“Me too.” Rat shrugged. “My mom had that idea.”
“Then you can read the sports page to him, Tony,” Mrs. Rat said. “Or find something else to do to be his friend. Bring Battleship or checkers.”
Rat sitting in my bedroom playing Battleship with Dare?????
“No way,” I said.
“Good thing Reen’s been all for peace this summer,” Gram said to Mrs. Rat. “Peace, peace, peace. What better place for Reen to start than her own house. She can put her money where her mouth is.”
“I’m not for peace with him,” I said. “Not ever.”
“Peace is peace,” Gram said. “Make an enemy a friend, that’s how it starts.”
That’s REALLY what she told me!!!!!
AAAGGGGGHHHHHHH. Make an enemy a friend????
The only good news in this letter is Rat gave Gram all of his money: $137.62. It’s his savings since first grade and I got to see his pale chin shake when he left it in Gram’s hand. I hope he cried the whole way home.
Please please please write back ASAP.
Disgusted,
Reenie Kelly
Friday, August 23, 1968
Dear Mr. Marsworth,
It’s ten o’clock this morning, and I’ve been back to your house twice, but you haven’t written me a word. Do you think Rat will really come to Gram’s this afternoon? Do I have to let him in? Dare says we’re going to lock the doors and windows, and hide until he leaves.
Snow Cone says it’s like the Paris peace talks, and this is how war ends.
Right now she’s in the attic trying to talk Dare into peace, and Billy’s at the Brindles’ asking about work, and I’m impatient in Gram’s living room waiting for your word.
If you don’t know about that envelope Carl Grace gave Billy, where it went or what it was, I might just do a search of Gram’s garage. (I’ve already searched through Billy’s papers, and underneath the cushion of Gram’s couch. You’ll be proud to know I kept my nose out of Beth’s letters.)
Did you talk to Carl Grace yet? Where did he take Billy in his car?
I don’t like it when you’re quiet for too long!
On the Hunt Now,
Reenie Kelly
Dear Mr. Marsworth,
I found that yellowed envelope hidden behind a can of paint in Gram’s garage.
I wish I’d never solved this mystery. Never ever. Ever. Ever. Ever. But I did, and now I can’t take it back.
How could you, and Mom, and Dad, and Gram, keep such a GIANT secret, Mr. Marsworth???
Did Billy know the truth before Carl Grace gave him Mom’s letter in that card???? Did you want Billy to have it???? Why would Carl Grace make Billy see that now???
You knew the truth from the beginning and you never said a word.
I’m going to sit outside your house until you see me face-to-face. I’m going to ring your bell ten thousand trillion times, and I won’t stop.
If you want to keep my friendship, you have to come outside!!!
You can’t be a brave man and hide inside your house.
Reenie Mixed-Up Kelly
December 24, 1962
Dear Mr. Marsworth,
I think of you alone this Christmas season, and I wish there was a way, despite our misunderstandings, and our grief, and all the unintended pain I may have caused, to somehow be a friend to you again. It isn’t right for you to spend a holiday alone. Why not join us at the Kellys’ for tomorrow’s Christmas roast? We’ll be in town for such a short time, and it’s difficult to say how many years will pass before we’re in Lake Liberty again.
I hope someday you’ll trust I still love Danny, as you do; I have loved him all along. And Frank’s love for his best friend has never faltered. We did not give up hope Danny would be found, but Billy needed family, and a father. As painful as it was to build a life with Danny missing, Frank and I believed it’s what Danny would have wanted for his son. To you it was betrayal; I’m sorry for the suffering we’ve caused.
I won’t say that it’s been easy, but what marriage ever is? The children keep us busy: Reen and Dare with all the energy you’d expect from Kelly kids, and gentle Billy as intelligent and thoughtful as your beautiful lost son. The children are all Kellys, as they should be, but when Billy’s old enough to know the truth, Frank and I intend to tell him he had another father first.
I’ll tell him all about the boy so kind he couldn’t kill insects. A boy I loved from age seven until forever with my great big young-girl heart. A boy who enlisted in the Army to prove he loved his country.
A boy we lost too early.
This is a hard truth for a child as young as Billy, but one I promise you we’ll tell. Right now Billy is thriving as a Kelly, without the terrible weight of all that we can’t answer: “How did my father disappear? When will he be found? What if he’s still living? Or held captive in Korea?” Those questions are the weight we all must carry, but they’re too much for a child.
For now, we just want Billy loved and happy. Wouldn’t Danny want the same thing for his son? I think he would. And Billy is the apple of Frank’s eye. He’s a musician and a scholar with Danny’s wide, bright mind. He’s my confidant and rock as Danny was. A devoted older brother to adoring Dare and Reen.
A boy much loved by all, including Blanche. A boy who calls himself a Kelly with great pride.
Someday you’ll love him, too. I’m sure you love him now.
In case you won’t come to us for Christmas, I’ve enclosed a recent picture of the kids for you to see. Billy is too old to visit Santa, but he went with Dare and Reen. That’s how sweet he is.
He looks so much like Danny; I’m sure you’ll see that for yourself.
Perhaps in time, with healing, our two families will be one. I hope you will forgive me.
Blessed Christmas, Mr. Marsworth, and may peace prevail at last. Peace between our families, and peace on earth for all.
Much Love,
Betsy Brighton Kelly
Dear Mr. Marsworth,
I can’t quit thinking of Mom’s letter.
I know you hear me ringing. You must see me at your gate, but you won’t even come outside.
Did you give Carl Grace that letter? Did you want Billy to know who his true father really was? Did Mom or Dad tell Billy??? Did you meet Billy and not me??? Did he visit you this summer at your house??? Does he already know Clyde?
Mom should have told the truth to me before she died. She should have told us all from the beginning.
Do you know what it’s like to have a GIANT family secret?
Or to find out your family’s not the family you always thought it was????
Don’t you think someone should have told me, Mr. Marsworth?
Please come out to see me. I’m going to sit here at your gate until I get an answer, so you better answer soon. If you aren’t strong enough to see me, send out Carl Grace instead.
Not Leaving,
Reenie Kelly
P.S. Billy isn’t a REAL Kelly??? How can that be true?
P.P.S. Did you stay mad at Mom and Dad for getting married? Were you against our family all these years?
P.P.P.S. At least come out and get my letters, Mr. Marsworth!
Dear Mr. Marsworth,
I’m not really gone. I’m spying from the oak tree, and I’m staying in these branches until someone comes outside. You or Carl Grace, I’ll take either one.
Do you know how strange it is to read a Christmas letter that Mom wrote? To see her handwriting I love. To hear her voice, just the way she sounded when she spoke. And what happened to that Santa picture? I’d like to see it now.
Is Billy why you wrote me, Mr. Marsworth? If I hadn’t been his sister, would the two of us be friends? Was it only knowing Billy that you wanted all along? Why does he get to be your grandson, when I know you best of all? I never had a gr
andpa, Mr. Marsworth. And now Billy gets to have you, and keep you for himself.
I said I’d be your family, do you remember that I did?
Why didn’t Mom ever tell me? Why’d everybody make believe that Billy was Dad’s son? Isn’t eighteen years a long time for a lie? Wasn’t it a big lie for us all???
Come outside to see me, Mr. Marsworth.
Dad’s in North Dakota, and I want answers now.
Double-Crossed by Friends and Family,
Reenie Kelly
Dear Mr. Marsworth,
I’m home now in Gram’s cramped bathroom, pretending to run water for a bath while I write to you instead. There’s a lot I need to tell you, and I need to tell you now. (I can’t write in Gram’s attic with Dare and Float hogging my room.)
First, did you see Billy come to find me in the tree across the street? Did you or Carl Grace tell him I was there? Billy said he’d been searching through Lake Liberty since he’d found Mom’s letter gone from Gram’s garage. Gone like me.
“Come on down so we can talk,” he begged, but I wouldn’t move an inch. He couldn’t climb up to get me, and I wasn’t coming down. “Pup.” He sighed. “You weren’t supposed to snoop in Gram’s garage. That letter wasn’t meant for you right now.”
“You’re telling me.” I was so mad I could have screamed or cried, but instead I curled into a rock. “Did you know the truth before Carl Grace gave you Mom’s letter?”
Billy sighed again. “I did,” he finally said. “Dad told me just before I turned eighteen. Before I had to register. He knew I’d see it on my birth certificate.”
“Before you turned eighteen? And you didn’t tell me or Dare? And Dad didn’t tell us either?” I tried to see his face, but he was shadowed by the leaves. “I’m not going back to Gram’s. Not ever. I don’t even know my family. Or anybody now.”
“Reen,” he said. “You know that isn’t true.” He reached up for my foot and gave it a soft tug. “Come on down. Nothing’s changed.”
“It has,” I said. “The Kellys aren’t the Kellys. Mom and Dad just made that up. You’re not even Dad’s—”
“Please don’t say that I’m not Dad’s, please don’t. Because that’s why Mom and Dad didn’t want anyone to know. Because they knew folks would say I’m not a Kelly. Maybe even you and Dare would think it. Or other people would. And I’d start to feel it, too. I want to be Dad’s son.”
As soon as Billy’s voice broke, my heart was sick with sorrow for the mean things I’d just said. I dropped down from the tree and put my arm around his waist.
“I didn’t mean it, Billy. Of course you’re still Dad’s son. It’s the secret that I hate. I think they should have told us sooner. Maybe from the start. Told the truth about our family.”
“You know Mom did her best, Reen. She always always did. I don’t want to say now she was wrong.”
“Okay,” I said, ashamed. “But did you get to meet him, Billy?” (As sorry as I felt, I hoped his answer would be no. Shouldn’t I be the first to meet you, Mr. Marsworth? I’ve been asking this whole summer.)
“Danny?” he said sadly. “He died before—”
“No,” I said. “Mr. Marsworth. Danny’s dad. Your grandpa.” I pointed toward your big brick house across the street. “He lives right inside there, Billy.”
“I know where he lives,” he said. “But he’s not my grandpa, Reen. I mean, not really. I don’t even know him.”
“But he could be your second family. Our second family.”
Billy gave a little laugh. “I don’t need a second family.”
“I might,” I said. “Because I think that’s what Mom wanted. Didn’t she say that in the Christmas letter? That the Marsworths and the Kellys should be one?”
“And what about that Christmas letter?” Billy said, confused. “Did you ask him for it, Reen? Did you meet Mr. Marsworth on your route? Because strangely Carl Grace told me Mr. Marsworth wanted you to have it. Someday. When I thought the time was right. And I should let you know that Christmas visit to his milk box wasn’t just a dream.”
I knew it, Mr. Marsworth! I knew that snowy memory was real!
“That letter was for me?” I asked. “Mr. Marsworth wanted me to have it?”
“He did.” Billy crinkled up his face the way he does when he’s confused. “Is there something you’re not telling me? What Christmas visit, Reen? When did you go to his house? Did Mom take you without me? And isn’t he a recluse?”
“Kind of, sort of,” I said, smiling. Don’t I deserve a secret, Mr. Marsworth? “But if you want to be his family, I can be his family, too. You won’t be the only Kelly.”
“That’s sweet, Reen.” Billy laughed. “But I don’t think we’ll all be one family. That’s not the way it works.”
That might be what he thinks now, Mr. Marsworth. But, you know I have my ways of changing Billy’s mind ☺.
The story doesn’t end there, but it’s all that I can tell you, or all I want to write because Dare’s pounding on the bathroom door to use the toilet.
Oh, wait—
Okay, here I am again. Now I’m writing to you by flashlight while I listen to Dare snore.
What else?
When I told Gram I knew Billy’s truth, and, the long lie about our family had been wrong, she said, “Some things are best unsaid while kids are young. But I’m truly sorry, Reenie, if you feel you’ve been deceived. That wasn’t our intention.”
Gram HARDLY EVER says she’s sorry, Mr. Marsworth, and I’m glad this once she did. Still, we left Gram at the table and took our dinner to the attic to tell Dare.
And do you know what Dare Kelly did? He broke down in a sob. Great big messy tears streamed down his freckled cheeks, and Float was whining with him, and licking at Dare’s face to make the sobbing stop.
“First Rat inside my house,” Dare said, blowing his snot into my sheet. “And then you two come upstairs to tell me this. Dad wouldn’t live a lie like that, I know he wouldn’t. Pretending to be Billy’s—”
“Dad didn’t pretend,” I said, because I’d already hurt Billy saying Dad wasn’t his dad. “He’s Billy’s dad. He is. They didn’t want Billy to be different from us, Dare. Mom or Dad. They didn’t want us to say he wasn’t Dad’s true son.”
“They kept the secret for our family,” Billy said to Dare. “Or me. I guess it was mostly me they wanted to protect. But you know I’m still your brother. Nothing changes that.”
I still have a hundred questions, Mr. Marsworth. No matter what Gram says, I’m old enough to understand it all, and they should have told us earlier, because a lie this big is wrong. Even so, Billy IS my brother, and I’m glad you’re in our family, I really, really am.
You’re my family now, through Billy.
I hope you want another Kelly as your family, Mr. Marsworth. And please say it WASN’T ONLY BILLY that made you be my friend.
Ready for a Second Family,
Reenie Kelly
P.S. Okay, not a hundred questions, but a couple: Did you come to Gram’s that Christmas? Did you and Mom make up before she died? Are you still sad that Mom and Dad got married, when Danny didn’t come home? I know why that hurt your feelings, Mr. Marsworth. We wouldn’t want Dad to marry someone else with Mom still in our hearts.
P.P.S. But if Mom didn’t marry Dad I wouldn’t be here, and Dare wouldn’t be here either, and we wouldn’t be Billy’s family, and you wouldn’t have me for your friend.
P.P.P.S. Tomorrow afternoon I’m taking Billy to the cottage, to show him every little piece of Danny still left inside that shed, and the D.W.M. + E.E.B. = FOREVER on that stump. Then we’re tearing down Dare’s tree stand, and destroying every weapon before someone else gets hurt. Dare wouldn’t agree to that, but he’ll find out after it’s done.
P.P.P.P.S. Why don’t you come down to the cottage for a chance to meet us both???? (If you came to
Gram’s in ’62 that meeting doesn’t count. Billy says he can’t remember, and I DEFINITELY don’t.) I’ll keep my eye out, Mr. Marsworth. I’ll listen for your car.
Friday, August 23, 1968
Dear Miss Kelly,
It is too late for me to type, but Carl Grace shall take dictation as I rest.
I’m sorry I was out during your desperate search for answers. That letter was truly meant for later, perhaps in many years. At my age, I can’t be certain of tomorrow, or my aging heart, so I chose to give it to Billy for safekeeping. I hope your family will forgive me for whatever harm it caused.
And I hope you will forgive me, too, Miss Kelly. A secret of such consequence was difficult to keep, yet it was not mine to tell, and so I couldn’t.
Your parents have raised Billy, and Billy is their son. He was never mine to claim, except in love. Child of my child, and yet I understand he wants to be a Kelly first and foremost. Perhaps in some bright future I will know Billy at last.
As for that Christmas invitation I received so long ago...
Have you any memory of a man outside your door?
I could not bear to join your family, but I’d brought a Christmas gift for Billy, a boxed set of Beethoven albums I thought he might enjoy.
“You can’t just bring a gift for Billy,” your father said, embarrassed, while I stood there at the door with one wrapped package in my hands. “Not with Dare and Reen—”
“Of course,” I said, ashamed, and I understood immediately just how wrong I’d been to bring one gift, to single Billy out from you and Dare. (All for one, as you would say.)
“Oh, Frank,” your lovely mother intervened, but he was right.
“My apologies,” I offered. Then I hurried away quickly from a place I didn’t belong.
Even after all these years, I can still recall the cold light of that Christmas, and the great humiliation I’d brought upon myself.
Until Tomorrow, Mr. Marsworth Page 20
