House Of Secrets

by Tracie Peterson

  My first impressions of Judith were quite positive. She entered the house at Dad’s side and smiled at each of us and called us by name. Her demeanor, calm and gentle, expressed an ease about her that made me relax. Her brunette hair just grazed her shoulders, framing the delicate features of her slender face. I couldn’t tell what her age might be; there were wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, but a youthfulness in her spirit suggested she was just a woman who liked to smile a lot.

  “I’ve seen photographs of you girls for so long, I feel I know you already,” she declared.

  “That must be nice,” Piper said in a snide manner before slouching into a stuffed chair near the fireplace.

  Judith threw her a sympathetic look. “I know I have you all at a disadvantage. I told your father it was hardly fair to dump me into the equation like this. I had thought it would be easier back in Boston.”

  Geena extended her hand. “It would come as a surprise no matter the location. Dad has never said so much as a word about dating anyone.”

  Dad spoke up to defend himself. “I didn’t know my love life was any of your concern.” He smiled good-naturedly and put his arm around Judith’s shoulders. “I specifically remember you girls telling me that as adult women you weren’t obligated to tell me the details of your romantic interests. I presumed that the same courtesies were extended to me.” He turned to his new wife. “Judith, it would seem that I’ve brought you into the lion’s den.”

  “Hardly that,” Geena countered. “We were just surprised.”

  “That’s putting it mildly,” Piper muttered.

  I drew in a deep breath and steadied myself. “So were you able to fly out last night?” I hoped this would change the focus of our conversation and lighten the mood.

  Judith appeared to understand my intention. “By the time the last of the storms rolled through, I had already opted to stay the night and fly in this morning.”

  I nodded. “Our weather has been mild. Rain, but nothing too harsh.” I looked at Dad and could see his brow had relaxed. “We fixed some clam chowder but decided to save it for another time.”

  “Judith and I will be here for at least a week. We hope all of you will stay at least that long.”

  “Seems strange that you’re actually taking a vacation,” Geena said. “We’ve been after you to do this for a long time.”

  Dad glanced at Judith. “She convinced me that I needed to learn to relax. Apparently I work entirely too much.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Piper interjected with a huff.

  “Piper, congratulations on your graduation from college,” Judith said in an attempt to soothe my sister. “Do you have plans for the future?”

  Crossing her arms, Piper gave the older woman a hard stare. “I plan to seek the truth.”

  I motioned to the living room. “Would you like to sit down, or should we just go right to lunch?”

  “I’m not going anywhere until I get some answers,” Piper said, surprising us all. She all but exploded out of the chair and crossed the room to the table. She picked up her papers and thrust them at Dad. “Maybe you could start here.”

  Dad’s smile faded even before he looked at the information. “What in the world has gotten into you?”

  Piper generally took his side in any family discussion or argument, so for her to appear so hostile now was a great shift in character. She stared hard at Dad as if silently daring him to deny what she already knew.

  He glanced at the papers and then held them up for Judith to see. “So . . . you know about your mother. I suppose you told them?” he asked, looking at me.

  “Bailee should have told us a long time ago. She’s known since she was a teenager,” Piper declared. She looked at me in an almost apologetic manner before going back to her chair.

  Dad exchanged a glance with Judith, then turned to me. “How did you find out?”

  His tone betrayed his hurt. “I overheard Mrs. Brighton talking about it on the phone one day. That set me off on a journey to learn as much as I could. I suppose the only real question I have is why you didn’t just tell us. It’s not like it would have changed anything.”

  “I was advised against it,” Dad said, looking at the papers as if he might see something important there. “I was told it wasn’t in your best interest.”

  “Who in their right mind would tell you that?” Geena asked. “We had a right to know. We can inherit mental illness.”

  “Yes, but you didn’t,” he countered.

  “How can you be sure?” Piper threw out. “How can anyone be sure?”

  Dad put the papers aside and led Judith to the sofa. I followed, not knowing what else to do, and took a seat in the rocking chair. Geena pulled up the ottoman. We waited for Dad to continue, but instead, Judith began to speak.

  “I’ve had personal experience with this type of mental illness.”

  All I could think of was that Dad had somehow married another woman with the same problems Mom had endured.

  She continued. “Your dad and I met sixteen or seventeen years ago.”

  “You were running after her while married to Momma?” Piper accused.

  Dad tensed. “I most certainly did not.”

  Judith patted his hand and he relaxed. She smiled at him and continued. “No, we didn’t begin a romantic relationship until earlier this year. We met back then at a group therapy session. A support group, really.” She turned to face Geena and me. “It was for families who had loved ones with schizophrenia. It was quite new and neither of us had any idea what to expect.”

  I was stunned. “You went to therapy, Dad?”

  “Yes. I didn’t know how to deal with your mother. I didn’t know how to help her—especially when she wouldn’t help herself.”

  “I would have liked to have known how to help her too.” Bitterness clung to my words.

  “But there was no reason to involve you girls,” Dad said. “It wasn’t up to you to figure out such weighted problems.”

  I felt the knife turn a little deeper. My therapist had told me many times that my mother’s problems were not my responsibility and that I should never have been forced to act as her guardian during those times when she had bad spells. Now, however, the very person who placed that responsibility upon me was sitting here saying the same thing. I forced myself to calm down.

  “Look, Dad, we would just as soon talk to you about this . . . alone. Judith shouldn’t have to be in the middle of this.”

  “It’s too late for that,” he replied. “Judith has been in the middle, as you call it, for a long time. Like she said, we met in therapy. Her husband was also schizophrenic.”

  “And your children?” Piper asked.

  “We didn’t have children,” Judith answered in a soft voice.

  Piper smirked. “Well, how lucky for you.”

  Judith flinched.

  I’d never seen my little sister act like this. Fact was, I’d never seen Piper have this much enthusiasm for anything. Now, however, she was like a pit bull unleashed on a poor unsuspecting kitten.

  “Piper, that was uncalled for,” our father declared.

  I turned to Judith. “I’m sorry for the hostilities here. You see, I made the mistake of keeping our mother’s illness from my sisters until last night.”

  Judith nodded. “It’s not your fault or theirs. Your feelings are valid and you all have a right to be angry. Your father should have told you years ago about her condition.”

  “I suppose I should have,” Dad began, “but I didn’t see how it would help.”

  Geena fidgeted with the tail of her button down shirt. “It might have helped us to better understand some of the things that happened.”

  Dad turned his attention back to me. “Did it? Does it help you now to know the truth? Did it help you these last years, Bailee?”

  I shook my head. “Not completely. It gave me something to focus on, but . . .” I fell silent. I realized that knowing of my mother’s mental illness had never made th
e circumstance of the past any better. It didn’t resolve anything for me—it only created more questions, more worries.

  “Your mother’s sickness had to be frightening to all of you,” Judith said. “Your father told me there were times when you were put in danger.”

  I looked at him and could feel the heat of his betrayal stain my cheeks. “You knew about those times? You knew and did nothing?”

  “Oh, he did plenty,” Piper snarked.

  I waved my hand to silence her. “You knew Mom put our lives in danger, yet you left us alone with her? You knew we could be harmed but didn’t stop it?”

  “I did what I could. I hired people to help—to watch her and be there for you. I tried to get the doctors to help me, help her.” He lowered his head. “Your mother thought it was a big conspiracy to see her out of the picture.”

  “And was it?” Geena asked.

  His head snapped up. “No. It was never that. I wanted her to get better. I loved her and wanted our family to be together. But her mind told her otherwise. Her mind told her that everyone was against her—that we wanted to hurt her. She was convinced that doctors were spies for the government, that medication was poison.”

  He got up and walked to the fireplace. “I tried to convince her that she could beat this thing. When she was on medication and feeling better, I would try to explain to her what was happening. She didn’t believe me. I think explaining only served to make things worse. I suppose I thought it would do the same with you girls. I mean, if you knew the truth . . .” His words faded.

  If only he had known the truth, I thought. That was the thing I wasn’t sure about now, however. How much had he known? Did he realize how many times she’d nearly caused our deaths?

  “We know the truth,” Piper said. “We’ve known it for a long, long time.”

  I looked at her. My fingers tingled, knowing the time had come for the truth. Geena went to sit beside Piper on the arm of the chair.

  “She’s right, Dad,” Geena added. “We know.”

  “Know what?” he asked.

  “We know what really happened—to Mom.” Geena said, crossing her arms. “We’re tired of playing games.” Apparently Piper’s anger was spreading.

  Our father and Judith exchanged a look that resembled a cross between disgust and surprise. Dad’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”

  “Mom,” Geena said, then hesitated. “Her death.”

  Dad moved back to the sofa and reclaimed a seat beside Judith. He looked dazed, lost. I almost felt sorry for him and wished we’d never started this. Almost. I didn’t really want to cause Dad pain . . . but I did want answers.

  For several moments no one said a word. That it should be Judith who encouraged him to tell the truth was almost offensive.

  “Apparently they know the worst of it, Tony. It’s time you all sorted through the details of this and talked about what really happened.”

  Piper was livid. “How can you act as though it’s nothing more important than explaining how the vacuum runs? Our mother died a horrible death and you sit there with the knowledge of it? You knew and married our father anyway?”

  Judith looked puzzled. “Why shouldn’t I have? I had heard Tony—your father—speak about your mother’s death in our sessions. It was an awful death, but it has nothing to do with the way I feel about him.”

  “How can you say that? It makes you, in a fashion, an accessory to murder,” Geena declared. She shook her head. “Surely you don’t think it was right?”

  Dad inched forward on the sofa. “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, come on,” Piper said, her voice breaking. She began to cry. “Don’t lie to us anymore. We deserve to have the truth.”

  “We already know that,” Geena said, putting her hand on Piper’s shoulder. “What we want to know is why. Why was that the only solution to the problem?”

  I watched Dad carefully. He seemed genuinely confused. He met my gaze and shook his head. “What are they talking about?”

  Squaring my shoulders, I felt the weight of responsibility once again settle upon me. “We were watching that night.”

  “What night?”

  I looked at Dad, unwilling to turn away. “Mom’s last night.”

  “Watching what?” he asked.

  “We were watching from right up there,” Piper said, pointing to the landing on the stairs. “We saw everything.” She wiped angrily at her tears.

  “I don’t know what you think you saw, but maybe you could explain.”

  “Dad, we didn’t say anything because . . . well . . . we didn’t know what to say. We knew you were doing it for us,” I offered. “We felt obligated to keep the secret.”

  Geena had apparently had enough. She got to her feet and fixed her hands to her waist. “We saw you mixing drugs into Mom’s hot chocolate. We know you overdosed her—killed her. We know you did it for us, because we heard you say as much. We’ve lived with this knowledge for fifteen years. Fifteen years of pretending our father wasn’t a murderer—no matter the reason.”

  Judith’s mouth dropped open. She turned, eyes wide, to look at Dad. “Tony,” she whispered his name. “Oh, Tony.”

  Dad didn’t react at all like I had figured. He sat staring at us as if we’d suddenly changed into objects he couldn’t begin to recognize. I felt a tingling run up my spine. What had we just done?

  Chapter 11

  Without a word, Dad got to his feet and walked out of the house. The sound of the door slamming closed echoed for a moment and left me feeling horribly empty.

  “Where does he think he’s going?” Piper got to her feet and looked at me as though I had the answer.

  “He’s obviously upset.” I looked at Judith. “Maybe we should go after him.”

  “I don’t think that would be the best idea,” she said. “I know this is hard for all of you, but I think you should give your father some time alone. He certainly wasn’t expecting this.”

  “Maybe he should have.” Piper turned on me at that point. “This is all your fault. You made us promise not to tell Dad what we knew. You said it was the only way to protect him and us. Now look what’s happened.”

  I was stunned. How could she turn this back on me? Piper stepped directly in front of me and pointed her quivering finger.

  “You’re to blame. You didn’t tell us about Mom’s problems, and you told us we couldn’t talk to Dad about what he did.” She began to cry and Geena went to comfort her. I felt completely displaced. How had I become the enemy?

  “I hate you!” Piper ripped away from Geena and ran for the stairs. Her sobs could be heard until she closed herself into her bedroom.

  “I’ll go talk to her.” Geena quickly followed Piper’s retreat.

  That left only Judith and me. We sat in silence for some time before I got to my feet. “I need to find Dad. He owes me some answers.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t press him just now,” Judith said.

  I don’t know why, but I sat back down. I tried to think of what I wanted to say. My sisters were angry, my father completely taken off guard, and my new stepmother was already imposing her will on the family. Well, I supposed the word imposing was rather harsh. She no doubt only wanted to protect her husband.

  “He needs time to think. This was a hard trip for him,” Judith said. “We talked a long time about this before he asked you girls to come here.”

  Easing back in the chair, I focused on her concerned expression, which seemed to ease my sense of urgency. I wanted to ask her a million questions, but I felt them all stick in my throat.

  “Your father was wrong not to tell you about the mental illness,” Judith offered. “I tried to tell him that on more than one occasion. He was torn, however. He had been advised by child psychologists to only give information as questions were asked. You have to remember how great the changes have been in counseling and therapy over these last fifteen years. For every counselor or psychiatrist, you have the same number of o
pinions for treatment.”

  “But you knew all about Mom and her death.” I narrowed my gaze. “Tell me your thoughts on it.”

  “I can’t. Not until your father is able to talk to you and your sisters. It’s not my place.” She seemed to consider something for a moment. “I can say, however, that I know what it is to experience the problems schizophrenia causes. I know how necessary it seems to keep things hidden. Worse still, I know how alienating it can be. Few understand and because of that, they’re frightened.”

  “How long was your husband sick?”

  Judith looked past me to the fireplace. “He wasn’t diagnosed until his late twenties. However, he was sick a lot longer. I just didn’t know it. He seemed just fine. He held a good job, had friends, and was brilliant.” She gave a sad smile. “I thought we had a good life.”

  “What happened to show you otherwise?”

  She looked back at me. “For years Kevin—that was my husband’s name—went to work and came home each evening, played poker with the boys on Tuesday nights, and took me out on Fridays. Caleb Carson worked in the same office—they were developing new designs for aircraft. He and Kevin were the best of friends. They helped each other on various projects and arranged their travel schedules together so that they could get in the odd game of golf. The only problem was that Caleb wasn’t real—he was one of Kevin’s hallucinations.”

  I couldn’t hide my surprise. “He wasn’t real? How could you not know?”

  She shrugged. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but there was never any reason to question Caleb’s existence. Kevin’s work was very confidential and I wasn’t allowed to visit his office. If we met for lunch, it was always at a restaurant or maybe just outside the building, but never inside past security. I often asked Kevin to invite Caleb to join us for dinner or a weekend church event, but there was always some reason why he couldn’t attend.”

  She glanced toward the door, as if to make certain Dad hadn’t returned. “Your father knows all about this, and I know all about your mother; but we seldom talk about it anymore. We both kind of wore out the topic a long time ago.”