Secret Lives (46 page)

But that night she lay in bed feeling renewed
sympathy for her mother. Kate had loved a man as deeply as a woman
could. She'd had him just once, and then suffered the pain of
knowing she could never have him again.

The following day Kyle suggested they visit
the caverns in Luray. She had been intending to go to the caverns
since the day she arrived, but as she got Cassie ready for the
forty-minute drive she felt apprehensive and knew why she'd been
putting off the trip. She had not been in a cave since the day of
her mother's death. No matter how lightly she had spoken of the
cavern while working on the screenplay, she could not deny her
uneasiness at the thought of stepping inside a limestone cave.

Lou said she wanted to stay home to paint,
but as Eden climbed down the never-ending steps into the caverns
she knew that Lou had not mentioned the real reason for not coming
along: the caverns were not equipped for a wheelchair.

Once down in the bowels of the cavern,
surrounded on all sides by curtains of stalactites and the cool,
damp air, Eden felt trapped. The air seemed thin; she found herself
breathing faster to pull in more oxygen. Her heart pounded against
her ribs. Their guide was giving them his well-rehearsed talk about
the cauliflower-shaped quartz deposits, the one hundred and twenty
years it took for an inch of calcite to form on the stalactites,
the blind albino shrimp that lived in the quiet pools of the
caverns. How long had he said this tour would last? She craned her
neck to see the way out of this massive cave.

“I can't see, Mommy,” Cassie whined from
somewhere in the region of Eden's hipbone.

“Come here, Cass.” Ben bent down and picked
Cassie up. He lifted her neatly onto his shoulders and she wrapped
her hands around his forehead to hang on.

They moved into the next cave, Eden forcing
one foot in front of the next. Though the air was cool, she felt
perspiration dampen the hair at her temples.

“Isn't that amazing?” Ben said in her ear,
and she realized she had heard nothing the guide had said. Then she
felt Kyle's hand on her back.

“Are you all right, honey?” he asked.

“A little dizzy.”

“Can you make it through the tour?”

She looked at Kyle's concerned blue eyes,
looked away. “I'm not sure.”

“Stay here.” Kyle walked through the group of
people to the guide and waited until his spiel in this cave was
over. Eden saw him whisper something to the young man, saw the
guide nod and speak into the walkie-talkie in his hand. Then Kyle
spoke with Ben, who looked over at her briefly and nodded. Cassie
leaned her chest against Ben's head, cupped her little fingers over
his chin like the strap of a helmet.

Eden felt embarrassed as Kyle walked back to
her.

“He's calling for another guide to come take
you out. I'll go with you, and Ben and Cassie can go on with the
tour.”

The rest of the tour group disappeared into
the next cavern. Eden watched Ben duck to avoid hitting Cassie's
head in the low-ceilinged passageway before they were swallowed up
by the earth. Then she was alone with Kyle, standing in a circle of
stalactites that made her think of bat's teeth.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I just felt weak all
of a sudden.”

Kyle sat down on a rocky ledge. “I know what
you mean,” he said. “I felt the same way the first time I went into
a cave after I sealed up the one at Lynch Hollow. It was years
later, but the memories all came back.” He took his camera case
from his shoulder and set it next to him on the ledge. “The last
time you and I were in that cave was pretty unpleasant. You were so
little—just Cassie's age. I guess you don't remember much. The
river was—”

“Kyle, don't, please. I don't want to talk
about it.” She thought she might get sick. She gripped the peak of
the stalagmite next to her and let go of it quickly, recoiling from
the cold, smooth, familiar feel of it. She remembered nothing of
that last time in the cave. But afterward—she could see this very
clearly—afterward the insides of Kyle's arms were scratched and
raw. She remembered sitting next to him at the dinner table with
her grandfather and some neighbors on a night when everyone was
still and sad. She'd stared at Kyle's arms as he reached for
something on the table, the cabbage or the sweet potato biscuits.
She could see the pattern of those cuts, the long, jagged streaks
of dried blood on the tanned skin of his arms. He'd seemed so old
to her then. Actually, he'd been younger than she was now.

“A fellow called me last night,” Kyle said.
“From Hollywood. Said he'd heard you decided not to make the film
about Kate, so he wants to do it. He asked if I'd be willing to
talk with him.”

“What?” Eden forgot her nausea. “Who was
it?”

“William Crisper, Crispin, something like
that.”

Bill Crispin. “He does glitzy stuff, Kyle. He
can sensationalize a day in the life of a carnation. Please don't
talk to him.”

“I don't intend to, although he was willing
to pay me plenty to act as a consultant. Enough to save the site
and then some. He said there'd be others interested in doing the
film now that you've pulled out and he'd beat any other offer I
got, but I told him the only person I'd help was you.”

“Hellooo!” A smiling young woman suddenly
appeared at the cave entrance and motioned them to follow her.
“This happens all the time,” she said, patting Eden's shoulder.
“Don't give it a thought.”

As they started out of the cave the guide
suddenly gasped and stood back to take a good look at Eden. “Good
Lord. You're Eden Riley.”

Eden donned a smile. “Can we keep that just
between us, please?” She could see the headline now: EDEN RILEY
COLLAPSES IN CAVERN.

“Of course we can.” The young woman led Eden
and Kyle back up the stairs and outside into the hot August air.
She took Eden's elbow and pointed her toward a bench. “You're all
right now. Just have a seat and get your wind back.”

“Thank you.” Eden sat down next to Kyle as
the guide walked back to the caverns.

“Ironic, isn't it?” Kyle said. “That a cave
was the only place your mother felt comfortable?”

“Mmm.” Eden's legs still felt rubbery, and
she thought once again about Bill Crispin. It was unthinkable that
he'd write the screenplay for a film on Katherine Swift. He'd turn
out a piece of trash. Anyone besides herself who made that film
would do it wrong. They'd distort Katherine Swift as she'd been
distorted in the past. But at least they would never be able to
learn what Eden had learned. Her heartbeat quickened. They
couldn't, could they?

She looked at Kyle. “Who knows that you're
my…not my uncle?”

“Just the four of us. You, me, Lou, and Ben.
That genetic specialist I spoke with in New York died a year or so
ago.”

“So there's no way anyone could possibly
learn the truth, right?”

Kyle sighed, and when he spoke she heard a
tinge of sarcasm in his voice. “No, Eden. There's no way. Your
reputation is safe.”

The doors of the cavern exit opened and their
tour group emerged. Eden felt cool air brush past her face and
arms. Ben stepped out of the door holding Cassie's hand. Cassie was
speaking to him in her usual animated style, and he leaned down to
listen to her.

“Ben and Cassie seem to be getting along
fine,” Kyle said.

“I think she keeps him from missing Bliss so
much.”

“Well, I doubt that.” Kyle lifted his camera
case and slung it over his shoulder as he stood up. “It doesn't
matter who you're with or what you're doing, you always miss your
own child. Even when she's sitting right next to you.”

–
40–

King's Dominion amusement park had been too
much for Cassie, and Ben was certain it was his fault. He'd worn
her out. Eden had let him, of course. Not once did she say, “She's
had enough, Ben.” Eden seemed to know he needed this day to make up
for the childless existence of the past year. But now both he and
Eden would pay for their indulgence.

Cassie whined for the entire first hour of
the drive back to the Valley—something he had not seen her do
before. She'd finally reduced it to a whimper, and now she was
slumped over her seat belt, sound asleep in the backseat of Eden's
car.

Eden unfastened her own seat belt and got to
her knees to reach into the backseat. “Can I use your sweatshirt to
make a pillow for her?” she asked.

“Sure.” Eden was wearing shorts, and he took
his hand from the steering wheel to run his fingers up the inside
of her thigh. Her body quivered perceptibly beneath his hand. “I'd
forgotten how good you feel,” he said.

“I hate this.” She sat down again. “I'm going
to get a house of my own in Coolbrook even if I have to pay for the
entire year.”

He knew having a place of her own where they
could more easily be together was only one of her reasons for
wanting to leave Lynch Hollow. She was anxious to get away from
Kyle and Lou, whom she was treating with a distance they didn't
deserve.

She took his hand and held it on her thigh.
“Have I told you today that I love you?” she asked.

“Not in words,” he said. “But I could tell.”
He'd caught her eyes on him a few times that day, watching him
through the sunglasses she'd worn to keep from being recognized.
Every time he found her looking at him, there was a smile on her
face. Approving. Accepting. She'd bought him a sweatshirt, taken a
dozen pictures of him, locked her fingers in his as they walked. He
knew very well that she loved him.

They stopped at the small supermarket on the
edge of Coolbrook to pick up something for dinner. They had to wake
Cassie from a deep sleep to take her into the store with them, and
she was pouty and mean. They bought lettuce, a loaf of Italian
bread, spaghetti sauce. Cassie dragged her feet after them,
wailing, “I want Reese's Pieces, Mom. I want Magic Middles.”

She stood between them in the checkout line,
slumping dramatically against the counter. “Mom, I need them.
Please may I have Reese's Pieces? Please, please, please?”

“You've had more than your share of junk
today, Cassie,” Eden said.

Ben pulled a ten out of his wallet, but Eden
shook her head as she reached into her purse. He put his money away
quietly, gratefully. She started to take a bill from her wallet,
but her hand froze. He followed her eyes to the rack of tabloids
above the counter and saw immediately what had caught her eye.
There was a huge picture of Eden and Michael Carey, a wide black
slash drawn between them, separating them. The headline proclaimed
simply, unequivocally: EDEN DUMPS MICHAEL FOR CONVICTED SEX
OFFENDER.

He touched Eden's arm and felt the stiffness
in her body as she lifted the paper off the rack and set it upside
down on the counter with their groceries. Then she slipped her
sunglasses from her purse and put them on, although she was inside
and it was nearly seven o'clock in the evening.

“Mom, I need them.” Cassie's eyes were on the
candy display next to them.

Eden spun around. “Cassie, I said no, damn
it!”

It was the first time he'd heard her speak to
Cassie in anything other than a loving tone. But his surprise was
nothing compared to Cassie's, who shut up quickly and whose eyes
filled from exhaustion and the sting of her mother's words. He set
his hand on her little shoulder and squeezed.

Once in the car, Cassie began to cry. It was
a whining cry, grating in its insistence as it filled the ominous
silence between him and Eden. The tabloid rested on Eden's thighs.
The picture—Eden in a clingy, low-cut dress and Michael in a white
tuxedo—was barely visible in the dim light, and she wasn't looking
at it. She stared out the window at the darkening cornfields as he
drove.

“I want Reese's,” Cassie crabbed, and then
with a manipulative little catch to her voice, “I want my
daddy.”

“Cassie,” Ben said, “would you please stop
whining?”

Eden snapped her head toward him. “Don't yell
at her!”

He felt as if she'd slapped him. He tightened
his hands on the steering wheel and kept his eyes on the winding
road.

He pulled into the clearing in front of his
cabin and turned off the ignition. For a moment the three of them
sat in the dark car, listening to the rise and fall of the cicadas'
song, unable to summon the energy to unfasten a seat belt or open a
door.

After a few minutes Eden looked over at him.
“I'm sorry I yelled at you.”

He tried to see her face, but it was too
dark. “You knew this had to happen at some point,” he said.

“No,” she said quietly, reaching for the
clasp of her seat belt. “I guess I didn't.”

Inside the cabin he melted butter and chopped
garlic for the bread while Eden made up the couch for Cassie, who
was too wiped out to protest any longer. She climbed between the
sheets and was asleep by the time Eden sat down at the table and
opened the newspaper. He was annoyed at himself for the guilt he
felt. He had kept nothing from her. He hadn't betrayed her, but her
silence felt like an accusation.

He tore a head of iceberg lettuce apart and
began slicing a tomato. Eden glanced over at Cassie before reading
him the lead-in to the article.

“Head of Handicapped Children's Fund takes
child molester as her lover.”

He snapped the knife through the tomato and
seeds flew, landing on the wall, on his shirt.

“Do they refer to me by name?” he asked.

“Yes. Someone really did his homework.” She
read a bit of the article to herself, then made a sound of disgust.
“Sue Shepherd,” she read, “president of the Handicapped Children's
Fund, which was founded by Ms. Riley, said, 'If it's true, we
certainly would no longer want her representing our organization.'”
Eden's face was white, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she
continued reading out loud. “A close friend stated, 'It's hard to
believe Eden would get herself mixed up with someone like that, but
her divorce left her pretty messed up, so who can say? They'll ban
her children's films, no doubt about it. I can't believe she'd put
her career in that sort of jeopardy.'