Best Kept Secret

  “Are we almost there?” Francie wanted to know. She had tried for miles to refrain from asking this question, but couldn’t help herself any longer.

  “Yup,” said Adele from the front. “We’re entering Bromton. Fred’s group home is on the other side of town.” She was holding a map in one hand and a page of written directions in the other.

  “What is a group home?” asked Francie.

  “Wait, I need to concentrate,” Adele replied.

  “It’s a private residence for people with disabilities,” Dana said quietly as Adele and Matthew navigated the crowded streets of Bromton. “A place that feels like a home instead of a school or an institution. Fred’s home is for people with mental and physical disabilities. I think there are only seven other people living there besides Fred, plus the staff, who are there day and night. Fred has his own room. I don’t know much more than that. Except that it must be very expensive. Papa Luther has been footing the bill for Fred’s care for decades. He may have shoved Fred out of his life in a way none of us ever would have done, but at least he arranged for him to have good care.”

  “Eventually,” Adele called over her shoulder. “Fred’s first ‘home’ was an institution.”

  Francie shuddered.

  “Well, here we are,” Matthew said a few minutes later. He turned into a small parking lot by a sprawling Victorian house.

  Francie’s stomach fluttered. “I’m scared,” she whispered to Dana. “What if he doesn’t like us? What if he doesn’t want us here?”

  Dana offered her a smile and squeezed her hand. “I don’t know, honey. We’ll just have to see what happens. If things don’t go well, we’ll leave. We don’t want to upset Fred.”

  Francie climbed out of the car, Sadie at her heels, and gazed at the building. “It looks sort of like Papa Luther’s house,” she said. And it did, except for a wooden sign by the front door that read WINGS.

  “Huh,” said Dana, peering at the sign. “Funny. That was the name of the first school Peter went to. He loved that school.”

  “Hey, here comes everyone else,” Francie exclaimed as a car pulled into the lot and parked beside them.

  Out stepped Grandma Abby and her husband, Orrin, and Aunt Rose and Uncle Harry. Francie hugged the new arrivals and then hung back and eyed her mother and Grandma Abby warily. Each gave the other a wordless peck on the cheek. That was all. They seemed to be behaving themselves. Grandma Abby turned to Francie, then wrapped her in a hug and held her close, patting her on the back and (Francie thought) trying not to cry. At last, she clapped her hands together and said, “Well! I suppose we should go on in.” She looped her arm through her husband’s and led the way resolutely along the walk to the front door of Wings. Francie led Sadie up the wheelchair ramp, just for the fun of it.

  Orrin rang the doorbell and Francie’s family waited, motionless and silent. Francie’s heart began to pound.

  The door was opened by a short woman with a round face and eyes that reminded Francie of her uncle Peter’s. “Are you here to see Fred?” she asked. When Grandma Abby said that they were, the woman grinned. “My name is Amanda,” she told them. “Won’t you come in? I have door duty today. That’s my job.” She held the front door open while Francie, heart still pounding, filed inside with her family.

  “Hey, it looks just like a regular house!” she couldn’t help whispering to her father. She was standing in a large living room with a fireplace and chairs and couches, books and balls of yarn and sneakers strewn around, just like in Francie’s own living room in New Jersey. A hallway led to the back of the house and Francie could see a kitchen at the end. To her right, a staircase led upstairs. The only unusual feature of the house was an elevator next to the staircase.

  “Matthew! An eleva —”

  But Matthew nudged Francie as Amanda began speaking again. She stood in front of the visitors, hands clasped neatly in front of her. “Please wait a moment while I get Fred. He’s in the kitchen.” She looked at Francie and added, “May I pat your dog?” After Francie said yes, Amanda gave Sadie a pat on the head and then hurried importantly in the direction of the kitchen. Several moments later, she returned, pushing a wheelchair.

  Francie Goldberg found herself looking at her great-uncle Fred for the first time. She knew she shouldn’t have been surprised to see a gray-haired man in the wheelchair, but since her only other glimpse of Fred had been in old photos, she’d half expected to see a little boy. The man, slumped in the chair, had thinning hair that was indeed beginning to turn gray, stubble on his chin, and hands that were spotted and wrinkled like Adele’s.

  For a moment, no one spoke. Amanda tactfully retreated to the kitchen.

  At last, Grandma Abby stepped forward. “Fred? I’m Abby, your sister. Your big sister,” she added in a trembling voice. “Do you remember me?”

  “You’re Abby, my big sister,” Fred repeated. Francie thought he sounded like a mechanical toy.

  “And I’m Rose, your other big sister,” said Aunt Rose. She reached out a hand and almost touched the sleeve of Fred’s shirt, but then drew back, and clutched Grandma Abby’s elbow.

  Adele glanced at her older sisters before she approached the wheelchair. “I’m your little sister, but I’m afraid I don’t remember you,” she admitted. Now Fred smiled. “Is it okay to give you a hug?”

  “Oh no. Not a hug. Not yet,” said Fred.

  Adele stepped back hastily. “Sorry, sorry,” she said. She reached for Grandma Abby’s other elbow so that the three sisters were standing in a united but anxious row.

  “I know this is a lot to take in,” Grandma Abby went on. “We hope we’re not too much for you, but we —” She hesitated and looked helplessly at the other members of the family. “But we wanted to get to know you.”

  “We’ve wanted that for a long time,” added Adele, “except we didn’t know where you were.”

  Again, no one spoke. So Francie, trembling, stepped forward, Sadie in tow. “I’m your great-niece,” she said, and slipped her hand into Fred’s. “My name is Francie. I’m really happy we found you.”

  Fred offered her a wide, slow grin, even as Francie noticed tears in his eyes.

  “I don’t know if you wanted a big family, but you’ve got one now,” she added.

  “I want a family,” said Fred simply.

  “Good,” said Francie, “because there are more of us.” She smiled. “A lot more. We didn’t think we should all come at once, though.”

  “No,” said Fred. “This is good.” He struggled to sit up straighter. Then he shifted his attention to Sadie. “Is that your dog?”

  Francie nodded. “Sadie. We rescued her from the shelter.”

  Fred’s eyes lit up. “Tim has a rescue dog!” he exclaimed.

  “Who’s Tim?” asked Dana gently. “I’m Dana, by the way — your niece. I’m Abby’s daughter.”

  Francie saw Grandma Abby’s eyes flick to Dana, but Dana looked only at Fred.

  “Tim takes care of me,” said Fred. “We’re helping out in the kitchen this morning.”

  Francie glanced up and noticed a man standing just outside the doorway, quietly keeping his eye on things in the living room. She gave him a wave and he waved back.

  One by one, the members of Francie’s family relaxed and sat down. From their purses and pockets, they pulled photos that they shared with Fred. They told him stories and answered his questions and asked questions of their own.

  “Do you like living at Wings?” Francie wanted to know.

  Fred nodded enthusiastically. “I love it. We play checkers. I can play checkers, you know. Does anyone want to play checkers?”

  “I’ll play with you,” said Francie, “but I’m not much good.”

  While Fred found the checkerboard, Grandma Abby and Aunt Rose disappeared outside. When they returned, they held a whispered conversation with Tim, and soon everyone except Fred, Francie, and Sadie had left the living room.

  Fred beat Francie at three games of checkers
in a row.

  Francie shook her head. “Checkers is very hard for me,” she said truthfully.

  Fred patted her hand. “Don’t worry.”

  At that moment, the sound of voices singing “Happy Birthday” burst in from the hall, causing Fred to jump. Into the living room walked the rest of the visitors, Aunt Rose holding a platter with a cake on it, and everyone else holding wrapped gifts.

  Fred’s eyes widened. “But it was already my birthday,” he said. “My forty-ninth birthday. Two weeks ago was my forty-ninth birthday. We had a cake then.”

  “But we haven’t celebrated your birthday,” said Grandma Abby, smiling. “We have years of birthdays to make up for.”

  Francie tried to remember the last time Grandma Abby had phoned on Dana’s birthday, and couldn’t. She set the thought aside.

  Adele cut the cake then, Matthew handed the slices around, and Francie helped Fred open his gifts — new shirts and socks, a photo album, copies of Dana’s books.

  Fred grinned mightily. But eventually he began to look tired.

  “Would it be all right with you if we visited again?” Grandma Abby asked as they stood and began gathering their things. “Rose and I don’t live far away. And you have plenty of other cousins and nieces and nephews here in Maine. They’ll want to meet you, too.”

  “I like visits,” said Fred.

  “Would you like to come visit me at my house sometime?” she went on. “We’d love to have you.”

  At this, Fred appeared nervous. “Oh no, no. Oh no, thank you. This is my home. This is my home, of course. My room is upstairs. I didn’t show you my room, but it’s right up there, right up the elevator. This is my home,” he repeated.

  “Okay,” said Aunt Rose quickly. “We understand. But we would like to visit you again.”

  Francie led Sadie to Fred’s side. “I live in New Jersey,” she told him, “but we’ll be back next summer. I could bring Sadie again then.” For most of the visit, Sadie had lain next to Fred, resting her head on his feet.

  “Good,” said Fred. “Good.”

  “So we’ll see you soon,” Adele called later as they left Wings, Fred watching from the doorway in his wheelchair.

  “We’ll see you soon,” he echoed.

  Francie turned around for one last look and saw Fred smiling. As she watched, he tipped his head back to glance up at Tim, who had appeared behind him, and said, “That’s my family.”

  Francie swung her legs over the side of the little bed in Adele’s apartment and looked around the room, which was dim in the early light of a winter morning. This had been her mother’s bed during the four years when she’d lived with Adele. These had been the things her mother had seen when she’d awakened every morning in her aunt’s tiny, quirky apartment.

  Those four years had been very happy ones for Dana — and for Adele — but not for Grandma Abby, Francie had come to realize. Grandma Abby had felt abandoned by her daughter. “Why couldn’t she understand,” Dana had once said to Francie, “that I needed to be back in New York? My mother had moved us to Maine and we were just traipsing around from town to town. I couldn’t stand it. I was miserable. All I wanted was New York City, the one place that felt like home. And that’s what Adele offered me when she said I could come live with her. She gave me my home back.”

  Francie yawned and stood up. She crossed the room to peer out of a window. Two years had passed since Erin Mulligan had disappeared, and it was still Francie’s habit to start her morning by checking the street for black station wagons, even in the middle of New York City. What she saw now, though, was snow. And even though it was Sunday, Francie couldn’t help but feel the same surge of excitement she felt when she looked outside on a weekday morning, saw a world of white, and thrilled at the thought of a day off from school.

  “Morning, honey,” said Adele as she emerged from her small bedroom. “Ready for another day in the city?”

  “It’s snowing!” was Francie’s excited response.

  “Perfect for the rest of our Christmas adventure,” said Adele.

  Francie and her parents had arrived in New York on Friday night for a weekend of holiday activities. Christmas was just two weeks away and Hanukkah slightly more than one week away. Francie had begged to be allowed to bring Kaycee along, but it was Adele, during a pre-visit phone call, who had insisted on a family weekend. “Besides, if Kaycee came with you, one of you girls would wind up sleeping on the floor,” she’d added.

  “That would be okay,” Francie had said hastily.

  “But Sadie’s going to stay with the Nobles while we’re away, and Kaycee’s looking forward to that,” Matthew had argued.

  Francie let the subject drop. She wasn’t about to spoil a weekend in New York with Adele. Especially not when things were going so well. Almost four months had passed since the trip to Maine and the visit with Fred. Four months during which Francie and Kaycee had entered John Witherspoon Middle School as nervous but excited sixth graders. Francie had worried about being among the youngest students in a school in which the oldest students were turning fourteen and dating, and the girls were experimenting with makeup, wore bras, and had figures with noticeable curves. But the year had gotten off to a good start — partially due to Kaycee’s brother, George. George was a popular eighth grader. He had seen to it that Francie and Kaycee were treated with the respect ordinarily reserved for his classmates, and Francie had basked in this. She knew it wouldn’t last, though. When George graduated in May, he would leave the world of public school and enter a private high school. Two short years later, Kaycee would follow him, and Francie would face Princeton High on her own.

  But that was in the future. At the moment, all was well in Francie’s world. She liked her teachers, she was contributing short stories and essays to the school paper, and an editor at the Princeton Packet — the town newspaper! — had even asked her to write an article about her experience adopting Sadie from the shelter. The article was published, and she had felt famous.

  Now the holidays had arrived and Francie and her parents were in the fabulous Big Apple for their long-anticipated family weekend. Dana and Matthew were staying at a hotel, and Francie was enjoying treasured moments with Adele.

  Adele opened the refrigerator and surveyed the contents. Her kitchen was not a separate room, but an extension of the living room, a source of fascination for Francie. “Muffins all right for breakfast?” asked Adele.

  “Perfect,” said Francie. She waited to see if her aunt would offer her coffee again. She had offered it the day before, saying that Dana had been fourteen when she’d started drinking coffee, but Dana had been in the apartment at that moment and had put an end to things quickly.

  “Eleven-year-olds do not drink coffee,” she’d said. “Period. The end.”

  Adele did not offer it now. Francie didn’t care. She had sampled it once and decided it tasted like dirt.

  Francie and Adele sat on the couch and ate their muffins.

  “What are we going to do today?” asked Francie, who thought it would be hard to top the day before, which had been spent shopping and looking at the holiday windows, followed by dinner at a restaurant so fancy that the waiters wore tuxedos.

  “The Radio City Christmas show,” Adele began. “Well, now it’s called the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. That’ll be in the afternoon. Then we’ll go to Rumpelmayer’s —”

  “Yay!” exclaimed Francie.

  “And before you leave, we’ll see the tree at Rockefeller Center.”

  “Perfect,” said Francie again. Everything was perfect — the muffins, the weekend.

  She and Adele spent a lazy morning at the apartment. They finished their muffins, sat around in their pajamas, and talked. Francie regularly told Adele things that she shared with Kaycee but not with her parents.

  “So … any cute boys in your grade this year?” Adele wanted to know.

  Francie looked out the window at the snow, which continued to fall lazily. “A few. There are
so many new kids in school, because kids from all the elementary schools go on to John Witherspoon, that it’s a little hard to keep them straight. But there’s this one boy? Anthony Neceda? We have two classes together — French and study hall — and he smiles at me a lot. There’s going to be a Valentine’s Day party at school and maybe he’ll ask me to dance. I don’t know …” Francie trailed off. This was new territory.

  “What about Kaycee? Does she have a boyfriend?”

  Francie giggled. “No! We’re too young for actual boyfriends. But she likes Barry Garman, even though he hasn’t noticed her yet.”

  Adele’s buzzer sounded and she exclaimed, “Yikes! Here are your parents and we aren’t even dressed yet!”

  A few moments later, as Francie and Adele scrambled for their clothes, Dana and Matthew let themselves into the apartment. “Ah,” said Dana, collapsing onto the daybed that Francie had been sleeping on. “Home sweet home.”

  “Are you going to say that every time you come in here?” asked Francie.

  “Probably,” said Dana. “I loved this place.” Her eyes fell on the birdcage, with the leaves of a spider plant trailing through the bars. “That isn’t the same plant that was in there when I lived here, is it?”

  Adele laughed. “No. But it’s one of the spider plant babies. Or maybe it’s a grandchild.”

  Dana shook her head. “This apartment was heaven,” she said rapturously.

  * * *

  Half an hour later, Francie and her parents and Adele set out through the streets of Manhattan. They scuffed along in the snow, Dana and Matthew in front, Francie and Adele behind them. Francie remembered when her parents used to hold hands. Now they kept them in their pockets, out of the cold and snow. Her parents were getting old, Francie decided, and she made a mental note that when she was married, she and her husband would always be romantic, even when they were ninety-two.

  The snow continued to fall. They walked on, passing apartments with wreaths on the doors, shopwindows outlined in gold lights, and Christmas trees sparkling in building lobbies. They walked by stalls where trees were for sale, Christmas music playing loudly.