Secret Lives (39 page)

Today is my 27th birthday. Daddy, Susanna,
Kyle and I ate angel food cake with raspberries after dinner, and
then Kyle said he wanted to take me for a drive. He said he needed
to talk to me and I knew right away what he had to say. Dr.
Latterly's at N.Y.U. now, and he has been after Kyle about going
back to school. He wants him to go into a doctoral program in New
York, and then later join him on an expedition to South America.
Dr. Latterly thinks Kyle has enormous potential (so do I) and he
wants to see him use it some place other than Lynch Hollow. Up 'til
now, Kyle and I have just discussed the facts of the offer, the
where, when and how. But we both know that if he accepts this
route, he will be leaving Lynch Hollow for good.

So tonight we drove out to Coolbrook Park.
We got out of the car because it was so hot and sat on the bank of
the river. Kyle told me how badly he wants to go back to school. He
apologized for feeling that way and I told him there was no need to
apologize, that I thought he would be foolish to turn down this
offer and I don't plan to give him anything other than
encouragement. But as I said all this to him, like it wouldn't make
a bit of difference to me if he was in Lynch Hollow or New York
City, a numbness filled my heart.

“
I'll miss it here,” Kyle said. “This is
the best place in the world, as far as I'm concerned, but I can't
limit myself this way."

I started for the car. “Let's go tell Matt
you've decided,” I said, wanting to get away from Kyle. I won't cry
about this in front of him. I am 27 years old! I've published 17
books, for pity's sake. I can stand on my own two feet.

September 5, 1954

Kyle is gone. Matt picked him up just an
hour ago to drive him to the train. I couldn't go with them and I
know Kyle didn't want me to. He didn't even touch me before he
left, though he hugged Susanna and patted Daddy's shoulder. Then he
said, “Bye, Kate,” and got in the car. I couldn't get to the cave
quickly enough to let out my tears.

Oh, Kyle.

Last night he came to the cavern while I was
sorting papers on my mattress, nearly done for the night. He
carefully piled up my papers, moved them to the table and sat down
next to me on the mattress. He looked troubled and I asked him what
was wrong.

“
I hate leaving you,” he said.

“
I'll be fine.”

“
Maybe,” he said. “But I'm not so sure
that I'll be fine without you.”

That surprised me. “You've never needed me,”
I said.

He shook his head. “You're so wrong, Kate.”
He leaned back on his hands and looked up at the ceiling of the
great room high above us. “God, I wish things were different,” he
said.

“
What things?” I asked. He was confusing
me, though I think I understand now what he meant.

“
A lot of things,” he said. Then he
looked at me. “There's so much about you I admire, but I worry
about what you're missing in life.”

“
You mean a man,” I said.

“
Well, yes, partly. I mean closeness to
other people. You keep yourself so isolated.”

“
There's Matt,” I said.

“
Yes,” he said. “There's Matt. And you've
overlooked him for so long, as though you think someone better will
come along.” He took my hand and held it on his knee. “I know
Matt's not your idea of the perfect man for you, but nobody else is
going to suddenly appear one day at the entrance to your
cave."

“
I'm not looking for anyone.”

“
But you want children, Kate. I know you do. Marry Matt.
Even if he's not perfect for you, he can give you
children.”

I was startled by how desperate he sounded,
but I laughed and told him I couldn't marry Matt because he would
expect me to raise his children in a house, not a cave. I was
trying to joke because Kyle was so horribly serious, but he didn't
even smile. Instead, he started to cry, sending a terrible shiver
through my body. I hugged him and he said, “Kate, I worry so much
about you. I worry you'll end up like Mama.”

I pulled away from him quickly. “Don't say
that!” I said. “Don't ever say that.”

His cheeks were wet and I tried to dry his
tears with my fingertips, then with my lips. I was not thinking. I
swear it was only instinct that made me try to kiss away the
sadness in his face. I kissed his cheeks, his eyes, all the while
aware of a powerful longing growing in my body while he sat
perfectly still, barely breathing. His eyes were wide open,
watching me. I knelt in front of him and pulled his head to my
breasts as I kissed his hair and his forehead, and I could feel
heat coming from him, pouring from him. I knew what he wanted even
if he didn't know it himself.

He grabbed my hands. “Don't,” he said,
leaning away from me, but I bent my head low and kissed his neck,
his jaw, his ear. “Kate!” he said. “Stop it.”

I tried to stop then, to push myself away
from him, but I just couldn't. Even so, I swear it was Kyle who set
his mouth on mine first, whose tongue first played with mine. He
pressed me back against the mattress, stealing my breath with his
kisses. He kissed me furiously, like he was angry with me, but then
his lips grew soft and tender against my mouth. After a while he
sat back on his knees and I was afraid that he would stand up and
walk out on me, but I could see by the look on his face that he had
come to a decision, that he was determined to finish what he'd
started, and I relaxed.

He began undressing me, very, very slowly,
undoing the buttons of my shirt as though they might break if he
hurried. He pulled my dungarees and drawers from my legs and then I
sat up to take off my brassiere. My hair had fallen over my chest
and he lifted it slowly while he lowered his head to my breast. He
circled my nipple with his tongue before drawing it into his mouth.
I think I said his name then, crying it out, but I'm not sure,
because I lost every scrap of reasoning right then. Truly, to that
point I felt as though I was in charge of what was happening, but
suddenly everything changed and I was in his hands completely.

He laid me back on the mattress again. He
was not shy about looking at me and I loved watching his face in
the flickery yellow lantern light as his eyes moved over my
body.

“
You are the most beautiful woman I've
ever seen, Kate.” His voice was thick and his face so full of love
and need that I started to weep. I knew right then that he was the
only man I've ever wanted, that the only reason I'd been interested
in Seth Gallagher was because he reminded me of Kyle. I was
breathing deep and hard, and I gave a silent prayer of thanks that
I'd never done this with Seth or Matt or anyone else, that I was a
virgin, 27 years old, and that Kyle would be my first
lover.

He let me undress him then, his hands
touching me softly all the while. He had to help me with the
buttons and the zipper because I was shaking so hard. I'd never
seen a full-grown man in the flesh before, never seen a man's
penis, and I was almost afraid to see Kyle's, but I needn't have
been. It was as tempting as the rest of him. It felt like steel
against my palm, satin beneath my lips.

He was a gentle lover, though I had guessed
as much. I thought of the anatomy lesson I'd given him long ago,
when we were teenagers. He has learned so much since then and I
have learned next to nothing. He kissed the place I'd told him to
touch so long ago and I loved that he would do that, bury himself
that way in my most secret parts. His tongue was gentle but hot as
flame, and the cavern echoed with my cries. He asked me if it hurt
when he came into me. It didn't, but I wouldn't have cared if it
did. I just wanted to hold him against me, inside me. I wanted to
keep him there forever.

I will not marry Matt. I'll never let a man
other than Kyle in this place he warmed. Never.

Kyle fell asleep quickly. I had a blanket in
the chest and as I laid it over him I saw the long dark scars
across his buttocks and the back of his thighs from the whippings.
He will carry those scars forever, and I felt something I thought
I'd stopped feeling a long time ago: a hatred for Mama. I covered
Kyle quickly and lay down next to him to hold him in my arms. “I am
not like Mama, Kyle,” I whispered. “I will never be like Mama.”

I lay awake for much of the night, imagining
going with him today. I thought I would be able to leave Lynch
Hollow as long as I was with him. When we met people who didn't
know us, we could tell them we were husband and wife. Or we could
actually get married. For the first time ever, I was glad we were
only cousins. Marriage is legal between cousins in Virginia,
although I understand that's not so everywhere. We could hold each
other like this night after night. My heart felt so warm and full
at that thought. As Kyle slept, I assumed he could not imagine
being apart from me any more than I could imagine being apart from
him.

I planned to wake him early this morning and
tell him I would go with him. I must have dozed off, and when I
woke up it was still dark outside and he was already up and pulling
his clothes on.

“
Don't go yet,” I said.

“
Kate, I'm sorry. That was insane. It was
a terrible thing to do.” He began buttoning his shirt. He was cold.
In the light from the lantern I could see that he was shaking all
over.

I sat up. “I want to go with you,” I said.
“I've got to be with you.”

“
No, you don't. What you do have to do is
put this out of your mind. And cover yourself up.”

I had let the blanket slip to my waist, on
purpose, I suppose. I wanted to see that look come into his face
again, that look of love and longing, but I guess now I'll never
see it again. I pulled the blanket around my shoulders. “We can get
married,” I said. “It's legal for cousins in Virginia.”

He bent down to tie his shoe. “You've never
called me your cousin in your life,” he said.

I stood up then, holding the blanket to me.
I tried to reach for him, but he brushed me aside.

“
This never happened, Kate, do you
understand?” And then he left, disappearing into the blackness
outside my cave.

I am so angry with him, not for last night,
but for this morning. I cannot believe his coldness to me as he
left, the way he wouldn't look at me. I will never again be able to
touch myself without imagining my hands are his. I will never again
be able to lie on my mattress in the cave without hearing him
whisper, “I love you, Kate,” like he did when he was inside me.
I'll never be able to get his words from my head: “You'll end up
like Mama.”

Eden turned the notebook facedown on her
knees. Outside her bedroom window the air was black and still. She
could hear no sound other than the dull thumping of her heartbeat.
She remembered Kyle's words: “Your father was Kate's first and only
lover.” She raised her hands and counted on her fingers. October,
November, December, January, February, March, April, May, June. Her
hands trembled as she lifted the notebook and turned to the next
page.

November 2, 1954

I am pregnant. There it is in writing. It
was no shock to me when I missed my period. I knew within days of
Kyle's departure that a new life had found its home in my body.

I have written eight letters to Kyle and
received just three in return. His letters are cool, as though I am
an acquaintance. He writes of the weather, his apartment, his
classes. I read between the lines and see guilt, which I
understand, and regret, which I loathe. He's learning so much, he
says. He and Latterly are planning to go to South America in June.
And he's met a woman who lives in the Greenwich Village area of New
York. Her name is Louise and “She's an artist—very special and
different from the rest.” Does he know how those words hurt me?
Would he still write them if he knew? For the first time in my
life, I am unsure of Kyle's love. It's difficult for me to regret
that night in the cavern but if it has cost me his love I will rue
it 'til I die.

I am afraid to tell him about the baby
because he will say I must get rid of it. He'll say it could be
sickly or slow, like Ellie Miller, from us being so closely
related. But I can just feel that this baby is all right. I think
of little Ellie, who is seven years old now. She has a slow,
shuffling walk, a constant smile because she is unable to learn
that, for some, life bears more pain than joy. She has those little
hands where her arms ought to be. The truth is, I would love this
baby even if it came out with two heads and five feet. It would
still be my baby. Mine and Kyle's.

I know I can't keep being pregnant from him,
but I can't write about it in a letter. I will have to go to New
York, although the thought overwhelms me. I can't go for a while
yet, anyway. I've heard you're not supposed to travel by train in
the first three months, and I'm not about to take any chances with
my baby.

January 4, 1955

Maybe my mistake was not telling Kyle I was
coming. He was unprepared to see me and that's why he acted as he
did. Or am I fooling myself?

I got sick on the train. I always thought
pregnant women got sick in the first few months. The early months
of my pregnancy were glorious, but in the last week or so I've felt
woozy much of the time.

New York was too much for me. I started
feeling faint and having trouble breathing the moment I stepped out
of the train station. I managed to get a cab and gave the driver
Kyle's address. “That's in the Village,” the driver said. “Your
brother an artist or musician or something?”

I didn't understand what one thing had to do
with the other. He started commenting on my accent and was being
friendly, but I felt too sick to talk to him much.