Stolen Secrets

by L. B. Schulman

  I ran to my math book and flipped through the pages until I found it. A note, clipped to the back of the certificate, stated that Herbert Friedman had served as official witness to the personhood of Mrs. Adelle Friedman, whose records were destroyed in the war. He claimed, under oath, that his new wife had no living relations or neighbors and, that to the best of his knowledge, she’d been born in Holland on June 12, 1926. Coming from an American soldier, his testimony was golden. Oma got her identification papers with no trouble.

  One fact didn’t escape me: Anne Frank had received her first diary on June 12, because that was her birthday. Even all those years ago, Oma had laid claim to a small piece of Anne’s history.

  A social security card was paper-clipped to the back of the passport. I fingered the blue paper, thinking about how those nine little numbers were so different from the ones branded on the forearm of Auschwitz prisoners. Numbers that blotted out blame, redefining Adelle Friedman as a victim instead of a bully.

  Another number flashed through my head. Vickie’s computer password. I took out my phone and began to research. It seemed the first three digits of a social security number were state identifiers. When I typed in the start of Vickie’s password, the code for South Carolina popped up.

  It’s not easy taking a South Carolina drawl out of a girl, Vickie had said.

  I’d been wrong. The password wasn’t Ryan’s phone number.

  I reached for the business card on the coffee table and called the number.

  “Nidra,” he answered, all business.

  “Livvy Newman,” I said, imitating his tone. He chuckled under his breath. “You know that number I gave you? Vickie’s password?” I explained to him that it might be her social security number. He thanked me and hung up.

  Next I called the hospital family line to ask about Adelle Friedman’s condition, even though I’d been there only a few hours ago. No change.

  “Family visits are a great idea,” said the woman who answered the phone, as if I hadn’t heard this all before. I imagined the nurses at the desk, chatting about the strange girl who showed up every day but never left the waiting room to see her grandmother.

  “My mom can visit her on Friday,” I told the nurse, then hung up.

  Why should Oma have family at her bedside, stroking her hand, encouraging her to live? The Holocaust victims hadn’t died with such love and care.

  Those thoughts, as truthful as they were, were a bitch to carry.

  I’d just hung up when the doorbell rang, the buzzer going off like an essay in Morse Code. Anne came to mind, terrified as the Nazis incessantly rang the doorbell to her father’s business downstairs. I could only imagine what the family felt as the German police charged through the building, heading for the bookcase that concealed the hidden door to the annex.

  I stumbled to the window. Franklin D. cranked his head back and peered up at me, squinting past the streetlight that shone in his eyes. A ripple traveled through my stomach, different from the lump of fear that had shared the same space a moment ago. It was great seeing him. Really great. But I couldn’t understand what he was saying, so I hoisted the window up.

  “… I went to the hospital, but they said you’d left already, and when I asked them about your grandma, they wouldn’t tell me anything, not even if she was still there, so I took an Uber to Oma’s house, but it seemed you’d moved out, which I found out when this scary cop drilled me with questions until I thought I was going to wet my pants. I told him I was your friend and not a criminal, and he said you were back at your apartment. Where’s that? I asked. So he said it’s just a few blocks over that hill, but he couldn’t give out personal information. So I hiked over Mount Friggin’ Fillmore and stopped at Tully’s to see if they knew where a hot blond girl with awesome, shiny hair that smells like coconuts lives, but it turns out they see that kind all day, so I kept going, stopping at every last store, finding nothing, until I asked a homeless guy in front of Tomas’s Taqueria if he’d seen a good-looking girl about my age go into any buildings around here, and he pointed to your door. So ready or not, here I am, and I won’t stop ringing this bell until you let me in.” He stabbed a finger at the buzzer to enforce his point, then shivered, drawing his arms into the puffy sleeves of his green parka. “Take pity on me, would ya? It’s arctic cold out here.”

  I walked to the door and stood there, collecting myself. I was insanely happy to see him. Incredibly terrified, too. In another hour, he might run the other way. Still, Franklin D. deserved the truth—we all did. I buzzed him in.

  “Hi,” I said, a few seconds later.

  “Are you mad at me?”

  “At you? Not at all.” I didn’t like that he felt that way, but I knew it was my fault that he did.

  “You haven’t been answering my texts.”

  “Oma’s not doing well,” I started. “The stroke was bad. I needed to be alone with it for a while.”

  We moved to the couch. “I know, Liv. I’m sorry. I figured as much.” He waited expectantly for me to fill in the details.

  “Your parents think I’m Jewish,” I began. “You told them, and that’s why they were so excited about us going out, isn’t it?”

  His eyes widened as he considered my out-of-the-blue question. “Not exactly. I mean, yeah, I guess that’s like icing on the cake and all, but they actually really like you because you’re a nice person, and they think that your practical, grounded side is an excellent balance for … all that’s me.” He blinked twice and glanced away. “I was wondering if maybe you’d had second thoughts, and that’s why you were putting me off. I mean, the facts are, I talk too much. And I get nosy about people. And sometimes I try to be clever when I should just shut up and listen, and … well, I’m fully aware that I might not be everyone’s cup of tea.”

  I fought a smile. Franklin D., insecure? I had to admit, the rare glimpse of humility was charming. “Don’t you know that facts aren’t everything?” I said.

  “Whoa, this from the ferocious fact aficionado.”

  “Take you and me, for example. It’s a fact that you’re a nerd, right?”

  “I object.”

  I rolled my eyes but in an affectionate way. “Oh, right, geek.” He nodded for me to continue. “And fact: You’re a major smartass.”

  “I prefer ‘curious.’ ‘Philosophical’ even.”

  “One might say you have very little fashion sense …”

  He started to protest. I held up a hand. “But here’s the truth: I really like you. For some strange reason, I find those T-shirts you wear with the pithy math and science statements to be incredibly sexy.”

  He slapped a palm to his forehead. “Pithy! I love a girl with an extensive vocabulary.”

  “That’s because we’re all geeks when it comes down to it,” I said. “I guess I’d rather have something in common with you than waste time looking at the ways we’re different.” I glanced away, assailed, all of a sudden, by sadness. “Oma saw the similarities between people, but she couldn’t bring herself to act on it.” This wasn’t going to be easy, but I couldn’t let the secret fester inside me the way my grandmother had. “I’m not Jewish,” I admitted.

  He cocked his head. “You’re not?”

  I took a breath and explained how the robbers intended to destroy the diary so no one would ever see it. I told him about the safe behind the painting, and how the men had broken into it. He didn’t even ask me what they found. He just wanted to know if I was okay.

  “I was wrong about my grandmother,” I admitted. “She isn’t Anne Frank. She knew her, though. Oma promised Anne that one day, she’d share the diary with other people. The thing is, she broke that promise. She couldn’t do it, because then everyone would have found out the truth.”

  “Truth?”

  The muscles in my body tensed at that one word that had haunted me for so long. I looked him in the eyes, facing my demons in their reflection. “Oma was a Nazi nurse.”

  I slowed my breath, hoping t
he rumblings of panic would subside. Then I explained everything I knew about Oma’s brief friendship with Anne Frank. When I was done, I sat still, waiting. Franklin D. was quiet.

  “I don’t know how I made that mistake,” I said, shaking my head. “Me, of all people. It was like I was blind to some of the facts.”

  He inched closer. I tensed, fearing his reaction. But all he did was place his hand, firm and steady, over my icy one. “I think we failed to consider all the reasons she might have had the entries in the first place.”

  He was right. I had wanted to believe that my grandmother was Anne Frank. I wanted her to be the heroine. I wanted it so badly that I dismissed the possibilities that fit a different story.

  “What would your parents think, knowing that I was the granddaughter of a Nazi?” I stared at my other hand, which was in my lap. Long, slim fingers. Like Mom’s. Like Oma’s. “More importantly, I’d like to know what you think.”

  Franklin D. didn’t answer until I found the courage to lift my eyes to his. “I think you’re a person who’s made all her own decisions, independent of her family,” he said. “Let me ask you this, would you go out with me if you knew that my dad smoked weed in college, then got behind the wheel and ran over a homeless woman?”

  The unexpected question sparked a glimmer of hope. “That’s terrible,” I said carefully, “but it doesn’t have anything to do with you and me.”

  “Right. It also doesn’t matter what your grandmother did, because that’s her mishegas. Not your mother’s and not yours.” He grimaced. “By the way, since we’re being honest, I should tell you that I made up that story about the homeless woman to underscore my point.”

  I smiled. “Yeah, I figured as much.” I moved my hand out from under his and brushed a finger across his cheek. “Would you mind terribly if I kissed you right now?”

  He grinned. “I was wondering when you would ask.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  AFTER FRANKLIN D. LEFT, MY HUNGER, WHICH I’D ignored all day, roared to life. We were deficient in the grocery department, so I had to settle for whole-wheat spaghetti with butter. As I added salt to the boiling water, my phone rang. The hospital? I tensed, fearing the worst. I snatched my cell off the kitchen table. “Hello?”

  “Liv?”

  “Tom!”

  “Hey, I’m a few blocks away. Took me a while to find a parking spot for the rental car.”

  “You’re here? Like, right now?”

  “Yeah, I was going to fly in with your mom on Friday, but I decided to come early in case you needed help with your grandmother.”

  So Mom had told him what was going on. I smiled into the phone, grateful for the company.

  “Have you heard of this place I passed a minute ago, Loch Ness Pizza?” he asked. “I was thinking, if you want, we could grab a bite to eat.”

  “I’d love to! I’ll meet you there in ten minutes.” I turned off the stove, abandoning the pasta, and grabbed my coat off the back of a chair.

  Tom was sitting on a vinyl stool at the stainless steel counter when I arrived. “I ordered your favorite. Sausage, red bell peppers, and feta,” he said.

  “You have no idea how amazing that sounds.” I looked at him more closely. Something was different. I had a thought: Time could create scars, or heal them, depending on how you lived your life.

  “You look good,” he said. “I like the new hairstyle.”

  I touched my curls. I didn’t even know where my flat iron was anymore.

  “You look good, too,” I told him. “Not that you didn’t before, but you just seem …”

  Was it his hair? No, that was the same. Hadn’t he said he’d been using the gym as therapy to deal with his breakup with Lynn? “Are you still working out at the YMCA?”

  The waiter delivered our pizza, thin crust and loaded with cheese.

  “Actually, no. Well, not as much as before.” He plucked a piece of sausage off his slice and popped it into his mouth. “I just feel really good these days, because … I’m happy, Liv.”

  I was confused. “Happy because Lynn left you?”

  “Not that. It’s pretty traumatic when a relationship ends.” He kept tapping his fingers on the counter. I waited, giving him the space to say what was on his mind.

  “I’m happy because I’ve met someone,” he said at last. “Well, I didn’t just meet her, but I just fell in love with her. I fell in love with my best friend.”

  As the meaning sank in, the words Oh my God echoed through my head. It wasn’t easy imagining Mom with a man. Even harder with this man, because I’d always thought of Tom as her friend. Her best friend, like he’d said. Mom hadn’t dated anyone since the divorce. She once joked that her long-range plan was to die a contented old lady with twelve cats. I’d given up on her meeting anyone.

  Huh. A slow smile crept across my face. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah.”

  We grinned at each other.

  I thought about Franklin D. and how we never ran out of things to say to each other. Best friends, it seemed, made excellent dating material.

  Suddenly my excitement took a nose dive. “Are we moving back to Vermont?” I didn’t want to leave Franklin D. or his friends, who were now my friends. I liked my high school, at least as well as someone could like high school. Not only had the square footage of my town expanded, my world had, too.

  “There’s a place in the South Bay that needs a rehab counselor,” Tom said. “It’s designed for working parents. It has an in-house day care to make it easier for clients to get the help they need. It’s only a half-hour commute from the city. What do you think?”

  I knew what he was asking. He wasn’t looking for my opinion on a new job.

  “Your mom’s going to be here soon, and the thing is …” He raised his eyes from the floor. “The thing is, Liv, I really want your blessing.”

  I laughed, surprised that he couldn’t read the answer in my eyes. I heard Franklin D.’s voice in my head: Tom doesn’t know what you’re feeling, because you haven’t told him yet. But then I had a better idea. Why rely on words when you can show someone? I hugged him, pinning his arms to his sides. “Welcome to Casa Crazy,” I said.

  His body softened under the embrace. “Glad to be here.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TOM INSISTED THAT I RETURN TO SCHOOL, EVEN THOUGH it was the last day of the week. During a break between classes, I called the hospital for an update, but there wasn’t any.

  When the last bell of the day rang, Franklin D. and I blended into the mass of people shuffling toward the exit. My backpack strained at the seams with missed assignments and a new book I had to read for English. Once we were outside, Franklin D. took my backpack and heaved it onto his shoulder next to his own.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Haven’t you seen reruns of Little House on the Prairie? A boy always carries a girl’s schoolbag, especially when it weighs almost as much as she does.”

  “Are you kidding?” I laughed, trying to grab it back, but he dodged me.

  There was a honk. My eyes skipped to the blue Kia, double-parked in front of the toy store.

  “That’s Tom,” I told Franklin D. “My mom’s here. She came in from the airport an hour ago.”

  But when I peered through the car window, she wasn’t there. Tom popped open the trunk. Franklin D. stuffed my backpack in next to Mom’s suitcase. We went around to the front and I made quick introductions, cut short by the line of cars building up behind us. Franklin D. turned down the offer of a ride, kissed me on the cheek, and headed to the bus stop.

  I slid into the passenger seat. “Where’s Mom?”

  Tom glanced into the side mirror, then pulled into the lane. “I took her directly from the airport to the hospital.”

  “Oh. How’s Oma?”

  “Nothing new,” he said.

  “Are we going there n
ow?”

  “Later, if that’s all right. Your mom finished her visit a half hour ago. She asked me to take you to Ocean Beach so the two of you can catch up.”

  Mom had always said that the roar of the waves and the smell of sea salt helped clear her head. She hadn’t had much time for beach meandering since we’d come to San Francisco.

  It didn’t take long to get anywhere in a city that was seven miles long and the same wide. Fifteen minutes later, we pulled into the beach parking lot. Funny, San Francisco had felt huge to me just a few months ago.

  Tom let me out, made an excuse about getting a newspaper, and drove off. Mom waited by the sand’s edge. Our hug was awkward. She launched into stories about Evergreen. I joked that it sounded more like a retreat than a rehab.

  “I wish! I had a lot of issues to fix. No time for massages, sadly.” The wind lifted her hair. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes.

  We talked about Tom next. She filled me in on the girly, romantic parts that he’d left out. Eventually we came to a less comfortable subject.

  “The doctors say Oma’s in serious but stable condition. Not sure what that means,” she said.

  I listened for a hint of warmth in her voice but heard nothing. The difference was, Mom seemed stronger and more focused. She pulled a folded paper from her pocket and smoothed it out. “The reason I asked Tom to bring you here is because there’s something I have to do,” she began. “I’ve gone through all the steps of AA, except one. Number nine, to make amends. In all my years of meetings, I’ve managed to glide right past that one. Anyway, I need to admit my past mistakes and acknowledge the pain I’ve caused others. That I’ve caused you, Livvy. I need to do it to lead a more honest life.” She cleared her throat and read from the paper in her hand, her voice as formal and shaky as a person giving a speech before a packed house. “I regret all the times I hurt you with my drinking, Liv. I’m sorry that my response to the stress of taking care of my mother was to relapse. I wish I could’ve been the mother you deserved, and more than anything, I apologize for risking your life that night in the car.”