Open Secret

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Rubbing tired eyes, he called Suzanne at work.

  “Mark? Hi! I just talked to Carrie during my lunch hour. She says you two had dinner last night.”

  His chair squeaked when he rocked back. “Do you mind?”

  “Mind? Heavens, no! Why would I?”

  “You hired me to find her.”

  “And you did. You two seeing each other doesn’t have anything to do with how close she and I get to be.”

  She sounded genuine, and he relaxed. “Good. Suzanne, I called because I have news about Lucien.”

  “Oh. Oh!”

  “I think I may have found him. Talking to him is the best way to confirm that he’s your brother.”

  “Will you do that?”

  “Do you want me to? Once again,” he reminded her, “it’s your choice.”

  “Please.”

  “Will do.” With his pen, he twice underlined the phone number he’d gotten from information. “I’ll keep you informed.”

  “Thank you.” Her voice was high, breathy. “Oh, that would be so wonderful, Mark! To talk to Lucien, too! Should I call Carrie?”

  No point in issuing his usual cautions; she’d heard them all. And so far, they hadn’t proved necessary where Carrie was concerned.

  “That’s up to you, but let’s not get too excited in case I’ve got the wrong guy.”

  After ending the call with her, he dialed the underlined number and got only a gruff answer on voice mail. “Leave a message.” Beep.

  Friendly.

  Mark began another search, trying the phone number every hour or so. Still no answer. When he left for the day, he tucked the number in his wallet.

  Heidi and Michael had baked cookies that afternoon. Dinner consisted of new potatoes sprinkled with dill, glazed chicken breasts and a fruit salad. She had him spoiled rotten, Mark reflected. He wondered if Carrie could cook, then pulled himself up short. Way too soon to be wondering about her housewifery.

  Heck, you didn’t love a woman because she could cook, anyway. Not that kind of love. Although he did get fonder of Heidi every night, during dinner.

  “Why are you smiling, Dad?” his son asked.

  “Ahh… Just thinking about Carrie,” he lied.

  “Do you think she liked me?” Waiting for an answer, Michael looked vulnerable.

  “Of course she liked you!” He smiled at his son, hiding his sadness. “How could she help it?”

  Michael ducked his head and shrugged. “Some kids don’t.”

  “What kids?”

  “Ryan said I’m not his friend anymore. And Colin and Jamie played with him ’stead of me at recess.”

  “You guys had a fight, huh?”

  His son lifted his head in indignation. “He said I like girls. I don’t! Just ’cuz I was talking to Summer…!”

  “Punch her tomorrow and Ryan will be impressed.”

  Michael gazed at him slack-jawed. “You always say I shouldn’t hit anyone!”

  “I’m kidding.” He grinned at his son. “Don’t punch her. Make friends with Summer. So what if she’s a girl? Heidi’s a girl, too.”

  “But Ryan was my best friend!”

  “Doesn’t he ever talk to girls?”

  “His sister’s in third grade. She talks to him sometimes. She an’ her friends.”

  “So?”

  His forehead creased. “I could say he talks to girls, too.”

  “Yeah, you could.”

  “Okay,” his son said with decision. “I will. You want a cookie, Dad? They’re real good.”

  “I plan to have several, actually.”

  “Me, too!” He sneaked a peek at his dad. “If I can.”

  After some negotiation involving Michael’s admission that, yes, he’d had a couple already this afternoon, they agreed that two cookies now would probably be okay.

  After the cookies, Michael decided to watch a rerun of a Full House episode, and Mark finally had a chance to try Gary Lindstrom again.

  This time, an impatient voice answered. “Yeah?”

  “May I speak to Gary Lindstrom?”

  “Who do you think this is?”

  Not a promising beginning.

  “Mr. Lindstrom, I’m a private investigator in Seattle, Washington. I need to ask if you were born in Everett and whether you grew up in Bakersfield, California.”

  The silence was so long, he began to wonder if his quarry had hung up. But at last, the man said, “That’s me. Why do you want to know? I don’t owe anybody jack.”

  “Your sister, Suzanne Chauvin, hired me to find you.”

  Another silence grew taut. Finally he said, “Was that my name? Chauvin?”

  “That’s right. Lucien Chauvin.”

  “The Lucien part I remembered.” For a moment, the little boy sounded in his voice. The next second, it was gone. “Why’s she looking for me?”

  “She always meant to find you and your younger sister, Linette. Do you remember either of them?”

  “Should I?” he asked with what sounded like deliberate rudeness.

  “Not necessarily. You were only three the last time you saw either of them.”

  “A lifetime ago. You know what, Mr.… Did you say what your name is?”

  “Mark Kincaid.”

  “Kincaid. Here’s the thing, Kincaid. This sister looking for me? Too little, too late. Don’t need her anymore, don’t want a sister. Got that?”

  “I’ve got that. If you change your mind…”

  “I won’t.” The line went dead.

  “Damn,” Mark muttered. He’d warned Suzanne that the possibility existed her brother wouldn’t want to meet her, but he’d hoped for a different outcome. Gary Lindstrom-slash-Lucien Chauvin might change his mind, but it was doubtful. He hadn’t sounded like the sentimental type. Mark’s gut feeling was that if he were going to make contact, it wouldn’t be in the near future. He was plainly bitter, uninterested in relinquishing his anger at his adoptive family, at the people who’d given him up, at the whole world.

  And who could blame him? Meeting his sisters would cast his own unhappy childhood into even harsher relief. He’d look at Suzanne, who’d gotten to stay with family, and Carrie, adopted by a rich doctor and his stay-at-home, doting wife, raised as a little princess, and feel like the one who’d gotten screwed.

  Maybe he’d even be right.

  Hating the necessity, Mark picked up the phone again and dialed Suzanne’s number.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “WELL, THAT TOUR didn’t take long, did it?” Carrie hadn’t had to do much more than open her bedroom door to show her entire apartment to her sister.

  Suzanne laughed. “Hey, at least you have a bedroom! After college, I shared with three other women for a year. I got the couch. I was thrilled to get my own place after that, and it was a studio apartment.”

  It was the next Saturday, and Carrie had invited Suzanne to her place for lunch. Today both were dressed more casually, Suzanne in cropped chinos and a cap-sleeved sweater knit with a thread-thin red yarn, Carrie in jeans and a filmy, beaded tank top.

  “This place has no character.” Carrie dismissed the apartment with a shrug. “I like high ceilings and nooks and doors that don’t go anyplace.”

  “Doors that don’t go anyplace?”

  “A friend of mine’s parents had this hideous addition torn off the back of their house. They left a door, because they were thinking of adding a balcony. Last I knew—no balcony.”

  “Wow. I hope they kept it locked.”

  “We used to open it and sit there, drumming our heels on the side of the house. Honestly, it wasn’t that high up. But we loved the weirdness of it.”

  “You were going to show me pictures of your adoptive parents’ house. And you growing up.”

  Carrie tensed a little at the faint stress on “adoptive.” She and Suzanne had talked a couple of times since that first meeting, and she always said it the same way. It was beginning to bug Carrie. Okay, they were adoptive parents, but to her
they were Mom and Dad. She was angry at them, but that was different than implying that they were somehow less because she wasn’t born to them.

  But Suzanne’s face was open and friendly, and Carrie was suddenly ashamed. She was being ridiculously sensitive. It was surely natural, under the circumstances, for Suzanne to distinguish between which set of parents they were talking about.

  “Right,” she said. “But… Oh, Suzanne! Aren’t you upset about Lucien?”

  Her sister’s mask crumbled, and Carrie saw that her eyes were puffy and her skin blotchy. She’d been crying not that long ago. “If I’d started looking sooner…”

  Her unwarranted guilt fired the pilot light on Carrie’s temper. “You’re kidding, right? You’re not the drunk driver who killed our parents and you’re not your aunt or uncle. You didn’t surrender him. You were six years old, for Pete’s sake! Where does he get off, implying you let him down somehow?”

  New tears drenched Suzanne’s eyes. “But I should have looked for both of you sooner. I wanted to, I meant to, and I kept letting inertia stop me. Someday, I’d think. It was like…like I was afraid to.”

  Carrie closed the distance between them and hugged her sister fiercely. “You don’t owe him anything! You don’t owe either of us! Your life was just as screwed up by our parents’ deaths as ours was. He has no right…”

  “I wonder how much he remembers,” Suzanne said in a faraway voice. “When that social worker came to get him…” She shuddered.

  “You were six,” Carrie repeated sturdily.

  “But if I’d looked when I turned eighteen, maybe I could have made a difference. When he left home at sixteen, he could have come to me. Maybe he’s right. Maybe it is too late.” She drew back and swiped at her tears. Her mouth trembled in an attempted smile. “I’m so glad I found you. If Mark had called me about Lucien first…”

  “Oh, Suzanne.” They hugged again.

  Finally they drew apart and Carrie saw that Suzanne’s eyes were wet.

  “I’d better wash my face. All I’ve done is cry, and…oh, it’s so stupid!”

  Carrie paced indignantly while her sister was in the bathroom, swerving from long habit to avoid ottoman and chairs. How dare he have no interest in even talking to them! Did he want to hurt them?

  Of course he did, her rational side understood. She hadn’t grown up knowing she’d been discarded like an unwanted puppy. That must be really hard. She should have sympathy, not be damning him. Except she hated seeing how his dismissal wounded Suzanne, who was the one who’d spent all these years guarding this tiny flame that represented family, always knowing that somehow they had to be reunited.

  And now they wouldn’t be, because Lucien was too angry, or didn’t care.

  Well, Carrie made the vow right then and there that she’d be the best sister in the world. She would fill any void.

  So when Suzanne came back out of the bathroom, Carrie smiled. “Hey, today let’s just be glad we have each other, okay?”

  “Deal,” her sister said, smiling with as much determination.

  They both worked hard at keeping conversation light during lunch, avoiding all mention of family or the past. Like any big sister, Suzanne teased her about Mark, who Carrie was seeing again Friday night. Carrie told her, too, about Craig.

  “I wish I’d had the sense not to get married too quickly,” Suzanne said, making a face.

  “You haven’t said anything about your marriage.”

  “Ugh. Let’s save it for another day.”

  “That good, huh?”

  “I wish I could wipe every minute from my memory!” her sister said with startling ferocity. Then she bit her lip and composed herself. “I will tell you about him, I promise. But not now, okay?”

  “Whenever you want to.”

  After the two cleared the table and put away leftovers, Carrie got out the photo album her mother had put together for her when she graduated from college.

  Despite Carrie’s trepidation, Suzanne seemed interested in seeing her family. She commented right away, “Oh, your adoptive mom looks so nice!”

  “She is.” Carrie’s vision blurred a little as she gazed at the picture of her mom holding her and smiling with that inner glow new mothers so often had. She remembered asking once why there were no photos of her when she was tiny, with peach fuzz on her head instead of a ponytail, before she could smile or sit up. Her mother had said something about a couple of rolls of film lost at the processors and how sad they’d been. Carrie couldn’t imagine now why she’d bought that explanation. A couple of rolls? To cover nine months of her life? What new parents didn’t take that many pictures in the first week?

  Duh, she thought. How obvious did it get?

  Maybe she just hadn’t wanted to know.

  She turned the pages, showing Suzanne her dad, friends, Dragon, her house and bedroom. There were photos of her taking riding lessons, balancing on a log at Alki, skiing at Whistler and sailing with her father on Lake Washington. What she saw, as if through Suzanne’s eyes, was a childhood of privilege and love. The knowledge made her uncomfortable next to Suzanne, who’d clearly had a far less happy childhood, and a little ashamed of the way she’d treated her parents these past weeks.

  Her heart still felt frozen, though. As betrayed as she still felt for a lifetime of lies, she knew she’d have the hardest time forgiving them for taking her and leaving her brother. She didn’t even know him—now, it appeared, never would—but a picture of this scared little boy trying to understand why someone wanted his sister but not him reappeared every time she thought about calling them. How could they have?

  She was recalled to the moment when Suzanne smiled with delight. “Oh, was this prom night?”

  “Yes.” She’d been so young and had been trying hard to look sophisticated. She remembered getting dressed that night, taking care to protect her hair after the afternoon salon visit. Her mom had come in, smiled at her with tears in her eyes and told her she was beautiful. Sidelining that memory, she said, “I loved that dress.”

  “It’s really gorgeous. You looked so beautiful. Your date’s pretty cute, too.”

  “Yeah, he was a nice guy. We were more friends than anything. Which is probably why we had so much fun that night. None of that will we or won’t we business.”

  “When did you…?” Suzanne clapped a hand over her mouth. “Listen to me! How nosy can I get?”

  “If I tell, you have to, too.”

  Her sister pulled a horrible face. “Which gets me back to the husband I don’t want to talk about, so we’ll save this for another time, too.”

  “Really? He was your first?” Carrie giggled. “Okay. Never mind.”

  It was fun having Suzanne here, getting to know her. Carrie couldn’t wait to introduce her to her friends. She kept imagining what her parents would think, too—she’d never in her life had anything this big happen to her that she couldn’t share with them—but she didn’t know if they’d ever want to meet Suzanne. Anyway, think how awkward that would be. Talk about trying to blend families!

  As if reading her mind, Suzanne closed the album after the last photo, of Carrie in college graduation regalia, and said, “Aunt Jeanne was asking about you.”

  After a minute, Carrie said, “What did you tell her?”

  “How much you look like Mom. A little about your adoptive parents.” She shrugged. “That you’re nice, smart, single.”

  “I’ll have to meet them someday, won’t I?”

  Her sister looked at her with sympathy. “Probably.”

  “What would I say to them? What would they say to me?”

  “I think Aunt Jeanne wants to say she’s sorry. Uncle Miles…who knows?”

  “You don’t like him.”

  Suzanne shook her head. “I tried, but…” She stopped, then concluded with simple resignation, “I tried.”

  “Maybe another time you can show me pictures of them.” She supposed she was curious, even if she wasn’t eager to meet them.
“And of you, growing up. Did you go to prom?”

  Suzanne groaned. “Once again, we’re back to the subject of you-know-who.”

  “No! Really? He was your high school boyfriend? You really didn’t take any time to look around, did you?”

  “I was stupid. I think maybe I was so eager to be loved…” She made a disgusted sound. “Okay. Can we please skip him?”

  Carrie laughed at her. “You’re the one who keeps bringing him up.”

  “That’s because he was present in entirely too much of my life.”

  “Tell me just one thing.” She held up a single finger in promise. “What’s his name?”

  “Josh. Josh Davis.”

  “Okay, I’m happy.” She jumped up. “I made iced tea earlier. Would you like a glass? Then you can tell me more about our parents.”

  “Sure.” Suzanne rose and followed her to the kitchen, sitting on a bar stool as Carrie got a pitcher out of the refrigerator and tall glasses from the cupboard. “What do you want to know?”

  “Um…” Taking the ice cube tray from the freezer, she pictured the couple in the photographs. “What did they do for a living?”

  “Dad was an engineer at Boeing. Mom worked at a fabric shop until I was born. She made all our clothes. I remember her talking about how, someday, she’d like to have her own shop. She loved fabric, she said. She thought choosing which ones to carry would be fun. And teaching classes.”

  “That’s where you got the idea of opening your own yarn shop.”

  “Probably.” Suzanne’s smile had a sad tilt. “I used to sit and watch her cut out fabric and sew. She’d let me help her pin if I was really careful. Aunt Jeanne is the one who taught me to knit.”

  Pouring, Carrie asked, “Do you sew, too?”

  Suzanne shrugged. “I have a machine. Mostly I mend. Maybe if I had a little girl…”

  Carrie wondered at her abrupt stop and the way her expression closed, as if she’d said something she hadn’t intended to. Had Suzanne tried to get pregnant during her marriage? Or even—awful thought—had a miscarriage? Carrie wanted to ask, but Suzanne’s reserve made her instead hand over a glass of iced tea and say brightly, “So. Were they funny? Loud? Quiet? Did they fight?”