Secret Lives

by Diane Chamberlain

  Eden had rented a car in Philadelphia and driven with Cassie the thirty miles to Wayne and Pam's house. Cassie still did not seem to understand, despite lengthy discussions on the subject, that she would be spending a month with her daddy and his new wife—and without Eden. Eden had been relieved to find Wayne alone at his new suburban home when she and Cassie pulled up. She knew immediately that he was in his element. He was pruning the rosebushes, dirty-kneed, his hands callused from the clippers. There were tears in his eyes when he bent down to embrace his daughter. Then he squeezed Eden's hand.

  “Two months with Lou and Kyle, huh?” He smiled. “I can't believe you're doing this, Eden. But I think it's good. And we'll be fine here.” He looked down at Cassie, who was still clutching Eden's hand.

  As she pulled out of Wayne's long driveway, she allowed herself just one look back at her daughter. That was a mistake. Cassie stared after the car, her eyes wide and glassy with disbelief, and Eden felt a fresh pulse of guilt surface in her chest.

  The drive from Philadelphia to Washington was a blur, but then Virginia's rolling wooded hills cradled the road and brought her back to the purpose of this trip. Maybe the film should open with an aerial view of these hills. Or, she thought now as she stepped from the forest onto the road, maybe the camera should slip through the woods during the opening credits, smoothly, silently, until it reached the mouth of the cave. Relax, she told herself. She would come up with hundreds of ideas for the opening of the film over the next few weeks. She didn't need to make any decisions now.

  She got back into the car and drove carefully along the narrow road, hunting in the darkness for the turn that would take her through the forest to Lynch Hollow and the house of her childhood, the house where Kyle, Katherine's brother, had retired after leaving New York. She had initially recoiled at Kyle's suggestion that she spend the summer with him and Lou while she did her research. She had seen them as little as she could get away with since leaving home at the age of nineteen, and those visits were always strained and awkward. The thought of spending an entire summer with them overwhelmed her, but she felt as though she had no choice. Kyle knew more than anyone about Katherine. So for the next couple of months she would live in the house of her early childhood, awakening memories buried deep and wisely.

  She spotted the boulder marking the driveway to the house and the little carved wooden sign above it. Lynch Hollow. She turned onto the driveway and was surprised to see it was now macadam. The last time she'd been on this driveway she'd been eleven years old, riding in the back of a black car with her step-grandmother, Susanna. She remembered how her eyes burned as the orange dust from the driveway seeped through the car windows. Who was driving that car? She couldn't remember. A relative of Susanna's, most likely. She'd had no idea as they drove away from the small white house that day that she would not see it again for twenty-four years. “Just a ride,” Susanna had said. “We're just going for a little ride.” That had struck Eden as odd. Spontaneity was not in Susanna's nature, and Susanna was still coughing badly, her face pale from weeks in bed. The ride dragged on and on and Eden grew bored. When they pulled up in front of the square brick building that stood alone in a field, she was relieved that they had finally arrived someplace. It was another hour before she realized Susanna intended to leave her there, with the black-cloaked nuns and children she didn't know. And it was days before she realized that Susanna meant to leave her there forever.

  The two years Eden lived at the orphanage did indeed seem like forever. But when she was thirteen Kyle and Lou tracked her down and took her home with them to New York City, where she spent the rest of her teenage years. Since then she had avoided New York as resolutely as she avoided Lynch Hollow.

  The little house looked different in the darkness. The woods surrounding it seemed thicker, the trees taller, bending to shelter the roof. The edges of the house were more sharply defined than in the fuzzy one-dimensional image in her memory.

  The house was not the same and that filled her with courage, but when she stepped from the car she flinched at the overwhelmingly familiar scent of honeysuckle and boxwood, sweetness and musk.

  The front door opened and light streamed onto the porch. The tall frame of her uncle filled the doorway and sent a shadow that touched her toes.

  “Eden!” Kyle stepped onto the porch, letting the screen door slam shut behind him. He walked across the yard and she worked at returning his smile. It had been a year and a half since she'd last seen him, when he and Lou flew out to California at Christmas to fuss over Cassie.

  Kyle gave her a quick hug. “Luggage?”

  She opened her trunk to expose two suitcases and a portable word processor.

  “Lou inside?” She heaved one of the suitcases out of the trunk.

  Kyle nodded, smiling as he set her word processor on the ground. She thought as she had many times before how warm this man was, how she wished she could return his warmth.

  Inside the house everything had been transformed. Urbanized. The front door still opened awkwardly into the kitchen, but that room had been gutted and updated. Eden would never have recognized it. The counters and appliances were set low to accommodate Lou's wheelchair, and a skylight was carved into the ceiling above the table. The choppy little hallway between the kitchen and the living room was gone, and the north wall of the living room was now entirely made of glass.

  Lou's easel stood in front of the glass wall, and a Prokofiev piano concerto poured from the huge stereo speakers standing in the corners of the living room.

  “You've done wonderful things with the house,” Eden said. She stood in the middle of the living room, hands on hips, and looked around her. “You've brought New York to Lynch Hollow.”

  Lou wheeled toward her to hand her a glass of iced tea. “Kyle had to make a few concessions to get me to move down here,” she said. “I hope we haven't ruined it for your re-search.”

  “No.” Eden leaned down to kiss her aunt's cheek. “I love it.” She watched as Lou slipped easily from her wheelchair to the couch, making the fact that she had only one leg look inconsequential. Lou was close to seventy and beautiful, her skin dewy and smooth on her high cheekbones and across the sharp line of her jaw. Her eyes were blue, huge and heavy-lidded under expressive brows. She wore her hair, a dramatic blend of black and white, pulled back in a bun, a style that on another woman might be deadly, but that made Lou look aristocratic and proud. Wearing a black scoop-neck jersey and a long green skirt, she could pass as a retired ballerina, and it was true she had once loved to dance. Every Saturday night when Eden was a teenager, Kyle took Lou dancing. But thank God it had not been her profession. Eden remembered Kyle's relief when, just weeks after losing her leg, Lou was back at the easel.

  Kyle set a chocolate cake down on the coffee table, one burning pink candle jutting from the icing. “Happy birthday, Eden. A few days late.”

  “Thank you.” Eden sat down on the love seat. She turned to Lou. “Did you make the cake? It's beautiful.”

  Lou shook her head. “I don't do much baking anymore, dear. There's a good bakery in Coolbrook. Go ahead.” She motioned toward the cake. “Make a wish.”

  Eden blew out the candle, guilty because the first wish that came into her head was that her work here would go quickly and she could escape from her aunt and uncle sooner than planned.

  Lou cut the cake and handed her a piece.

  “We put you in your mother's old room upstairs,” Kyle said. “It's barely been touched by the remodeling, so hopefully you can still get a feel for her in there.”

  Eden nodded. That was the most logical room for her to have. The first floor had only the master bedroom and one smaller bedroom which had originally belonged to her mother and Kyle, and later to her. The second story, added on shortly before Eden's birth, held one large bedroom and a smaller room across the hall, where Katherine wrote when it was too cold in the cavern. After Katherine died no one used the upstairs. There were no boulders in front of t
he stairway, but Katherine's room had become as sealed from the rest of the world as her cave.

  “These came for you today.” Kyle carried a vase filled with two dozen red roses into the living room and set them next to the cake.

  Eden plucked the card from its holder, although she was certain who had sent them. I miss you already, Michael had written.

  “Michael Carey?” Lou asked.

  “Yes.” Obviously Kyle and Lou were up on the latest Hollywood gossip. Eden set the card on the table and picked up her plate again.

  “He's very handsome,” Lou said.

  “Yes, he is.”

  “Has quite a reputation, though,” Kyle said. “You don't have to rush into anything.”

  Lou laughed. “Ky, she's a grown-up.”

  “Okay, okay.” Kyle smiled. “Old habits die hard.”

  “Michael's cleaned up his act, Kyle. He's being very solicitous because he hopes to play Matthew Riley in the movie. But we're really just friends, so you don't need to worry.”

  “Two dozen roses to a friend?” Kyle asked as he ducked back into the kitchen.

  Eden sighed and looked at her aunt. “How come I feel like I'm eighteen again?”

  “You never stop worrying, Eden. So how's Cassie? We can't wait to see her.”

  “She's just fine.”

  “I bet you'll miss her this month.”

  Eden shrugged. “She'll have a great time with Wayne and Pam and Pam's kids.” She felt the tears threaten and took a long swallow of iced tea to stop them. Why do you have to go, Mommy?

  “We saw Heart of Winter three times, Eden.” Kyle stood in the doorway of the kitchen, sipping his iced tea. “We're real proud of you, honey.”

  Kyle was, how old now? Sixty-four? His neatly trimmed white and gray beard lent him dignity, but the laugh lines carved into the skin around his clear blue eyes were evidence of his good humor. He was wearing jeans and a blue plaid shirt, and he was lean without being gaunt. When he spoke, the remnants of his Shenandoah Valley accent still softened his words, although he'd spent most of his adult life far from Lynch Hollow. He was still a handsome man, quite remarkably so for his age. She'd noticed that for the first time just a few years ago. He'd been in L.A. at an archaeology conference and wanted to take her out to dinner. Spending an evening alone with Kyle had been unthinkable, so Eden asked Nina to join them. At the restaurant Eden had barely gotten seated before Nina dragged her into the ladies' room.

  “Your uncle's gorgeous,” she'd said. “Is he married?”

  Eden had stared at her in disbelief. “He's nearly old enough to be your grandfather, Nina.”

  Nina leaned toward the mirror to apply a fresh layer of mascara to her already thick lashes. “He's old like Paul Newman's old, like Sean Connery's old. Know what I mean?” She leaned back, blinked her lashes at her reflection. “So, is he married?”

  Eden spent the rest of that evening observing Kyle's deft, effortless evasion of Nina's seduction, and she realized with a jolt that this was something he was accustomed to doing, something he had most likely done all his life.

  Here at Lynch Hollow she could see the signs of age creeping in. He was moving a little more slowly and Eden watched him grimace as he sat next to Lou on the sofa.

  “Arthritis,” he said. “Finally catching up to me.” The wheelchair had been a part of Lou's countenance for a long time, but Eden hadn't expected this change in Kyle. It sent a quick, unexpected sliver of fear through her.

  Conversation sagged as it always did between the three of them. Not once during the years she'd lived with them as a teenager had a conversation between them taken flight. She knew it was her fault, as it was most likely her fault now. With most people she could keep up an easy superficial chatter from behind her Eden Riley mask. But she could only play herself with Kyle and Lou, and that was the one role for which she could never memorize the lines.

  Kyle suddenly set his tea on the coffee table and stood up. “I have something for you.” He left the room and reappeared a few minutes later with a thin gift-wrapped package about the size of a magazine. He put it on the table and took his seat again next to Lou, who edged closer to him. “Birthday present,” he said. There was reluctance in his voice, as if this was a gift he was not certain he wanted her to have.

  Eden opened the wrapping to discover a dark clothbound notebook. She looked up at Kyle.

  “Part of your mother's journal.”

  “What?” She set her hand on the notebook. “She kept a journal?”

  Kyle nodded. “I meant to give it to you long ago, but…” He shrugged. “Your mother was so misunderstood. I didn't want you to misunderstand her too.”

  Lou set her hand on Kyle's arm.

  “Even now, I'm hesitant,” he said. “Selfish, I guess. I was the only one who knew about it.”

  “My father didn't know?”

  Kyle hesitated, his eyes on Lou's hand where it rested on his wrist. “Matt knew. But he never read it.” He straightened his spine with a great sigh. “So. I'll give them to you—there are more notebooks, about a dozen, and I know Kate wanted you to have them. But I plan to mete them out to you, one by one, because I don't want you to skip ahead. She was a complex person, your mother. A complex woman. And if you don't understand her at age thirteen”—he leaned forward and held up the notebook—”you'll never understand her at thirty-one.”

  Eden sat back. Thirteen to thirty-one! The journal would make her research a snap. She probably would not need the whole summer here after all. Still, she felt more trepidation than delight at the thought of reading her mother's words about her life. There would be little room for interpretation, for bending the facts to fit her theme. And it was too close. She would have to read with a distanced eye.

  “You don't need to worry,” she said. “I've always felt she was misrepresented. I'm tired of seeing her portrayed as cold and detached.”

  Kyle stood up and turned to face the wall of glass, hands in his pockets, shoulders tensed, and Eden wondered if she'd said the wrong thing.

  “Kate wasn't cold,” he said. “She chose isolation because it was safer for her.” He turned to face her. “I'll help you in any way I can, Eden. But I don't want any filming in the cavern. The cavern stays sealed up.”

  “That's fine.” She had expected that, and in a way it relieved her. She was a little frightened of the cave. “We can find another cave or re-create that one.”

  “I hope you're not going to be disappointed,” Kyle said. “A story about a woman who spent ninety-five percent of her time in a cave could be pretty dull.”

  “Well, it probably won't be for everyone, but I don't plan on it being boring.”

  “You must be exhausted after your drive, dear,” Lou said.

  Eden set her plate down on the table and stood up with a false weariness. She'd lost three hours of the day flying east and she was not actually tired, but it would be a relief to be alone again. “Yes, I really am. I guess I'll go to bed early.”

  Kyle picked up the notebook and held it out to her, like a dare. “Maybe you'd like to do a little reading before you go to sleep?”

  She took the book from him.

  “I'll speak to my partner, Ben Alexander, about showing you the archaeological site tomorrow.” Kyle walked with her toward the stairs. “You should get a feel for it so you can understand why Kate was so fascinated by it.”

  Eden nodded. Kyle had her research well planned out for her.

  Her mother's room was spacious and welcoming with its old pine furniture and double bed. A blue wicker rocker faced the north window, a small pine desk sat in front of the south. She viewed it all with a practiced eye, picturing the way the room would look on the screen. She imagined Katherine rocking in the rocker, sitting at the desk.

  She began emptying her suitcase, setting the picture of Cassie on the dresser. Cassie was on a swing at the park, her brown hair flying straight out behind her. She wore her usual devilish grin. Eden looked around the room fo
r a phone, but there was none. Good. It would make it easier to resist constant calls to Pennsylvania. She was not used to this, having no one to tuck in, no one badgering her for another story, a glass of water, an extra good-night kiss. She'd never been this far from her daughter. Even when she had to travel to a film location, she'd taken Cassie with her. The separation this summer was the product of the liberal visitation the judge had ordered for Wayne after the hideous court battle. She would never forgive Wayne for his attempt to disparage her as a mother. He and Pam could offer Cassie a normal life, he'd told the judge. “My daughter's been in the public eye since her conception,” he said truthfully. “I don't want her to grow up thinking Hollywood is the real world.”

  Eden had brought one other picture with her. This photograph was unframed, dog-eared and yellowed. The woman in the picture knelt in a corner of a rectangular archaeological pit, smiling up at the photographer. She had beautiful straight white teeth. Her thick honey-colored hair, the same color as Eden's, hung over her shoulder in a long braid. She wore khaki shorts, a white shirt open at the neck. She looked about twenty-five or -six. It was one of Eden's few pictures of her mother, one she shared with the rest of the world since it was the publicity photo most often used on the dust jackets of Katherine's children's books.

  Eden propped the picture up against the lamp on her night table. She pulled a pendant from her makeup case and set it next to the picture. The pendant was an oval of white porcelain with a delicate lavender flower painted in the center. It had been her mother's. Kyle had given it to Eden for her sixteenth birthday, but she had never felt comfortable wearing it. She wasn't certain even now why she had brought it with her.

  She changed into her short white satin nightgown and got under the covers, looking over at the journal on the night-stand. The cover, probably once a dark green, was now nearly black with age. The book didn't close flat because the edges of the pages were wavy, as though they'd spent too many years in the damp. Eden opened the cover and saw her mother's neat handwriting, blue ink on yellowed, lined paper. She closed the book again. No, not tonight. Not yet.