The Secrets She Carried

by Davis, Barbara

  In the coming days, Lottie’s words stick with me. I can’t help wondering what would possess Susanne to let such trashy boys anywhere near Maggie, and I wonder if it might not be time to talk to Henry. Surely he knows a decent man or two who would be happy to have the work, though it will mean having to deal with Susanne, something he seems more and more reluctant to do these days.

  I can’t say I blame him. From the stories Lottie tells, Susanne is no longer in her right mind, though she is still at her window most days. When the light is just right, I can make out her face, like a vigilant ghost peering out between the curtains, pale and ravaged and full of hate as she stares down at my boy. And then there is a day that lodges in my memory like a bone, a day when our eyes meet through the glass and I see something new in her expression, a brand of malice that makes me shiver, that makes me want to pick up my son and run. And keep on running.

  The next morning I’m surprised to hear a knock on the cottage door. Lottie’s the only person who ever comes calling, and she never knocks, just sticks her head in and hollers. There’s a girl standing on the stoop when I open the door, shadow thin, with eyes round as quarters, her mouse brown hair tied back from a face like spoiled milk. She’s wearing one of my old aprons.

  “Yes?” I say, wondering what this is all about and why the girl isn’t saying a word.

  She blinks slowly, like she’s just come awake, then looks down, fingers worrying the hem of her apron. “Mrs. Gavin says you’re to come up to the house.”

  I look back at Jemmy, finally asleep after a long, fussy morning. “My son is asleep. What does she want?”

  Her eyes are dull but faintly pleading, her mouth working soundlessly as she backs slowly down the stoop. For a moment I think she might burst into tears. “The Missus says for you to come now,” she blurts, then turns to scurry back toward the house.

  She leaves me to stare after her, my belly clenched tight as a fist. I have always known this day would come, that she would seek out fresh ways to punish me, and that when that time came it would be my son she used against me.

  Jemmy protests, mewling softly as I rouse him from his nap, his curly head warm and heavy against my shoulder. I loathe the very thought of taking him into that house, or anywhere near that woman, but there is no one else to look after him. Henry has gone into town this morning, though that’s for the best, I suppose. He would not want to be nearby when Susanne and I finally bare our claws.

  I pass quietly through the mudroom door and into the kitchen. Lottie glances up from a freshly plucked chicken, her small cleaver suspended in midair when she sees me standing there with Jemmy in my arms.

  “Girl, what are you doing here with that boy?”

  I nod toward the back stairs. “I was sent for.”

  Lottie heaves a gusty sigh, and the lines in her weathered face deepen. “Leave the child with me, then, when you go up.”

  I shake my head, tightening my grip on Jemmy until I feel him begin to squirm. I have no idea how long this encounter might last, but I do know my son won’t be out of my sight so long as I am in Susanne’s house.

  I catch a flash of white apron in the pantry as I turn and head for the stairs, then a glimpse of stringy brown hair though the crack in the door, and I wonder how much young Lyla knows about the girl who once served in her place. But then, it is no matter. I am long past caring what most people think.

  I pause at the top of the stairs, dizzied by the memories that seem to hover like ghosts, cold but not quite gone, of a child lost, and a love found, of discovery, and heartache, and such terrible shame. It’s the first time I’ve been back since the day my things were moved out to the cottage, and I’m startled to find I have forgotten the grandeur of its rooms, its fine furnishing and wide airy spaces, and how empty and cold it always felt.

  My eyes skim along the gloomy hall, lingering on Henry’s door, then move on to the room that was once mine. I’m strangely glad to catch a glimpse of rosebud-covered walls and of Maggie’s precious Violet, propped unseeing against a shiny bank of pink satin pillows. It helps, somehow, to think of her saying her nightly prayers, then closing her eyes beneath the same bit of roof that once sheltered me, as if, despite the sin that separates us, we are in some small way connected.

  I gird myself then and hold tight to Jemmy as I move to Susanne’s door and knock. I don’t wait for an answer, just turn the knob and go in. The room is stifling, thick with the stench of dirty linen and unwashed flesh. The bed is unmade, the sheets rumpled and gray, half-puddled on the floor, as if Susanne has only just climbed out from between them.

  She is still in her nightgown, though it is past noon, sitting at her dressing table where I used to fix her hair. Her eyes are slow to meet mine in the glass, and for a moment she seems confused, almost startled to see me standing there.

  I am astonished by her reflection, by the wicked toll the years have taken since I saw her last. She is all sinew and shadow now, a specter of the woman who once looked down her nose at me in the downstairs parlor, her powderless skin like parchment, stretched tight and sallow over too-sharp cheekbones, her eyes so deep in shadow they appear mere hollows in her face.

  In her lap, her hands are anxiously at work, endlessly scraping at wrists that are a ruin of white and purple scars. They go still when her eyes light on Jemmy, and I find I have to fight the urge to take a step back.

  “How dare you bring your bastard here—to my house!”

  Her voice is like venom, a rasp meant to wound. But the words miss their mark. I am beyond wounding. At least by her.

  “You sent for me,” I say, shifting Jemmy to my other hip. He is wide-awake now, squirming to be put down.

  Susanne lurches unsteadily to her feet, grasping the edge of the dressing table for support. Before I can step away, she has reached out to touch one of Jemmy’s curls, testing its coppery springiness.

  She pulls back in revulsion. “The boy is…Henry’s?”

  “You know he is.”

  Her eyes glitter shrewdly. “He doesn’t look like my husband.”

  “Neither does Maggie.”

  It is a small victory, but a victory nonetheless, to see her already pale face go paler, to see her weave her way to the bedside table and pick up her teacup with unsteady hands. The bottle of tincture is still there, alongside a half-drained bottle of bourbon. She makes use of the bourbon, splashing some into the cup, then draining it, wiping her chin on the sleeve of her nightgown. I understand now why Henry never speaks of her. It is too terrible.

  “Perhaps he is…some other man’s brat,” she slurs, rattling the cup back onto the table. “And not Henry’s at all.”

  I keep my face blank, determined to end this as quickly as possible. “Why am I here, Susanne?”

  “Why?” She blinks back at me as if she’s forgotten, then hooks both fists on her hips. “You’re here because I want you and that bastard boy of yours gone from Peak.”

  “Only Henry can send me away, and he won’t.”

  Her chin comes up a measure. “He will when he knows what you are.”

  I nearly laugh, but something in Susanne’s eyes checks me, something shiny and sharp I don’t like the look of. “You don’t think, after all these years, that Henry knows everything there is to know? You chose, Susanne. You got Maggie, which is all you ever wanted from your marriage, and I got Henry.”

  I see at once it’s the wrong thing to say. Her face is a mask of fury as she begins to advance, moving closer and closer, until I can see the tiny black specks of her pupils.

  Jemmy is whimpering now, struggling to be out of my arms.

  “Stay away from my son,” I warn her, hearing the high, thin thread of panic in my voice.

  “Then get him out of my sight!” The words are part hiss, part shriek, laced with the stench of bourbon and decay. “And that goes for Maggie too! I don’t want you or that…that…brat within a mile of here. Do you hear me?”

  My mouth falls open in disbelief. “You wo
uld punish Maggie just to spite me?”

  Susanne’s smile spreads like an infection, slow and malicious, revealing teeth gone to ruin with neglect. “I would do anything to spite you.”

  “Please, Susanne, you can’t do this. They’re just children. They share the same blood.”

  In that moment her face drains of color, and she starts to tremble from head to foot. “Don’t you say that! Don’t you ever say that! Do you really believe people—decent people—will want anything to do with a daughter of mine if they know she’s kin to that little savage?”

  Jemmy begins to cry, a high, bloodcurdling wail that threatens to rattle the panes out of the windows. Susanne grabs on to the headboard, dragging her head from side to side, trying to ward off the noise. When she finally looks up, her eyes are cold and wild.

  “Shut that boy up, or I will!”

  I take a step back and raise my free hand, ready to strike if she moves any closer. She has frightened me before, but this time is different, as if she’s finally lost her grip on her senses, as if anything might happen. She is still shrieking as I throw open the door and hurry from the room, still hurling vile things at my back as Jemmy and I flee down the stairs.

  Chapter 32

  I have a letter from Mama.

  I hold it in my hands for a long time, afraid to know what it says, to know once and for all what she thinks of her little girl. My eyes blur when I finally open it and catch the first glimpse of Mama’s thin, scratchy hand, and for a moment I swear I can almost smell her lilac talc. She has not signed it, only scratched out her initial at the bottom of the page, but the opening words are all I need.

  My precious girl.

  The tears come in earnest then, running down my cheeks and off my chin, dripping onto my son’s soft curls as I read. There is no mistaking Mama’s disappointment; it runs heavy between each line. But there is no condemnation. I am not hated, not reviled for the choices I have made. She is only worried that one day I will find myself alone, as she did so many years ago.

  I read the letter several times before I tuck it away in my dresser. I will share it with Henry, but not yet. Things are tense still between us since my clash with Susanne. I should have known better than to light into him the way I did, to put him in the middle of two women and ask him to take sides, but I was too overwrought to reason it through. I was only thinking of the children, wanting to keep them from being torn apart in all of this.

  But Henry wanted no part of it. I was dumbfounded—though I suppose I should not have been—when he made it clear he was not disposed to involve himself in our women’s quarrel. He was tired after a long day, too tired to listen to me rant, I suppose, and by then I was half out of my wits. Still, I expected a stronger reaction than his weary sigh and a second splash of bourbon in his glass.

  It will blow over, was all he kept saying as he drank.

  But it will not blow over. It will never, ever blow over. I know his hands are full, that for part of the time at least, he must dwell in the same house as Susanne, and that all he wants while he’s there is some small bit of peace, but surely he must see that it’s an ill wind that’s begun to blow.

  It is three weeks now since Susanne called me to the house, three weeks since Jemmy’s been allowed to play with Maggie. He misses her something terrible. He cannot understand why she lingers just beyond the stacked stone wall that separates the house from the cottage, her little face wistful as she watches him hover nearby while I work in the garden or hang out the wash.

  It’s plain that she misses him, though she’s made herself some new friends too, and not ones I’m at all keen on. She’s taken to running with those boys from Level Grove, the ones who pretend to do odd jobs for Susanne, and with Annie Mae Speights, Minnie Maw’s granddaughter, who tags behind like a lost puppy, and who no one ever seems to pay much mind.

  Lottie was right—those boys are trouble. More than once I have found my trash pail turned over, or my clothes pulled off the line and stomped in the dirt. One day I went out to the garden to find all my greens had been pulled up. And they look at me funny, always watching when I’m in the yard with Jemmy, or walking alone down by the lake. Sometimes they shout things, ugly words I can’t make myself say, even now. And they do it in front of Maggie.

  And then comes the day things finally come to a head. I’m walking back from the mailbox when I hear laughter coming from behind the woodshed, the kind of laughter that lets you know someone’s up to something they shouldn’t be. I slip quietly around back, and there they all are, Maggie and Annie Mae and the boys. The tall one is holding out a cigarette to Maggie, while a second boy is blowing smoke rings into the air. It’s Annie Mae who spots me first, her eyes wide and white in her dark face. Her mouth rounds, but no sound comes out. Then she’s gone, overturning the cask she’s been using as a seat as she ducks around the side of the shed.

  The boys turn and eye me through their greasy bangs, puffing their cigarettes bold as brass. I stare them down, hands fisted on my hips, but only one looks away. After a minute he breaks from the pack, darting off after Annie Mae. There are just the two boys then, and Maggie, whose eyes are fixed hard on the dirt.

  I am astonished by the sight of her, sickened to realize all at once that no one has been looking after the child. Her hair is a filthy tangle, her feet bare, though it cannot be above fifty degrees, and I am fairly certain the grubby clothes she’s wearing are the same ones she had on three days ago.

  “Miss Maggie!” I bark. I wait then, until her eyes lift grudgingly to mine, glittering gray and wondering what comes next. “Go on back to the house now, before these boys get you into trouble. And before your daddy finds out what you’ve been up to.”

  Before Maggie can move a muscle, the tallest boy steps forward. He flicks his cigarette into the woodpile, then spits noisily at the ground. “Everybody knows you ain’t allowed near the girl, so why don’t you go back where you belong, ’fore I call Mrs. Gavin?”

  I stiffen, meeting his brazen gaze blink for blink, determined not to let him see that his words have shaken me. It shames me to realize this ruffian knows about Susanne’s edict, but it shames me more that he has flung it in my face in front of Maggie. He’s grinning at me now, a malicious smirk that makes me long to grab him by the collar and give him a good shake.

  Instead, I force myself forward, closing the space between us. When I open my mouth, my voice is strangely calm, low and steady, and deadly earnest. “If I were the two of you, I’d take myself off before Mr. Gavin hears you’ve been bothering his little girl. And I promise you, he will hear of it.”

  The boy postures a moment, balling his fists and puffing up his chest, then seems to think better of it. He spits once more, then turns and walks away without a backward glance, leaving me alone with Maggie behind the woodshed.

  She stands there glaring at me with glittering eyes, her bottom lip stuck out in a pout, her little chin thrust forward. It’s the only time she has ever reminded me of Susanne.

  This time I don’t wait for Henry to come home, or even go back to the cottage to check on Jemmy. I just march straight out to the barns, where Henry and several of his men are working to patch one of the roofs. The men go still when they see me. Several tip their hats, though it’s plain they’re curious about my sudden and rare appearance.

  Henry is the last to notice me. He murmurs a few words to the man beside him, then climbs down the ladder and heads in my direction. His expression darkens when he sees that I’m trembling. He reaches for my arm, then catches himself and pulls back.

  “What’s happened?”

  I’m shocked when I look at him, shocked to realize I blame him for all of this—for Maggie’s bare feet and unwashed hair, for her running wild with a pack of scoundrels, for being made to feel shame by that no-account boy. But mostly, I blame him for the look on his daughter’s face when I left her just now behind the woodshed.

  “It’s Maggie.”

  Henry shoves back his hat, hi
s face suddenly anxious. “Is she hurt?”

  I shake my head, so angry I hardly know where to begin.

  “Then what?”

  “I just caught her out behind the woodshed with those boys Susanne hired. They were teaching her to smoke.”

  Henry sighs, the same weary sigh he gave me the last time I tried to talk to him about Susanne. “Adele, this is hardly the time. I’ve got work to finish, and the sun’s going down.”

  “Your daughter is running wild, Henry!” The words burst out of me unchecked, so shrill they ring in the chilly air. “She’s got no business around boys their age, and they’ve no business around her. It’ll lead to no good!”

  “Go back to the cottage, Adele,” Henry says, his voice tight with feigned patience. “We’ll finish this later.”

  We have never quarreled, and certainly not in front of anyone. Now every hammer has gone still, every eye has fixed on us from the roof. I’m aware that I’ve made a spectacle of myself, of us both really, but I’m too angry to care. When I see he will say no more, I walk away and go back to the cottage to wait.

  He is barely through the door when I start in, determined this time to make him hear me, if not for my sake, for Maggie’s. “Henry, you have to get rid of those boys.”

  He walks past me into the kitchen. I trail behind, holding my tongue while he pours a glass of bourbon and takes a deep swallow. When he finally turns his eyes on me, there is something like a plea in them.

  “Adele, please. Can this not wait a little?”

  It’s my turn to sigh now, though whether the sigh is one of guilt or frustration, I truly cannot say. “Wait for what, Henry? You’re through with work. There’s no one watching. So no, this cannot wait. Someone’s got to look out for that girl.”

  He looks up from his glass then, genuinely surprised. “You don’t think I look out for my daughter?”