The Deepest Secret

  “I just went out for a minute. I was looking through my telescope.”

  She glances at the clock and puts her palm against his forehead, already thinking. He hasn’t had his flu shot yet; can she persuade his doctor to make a house call? But he feels cool. “See anything interesting?”

  He ducks away. “No. But I took a picture of the moon.”

  “You should ask Santa for a stronger telescope.”

  “I’m asking him for an enlarger, remember?”

  “Well, you’ve been a pretty good boy this year. Maybe you’ll get both.” David would be annoyed to hear her say this, but how can they deny Tyler such a small request? She might be able to find something used online. What’s a few hundred more dollars?

  “Can I eat in my room?”

  He’s got his back to her as he studies the pantry, his shoulders bowed as if he’s still figuring out how to manage their new breadth. He spends so much time alone. She almost never sees him. David’s right. She does count the minutes. She holds them close, each one. “You just got up. Are you sure you don’t want to sit down here with me?”

  “Dante’s waiting for me online.”

  Of course he’d want to visit with his friends. This is a good thing. “He’s up awfully late. Tell him I say hi.”

  “Okay.” He’s got a bowl and spoon in one hand, the box of cereal hooked under a bent arm, his thumb hooked through the handle of the milk container. A second later, he’s pounding up the stairs to his room.

  She makes peppermint tea and carries it out onto the patio. Tyler’s telescope is there, tilted toward the sky. She’s glad he’s back to watching the heavens. It makes her feel as though his world isn’t that small.

  The sky’s streaked violent orange and purple, as if the sun’s being dragged over the horizon. She opens her laptop and checks her email. Clients have been emailing, wondering at the delay in their website updates. Her eyes feel gritty and her throat aches. She’d stared at the ceiling all night while David slept beside her. How could she let Charlotte think that Amy could have been saved, that she’d died in pain, wanting her mother? Eve couldn’t. She can’t. She’s not a monster. Maybe she should turn herself in.

  Her computer chimes and she clicks on Skype to see her friend staring at her from half a world away. It’s late in Japan, so this timing is unexpected. “Nori, hi. How are you? How’s Yoshi?”

  Nori reaches forward to adjust the computer screen. “We’re at the end now. I wanted you to be the first to know.”

  She’s stunned. “But Yoshi just started treatment.”

  “She can’t take any more chemo.”

  Loss wells up inside her. “This is so quick.”

  “I know.”

  “I had hoped …”

  “Yes.”

  She sits helpless. Yoshi’s only seventeen. How can Eve leave Tyler now, when he might only have a few more years left? This is what she can’t do. She can’t abandon her son. She clears her throat and focuses on Nori’s face. “What about radiation? Or that clinical trial in Australia?” They’ve discussed this one, which is geared toward skin cancer. “You could travel at night.” Other families have done this. “The airline could have a wheelchair meet you at the gate. You could cover her with blankets. Or what if we try the researcher at Hopkins, see if he has any suggestions?”

  “It’s too late.” Nori’s eyes fill with tears. “I know you want to help, but I’m done fighting. This isn’t the way I want Yoshi to go, with me frantic and arguing and using up every last second. I want peacefulness. I want calm. Can you understand?”

  They’re both crying.

  “Could you tell Tyler?” Nori whispers.

  “Yes, yes. Please tell Yoshi we love her.”

  Nori swallows. “Eve, it’s okay. Tyler will be okay.”

  But they both know that’s not true.

  Mark Ryland’s pulling into his driveway next door. Eve shrinks back against her chair, not wanting him to see her sitting mere yards away. He’s a cop. He’s trained to read people’s expressions. One look at her and he’ll see everything.

  David comes out, carrying a paper bag of recycling. “Morning. Who was on Skype?”

  “Nori.”

  He pauses, looks at her. “How’s Yoshi?”

  It’s a simple thing to say, the chemo didn’t work, but somehow she can’t get it out. She can only shake her head.

  He sighs. “Yoshi’s what, eighteen?”

  “Seventeen.”

  This is where one of them says, That won’t happen to us or They’ll find a cure soon. She’s usually the one to offer this, the one to keep her gaze firmly forward. This is where she would stand and step into his arms, rest her head on his shoulder.

  The door opens. “Ready, Dad?” Melissa’s scraped back her long dark hair with an elastic headband. Her hair hangs straight. She’s wearing dark jeans and a white top. Her eyes are carefully lined, and she’s wearing pale pink lip gloss. She looks older, heartbreakingly so. She looks on the verge of becoming someone else.

  Eve says quickly, “Take Daddy’s car, honey.”

  “But I like yours better.”

  “I might need it later.” Eve ignores the quizzical look David throws her. She can’t let Melissa drive it. As soon as she can do so without raising suspicion, she’ll take it to the dealer and trade it in. She never wants to see it again.

  “Whatever,” Melissa says, and the door closes behind them.

  The patio is quiet. Her tea has gone cold. She should make another cup. The phone shrills inside the house. She lets it go to voicemail. How many more of these quiet moments will she have?

  The sky is pink now, and blue. A bird tweets. It’s such a hopeful sound. There’s nothing on this earth more hopeful than the sound of birds singing to one another. Tyler’s told her that only perching birds sing, those birds with specially adapted feet that allow them to hold onto branches as they call to one another. This is what she feels like—she’s gripping a thin branch and the next gust of wind will knock her tumbling right to the ground.

  DAVID

  Melissa steers the SUV between the rows of parked cars. It’s a sprawling lot with plenty of empty spaces, but she grips the steering wheel and keeps her chin lowered, as though she’s maneuvering a cruise ship into dock. They’ve driven down here in silence, not even the radio to accompany them, just David’s occasional Turn here or Watch the speed limit. They wait in line, show their paperwork, and take a seat on the molded plastic chairs. “Remember to come to a full stop at the stop sign,” he warns. “Look both ways before proceeding.”

  She grunts. This is the way she is before horse shows, too, withdrawn and focused.

  “So what are your plans for this weekend?” he asks, wanting her to relax. He’s worried about her taking this test. He doesn’t think she’s ready. They’ve driven the bare minimum of practice hours, and she’s still nervous about changing lanes. He worries about her behind the wheel, without him in the passenger seat supervising. Eve disagrees. Of course she’s ready. But Eve can only see the girl Melissa used to be. “You going out with Adrian?”

  “Right.”

  That’s not even an answer. She seems so unhappy. “What would you think about moving to DC? We could find you a new barn. You could break in another Sammy.” He shouldn’t talk to her about this. It undermines Eve, but he wants to know. Melissa might blossom in another city. They could be a family again.

  She flashes an angry look at him. “Since when does what I want matter?”

  “Melissa Lattimore?” A police officer is standing there, holding a clipboard.

  She can’t really believe that her needs don’t matter. She’s just being a petulant sixteen-year-old. “Good luck,” he says. His daughter doesn’t even look at him. She pushes herself up and follows the examiner through the sliding glass doors. He hopes the man is kind to her.

  She’s left her cell phone on the seat beside him. He picks it up. The screen is lit—a text’s just come in. It’s from
Brittany.

  dont worry no one saw anything

  He scrolls up to see the conversation. Brittany had texted:

  did you see sherrys pix from the party

  ugh no

  theres one of you

  tell her to take it down!!!

  I did but she wont she says its a pic of her and adrian

  shes a bitch like he even likes her

  shes just jealous

  she called me a whore

  she calls everyone that

  everyone knows

  dont worry no one saw anything

  He turns off the phone. He shouldn’t have read Melissa’s messages. He’s sickened to know this girl’s calling his daughter names and making her so miserable. Eve’s told him teenage girls could be vicious, but he hadn’t really understood. He glances to the plate glass window, but Melissa and the examiner have driven off.

  No one saw what?

  “You shouldn’t have violated her privacy like that.” Eve sets the plates on the patio table. She glances at the clock on the wall. It’s three minutes past sunset and Melissa’s supposed to be getting Tyler.

  “Her phone was sitting right there. Which really isn’t justification, I know. But she won’t tell us anything.”

  “She tells us the important things.”

  “Obviously not. She almost bit my head off when I asked about Adrian.”

  “I don’t think they’re dating anymore.”

  “This isn’t just teenage drama.” He stops as the patio door opens and Melissa appears.

  “Tyler’s coming.” Melissa pulls out a chair. “You know, Brittany had to try three times before she got her license.”

  She’s so pleased with herself. She chattered all the way home from the BMV, actually smiled when he suggested buying a cake to celebrate.

  “We’re so proud of you,” Eve says.

  “Can I have the car tonight?”

  “And so it begins,” he says.

  “Does that mean yes?”

  “That means where will you be going and when will you be home?” Eve lights the candles and waves away a mosquito.

  “Brittany’s, and I don’t know.” She pulls out her cell phone and begins texting.

  “Hey,” Eve says. “You know the rules. No phones at the dinner table.”

  “All you have are freaking rules,” she says, and Eve shakes her head, holds out her hand. Melissa makes a face and drops her phone into her outstretched palm.

  “Unfair. Dad texts in the car.”

  “I do not.”

  “That one from Renée. I had to take your phone away from you.” This snags Eve’s attention. She turns, tilts her head, and then Tyler steps onto the patio and Eve’s attention is immediately drawn toward their son. Her entire body changes, relaxes. “Hey, stranger,” she says.

  “What does hit-skip mean?” Tyler says this challengingly.

  “Where did you hear that?” David asks.

  “It’s all over Facebook. People are saying someone hit Amy with a car.”

  “That’s right.” Melissa’s set down her fork and is listening, too. This is news to her, he sees. He’d been surprised to read about it in the paper that afternoon, then relieved. Things could have been so much worse. “That’s what the medical examiner thinks happened.”

  “Then they skipped away?” Tyler sounds angry and frustrated. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  David glances at Eve. This is usually her domain, fielding tricky questions from the kids, but her face is still. “It’s an expression. It means they didn’t tell anyone. They just left.”

  “Why would anyone do that?”

  David holds the serving spoon heaped with food over his son’s plate. “They must have been afraid of being caught.”

  “But why, if it was an accident?”

  “Maybe they were driving drunk. That’s a crime.”

  He ladles another spoonful onto his son’s plate, waiting for Tyler to indicate that he has enough, but his son’s not paying attention. Tyler’s frowning at his plate. He’s retreated somewhere. Maybe all this talk is bringing home Amy’s death in a more real way. Tyler’s a sensitive kid. He broods. He holds his worries close and nurses them. This is the result of living in such isolation, of being alone so much of the time.

  “Don’t worry,” David tells him. “The police will find the driver.”

  “How? Do they know where it happened?”

  “I don’t know, but I bet they’ve narrowed it down. There will be some sort of evidence left behind. Or maybe someone saw something.” He feels Eve’s gaze on him, and he glances at her. “Right? There are all sorts of houses along that road. Someone could have looked out their window and seen something. Or another driver.”

  “Wouldn’t they have come forward by now?” Eve asks, and he finds himself reassuring her, too. “They might not have known what they saw,” he says. “But now the police know what they’re looking for. Whoever did this won’t get away with it.”

  Melissa sits there, playing with her food. Her earlier happy mood is gone. Inside the house, it’s quiet, too. The phone never rings. Kids never come to the door. She lives in isolation, too.

  Later, he asks Eve, “Why didn’t you tell me about the autopsy findings?”

  She turns to slot a plate into the dishwasher. “I guess I didn’t want to talk about it.”

  She’s always watched what she said, measuring out her words carefully. It had been intriguing when they were first dating. He’d had to work to get past her cool exterior, and it had been a thrill to discover just how passionate she could be. They’ve been married for years. They have two children together, and they should be closer than ever. But Eve hadn’t wanted to talk about something as important as Amy’s death.

  All the things they don’t tell each other anymore.

  SSSSS

  His dad keeps eating. His mom pours Tyler’s milk. Melissa cups her chin in her hand and scrapes her fork through her food. Driving drunk, his dad had said. It’s a crime. Tyler hadn’t even looked at Melissa, and Melissa hadn’t looked at him. She’d be different, wouldn’t she, if she’d killed someone? She wouldn’t just go to school and hang out with her friends. But Melissa was good at lying.

  After dinner, while his parents are busy in the kitchen, he goes down the hall and knocks on Melissa’s door. He puts his mouth near the wood. “Melissa?”

  No answer.

  He looks down the hallway to the kitchen, tries again, scratching the wood this time. The door creaks open an inch. It’s not locked. He pushes it all the way. Melissa’s lying on her stomach, texting. She’s got her earbuds in, so he comes into the room. She looks up with an irritated expression and yanks out her earbuds. “What?”

  He closes the door behind him. “I need to talk to you.”

  “So talk.” She’s texting, not really listening. He’s not sure how to say it. What if he’s wrong? She’d be really pissed. But what if he’s right?

  “You were drinking at Sherry’s party.”

  She doesn’t even look up. Her thumbs are moving fast, her hair falling forward and hiding her face. “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes, I do. It’s on Facebook. You’re holding a can of beer.”

  Now she looks up, frowning. “Big deal.”

  So it’s true. Fear tingles down his spine, but he pushes on. “And when you came home, you smelled like beer. And you were acting all weird.” Stumbling into things, barfing into the sink.

  “You’re an idiot,” she says, but she’s sitting up now. She’s paying attention, and she looks nervous, which only makes him feel sick.

  “You were drunk.” He wants her to deny this, tell him he’s got it all wrong, but she’s biting her lower lip, which she always does when she’s hiding something.

  “Just shut up,” she says, but she doesn’t say it like she means it. She says it like she’s scared. “You don’t know anything.”

  This is what she always says. Tyler, you just don’t ge
t it. Tyler, you can’t understand. But this time he does know. This time he understands and he wishes he didn’t. He’s scared, too. His words all come out in a rush. “You were driving drunk.” He can’t look at her. “You were driving drunk, and then Amy—”

  She slides off her bed. She grabs his shoulders, her fingers digging deep. “Then Amy what?”

  She’s taller than him, only an inch, but it feels like miles. He lowers his chin to his chest. He can’t say it. No matter what, he just can’t. She knows exactly what he’s talking about. She can’t make him put it into words. “We have to tell Mom.” She’d know what to do.

  She shakes him hard. “You’re not going to tell Mom anything.”

  “But I have to.”

  She gives him a vicious shake, so hard this time that his teeth clatter together. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, so shut up.” She lets him go. He stumbles back. He feels the marks of her fingers burning hot all the way through his shirt and sweatshirt. “Stay out of my life, Tyler. All you’ve done is fuck it up. You fuck up everyone’s life.”

  It’s true.

  All the times, small and large—they swarm his memory. When Melissa shoved those older boys who were teasing him, when she wore sunglasses trick-or-treating even though they looked stupid with her princess costume, when she stopped being friends with that girl who opened his bedroom door by accident, even though she was the most popular girl in Melissa’s class. He can’t point to one and say, There, that’s the one. It’s all of them, together. So he has no choice but to stay silent, and he’d known that all along.

  Tyler teeters on the doorsill. In or out? It’s a warm night, everything soft and gray. The air teases at him. Olly olly oxen free! But he doesn’t know.

  Zach’s at the movies with Savannah. His curfew’s been lifted now that there’s not a monster on the loose. Tyler used to be terrified of monsters. He made his mom keep all the lights on and the closet doors open. He thought all monsters had teeth and long, sharp claws. There are different kinds of monsters now.

  Behind him, the air conditioner whooshes on. It’s the kind of thing that might wake up his mom or dad.