The Secrets Sisters Keep (20 page)

Chandler leaped to his feet. “You’re nuts! Financial difficulties? What the hell does that mean? Uncle Edward will help us!” He flipped his focus to Edward. “You’ll help us, won’t you? Before my parents do something crazy?”

Edward looked at Amanda, who shook her head. “No, my boy,” he said, “I don’t think your family needs my money.”

Amanda smiled and squeezed Jonathan’s hand. Gratefully, he squeezed back.

Then Babe returned to the dining room, her face flushed, her blue eyes glazed with tears.

Chapter Thirty-six

“W
ell,” Babe said, “we’re all over the
Post
.”

Edward pummeled his napkin onto his plate. “Crap. I was hoping this could wait until after the photo.”

So much for a peaceful family gathering.

Ellie closed her eyes, wondering what he’d been up to now. “You were hoping
what
could wait?”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters now. Carleen is gone and you know about the
Post
and Ellie, you’re wearing that godforsaken ribbon. Everything is ruined. Henry, call the photographer and cancel the goddamn shoot.”

Before Ellie could respond, Babe interrupted with an uncharacteristic snap. “Uncle Edward? What do you know about this?”

Edward sighed a long, slow sigh, as if he were releasing decades of anguish, a gusher of guilt. “For starters, Ray’s son, Kevin, buzzed me again this morning on the walkie-talkie he gave me in case I needed anything when I was sequestered on Squirrel Island. He’s a nice boy. Considerate.” He leveled his eyes on Chandler. “A young man you might take a lesson from.” Then Edward looked back to the group. “Kevin delivers the
Post
as well as the
Times
. He told me that the newspaper has pictures from yesterday. Pictures of the party, of Wes, of all you girls. Babe, they even have one of you down at the boathouse with Ray.”

“Apparently it made page six,” Babe said, more quietly now. “I was kissing a man who isn’t my husband. It’s generated three film offers already. My agent is ecstatic.”

“And you?” Amanda asked.

Babe shook her head. “I told her to turn them down. I am finished with Hollywood. I honestly am.”

Silence sprinkled like salt around the table.

“Unfortunately, it’s more than pictures,” Edward continued. “They rehashed our story. They couldn’t stand to leave it alone. To leave
us
alone.”

That’s when Edward’s eyes teared up.

Chandler and Chase squirmed in their chairs.

Ellie got up and went to Edward. She touched one shoulder; Babe joined her and touched the other.

“It’s all my fault,” Babe said. “That damn husband of mine . . . I knew this might be trouble, but I stupidly thought it would be okay. . . .”

Edward shook his head, shook them away. “Oh, sit down, both of you. Wait until you hear the whole bloody story before anyone takes credit for being at fault.”

So Ellie and Babe returned to their seats, and Edward wiped his tears, and they waited for Henry to fetch more tea from the kitchen so they could hear the things they didn’t know.

“F
irst of all,” Edward said, once new tea was poured and all had leaned forward, enrapt. “I need you to be quiet and listen. There will be no comments, no conversation, and, God help us, no crying. Everyone here is a grown-up, except maybe Chase, but he’s close enough to being a man to handle adult things, aren’t you, boy?”

Chase nodded vigorously, as if he’d just been handed a pass from the kids’ table at Thanksgiving.

“Good, Edward said. “Then it won’t scare you when I say that I have cancer.”

Babe expelled a tiny moan, then silence fell again.

Ellie touched her heart.
So it was true.
She didn’t dare look at Amanda.

“Are you going to die?” Chase asked.

“Well, my boy, I thought that was what I wanted. But now I realize that would be pretty selfish. I have to admit I’ve enjoyed this weekend, even though I know I haven’t been around for most of it. Anyway, seeing all of you has helped me rearrange my thoughts.”

Chase was enthralled; he nodded but didn’t speak.

“They tell me if I have chemo I’ll probably be fine,” Edward continued. “At first I thought no, I was ready to die. I’ve carried a bucketload of manure around all these years, and it would be a damn comfort to finally be done with it. But now—let’s say I’ve decided that rather than die, I might as well get it out in the open.”

They watched.

They listened.

“I’m going to sell this place,” Edward said. “It’s time to come out of the closet, so to speak. Henry and I will move into the city for a year or so, while I’m having treatment. I’ll take a suite at the Waldorf and live like a senile old man. When that’s done, I’ll move to London. I want to live where I was once happiest. I want to be surrounded by wonderful theater and memories that give me so much pleasure. Maybe I’ll stay there until I croak, who knows. But it’s something I really want to do, and not one of you is going to stop me.”

He pushed back in his chair and folded his arms. “The house and the land will bring in a bundle. I’m going to divide it equally between my nieces, between those here at the table and the one who’s missing. Before you go off on Carleen, there’s more to the story. Give me a minute, because this is the hard part.”

“Wait,” Ellie said. “I have a question. Will Henry go with you to London?”

Edward blinked. “Why, yes. If he can still stand me. If he doesn’t try forcing me into marriage. I’m just not the marrying kind.”

She shifted in her chair. “If he is with you, you won’t disappear?” She looked at Henry. “Forgive me. But I’ve recently learned that there might have been a problem with your past lovers.”

Henry looked at Edward. Edward laughed. “Where’d you hear that? From old Goldsmith?”

Then Henry laughed, too.

“I made that story up years ago,” Edward said. “I wanted to stop the gossip about the ‘great love of my life.’ Henry was willing to become the patsy—pardon the expression. I ended up with the life I needed, plus a great companion who didn’t care if I walked away from Broadway or ever threw another damn party. I’d grown so tired of it all.”

So. Henry wasn’t an assassin.

Then Edward stopped laughing. He stood up, wandered to the window, and looked pensively toward the lake. “Which actually brings up the next part of my story. The great love in my life. That wasn’t gossip. It was true. She was my great love. And she was your mother.”

Outside, a gentle breeze stirred the fat peonies. A whisper of a hummingbird paused at the window, as if he were an interested spirit. Ellie didn’t look at either of her sisters, but she’d bet they were thinking the same thing: Uncle Edward’s great love had been their mother?

It seemed preposterous.

“It was futile, of course,” Edward continued. “She was married to my brother. How could I tell my brother I was in love with his wife? But Mazie and I had a wonderful romance, short-lived though it was. I was with her in London. She is the only one—man or woman—who completely, totally, ever stole my heart. Henry understands this.”

He sighed again, then finally turned around. He knew his tears were visible, but he made no comment about them.

“She had to return to Robert. She already had Ellie and Amanda-Belle and Carleen to look after. We never dreamed our love would give us you, Babe. We never dreamed we would create such a beautiful child.”

That time, Amanda gasped.

“I had my asinine career; she had her family. She traded our life to be a good mother. We never slept together after London. To my knowledge, Mazie only slept with my brother.” His voice cracked as if the thought still caused him pain. “I do know I never slept with another woman. I am a gay man. Mazie was my only exception. At the time we didn’t understand why.”

“So,” Ellie asked, “you’re Babe’s biological father?”

“I said no talking!”

Ellie bolted up. “That’s not fair! Are you or aren’t you Babe’s father?”

He lowered his head. “I believe I am, yes.”

All eyes rolled toward Babe, who sat with her lovely mouth hanging open.

“I have come to believe that God wanted the world to have Babe,” he continued. “And so he created the deep love between Mazie and me.”

The silence at the table rested quietly now. Then Ellie said, “One more thing, Uncle Edward. Did Henry stop Mother from getting a divorce?”

Henry stood up. “I tried talking to her, because I, too, loved Edward, and I, too, wanted him. But it didn’t matter. Mazie didn’t want a divorce. She didn’t want to tear her family apart.”

Ellie looked at Edward, who didn’t refute the remark. She sat back down.

“I know this must be confusing,” Edward said, “but there’s more to the story. And it involves Carleen.”

Henry, too, returned to his chair, and Edward’s audience waited.

“She knew,” Edward said. “She found the love letters I had written to your mother. Dear Mazie told me she was going to tie them in a pink ribbon and keep them forever; she could be such a silly, wistful girl.” He uttered a small, sad sound, then returned to the head of the table and sat down. “The day Carleen went looking for her birth certificate, she found the letters in the attic. Ellie, I believe you’re wearing the ribbon that tied them up.”

Ellie’s hand flew up to her ponytail. The others stared at her.

“Carleen didn’t burn old school records in the fireplace,” Edward said. “She burned the stack of letters. She was trying to save your mother from disgrace. She was trying to keep the family together. She never told anyone that those letters were what caused the fire and your parents’ deaths.”

Both Ellie and Amanda moved their hands to their mouths. Babe started to cry.

“Holy shit,” Chase said, “this is unreal.”

“No,” Edward added, “it’s very real. When Carleen wore the pink ribbon on the witness stand, I was suspicious. I was never sure, though, until I saw her today. When I asked, all she would say was that she knew everything. I guess she decided not to tell any of you. She’s still protecting your mother—and all of you—after the lousy way we’ve treated her.”

They puzzled over his words, then Amanda stood up. “Come on, girls,” she said with sober conviction. “We have to find our sister. Before she gets away.”

S
he was in Port Authority, buying a bagel with a schmear at Einstein’s.

“We know what happened,” Amanda said. “We know about Mother and Uncle Edward.”

The four women moved quietly through the thin Sunday crowd, up to a bookstore, where they sat—three women in virginal white, the other one, Carleen.

By the time they were finished talking, they all were crying, especially Babe.

“Does this mean I’m not really your sister?” Babe asked. “I mean, I’m really your half sister. What does that mean?”

Before they could tell her to stop being a goof, a young woman approached with a long-lensed Nikon. “Babe!” she shouted. “Can you turn this way?”

Amanda bolted up and blocked the camera with her hand. The others fled as if they’d shoplifted a pile of Nora Roberts’s latest books. Safely outside on the street, they laughed and laughed like mischievous conspirators.

As they headed for the parking garage where they’d left Edward’s clunky Range Rover, Ellie said, “Hey, remember that summer when Mrs. McGuire arrived without a boyfriend and drank too much champagne and peed in the hydrangeas?” And they laughed again because at the time they’d just left their hiding place in the hydrangeas and had averted near disaster.

Then Amanda remembered a funny tale, then Carleen did, then Babe, and they reached the garage still chattering and laughing, a family, once again.

Epilogue

E
llie found a white dress in her wardrobe that suited Carleen. Then the photograph was taken and—click, click—they were gone.

Babe went to Ray’s with true love in her heart, corny as it sounded. She said it was the one role she’d been meant to play. She also said she planned to look into finding a surrogate; she and Ray had decided to try and have a baby together, after all.

Amanda headed back to the city with her family, knowing she’d soon have the money to pay off her debtors, but feeling more enthusiastic about the new life that lay ahead. One son was excited, the other one was grumbling. Her daughter seemed happy just to tuck her wild red hair under a helmet and wrap her arms around her boyfriend’s waist as they boarded his motorcycle. Amanda said that before they left for Vermont, she would look up Martina and offer a real apology.

Carleen rode with Amanda and Jonathan back to Port Authority, where she would catch a bus to Belchertown. She promised to bring her husband and girls to the family party they would hold before final sale of
Kamp Kasteel
.

Ellie briefly thought she could use her share of the proceeds as a down payment, then get a mortgage, buy the house from Edward, and renovate it as a bed-and-breakfast. The people who owned the castle at the far end of the lake had done that, and business apparently was booming. Then she realized she truly was done being a recluse. She would cruise Museum Mile in the morning and see if she could find a real job, with real people, in the real world.

Before going to bed that Sunday night, she took out the brass box that held her travel dreams—and the things that had belonged to her mother. Slowly, Ellie removed the pink ribbon from her hair and placed it inside.

“That’s lovely,” Edward said from where he stood in the doorway. She hadn’t heard him approach; it was so rare that he ventured upstairs.

“They were Mother’s things. She left them here in a drawer.”

He stepped closer, looked into the box. “Deodorant? You saved her deodorant?” He smiled. “Oh, my, we’ve all been in pain for a long, long time.” Then he poked around in the box and noticed the brochures. “Egypt?” he asked. “Do you still want to go?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Edward. It was only a dream.”

“I never dreamed I’d be having chemo, but look at me now.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Nor does it make sense for you to put off your dreams any longer.”

She picked up a brochure, studied the pictures on the cover, the golden image of King Tut, the Valley of the Kings, the desert in mystic repose. “Well,” she said. “Well.” Then she noticed the travel agency’s address and wondered if they were still in business.

Edward kissed the top of her head and left the room. He tottered back toward the stairs and toward his own memories. He had, after all, a few things of his own—pictures from London, a lock of Mazie’s hair, the fork she’d used to nibble on her favorite English scones. But he would keep these for himself. He would put a note with them and ask the girls’ forgiveness. But when he was gone—in a year or twenty-five—they would find his meager treasures and know how very deeply their mother had been loved.