Carly

by Lyn Cote

  “Sounds like a good plan. Only I want us to be better.”

  As Leigh finished her half-sandwich and reached for another, she’d actually begun to taste the salty ham, the sharp cheese, the mellow rye, the tangy mustard. Nate had brought her back to herself, to life. “I love you, Nate.”

  He leaned over and kissed her below her left ear, right where he knew she loved to be kissed. Desire for him tingled through her, and she smiled. It’s not too late to make things right. We’ll make it together. Oh, Lord, prepare me to show Carly how much I love her. With honesty.

  That evening, the phone rang at Ivy Manor and Chloe picked it up. She listened to the hesitant woman at the other end, her sympathy stirring. “You must come. Please. When Carly comes home, you must come and be our guests. I insist.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Two weeks later, April 1991

  In her bedroom at Ivy Manor, Carly stood, looking out the windows down onto the lawn of green grass dotted with yellow dandelions. In the two days she’d been home, she felt as though she’d never left—until she looked down at her bandaged hand and walking cast. She had been to war, and now she was home. She gazed down at the green grass and saw umber desert sand superimposed over it until she blinked again. She was Carly, and she wasn’t.

  On the unusually warm April day, the house was quiet. Nate and Michael had gone fishing on the nearby creek. Rose had the day off, and Carly planned to spend the afternoon reading. The next day, Nate was going to drive her to Walter Reed for physical therapy. A knock came at her door. “Come in,” Carly called.

  Wearing a new spring dress of blue chambray, Grandma Chloe peered inside. “Will you come down with me? Bette wants us to drop into the cottage for a few minutes.”

  “Sure. Grandma Bette really looks thinner.”

  “Yes, the chemo kept her from eating enough.”

  Carly finally had enough courage to ask, “Is she going to be all right?”

  Chloe made eye contact with her. “She may have another round of chemo. But the doctor was pleased with her progress. She has a chance, a good one.”

  Carly felt suddenly full inside, as if she’d eaten a feast. It was a good feeling. “I’m glad.”

  “Me, too.” Chloe held out her hand. “Come with me.”

  Using cast and cane, Carly turned and slowly swung across the hardwood floor. Grandma Chloe had banished all throw rugs from Ivy Manor until Carly put away her cane. Slowly, Carly made it down the steps to the first floor. She’d insisted on staying in her upstairs bedroom. It was good for her to exercise. And she didn’t want to stay in the den where Aunt Kitty had died. That grief was still too fresh.

  At the bottom, Chloe led her out the front door into the balmy day with blue sky overhead and fluffy cotton clouds. Carly had switched to wearing dresses, so much easier than slacks because of the cast. The spring breeze felt good as it wafted against the back of her knees. Still, images of the stark desert with its hot days and chill nights and the burning oil fields flowed in and out of her mind.

  Carly made herself concentrate on the here and now. Slowly they made their way down the familiar rutted lane to the cottage. From the far side of the house, they heard the painters scraping away the old paint, preparing Ivy Manor for a new coat of white. Chloe and Carly stepped inside the cottage’s back door, into its cozy kitchen. There a fresh coat of light yellow paint brightened the walls.

  Around the old kitchen table sat Leigh in jeans and one of Kitty’s Mets T-shirts and Bette in pressed black slacks and a flattering royal-blue georgette blouse. Her mother was as beautiful as ever, her golden hair falling loose around her shoulders. Bette looked sophisticated with her upswept do and a string of pearls at her neck.

  “What’s this all about, Mother?” Bette looked up.

  Chloe helped Carly settle in a chair, then took her place at the head of the table. “Today we are going to tell the truth and set each other and ourselves free. Today, our family secrets and guilt will be exposed and disposed of.”

  Leigh and Bette stared at her openmouthed. Whatever Carly had expected, this wasn’t it. She gazed from face to face. The truth? I already know the truth, my truth. Even if her mother finally told the truth, the truth that Trent had already revealed to Carly, what other secrets were there?

  “And since I’ve decided this should happen, I’ll go first.” Chloe looked at each of them in turn. “I know that you all love me, but even all these years later, I still carry guilt over the way I treated my daughter when she was a little girl.”

  Bette looked startled. “Mother, you’ve always been wonderful to me. I couldn’t have asked for a better mother.”

  Chloe covered Bette’s hand with hers. “I thank you for that, dear, but what you’ve never questioned and never blamed me for is this: where was I for the first eleven years of your life?”

  There was silence then. Carly had never heard about this. Why not?

  Bette stared at her mother. “I . . . just always accepted that you had to be away helping Grandpa with his work in Washington, D.C.” Bette smiled almost shyly, suddenly giving Carly a glimpse of her grandmother as a girl. “You were like a fairy princess when you visited me. I didn’t know how to speak to you. You were too beautiful, and in your diamonds and furs—too grand for me.”

  Chloe looked surprised. “I didn’t realize that was why you never seemed able to talk to me, Bette. It used to tear at my heart when I’d see you and want you to run into my arms. But you wouldn’t even speak to me. I thought you blamed me for not being with you.”

  “I didn’t know, Mama,” Bette murmured and then leaned over and kissed her mother’s cheek. “I never blamed you for anything.”

  Carly tried to imagine this new concept of Chloe, a glamorous woman who stayed away from her own child and merely visited like a queen. Carly couldn’t make it fit with the woman who’d loved her unconditionally her whole life. No.

  Tears moistened Chloe’s eyes. She took out a frilled hankie and dabbed her eyes as she began again. “After the stock market crash in ’29, you can’t know how fearful I was when I came home to stay at long last. I was frightened that I wouldn’t be able to gain your love, be a mother to you. When you were born, I’d wanted to be close to you, care for you. But I had been weak, so insecure. My mother wanted you for herself and you were a difficult baby. I didn’t feel able to do what a mother should. All those lost years.” Chloe shook her head. “Forgive me, Bette.”

  Bette squeezed her mother’s hand. “There’s nothing to forgive.”

  Chloe smiled sadly. Then she took a deep breath. “I’m grateful for your understanding. But now you have a secret you must tell your daughter.”

  Carly became instantly alert. Bette had kept a secret from Leigh?

  Bette looked to her daughter and then back to Chloe. “I promised Curt—why does she need to know?”

  “The truth will not hurt her,” Chloe said. “And she already knows that you’ve held something back about her father.”

  “Yes,” Leigh agreed, but gently, without any accusation in her voice. “I want to know the truth. I want to know why you never spoke about my real father. What happened?”

  Carly waited, wondering if this was why her own mother always ignored her questions about her father. Had she learned avoidance and deception from her own mother?

  Fingering the pearls at her neck, Bette stared down at the tabletop for several minutes. The silence gathered around them. The wall clock ticked and outside a robin chirped. The painters scraped and turned a radio to a country station. Someone was singing, “Tie a Yellow Ribbon.” “Your father didn’t die in an accident,” Bette admitted, “he committed suicide.”

  Carly couldn’t believe her ears. No wonder Bette didn’t want to tell Leigh that.

  Leigh’s mouth dropped open. “Why?”

  Chloe answered for Bette, who’d put her face into her hands. “He carried terrible guilt over being unfaithful to your mother during the war. He couldn’t live with him
self.”

  “While he was dying, he asked me to promise never to tell you,” Bette said, still not looking up. “He loved you. He felt that he’d failed you.”

  “So that’s why you’d never talk about my father,” Leigh said. “I always knew there was something.” Leigh stood and put her arms around Bette’s shoulders. “Oh, Mother, how awful for you.”

  Bette looked startled. “You understand why I couldn’t tell you?”

  “Of course,” Leigh said and sat back down. She reached for her mother’s hands. “He asked you to promise. And you gave me such a wonderful stepfather. I never felt cheated. I loved Ted. He was my dad.”

  Bette smiled through tears. “Ted loved you as if you were his own. From the first time he saw you.”

  Another moment passed in silence while Carly put all this information together in her mind. Lord, I won’t keep secrets from my child. Or I’ll try not to.

  Her chin down, her cheeks pink, Leigh smoothed stray hair back from her face and then looked at Carly. “I’m afraid I already blurted out most of my secret to my daughter.” Leigh reached for Carly’s hand. “I hope you’ll accept my apology. It was awful the way I threw the fact that Trent was married when we . . . when . . .”

  “When I was conceived?” Carly supplied bravely. “You know I talked to him in Germany? He’s going to be in my life from now on. I feel so sorry for him. He’s so alone.”

  Leigh nodded and lightly stroked Carly’s arm, gazing down at it, not into Carly’s eyes. “Nate told me. I don’t think I want to see him again. But I don’t begrudge you or him time together. And Carly—” Leigh hesitated “—I’m sorry I couldn’t see how much harm I was doing to you by not telling you about Trent. But it always came down to this.” Leigh looked directly into Carly’s eyes. “How could I make you understand that while I regretted . . . being with Trent, I didn’t regret you?”

  Carly turned this over in her mind. How would she have reacted to hearing the bald truth as a child? She had no answer. She kissed her mother, letting that show her love.

  “And I didn’t help the situation,” Bette added, sounding ashamed. “I’ve regretted over and over how I treated your mother, Carly. I should have supported her in her time of need. I should have done better.”

  Chloe placed her hand over Bette’s. “You were suffering from losing both your stepfather and your husband and grieving over Leigh’s loss. No one in this world makes the right choices all the time. Evil knows just when to hit us. Evil knows to strike when we are weak.”

  “Mom,” Carly said, “I’m not mad at you anymore. Trent told me how it was. He said he wasn’t . . . a very good person then. He used you. But he does love me. And now that I have him in my life, I’m not angry with you anymore. I’m older now, too. I know that sounds funny because I’m still only seventeen. But I understand now. Life hits you with things you . . .” Carly brushed away tears. “You don’t see coming, and it can hurt so much.”

  Leigh took Carly’s good hand in hers. “I wish I could have saved you from all that’s happened to you.”

  “I don’t.” Carly faced them fiercely. “All my life I’ve been afraid, uncertain about who I was. I see now that I enlisted in order to put myself to the test and either conquer my fear or go down once and for all.” Carly felt her heart pounding, but it felt wonderful to say the words, the words that were freeing her.

  “This past year, I’ve been pushed to my limits and survived.” Carly thought of Alex and boot camp and of the first trip into the Saudi desert, and her chin trembled. “I’ve faced paralyzing, overwhelming fear, fear of capture, of pain, of death. I’ve lost someone I loved, too. So maybe I can understand how it is to love and . . . lose. But I learned I can survive.” She cleared her throat and let the words she’d held back flow out. “Through it all, I’ve found that I can go through hell and then come back again with the help of God. I’m trying to find in him my all in all. I’ve started.” Beaming at them, she burst into tears.

  The other three gathered around her, stroking her hair, kissing her, speaking words of love. She looked into each of their faces and thanked God for them. Finally, all their tears had fallen, and they sat around the table quiet, drained but uplifted by love for each other.

  “There’s more, Bette,” Chloe prompted briskly, tucking her hankie into her sweater pocket. “Now you need to tell them. The ceremony will take place in just two months.”

  “What ceremony?” Leigh asked, glancing from face to face.

  “I’m going to be honored for my service in World War II,” Bette said, looking at her lap.

  With a wry smile, Leigh studied her mother. “Yes? What else haven’t you told us?”

  Carly watched both of them, anticipation tingling through her.

  “Well, dear,” Bette said without looking up, “you know how you always thought I was just a secretary at the CIA?”

  Leigh nodded.

  “I wasn’t a secretary. I was a spy.”

  Carly gawked at her grandmother, and Leigh’s mouth dropped open.

  “Your mother,” Chloe added, sounding proud, “worked against the Nazis before and during the war and then joined the new CIA after the war.”

  “Mom,” Leigh said with eyes wide, “why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  Bette shrugged. “Part of being a spy is not letting anyone know.”

  “Did Daddy know?” Leigh asked.

  Finally, Bette looked up with a smile. “Your stepfather, Ted, trained me, and we worked together.”

  “What?” Leigh gasped. “Daddy was a spy, too?”

  Bette nodded and grinned. “And what a spy he was. I have so much to tell you.”

  “And I want to hear it, too,” Carly interjected. “Grandma—a spy. Wow.”

  Through the open windows, the sound of a vehicle pulling up to the side of Ivy Manor interrupted them. Carly swiveled on her seat. And the other three rose and went to look out the back door. “Who is it?” Carly asked, gripping her cane and rising to join the others.

  “They’re here early,” Chloe replied. “I thought they’d be here by dinnertime tonight.”

  “Who are they, Mother?” Bette asked.

  Chloe didn’t reply but opened the door and called, “We’re here.” She motioned toward the middle-aged couple getting out of a somewhat battered blue pickup.

  The two strangers walked toward them. Both wore blue jeans and jean jackets. Carly studied them and suddenly she knew who they were. She’d seen a family photo of them. She pushed her way out the door. “You’re Bowie’s parents!”

  Nodding, Mrs. Jenkin hurried forward. “Your great-grandmother invited us. You’re Carly. Bowie sent us a photo of you two together.” The plump woman with graying blond hair burst into tears.

  Carly put her arms around Mrs. Jenkin’s neck and wept with her. “I’m so glad you came. I’ve been wanting to talk about Bowie to someone who knew him. I loved him and he loved me.”

  “We had a memorial service at our church for him.” Mr. Jenkin came up behind his wife. “But we needed to see you, talk to you. You were with him, weren’t you? When it happened.”

  Carly nodded, the great grief welling up inside fresh, dragging her down once more. “I’m so sorry.”

  “You don’t be sorry, honey,” Mrs. Jenkin soothed her. “We’re glad you’re alive. We lost Bowie. But we know he was so happy to have you in his life.” Bowie’s mom broke down again. Mr. Jenkin wiped tears from his lined, sunburned cheeks and put a comforting arm on his wife’s shoulder.

  Carly hugged Mrs. Jenkin and whispered a prayer that God would let Bowie know about this meeting. Bowie had thought them so different, but that had been all about this world, and Bowie was beyond that now. “I know he’s with Jesus,” Carly whispered to his mother. “I know I’ll see him again.”

  Mrs. Jenkin stroked Carly’s moist cheek. “If we have Christ, we have hope.”

  Carly could only nod.

  Chloe drew them all inside to the cottage’s living
room. Bette and Leigh bustled around, brewing coffee and making sandwiches. Carly looked at her great-grandmother and mouthed, “Thank you. I love you.”

  Chloe mouthed back to her, “I love you. Always.”

  Washington, D.C.

  Two months later, Carly sat in the front row in the Rose Garden at the White House to witness her grandmother receiving the Medal of Freedom. Warm summer sun beat down on them, but a breeze made the day bearable. On Carly’s one side sat a happy-looking Alex Reseda, who’d gotten leave to spend time with Carly as she convalesced at Ivy Manor. On the other was Lorelle, home from the Gulf and on leave, too. Carly’s cast was off and her hand was without bandages, but she still needed a cane. Lorelle, Alex, and Carly wore their dress uniforms. “This is so cool,” Alex whispered into Carly’s ear. “I never thought I’d see the president in person at the White House.”

  Carly grinned. In the same row sat her mother and stepfather, her great-grandmother, and Chloe’s friend Minnie Dawson, Lorelle’s great-grandmother. Gretel Sachs, her grandmother Bette’s lifelong friend, had flown all the way from Israel to attend. And Dan proudly sat beside Bette. All of them were dressed in their best and looking excited. Bette looked stunning in a crisp linen dress in her favorite shade of deep purple. Dan had sent her a dozen red sweetheart roses and Bette had insisted on his wearing one bud as a boutonniere. Dan was holding Bette’s hand, and Carly loved it.

  The president was announced and appeared. Everyone rose. At his motion, everyone sat. He began speaking about the cost of liberty in each generation and the brave men and women who gave their talents, and even sometimes their lives, to defend freedom for all Americans. He said that the World War II generation was vanishing and that their nation must take the opportunity to proffer those veterans gratitude. “Among the services that are being recognized today are the first of Ms. Bette McCaslin Gaston’s intelligence career. If it hadn’t been for the efforts of young Bette McCaslin in the 1930s, the U.S. would have entered World War II with the Nazis knowing all our weapons secrets. This was only the first of a career crowned with success.” The president listed the ways Bette had aided the cause against Nazi Germany. Then he concluded, “Several times young Bette McCaslin received private thanks and commendations from President Franklin Roosevelt. I’m happy to be able to thank this woman publicly today.”