The Secrets She Carried (44 page)

The conductor hollers, “All aboard!” through cupped hands. Henry stiffens, bracing himself against the words and what must come next.

“You’ll look after the girl?” Mama asks, her voice harsh with pent-up tears.

Henry only nods, his eyes hidden by the battered brim of his hat.

“She can come to me, you know,” Mama adds. “If you change your mind.”

“I can’t,” he tells her, tugging the hat lower. “I have already explained why. Besides, she is all I have left now.”

Mama bobs her head, her eyes full again. This time the tears spill unchecked, rolling fat and shiny down her cold cheeks. She blots them tenderly against Jemmy’s curls, then sucks in a jagged breath as she reaches for the satchel Henry has packed with Jemmy’s clothes. Her shoulders hunch miserably as she turns and takes a few shuffling steps. Then, at the last instant she turns and hurries back. It’s a fleeting touch, Mama’s lips to Henry’s cheek, and then she is gone, hurrying
away down the platform, my little boy perched stoically on her hip as she vanishes into the last car.

Henry watches, dry-eyed and broken, as the train grinds away from the emptied platform in a cloud of thick fumes, taking his son away forever. My heart wrenches beneath my ribs as I recall another day, another station, and the look on Mama’s face the day she put me on that bus and sent me away, and suddenly I realize how very weary I am of good-byes—the ones I have been forced to say, and the ones I have been cheated of.

S
ending Jemmy away has finished Henry.

When he returns from the station he goes to his study and fills a glass with bourbon, and he just keeps right on filling it, day after day, year after year, until there is little left of the Henry I once knew. For a while I think the grief will kill him, but it doesn’t. Instead, he has become a shadow, a man who wears his sadness like a skin, whose eyes are so vacant it’s as if he moved out of his body the day I moved out of mine.

The years that follow are not kind.

With every day that passes he recedes further into his bottle, living in a blurry kind of dream, until it seems all that is left is the dying. He spends his days on the ridge, reading from his book of sonnets and staring at the gravestone he went half a state away to order in secret. Most nights, he takes his supper in the study, then sits nursing his bourbon, mooning over that silly wall of paintings until the last of the light is gone. He doesn’t turn on the lamps then, just lights up one of those pipes of his and sits there smoking in the dark.

It’s a pity to see him make such a waste of his life, a pity perhaps, though not quite a surprise. I see clearly now what I could not, or would not, back then, that Henry has always shrunk from the
uncomfortable bits of life, retreating into his books or his tobacco—or into the arms of a woman who would love him blindly.

It would be a lie to say I suffer any remorse when Susanne is buried a handful of years later. Henry barely seems to notice. He is dry-eyed and stoic at the funeral, dutiful in his starched collar and good Sunday suit. He bows his head at all the right times, throws a handful of dirt when the preacher tells him to, mumbles thank you when friends file past with condolences. Maggie stands at his side, somber in her black dress and hat.

From that day forward she takes care of everything, hiring a woman to look after that great big house, and another to handle the cooking when Lottie’s rheumatism finally gets too bad to stay on, all so she can spend every spare minute with her nose in her father’s ledgers. Through all of it, she has been his rock, the glue that holds Peak together.

Henry can no longer be bothered. He pretends to take an interest, but it’s Maggie running the show these days, Maggie doing the hiring and firing, Maggie holding the purse strings, and Maggie still giving her daddy all the credit. When Henry’s drinking starts to take its toll, when he quits overseeing the fields, shows up late to market, loses half a year’s crop to soft rot, it’s Maggie who picks up the pieces, putting herself where grown men don’t think she belongs, and besting them too, more often than not.

By the time she’s eighteen she knows the business almost as well as her daddy, though whether that’s to do with her love of Peak or with her sobering realization that without her it would all crumble, I cannot say. I only know it saddens me to see that so much has been heaped upon her strong young shoulders, and to see how quietly she bears it all. But then she has never had much choice.

Leslie

L
eslie stifled a yawn as she watched Jimmy scoop the last forkful of eggs from his plate. It was good to see him eat, good to see a little flesh finally beginning to stick to his bones. She pushed his untouched glass of orange juice toward him.

“You working out in the barn again today?”

“Yep.” He paused to drain his coffee cup, then tossed his crumpled napkin onto his plate. “We finished the rest of the patio tables yesterday. Today we start on the benches.”

“Buck says you’ve been a big help.”

“Just trying to earn my keep, Baby Girl.”

Covering her mouth, she swallowed another yawn. She hadn’t been sleeping much these last few days. She had Jay to thank for that. The revelation that Adele had given birth to Maggie and then given her to Susanne to raise would have been enough to keep her awake, but then he’d tossed in his suspicions that her grandmother had purposely set the fire that killed her father’s mistress. Now, every time she closed her eyes, she saw an eight-year-old Maggie carrying a bucket of kerosene.

“You finished with that plate?” Jimmy was on his feet, pointing to her half-eaten breakfast. “I need to get out there.”

Leslie handed him her plate, watching as he moved to the sink and began to fill it. In all the years she had lived with Jimmy, she’d never seen him wash a dish. But then, so much about him was different now.

“Daddy…” She paused to clear her throat, reluctant to broach the subject she’d been putting off for weeks. “You need to remember that you’re supposed to go back to Connecticut right after New Year’s. You said six weeks, remember?”

Jimmy blinked at her as if he’d been roused from a dream. “I guess that is coming up,” he said, tracing a finger around the rim of a juice glass. “Time flies—that’s what they say, isn’t it?”

“Daddy…”

Turning away, he slid the plates, one at a time, into the sink of soapy water. “Looks like we’ll have to forget that new bottle rack. I’ll call up and get the particulars on the appointments. Might need your help with the plane reservation, though. I don’t know who to call. Jay took care of all that last time.”

Leslie heard the hitch in his voice and suddenly it dawned.
He thinks I’m sending him away
. She stood and brought the mugs over, then turned off the tap. Her father’s hands went quiet in the dishwater.

“I’ll make the reservations, Daddy. Two of them.”

Jimmy raised uncertain eyes to hers.

“Whatever the doctors find—whatever they tell you—I want to be there with you when you hear it. And then you’re coming back here, and we’ll deal with it together.”

He broke then, his craggy face fracturing into a million miserable shards. She didn’t know what to say. She had no idea if he was grateful, or relieved, or afraid. Probably he was all those things. At that moment, though, it only mattered that he was her father and he needed her. Wordlessly, she folded him into her arms, feeling the sharp bones beneath his skin, and simply let him cry.

Leslie had no idea how long they stood there holding on to each other, how many hoarse thank-yous Jimmy murmured against her cheek, or who was crying harder before it was all over. Five weeks ago she couldn’t have imagined sitting in the same room with him, let alone living beneath the same roof. Now, for reasons she was only just beginning to understand, the thought of losing him filled her with a sense of loss that was hard to fathom.

She had blamed him for so much, some of it warranted, some not, and all the while he’d been blaming himself, torturing himself for his mistakes with even larger mistakes. Then, when it all finally unraveled, he had tracked her down one last time, not for the customary handout, but for a chance at redemption. He’d been willing to subject himself to her loathing, to risk rejection, because he needed to make amends, to make peace. What she had first considered a show of weakness had in fact been an incredible act of bravery.

After lunch, Leslie fired up the laptop. She had just settled in at the kitchen table, hoping to find a pair of cheap flights, when she heard the front door knocker. In the parlor she peered out the window, frowning when she saw the lime green Cadillac sitting empty in the drive. They never got solicitors out here. Turning the bolt, she eased the door open a crack, startled to find Jay standing on the front porch and to see that he wasn’t alone.

“I found these two sitting in the driveway.” Jay hiked a thumb toward the Caddy. “They said they’re here to see you.”

Leslie pulled the door full open, too stunned to manage a smile, let alone a greeting for Landis and Annie Mae. The old man was bundled in his same camouflage coat, a rust-colored scarf wound several times around his stringy throat. Beside him, Annie Mae stood with wide, watchful eyes, the gloved hand she kept on his arm at once protective and possessive.

“I been thinking about what you said the day you come up on my porch,” Landis wheezed through lips that were chapped and slightly blue.

Leslie ignored Jay’s frown, keeping her focus on Landis. “About the fire?”

“About the truth.”

Annie Mae jerked her chin in mute acknowledgment.

“Well then,” Leslie said. “I guess you’d better come in. I’ll make some coffee.”

In the foyer, Jay shot Leslie a dark look. “What’s this about?” he hissed when they were out of earshot.

Leslie smiled grimly. “You heard the man. It’s about the truth.”

“Was this arranged for my benefit?”

“Yes, Jay, it was. Because I knew you’d be the one to find them sitting in the driveway and bring them to my door. But since you are here, why don’t you give me a hand and make us all some coffee.”

He said nothing more as he followed them to the kitchen. Landis moved slowly, unsteady on his feet. Annie Mae held fast to his arm, matching him step for halting step, as if she were an extension of him.

“Jay, this is Landis Porter, and Annie Mae—” She broke off briefly. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I don’t know your last name.”

“Speights,” Porter supplied gruffly. “Her name is Annie Mae Speights.”

“Mr. Porter, Ms. Speights, this is my…my business partner, Jay Davenport.”

Jay merely scowled, a scoop of coffee poised over the fresh paper filter.

Porter cleared a phlegmy throat, and weaving slightly as he made his way to the nearest chair, sagged into it. “Shall we get on with this, then, young lady?”

Leslie moved her laptop off the table and took the chair beside him. “Mr. Porter, I’d like to know what made you change your mind.
The last time we spoke, you chased me off your porch and told me never to come back. Today you’re in a hurry. Why are you willing to help me now?”

“Not,” he grunted. “But what you said—about the truth setting you free—it stuck with me. And it damn near burned a hole in Annie Mae. She wouldn’t let it out of her teeth. Said it was time to come clean—time for both of us.”