The Last Secret (32 page)

Years of cigarette smoke
have stained the ceiling a dusky yellow. The flat brown carpet smells of dust and mold, the mattress sour with stale pee. He usually sleeps with the window cracked open. But for the last couple of nights the heat's been off Charlie's been in twice to check the thermostat. He can't fix it and his electrician is out of town, he says with a shrug. Then call another one, Eddie says.

“Easier said than done,” Charlie tells him, peering out from his little pig eyes. “I'm just the manager. I gotta use who they say.”

“What about the baseboard, the unit?” Eddie suggests.

Grunting, Charlie kneels down and pries off the cover. In a motion, Eddie slips a screwdriver and pliers from Charlie's tool bucket.

“Nothing here,” Charlie says, grunting even more as he gets up.

Eddie's no fool. They're trying to freeze him out. And it's Tiff, the girlfriend, Charlie's, the snaggle-toothed beast who cleans. She goes through his stuff, so Eddie won't let her in, and she hates him.

Later that night, as soon as the manager's unit goes dark, he puts on a heavy jacket. Leaves the TV on, volume low, lights on. Shuts the bathroom door, just in case, then slips out, locking the door after him. He drives north, two states up, into Maine. Kittery little town on the coast. Never been here before, but he likes the narrow, winding streets and old houses, mostly small cottages. He's looking for a car that doesn't appear to get much use. Little noticed. He keeps driving, farther north. Motels and fish shacks. Souvenir shops. Strip malls. And then he spots it, there, next to a sagging red barn, parked close in, on the side, to keep it out of the way of the other old cars in the narrow dirt driveway. Two windowless sheds connect the barn to a small white house. The house is in darkness. He parks down the road, walks back, tools in hand. The first screw spins right off The second one is rust-frozen so he tries twisting the license plate against it. Suddenly, a light glares from behind and he hits the ground. An old pickup rattles into the driveway. The motor dies, lights next, though no one gets out. He sees the long flare of a cigarette tip over the wheel. The door creaks open and a man slides out. He drops the butt, grinds it under his boot toe. He closes the truck door slowly, then creeps into the house. No lights go on inside. Eddie waits. Then he reaches up, twisting and
pulling on the plate until it finally rips free, but the jagged metal corner slices deeply between his thumb and forefinger. Doesn't hurt, though. The sting of cold air at his torn flesh feels good, tells him he's alive, as he runs back to the car with his new plate. Action. Eddie at his best.

his is so
nice,” Nora says as she pours her second cup of coffee. Ken has assigned someone, Bibbi's daughter, actually, to work on the
Medical
supplement. Jessica Bond is a pleasant enough young woman but easily bewildered. Nora knows she should get into the office early, but it's a rare weekday morning that finds her family together at breakfast. Some peace has been restored, however strained. Drew has apologized for the other night, though he and his father are still barely speaking. By the time she returned from her meeting, Drew was back home. Ken had found him alone at a back table in Starbucks. Nursing a glass of water because he didn't have any money on him: naturally, Ken added with withering scorn. More and more lately, she is alarmed by his harshness toward Drew and their constant tension, as if Ken is the wounded party, as if Drew has somehow harmed him.

Chloe's phone is ringing in her pocket. She checks the number, then runs from the kitchen, grinning.

“Since when do we take calls at the table?” Ken asks, folding the business section next to his cereal bowl. In the past this would have been Nora's censorious line, played to Ken's no-big-deal shrug.

“She didn't. She left,” Drew says, jaw clenched, waiting.

Ken ignores him, continues reading. He looks drawn, almost despondent, the way he's been for days. It's the paper, he assures her, particularly his cousin, undermining his authority. On Monday, Stephen called a board meeting without bothering to tell him. She'd never seen Ken so angry or so humiliated. The emotional storms of these last few
weeks are finally taking their toll. Strange, though, how those years of his affair still seem their happiest as a family. A kind of mania, really, living as they did in an almost constant state of gusto, exuberance, the house filled with friends, laughter, especially Ken's. Her third child, she often joked. And yet, with his life so tenuously balanced, how could he have been, or even seemed, so carefree, so guiltless? Because he had everything. He did, didn't he? As long as no one pierced the bubble, the illusion of happiness was more than enough.

“Finish up, Drew. You don't want to be late,” she says, uneasy with his brooding.

“I'm not the driver. Tell her,” he says, nodding toward the other room.

“Her?”
Ken snaps. “You mean Chloe?”

Drew's snarl is lost as Chloe rushes in to the table, sobbing. Joe Turcotte is dead, she cries. Killed in Iraq, and he's only nineteen. Max just told her. That's terrible, Nora says, unable to place the name. Chloe is devastated. She's not sure, she says when her father asks where he's from. Leesboro, she thinks, but he and Max were friends from camp. They bunked in the same cabin every summer until they were fourteen.

“And now he's dead. Just like that. I can't believe it,” she gasps.

“You didn't even know him,” Drew mumbles into his coffee.

“That's not the point. That's
so
not the point,” Chloe says.

“Such a waste,” Ken says with such disgust that for a moment Nora thinks he means Drew.

“Nineteen!” Chloe cries. “He's just two years older than me. I don't get it. Why're we doing this? Why?” she demands as if they know but won't tell her.

“I know, hon.” Nora kisses the top of her daughter's head. “It's hard. Especially now when it all seems so pointless.”

“Well, maybe all we can do is hope some good comes out of it,” Ken says with a long sigh.

“Good!” Chloe cries. “What kind of good's gonna come out of that, a kid dying?”

“That's not what I meant. Obviously.” Ken gets up and hugs Chloe.
She stiffens back and Nora remembers how in the middle of the night only Ken could soothe his little girl.

“So what
do
you mean? What kinda good?” Drew is staring at his father.

“There aren't any easy answers, Drew. Maybe we should leave it at that,” Ken says.

“Why?” Drew asks with a hint of a smile. “Because that's what the paper wants?”

Ken sighs, regards him for a moment. “The war in Iraq's—”

“No!” Drew protests so venomously that they all shrink back. “It's not a war. It's a lie, just one more lie no one wants to admit.”

The silence in the kitchen is thick, suffocating.

When Nora gets
to work, she sits in the warm car, listening to the radio. Another helicopter crash near Fallujah, more dead, wounded, maimed, like the rest, nameless for her until Joe Turcotte, a boy asleep on a bunk in a summer cabin, on the fringes of her once-perfect life, hermetically sealed, viewed through glass, as she stares out at the parking lot, alone with her well-guarded secret, its gathering force fed by lies. And, of these, most insidious, all the lies allowed in submission to the greater good. Holding on to her mother. Keeping her marriage together.

After the children left for school she asked Ken to stay, please, just a little while so they could talk, but he couldn't. He had an eight thirty conference call. She's made up her mind. They all have to go to counseling. The family is sinking, fracturing, breaking into pieces. She turns off the radio. Just getting out of the car is an effort. And this briefcase, heavy at her side, why does she carry it? So important, every day, back and forth. As proof she matters? But to whom? For what? And in the end, who cares? Special supplements, filler no one reads, but Oliver insisted. Busywork Why? Give her something to do? Make her feel important, useful in her meaningless life? No. Not true, not as long as she has her children. And Joe Turcotte—his mother, what's left for her now? She swallows against the lump in her throat.

“Hey!” someone shouts, and she turns with a gasp to see Eddie Hawkins, a strip of soiled gauze dangling from his hand. Scabby shaving nicks dot his chin.

“I gotta ask you something.” Agitated, he shifts from foot to foot. “Robin Gendron, she and I, we … we're friends, you know. Good friends. Really good. Then all of a sudden, I don't know … it's, like, whoom!”

She cringes from the sudden slice of his bandaged hand by her face.

“Like, somebody said something, you know what I mean?”

“No. I don't know what you're talking about.” Determined not to show fear, she stares at him. He's panting.

“You said something. About me. You told her, right?”

“Of course not.”

“Don't mess with me, okay? There's too much … I got too much … I'm not gonna put up with it. With this shit, you got that?”

“What do you want? I don't understand. Why're you still here?”

His explosive laughter is like wild gunfire going off all around her. “I'll tell you what I fucking want. I want you and your fag husband to mind your own goddamn business, that's what the fuck I want.” He jabs her shoulder. “Robin and me, we don't need this … this shit, get what I'm saying? You keep away from her, the two of you. You got that?”

His face is twisted with hatred. There's no reasoning with him. She never should have given him anything. She should have told Ken from the start, instead of thinking money would take care of it.

“I'm not putting up with it! No more! That's it!”

She hugs her briefcase and watches him lurch through the rows, muttering, his hand over the cars' roofs stabbing the air.

“Oh my God, oh my God,” she whispers.

Nora!” Father Grewley calls
with delight, bounding down the stairs. “Funny, I was just thinking of you. Did you get Alice's thank-you note?”

“I did, yes. It was lovely.” Last week Father Grewley called and
asked her to go to court with Alice for a restraining order against her husband. He said he had offered, but Alice really wanted Nora there with her. Horrified by the prospect, the visibility, the involvement, no, she couldn't: work, she said, the children, just a crazy week. But if there was anything else, anything she could do, please let her know. Oh. Well, yes. Of course. Her own apartment, that made sense. The poor thing. She'd be only too glad to pay the security deposit, first and last month's rent. Which, knowing Father Grewley was probably the real reason for his call.

“I'll go get her, she's upstairs. She'll be thrilled to see you.”

“No!” she says too quickly. “I wish I could, but I'm … on my way to work.”

“Well, just so you know, you and your husband, what you're doing for Alice, it's more than kind, more than generous, it's amazing. Absolutely unbelievable. She's a new person. Totally energized. She's going to look at one more apartment before she decides. She said she doesn't want you paying too much. And!” He clasps his hands at his chin. “We may even have a job for her. Part time. Office work. At one of Chris Arrellio's car washes.”

Nora squirms. She's often seen him do this. Like klieg lights on a pebble, his profuse gratitude so far exceeds the giving, it somehow manages to diminish its worth. It's his very effective way of stroking donors' egos while making them eager, hungry to do more.

He is wearing jeans and a plaid shirt. He's been moving some donated furniture into the back wing of the House. An additional family room for the guests. Her idea, he reminds her: not true, though, just his net cast wider.

She apologizes for not calling first, but she needs to talk to him. He's pretty sure he knows why, he says, but not to worry, it's been taken care of Letitia Crane is leaving the board.

“Just not the right fit, that's all I said, and amazingly enough, she agreed!” He pats his chest, rolls his eyes with relief.

A half hour later, she is still talking. Rather than have the desk between them, he has pulled his chair next to hers. Everything spills out:
the shock of Ken's affair and its fallout on her fragile family, still together, though the pressure is building, especially now with the intrusion of Eddie Hawkins into the mess her life has become, and the fear she feels, this anxiety, this nightmarish paralysis, knowing something bad is going to happen if she doesn't make the right decisions, but not having a clue what to do, because there's nothing she can do, nothing she can change. It was all so long ago it doesn't even seem real sometimes, which is the dichotomy she's been living, two separate planes, the everyday, physical reality of her family's needs and this looming blackness of the past. She didn't do anything that night in the desert, she couldn't have hurt that man, and yet something did happen, something terrible, she's always known that. Even with her uncertainty about the man's injuries, the priest merely nods. She was so young, his only comment. If he's the least bit shocked he hides it well. He can't afford to be too candid. After all, the Hammond name is valuable to him. She goes to the edge, draws back, can't say the word
murder
, can't admit buying a scumbag's silence. She describes the dreams, waking up in a cold sweat, seeing that battered face, and that's when it's most real, the feel, the smell, the sounds, but all she can do is run. Just keep running. Still. It's all she does, she says quietly.