Secrets and Revelations (Bellingwood #4) (6 page)

"I want something, I just don't know what," she said to no one in particular.
Finally she landed on a bottle of flavored hard lemonade. Walking past the peninsula, she grabbed a bowl filled with peanuts and M&Ms.

"This will do," she said and then chuckled. She was always talking to her animals, even if their eyes were shut and they were sound asleep. When she lived alone in Boston, talking to herself was natural, but she always worried that someone might hear her. With the animals in the apartment, at least there was potential for a response, even if it was
just a sloppy lick on the face.

Obiwan waited until she settled on the couch, then jumped up and snuggled in beside her. His tongue snaked out and licked the condensation on the bottle, then he eyed the bowl of candy.

"You know better than that," she scolded. He seemed to look up at her and smile, and then rested his head on her thigh.

Polly opened her laptop, deliberately ignoring the package on the table. There was nothing terribly important in her email. She smiled at the reminder from Doug about dinner the next evening. There was a notice from Daisy Blake, the
local organizer of the community band, about final rehearsals, dress requirements and the schedule for the evening of the concert. She sent that one to be captured in her note program and then scrolled through her social media networks just to make sure she hadn't missed anything interesting. She opened the first news website to check headlines when she heard Henry's voice from her back steps.

"Polly, can I come up? Are you decent?" he called.

She jumped off the sofa, dislodging Obiwan. She set her laptop on the coffee table and ran into the bedroom and looked down the steps. He was standing there with a plastic grocery bag.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. "And yes, come on up!"

"I thought you might have lied about wanting me to come over." He walked up the stairs and stopped in front of her.

"I totally did," she admitted. "But I didn't think it was fair. I can deal with this."

Henry leaned in and kissed her, "Then none of this will be necessary, right?" He opened up the handles of the plastic bag.

Inside were ice cream sandwiches and chocolate bars, cold bottles of Diet Mountain Dew and a root beer.

She laughed and hugged him around the bag. "Oh, I love you!" she said, then stopped and backed up, waiting for him to say something.

"I know," was his response as he walked past her toward the kitchen.
She smiled at his back. He'd watched the Star Wars movies with her quite a few times this last year because she insisted that he catch up on her favorite movies. Every time Han Solo said "I know" to Leia just before being lowered into the carbonite, he chuckled and mouthed the words along with Harrison Ford. Polly thought he enjoyed it much too much.

"Have you opened the package yet or have you been avoiding it?" he asked over his shoulder.

"Avoiding as best I could," she said, following him.

He put the ice cream in the freezer and made room in the refrigerator for the drinks and candy bars.

"Would you put the candy bars in the freezer
?" she asked. "They're so much better when frozen."

Henry did so and then wadded up the bag and opened the cupboard where she kept them, stuffing it in with the rest.

"So, what would you like to start with tonight? Ice cream? Candy? Dew?"

"I have a drink," she said, nodding back to the table, "But I'd love an ice cream sandwich, or maybe two," she smiled. He opened the freezer once more and pulled out two ice cream sandwiches, handing one to her, then re-opened the refrigerator and took out the root beer for himself.

"If you want another one, all you have to do is ask," he said and gave her a push toward the living room. "Let's get settled and see what's in this package. Go on. Move."

She moved and waited for him to sit down so she could plant herself beside him.
He sat and put his arm on the back of the sofa as she tucked in close to him.

Polly pulled the wrapping off her ice cream sandwich, handed it to him and took his, unwrapped it and then sat in silence. Nestling her head against his chest, she heard his heart beating steadily as she licked and ate the treat.

He took the empty wrapper out of her hand and set it on the table in front of them, then asked, "Are you ready?"

"Nope. I like this just fine," she replied. "Would you let me ignore the rest of the world and stay like this forever?"

Henry pushed her up and said, "Polly, I don't understand why this is upsetting you so much. So she knew your parents when you were a baby. So she left town for some reason. So she wants to get to know you as a person now. What is the big deal?"

Polly turned to face him. "I thought I knew everything about my childhood. I thought I knew everything about my mom and dad. Last spring I discovered that Dad traveled to Europe and never told me about those trips. I only know about them because of his passport. I was ready to deal with that sometime, but then this showed up and all of a sudden there's another woman who was in our lives and it is one more thing Dad never told me. I had a nice, safe, normal childhood and I don't want to find out that he lied to me or was hiding things from me."

"Polly, parents don't tell their children everything. Especially if there were things that those kids don't need to know.
Maybe stupid things happened to your parents and your Dad did everything possible to set those aside so he could raise you as well as he did."

He paused, then went on. "Are you going to tell the kids in your life about Joey and all the terror he caused you?
Will you tell them about the partying you did while you were in college or the other bad dates you experienced? Aren't there some things about your past that would be better left exactly where they are ... in the past?"

She thought about it and nodded, "I understand what you're saying. But I don't agree completely.
By the time I was out of college, Dad could have told me about these things. He wasn't raising me any longer, he was finished. We could have talked about it."

"Maybe he planned to tell you someday but didn't get around to it before he died."

"Do you think so?" she asked. "Because that would make me feel a lot better."

"He didn't hide the passport from you when you opened up that lockbox, did he?"

"Well, no, but maybe he forgot about it."

"He's your Dad. You don't forget anything … except maybe band rehearsals. I doubt if he did either. He knew that someday he would have a conversation with you about these things. It just hadn't happened yet."

"You're right. That makes me feel better." She put her feet on the floor and stood up. "I need more sustenance, do you want anything?"

"I'm good," he said. She took the trash to the kitchen, took another ice cream bar out of the freezer and opened it, licking the sides as she walked back into the living room.

Henry's hand was poised over the package and she nodded at him. He pulled the top off and slid a scrapbook out onto the table. Polly flipped the front of it open as she sat down and exposed a folded note and a business card.

He picked up the note and opened it, "Do you want me to read it?"

"Sure. Whatever."

"My dearest Polly," he began. Polly rolled her eyes.

"My dearest Polly, I know that my email will probably surprise you, but I am committed to cleansing all of the negative memories from my past. I would very much like to meet you when I return to Iowa, but before that I'd like you to see this scrapbook which I’ve treasured for years. My prayer is that your parents told you over and over again how important I was in your life. I didn’t understand why you refused to reach out to me when your father died, and it suddenly occurred to me that when he sent me away, he only told you the worst of our relationship.
Things were good with all of us and I hope these pictures will be a good place from which we can begin to establish a semblance of a friendship.

I plan to be in Iowa next week for a seminar and will be available to meet with you on Thursday or Friday,

Sincerely, Ruth Ann"

"Let's start with the business card then," she said. Polly sat down and pressed a few keys on the laptop to wake it up. "I want to know who she is now before I find out who she was then."

She picked up the card and read out loud, "Ruth Ann Marshall, Motivational Speaker,” She rolled her eyes at Henry and said, "There’s a blog. Here I go."

Polly typed in the web address and waited for the page to load. There were photographs of Ruth Ann standing with, Polly assumed, people who were famous in her field. There were other photos of her at podiums with large screens filled with a presentation behind her and others of her standing amidst groups of people. Then she read the last blog entry which had been uploaded earlier in the day.

"Oh, for god's sake," Polly said. "Are you kidding me?"

"What?" Henry asked.

"Look at this," she said
, pointing at the screen.

"No, just tell me."

"She told the world that she was coming to meet me and that she was worried about whether or not I would accept her."

"Did she call you by name?" he asked, astonished.

"No, thank goodness, but she did say that she was going back to Iowa after thirty years to finally meet the daughter of the very best friend she had ever known. She goes on to ask people to send good thoughts about this, and if it didn't work out, at least she tried and her goal is to never allow negative feelings from others to control her life."

Henry didn't say anything but he smirked a little, pursing his lips so he wouldn't laugh
out loud.

"It's not funny!" she protested. "My negative feelings aren't supposed to control her life? Why in the hell did she even contact me?"

He quietly shook his head, "I don't know, Polly."

"That bitch!" Polly said, shutting her laptop. "Now I'm just madder than hell.
Why would she set me up like that? Who in the hell gave her the right to waltz into my life without so much as a "hello, how are you" and then tell all of her happy little readers that I might be the cause of negative feelings in her little freakin' life."

She pulled her phone out of her pocket and straightened the business card so she could read it.

Henry put his hand on top of hers and said, "Don't do anything when you're angry. You're about to tell her off and then tell her to go to hell, aren't you!"

She pushed his hand away. "Yes. I. Am," she declared. "I don't get set up by anyone, especially someone who doesn't have the decency to keep things quiet until she knows what's going on.
How long has she been telling her readers about me? I don't want this woman in my life. Obviously my parents didn't either. That bitch!"

Polly stood up and paced back and forth from the living room to the kitchen while Henry watched her.
He knew better than to interrupt her while she was furious. He'd done that very early in their relationship and had his manhood handed to him quite publicly. Polly always calmed down and he had learned it was best to just let her go until her brain out-thought her heart.

He watched her breathe heavily as she tried to gain control and then she flung her phone to the far end of the sofa. "I'm so mad, I don't know what to do," she said.

"I know," he replied softly.

"I hate the idea that she has exposed this so publicly. Does that mean she will talk about everything we discuss and share secrets without my permission?"

"I don't know," he responded.

"I don't want this in my life right now," she whispered and sat back down on the couch.

"I know," he said once more, putting his arm out so she could come back to him.

Polly fell against him and started to cry, "I'm sorry I yelled," she burbled.

"It's alright. I get it," he said and held her tightly.

"And by the way, I do love you," she said.

"I know," he repeated, and kissed the top of her head
.

Deep breathing while Henry quietly stroked her hair helped Polly finally begi
n to relax. She sat up and said, "I think I'm ready to look at the scrapbook."

"We don't have to do that tonight, Polly," Henry said. "It can wait."

"She's coming into Iowa next week. If I'm going to talk to her about this, I have to get it over with."

"Polly, who c
ares if you see her next week? She’s the one who started all of this. You aren't required to follow her timeframe."

"But if I don't, she'll whine to all her blog readers about me."

Henry chuckled, "I suspect that you won't have a choice about what she says whether you agree to meet her this week or not."

"You're right and that just makes me mad," Polly snarled.

"Here, take a drink and then we'll see what the scrapbook has to tell us," Henry said as he handed her the bottle.

Polly obeyed and set it back down, picking up the scrapbook. "You know this isn't going to tell much of the story, it's only going to be pictures of my mom and some strange woman.
I won't know what's going on until I meet her."

"I know," Henry said again. He reached over and put his finger on the first page to turn it and reveal the photos.

"Okay," Polly said, "Here we go."

She smiled as she recognized the first few pictures. They were familiar pictures of her as an infant, the first had been taken at the hospital.

"I was a pretty cute baby," she said, rubbing her finger over the photo where the hair on her forehead lay.

The birth details were all there, neatly handwritten.
The other photos on the page were of her in her car seat on the ride home and then in her crib. Of course, Henry had never seen any of these, so he took them in as she read the notes. She turned the next page and there were more familiar pictures. A happy young family with their new little baby. Polly hadn't considered who might have taken those photographs, but now she realized it must have been Ruth Ann.

A few pages later, she saw a picture of her mother and another woman, laughing and playing with a baby on a big white quilt on the front lawn of her home.
She'd never seen this picture. Her mother was leaning back on an elbow, with a hand on Polly's back while the other woman, Ruth Ann, was on her stomach facing the camera. They were both in shorts and tiny tops and Henry laughed and pointed at the very voluptuous cleavage the woman was presenting to the photographer.

"Wow," he said. "She was sharing!"

"I don't know if I want to see any more pictures if this is going where I think it's going," Polly said and began to shut the book.

"Let's not make any assumptions.
She wouldn't have given this to you if that was all there was to it."

The three adults had considered themselves photographers. They took photos of each other with Polly at every opportunity. There were many more pictures that Polly recognized from her baby book and others that included Ruth Ann and her mother, Ruth Ann and her father
, and in all of them, everyone was laughing and smiling. When Polly pulled herself up the first time, there were the two women sitting back on their legs holding their hands out as she stood with her hands on a small, wooden step stool.

There were pictures of Ruth Ann bathing Polly and there was a series of pictures from the zoo in Des Moines. Both women had gone down and made a day of it, posing with Polly in front of different animals.
The two had traveled around quite a bit, taking Polly to see different sights in the area. There were pictures of them at the carousel in Story City sprinkled throughout the pages, riding with Polly and finally as she got old enough to sit up, standing beside her.

Polly had no memory of tho
se times, instead remembering a time much time when her mother had taken her and watched her ride around and around. That had been a couple of years before her mother died and Polly had taken a picture from the back of the horse. In it, a wistful woman watched. Polly wondered what her mother was thinking about that day. Did she miss her friend? Did she know then that she was sick?

She sighed and Henry wrapped an arm around her, "What are you thinking about?" he asked.

"My mom and another trip to the carousel. It's nothing."

Then Polly
came upon pictures of them at the airport with her mother raising the little girl’s arm to wave at an airplane through the window.

"Look at this!" she said. "My dad was flying away somewhere."

She jumped up and ran into her bedroom, returning with the old lock box. "It's in here."

Polly pulled a few things out and handed them into Henry's waiting hands.
She stopped, "See, some of these pictures are exactly the same as the ones in the scrapbook.” A cleaner version of a picture of her parents together, her mother lifting her left foot and leaning into her father's arms was in the scrapbook. The yellowed and well-worn copy from the lock box was one of Polly's favorites.

She turned it over, knowing what it said by heart, "My best friend, my lover, my heart and soul." Her father had scribbled a heart with the letters B+E for Barbara and Everett inside it.

"If Ruth Ann took this picture, he couldn't have been having an affair with her, could he?" Polly asked.

"It doesn't seem like it," Henry responded.
"Let's see that passport."

Polly found the little blue book and opened it.
There were stamps to England and France and one to Italy. All were from late 1981 and into 1982 when Polly was just over a year old.

"That's weird, isn't it?" she
asked.

They flipped through the rest of the scrapbook and saw that the last photograph was taken in July of 1982. It was another picture that Polly was familiar with, nothing out of the ordinary, just the three of them standing in front of their house.
Polly was dressed in little shorts and a tank top, her father was wearing jeans and a t-shirt and her mother had on a yellow sundress. Polly's parents had created a cradle for her with their arms and were swinging her back and forth, smiling and laughing with their little girl.

Henry reached across, shut the book and said. "Now what?"

"I don't know," she replied. "I have no idea what to think."

"Are you going to meet her?"

She turned and looked him in the eye. "Probably. My curiosity is piqued, that's for sure, but I can't imagine what she is going to tell me about my parents and why she was here and then gone again."

"You need to meet with her. Email her tonight and tell her that you are willing to have lunch with her when she is in Iowa.
I'll go with you and then you can begin asking all of the questions you have."

"I'll do it tomorrow," Polly said and was met with a look of skepticism.

"I promise!" she assured him, "And you'll really go with me?"

"Of course I will. I told you I would. I don’t want you to go through
this alone."

She kissed him and said, "Thank you."

Polly leaned over and set the book back on the coffee table.

When she sat back up, Henry said, "I wasn't finished with you," and pulled her back in for another kiss.

She drew back and said, "Well that cleared the fog from my brain. No. Wait. It created a different fog. You mess with my stability, Henry Sturtz."

He gave her a quick flutter kiss on the lips and said, "I'm never going to stop."

She leaned against him and shut her eyes, thinking about the young people in the photographs. They were having fun with life and enjoying each other. When she was a child, she remembered her parents laughing a lot. Her mother used to take Polly out to find her dad in the fields, usually with a picnic lunch. Sometimes it was for no reason other than to give him a kiss and a hug. He would stop whatever he was doing and spend a few minutes with them. Even after her mother had died, Polly knew that her dad would stop everything when he saw her coming.

He seemed to know there was no such thing as enough time with the people he loved and he made sure that whenever he was with them, it was time well spent. Polly missed her dad.
He was always proud of her and excited to hear about whatever she was doing. He would have loved to have been involved in the restoration of Sycamore House.

Polly smiled. She couldn't believe she'd taken on something as big as Sycamore House without him and then she looked up at Henry.
He was a lot like her dad and had been there to help her over some of the bumps that had shown up in the last year. What would she do without him?

She shut her eyes again and relaxed. This was definitely the right thing even if it terrified her to think beyond today. As she mused, she wondered what he thought about their relationship. Neither of them seemed to be in a hurry to make any more big changes in their life
together, but maybe he had chosen to go along with her just to keep her happy. What if he wanted more and was afraid she would run away if he pushed?

Polly sat back up and said, "Do you ever think about the future?"

He frowned, "My future? I suppose. I have things I'd like to accomplish and I have some bigger goals for my life. What's this about, Polly?"

"No, I meant our future. Should we be talking about bigger things or making plans or something?"

Henry gave a half-baked chuckle and said, "What are you talking about? Is there something rattling around up there you haven't said out loud yet?" He brushed her hair from her temple and tapped it softly.

"There is always something rattling around up there. You know me, I always worry. Are we not moving this relationship along fast enough? Is there something we'll miss out on because I'm not in any hurry?"

Henry took her hands in his. "Are people talking to you again and telling you that you have to hurry up and get married?"

"No, that's not it" she said. "All of the novels I read and movies I watch push girls to jump in so they can be completed with the love of their life. No one wants to miss any precious moments with their soul mate."

"Polly," he began quietly.

"No, let me finish. I told you that I love you and I mean i
t, but I love my life right now. I want you in it all the time, but is it awful that I like this" and she gestured between the two of them, "without all of the pressure of everything else?"

Henry took her hand out of the air and started again, "Polly."

She tried to pull away, but he held her hands tightly.

"Polly," he continued, "You are the most amazing woman I've ever met. You make me absolutely crazy and when I see you standing outside my front door late in the evening, my heart does stupid little flip flops. I love the way your mind thinks and I love the way you leap into the lives of people without fear. In fact, your lack of cowardice when it comes to making decisions surprises me every day. Then there’s the fact that you are also a little bit of a geek and a bookworm, but you have a heart for people and even for animals.

“You say you don’t want the pressure of everything, but your life is filled with people who count on you and ask big things of you. Rather than being upset by any of that, you take on more and more of them, expanding your life and heart until it encompasses everything.”

He reached across and rubbed Luke's head. The cat moved to make it easier on Henry.

"But for some reason, you are afraid of trusting me with our future."

"Wait," she said, stopping him. "That's why I'm asking."

"No," he responded. "You don't believe that I'm on this journey with you and that maybe I feel the same way you do. I'm in no hurry to change our lives. We have plenty of time. I know you very well and I hope you are getting to know me. You have to trust that I'm as honest with you about what I want from this," and he gestured between the two of them much as she had earlier, "as you are. I will talk to you if I think that things need to change."

"You're a good man, Henry," she laughed and moved around on the sofa to lean against his chest.
He wrapped his arm around her and she took his hand, snuggled in and completely relaxed feeling the pull of sleep as her mind ceased thinking.