Best Kept Secret

  “Santa baby, a fifty-four convertible, too, light blue!” Francie sang along as they passed one stall.

  Adele laughed. “Now, how do you know that old song?”

  Francie shrugged, and Adele looped her arm through her great-niece’s.

  Dana turned around and called over her shoulder, “There’s no place like New York City when you’re in the Christmas spirit.”

  At Radio City, Francie and her family sat in the first row of one of the balconies. They watched the Rockettes kick their legs high, and clapped when the dancing elves had finished their number. Francie, laughing, turned to Adele and realized that her aunt was looking not at the stage, but down at her hands in her lap, her face serious.

  “What —” she started to ask, but the Living Nativity began and she turned her attention to the live animals onstage.

  When the show ended, Francie sighed. She followed her family outside and discovered that the snow had stopped falling and that the daylight was already fading.

  “Rumpelmayer’s for ice cream,” said her father, “then a quick peek at the tree before we Goldbergs head for home.”

  At Rumpelmayer’s, Francie ordered a sundae. She felt like a princess as she sat at the table with a parfait glass full of strawberry ice cream in front of her. “Only eight days until the first night of Hanukkah,” she remarked. “And then Christmas and then New Year’s Eve. This has been a great year.” She looked around at her family. “Hasn’t it?” she added. “But I miss Sadie. I’ll be happy to get home and see her.”

  “Little Miss Chatterbox!” commented her mother.

  “But don’t you remember feeling excited about the holidays?” asked Francie.

  Dana smiled. “Of course I do. And I wasn’t making fun of you. I love seeing you so excited.” She paused. “I remember one year when your aunt Julia and I were seven, I think, and your uncle Peter was five, our dad suggested that we go to Rockefeller Center to see the tree lit up at night. So we all piled into a cab in the snow — it was snowing just like it was today — and we rode uptown and there was the tree glowing in the darkness. It seemed like magic. After that, we came to Rumpelmayer’s.” Dana looked around the restaurant. “Doesn’t really seem all that long ago. I feel like I could close my eyes now and open them to find Mom and Dad and my brother and sister around the table.”

  “Were you there?” Francie asked Adele.

  Her aunt shook her head. “I was still living in Maine then.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re here now.” Francie rested her head on Adele’s shoulder.

  “I hate to hurry things along,” said Matthew, “but we really should get going. Someone has school tomorrow, and” — he turned to Dana — “you and I have an early appointment, remember?”

  The Goldbergs and Adele walked back to Rockefeller Center, gazed at the towering tree glowing with thousands of tiny lights, which Francie agreed did seem magical, and at last made their way to Adele’s apartment.

  “I’m all packed,” Francie announced as they walked through her door. “I just need to get my suitcase.”

  “But before you go,” said Adele, and Francie realized with alarm that her aunt’s voice was breaking. “Before you go, I —” She sat down heavily on the couch.

  “Adele?” said Dana. “What’s the matter?”

  “I need to talk to you, to all of you. I need to tell you something.”

  Dana and Matthew exchanged glances, and then they shrugged out of their coats. Matthew dropped into an armchair and Francie plopped into his lap, while Dana sat gingerly next to Adele. She put her hand on Adele’s arm. “What’s the matter?” she said again.

  Adele drew in her breath and let it out slowly. “I’ve been diagnosed with cancer,” she said. “Breast cancer.”

  Dana’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh.”

  “I’ll be starting treatment in a few weeks,” Adele rushed on. “Right after the new year.”

  “What kind of treatment?” asked Dana.

  “Chemotherapy. There may be surgery later. I don’t know yet. But they’re making great strides in cancer treatment.”

  Francie buried her face in her father’s shirt.

  “Hey,” said Adele softly. “Listen, we have to think positively. That’s the only way to approach this. Square our shoulders and march forward.”

  “But —” said Francie, raising her head.

  “I’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

  Dana drew her aunt to her and held her close. After a few moments, Francie realized they were crying. She turned to look at Matthew and saw that he was crying, too. “Is this how we square our shoulders?” she asked.

  The adults laughed nervously.

  “No,” said Adele, reaching for a Kleenex. “No, it isn’t. This is how we square our shoulders.” She straightened up. “Come on. Francie, get your suitcase. It’s time for you all to be on your way. No more crying now. I’ll see you again in less than two weeks. Christmas in Princeton.”

  “Not as glamorous as Christmas in New York,” said Dana, sniffling, “but it’ll do.”

  “It’ll be perfect,” said Adele.

  “Perfect,” echoed Francie. And then she couldn’t help herself. She burst into tears and crawled into her aunt’s lap, where she stayed until her father drew her gently to her feet.

  “Sadie, it’s snowing again!” exclaimed Francie. It seemed to have snowed a million times so far that winter — and nearly every snow had fallen on a weekend day or a vacation day so that school had been canceled only twice, to Francie’s dismay. Still, snow was snow. And it was even better with Sadie around. “Come on,” said Francie. She shrugged into a sweater and ran into the hallway, followed by Sadie.

  They hurtled down the stairs to the closet in the front hall and Francie pulled out her mittens, boots, and coat. She was searching for a scarf when her mother called from the kitchen, “Don’t you want breakfast?”

  “Can I have it later? Please?” Francie called back. “Sadie and I want to play in the snow while it’s fresh. Before there are even any footprints in it.”

  “Okay, but I’m making waffles.”

  “Really?” Francie paused in her search. Then she looked at Sadie, who was standing on her hind legs at the front door, watching the snow fall. “We’ll be back in half an hour, I promise.”

  When Francie was as bundled up as possible, she opened the door and Sadie bounded into the yard ahead of her. The snow was piled as high as the bottom step of the front porch, and still falling thickly.

  “Don’t go in the street!” Francie shouted, even though Sadie was struggling through the snow, leaping high but moving forward by inches. Now that she was responsible for another living creature, Francie saw doggie danger everywhere — speeding cars, dognappers (although she wasn’t sure what a dognapper looked like), chocolate bars, onions.

  She glanced up and down Vandeventer Avenue. Her neighborhood was as quiet as an empty room (and apparently, free of danger). The plows hadn’t come down her street yet and she couldn’t hear traffic anywhere, not even in town. Across Vandeventer, lights were on in the Newcomers’ house, but no one had been outside yet. Next door, she saw footprints in the Foxes’ front yard, but they belonged to Hank, who, Francie suspected, had been let out just long enough to pee before he hightailed it back inside his warm, dry home.

  Francie bent down to scoop up snow. She packed it into a ball and tossed it to Sadie, who jumped for it and caught it in her mouth, but looked surprised and wounded when it fell apart.

  “Let’s build a snowman,” said Francie. She worked quickly, making three balls and rolling them around the yard until she decided their sizes were right. Sadie leaped up and down at her side. “We’ll dress him later,” Francie announced when the snowman was completed. “I’m freezing. Let’s go get breakfast.”

  Inside, she found her mother presiding over the waffle iron. “Where’s Matthew?” Francie asked.

  “Upstairs, working.”

  “He’s been working an
awful lot lately,” she commented. “He’s never here.”

  Francie ate three waffles before her mother disappeared into her own studio. She turned to Sadie. “You know what this is a good day for? It’s a good day for making snowmen and Valentines.”

  Francie set out paper and markers and glitter and sat at the kitchen table. She had made three cards — one for Kaycee, one for Amy, and one for Fred in Maine — and was wondering whether to make a card for George, when she remembered that Adele’s birthday was on Valentine’s Day, and decided to make a birthday Valentine for her aunt. She would be able to give the card to her in person, since Adele had said she wanted to spend her birthday in Princeton. The thought made Francie set down the scissors she’d been holding and stare out the window. She wasn’t sure she wanted to see Adele next weekend. Adele’s hair had already fallen out as a result of her chemo treatments, and during her last phone call to the Goldbergs, she announced that she now wanted to be addressed as Aunt Baldy. Francie had not found that funny in the least. She didn’t want a bald aunt.

  “Does she have a wig?” she’d asked Dana when they hung up the phone.

  “Yes, but I don’t think she wears it much.”

  “She doesn’t? Why not?” If Francie were bald, she would wear a wig every moment. She wouldn’t want a single person to see her bare scalp. She wouldn’t even want to look at it herself.

  “She says it itches. And that it makes her look like Betty Boop.”

  “So she really goes around bald?”

  Dana shook her head. “She wears scarves. Her head gets too cold otherwise.”

  Francie thought about Adele and her bald head under a scarf and she shuddered. Then she turned back to the card.

  “Francie? Honey?” said Dana a few minutes later. She poked her head into the kitchen. Francie could see Matthew hovering behind her.

  “Yeah?”

  “What are you working on?”

  “Valentines.”

  “Could you come into the living room, please? Your father and I need to talk to you.”

  In that instant, Francie’s heart began to pound. She knew, in the inexplicable way you sometimes just know things — like the time she had known moments before it had happened that Matthew was going to fall down the porch steps — that whatever her parents wanted to tell her was going to be very, very bad.

  “Okay,” said Francie in a small voice, and followed her parents into the living room.

  Dana and Matthew sat side by side on the couch and Francie sat facing them in an armchair, Sadie in her lap. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “We have something difficult to tell you,” Dana began.

  “And we decided to tell you today so that you would have the weekend to start getting used to the idea before you go back to school,” her father added.

  Francie said nothing.

  Her parents looked at each other. At last, Matthew drew in his breath and said, “Your mother and I are going to get a divorce.”

  Francie stared at them. Then she unearthed Sadie from her lap and jumped to her feet. “What?” She sat down again and Sadie slunk from the room. “But — but — you’re so happy —” she sputtered. What her father had said made no sense whatsoever.

  Dana offered her a sad smile. “Not really, pumpkin.”

  “I never hear you fight.”

  “That doesn’t have anything to do with it,” said Matthew.

  “Well, it should.”

  “We know this comes as a surprise,” said Dana. “Let us explain things to you. Please.”

  Again, Francie said nothing. She crossed her arms.

  “We’ve been seeing a marriage counselor,” said Matthew. “We still like each other. We have so much in common —”

  “We still love each other,” Dana interrupted him. “But we’re not in love with each other. Not anymore.”

  “So?” said Francie. “You could stay together. Since you love each other and you have so much in common.”

  Her parents shook their heads. “We’ve talked and talked about it,” Dana continued. “We’re just not happy this way.”

  “What about me?” cried Francie. “Do you think I’ll be happy if you get a divorce?”

  Her mother’s eyes filled and she looked down at her hands, which were shaking. “No. Not now. Not at first. But you’ll be happy again sometime. And you’ll certainly be happier with two parents who are happy than with two parents who are unhappy.”

  “We want to separate now,” Matthew added, “while we’re still friendly. We don’t want to wait until we’re so unhappy that we resent each other and begin to fight.”

  “You’re spending all this time figuring out how to leave each other,” said Francie. “Why don’t you figure out how to be in love with each other again instead?”

  “Pumpkin, trust me; we’ve been down that road,” said Dana. “We’ve been seeing the counselor for a year.”

  “Well, obviously he’s not very professional,” muttered Francie.

  “She,” said Matthew. “The counselor is a woman. And she’s quite professional. We all worked hard to get to this point.”

  Francie could feel her head start to pound and her chest tighten. She refused to cry, however. “Is it something I did? Is it because of me? What did I do that —” she started to say, and at that moment, an idea occurred to her that was so horrible, she gasped. Her parents must have found out about Erin Mulligan. Maybe they’d somehow found out about everything — about Bubbles and the man in the car and Francie’s silence — and they were so ashamed of their daughter that it had torn them apart.

  “I can fix it! I’ll fix everything,” Francie said in a rush, although she had no idea how she could possibly fix what had happened more than two years earlier.

  Her parents interrupted her.

  “Honey, this has nothing to do with you,” said Matthew, just as Dana said, “Oh, Francie, this isn’t your fault.”

  Francie’s chest loosened. “But I could still fix it. I know you much better than that counselor does. Why don’t you both stop working so hard? Maybe we just need to spend more time together as a family. I’ll stay at home more. I won’t go over to Kaycee’s and Amy’s so often. You guys have known each other for years. Why don’t you remember the good times —”

  Matthew held up his hand. Then he crossed the room and squeezed into the chair with Francie. “I’m afraid this is one thing you can’t fix, honey. But we love you even more for wanting to try.”

  “So,” said Francie, feeling her chest tighten again, “what happens next?” She wiggled away from her father.

  “Well,” said Dana, “we’re going to put the house up for sale.”

  Again, Francie jumped out of the chair, this time causing Matthew to topple over. “You’re selling the house? You mean we’re moving? Why?”

  “The counselor feels it will be better for each of us to have a fresh start. And she thinks it’s important for you to feel that neither your father nor I left the other, that no one walked out, that this was a mutual decision.”

  “But why can’t you just tell me that and then one of you can keep the house anyway? I don’t care which one of you stays, but I don’t want to move. I’ve lived here almost my whole life. I don’t remember any other home. Amy is next door, and —”

  “We know you love the house and that this is going to be a big change,” said Matthew quietly as he and Francie settled into the chair again. “But this is what’s going to happen. We’ve spoken with a real estate agent and the house will go on the market next week. Your mother and I will each look for a new house.”

  “In Princeton,” said Dana.

  “Yes, in Princeton. And we hope to find houses that are in walking distance from each other, so that you can go back and forth easily.”

  “But where will I live?” asked Francie, feeling panicky.

  “At both places. We’ll have to work out a schedule. Maybe divide the week in half — half a week at your mom’s, half a week wit
h me. We’ll need to think about that. We can make a decision together.”

  “It won’t affect where you go to school,” added Dana. “You’ll still go to John Witherspoon and then to the high school.”

  “What about Sadie?” asked Francie, whose voice was now trembling.

  Dana sighed. “We can’t expect a dog to go back and forth,” she said at last. “We’ve decided that she’ll live with me.”

  “Great. So I’ll only get to see her half of every week. This is wonderful. Really wonderful. I couldn’t think of better news.”

  “Francie —” Matthew began to say.

  Francie got to her feet. “This whole thing is so stupid!” she cried. “Why don’t you just stay married? You’re only moving about two inches away from each other. Why are you bothering with a divorce?”

  “Because we’re still friends,” Dana replied patiently, “and we’d prefer to keep it that way. We like each other very much. We just don’t —”

  “I know, I know. You don’t love each other. Blah, blah, blah. You know, you aren’t the only people in this family. There’s one other person — and a dog — to consider.” Francie got out of the chair and crossed to the doorway. “Are we done?” she asked. “Can I go to Kaycee’s?”

  Dana put her hand to her mouth and seemed unable to speak.

  “Yes,” said Matthew after a moment. “You may go to Kaycee’s.”

  * * *

  When Francie arrived at the Nobles’ house, she took Kaycee by the hand and led her forcefully up the stairs to her room. Then she sat her on the bed and flopped down next to her. “My stupid parents are getting a stupid divorce,” she said, and burst into tears.

  After her tears had subsided, and after Kaycee had brought her a package of Twinkies and then given her George’s guinea pig to hold, Francie told Kaycee everything she could remember about the horrible conversation with her parents.

  “Look at the bright side,” said Kaycee eventually.

  “What bright side?”

  “Maybe one of your parents will move onto my street and then we’ll be neighbors.”