The Secrets Sisters Keep

by Abby Drake

  “Well, well,” Amanda said. “Fancy meeting you here. Looks like you found our long-lost neighbor. Hello, Ray.”

  Ray stood up. “Hello, Amanda. How are you?”

  Babe was surprised they seemed to still know each other.

  “Well, I’m sure we’re all better now that the tree-topping problem has been resolved.”

  Ray looked down at Babe, who hadn’t stood up because she did not want Amanda to think she had caught her doing anything wrong. “I’m president of the lake association,” he said. “I’ve seen Amanda here a couple of times when I’ve stopped by with information for Edward.”

  It was another reminder that the world had kept revolving after Babe had left town. She wasn’t sure she liked those reminders.

  “How’s the party going?” Ray asked.

  “People are finally starting to leave.”

  “And you came down here because . . . ?” Babe asked.

  “Because I’m going to find Edward and bring him home. No one else seems to want to be bothered.” She marched to her right and opened the door to the boat bay just as Ray said, “If you’re here for the canoe—”

  “There’s no boat!” Amanda shouted. “There’s no goddamn boat! How can I get him if there’s no goddamn boat?” The last sentence was a question fired at Ray.

  “Carleen took it,” he said.

  Which, of course, was probably the last thing Amanda wanted to hear.

  “Carleen? My sister, Carleen?”

  Babe could have corrected her by saying “Our sister, Amanda,” but instead she and Ray both said, “Yes,” and Amanda stalked out the way she had come.

  “It’s funny,” Ray said after Amanda was gone. “I don’t remember much about Amanda when you were kids.”

  “She wasn’t much fun,” Babe replied.

  “She wasn’t much of anything,” he said, “compared to you.” Then he went back to the sofa and leaned down and kissed her again. This time Babe leaned back and he leaned forward, gently stretching his whole body against her so she could feel his heat and she hoped he could feel hers, and she knew if she stopped breathing right then it would be all right.

  “Leave it to my stupid husband to be stupid enough to return the stupid boat back to the owners who aren’t even here,” Amanda muttered to no one as she stomped back through the yard and up to the street then down the road toward the Donnellys’ house, where Jonathan had left the car and picked up the boat and apparently returned it to the same spot. It occurred to her that she could have, should have, asked Ray Williams to borrow his boat because, as she recalled, he lived much closer by way of the overgrown path. But Amanda was angry and her feet were on fire from walking without shoes and, besides, stomping was a good way to vent and, without question, she needed to vent.

  The Donnellys’ mailbox arrived soon enough.

  She hurried past the vehicle Jonathan had rented, not looking down at her feet, which were surely blistered and probably bleeding. Like stomping, pain served as a motivator to carry out her mission:

  Find Edward.

  Make him tell her what was really going on.

  Use the opportunity to cry about Jonathan’s infidelity, prey on Edward’s compassion for the sake of her children, allow him to grant her the funds that would absolve her of her debt.

  Amanda was going to triumph.

  Best of all, she would be back in control, economically equipped to contend with life again.

  “Edward?” Carleen called out. “Edward? It’s Carleen. I know you’re here somewhere.” She’d pulled the canoe up onto the shore, grateful she’d been a frequent volunteer at the summer camp her girls attended and that she was therefore pretty good at handling a paddle.

  Tramping through the underbrush, she moved toward the scrub pines that lined the way up the hill. She remembered there was a clearing that was carpeted with pine needles and protected by oaks: she and Earl (and others before him) often had gone there for privacy, which had really meant they’d gone there to smoke and drink and have sex.

  Uncle Edward was, hopefully, there for other reasons, but Carleen knew the clearing would provide a perfect hideout.

  A squirrel skittered past her: she stumbled; she swore. “Damn you, Edward Dalton! I’ve come all this way, I’ve put up with my sisters, and now you subject me to this. What are you up to, you crazy man?” She trudged a little further, then noticed footprints on the sandy earth. “You are here,” she said. “Come out, Uncle Edward. Game over!”

  But Uncle Edward was not one of her kids or one of the kids in her ninth-grade algebra class, and she had no authority, absolutely none, over the man and his dubious whims. Consequently, he didn’t come forward, and she kept trudging.

  At the top of the hill, Carleen gulped at the sight before her: a tent had been erected, a small campfire had been neatly extinguished, a knapsack and a sleeping bag had been settled on the ground next to an open can of beans.

  But it wasn’t Edward’s things that took her breath away; it was the fact that the terrain was so familiar. She stood at attention, as if waiting to be quizzed about which tree stood where, which spot of ground was more level than the other, where the best place was to pee without being seen, because, as bold as she had been, Carleen had always been private when it came to those matters.

  Once, right after she and her husband had conceded connection to the Internet and her daughters were boasting they knew how to find anyone on the planet, Carleen had done a Yahoo! People Search for Earl.

  She’d typed in Earl J. Harkness, not sure if the J had stood for James or John.

  The search turned up eight in the United States: three in New York, one in Mississippi, another in Texas, one in Utah, two in California.

  She’d checked each one in New York. Two were her age. Both were married. With children.

  She’d stared at the screen as if it would offer more information, like which one had been her Earl, and had he ever wondered what had happened to her and had he ever sat in a dark room and Yahoo!’ed her name to see where she was and what she looked like today. And did he ever think about the things they had done and how hot she had been and how much he had craved her and how once they’d started having sex they hadn’t been able to stop.

  Right here, she thought now, staring at the hard-packed earth. Right in this very spot we must have had sex. She bent down and touched the ground, as if it would still be warm. She pictured Earl lying there, smiling, his thick blond hair askew, his forehead still damp.

  “Oh,” she moaned, then another squirrel darted past and she realized someone might have heard her, someone meaning Edward, wherever he was.

  She stood up, disgusted with herself for fantasizing about Earl when she loved Brian so much. She turned her attention to the tent and shouted, “Edward! This isn’t funny. You’ve upset a lot of people.”

  Stepping around the campfire ashes, she went toward the tent, thinking Edward must be there. But when she pulled back the flap and squinted in, it was as empty as the can of beans by the doused fire.

  “Uncle Edward,” she seethed, “you dastardly man.”

  Three more squirrels made their presence known. Carleen decided enough was enough. She was making her way back down the hill when her peripheral vision noticed a strange object in a tree that did not seem to belong there. But the object was too far away and was partially blocked by a large tree limb.

  She wanted a closer look.

  Moving to the edge of the clearing, she still couldn’t make it out. So she crouched and began to duck-waddle through the underbrush, pushing pine boughs and scrub oak branches out of her way, her bare legs smarting from the twigs and dry leaves that jabbed at them, as if they were angry she had returned, as if they were saying, Oh, no! Not Carleen again! What’s she doing here? Didn’t she move on with her life?

  Finally, she reached the shoreline. She looked out at the water: it looked peaceful, unthreatening. Then, from over her head, the strange object again caught her eye. Slowly, she
moved her gaze upward to a tree limb that jutted over the lake. This time, she could tell that the object hanging from the limb, swaying ever so gently, was a sizable, well-fashioned noose.

  Carleen screamed.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Her first thought was that Edward was dead, that he had hanged himself there in the noose on the island, his favorite refuge. Then Carleen realized that if he had done that, the noose would not be hanging empty, that, instead, he would be in it, or, at least, his head would be.

  Unless his neck broke and his head somehow slipped out and he landed in the lake and sank to the bottom.

  She scrambled down the embankment that led to the water as if she could rescue him if he was still there.

  CPR! Carleen thought. She’d been trained several years ago after one of her students had an alarming seizure. No one had ever had another in her classroom, but she’d kept her certification current; it was a school department requirement now. She’d never dreamed that the place she might use it would be on Squirrel Island, where she’d lost her virginity and now where Uncle Edward might have lost his life.

  “Edward!” she called out when she reached the water, her eyes scanning the surface for telltale debris.

  Without stopping to take off her shoes, Carleen plunged into the water. It was thick with lily pads and cattails and other things she did not want to think about, like snakes.

  Snakes!

  Water snakes.

  Shiny.

  Black.

  Slithering.

  She’d seen one years ago. She had not forgotten.

  “Edward!” she cried out again, her skirt soaking wet now, her feet trying to maneuver along the deep, treacherous mud on the bottom. “Damn you!”

  She looked up at the noose and tried to judge where he might be: she looked into the dark water, but there was nothing there, no shadow, no image, nothing but a few pollywogs.

  Then the water rippled.

  Her heart skipped. She braced for a snake. But when Carleen looked up, she saw a small rowboat curve around the bend. Inside sat a lone woman in a cherry red halter dress.

  “What have you done?” Amanda squealed. “What have you done to Uncle Edward!” She stood up in the boat, not caring that it rocked back and forth. She only knew Carleen was knee deep in water and a noose dangled above her head.

  Carleen slogged through the water and lumbered onto the embankment. “For God’s sake, Amanda, I haven’t done anything. I was looking for his body, if you must know.”

  “His body?” Amanda’s eyes narrowed and she scoured her sister, who stood on land now, wringing out her schoolteacher’s dress. “You’re looking for his body? You hung Uncle Edward?”

  “Oh, Amanda, shut up. I didn’t hang anyone. Why don’t you row over here and check the water. If you poke around with the oars, maybe you can find him. Maybe he pinned a freaking note to his shirt.”

  Amanda couldn’t tell if Carleen was being sarcastic. She looked back up at the noose, then stared down her sister again.

  Carleen decided she was done taking Amanda’s abuse. She’d taken too much from all of them, too long ago. She’d lost everyone she had loved, and she didn’t need them. Not anymore.

  Without looking back at her mouthy sister, Carleen went up the hill, then crossed the land and headed toward the inlet where she’d left the canoe. The hell with them, she muttered to herself. The hell with all of them.

  “I’m going to tell Ellie!” Amanda’s shouts reverberated across the tiny strip of land. “Don’t think you’ll get away with this! Just because you stole Earl away from me, don’t think you’ll get away with this!”

  Carleen climbed into the canoe, propped her elbows on her knees, and rested her face in her hands. Earl. Oh, God, did Amanda still hate her for that, too? It had been kid’s stuff! Still, Amanda would be the last person to think Carleen had changed, the last one to give her—or anyone—the benefit of any kind of doubt. She was so much like their father had been, so much like the way no one ever had acknowledged: self-centered and harsh. It was no wonder their mother had taken a lover.

  Carleen lifted her head, then undid the pink ribbon wrapped around her ponytail, the same pink ribbon she’d untied from the letters she had found in the attic, the writings of love, the witness of adultery.

  What had Mother been thinking when she’d saved those letters? Why had she tucked them in the house where her husband and her daughters had lived? Had she hoped one day her girls would find them? Had she thought they might read them? Would she have ever dreamed Carleen would burn them?

  She’d burned them in the fireplace. She’d set their mother’s infidelity ablaze—then left it to smolder, hot and smoky, the way her forbidden love had been.

  Carleen had been so upset that she’d forgotten to check the fireplace flue. She’d never meant for the house to burn down.

  She’d never meant for her parents to turn to ashes. How could she have known they’d come home early from their childless vacation and were inside the house?

  Their remains had been located in their bedroom—had they been making love in the middle of the day? No one had asked that out loud. And no one but Carleen had known enough to wonder whether they both had relinquished their lovers and returned to each other one last time.

  The questions would forever be unanswered; the love letters were gone, unread by anyone but Carleen, after she’d untied the pink ribbon that had once bundled them neatly and now rested cool and smooth against her palm.

  She looked at it a moment, so glad she had saved it, a memory of her mother that was hers alone.

  Then, rewinding the strip of fabric around her ponytail, Carleen picked up the canoe paddle and began to stroke once, twice on the right; once, twice on the left. She’d go back to the house and get help to find Edward. Amanda would not accomplish what needed doing. Hysteria rarely did.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Ellie settled up with the musicians, the carnie folks, and the caterers, even though a handful of guests remained steadfast in their folding chairs with the quilted covers that they’d reassembled after the helicopter debacle. When the caterers politely, yet firmly, collected those chairs, the guests moved to the permanent benches inside the gazebo. Ellie supposed they would leave by dark, or when their silver flasks had been drained.

  As for her, she was tired and felt no need to continue her role as Edward’s host-by-proxy. Making her way around trash bags, she avoided Jonathan, who was asking if anyone had seen his wife. She went into the house, then realized she had no idea where any of her sisters were. She only knew that, once again, she’d been left alone, the sane one in charge.

  Upstairs in her room, Ellie closed the door, took off Babe’s scarf, and flopped onto the bed. She wondered if Chandler had told the truth (and Wes had lied) about seeing Edward on Squirrel Island. Even if he was there, it didn’t mean her uncle planned to come back. Maybe he’d decided to take his own life instead of letting cancer take it for him. Unlike Jonathan, Ellie didn’t think Edward could have “accidentally” gone over the falls: he knew the falls were there. There had been conflict among the neighbors when the castle owners had requested permission for the excavation. Edward had sided with the environmentalists, led by Ray Williams, though he’d refused to attend any of the meetings.

  If Edward had committed suicide, Ellie supposed he would have left a note. The message would be humorous, in the spirit of his personality, an effort to entertain rather than be maudlin.

  If Henry had done away with him, there would not be a note.

  She turned onto her side. The amber light of sunset seeped into the room, softening the ache growing in her heart, a realization that, if not now, then someday, somehow, Edward would be gone.

  Edward knew it, too. The signs were eerily visible: bringing the sisters back together; having his former friends gather to celebrate his name; using the party and its silliness to deflect his intent, to keep them all (well, mostly Ellie) busy.

 
; However, if death had been on his mind, why had he taken the iPod, the binoculars, the Dickens? Had it been a perverse way of resting in peace?

  She stared at the walls that had confined her for twenty years, then was jolted by a sudden thought: what had she believed would ever happen? Had she thought Edward would outlive her? That she’d never have to return to the real world?

  The air in the room grew silent and still; her forehead grew moist, her breathing, shallow. She had never considered the what if’s or the when’s but had pushed such thoughts away, along with memories of her mother and her father and dreams of Tutankhamen and Cleopatra. But though Ellie had worked to forget the past, she’d forgotten to leave room for the future.

  She sat up. She wiped her brow. Was it too late? When Edward came home, if Edward came home, could she convince him to have chemotherapy? She could nurse him through that, then she could leave. She could return to the Met and work her way to Alexandria. She could have her own life and not be afraid.

  Couldn’t she?

  Couldn’t she?

  A firm knock on her door interrupted her thoughts.

  “Ellie?” The door opened. It was Carleen.

  Ellie straightened her dress. She tried to relax her throat and ease her breath back to normal.

  “Ellie, I’m sorry to bother you. Were you sleeping?” Carleen stepped two steps into the room, wringing her hands the way Amanda did.

  Oh, no, Ellie thought. Don’t tell me he’s dead. I’m not ready yet!

  “Ellie, I think something has happened.”

  Ellie could not inhale; her airway had a sudden sock in it.

  Then Carleen told her about the tent and the campsite and the noose.

  Somehow, Ellie managed to breathe again. She heaved herself up from the bed and hustled past Carleen. “Do you have the canoe? How fast can you paddle?”

  Babe and Ray were in the boathouse in what might be called a compromising position, except everyone there knew that Babe had compromised and been compromised long ago.