The Last Secret (12 page)

“Where's Drew?” she screamed.

“He was just with us!” Chloe shouted, looking back in fear.

As Nora ran in, sand was being sucked out from under her feet. When she was chest deep, she saw the flail of white sticks, his skinny arms, fighting the wind-driven waves, struggling to get back in. He was eleven. Only eleven, she remembers thinking, a speck in the vast-ness, the deafening, watery tumult. Never a strong swimmer, she dove against the wave, pulling herself as best she could toward him, getting closer, fighting the current. He was trying, but she could see the terror on his face as the riptide carried him away. Her arms beat against the surge. Faster. Legs kicking. Trying to scream his name, only swallowing more water, then, feeling herself being borne away. Her chest ached, she was tired. Salt stung her eyes. Something snagged her neck, the loop of an arm, and she fought back, thrashing to push free of whatever was dragging her away from her child.

“It's all right! They've got him! They're bringing him in!” Robin screamed against her cheek. “Stay with me!”

“No!” Nora tried again to pull away. Robin wasn't taking them back in, but out, even farther from the beach.

“Don't fight me. I'll get us in,” Robin gasped, pleading. “Trust me!”

And she did. On her back, with her face against Robin's slick, wet flesh, she let herself be dragged with the clawing tide until they were no longer swimming against it, but free enough of the current to float in on the incoming tide. Hands reached out, people entreating them to stand, as they sat in the shallow waves and coursing sand, panting and sobbing in each other's embrace.

Another memory to be retrofitted. Held up to the light. Dissected. Four years ago. Had the affair begun? And if so, why did Robin save her?

Even as she turns onto Dellmere Drive she is warning herself not to do this. Pull into a driveway, go home. The image of Robin Gendron's hands on her son's face keeps her from turning.

A remarkable woman. Sweet. Caring. Gentle. Not a mean bone in her body, her own words about Robin. It was only natural for the two families to stay so close through the years, given Ken, Robin, and Bob's lifelong friendship. Nora had welcomed their easy warmth, their affection and gentle humor with one another. She was always the moodier one, more reserved, questioning other people's motives, though never theirs, because they were genuinely good people, especially Robin, quick to laugh and lend a hand. Until Bob's worsening alcoholism these last few years, the two couples had gone out together at least once or twice a month. One spring vacation the two families had spent the week in Disney World in adjoining suites. Other vacations, in the Caribbean. Belize. Long weekends in New York City, Quebec, Montreal. Ski trips in Vermont. Some, she suspected, Ken picked up the tab for. But it didn't matter. They were all so close. So close, she'd even thrown a baby shower for Robin, who burst into tears, with forty whooping women yelling surprise as she came through the door with her pasta machine, thinking she was there to teach Nora how to make fettuccine. Still sobbing minutes afterward, with everyone crowded around, she had to be consoled, hugged and kissed, assured that she
most certainly did deserve all this trouble and attention. My Lord, who more than her, always caring, always giving.

A phone call, Robin would insist; that's all and she'd be over. If someone was sick, a missed ride, whatever Nora needed, Robin was there. At first she'd felt swamped by Robin's attention. That's just the way she is, Ken would assure her. And it was true. Kindness, love came naturally to her. Nora used to marvel at the acuity of Robin's sense for a person's pain. How many dinner parties and events had they driven home from with Robin's voice in the backseat filled with concern for “that poor Henderson woman. Her younger sister's schizophrenic, and the family wants to keep her institutionalized, but Jeannie thinks she should be given a chance—”

“Jeannie?” Nora and Ken cried in equal astonishment. Jean Henderson, or “the viper” as she was more commonly known, so cutting and cruel that before they were eighteen, every one of her children had left home, never to return.

“How'd she happen to share that bit of information with you?” Nora asked.

“I don't know. We just got talking, and next thing I knew …”

And so it went. Always and everywhere. In spite of her mounting troubles. Or perhaps because of them; over time, her own pain, sculpting, giving depth to her beauty. Because she had no secrets, kept no part of herself private, or so she would have you believe, Bob's drinking and increasing volatility, his erratic employment, their strained finances, their run-down house, it was all there in the tapestry's intricate weave. Her suffering, a brilliant artistry, so submerging herself in another's life that the normal delineation blurs; from her own vulnerability creating an instant emotional communion. Too wounded to be envied, she is the perfect friend. Women admire her; men want to protect her.

The pretty mailbox hangs on its crooked post, clipped more than a few times by Bob's alcohol-fueled swerves into the driveway. Robin painted the climbing blue morning glories herself, hidden among the leaves her signature robin bird. Crafts. Quilting. Dinner parties, she can do it all, sublimely unhindered by her husband's failings, unshamed by his disruptions, unembarrassed by peeling paint, the
missing glass in the storm door, the doorbell protruding from a frayed white wire. Less evidence of a failed life than bravely borne wounds, her domestic stigmata. Nora bangs the brass door knocker, pineapple, pitted symbol of welcome. Its dull strike brings fear. Her heart races, her thoughts colliding in bursts so that when the door finally opens, she hears herself hiss, “A malignancy. That's what you are. All you've ever been. Destructive and selfish …”

“I'm so sorry,” Robin gasps. “I'm so sorry. Please. Please,” she cries, holding out her arms as if this might be healing enough. Without makeup and with her long hair pulled back, she looks tired, but younger. “Please come in, Nora.” She opens the door all the way. “I beg you. Please. What happened, it was so—”

“No! Not what happened! What
you
did, that's what's so disgusting!”

“I know that. Of course I know that,” Robin weeps.

“And don't you ever again speak to my son. Do you hear me?”

“I—”

“Saying you love him like a son, how twisted are you?”

“But I do,” she sobs. “And I love you, Nora. That's the hardest part. Losing all of you.”

“No. The hardest part's not getting what you want. What you've wanted all along.”

“That's not true! Oh, God. Oh, please. Please, Nora. You have no idea,” she calls after her down the path. “I'm so miserable. I'm so unhappy I just want to die. Do you hear me? That's all I want!” she screams. “That's all I want anymore. To die. To be dead! Done with it all!”

“Mommy!” a child shrieks. Robin is slumped, sitting in the doorway, sobbing, berating herself for all the world to see. Lyra stands there, arms around her mother's head.

Nora yanks down on the seat belt, tethered now, anchored and safe. She stares back at the weeping little girl as she starts the car, her safe, sensible Volvo, then drives slowly away, and bursts into tears. Another child's pain—the last thing on earth she wants.

he meeting ends
late. Two board members were upset to find their names omitted from the Sojourn House stationery. Father Grewley spent most of the time trying to placate them. Such a minor point, but the young priest kept saying they needed “to make it right.” Every time Nora attempted to move the agenda along, he'd drift back to it again. Easy enough to order new stationery, he supposed. Yes, at an additional cost of eight hundred dollars, the equivalent of a week's worth of groceries, she pointed out, to no avail. Father Grewley can't bear offending anyone, so he is insisting on paying for the printing himself “Ridiculous,” Nora murmurs as the slighted members pass her on their way outside.

“No, no,” Father Grewley says. “It's my fault. I should have checked the copy. It's only right. They do so much.”

“But that's really all they care about, about their … their credentials. Like belonging to the right club. It's not about helping people.”

“But people do get helped, in spite of the motivation.” He smiles. “Flattery, vanity, guilt, whatever works.”

She opens her checkbook, scribbles the amount. Eight hundred dollars. “You're right.” She holds out the check. “Whatever works.” Hammond money. It never really mattered, now even less. If anything, it seems like a genetic flaw thinning each generation's moral fiber. She'd gladly give it away, every penny of it, just to be happy again. And to see her children strong.

“No, I didn't mean you, Nora.”

“I know. But I want to. Please.”

She hurries to her car. For all his wide-eyed naïveté, the young priest knows exactly what he is doing. She admires that. It is his mission to craft human weakness to a higher purpose. If only he could do the same with her. Confronting Robin last week brought a brief surge of confidence, a fleeting sense of control, but then her anger turned to guilt, which makes no sense at all. Seeing Robin's pain gave little satisfaction. Hurting her has only made Nora feel worse. Maybe there is no answer beyond forgiveness. It's all Ken seems to want, but she feels empty, with nothing left to give. Going through the motions takes all her energy.

Seven o'clock. Too late to start cooking dinner now. There is a pan of leftover lasagna, enough for Chloe and Drew, anyway. As she drives, she calls home.

“Mom!” Chloe answers. “Where've you been? I've been calling you!”

“A meeting. My phone was off, but Chloe, listen. In the fridge, on the bottom shelf, there's—”

“Mom.” Chloe's muffled voice. “There's someone here. He said he's an old friend of yours.”

“Who?” She turns onto the highway. “What's his name?”

“Ed Hawkins. But the weird thing is, he's the same one, that guy. The one that was looking for that street before.”

She sees him
through the door glass. He is sitting at her table watching Chloe take plates from the cupboard. He stands up when Nora comes into the kitchen. For a moment she's surprised that he's older. He's thinner, not as tall as she remembers. There is a silvery blondness to his thinning hair and his eyes, the same pale blue but with a bright transparency she finds hard to look at.

“Nora! It's you! After all this time.” His arms spring wide, expecting what, she wonders for a queasy moment: an embrace, a kiss? She shrinks back. He offers his hand.

She can barely touch it. “I'll finish the table,” she tells Chloe.

His gaze holds, in full measure of her distress. He smiles. “I was just telling your beautiful daughter how much she reminds me of you. Same age as then, right?”

“Yeah, seventeen. Same as my mother!” Chloe answers, clearly enjoying being part of her mother's reunion with an old friend. She is unrolling place mats onto the table. “So'd you guys go to the same college?”

“More of a summer thing,” he says, and Chloe smirks, eyebrows raised. “We worked together,” he adds.

A lie. He'd hung around the hotel a lot, particularly the golf course, but he never held a job there.

“So what're you doing here?” she asks, for Chloe's sake, straining to sound unconcerned.

“I didn't know what happened. I always wondered.” He'd been in D.C. recently, on business, and what does he pick up but
Newsweek.
There's an article he's interested in, faith-based charities. Doesn't know why, but he kept looking at this one picture. “Took me a minute. Same face, same first name. Nora!”

Hands trembling, she slides the lasagna pan onto the oven rack. She tells Chloe she'd better get started on her homework. But she only has a little left, Chloe protests. “Then go finish it,” Nora says. Like her father, Chloe loves company. “Now, please.”

“Okay!” Chloe is annoyed.

Smiling, Eddie watches her flounce through the swinging door. “Looks like you.”

“No.”

“Reminds me of you.”

“Why did you come here?”

“Now, that's not very welcoming.”

“You have a reason, what is it?”