Secret Lives (21 page)

“I understand. Let me know if you change your
mind.” She stood up. “Ben's picking me up in a few minutes. We're
going to Belhurst for the afternoon.” She waited for his
response.

“Have a good time,” he said.

At the door of the springhouse she turned
back to him. “Will you leave the next notebook out for me?”

“Uh…” He leaned back again and turned to look
at her. “Wouldn't you like a break from the journal for a few days?
I read the next notebook this morning. It covers the semester we
were at G.W. together and—”

“At G.W.? What do you mean?”

“Didn't you know Kate had one semester at
George Washington University while I was there?”

“No.” She hadn't known her mother had spent
any time at all away from Lynch Hollow.

“Her journal starts to get sketchy now
because she was working on her stories much of the time. And this
particular notebook, the one from G.W., is a little disturbing to
read. At least it disturbed me to read it. And we're moving into
the X-rated material. You sure you can handle it?”

Eden laughed. “X-rated?”

“It might shock you a bit.”

“Kyle, I'm thirty-six years old. It's not
going to shock me, and no, I do not want a break from the journal.
If I had my way I'd read it straight through.”

“Okay.” He turned back to his work. “I'll
give it to you in the morning.”

–
21–

She was waiting for him out on the road,
sitting on the boulder that marked Kyle's driveway. Her hair was up
again and she wore a blue blouse cut high on her shoulders and
tucked into white shorts.

She climbed into the passenger seat of his
truck. “Hi.” She smiled.

He wanted to touch her but locked his hands
around the steering wheel instead. “Hi.” He pulled back onto the
road. “Did you get your reading done?”

“Uh huh.” She looked out the window as the
road dipped and turned through the woods. “God, I love it here. I
wish I could bottle this place and take it back with me.”

“Maybe you need to visit Kyle and Lou more
often.”

“Maybe I do.”

“You're in a good mood today.”

“I guess I am.” She sounded surprised. “The
screenplay really started to work this morning. I always feel good
when something I'm excited about begins to come together.”

“How's Lou doing today?”

“She seems fine. Back at the easel this
morning.” Eden played with the catch of her watch and then looked
over at Ben. The tone of her voice changed, deepened. “What kind of
problems has she had because of her leg over the years? Do you
know?”

Yes, he knew. Lou's disability had created
one problem after another for them when they were in South America.
But somehow he sensed Eden's need to be protected from all of that.
“She's had fewer problems than you'd imagine. She does fine in that
chair, ordinarily. A few times in Co-lombia we'd hit a restaurant
or a hotel that wasn't set up for a wheelchair, but Kyle and I
would lift it and it wasn't much of a problem.”

“But Kyle couldn't possibly lift her
now.”

“Well, they're not traveling now either, so
it's not really a problem. At one time she tried a prosthesis, but
she got so frustrated with it that she gave up.”

“I didn't know that. I guess there's a lot I
don't know about her. Or Kyle.”

“Once she had to be hospitalized,” he
continued, not sure if he should. “We were in Ecuador then, I
think. She had pressure sores, you know, from sitting too long in
one spot? I guess she always has to put up with them, but they got
infected that one time.” He glanced at Eden. She had turned her
head away from him, but he could see one tear resting diamondlike
on her lower lashes, and he knew he'd said too much. He reached
down to wrap his hand around hers. “I'm sorry. You were in a good
mood and I brought you down.”

She shook her head, still not looking at him.
“I asked the question. You only provided the answer.”

He liked the connection he felt to her. He'd
noticed it for the first time last night when Lou fell, when he
recognized in Eden the same concern he felt. The same love. It had
been a long time since he'd found himself on the same team with
anyone. And he liked her unexpected neediness, the way it made him
forget his own.

“Lou's a proud person,” he said. “I think
what bothers her more than anything else is being dependent, not
being able to fend for herself the way she'd like to.”

Eden sighed. “I just wish the accident had
never happened. I wish I could change the past.”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “I know exactly what you
mean.”

They reached Belhurst before noon and he
parked the truck in front of the dollhouse shop. Once they were
inside, Eden's mood lifted. The shop held room after room filled
with dollhouses, some of them completed with paint and furnishings,
others in the raw wood stage.

“How old is your goddaughter?” Eden
asked.

“She'll be eight. I built her a dollhouse
just like this one”—he indicated a tall, shingled Victorian—”when
she was three, and every year since I buy her something for it.”
Usually something expensive. This year would be different.

“How did you come to be her godfather?”

“Alex, her father, is my best friend. We went
to school together—he was a student of Kyle's too. Then we both
taught at the University of Maryland. We got married about the same
time and he was my best man and I was his. His wife and Sharon are
good friends.” It saddened him to recount the closeness that no
longer existed. “I haven't seen much of him since the divorce. I
guess that happens—people feel as though they have to pick
sides.”

“Wayne and I didn't have mutual friends to
begin with. That was part of the problem, I suppose. We really had
no shared life aside from Cassie.” She opened the arched door on a
little Spanish-style ranch and peered inside. “Did you make a
dollhouse for Bliss?”

“Yes. I modeled it after our house. Does
Cassie have one?”

“Oh, a little one. Nothing so fancy.”

He could make one for Cassie. Slow down, Ben.
Besides, the kits cost a few hundred dollars.

He had only enough money to buy a tiny
bedroom set if he intended to treat Eden to lunch. He tried not to
be obvious about it as he took the bills from his wallet and
counted what was left, doing some disheartening subtraction in his
head. The little bit Kyle was paying him was fine for a man on a
tight budget, but it would not cover dating. He knew he could ask
Kyle for a loan and have it granted without question. But he could
hardly ask him to support a relationship he viewed as
deceptive.

Over lunch Eden told him how she'd like the
movie to open. There would be a helicopter view of the Valley,
following the Shenandoah for a while, then moving closer to Ferry
Creek and the field by the site, finally dipping into the woods and
smoothly slipping inside the entrance to the cave until the screen
was completely black. Then the title and credits would appear on
the black background. “Very dramatic,” she said. “All that green.
And then the blackness of the cave.”

“What's the title?”

“A Solitary Life.”

He nodded his approval. “That fits,” he said.
“But Kyle won't let you in the cave.”

“Mmm, I know.” She nodded, swallowed a
mouthful of salad. “We can fake it. Then we cut back to the
house—only, of course, not the way it is now. We'll build one to
look like it did when Kate and Kyle grew up in it. Kate's in the
elm tree, writing in her journal, terrified that she's in for a
whipping because her mother found her dictionary.”

“Did that really happen?”

“Yes. Only Kyle said it was his and took the
beating for her.”

Ben laughed. “Christ. Figures. He started
early rescuing people, didn't he?”

Eden touched her napkin to her lips. “My
mother gave me such a gift when she left this journal behind. I can
practically write from it scene by scene.”

“When will you start filming?”

“I'm aiming for next summer.”

He felt the most horrendous jolt in his chest
and set his fork on the table. He suddenly remembered that he had
nothing to look forward to. Life would go on with him or without
him, seasons would change with a deadening predictability. Next
summer held no more promise for him than this summer. Possibly
less. What could be worse than having no future? Maybe in January
they would let him go before the court and beg to see Bliss and
maybe if he humbled himself the right amount and maybe if Sam could
dig up the most persuasive experts and maybe if Bliss still had any
goddamned memory at all of who he was, he could…

“Ben? Are you all right?” Eden had grabbed
his hand, and when he looked at her he saw alarm in her eyes.

“I'm okay.” His voice sounded as if he were
speaking through a straw. He forced a cough. Took a swallow of
water. “Something went down the wrong pipe,” he lied. Then he
settled back in his chair again, dropping his hands to his lap to
hide their trembling. “Tell me more about the film.”

–
22–

November 20, 1945

Today Kyle and I had a long talk that's left
me as nervous as I've ever been. I didn't know it, but he has been
getting information about colleges in Washington, D.C., and now he
told me he plans to go in January and he wants me to go with him.
He thinks we should study archaeology. I have never seen him as
excited about anything as he's been over the arrowheads we've been
digging up. He went to the library in Winchester to try to figure
who might have made them and he thinks they are from some people
who lived here maybe two thousand years ago or more! Matt and I
find this very hard to believe. Kyle says we're going about digging
things up too sloppily. There are holes all around the front of the
cave now. We need to go to school to learn what we're doing. He
says we'd need to have jobs, too, to be able to afford our
classes.

Well, first I tried to talk him out of this,
but I could see he's been thinking about it a long time. Then Matt
told me he's going away to school too, in North Carolina, to study
journalism. I believe he and Kyle have been plotting. I sat on my
mattress in the cave, crying and moaning, because this is a fix I
can see no way out of. They sat next to me, one on either side,
talking me into it. So I have agreed, although I cannot imagine
being able to survive away from Lynch Hollow. But as scared as I am
about going away, I am even more afraid of being apart from Kyle
again.

January 15, 1946

Kyle and I each have a small room (right
next door to each other) in what is called a townhouse in
Georgetown, an area of Washington, D.C. Washington overwhelms me
and I don't enjoy all the sights as Kyle does. Each time we venture
out I am anxious to get back to my tiny little closet of a room,
which Kyle calls my second cave.

I am not having an easy time of this and I'm afraid to tell
Kyle how bad it is for me. I suffer through my classes even though
I love what I am learning. In my
room I read and read and do the
assignments, but in the classroom I cannot concentrate, cannot
breathe. My heart beats so fast I lose track of the rhythm, and I
pinch myself to keep from fainting. The inside of my arm has little
red marks on it from my nails.

I am taking a writing course and it is my
favorite. I sit right next to the door and usually that helps me
breathe better and pay attention. I have my typewriter here and my
teacher thinks my writing is very neat and creative, but she says I
still need to work on my sentences and punctuation.

I'm working as a waitress in a little hotel
restaurant down the street from here and it's a nightmare because
I'm so nervous that I spill things. Last night I spilled a bowl of
stew on a man and he says I burned him. I dread going back, but we
need the money badly.

Everyone makes fun of my accent so I talk
even less than usual.

March 6, 1946

I quit my math class today because I was
about to suffocate in there and I had to walk out. Mr. Sims
followed me into the hall and asked me where I thought I was going
and I told him I was sick and would be back tomorrow, but I won't
be. It's not going to be any better tomorrow than it was today. I
can't tell Kyle.

April 7, 1946

I made the mistake of letting Kyle talk me
into going to a party with him last night. He goes to lots of them
and I usually stay in my room and write or study, but last night I
finally said I would go. I'm sure that's the last party he'll ever
hound me into going to.

It was at the house of a girl in one of our
classes, Julia. She is very wealthy and I've never seen a mansion
like the one she lives in.

Things here are just as they were in high
school, with everyone loving Kyle. When Julia invited me, she told
me that Kyle is “so charming,” and I am certain she invited me only
because I am his sister. I wore my one good dress, which Susanna
forced on me when I left Lynch Hollow and which I despise. I feel
like a pig trussed for the spit when I get dressed up in that
miserable garter belt and stockings and all. Kyle thinks garter
belts are sexy (his favorite word these days). He also thinks Julia
is sexy and was looking forward to this party.

I didn't realize it was a dinner party until we got there.
If I'd known, I never would have agreed to go. There was a long,
long table set with china and crystal glasses and little cards with
names on them by each plate. About thirty people were there, some
students from our anthropology class and some other students I
didn't know and a couple of professors. Kyle's favorite professor,
Dr. Latterly, was there. Kyle's little name tag was between Dr.
Latterly and Julia, so he took
his seat looking like he'd died and gone to
heaven.

My name tag was between two students I didn't know from
Adam, a girl with bug-eyes and a boy with freckles and red hair
slicked down on his head with what smelled like cough tonic. The
second I sat down I started having trouble breathing. My hands
shook and sweat was running down my back. I could feel it soaking
into my dress (which is now in the trash, good riddance). I sat
there
sweating and shaking while everyone ate some cold white
soup I didn't touch, and a salad full of some yellow vegetable I
couldn't even look at. Then I thought for sure I was going to faint
so I started pinching on my arm out of habit, not even realizing I
was doing it. Suddenly the bug-eyed girl cried out, “What are you
doing??!!” so loud that everyone turned to look at me. The girl was
staring at my arm and when I looked down I could see little red
pinch marks all over my white skin. A couple of times I'd drawn
blood and not even felt it.