The Art of Keeping Secrets

by Patti Callahan Henry

  TWELVE

  ANNABELLE MURPHY

  Morning sunlight replaced the shadows of the previous night; the town emerged as a new place washed clean. Annabelle walked along the sidewalk checking addresses, looking down at her torn paper, then back up again to the numbers on the buildings. Jake hadn’t risen this morning no matter how hard she pounded on his door, so she had ventured out to find Liddy Parker’s address on her own. She needed to ask Sofie a few more questions—she didn’t want to scare the girl, just find out who was on the plane.

  Annabelle stopped in front of a brick condominium building with a metal plaque stating that the structure dated from 1773. A flash of something Knox once said came to her. They’d been in Paris on vacation, just the two of them, drinking too much red wine, going to art museums and historic places, eating food they couldn’t pronounce and making love to the sound of Parisians on the street below.

  Later, she and Knox had stood in front of a building with a plaque on it. He’d shaken his head, touched the date. “Eight hundred years old. And we think we have old buildings in South Carolina,” he said, kissed her on the lips and then they’d entered the café.

  Now Annabelle ran her hand along the plaque on a North Carolina building, shook off the feeling that her Knox could have had another life in this building, another life in which she didn’t know where he went or why.

  She stepped into a narrow hallway and glanced at the list of names and numbers for each condo. The Milstead sign was exactly the same as the others, but with the number 7 stamped in black. Annabelle glanced up and down the hall. She touched a brick, ran her fingers along the grout, wondering if these walls had seen her husband come and go. Her purse slipped from her fingers, the metal chain clanging on the tile floor.

  A woman poked her head out of a door, blue curlers sticking from various angles under a hair net. She pulled her bathrobe tight around her chest, squinted at Annabelle. “May I help you?”

  Annabelle stood straight. “Yes, I’m looking for Sofie Milstead.”

  “She lives upstairs. I am about sick of sending people up to her condo. So irresponsible the young are these days—don’t you think?” The woman picked something out of her teeth with her pinky nail, then looked back at Annabelle. “Now why would you be looking for Sofie? You into the art, too?”

  “No, I’m an old friend from where she used to live.”

  “Colorado? You don’t look like someone from Colorado. Not that I’d know what someone from Colorado looks like.”

  Annabelle stepped back; her stomach plummeted as a strange knowing took shape in the corner of her mind. “No, from South Carolina.”

  “Oh, then you must have the wrong girl. Her and her poor dead mama were from Colorado.”

  “Dead?” Annabelle said, although she didn’t hear the word come from her lips.

  “Her mama died in a car wreck out there in Colorado, and she left poor Sofie all alone here in Newboro. Guess I can’t blame her for being a little spacey sometimes. Guess I would be, too, if my mama left me all alone in the world.”

  Annabelle put her hand on the woman’s door, afraid she would shut it. “She died in a car wreck?”

  “Yeah, guess she went to visit her own mama, who was dying.” The woman shook her head. “Just terrible.”

  Annabelle closed her eyes, fought backward in time to a conversation she’d had with Liddy years ago about how she’d lost both her parents in a train crash in some state north of the Mason-Dixon line. Annabelle opened her eyes, stared at the woman. “Are you sure?”

  “Oh, yes. Very. We had a memorial service for her right there on the harbor. She was buried with her own mama in Colorado, but I’m shootin’ sure about the memorial service. I was there.”

  Annabelle believed in the woman’s certainty, which only meant that what she thought she knew about Sofie and Liddy was wrong. “Where is Sofie’s condo?”

  “Number seven, upstairs—has the best view in the building. Stairs are there on the left. I keep on telling Sofie that if she’s going to spend the night out at her boyfriend’s so often, I’d like to buy her condo, but she refuses. I heard the two of them making quite a racket leaving early this morning.”

  Annabelle nodded at the woman, took the stairs up, hoping her knees would hold as they shook beneath her. At the top of the staircase, she shoved open a metal door and went halfway down the hall before she stood in front of number seven—a door painted bright blue. Annabelle took a deep breath and knocked. She waited at thirty-second intervals and continued to knock, although she knew it was a futile effort.

  What next? She had banged on the door once more when Jake appeared at the top of the stairs. “Mom?”

  Annabelle startled, stepped back. “Guess great minds think alike,” she said, went to her son and hugged him, let her head rest on his broad shoulder. Then she leaned back. “She’s not here. Her neighbor told me she thought she heard her leave pretty early this morning with her boyfriend.”

  “Oh.”

  “I tried to wake you earlier.”

  “I was out late.”

  “Doing what? We got home at ten p.m. Where could you have possibly gone?”

  A hinge creaked, and Annabelle and Jake turned to see a young woman standing in the doorway of the next condo. “You two planning on talking and banging around for a long while now? Or are you about done?”

  Annabelle placed a hand over her mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry. Were we disturbing you?”

  “If you don’t count the incessant banging on the door, no.”

  Jake held up his hand. “I’m sorry. We’re leaving.”

  Annabelle took a step forward. “Do you know Liddy and Sofie?”

  The woman moved into the hall, held the door open with her foot. She was a beautiful young woman with long, dark curls, round violet eyes and full lips that needed no makeup. She pulled her hair back from her face, then wound her arms around her small waist so that it appeared as though she were hugging herself or had a stomachache. “Of course I know them—I live next door. Well, I knew Liddy. You know she died.”

  “Can I ask you a question?” Annabelle spoke in a soft voice.

  “Seems like people been asking a lot of questions about them lately. Listen, Sofie still lives here—if you want to know something, you should ask her.”

  “I’m trying,” Annabelle said, stepped forward, distracted by her need for more information. “Do you know if there was a man who came here frequently? A man named Knox?”

  The woman smiled. “How would I know? Listen, Liddy Milstead had men. If I started naming names, now wouldn’t I be able to send some people reeling?” She looked at Jake and smiled.

  He smiled back, and Annabelle saw him turn on the light inside him that made things happen, that charmed all those around him. Knox had also had that light, one that could be turned up or down at will, but never off. “Listen, we’re just looking for information about a man named Knox and wondered if he’d been here,” Jake said.

  The woman shrugged. “I really don’t know.” Jake kept his eyes on hers until she added, “But I can tell you the name of Sofie’s boyfriend, Bedford Whitmore. He’s a professor, lives about a block over on Floyd Street. And beides the men who came and went, Liddy’s best friend was Jo-Beth, who owns the knitting store called Charmed Knits.”

  “Thanks,” Jake said. He walked toward Sofie’s door, shoved a small piece of torn paper under the door; then he took Annabelle’s arm. “Let’s go, Mom.”

  They reached the sidewalk, and Annabelle was filled with love for this man who was her son. When she looked at him, she saw all the ages he ever was—not just the man he was at that moment. This was what people without children didn’t understand; you were never just looking at or talking to the ten-year-old, or the fifteen-year-old, or the full-grown man. You were also seeing the infant, the toddler, the child you loved from the moment you had known he grew inside you, part of you but separate.

  Annabelle spoke first. “What did you put und
er her door?”

  “A note,” he said. “I’m going to go look for Sofie; why don’t you see if you can find the best friend?”

  “You think you’ll do better with Sofie? Do you even remember her?”

  “I know where she works, Mom. I found out last night. . . .” He looked away, as though he had something else to say, then turned back to her with that light in his eyes. “Let me do this—you already spoke to her once.”

  “Well, the woman we just talked to confirmed what a woman downstairs told me,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Liddy is dead. But the woman downstairs told me she died in a car crash in Colorado . . . and that she was from Colorado. . . . I don’t get it.”

  “Mom, don’t go jumping to conclusions. I’ll find Sofie. . . .”

  After they hugged goodbye, Annabelle yanked her cell phone from her purse, called information and asked for Charmed Knits. The operator searched for the address while Annabelle felt as though the unknown past was now rushing forward in time, moving toward her with a runaway power she couldn’t stop.

  THIRTEEN

  SOFIE MILSTEAD

  Prisms of light flickered across the water and reflected off the land. Sofie stopped her car at the harbor and stared out to where the sun hung naked and low in the morning sky. She parked her car, and then stood on the seawall, used the sight of water to calm her mind, her spirit before taking a mile-long walk around the harbor park. She didn’t have to be at the center for another couple hours, but she thought she’d sneak in some of her private work in the quiet office.

  After her walk, she was inside the center, the iron door slamming behind her, before she realized she’d left her logbook at home. “Damn,” she said to the empty corridor as she turned around and ran back to her car. She drove the few blocks back to her condo, blaming her forgetfulness and preoccupation on the disruptive presence of Jake Murphy.

  A car pulled out of a parallel parking spot in front of her condo building, and Sofie drove in right behind it, slammed the gearshift into park and jumped out the driver’s side. She ran into the hallway. Her pounding feet brought Ms. Fitz to her door. It was the last thing Sofie needed this morning. In Sofie’s humble opinion, Ms. Fitz needed to get a hobby that did not involve knowing the ins and outs of Sofie’s life. Sofie turned and smiled at her. “Good morning, Ms. Fitz.”

  “My, my, you’ve been a busy girl. You’ve had nonstop visitors.” Ms. Fitz smiled. “I’m glad to see you’re getting a social life.”

  Sofie bit the inside of her cheek. “Thank you.” She turned and moved toward the stairwell.

  “Don’t you want to know who’s been calling on you?”

  “No.” Sofie opened the stairwell door.

  “Hmmph.”

  Sofie thought this must be Ms. Fitz’s favorite response because she used it on every possible occasion. She opened the door, turned to nod at Ms. Fitz. “Have a good day.”

  “Well, you had an art historian named Michael, a woman named Anna or something like that and a young man named Jake. They all seemed quite interested in seeing you and asked after your dead mom.”

  Sofie felt the slap of the word “dead” like cold water thrown over her body. She shivered, turned away from Ms. Fitz and slammed the door, although she knew she’d pay for it when Ms. Fitz called the owner of the building and complained about Sofie’s visitors and loud living.

  A sheet of white paper lay on the pine floor just inside Sofie’s front door; she picked it up and read:

  Please meet me for coffee—I’ll be waiting at the Full

  Cup. Jake.

  Sofie stared at the paper as though it were an ancient document intended for someone else.

  “I can’t,” she said out loud as if Jake could hear her. “I have to get to the marine center. I really do.” She looked up and caught her reflection in the far mirror: her pale face, her hair pulled back into a ponytail. She released her hair, shook it out to let it fall over her shoulders, dabbed clear gloss on her lips. She spoke out loud: “I can’t meet you for coffee. I must get to work.”

  The canvas behind her blinked in the mirror, and she turned around, took small steps toward the painting and ran her finger along the edge. This was a unique piece; she had seen it in the way her mother bent over the canvas, her eyes often filled with tears, her bottom lip bitten in concentration.

  Her mother had used tiny brushes on this piece, painting words that Sofie could barely read through the large, translucent starfish imposed over the letters. Sofie knew what the words were about, but she couldn’t form sentences from them. She compared it to the dolphin’s language—knowing the essential message, but not the exact words.

  This canvas was the most beautiful piece her mother had ever done, and yet she had never finished it. Sofie had had a million heartbreaking realizations about her mother’s death, but the biggest one was that her mother had been unable to finish her favorite project; she’d left her work in a corner of a room, waiting for her return.

  When her mother had been working on this painting, Sofie had had a deep conviction that this canvas would break her mother free of her sadness, free of yearning for the man she couldn’t have. It would allow her to love again.

  In the end, her mother did break free—but not through her art.

  A tube of pale blue paint lay on the easel—just as her mother had left it two years ago. Sofie reached out, touched it, then picked it up while her heart pounded against her chest. She rolled the tube between her palms, then placed it back on the easel.

  Sofie turned away from the canvas, grabbed her purse and drove directly to the Full Cup. Her hands shook as she sat in her parked car. This was outrageously foolish—meeting the son of the woman who wanted to know the whole story. The son of Knox Murphy.

  Anger at having to keep her secrets, at having to lie again, overcame Sofie. The therapist Bedford had made her see for a while should have told her that sorrow and fear resembled each other so closely that you could barely tell one from the other. But she also knew anger, and she welcomed it.

  She was angry at Bedford for being so clinical, angry at Ms. Fitz for being so nosy, angry at her mother for leaving her, angry at Annabelle Murphy for showing up in Newboro. The cure, oddly, seemed to be to meet Jake Murphy for coffee.

  Most of the tables were empty, although there was a long line of customers getting their coffee to go. Sofie saw Jake at a corner table and tilted her head to observe him. He was reading the newspaper and hadn’t looked up yet. A thin sliver of memory returned to her.

  She and Jake had both missed the bus while they were playing capture the flag in the school playground. The day was unusually cold, and she’d pulled her hood around her face, tied the strings so tightly that only her eyes and nose showed. Jake had run up and pinched her nose. “You look like one of my sister’s dolls all wrapped up like that. A little tiny china doll.”

  She had felt a strange thrill, as though he had just told her she was the most beautiful ten-year-old on earth. He’d run off, and then they both realized they’d missed the bus. After they’d gathered their books, they’d walked to her mother’s art studio, only two blocks away, to call Jake’s mom to come get him. They’d sat on two stools and sipped hot chocolate from cracked mugs, rejects from the potter who sold his wares at the studio.

  Sofie looked at Jake. “Are china dolls pretty?” she wanted to know, needed to know.

  Jake laughed, then squinted at her. “Of course they are.” Then he’d jumped off the stool to run to his mother coming through the front door.

  That same boy, now a man, looked up from the newspaper he was reading, stared directly at Sofie. He smiled, placed the paper down on the table. A chill ran through her: this man had the potential to make her tell secrets she hadn’t told Bedford, secrets her mother had so insisted she keep that they had become part of her family’s DNA. She walked toward Jake, sat down and nodded, not trusting her voice to say anything that made any sense.

  �
�Hi, Sofie.”

  “Hello.” She waved toward the coffee bar. “Do you want something?”

  He laughed and the sound was deeper than she expected, as though he had more substance than it first seemed. “I’ve already had my share of caffeine while waiting for you. Would you like something?”

  “I think I would,” she said, glanced up at the board.

  “Let’s wait until the line goes down a bit.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, when you’re the only coffee shop in town, it gets a little packed before work.”

  “Only one?”

  She shrugged. “There’s pretty much only one of everything here. One bookstore. One coffee shop. One pharmacy. One—”

  “Art studio,” he finished for her, leaned his elbows on the table.

  She needed a change of subject, and as she often did when she was nervous, she began to speak too fast. “Well, there are four restaurants, and two gift shops . . . so there’s more than one of some things.”

  He nodded. “I stopped by the art studio, but it was closed.”

  “Yeah, Rose took it over a couple years ago and she sort of sets her own hours. No one is sure exactly what they are, but . . .”

  “I remember you and your mom at the studio in Marsh Cove.”

  Sofie’s stomach fluttered. She stood. “Listen, I didn’t want you waiting all day for me. I didn’t want you to waste your time, but I have to go to work now. Okay?”

  Jake patted the table. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought your mom up like that. I should know better—I hate when people do that about my dad. It’s like they want to tell me they care about and think about my dad, but all they’re really doing is reminding me of everything I’ve lost. I’m sorry.”

  “You know I lost my mom?”

  “Yeah, in a car wreck?”

  Sofie felt the speech on her tongue—the one she’d repeated so many times that the story was more real than reality itself. She felt the robotic quality to her words, but they must be said in their precise order, or something bad would happen. Simple, but absolute truth.