The Art of Keeping Secrets (26 page)

 
Hours later, she woke. The respiratory therapist was there to explain how they had removed the oxygen tube from her nose, how she’d been in a decompression chamber and they needed to check her blood oxygen levels. They drew blood, listened to her lungs.

Finally she spoke. “Where’s Jake?”

Bedford slammed his fist down on the bedside table. “Those are your first words after a near-death experience?

‘Where’s Jake?’ ” Anger filled the room like a noxious gas. The doctor and therapist backed away from the bed.

She wanted to explain that the only reason she wanted to see Jake was to hear him explain about the dolphins. . . . What had he meant about the dolphins?

Sofie reached her hand out to Bedford, but he didn’t take it. “I just want to ask him about the dolphins.” Her voice was raspy, rough—not hers at all, yet coming from her mouth.

“I can tell you anything you need to know . . . so can John. He was there.” Bedford took her hand, squeezed it. “Do you remember anything?”

Sofie scooted up in the bed now, for the first time aware of how she must look after being fished from the sea. She ran the hand without the IV through her hair; it caught in the tangles. “I don’t . . . remember,” she whispered.

The doctor stepped forward. “Before she starts talking, I need to check her vital signs. If you will wait in the hallway, I’ll call you in a few minutes, and you can have about twenty minutes with her. But she’s had a tough time—she’ll need to rest.”

“Okay,” Bedford said. “I’ll go tell everyone how well you’re doing. A lot of people are worried about you . . . sitting vigil in the waiting room.”

“Who?” Sofie whispered.

“John, who is scared to death. Our preacher, Fred. Your mom’s friend Jo-Beth . . .” Bedford walked toward the door. “And that annoying friend of yours from Colorado—Jake.”

Sofie closed her eyes as the doctors listened, poked, prodded and asked her questions. When they were done, Bedford returned to the room alone.

When he sat in the chair, she looked him in the eye. “Please tell me everything.”

He told her how she’d run from the house, how she’d gone out on the boat with John. When she hadn’t returned in the proper amount of time, John called the coast guard. They put out an alert for a diver in the vicinity, and that was what saved her life. The shrimp boat saw her floating and notified the coast guard, which by then was only five minutes away. They brought her in, sent her to the decompression chamber, from there to the hospital room. It had been a full day since she’d been rescued.

“A full day?”

“Yes. I spent the night in this chair.” Bedford smiled. “I’ve slept in better places, trust me. They kept you sedated for a while so you could get proper oxygenation. They said you probably wouldn’t remember much, but it seems you went down too quick, ran out of oxygen and came up too fast.”

“I wouldn’t have gone down too fast. I know better.” Every word hurt like a needle.

“You were in quite a state. John didn’t realize you were so upset, or he wouldn’t have let you go down.”

“Upset.” This wasn’t a question—she knew she’d been upset; even the blank sheet of memory allowed this one emotion to slip past.

“It seems you weren’t making your usual good decisions. I tried to stop you, but by the time the research center had radioed John not to let you dive, you’d already gone.”

“Upset about what?” She attempted to conserve her words.

“Not now, Sofie. We don’t have to talk about it now.”

She needed to talk about whatever had made her troubled enough to disregard her own life deep in the water. But weariness spread through her again, and sleep came with Bedford’s hand on her forehead.

NINETEEN

ANNABELLE MURPHY

A full day after her return, Annabelle’s suitcase still spilled its contents across her bedroom in a mess of mismatched and wrinkled clothes. She threw all of them into the laundry basket. She dumped her makeup case on the bedside table, then sat on the edge of the bed and took inventory of her room. Nothing had been moved since Knox had died: the wedding photograph propped on his bedside table; the Christmas photo of Jake and Keeley next to it; his alarm clock, which hadn’t been set in two years. The day after his death, the alarm had sounded at six a.m., and Annabelle had moved her foot over to nudge him, tell him to turn it off.

Annabelle ran her finger along his pile of books, his phone, then picked up the receiver and dialed the cell number on Sheriff Gunther’s card. He answered. Annabelle sat on Knox’s side of the bed and spoke in a bold voice. “Hi, Sheriff. This is Annabelle Murphy, and I have the name of the woman who was on the plane with my husband.”

Silence came through the line, and for a moment Annabelle thought he’d hung up. Then his voice reverberated strong and sure. “Thank you for calling, Annabelle.”

“Her name was Liddy Parker. Or at least it was when she lived here. Remember she owned the art studio? She changed her name to Liddy Milstead when she moved to Newboro, North Carolina.”

“Married name?”

“I don’t think so,” Annabelle said. “I think she just changed her name. She owned the Newboro Art Studio there and has a daughter named Sofie, who is twenty now and still lives there. Remember they lived here for about ten years?”

“Were you in contact with her through these years, Belle?”

“No,” Annabelle said, took a breath. “But I guess my husband was.”

“Do you know anyone else in town who was in touch with her?”

“No.”

Wade’s breathing was audible in the silence until he spoke. “Well, thank you for your help. I’m going to need her daughter’s contact information.”

“No problem,” Annabelle said. “I have it.”

“Can I ask you one more question?”

“Sure.” Annabelle picked up the framed photo of Jake and Keeley.

“How did you find her?”

“I went to Newboro because it was listed in Knox’s flight plan, and I asked around. . . . It’s a small town.”

“Thanks. I’ll call you if I have any more questions.”

Annabelle hung up, then lay back on her husband’s side of the bed. She’d kissed Keeley good night and allowed her silent nod to pass without comment. Now she waited for the peace of sleep to arrive. As she drifted off, Knox came to her and held her hand and smiled at her. He was alive and beautiful, confirming his love for her and their life together—not with words, but with a simple touch. When she woke, her heart was both broken and healed in the only way something could be both at once: in love.

The ringing phone woke her early the next morning. She would have liked to hold on to the peace of her new-found belief in Knox, the soft moment when he came to her in a dream, but Jake’s voice on the other end of the line began another day.

“Hey, Mom,” Jake said, “did I wake you?”

“That’s okay. You on your way home or are you still in Newboro?” Annabelle sat, swung her legs over the side of the bed.

“Sofie had a diving accident. She’s still in the hospital, but I think she’ll go home tomorrow. I feel like . . . well, like I need to stay.”

“Oh, Jake, that’s terrible. But she has a boyfriend; you don’t need to stay.”

“Okay, then I don’t have to. I want to.”

Annabelle was completely alert now, wistful dreams gone like they had never happened. “Oh, Jake, you’re always wanting to take care of everyone and everything. She’s not a lost puppy. . . .”

“Mom, she almost died. She ran out of oxygen, hit her head. It was bad.”

“I’m sorry. Poor Sofie.”

“I just wanted to let you know where I am. I’ll call, okay?”

“Jake, I love you.”

“Love you, too, Mom.”

 
Annabelle had told Shawn that she would meet him for a few moments at the café on the same block as the
Marsh Cove Gazette
offices after she got Keeley off to school. She wanted to talk to Mrs. Thurgood. She wanted to immerse herself in writing her column, get back the busyness and normalcy of her life.

Shawn sat at a back table, rolling his coffee mug between his palms. Annabelle understood he was anxious to hear what she’d learned in Newboro, and she swallowed her irritation at having to talk about it this morning when she wanted to float in her memory of Knox’s hand on hers, to stay safe in her firm belief in him. But Shawn was their dear friend.

She took a seat next to him, and had to touch his arm before he noticed she was there. “You’re off somewhere, Shawn.”

He smiled at her, kissed her cheek. “Sorry. I didn’t hear you. How’s it going?”

“Good.” She leaned back in her chair, grinned at Izzy, the waitress behind the counter, and motioned that she wanted a cup of coffee by pointing at Shawn’s mug.

“You look great,” he said. “Really, you do.”

“I finally got some decent sleep.” She brushed her hair back from her face.

“Then it must have been a good trip.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, Shawn. It was bizarre. I still don’t know how to process all of it. But now it’s up to the FAA. I just want to get on with my life. You know?”

“What did you find out?” He leaned forward.

Annabelle gave Shawn the facts of her trip like bullet points in a presentation.

“So,” he said, paused to take a long swallow of coffee, “all you know is that he was flying Liddy Parker to see her dying mother. That’s it? And you’re happy with that explanation.”

“Listen, Shawn, I don’t know what I’m happy with. If you’re asking if he was
with
her, I don’t think so. I really don’t. Her best friend did say she had an affair when she lived here in Marsh Cove, but I don’t think it was with Knox.” Even as Annabelle spoke the words, doubt crept like termites into solid wood, slowly eating away her belief. She closed her eyes. “That sounds like denial, doesn’t it?”

Shawn shook his head. “No, it sounds like faith.”

“Maybe I’m being a fool. Maybe Knox was her lover, and that’s why she left. But . . . she’s dead, Shawn. And so is he.”

“What about her daughter?”

“You want to ask her daughter if her mother had an affair with a married man?”

“No,” Shawn said, “I don’t.” He dropped his chin, and Annabelle reached over, touched his fingers.

“Are you okay?”

“Listen, Annabelle, I need to tell you something. I never wanted you to know this, but I can’t have you believing something else.”

The café walls moved in a wave; Annabelle’s lungs clamped down and she saw a simple V in the road of her life, and she didn’t want to take either fork. She could travel to the right—the way of ignorance—and not know what Shawn was about to tell her. Or she could take a left—the way of the truth—and struggle to integrate it into the beliefs she had come to embrace.

She stood, looked down at him. “No,” she said. “Don’t say it.” She held her hand up to stay his words. Maybe, just maybe, like the shells in her jar at home, her memories of Knox were broken, only fragments of the real thing, a contrived attempt to fulfill her own wishes.

Shawn stood. “Let’s walk, okay?”

As if in slow motion, Annabelle followed Shawn outside. Her well-laid plans for the day—organizing her house and catching up on her advice column—were all forgotten. She didn’t care to hear what Shawn wanted to say; she needed to believe for one more day before her world changed again.

They walked a few blocks in silence before he sat down on a concrete bench facing the bay. She settled next to him; he took her hand.

“I don’t want you torturing yourself for no reason. There are things you need to know.”

She searched his eyes to see if she could discern the words without him having to say them. “Shawn, here is what I know—that Knox loved me; he loved our kids; he remained faithful to our life. That is what I believe. If what you have to tell me is any different, I’ll listen, but I’ll still believe that his heart was with us.”

Shawn closed his eyes. “We all keep secrets, Belle.”

Shame poked out its ugly head as Annabelle thought how she had kept secret from Shawn that she was pregnant when she and Knox got married. “You’re right.”

He released her hand. “I’m the man Liddy had an affair with.”

The air wavered before Annabelle. “Huh?” Her reply came mumbled and soft.

“When I was married to Maria, I had an affair with Liddy Parker. No one ever knew except Maria. No one. Not even Knox. Maria wanted to leave me anyway, so she allowed me to keep secret the catalyst for our breakup.”

Annabelle needed to see if this was real, if the man she’d known her whole life could have done this and she hadn’t known. She touched his leg, then his arm to see if he was solid and not a vaporous ghost of secrets revealed. “You cheated on Maria.” It was not a question. “All these years I thought she abandoned you—I hated her for it. She was a friend; I loved her. I’d known her since third grade, and I thought she was . . . the one who . . . but you cheated on her.”

“Yes.” His tone was flat. “I’m only telling you so that you won’t think Knox had the affair with Liddy. That’s all.”

Annabelle felt such an odd mix of emotions she couldn’t sort them out. That her best friend had kept this secret from her all these years fractured her belief in their simple and honest relationship. Not knowing how to react, she just stared at him.

“Don’t look at me like that, Belle. Please. I can take a lot of things, but not your disapproval. You have no idea what it was like then. It was years and years ago. Maria and I had nothing together—we should never have married. Liddy was a beautiful, magical artist who came to me, and I thought she could fill that empty place inside me. Of course she couldn’t and didn’t, and then she left. I hadn’t thought about her in years.”

“What empty place would that be, Shawn? The one where you have a great life, a fulfilling job, wonderful friends and family? That hole?”

“No. The space that can only be filled when the one you love loves you back. When you can’t make someone love you. That empty place.”