Our First Love (5 page)

Who am I hurting by keeping her to myself?

No one, I told my conscience.

Then, why am I keeping her a secret?

Because…

Because why?

…

You better be careful. Keeping secrets can be risky.

Shut the hell up, I cursed my conscience. You don't have to keep reminding me. I know how destructive secrets can be. But think about it this way. I'll probably never see her again. So what's the harm in keeping her a secret?

You're not hearing me. So go ahead and do what you want to do, my bedraggled conscience snapped back. Just don't say I didn't warn you.

Am I being selfish by keeping her to myself? I've pondered this question nearly every hour since I met her. So far I've been able to justify keeping her to myself and not sharing her with Caleb.
I'd convinced myself that he doesn't need to know about her because I don't know anything about her. However, the real reason I think I've kept her a secret has to do with how desperate I've become since I met her. There's no way I want to share this asthmatic feeling with my brother.

It was Sunday afternoon and I'd been in bed all day. Caleb had been doing something in the den most of the day. The den was divided into our home office and Mom's sewing room. Neither of us sews, so the only time either of us go on that side of the den was when Caleb steps over there to dust the sewing machine and change the faded spool of black thread during his spring cleaning frenzy. Now, the office was mainly used when Caleb wrote his blog, but we used to use it when I brought home interview notes so Caleb could write articles for the newspaper under my byline.

When I got up to get a drink of water around noon, Caleb had already prepared lunch: slaw dogs on toasted buns and baked beans. He was sitting at the desk working on the computer. I figured he was working on a new blog. I still was not sure how I felt about Caleb writing this blog. I knew it gave him something to do, but I didn't think it's a good idea for him to make up memories about our childhood. Caleb looked up and saw me, and I nodded toward the door. He got up and went to his bedroom, and I went outside to get Saturday's and Sunday's
Capitol Sentinel
out of the delivery box. When I got back inside, I fixed two slaw dogs and a large bowl of baked beans and went in the living room. The television was off, so I didn't bother to turn it on. I didn't read the newspapers either. I haven't since my photo appeared in the sidebar story to the article about Barney's suicide. I sat there eating and periodically glancing at Caleb who was working diligently at whatever he was doing.

“What are you doing?” I finally broke down and asked, “Working on your blog?”

“No,” he answered. “I'm not doing anything.”

“You look a little too busy to…”

Caleb cut me off. “Can't talk right now.”

Without saying a word, I walked in the kitchen, put the plate in the sink, then went to my bedroom. The blinds and curtains in the bedroom were still closed and the light was off, so the room was lit by shadows. I'd never been able to sleep in an unmade bed, so I pulled the blanket, sheets and pillows off the bed. I shook the sheets and placed them back on the bed, making sure to tuck all four corners of the sheet under the top mattress. I spread the blanket across the bed and straightened it. Then I fluffed the four pillows. When I was done, I turned back the blanket, took off my slides, and climbed in bed. And that was where I spent the rest of the day.

It was a little past midnight when Caleb finally went to bed. There was a stack of manila envelopes and letters on the desk in the den. The eight letters, all printed on beige linen paper, were cover letters attached to copies of my resume, also on linen paper. There was a note for me clipped to the letters. Caleb wanted me to sign the letters. “Make sure you sign them as Dr. Nigel Greene.” I earned my Ph.D. years ago, but I'd never referred to myself as Dr. Greene.

Caleb had already purchased metered postage stamps online, so the envelopes were stamped and addressed to potential employers. Three were for public relations jobs. One was for a radio show host position at Tallahassee's talk radio station. Two were addressed to the advertising and marketing departments of a media consulting
firm. Florida A & M University had two openings. One was for an assistant professor of journalism and the other was for a communications specialist. Caleb completed the university's employment application and attached it to the letters and resumes. The last letter was addressed to Richard Aman's Tallahassee-based Aman Realty, one of the largest privately owned real estate companies in Florida.

I met Richard Aman two days after Barney killed himself. Mr. Aman called and asked me if I could stop by his office after lunch. I didn't want to go, but Caleb talked me into going. After meeting Mr. Aman, I was glad I went. The first words he said to me when I walked into his office and closed the door were, “Thank you.” The police had given him a copy of Barney's suicide note, the content of which, surprisingly, was never publicized. Because of the note and the TV and newspaper headlines, Mr. Aman knew I had spoken with Barney right before his death, and he assumed I knew why Barney shot himself.

“I don't want to know what my son was hiding,” he said. “I simply want to thank you for trying to help him, and for refusing to take part in dismantling my son's life.” He motioned for me to sit in a brown leather chair in front of his sprawling cherry oak desk. “I'm forever indebted to you, Mr. Greene.”

“I was only doing what I thought was right,” I responded.

“Well, there aren't too many people today who feel that way,” Richard said with a warm smile. “I'm glad it was you covering the story.”

I smiled and tried to stop myself from squirming in the chair.

Richard continued. “You're a good man, Mr. Greene, and I want to show my appreciation by offering you a job since you quit yours.”

“Thanks,” I said. “But, can you give me a little time to think about it?”

“Sure,” he replied. “Take all the time you need.”

I knew Caleb was desperate for me to get a job because he included the letter to Aman Realty. During the past month, we'd only gone out three times. We stopped by Richard Aman's office. Attended the funeral of a man we hardly knew, and went to the grocery store. So he's starving for a life outside this house.

Since Caleb took the time to conduct a job search, type a resume and cover letters, go online and pay for postage, and then address all the envelopes, I decided to sign seven of the letters. The other— a cover letter and resume for Aman Realty—ended up in the waste-basket. I appreciated Mr. Aman's offer, but I didn't turn away from Barney's story and quit my job at the newspaper because I needed anyone's gratitude. I did it because I sympathized with Barney, who I believed was living a tragically flawed life. Barney's flaw was trying to live in two worlds with intersecting orbits. In one world, Barney was the privileged son of an iconic politician and wealthy businessman. In the other, a private world he created, he was a man desperately trying to appease his kept lover whose husband died four years ago in a suspicious accident the night he found out about their affair. Barney thought ending the relationship before he began his bid for governor was the only way to keep his two worlds apart. He must have been blind not to see the collision ahead.

Most people die without ever living their own lives because their lives belong to everyone who was part of their world. My life belonged to Caleb.

I took three sleeping pills, but they didn't help. I had been lying in bed for three hours dreaming even though I was wide awake. I wished I could reset the hands on the clock and fast forward to sunrise since, most of the time, daylight could chase the dream
away with the dark. The dream, which kept repeating itself, was a familiar dream. In the dream, I was standing on the banks of a narrow, winding creek that bordered the back yard of a two-story, red-brick house. It was cold. Freezing cold. And snowing. Even though night was settling in, I could see a thin sheet of ice crystallizing on the surface of the embittered creek. That's when the dream ended, but only long enough to rewind and begin again.

A couple of months ago, I asked Caleb did he ever dream.

“That's a dumb-ass question,” he snapped. “Everybody dreams.”

“What I meant to ask was, in your dreams…?” I hesitated.

“In my dreams…what?”

“Are you outside…or…?”

“…or still trapped inside here?” Caleb finished for me. He turned and looked out the front window. Little Leaguers, and their coaches, parents and fans were getting ready for the regional championship game at Myers Park. A group of young men were playing a game of full-court basketball. The tennis courts were filled. And joggers and hikers appeared and disappeared on the park's meandering trails. “No,” Caleb answered and pointed out the window at Myers Park. “In my dreams, I'm not trapped inside of this house. I'm out there.”

I'd give anything to dream I was in Myers Park instead of standing on the banks of Flatley Creek in the cold.

We lived cloistered lives that paled in comparison to the lives of people like Barney Aman. Two months after Barney's death, his story still made headlines and dominated the evening news. I knew Caleb and I will not be missed when our life ends, but I worried whether anyone would know we ever existed.

CHAPTER 6
CALEB

N
igel told me to pick up a book and read it since I was so obviously bored. “I will as soon as you climb out of the fairytale world you're wallowing in,” I shot back. Nigel's eyes immediately became interim ice-picks that he used to stab me twice in the neck. I deserved it though, because I never told Nigel why I let my library card expire or why I no longer had a passion for reading. What he didn't realize was, when I read and get to know characters in books, sometimes I become overwhelmed by a morose sympathy for these people whose destiny was to live lives, happy or sad, in compassed worlds akin to mine.

Three different gubernatorial campaign ads aired during the last hour's commercial breaks. Barney's death sent the gubernatorial campaign into high gear and the candidates began a soul-killing, but bloodless, battle for Barney's vacant frontrunner status. As I watched each candidate tout his attributes and point out the flaws of the competitors, I wondered if Barney would still be the frontrunner if he hadn't killed himself. Would the secret he was running from have surfaced and knocked him out of the top spot and potentially out of the race?

Nigel wouldn't talk about Barney, and I understood why. Nigel had canonized Barney. In his mind, he'd made Barney into someone heroic, someone inspiring. I guess there's nothing wrong with
that if Barney really was a hero. I never saw Barney as the heroic type. How could he be a hero when he took the coward's way out? Had he stuck around longer, he may have become a hero because he really was one of the good guys. I surmised that Barney was a man who was too afraid to face his own questions about a night he couldn't remember. I sympathized with Barney's struggle because I'd been there too. And, unless you'd been there, you wouldn't know how hard it was to live in the present when you couldn't remember the past. It's like trying to go somewhere but not knowing how to get there because you didn't know where you started. The difference between us was I didn't let myself think about that day thirteen years ago. Barney could never move past the night he couldn't remember. He needed to know what happened on the night Frances Pelt's husband died under questionable circumstances. Whether or not Barney had anything to do with Terry Pelt's death, my guess was Richard Aman and his cohorts made any involvement Barney may have had disappear. He was in the clear. So, why couldn't Barney leave well enough alone?

“Do you think Barney had something to do with Terry Pelt's death?” I asked Nigel as we watched an ad attacking Clay Walton, who moved to the top of the polls after Barney's death. Before Nigel could respond, I answered my own question. “I think he did. Why would he kill himself if he didn't?”

That wasn't the first time I'd asked Nigel what he thought about Barney's death. But, unlike the other times, he decided to respond.

“According to the police reports, Terry was cleaning his rifle to go hunting the next day when it accidentally discharged,” he explained.

“Terry was accidentally shot in the head, right?”

“Yes.”

“And Barney deliberately shot himself in the head, right?”

“That's right,” Nigel responded.

“Sounds like too much of a coincidence to me.”

“The coroner's report established that Teddy's wound was more than likely an accident. And, could it be Barney killed himself because he was scared people would form false conclusions like you have?”