The Deepest Secret (23 page)

It’s a big building, all glass and light. Structures arch beside it, underneath a bright blue roof. Cars whiz past. This is a big road. He’s never crossed a road this big before.

He stands back among the trees, well back. He’s clammy with sweat. Nothing about this feels familiar. Nothing about this is right.
So many cars, their headlights carving out tunnels of light. He wants to turn around and go home, wake his mom up and tell her everything. But he’s not a little kid anymore.

The phone booth is tucked along the side of the building. But there are cars everywhere. The building has big windows. It glows with light. It throbs with it. He doesn’t have his meter with him. He can’t get near it. This is what happened to Yoshi. She knocked her mask aside as she reached up for something and now she’s sick.

Everything has a rhythm, a rise and fall. The sun, the moon, the tides, the school bus, even the reporters on his street. So he counts, cars coming from one direction, cars coming from the other. He loses track and counts again, sticking out his fingers one by one. All he needs is one Tyler-size space.

He finds one and marks it. He tells himself to be patient, that it will come again. The second time it shows up, he’s across the street, running hard and not stopping to look. He’s on the grassy stretch and around the side of the building when headlights bounce on the wall in front of him. He feels the heat sweep across his shoulder blades. The door opens, releasing a blast of music. The door slams. Will the driver come over to investigate? No, the footsteps crunch away.

He fumbles the receiver off the hook and presses 911 with his gloved fingers.

“Nine-one-one. Please state your emergency.”

Maybe he’s wrong about what he’d seen. Maybe it had been pale grass growing in the mud.

“Please speak up, sir.”

“Amy.” He mumbles, pitches his voice low. He’ll growl the words to this stranger on the other end. “That girl who’s missing? She’s in the Scioto. She’s trapped under the boathouse.”

He bangs the receiver onto the hook. His heart is an animal.

Amy hadn’t been afraid of the wolf, but the wolf had gotten her anyway.

EVE

T
yler’s quiet, his head bowed as he stares at the laptop opened in front of him on the cool, dark patio.
No
, he mumbles when she asks if he needs her to pick anything up for his photography class.
No
, when she offers to stop by the library and pick him up some more books.
I don’t care
, when she suggests switching sunscreen brands to one that Dante’s mom recommended. He just shakes his head when she suggests taking a walk. His toast sits untouched on the plate, his hot chocolate cooling in the mug. Her misery seeps through this house, infecting everyone in its path.

The chairs are damp with dew. Mosquitoes hover. “We should get a screened tent.” Eve swats away an insect, searching for a bright jewel, something to make her son smile or look intrigued.

Melissa’s not talking, either. She’d closeted herself in her room with Brittany the afternoon before, where they’d talked in low voices
and stopped when Eve rapped on the door to offer them a snack.
No, thanks, Mrs. Lattimore
, Brittany had called out, leaving Eve to wonder what was keeping her own daughter from replying.

“Did you do your homework?” Eve asks.

“Yeah.” He doesn’t look at her.

Her children are unhappy, and Eve needs to reassure them. She’s always found the words before and been rewarded with a hug or a quick smile, but now she falters. She doesn’t trust herself to say the right thing. She glances at her watch and sees with cowardly relief that dawn’s twelve brief minutes away. “It’s time.”

Without a word, he scrapes back his chair.

“I’ll be up in a minute,” she tells him.

Melissa’s in the kitchen, her long hair falling forward as she bends to fit things in her backpack.

“What do you want for breakfast, sweetheart?” Eve asks, going to the pantry.

“I’m not hungry.” Melissa taps papers together on the kitchen counter. “Did you sign these?”

“You have to eat something.” Eve scans the bare shelves. When was the last time she went shopping?

“I’ll get a demerit if you don’t sign.”

She takes the pen her daughter proffers. “Where?” she asks, and Melissa stabs the bottom of the topmost sheet. She skims the contents—all the rules about using the Internet at school—and Melissa groans. “Mom.”

So Eve signs her name, over and over, while Melissa waits impatiently. Her daughter hasn’t said a word about Amy, not a single word. “Is there anything you want to talk about?”

“I’m fine.”

Of course she’s not fine. “Let me find someone you can talk to. I’ll call around, find someone who’s cool—”

Melissa takes the papers. “Like you did for Tyler? No, thanks.”

“Well, what about your guidance counselor? I’m sure she’d have some good advice.”

“Mom, really? All she’d want to talk about is Tyler. What does it feel like for
me
? Do I feel
cheated
? Have I ever
cut
or used
drugs
? Do I feel pressure to be
perfect
, to make up for everything?”

The XP moms all talk about this. Their warnings go round and round. “Honey—” Eve begins.

“You want to know what I really feel? Do you?” Melissa zips her backpack and stands. “I wish it was
me
who was sick.”

Where is this coming from? “Melissa,” Eve says, horrified. “Don’t say that.”

“Why? Because if it was true, you wouldn’t have had Tyler?”

This is true. This is absolutely, devastatingly true.

Melissa has a look of twisted triumph on her face. “I have to go. Perfect children aren’t late for school.” She wrenches herself from Eve’s grasp and stumbles away, slamming the kitchen door behind her.

The mechanic hadn’t even looked at her as he tapped computer keys.
Saturday
, he’d pronounced, scribbling the date on a piece of paper and pushing it across the counter toward her,
and that’s rushing it
. Something had broken in her. She’d just stood there, not moving.
Lady, are you all right?
he’d asked, and she couldn’t even answer. If she opened her mouth, she’d start telling him everything. It would burst out of her and she’d never see Tyler again.
Tell you what
, he’d said.
Have a seat. I’ll see what I can do
.

What he’d done was perform magic, in six hours. Eve had sat in the waiting room, thick with the smell of rubber and oil, watching without seeing the small television set in the corner. The mechanic had kept coming out to check on her.
Go get something to eat
, he’d said.
I’ll call you when it’s ready
. But she knew that if she moved a
muscle, the magic would stop, so she sat there, as the phone rang and the TV played on, and finally, the car was ready.

Even before she turns onto her cul-de-sac, she knows something’s happened. There are media vans parked along the shoulder, still more thronging her street. She drives slowly, her fender new and shining. No one looks at it. They’re all staring at Charlotte’s house. She pulls her car all the way into the garage and goes back out again, into the crush of reporters. She pushes her way through them. Felicia opens the door the instant Eve knocks. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“What is it?” Eve steps into the foyer, and Felicia slams the door. Charlotte and Gloria stand by the window, looking out. “What happened?”

“The police called. Someone reported finding a body.”

Eve feels the wall bump her back. She doesn’t want to know. Once the words are said, they can’t be unsaid. “Amy?” she manages. The word slips out, oily.

“They won’t tell us,” Gloria says.

“It isn’t,” Charlotte says. “I’d know it. I’d feel it somehow.”

“Of course you would,” Gloria says.

“Come away from the window, Charlotte.” Felicia says it softly. “You don’t want your picture showing up on the news.”

“I don’t care.” Charlotte’s gripping the window frame, staring out at the reporters who aim their cameras and wave their arms.

“Eve, take Charlotte outside,” Gloria says. “Felicia and I will answer the phone if it rings.”

Charlotte shakes her head, but Felicia looks pleadingly at Eve.

“Come on,” Eve cajoles. “Keep me company.” And Charlotte allows herself to be led across the kitchen and out the back door.

It’s hot outside, unyielding. The chairs stand around the glass-topped table as if they’d been pushed out in haste. The broad umbrella stands furled. There is no refuge.

Eve has spent hours here, days, weeks. She knows the seasons of this yard, how fog collects in winter, and every spring one azalea bush blooms a discordant red among the pink. The only constant is Amy’s old baby swing hanging straight from the tall oak, its blue plastic seat like a cup, grayed with age, the safety bar dangling askew from the rope.

Charlotte paces barefoot. “Why haven’t they called?”

“They will. They know you’re waiting.”

“How hard can it be to confirm? They should know right away.” It’s impossible to think about the reasons why. “It’s not Amy. It can’t be. It’s just another false alarm.” Charlotte steps off the patio and onto the grass.

This is a mistake, being here instead of home with Tyler. The police will be showing up. They will have news. They might know something. Eve could be trapped here. She might not be able to get home.

Charlotte wanders among her flowers, orange helenium, purple verbena, pink resurrection lilies, white phlox, yellow roses. She grows sturdy, colorful varieties, cuts them and arranges them in glass vases, and takes them to the open houses she holds.
Flowers can make a sale
, she says. As long as Eve’s known her, Charlotte has brought by flowers. In winter, it’s pine and holly twined around white candles.

Eve joins Charlotte at the back gate. They look out at the yards of people they don’t know. Meandering between these yards is their walking path. This is where Charlotte told Eve about the terrible night that Owen moved out. This is where Eve told Charlotte about her miscarriage, the baby conceived before they knew. This path crosses the road and leads down to the river, steep in places. They have always been careful following this path.

“I keep thinking of the last thing I told her,” Charlotte says in a low voice.

“Don’t,” Eve says, but Charlotte goes on.

“ ‘Go to your room,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to see you right now.’ That’s what I told her. I told her to get out of my sight.”

“Everyone loses their temper.”

“Not you. I’ve never once heard you raise your voice.”

“My situation’s different.”

“Tell me something happy. You must have something.”

The truth. Eve has the truth, which is so sad and so terrible that words can’t contain it. She looks off into the trees. She makes a decision. “I’ve heard from Dr. Abernathy.”

“From Hopkins?”

This
is the sort of friend Charlotte is, that she would remember that. The trees and sky blur, a wash of blue and green and black. “He thinks he might be onto something.”

“Really? Like what?”

“A cream containing the enzyme Tyler’s missing.”

“So he’d use it like sunscreen?”

“Exactly.”

“So, wait. Is this a cure?”

“It could be.”

Charlotte stares with wide eyes. Pink touches her cheeks. Then she throws her arms around Eve, pulls her close. She is so slight in Eve’s arms, skeletal. “Oh, honey, why didn’t you tell me? This is wonderful news. What does David say?”

“I haven’t told him yet.” David’s lost hope. Or maybe he never had any to begin with. It only makes Eve more determined to keep it.

“Did you get Tyler’s name on the list?”

“It’s too early.”

“This will be the one! I know it.”

“Charlotte?”

They turn at the sound of Gloria’s voice. She’s standing in the kitchen doorway, her hand on the frame. Detective Watkins stands beside her, sympathy radiating from every inch of her, the softness in
her eyes, the way she tilts her head. “Mrs. Nolan,” she says, and Charlotte moans and clutches at Eve’s arm. “I’m sorry to inform you that we’ve recovered a body in the river. We need you to come down and make the positive identification.”

Amy had been in the river, twisting downstream until she slid beneath that old boathouse, and her hair had snared on the piling. Another storm could have come along and swept her away, but it hadn’t. Her hair could have eventually pulled free and let her loose among the river currents. But that hadn’t happened, either. Amy had been floating while they all waited, a mere mile away.

Don’t leave me
, Charlotte begs, and so Eve gets into the back of Detective Watkins’s police car. Charlotte leans against her, her face buried in her hands. Her weeping is low and endless. It coils around Eve, who fishes through her pockets for a tissue. At the police station, she goes into the ladies room and unwinds a length of toilet paper, coming out and pressing it into Charlotte’s hand.