Bittersweet (29 page)

Again, I could have stopped. I had devoured my snacks, and my thoughts were like dust. I could see, from the tiny slice of light out the high bathroom window, that the long afternoon was stretching into evening. I had calendars to hide, and decisions to make. But CeCe clung to me. More specifically, I couldn’t shake the look on her face when she’d read the journal entry about B.’s affair with P. I flipped back to that entry and read it again.

“Friday, August 24th. B. has been carrying on with one of the maids, P. He has assured me it’s over, but it is a mess nonetheless, one I shall be paying for myself, that weighs heavily upon me.”

I flipped back to my notes. I’d marked the entry’s year as 1956, when Bard would have been nearly in his fifties. But what if the entry was not about Bard? What if Birch, his son, had been carrying on with one of the maids? A servant whose first name started with the letter P.

Maybe this entry had been written in 1984. A little more than twenty-five years ago.

And then, in a flash, delightful and horrifying, I remembered tall, mighty Aggie dashing across Mrs. LaChance’s screen porch at the sound of the sick woman’s lament, trying to stop John’s mother from saying something worse to Ev than what she’d already said. Aggie had used Mrs. LaChance’s first name only once, but it had burrowed into my ear and stayed there, waiting for me.

“Pauline,” she’d pleaded. Pauline.

T
he ifs led me down a path.

If I was right, and Kitty had written this journal so that all the events within it appeared to occur during one year but it in fact spanned as many as fifty, then there was much more information between its two covers than there appeared to be.

If she was writing about her family over such a long period of time, then sometimes B. stood for her husband, Bard, and sometimes it stood for her son, Birch.

If Birch was the one carrying on with a maid called P., then that P. could stand for Pauline, and Pauline was the first name of John’s mother, Mrs. LaChance.

If Mrs. LaChance had had an affair with Birch twenty-five years ago, then her son, John, might well be Birch’s son too.

If John was Birch’s son, then John was Ev’s half brother.

If Ev was pregnant with John’s baby, then Ev was pregnant with her half brother’s son.

I dropped the journal. I unlatched the bathroom door, hoping to gasp the fresh air circulating through the rest of the cottage. But I took in the whole place—the sagging couch, the yellowed walls, even the lake lying below the dusty kitchen windows—with new eyes. It was poisoned, stinking, imbued with an awful history that
was now inescapable. Asthma began to tighten my chest. Did Birch know I had Kitty’s journal? Was he watching me with hidden cameras, listening to me through planted microphones? My paranoia led to disordered thinking, but the outcome was the same as if I’d been rational: it was time to leave Winloch.

I would start running and never look back, and this time, I would take the road, so they would all know I was leaving. I wrapped the journal in its towel and thought of stashing it under the sink. But if someone knew where I’d been hiding it, they’d look there first. So I dashed through the house, rejecting hiding spots—under the bed, too obvious; under the porch, too exposed to the elements—before remembering the board John had been trying to fix. I dropped to my knees and located it easily, prying it up with a pen cap. Sure enough, it offered six inches of storage space below it. I wedged the journal, wrapped in the towel, into the new hiding place, stacked the calendars in the corner of the bathroom, and pocketed the family tree. I decided that the sheets of paper that held the true dates of the entries (as far as I could guess) were too dangerous to leave with the journal—since they worked as a decoder—but they were a dead giveaway for someone in the know, so I couldn’t carry them myself. Nor could I destroy them—I had too much pride in my research. No, I’d take them to the Winslow paper stash in the Dining Hall attic; what better place to hide them than with a thousand other papers? Only Galway—I thought of him with a stab of pain—might recognize that they were new, might follow my bread crumbs, once he found the calendars and snooped around the house. Couldn’t he?

I gathered up essentials—snacks, a toothbrush. Even though Ev had left a crumpled hundred-dollar bill on top of the dresser, I didn’t touch it. I already owed the Winslows too much.

I poured as much dog food into the bowl as it could hold and let Fritz and his buddies gorge themselves as I left behind everything Ev had ever bought me.

I dashed out just as night descended. I don’t know how far I thought I would get, with the mosquitoes already on my tail, no light, little food. With every step I took, I was stabbed by terrible fantasies—Athol would emerge from the bushes, a rifle aimed at my kneecaps; Tilde would hit me in the back of the head with a shovel. I was grateful when I spotted the Dining Hall, my last stop before freedom. Safely out of Winloch, I could call my mother, tell her I needed help, and pray she wouldn’t deny me refuge just because I hadn’t sent her one letter.

Masha was hard at work peeling potatoes when I pushed in through the doors of the otherwise empty Dining Hall. She lifted her head in the fluorescent lights of the kitchen to watch me dash up the stairs. In my state, I found her glance predatory.

On my way up, I flipped on the light, already feeling calmer as I readied myself to be surrounded by my old friends, the Winslow papers, just one last time. Maybe it was foolish to leave and I was wrong about the journal. Maybe Birch was just a nice older man and I had a dangerous imagination.

I mounted the final step.

The attic was empty.

Not just empty; spotless. Not a speck of dust or a forgotten paper, or a pile of unused furniture. Even the tables were gone, any trace of the project I’d embarked on completely eliminated.

The sound of my defeat echoed in the cavernous, empty space.

I took the stairs down two at a time and waved a quick good-bye to Masha, calling, “Check on the dogs in Bittersweet,” without looking back to discover her reaction. It was good to have a witness. Someone who could report that I’d left as soon as I knew my place.

I sprinted onto the main road. It would lead me out of Winloch once and for all. I slowed my steps, remembering to pace myself; I had to formulate a plan. I’d run (or walk) the couple miles—it couldn’t be more than six—to the country store we’d passed a few
times on our way in and out of camp. They had a phone there. I’d call my house collect and hope my mother answered.

The roadbed moved from meadow into woods. I was glad for the cover, if not for the mosquitoes. In the still, thick night, they were hungrier than I’d ever experienced. I chose not to use my flashlight, lest I register how many of the swarming insects there actually were. Besides, I could sense my way from the rattle of gravel below my soles.

I heard the motor before I saw it. The whine of the radio carried through the trees before the headlights flashed around the bend. I ducked into the Winloch woods, grateful for their cover. I didn’t need to go very far—anyone driving by would hardly be looking into the forest. I certainly didn’t expect to see anyone for whom I’d willingly step into the road.

Galway—I would have stepped out for him. As the sound of the car drew louder, my heart leapt at the thought of the safety of his arms. Only yesterday, he had sheltered me. But he had retreated into the recesses of my mind, shimmering at the edges like a mirage. All it would take was his rounding the corner and I could be released from this paranoid fear.

The headlights flashed. I tried to temper my expectations. It was Birch, or one of the maintenance men in their little white trucks. It was Athol and the nanny. It was a dinner guest.

I saw it was a truck—higher than a car, filled with two bodies. John’s truck. The windows were unrolled. They were listening to Chet Baker.

I stepped into the road before rational thought could stop me.

I felt the headlights skip over me.

The sound of the brakes. The purr of the idling motor.

I opened my eyes. Shielded them with an arm.

The driver flipped the lights off.

Then: the welcome sound of Abby’s bark. Followed by the crunch
of footsteps. And then: Ev’s arms around me. The sweet smell of her. “What’s wrong?” she asked, the words biting me like the mosquitoes. “You look horrible—where are you going? What are you doing standing in middle of the road? You smell like cigarettes. Have you been smoking? Are you okay? Mabel? Are you okay?”

The words growled up from deep inside me. “You left me.”

She stretched out her left hand. “I got married.” I registered the ring on her finger as she pulled me toward the truck.

“C’mon,” she said, “let’s get you into a nice warm bath.”

E
v was horrified by the state of the cabin—the dachshunds, the calendars, the riffled drawers—but she bit her tongue and took care of me. I can’t imagine how wretched I must have looked to arouse such motherly impulses in her, or perhaps her new role as wife had planted the seeds of domesticity much more quickly than I would have expected. In any case, when I emerged, saner, from my bath, scrubbed as clean as could be in the silky, sulfuric water, dinner was waiting for me, and Abby and Indo’s three dogs were lying at Ev’s feet in harmony.

John wolfed the spaghetti down. “Thanks, Evie,” he said, rising from the table, kissing her forehead, giving Fritz an affectionate pat.

“You’re leaving?”

“I’ve got to see her.”

Ev almost retorted, then acquiesced in the way only a wife can. “Are you going to tell her?”

He was sizing up the doorframe. “Tell her what?”

“The plan.”

He looked down at her as though she were an afterthought. “Foundation’s sinking” was all he replied. Then he stepped out of the kitchen without a second glance.

“The plan?” I asked.

Ev sighed next to me. “We’re leaving again in a couple days.”

“Why?”

She grimaced at the need in my voice. “My money finally came through. Daddy said if I came home it would be waiting for me.”

And here I thought I’d gotten her back. Foolish Mabel Dagmar. “But you’re going to leave anyway? You’re going to go back on your word.”

Her reply was nasty. “Not everyone can be as perfect as you.”

I left her in the kitchen and followed John to his truck. “You’re just going to let her leave me here?” I tried to keep my voice low so she couldn’t hear me. “You have any idea what they’ll do to me once they discover you’re gone? I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on her.”

He sized me up. “I thought you believed in love.”

“There’s a big difference between loving someone and taking her away from her family.”

“Remember, Mabel,” he said, as he opened the door for Abby, “you’re not a Winslow.” He looked more unfriendly than I’d ever seen.

I scoffed. “It’s not right,” I said, “lying, hiding—”

“I’ve got a lot to worry about.” He sighed, world-weary. “Please tell me I don’t have to worry about you too.”

I hated how I sounded—petty and childish. Like Ev was a toy I was fighting him over. My heart started pounding when I realized I could just say, out loud, who I thought his father was, and win. If I even wanted to win. If that even was winning. But no, I needed proof first. “Could you drive me to the store next time you head to town?” And then I needed him alone.

He got into his truck.

“It’s the least you can do before you abandon me here,” I heard myself say.

He started the engine. “You don’t sound like yourself.”

“And who exactly do I sound like?”

He nodded toward Bittersweet. “One of them.”

I wanted to tell him right then, tell him he was one of them, much more than I would ever be, but I bit my tongue. “So? The store? Can you?”

He gave a single nod and pressed down the accelerator. He was gone in a flash, red taillights streaming out of sight.

I found Ev at the table. She had removed her wedding band. “They’ll let you stay here till the end of the summer,” she said. “If you’re worried about yourself.”

“I’ll figure it out.” I cleared the table.

“It’s weird you’re someone’s wife,” I said later, to break the silence, and remind us both that we were friends.

“I don’t know why he won’t tell his mother we got married,” she said, a grimace on her face.

“Now you want her to know?”

“It’s not like she can keep us apart now that I’m his wife. So I told him we could just bring her along if he’s going to whine about it all the way across the country. Why the hell not, if it’s so goddamn important to him?”

I wondered what Birch was capable of. Could he find them? Would he blame me?

“Don’t you even care where we’re going?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“California.”

I could have found out why. Or when. Or how. Instead I asked, “You’re sure it’s a good idea to take her with you?”

She slapped the table with both hands. “No,” she said, her voice rising as her body did, “but it’s all I’ve got, Mabel. If I want to be with John, she’s part of the package, and I’m okay with that. I don’t really give a shit if you are.”

I sank my mind into the soapy, stinky dishwater along with my
hands. I wanted to be rinsed clean, but I fiddled with the details of Kitty’s journal. The logic carried over every time. There were a lot of ifs, but each brought me to the next, and every time, I concluded with John and Ev as brother and sister. Half brother and half sister, but what was the difference?

If I was taking on the task of telling one of them, I needed to know for sure.

“Anyway,” Ev said, drawing my attention, “I’m not the wife you should be worrying about.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Galway. He’s married.”

I pulled my hands from the hot water and turned to her. She looked triumphant. “Oh, I’d heard rumors, you know,” she said, “but I couldn’t believe anyone would actually want to marry him. Apparently, some girl from south of the border needed a green card, and I’m sure she didn’t mind—”