Secrets

by Kristen Heitzmann

  “I blocked out those names.”

  He searched her face. There was a glimmer on her eyelids, subtle and exotic. Even her freckles added to the allure.

  “Let me see it.”

  “You can do more than look.”

  She had twisted his words and her thought drew his gaze down. He shuddered. “I thought you wanted lunch.”

  “Let’s start with dessert.” She took hold of the waist of his jeans.

  He caught her wrists. “Sybil. I didn’t mean to give you the idea—”

  “My ideas are my own. And I’ve had some very creative ones about—” she pressed in close and whispered against his neck—“right here where you cook.”

  The flames torched him like a sinner at the stake. Was this how Rese felt that day with the molesting employees? There was nothing good, nothing right in it. Even as his blood pounded to have her, he felt sickened. He put her back from him. “You misunderstood.”

  She dropped her hands to her sides with a knowing glint. “Misunderstood?”

  “I thought we were friends.”

  “Friends?”

  Conviction swept him. He had let her believe whatever she wanted, to get what he wanted. She’d made herself clear from the start. But he had to salvage this somehow. “Sybil…”

  “It’s very simple, Lance. You give me what I want; you get what you want.”

  He was in over his head. “Sybil … I’m involved with Rese.” She would take that for more than it was, he knew. But the heart of it was true.

  “You’ve got to be kidding.” Her face was the picture of scorn.

  He swallowed. “No.” He wished he’d never invited her into the kitchen. It was Rese’s place, and Sybil did not belong. He saw it so clearly now he could hardly believe he’d made the mistake.

  Her eyes took the appearance of glacier ice, and he was the insect frozen inside. But the corners of her mouth tipped up. “I only want—”

  The back door opened and Star breezed in. Sybil might remember her from the jazz festival or not. In her funk, Star had been all but invisible that night. He prayed now she wouldn’t make things worse. She fixed Sybil with an utterly guileless smile. “Hello.”

  Sybil gave her a withering glance. “Who are you?”

  “Lance’s fairy godmother. You must be the wicked stepsister.”

  He closed his eyes, then looked again as a noise came from Sybil’s throat. Freckles stark in her paling face, she snatched her jacket from the counter, gave him a deadly stare, then swiped the envelope and stalked out.

  He had lost it, the letter that mentioned Nonno Marco. A critical piece, he knew, if Sybil had blocked out names and connected his own. His quest was crumbling, but he looked at Star, her face the image of radiance. Star power. He couldn’t blame her. In a very real sense she’d saved him.

  Rese entered the facility with dread. Her expectations had made the place more ominous than it was. Attention had obviously been paid to the reception and waiting areas to portray a level of comfort and ease. A privately run facility with quality care at a cost. No wonder she and her father had never gotten ahead.

  As she was ushered into the administrator’s office, everyone was friendly and professional.

  The office smelled of stale coffee and vinyl blinds. The woman offered her a seat in one of the comfortable chairs in muted hues of green and beige. The nameplate on the desk read Dr. Elsa Whittington. Good thing, because Rese had forgotten the name the moment they were introduced. Dr. Whittington offered her coffee.

  “No thanks.” She presented her birth certificate and picture ID, which had been requested as proof of her relationship to Elaine Barrett.

  Dr. Whittington poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down. “I must say I was relieved to receive your call. I hated the idea of turning your mother’s care over to the state.”

  “I didn’t know she was here.” Didn’t know she was alive.

  The doctor sprinkled a packet of sugar substitute into her cup. “Elaine’s been in our care a long time.”

  “Fifteen years.”

  Dr. Whittington nodded. “I naturally assumed you knew.”

  “That would be the expectation.” In a normal scenario where people told the truth. “I thought she had died.”

  Dr. Whittington raised her brows delicately.

  Get it all out on the table. “The person from Health and Human Services told me she was here. I’m still adjusting to it.”

  “It must have been a shock.”

  Rese wished she’d taken the coffee. Her mouth was sawdust. “Why is my mother here?”

  “Many of the patients here come for rehab or assistance through a difficult time. Others spend their lives under the careful treatments they need.” Dr. Whittington opened the file that lay on the desk. “This is a copy of the court order granting your father guardianship. Also the commitment papers.

  It was considered in her best interest to have the level of care she receives in this facility.”

  Rese swallowed. “Did the court commit her?”

  “Your father, acting in conjunction with the court’s recommendation.”

  A surge of injustice. Couldn’t he have defended her? “What did they say is wrong with her?”

  “Paranoid schizophrenia.”

  Rese ran the words through her mind. They made it sound so … disturbed. “What does that mean?” She’d never studied psychology.

  “In lay terms, she doesn’t have a grasp on reality. Her mind creates voices and images that aren’t there, and she interacts with them in dangerous ways.”

  Rese’s head whirled. “I don’t want him to come, Mom. Can’t we play by ourselves?”

  “We wouldn’t want to hurt his feelings. We must never hurt his feelings.”

  “But he isn’t real!”

  She pressed her fingertips to her forehead. That was the first time Mom had slapped her face. Rese swallowed. “Is she cured?”

  Dr. Whittington slid more papers toward her. “These are some articles and other materials about the disorder. They’ll help you understand the work we’re doing, the strides made through medication and behavioral counseling.”

  “Can I see her?”

  The doctor folded her hands. “Ms. Barrett, I’d like to know your expectations.”

  “I want to take care of her.” As she had before? She’d been the one protecting, soothing, and comforting as much as Mom did her. They were … equals.

  “Take care of her, how?”

  “Bring her home.” She hadn’t thought through the details, had simply imagined freeing Mom from the place Dad put her.

  Dr. Whittington removed her glasses and let them hang from the fine chains. Her hazel eyes were rimmed in long sparse lashes. “I won’t tell you that’s impossible. Elaine has made some strides. But because of her profile, she might not acclimate to a less controlled environment. With your father’s death, she became a ward of the state. You would have to gain guardianship before any decisions could be made.”

  Rese nodded. The woman from the human services agency had said the state took temporary guardianship until she could be located. She would do whatever was required.

  “If you are appointed guardian, you would have legal responsibility for her care and safety, and for her actions.”

  Rese considered that. How accurate were her memories? Had Mom been dangerous, or simply mischievous? Or just afraid of Dad?

  Dr. Whittington replaced her glasses and sipped her coffee, then she asked softly, “Do you know why she was committed?”

  A well of fear opened up, fear that had no grounding. Where was it coming from? She drew herself up against it. “No.”

  “It’s in the file there. The request to seal her records was denied, due to the criminal nature of her actions.”

  “Criminal?”

  The doctor paused, probably assessing her. “She made an attempt on your life.”

  Rese stared. Waves of shock rolled through her. “It was an accident.”<
br />
  The doctor shook her head. “She disabled the furnace.”

  Rese started to shake. “She made me go to bed. Walter wanted…”

  Dr. Whittington raised her eyebrows. “You know about Walter?”

  “I know.” Her voice rasped.

  Dr. Whittington stood and poured a second cup of coffee. This time Rese accepted it. The black bitter taste was nothing like the wonderful coffees Lance made, and she suddenly wished with everything in her that he was there.

  “It wasn’t Mom. It was Walter.”

  Dr. Whittington leaned on the desk. “They are one and the same.”

  Rese clenched the mug and shook her head. Mom wouldn’t have hurt her. Mom loved her, held her, rocked her. They laughed and sang and danced. It was the monster in her head that made her mean.

  “Maybe it would be good to see her another time, when you’ve had a chance to absorb some of this.” The same advice Lance had given before.

  Her whole purpose today had been to see her mother. She had thought the worst shock was over, just learning her mother was alive. This was infinitely worse. Mom had wanted her dead. Rese wanted to see her, but how could she disguise the pain coursing through her?

  Now she recalled her mother standing outside on the sidewalk, emergency lights flashing across her face. She hadn’t risked herself. Only Rese. Only her child.

  It hurt so much she wasn’t sure she could bear it. “I guess I’ll come back.” She gripped the arms of the chair and stood up.

  “Call, and we’ll make an appointment with Doctor Jonas. He’s had charge of her care for the past three years.”

  Rese nodded.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” These were facts. She would deal with it. She couldn’t change how it felt, but she didn’t have to show it.

  “Do you have someone to talk to?”

  She nodded, but would she? Could she tell Star, tell Lance her own mother wanted her dead? Her eyes stayed dry as she walked out. Tears were not an option. She’d fallen apart on Lance, and how had it helped? She had to deal with the facts, facts she should have been given long ago. How could you do a project without a blueprint?

  The wind blew in gusts across the bridge, buffeting her truck as the thoughts buffeted her mind. She had blamed Dad, but as Lance suggested, there was more to the story. She remembered him carrying her to safety, believing it was too late for her mother. But she had never imagined Mom meant for her to be poisoned with each fearful breath.

  A car horn blared, and she jerked the truck back into her lane. She had to focus. Tragedy happened when you weren’t careful. She glanced at the folder on the passenger seat and shuddered. How could anyone hate her so much?

  CHAPTER TWENTY - EIGHT

  Alert.

  Aware.

  Dreams and memories slip away.

  Thoughts tumble.

  Tangled. Confused.

  Sounds from my mouth are primal.

  What I want to say, what I need to say stays locked inside.

  Lance. Search, find, know. Make it right.

  Angry.

  Too late. All too late.

  Lance heard Rese drive in. Wiping his hands on his jeans, he went to the front window and watched her turn off the engine, then rest her forehead on the wheel. He wanted to rush out there and hold her. The brush with Sybil had left a sick feeling inside he wished he could purge, but it was not the time for confessions or atonement.

  Rese climbed out of the truck, lips moving as she talked herself up, drawing back her shoulders in a semblance of control. She took a folder from the seat, closed the door, and started for the house, her demeanor not quite the sledgehammer in full swing that it used to be, but close.

  He met her at the door. “How’d it go?”

  “I didn’t see her.”

  “They wouldn’t let you?”

  Stepping inside, she looked as though she wanted to answer, but stopped.

  Lance cupped her elbow. “Rese?”

  She gripped the folder to her chest. “I have to read about it first. Then

  I’ll go back.” Every line in her body was straight and hard. He knew how her neck would feel under his fingers, the ropes resisting. At the same time she looked like she’d blow over with a single breath.

  He caught her other elbow and looked her in the face. “Talk to me, Rese.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “You don’t process well alone.”

  She snorted. “What are we going to pierce this time—my navel?”

  The image was incriminating, as though she sensed Sybil’s presence. But that was his problem. “Don’t close me out.”

  She grew brittle in his hands. “Lance, I’ve known you three weeks.”

  Typical operating time for him, rushing in where angels feared to tread, then rushing out again. Maybe she was wise. “Then talk to Star.”

  She shot him a glance. “Have you told her?”

  “You haven’t?”

  Her glance jerked to the side. “It’s complicated.”

  “You need someone, Rese.”

  She drew herself up. “No, I don’t.”

  Where was she? Had he imagined their connection that morning, her reluctance to let go? Was this some defensive position? Back off, leave me alone. Should he? She had come to him last night. Somewhere inside she trusted him, but it was her call. “Whatever it is, Rese, God has a plan. Remember His presence.”

  She seemed to crumple, but she didn’t give in. She stepped back. “I need to work on your bed.”

  Work might be what she needed. Or it might be her mode to dig deeper. But again, it was her call. He let go. “Okay.”

  Rese dropped the folder on the table and went out to the shed. He looked at it lying there as Sybil’s had earlier. He could open it and learn what it was she wouldn’t tell him. But those were her secrets, and he had his own.

  He would not invade her privacy, but he did wonder what she had learned that brought the walls up between them. Three weeks wasn’t long, but they’d connected pretty deeply in that time. He had thought there was something between them, enough to sacrifice Sybil’s information. If it weren’t for Rese … would he have traded sex for answers?

  No. Even without his feelings for Rese, he would have resisted Sybil. That was all part of the mess he’d left behind. Sybil saw the remnants of his past in him, but that didn’t mean he had to act on it anymore. He would have resisted. He had. But that didn’t stop him regretting the lost piece, and it ate at him.

  While Rese worked in the shed, the mattress set arrived. He took delivery and directed the movers to the carriage house. He thought Rese would come out, but she didn’t. He and Star moved the hammock back to the yard where he gratefully bid it adieu. Still no sign of Rese. She must be so deep in her zone, nothing penetrated—or upset enough to ignore things she would normally take charge of. Whichever it was, it gave him the freedom to continue his search.

  He returned to the tunnel with a sense of foreboding. The darkness neither welcomed nor repulsed; it simply watched for him to make his own mistakes. He knelt once again beside the skeleton. “Why are you here, Nonno Quillan? Why am I?”

  After long moments of silence, he left his ancestor’s bones and pressed deeper into the tunnel. Within a dozen steps it became a chamber filled with racks. In the racks, bottles and bottles of wine. A slow breath escaped his lips.

  Lance walked the rows, running his fingers over the dusty glass. The crisp wavy label read DiGratia Vineyard, 1930.

  The DiGratias had come from the Piedmont region, according to Conchessa, highly connected aristocrats who left long before the Fascists came to power, while the regions still warred with each other. He understood better now why Nonna sometimes held herself separate from the predominantly Southern Belmontese, why she carried within her a nobility bordering on scorn. He felt his heritage there in the cellar, a proud, unyielding line.

  But that still didn’t tell him what he was supposed to d
o. Lance looked around the dark cellar as though it would give up its secrets simply because he wanted it so much.

  Along one wall were empty oak barrels. And now he placed the smell: ancient fermentation. The fruit of the vine, the essence of his family’s labor. Treasure? To no one but himself, perhaps.

  She should have told him. She had intended to. But when it came to it, she couldn’t. Looking into his face, she could not say her mother wanted her dead. Not without dissolving altogether. Lance would have held her, kissed her, made her feel whole. But she wasn’t whole. Her mother had tried to kill her. Why?

  She couldn’t expect a reason. What motivation could there be for killing your child? Rese drilled the holes for the hardware and attached the brackets. She had rubbed in the finish yesterday, and the final coats on some of the pieces were still sealing, but Lance would sleep in his bed tonight.

  Work, accomplish, do. It was something concrete she could grasp. She knew that mode, but the folder hung in her mind like a noose, and she was afraid it would strangle her as the fear and poisoned air had done.

  “Whatever it is, God has a plan. Remember His presence.”

  They weren’t just words. Lance believed it. Did she? Last night it had seemed possible. But she’d been hopeful last night. Now … what had changed besides everything? Dad wasn’t a monster. He had protected her from the woman who wanted her dead. Mom wasn’t a victim… or was she?

  Rese pressed her hands to her head, images of that night searing her mind. Mom weeping, begging, being dragged, it seemed, by Walter. “How can I prove it?” Her grim despair at whatever answer only she heard, and then … Mom, standing outside like a damaged twig swaying in a wind no one else could feel. When Dad told her that Mom was dead, she must have blocked that image, placed her tragically inside the house breathing the same poison, to her death.

  If her own mind could be so duplicitous … Rese closed her eyes. Her temples throbbed. Maybe there was no absolute reality. Maybe everything was filtered through the mind’s impressions and conclusions. She’d tried so hard to make life concrete, like the steel and wood and stone she shaped and placed, bolting and gluing, no margin of error, no miscalculation.