Secret Lives

by Diane Chamberlain

  “I feel so betrayed. He's known all these years and never told me.”

  Ben sat down next to her. “It would be a hard thing to tell.”

  She looked at him. “Aren't you completely disgusted?”

  “Shocked, yes. Disgusted, no. I feel sorry for Kyle.”

  “Sorry for him?”

  “You were his only child. At least I'm assuming you were. I'm sure he would have liked to have had a normal father-daughter relationship with you, and that was impossible.”

  “My heart bleeds for him.”

  “Would you rather he'd never told you? Or do you wish he'd told you years ago?”

  “I wish he'd had a little self-control in the first place.”

  “Well, then you wouldn't be here to wish anything at all.”

  “He should have told me when I was eighteen.” She remembered herself at eighteen, already slipping away from Lou and Kyle. If Kyle had told her then, she would have fled even more quickly than she had. He must have known that.

  “He should have told me when I got married. This could have affected Cassie genetically, couldn't it? What gave him the right to keep that information from me?”

  Ben had a faraway look in his eyes, and she knew that this revelation had a different meaning for him than it did for her. “So,” he said. “Kyle Swift's not perfect after all. He screws up just like the rest of us. I always wondered.”

  She looked down at her hands. “He left me,” she said. “He left me with Susanna and my grandfather. He left me to be sent away to the orphanage.” She began to cry, like a child who'd had too much all at once and needed a nap.

  Ben took her hand. “Did you get any sleep last night?”

  She shook her head.

  “Why don't you go back to bed?”

  The thought of sleep was seductive. Ben walked her into the cabin and watched her crawl into his bed. He leaned over to kiss her. “Stick with me,” he said. “I know all the tricks for escaping your emotions.”

  She woke up off and on during the morning, and each time she opened her eyes, Ben would leave the dollhouse and come over to sit next to her. He didn't say much, just held her hand until she lost herself in sleep again.

  At noon he made her a cup of tomato soup, although it was at least eighty degrees in the cabin, and a grilled cheese sandwich. She sat up to eat, propping the one long pillow against the wall.

  “I'm going to call Nina and tell her to forget about the screenplay,” she said. “I can't write it. You don't make a biographical film and leave out a fact like this, something that shaped her life. But I can't put it in either.”

  He sat on the edge of the bed, balancing his own sandwich on his thigh. “I don't think you should do anything impulsive.”

  “I can't write this, Ben.”

  “Don't call Nina yet. Wait a few days so you can talk to her with a clear head.” The phone rang as he spoke and he leaned toward the apple crate to answer it. “She's right here.” He held the receiver out to her. “It's Kyle.”

  She shook her head. Ben hesitated a moment, then lifted the receiver back to his ear. “She's not ready to talk to you yet, Kyle.” Ben kept his eyes on her as he listened. “I just don't know,” he said into the phone. “Yes, all right. I will.” He hung up the phone and set it back on the crate. “He really wants to talk with you.”

  She handed him her empty mug and lowered herself beneath the sheet. “And I just want to sleep.”

  Ben dragged her to the Dairy Queen for dinner that night. They sat at a sticky table, surrounded on all sides by Coolbrook's teenagers. Eden had been sullen and surly for much of the day, and now as she listened to the adolescent flirting and posturing from the other tables her irritation mounted.

  When Ben had finished eating and she still hadn't touched the crab cake sandwich on her Styrofoam plate, he said, “I want to tell you something. Please don't take this the wrong way. I'm not saying you shouldn't feel hurt or betrayed or angry. But I want you to recognize that you've lost nothing here. You still have Kyle and Lou. You can have as little or as much of them as you choose. You still have me, for whatever I'm worth. You've got your life and your career. And your daughter.”

  There were fine lines around his gray eyes, muscles in his jaw that tensed as he spoke. Her eyes filled as she thought of what he'd endured this last year, what he endured every day as he pictured his daughter hurting and unhappy, knowing he could do nothing to help her. “I'm sorry.” She squeezed his hand. “I am so sorry.”

  It was dusk when they pulled into the clearing in front of Ben's cabin, and she groaned when she saw Kyle's Jeep parked at the edge of the woods, Kyle himself sitting on Ben's front porch.

  “He's holding your next notebook,” Ben said.

  “I don't want to talk to him.”

  “Come on.” Ben walked around the truck and opened the door for her.

  Kyle stood as they neared the porch, and Ben steered Eden toward the bench. “You two have a seat out here,” he said. “I'll be inside.”

  Eden sat at the end of the bench, as far as she could get from Kyle. “I don't have anything to say to you,” she said.

  Kyle took his seat again. “I'm sorry, Eden. I never wanted you to be hurt by this.”

  She looked at him and could almost see him recoil under her glare. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

  Kyle sighed. “I don't know. Lou and I talked about it many times. I expected when we took you in that I would tell you…but it never seemed like the right time. And later…I kept putting it off. I always hoped that one day the moment would be right. Then when you called about the movie, needing to do the research and all, I knew this was it. I thought of keeping the journals from you, but I knew that wouldn't be fair. And that's not what your mother wanted.”

  Eden sat forward. “Did you ever stop to think that I should have had this information for the sake of my children? What if something had been wrong with Cassie? You let me take that kind of risk with your niece.”

  “My granddaughter.”

  “Don't call her that! She's nothing more than your grandniece as far as I'm concerned. Or your cousin twice removed or whatever the hell it would be.”

  Kyle looked down at his hands. “After you wrote that you got married, I went to see a genetic specialist in New York. I told him the whole story because I was worried about what it could mean for your children. He told me the probability of anything being wrong with your children was minuscule. He said the probability of anything being wrong with you had been minuscule as well. It's not much of a concern with first cousins.”

  “You should have told me.”

  “You're right and I'm sorry.” He stood up. “I brought the next notebook for you.”

  “The thought of reading any more of it makes me sick. I've decided I'm not going to make this film. I've been trying to write honestly and sympathetically about her life. If I'm honest now, I'll incriminate all of us.”

  “Well, I'll just leave it here for you, in case.” Kyle set the notebook on the bench, and for a moment Eden was held fast by his eyes, eyes that in their shape, their color, the hurt they contained, were identical to her own. “I've always been proud to be your father, Eden.” He stepped off the porch, and she watched him walk to his Jeep. There was the slightest limp in his gait, and it took him more than a few moments to get settled in behind the wheel. He had to start the Jeep twice before it turned over. She watched him make a tight turn in the clearing and pull out onto the road. And she felt a pang of worry, a feeling quick and hot that made her gasp, as if someone had squeezed her heart in his fist. Kyle was upset, it was growing dark, he was not as alert, as sharp as he'd once been. She knew what it was like driving down that steep, winding road to Lynch Hollow, the way gravity sucked at your car. It would be so easy for him to miss one of those hairpin turns, so easy for the Jeep to fly over the edge.

  She sat in the darkness, ignoring the mosquitoes, until thirty minutes had passed and she felt sure in her heart he ha
d made it home safely.

  –36–

  Eden took over the mornings in his cabin and that was fine with Ben. He'd wake to the sound of her in his kitchen, cutting fresh fruit, making coffee or, on one aromatic occasion, cinnamon rolls that came out doughy but delicious from his antiquated oven. He would set the pillow behind his back so he could sit up and watch her work. She'd be in her underwear, or sometimes in his. Her hair would be down, slipping over her shoulders and catching the sunlight from the little kitchen window, and on a couple of mornings, when the light hit her just right, he could see the blue of her eyes.

  They made love every night, a feat he'd no longer thought himself capable of. The first night or two it had been a tender, needy lovemaking that ended with Eden in tears. They grew more playful as the days passed. She bought a chocolate-colored teddy to tease him with and read him provocative passages from some of her favorite books, and he thought, with great satisfaction, about what Michael Carey had missed.

  There was no bickering between them. He was an easy person to live with, and she was surprisingly simple in her needs and demands. She seemed to have forgotten that she was an actress, a woman with a house on the ocean, with a face anyone would recognize on the street. She shopped for groceries, washed clothes by hand and hung them up to dry on the line he'd strung between two trees. She didn't complain about the minuscule bathroom or his lack of air-conditioning. She made tiny curtains for the dollhouse, little rag rugs. He'd watch her concentration, the slight squint in her eyes as she held the needle, the way she rested the tip of her tongue daintily between her lips. Everything about her charmed him, especially her contentment at living within his four close walls.

  She no longer worked on the screenplay, but she had not yet made the call to Nina. He didn't badger her; she had to work this out on her own. The notebook Kyle had left with her a week earlier sat unopened on the coffee table. Sometimes in the evenings he'd catch her staring at it. They'd be sitting on the sofa, reading or playing backgammon, and she'd look over at it. Just once, on a night when she was losing badly and her concentration was off, he said, “Why don't you read it?” and she shook her head quickly and returned to the game.

  Neither of them spoke about the fact that she was no longer working at the site. He tried to persuade her to see Kyle. He didn't like being caught between the two of them. Kyle called a few times, leaving messages for her that Michael or Nina had called, but she refused to speak to him and she never returned those calls to the West Coast.

  Kyle was coming to the digs again, more than he had at any other time that summer. The only awkward moment had been that first morning after Eden moved into the cabin. Kyle arrived at the side of the pit where Ben was working around nine in the morning. Ben could see the high color in Kyle's cheeks as he slowly lowered himself down the ladder.

  “Eden's not coming this morning?” Kyle asked. He looked around at the unimpressive pit walls rather than meet Ben's eyes, and Ben felt sorry for him. He wondered what he could say to put his old friend at ease.

  “No. She wanted to do some shopping. And she's not up to seeing you yet. Give her some time, Kyle.”

  “I was hoping she would understand somehow. I guess it's a hard thing to understand.” Kyle picked up the graph from the side of the pit. “So, what do we have here?”

  Ben showed him the pieces he'd found the day before and their location on the graph, but Kyle wasn't following him.

  “I shouldn't have told her,” he said finally.

  “You had to.”

  “She's so angry with me.”

  “Yeah, she is right now.” He said it as though Eden's anger would pass, but he wasn't so sure.

  Kyle looked over at him. “You angry with me too?”

  “I'm not trying to keep her from you, Kyle. I wish she would talk to you.”

  Kyle reached into his shirt pocket. “Here's a couple of tickets to Wolf Trap for Sunday night. Threepenny Opera. I don't think Lou and I will be in the mood, so why don't you and Eden go?”

  Ben closed his fingers around the tickets. He had a normal life. He could take a woman out, be around other people. Maybe by now things had blown over enough that he could start living again.

  Eden was oddly quiet that Sunday morning. She sat on the sofa, an unopened book in her lap, her eyes staring into space.

  Ben looked up from the dollhouse. “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

  She looked over at him. “I have to figure out what to do.” He leaned away from the table. “About?” He wasn't certain if she meant the screenplay or Kyle.

  “Cassie's coming in another week,” she said. “And I can't stay with you while she's here, which means I have to either go back to Kyle and Lou's or move into a hotel. But if I'm no longer working on the film, there's no real point to my being here at all. I should really pull myself together and go home. I need to find a new project to get involved in.”

  His heart contracted with such force that he thought it must show in his face. Her eyes were on him now, watching him.

  “Is that what you want?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want you,” she said. “I'm so happy when I'm with you, Ben. I want you on whatever terms I can have you.”

  He was glad he was sitting at the table and she was on the couch. He couldn't touch her, couldn't cloud his mind with the feel of her under his fingertips.

  “The price of being with me could be very high,” he said.

  “I don't care.”

  “I don't know where my next job will be. And I won't live off you.”

  “There must be something archaeological you can do in California. I have connections, Ben. I'm sure I could help you find something. But first we have to get you cleared on the molestation charge. My lawyer in—”

  “Wait a minute.” He put down the little scrap of wood he'd been working on. “Stop dreaming, Eden. You're not going to get me cleared. You've got to face that, okay? Because it has to be factored into your decision.”

  She dropped her eyes quickly and he saw her swallow hard. He pressed ahead, knowing he was pushing her now, testing her. “I know this doesn't make a whole lot of sense, since I can't see Bliss, but I don't like the idea of having the entire continent between her and me. And I'm afraid of L.A. I'm afraid of having strangers pop out of the woodwork to take my picture and plaster it all over creation.”

  She looked up at him. “Do you love me?” Her eyes were dry but he heard the threat of tears in her voice.

  “You know I do. Very much.”

  “Then Cassie and I will go wherever you can find another job. It doesn't matter where I live, really. I'll have to travel a bit to work on the Children's Fund and when I get around to making another movie. But I would try to keep traveling to a minimum.”

  He told her there was no need to make decisions yet, that he didn't think either of them was thinking clearly enough to do a good job of it. But she'd lit such hope in him. They had played house in such an insulated and idyllic fashion that for the first time in over a year he felt certain of a future.

  They talked about Cassie during the two-hour drive to Wolf Trap. The approaching visit of Eden's little girl made him anxious. He was afraid he would attach himself too strongly to her—he missed having a child in his life. On the other hand, he was afraid of feeling self-conscious around her. He was, after all, a convicted child molester.

  He had reached that gratifying point with Eden where he could say all of this out loud to her. None of his fears seemed too great for her to handle. She wanted him and Cassie to be great friends, she said. He didn't need to worry about touching her; she knew he was innocent. He needed to keep that in mind himself.

  The stage at Wolf Trap was set in the heart of an open-air theater. He and Eden had lawn tickets for the bowl of grass fanning out from the theater seats. They spread their blanket on the lawn, and Eden unpacked their picnic basket while Ben poured them each a glass of wi
ne.

  “Mommy, there's Ben!”

  He turned at the sound of a child's voice. A couple of blankets away, Alex and Leslie Parrish were taking food from their own picnic basket, and their daughter, Kim, was running toward him, black hair bouncing around her face. Kim. His goddaughter who had never received her birthday gift.

  He saw Alex and Leslie look up as Kim reached him and bent over for a hug. He hugged her stiffly. He knew his face was white.

  “Kimmie, come back here!” Leslie snapped.

  Kim looked at Eden, then back to Ben. “Where's Bliss?” she asked.

  “She's not with me. Kim, this is Eden. Kim's my goddaughter and an incredible soccer player. Best eight-year-old midfielder in Annapolis.”

  “I was goalie this year.” Kim grinned.

  “Yeah? How'd your team do?” He waved in Alex and Leslie's direction. They were talking to each other, probably trying to decide which of them should rescue Kim from him.

  Alex finally stood up and started walking in their direction. He looked heavier than the last time Ben had seen him. His dark hair was splattered with gray.

  “Hi, Alex,” Ben said when Alex had nearly reached their blanket.

  “Ben.” Alex reached out a hand to Kim. “Come on, Kimmie.”

  “Sit down a minute,” Ben said. “Eden, this is Alex Parrish. Alex, Eden Riley.”

  Eden smiled and lifted her hand to Alex, who shook it briefly. Ben could see the shock register in Alex's face at finding him here with Eden.

  “I can't sit down.” Alex looked over at Leslie. “I think Leslie wants to move the blanket—she wants to see if we can get a little closer.”

  And a little farther from me, Ben thought as he watched Alex and Kim walk away from him.

  Eden laid her hand on his back and set her chin on his shoulder. “He was your best friend?”

  “Yes.”

  “How can he treat you so coldly?”

  Ben shrugged. “He thinks I'm guilty.” He watched the Parrishes pick up their picnic basket and work their way through the crowd, stepping between blankets set close together on the lawn, finally settling down again a safe distance away from him.