The Last Secret

by Mary McGarry Morris

  “That's ridiculous! Of—”

  “No, it's true. He's right. I did. All I wanted was for us to be a family, to be happy,” she bawls, sobbing into the duvet. “Each one, that's all I ever wanted.”

  Nora lets her cry. She wants to hold her but can't. Robin would, so easily and naturally, she knows. She remembers Robin's tears the day she told her she was pregnant with Lyra, sobbing because she didn't want to be and had even called an abortion clinic but then had decided that it was a sign, because maybe a baby, new life in her troubled house, might change all that had gone wrong in her marriage, Robin had said, bawling, as if at the shallowness of her hope, holding out her arms, shaming Nora with her plea to be held. Still now, Nora wonders, what reserve, what coldness, what emptiness kept her from comforting a woman she had loved. Yes. Loved, with a depth and joy she had never felt for another woman before Robin. And so, how cruel, how heartless, of them for what they did, for using her. And in the end, how predictable. How complicit she was, time after time, in her quick dismissal of the obvious. How easy she made it for them. Because as long as they loved each other, she was loved.

  “No matter what happens, you've got your children, Alice. You're still a family. All that matters is them. You'll be a better family without him. You will.”

  Alice buries her bruised face in the bunched-up hem of the bed covering. Nora Trimble Hammond who can't even let food pass her lips under this patched roof sits on the side of the bed. She puts both arms around this broken woman. A child really, she tells herself, waiting for something, goodness, wisdom, some energy to flow between them. She will not pull back, but all she feels is dread.

  “There. There, now,” she whispers, her hand at the back of this snarled and sweaty hair, days of an unwashed muskiness, she thinks, then realizes it must be the heavy bleed. The smell is blood, sickeningly strong. And familiar. “It's going to be all right. You'll see. I promise,” she makes herself say, makes herself sit there, trying not to gag.

  A small plane flies overhead. For a moment it drowns out the children's voices. He watches from the corner. The wind gusts and he turtles his chin deeper into his collar. He hates the cold. With the exception of the one child, the others wear hats and mittens. She runs around the carousel, screeching with laughter. Two small girls chase after her. Alone, under the gnarled locust tree, her mother sits at a silvery, weathered picnic table. Her face is hidden by the curled visor of a bright green baseball cap. Black seedpods crunch underfoot as he moves closer. Talking on her cell phone, so deep in conversation, she doesn't look up until he sits down.

  “Gotta go.” She snaps her phone shut. “I didn't see you coming.”

  Almost an accusation the way she says it. Still though, he smiles. “You were too busy talking.”

  “My mother,” she says so quickly that he knows she's lying.

  “How come you don't take my calls?”

  She stands up and looks around, squinting as she watches Lyra swing, belly on the rubber sling, spread-eagled. Like a trapped bug, he thinks. The cricket legs he used to pull out and then the calm he always felt.

  “All my messages, you musta got one, anyway.”

  “It's been so busy. Doctor appointments. Then Clay's … he hurt himself This is Lyra's first day out of the house.”

  “That's not why.”

  “It's cold, I know, but she needs this.” Shivering in her short denim jacket, she hugs herself, revealing the soft flesh of her waist. “Lyra!” she calls and strides off suddenly, as if something is wrong when all the girl has done is jump off the swing and run to the slide. Instead of climbing the ladder, Lyra is walking up the slide itself At the top, a younger child sits, waiting her turn. Poised behind her on the ladder, a red-cheeked, curly-haired little girl with glasses grins and waits her turn. Lyra laughs. She enjoys being in the way, holding things up, he thinks as he follows Robin. She tells Lyra to get off the slide so the two other girls can come down.

  “That's Jane!” Lyra points up at the petite, blue-eyed child, unlike Lyra, so stiffly bundled in her quilted snowsuit that her legs stick out in front of her. “And Mary, that's her sister.” The two waiting children smile down at Lyra. “C'mon, Janie-Jane!” Lyra laughs, daring, taunting, teasing like her mother. Just as Robin reaches to take her daughter off the high metal slide, the child, Jane, loses her grip and hurtles down on her slick nylon bottom, boots first, into Lyra, knocking her back onto the frozen ground. Quickly next, comes Mary, landing on both of them.

  Eddie chuckles. Brat. She had that coming.

  Lyra wails and Robin is helping up the crying girls. Their mother runs over from the sand box where she's been gathering up their toys.

  “Janie!” the woman calls. The smaller girl's nose is bleeding. Her sister hugs her.

  Should have been the other one, he thinks. Lyra, the troublemaker.

  “I'm sorry,” Robin says. “Lyra knows better than to go up the wrong way.”

  Her tension excites him. He wants the other mother to go at her, attack her, hurt her. She deserves it. A good slap, that's what she needs, right across that full red mouth. His fist clenches as he imagines it hard on her wrist, and her soft, wet face at his, begging forgiveness.

  The women apologize, assuring one another it was just one of those things. That's how they'll learn, the hard way, they agree.

  Ditto that. The hard way, he thinks, stunned to see her suddenly leaving. Carrying Lyra, she hurries down the street. He calls her name, but she only walks faster. Her car isn't parked in the playground lot, but across the street, behind CVS. Trying to hide it. From him, he knows, easily keeping pace. So close he hears her panting. He waits while she buckles Lyra into her booster seat. Closing the door, she stands with her back against it. Message clear: shielding her kid from him. Raising his hands, he steps back.

  “Why? What'd I do?”

  “Nothing.”

  Her weak smile infuriates him.

  “I just have to go, that's all.” She makes a show of pushing up her sleeve and checking her watch.

  The honey brown fuzz on her forearm makes him ache with horniness. More hair than you'd expect on such a beautiful woman, proof of her earthiness, her warmth, all that makes her so desirably real. A creature of flesh and fear, born for a man's pleasure. Submission now in the slow sweep of her gaze. Her soft mouth trembles.

  “Please.” She steps around him to open her door. She gets into the car.

  “Tell me what's wrong,” he says, holding the door. She can't close it without hurting his hand.

  “Don't do this. Please.” She looks up at him as she starts the car.

  A woman has left the pharmacy and is getting into the next car. She glances over at them before backing out.

  Again, Robin tugs at the door and says she has to go. Why, he demands over the racing engine. He doesn't get it. One minute they're friends, next minute not. Why?

  “Everything you told me, all those random things, the space program, your sick brother, and your businesses, but the one thing you never said was, you know Nora.”

  “Yeah, I know Nora. So?”

  “You know what I mean,” she says grimly.

  “No. I don't. Why's it such a big deal?” He grins, wanting to laugh. Toying with her, he feels giddy, almost silly. And powerful.

  “Mommy!” Lyra whines, and kicks the back of her mother's seat. “I have to go potty! Now!”

  “I have to go.” She shifts into reverse, but he doesn't move. “Please.”

  “I knew her from a long time ago. Then I ran into her again. That's all. I swear!” He yanks the door open and leans in. “Robin,” he says reassuringly. “She doesn't have anything to do with us. Really.” Such a look of fear comes over her that he cups his hand on the side of her face. “You're the best thing that's ever happened to me. Believe that.”

  “Oh my God,” she gasps while behind her the little brat's tantrum of kicks and threats to do poop enrages him. Robin leans away from his touch, cringing almost. Her hands sha
ke on the wheel. She inches the car back, until he is forced out of the way. She speeds off.

  His skin feels prickly. His eyes hurt. That bitch. It came from her. Why do people do this, always setting obstacles in his way?

  Everything enrages him, getting caught next to this wheezy fat man when the light changes to green, the biting wind and honking horns as he darts through traffic to the municipal lot. And now this, the orange ticket flapping under his wiper. He shreds it into tiny pieces, which he flings at the meter. It doesn't make sense, though. She didn't want anyone to know. And all that money, without him even asking. So why would she have said anything? Unless she's been checking, looking back, and now she thinks there's nothing to fear. That she's free of him. Suddenly, he's afraid. What if she wants her money back? Turns it around on him. Extortion. What if she calls the police who've just written a ticket off the other bitch's plate? And here he is in her car. Brand-new, but he should've gotten rid of it. Should've done a lot of things.

  Years of cigarette smoke have stained the ceiling a dusky yellow. The flat brown carpet smells of dust and mold, the mattress sour with stale pee. He usually sleeps with the window cracked open. But for the last couple of nights the heat's been off Charlie's been in twice to check the thermostat. He can't fix it and his electrician is out of town, he says with a shrug. Then call another one, Eddie says.

  “Easier said than done,” Charlie tells him, peering out from his little pig eyes. “I'm just the manager. I gotta use who they say.”

  “What about the baseboard, the unit?” Eddie suggests.

  Grunting, Charlie kneels down and pries off the cover. In a motion, Eddie slips a screwdriver and pliers from Charlie's tool bucket.

  “Nothing here,” Charlie says, grunting even more as he gets up.

  Eddie's no fool. They're trying to freeze him out. And it's Tiff, the girlfriend, Charlie's, the snaggle-toothed beast who cleans. She goes through his stuff, so Eddie won't let her in, and she hates him.

  Later that night, as soon as the manager's unit goes dark, he puts on a heavy jacket. Leaves the TV on, volume low, lights on. Shuts the bathroom door, just in case, then slips out, locking the door after him. He drives north, two states up, into Maine. Kittery little town on the coast. Never been here before, but he likes the narrow, winding streets and old houses, mostly small cottages. He's looking for a car that doesn't appear to get much use. Little noticed. He keeps driving, farther north. Motels and fish shacks. Souvenir shops. Strip malls. And then he spots it, there, next to a sagging red barn, parked close in, on the side, to keep it out of the way of the other old cars in the narrow dirt driveway. Two windowless sheds connect the barn to a small white house. The house is in darkness. He parks down the road, walks back, tools in hand. The first screw spins right off The second one is rust-frozen so he tries twisting the license plate against it. Suddenly, a light glares from behind and he hits the ground. An old pickup rattles into the driveway. The motor dies, lights next, though no one gets out. He sees the long flare of a cigarette tip over the wheel. The door creaks open and a man slides out. He drops the butt, grinds it under his boot toe. He closes the truck door slowly, then creeps into the house. No lights go on inside. Eddie waits. Then he reaches up, twisting and pulling on the plate until it finally rips free, but the jagged metal corner slices deeply between his thumb and forefinger. Doesn't hurt, though. The sting of cold air at his torn flesh feels good, tells him he's alive, as he runs back to the car with his new plate. Action. Eddie at his best.

  his is so nice,” Nora says as she pours her second cup of coffee. Ken has assigned someone, Bibbi's daughter, actually, to work on the Medical supplement. Jessica Bond is a pleasant enough young woman but easily bewildered. Nora knows she should get into the office early, but it's a rare weekday morning that finds her family together at breakfast. Some peace has been restored, however strained. Drew has apologized for the other night, though he and his father are still barely speaking. By the time she returned from her meeting, Drew was back home. Ken had found him alone at a back table in Starbucks. Nursing a glass of water because he didn't have any money on him: naturally, Ken added with withering scorn. More and more lately, she is alarmed by his harshness toward Drew and their constant tension, as if Ken is the wounded party, as if Drew has somehow harmed him.

  Chloe's phone is ringing in her pocket. She checks the number, then runs from the kitchen, grinning.

  “Since when do we take calls at the table?” Ken asks, folding the business section next to his cereal bowl. In the past this would have been Nora's censorious line, played to Ken's no-big-deal shrug.

  “She didn't. She left,” Drew says, jaw clenched, waiting.

  Ken ignores him, continues reading. He looks drawn, almost despondent, the way he's been for days. It's the paper, he assures her, particularly his cousin, undermining his authority. On Monday, Stephen called a board meeting without bothering to tell him. She'd never seen Ken so angry or so humiliated. The emotional storms of these last few weeks are finally taking their toll. Strange, though, how those years of his affair still seem their happiest as a family. A kind of mania, really, living as they did in an almost constant state of gusto, exuberance, the house filled with friends, laughter, especially Ken's. Her third child, she often joked. And yet, with his life so tenuously balanced, how could he have been, or even seemed, so carefree, so guiltless? Because he had everything. He did, didn't he? As long as no one pierced the bubble, the illusion of happiness was more than enough.

  “Finish up, Drew. You don't want to be late,” she says, uneasy with his brooding.

  “I'm not the driver. Tell her,” he says, nodding toward the other room.

  “Her?” Ken snaps. “You mean Chloe?”

  Drew's snarl is lost as Chloe rushes in to the table, sobbing. Joe Turcotte is dead, she cries. Killed in Iraq, and he's only nineteen. Max just told her. That's terrible, Nora says, unable to place the name. Chloe is devastated. She's not sure, she says when her father asks where he's from. Leesboro, she thinks, but he and Max were friends from camp. They bunked in the same cabin every summer until they were fourteen.

  “And now he's dead. Just like that. I can't believe it,” she gasps.

  “You didn't even know him,” Drew mumbles into his coffee.

  “That's not the point. That's so not the point,” Chloe says.

  “Such a waste,” Ken says with such disgust that for a moment Nora thinks he means Drew.

  “Nineteen!” Chloe cries. “He's just two years older than me. I don't get it. Why're we doing this? Why?” she demands as if they know but won't tell her.

  “I know, hon.” Nora kisses the top of her daughter's head. “It's hard. Especially now when it all seems so pointless.”

  “Well, maybe all we can do is hope some good comes out of it,” Ken says with a long sigh.

  “Good!” Chloe cries. “What kind of good's gonna come out of that, a kid dying?”

  “That's not what I meant. Obviously.” Ken gets up and hugs Chloe. She stiffens back and Nora remembers how in the middle of the night only Ken could soothe his little girl.

  “So what do you mean? What kinda good?” Drew is staring at his father.

  “There aren't any easy answers, Drew. Maybe we should leave it at that,” Ken says.

  “Why?” Drew asks with a hint of a smile. “Because that's what the paper wants?”

  Ken sighs, regards him for a moment. “The war in Iraq's—”

  “No!” Drew protests so venomously that they all shrink back. “It's not a war. It's a lie, just one more lie no one wants to admit.”

  The silence in the kitchen is thick, suffocating.

  When Nora gets to work, she sits in the warm car, listening to the radio. Another helicopter crash near Fallujah, more dead, wounded, maimed, like the rest, nameless for her until Joe Turcotte, a boy asleep on a bunk in a summer cabin, on the fringes of her once-perfect life, hermetically sealed, viewed through glass, as she stares out at the parking lot, alon
e with her well-guarded secret, its gathering force fed by lies. And, of these, most insidious, all the lies allowed in submission to the greater good. Holding on to her mother. Keeping her marriage together.

  After the children left for school she asked Ken to stay, please, just a little while so they could talk, but he couldn't. He had an eight thirty conference call. She's made up her mind. They all have to go to counseling. The family is sinking, fracturing, breaking into pieces. She turns off the radio. Just getting out of the car is an effort. And this briefcase, heavy at her side, why does she carry it? So important, every day, back and forth. As proof she matters? But to whom? For what? And in the end, who cares? Special supplements, filler no one reads, but Oliver insisted. Busywork Why? Give her something to do? Make her feel important, useful in her meaningless life? No. Not true, not as long as she has her children. And Joe Turcotte—his mother, what's left for her now? She swallows against the lump in her throat.

  “Hey!” someone shouts, and she turns with a gasp to see Eddie Hawkins, a strip of soiled gauze dangling from his hand. Scabby shaving nicks dot his chin.

  “I gotta ask you something.” Agitated, he shifts from foot to foot. “Robin Gendron, she and I, we … we're friends, you know. Good friends. Really good. Then all of a sudden, I don't know … it's, like, whoom!”

  She cringes from the sudden slice of his bandaged hand by her face.

  “Like, somebody said something, you know what I mean?”

  “No. I don't know what you're talking about.” Determined not to show fear, she stares at him. He's panting.

  “You said something. About me. You told her, right?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Don't mess with me, okay? There's too much … I got too much … I'm not gonna put up with it. With this shit, you got that?”

  “What do you want? I don't understand. Why're you still here?”

  His explosive laughter is like wild gunfire going off all around her. “I'll tell you what I fucking want. I want you and your fag husband to mind your own goddamn business, that's what the fuck I want.” He jabs her shoulder. “Robin and me, we don't need this … this shit, get what I'm saying? You keep away from her, the two of you. You got that?”