanted to know the truth.” She eyed her plate and picked up a piece of syrup-soaked pancake with her fingers. Popping it into her mouth, Piper quickly wiped her fingers on her napkin.
I shook my head. “Answers have a way of being complicated.” I thought of all the things I’d questioned in life, and how one answer had led me to another question and then another. “There is no simple way to handle this, no simple answer. If we do this—if we confront him—there’s no going back. Everything will change.”
“Maybe it needs to change,” Geena said in such a soft voice I barely heard her.
I heaved a sigh. “Maybe it does.”
Chapter 4
Bailee, wake up. Bailee, they’re coming!”
I opened my eyes to see my mother pulling back my covers. “Bailee, the men are coming.”
I scooted to the edge of the bed and swung my legs over the side. The floor looked far away, but I pushed off the mattress and jumped. Momma hurried to the door and motioned me to follow.
“We have to hide you. We have to hide the baby.”
I couldn’t find my shoes and the floor was cold. “Mommy, wait.” I shivered and reached for my cover.
“Leave it, Bailee. We have to hurry.” Her expression betrayed her fear and a chill ran up my spine. Men were coming to hurt us—to steal us away from our family. Momma said so, and she was never wrong.
I grabbed my dolly and ran after her. Momma picked up the baby and looked around the corner before heading out the back of the house. It was so cold and my feet were bare. I hesitated at the door.
“Mommy?”
“Come on,” she commanded.
I crossed the yard to a building far behind the house. Inside it wasn’t much warmer, but at least I was out of the wind. Momma looked frantically around the room and motioned for me to get inside an abandoned cardboard box. I did as she told me. It was scary when she closed the lid and put something atop the box. I pushed at the top, but Momma told me to sit down and be quiet. I clutched my doll close to keep from crying.
“I have to hide the baby,” she told me.
I discovered a hole on the side of the box and peered out. Momma was putting the baby in a dark bag. I couldn’t really see too well, but the baby remained sleeping and didn’t make a sound.
“Stay quiet,” she commanded. “I’ll be back for you in a little while—when it’s safe.”
———
I awoke with a start, unable to shake the heavy cloak of dread that wrapped around me. I looked around the room. Afternoon sun filtered through the blinds and tracked across the room in a pattern of slots and lines. I was safe.
Safety had been the biggest concern in my childhood. There were repeated episodes of Momma hiding us away from imagined threats, and sometimes a memory returned to me in a dream, like just now. I couldn’t remember when the exact event had taken place, but I knew it had really happened.
This was my reality: the past suddenly slipping into the present like that. Long-forgotten events returning to be displayed, just like a museum rotating artifacts.
I yawned. When Geena and Piper had gone grocery shopping, I had decided to take a nap. I glanced at the clock and saw that I’d only slept about a half hour. The house remained quiet; I figured my sisters were still gone.
My feet touched the floor beside the bed and my thoughts unwittingly went back to the dream. I was quite small in the dream; young enough, anyway, that Geena was a baby. At least I thought the baby was Geena. It could have been Piper.
I rubbed my temples for a moment, feelings of fear still clinging to me. “Those things can’t hurt me anymore,” I said aloud. Besides, maybe it wasn’t real. The setting wasn’t at all familiar to me. I couldn’t remember living someplace where we’d had a detached garage or outbuilding.
Glancing at the window, I crossed the room to see if the rental car was back. It wasn’t. I stared out at the driveway and yard for several minutes, remembering how I’d stood at this window and watched them take away my mother all those years ago. I’d stood here looking and waiting for my father to bring her back.
Of course, that never happened. I remembered Dad sitting us girls down and telling us that Momma wasn’t coming home. I thought maybe she hadn’t really died, but instead had gone away on one of her jobs for the FBI. She often had to leave for a few days—sometimes weeks at a time. I didn’t really understand what she did, but I was always worried when she was gone. It was a mixed sense of panic, dreading the bad men coming while she was gone, and an uncomfortable sense of anticipation. Years later I had learned the truth. During those absences Momma had been under psychiatric care.
I went downstairs and without planning it, ended up standing in front of the master bedroom door. Our father had locked this door to keep out the vacation renters, but Geena told me the key was on the ring with the other keys.
Searching the kitchen, I found where Geena had discarded the keys. Apparently she’d thought the place safe enough to leave it unlocked for a quick trip to the grocery store. It made me thankful I’d secured the bedroom lock before going to sleep. I took the keys back to the master bedroom and opened the door. It was dark inside, so I flipped on the light.
To my surprise the room sat just as it had fifteen years earlier. The vanity where my mother often sat to put on her makeup was still in the far corner opposite the queen bed. I could almost conjure the image of my mother sitting there combing her hair.
Why had Dad left the room like this? Did he want to remember? Was that why he kept it locked away from visitors? The replication Tiffany lamp beckoned my touch. I remembered my mother buying this at one of the thrift stores downtown. It had a couple of bad chips, but she didn’t care—she thought it was the most beautiful lamp she’d ever seen. I suddenly remembered that Dad had a similar lamp on his desk at home—only that one was real.
There’d been a lot of unusual, almost eerie happenings in this house. Children being hidden away from supposed dangers. Loud music being played to thwart spies from reading our thoughts. My mother having conversations with people who didn’t exist.
I ran my finger over one of the chipped places on the lamp and thought of the day she’d brought it home.
“Isn’t it pretty?” she asked me.
“It’s like a lamp a princess would have,” I told her. At six years of age, I fancied that one day I would be a princess and live in a castle. And when I did, I wanted just such a lamp.
Shaking my head, I turned to look at the rest of the room. It was rather dusty and smelled stale. If Dad was going to sleep in here tomorrow night, it could do with a cleaning. I walked to the window and unlocked it. It stuck, but after a couple of tries, I managed to get the window up. A fresh breeze blew in from the beach, but the cloudy day suggested more rain.
After retrieving a dustrag and cleaning spray, I went to work wiping down all the wood surfaces, including the vanity. I tried not to disturb things too much, moving only what was necessary to clean. But as I ran my hand along her things, I couldn’t help but wonder if my mother had done the same chore. Dad had hired a full-time housekeeper and nanny when Piper was little. He told me that he wanted Mom to have free time to do whatever she wanted, but Mom said they were spies to keep track of her. Now I realized it was just Dad’s way of trying to keep Mom, and the rest of us, out of trouble. Unfortunately, Mom wanted no part of it. She would inevitably make life so miserable for the hired help that they’d quit without notice, often leaving before my father even returned from wherever it was he’d gone.
I remembered one particularly kind older woman. Her name wasn’t one I could recall, but she made the best chocolate chip peanut butter cookies. Momma, however, said the treats were poisoned and forbade the woman to bake anything more. Momma told me in secret that the woman had plans to hurt us, frightening me deeply. It was bad enough to have my mother confident that intruders were coming to steal us away; the idea t
hat someone living on our property might be seeking to do us harm kept me awake at night.
By the time I’d finished cleaning and straightening up, a light rain had begun to fall. I went to close the window and caught sight of the ferry crossing to Seattle. On a good day we could see the city from our beach, but this definitely wasn’t one of those days. When we were little we’d made many trips by ferry to Seattle. Sometimes we left the car at home and just went on foot. We would walk all over town, usually ending up at Pike Place Market—which was like a circus and giant carnival all in one. I could remember the smells of popcorn, bakeries, and fish. Street performers, musicians, and jugglers.
With the window back in place and the room looking presentable, I went to the kitchen and searched for something to eat. About that time, however, Geena and Piper came home. I heard them arguing all the way up the walk and into the house.
“You can’t file charges against our own father,” Piper was saying.
“I wouldn’t be the one filing anything,” Geena countered. “I merely said that if questioned about what we know, I would have to tell the truth and charges would most likely be filed.”
Piper looked at me and tossed a couple of plastic sacks on the island. “Do you hear her? She wants to see our father in prison.”
Geena rolled her eyes. “He killed our mother. He should face the truth and deal honestly with us. If there was any history of Mom having problems with mental illness, then those records could be used to support what happened.”
“How would that support murder?” Piper asked. “Listen to yourself. You’re the one who’ll soon graduate law school. I won’t be party to this. I want to talk to Dad about what happened that night. That’s all.” She looked at me with a pleading expression. “Can’t we just talk about it without it having to turn into a murder trial?”
I felt sorry for my sister. Actually, I felt sorry for both of them. “Look, I think we can talk to Dad about this without having to do anything more. Maybe if he knows that we know, he’ll turn himself in.” But I knew my words sounded lame. Did I really want the truth to become public knowledge? Did I want our family to be victims of the next national campaign to expose dysfunctional families?
“If he hasn’t done so in fifteen years,” Geena began, “what makes you think he would now?”
Taking up one of the bags Piper had discarded, I began to pull out the items one by one. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s only remained silent because of us. To give some semblance of a family. I’m sure Dad doesn’t want to give up the rest of his life to sit in a prison cell. Still, I think he worries about our good thoughts more than what the world thinks.”
“This isn’t a popularity issue. Whether we think bad or good of him, it is a legal problem.” Geena sat down on one of the bar stools. “Look, I’ve had this on my mind since I started law school. Ethically, I feel obligated to say something. I have for a long time.”
“I can’t believe you would betray your own father that way,” Piper said. She sounded close to tears. Reaching mindlessly for a box of snack cakes, she tore into it like a person long deprived of food. Her action made me frown. For someone as thin as she was, it was odd that she always seemed to be eating during times of confrontation. Was she bulimic?
With all of the grocery items out of the sacks and lined up in front of me, I tried to think of something to say or do that might lessen the severity of the moment. I didn’t want to think of Piper having an eating disorder, nor of our father going to prison. There had to be something I could do or say to quell the intensity of the matter. Nothing of real value came to mind, however.
“Dad gets here tomorrow,” I finally said. “Let’s see what he says or does. We can decide what to do based on that.” I knew it was a stalling tactic, but it was the best I could do.
It rained the rest of the day and into the evening. I put together sandwiches for us to eat for supper while Geena built a fire in the living room hearth. When we finally settled down with our food and drinks in front of the flames, it seemed the tension had calmed considerably from our earlier discussion. Piper was less than animated now, but that wasn’t entirely unusual. Piper often withdrew and seemed to crave—even need—the quiet.
“So have you decided what you’re going to do now that you’ve graduated?” Geena asked Piper.
She shrugged and took a drink of her cola. “I have an internship I can take. It would put me in a good place for potentially becoming full time with an international fashion buyer.”
“That’s exciting news,” I said. It was the first I had heard about such a possibility. “Does it appeal to you?”
Piper turned to face me, and I was struck by the vulnerability in her clear eyes. “It appeals about as much as anything. It would require a great deal of travel. Maybe even a move to London.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” Geena asked. “I love London. It would be great to have you there—a perfect excuse for us to come and visit.”
I watched Piper give another little shrug before turning her attention to the food on her plate. “I don’t know,” she said before taking a bite.
“Travel can be exhausting,” I said. “I have to decide about taking a job in New York City, and if I do, I have to figure out whether I’ll move or commute.”
“That’s a long commute to do every day,” Geena commented.
“It is,” I agreed. “Although I wouldn’t have to make it every day. I could work part-time at home. But they’re offering me a really nice sublet in the city. I could even live there full time.”
“And you haven’t jumped at the chance? Do you know how hard it is to get decent housing in New York?”
“I do know. I just don’t know that I want to live there. I mean, you and Piper are in Boston. You’re my family.”
Geena shook her head. “I don’t intend to be there for the rest of my life, and Piper already has a chance to leave. You certainly don’t have to think about us.”
Her words hurt me, but I didn’t want to admit it. “I like thinking about you. I thought we were close.”
“Of course we are.” Geena’s expression suggested I’d said something stupid. “That doesn’t mean we spend the rest of our lives living under the same roof or even in the same town.”
I knew that much was true, but I couldn’t deny that I felt responsible for them in a strange way. Ever since we’d been young it had been my job to keep track of them. Momma had given me that job—to help her so that they wouldn’t be stolen away from us.
“Do you remember when Mom was worried about that serial killer?” Geena asked, as if reading my mind.
“Why do you ask?”
She laughed. “I don’t know; it just came to mind. I guess I have this memory of us hiding in a safe room or something. Do you remember that?”
I gave a slow nod. “Mom used to have us hide in different places when we were little.”
“A serial killer?” Piper asked.
“Yes. About the time you were born there was a serial killer on the loose who targeted children. We were living in Texas,” I added, “and even though the murders were taking place in the Midwest, Momma was terrified for us. The man was especially fond of little girls.” I didn’t bother to mention that our mother’s paranoia had started long before that particular turn of events.
“I remember I could never get very far out of her sight.” Geena took another bite of her food.
Or mine, I thought. I didn’t say it though.
“Did they ever catch the guy?” Piper asked.
“Yeah, but not until long after Mom was gone,” I said.
“She used to say she was helping the FBI hunt down the killer,” Geena told Piper. “Remember, I told you that a long time ago.”
Piper nodded. “But what if she really did help?”
“She had Dad convinced for a while. She kept talking about all that she was doing and it sounded real enough,” Geena said. “I suppose she might have gone to the FBI and tried to help the
m. I can’t imagine how, but maybe she thought there was something she could offer. Frankly, I think she just told us that stuff so we’d feel safe.”
My mind began to race, my mother’s words echoing in my head. She was adamant that we be on our guard. Every stranger was a possible threat. Every man had the potential to be a killer. As a result, I lived in fear. My therapist often said it was one of the reasons I found it impossible to connect and commit to another human being—especially a man.
“Momma was so saddened by the stories in the paper,” I said without thought. “I remember her sharing them with me and crying. She said it wasn’t just the serial killer who stole children, however.” I looked at my sisters and shook my head. “She said the FBI had been doing it for a long, long time and no one had the guts to challenge them on it.”
Piper looked at her plate and pushed it back. “Why would she say things like that?”
“Because she was afraid it was true,” Geena replied. “Mom had problems like that. She was afraid of a lot of things.”
“Aren’t we all?” Piper said.
She was right, but I didn’t want to comment. I wanted the conversation to move to other topics. Instead, Geena forced the subject to become more personal for me.
“Does being afraid keep you from agreeing to get serious about Mark Delahunt?”
I looked at her in surprise. “Why do you ask that?”
A hint of a smile crept onto her face. “Don’t you think it’s time someone did? I mean, he’s quite the catch, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t.”
Geena laughed. “You are so touchy about anything related to him. I think you care a great deal about him.”
House Of Secrets Page 5