The Secret of Everything

by O'Neal, Barbara

  Tessa dreamed of a fire. There was a loud noise and a scream, and then a candle was knocked over, and the flames caught in the pine needles and rushed toward the forest. “Run!” someone said, and she grabbed her sister’s hand and they rushed away.

  Someone came from behind them and scooped them up, one on each side. “Mama, put me down!” she cried, terrified. Her mother had done something terrible. Terrible.

  —a spill of blood coming out of a hole—

  “Mama, no!”

  But they were airborne, suspended in the dark, and then they plunged into the icy-cold water that was rushing and rushing, sucking them under so fast that it shocked her. She broke the surface by luck and gasped, screamed, and was sucked under again. The river—the noise of it, rushing and roaring—drowned the sound of her cries. She bobbed up and was sucked under once more, and she splashed hard to get her head out of the water. And, again, blind chance lent a hand—a tree branch caught her wrist and she pulled her head out of the water and screamed, “Help us! Help!”

  Then there were hands hauling her out, but Tessa screamed, “Rhiannon! Rhiannon!”

  She jerked herself awake and sat up in the cool light of her bedroom. Her heart raced and she reached for a glass of water, taking a long, long swallow.

  Not real. Or no longer real. Felix came over and nosed her shin. “I’m okay, baby.”

  But she couldn’t shake the pall it cast over the day. She thought it might be a mistake to meet Vince and his girls at the café, but she hadn’t seen him since Wednesday, when he came over and took the photos. She washed and dressed and headed out on foot, Felix happily trotting along with her.

  When she entered the café, Vince and his girls were sitting in a booth by the window. For a minute Tessa hesitated, slammed by the tableau of family they presented. He had his head bent sideways, listening to something Hannah was saying. Her chubby little hands were clasped as she explained some long and involved something, and Vince nodded seriously, encouraging her story. Jade sat next to him, coloring in her Cinderella coloring book, the pale river of hair falling down her arm. Natalie had her back to the door, and she was flipping through a book, swinging her feet cheerfully. Affection pinched Tessa’s ribs at the crazy tumble of her hair, her falling-down sock, the scabbed-over mosquito bites on her calf. She deserved so much more than she’d been given.

  A voice in her whispered, Here I am.

  And, in contrast, a little flutter of panic moved in her throat over Vince. His sexy, solid strength. His goodness. His gentleness. A rescuer, she thought now, like her father. Too much to want. Too much to ever lose. She couldn’t bear it.

  Better to never want anything.

  But now that she had some background, some truth, she understood why she had always managed to stay aloof and apart and why—until Glenn stole her heart by so simply and clearly finding her wonderful—she had avoided becoming attached to anybody she could lose. Her mother had killed a man and then tried to kill Tessa. Her sister had died. She might not technically remember it, but she definitely remembered it on an emotional level.

  And now here was this family. This man. This café and Vita and the whole bloody town capturing her.

  Just as she was about to turn and bolt, Vince raised his head and caught sight of her. The barest of smiles touched his mouth, a smile filled with layers of secrets and knowledge and promises and a thousand things she had never imagined she would find. His dark eyes burned with a steady, reliable light.

  Tessa thought, Damn it.

  Seeing his smile, Natalie turned around and waved. Tessa waved back, and Natalie leapt out of the booth and headed across the room. “Come sit with us!” she said, sliding her hand into Tessa’s.

  “Hey,” Tessa said, “you got new glasses!”

  “Do you like them? The lady said square glasses are in fashion, and I do try to think of that sometimes.”

  “I love them,” Tessa said, and it was honest. The glasses were dark-red rectangles, as bold and forward as Natalie’s true inner self. “They’re almost the same color as the Hawaiian salt, aren’t they?”

  “You’re right!”

  The door opened behind her, and Tessa stepped out of the way. “Sorry,” she said without looking at the man coming in, “we’re right in the doorway.” They began to move toward the booth.

  “Tessa?” the man said.

  She turned, mouth opening in surprise. There was her father, looking both weary and absolutely dear, wearing a battered jeans jacket that he’d owned for decades. In the cool rainy light, his eyes were as blue as the mountains. She blinked. “Dad?”

  He came forward.

  “Wait.” Tessa held up a hand to stave him off. “I’m so not ready to talk to you.”

  He inclined his head, eyes sad. “C’mon, Tessa. My intentions were honorable.”

  “Well, Dad, you know what they say about intentions. The road to hell and all of that.”

  “Is this your dad?” Natalie asked.

  “Yes, but—”

  From behind Tessa came a voice, airless. “Sam Harlow?”

  Tessa saw her father go pale. “Holy shit! Vita?”

  She came forward, looking sick to her stomach. “Yes.”

  “What are you doing here?” Sam asked. “Have you been here all along?”

  “Yeah,” she said, and her voice was stronger now. Angry. “This is my restaurant,” she said. For one long, long moment, they stared at each other. “I thought you died. In the river.”

  Tessa narrowed her eyes, looked at her father. “What?”

  “I know.” Sam held one hand out to Tessa, palm up: Wait. The other hand cupped toward Vita, imploring. “It was—”

  Another voice chimed in. “Oh, my God.” Annie, too, had come out of the kitchen. “Oh, my God,” she said again, her eyes shining with tears. “I’d know your voice anywhere. You’re Sam—Uncle Sam with the magic tricks.” She wiped her hands on her apron and held them out, folded them over her skinny chest, looking suddenly five years old. “Do you remember me? Annie? Rhiannon?”

  Tessa’s mouth opened. “Rhiannon?” She looked at her father. Tessa stared at Annie, seeing her badly cut, badly dyed hair, her skinniness, and her broken nose that had changed her face so much. Saw the wear and tear of years that Tessa had escaped, and she supposed, under it all, they did look alike. “You’re Rhiannon?”

  Annie gave Tessa a quizzical look. “Yeah. Do I know you?” Sam said, “Tessa, let’s talk for a minute before—” Tessa looked from Sam to Rhiannon to Vita, and panic ripped right up her throat, into her head, and she did the only sensible thing under the circumstances.

  She yanked her hand free of Natalie’s and bolted.

  From his booth, Vince saw the moment when Tessa ran out of the restaurant, leaving Natalie standing stiffly in the middle of the grown-ups. After a long moment, she turned and walked back to him, and he could see that she was trying very hard not to cry. “She left.”

  “I see. Come here, baby,” Vince said, feeling his own cheekbones burn in sympathy. “It’s nothing you did. She’s upset about something with that man.”

  “It’s her dad,” Natalie said. She shrugged him off and sat down across the table, carefully not looking at anybody.

  “Natalie,” he said again, “she’s mad at him, not you.”

  And all at once, looking at his daughter’s crestfallen face, he knew why he should never have let a woman into his circle until he was sure of her. He’d been reckless and selfish, and the knowledge burned. He reached across the table and covered her hand. “Chin up, sweetheart. She’ll come back.”

  “I don’t care if she does. She’s not my mother or anything.”

  Jade said, “Wow.”

  “Shut up,” Natalie said, deadly quiet.

  Damn it, damn it, damn it. Vince took a breath and looked at the man. Tessa’s father. From Tessa’s descriptions, he had imagined a ragged old hippie, but this man was tall and fit and very deeply tanned, weathered in the way of an
outdoorsman, with steely-gray hair. He wore boots and jeans and a jeans jacket, just like everybody else in the room. He touched Vita with familiarity, closing his hand around her upper arm in a curiously tender gesture, then held up a finger to Annie, who stood there looking stunned.

  Jade said, “Is that Tessa’s sister?”

  Annie. Rhiannon. Of course, Vince thought. “I think so.” As children, they’d been identical. As adults, they had had such different lives that you had to look hard to see the resemblance. The long green eyes, the lanky limbs.

  Xander’s children, he thought. All of Xander’s children had green eyes and those long limbs. What an asshole the man had been, littering the landscape with children who would never have a father.

  Except Tessa. Tessa had had a father, and he ran after her now. Vince saw them through the window—Tessa leading Felix toward the north side of the plaza and her own street; her father sprinting after, remarkably agile for an old guy. He said something, and she turned furiously, warding him off with an upraised palm. Vince thought she might be crying. She stormed away, and the man let her go, watching her for a long time and then turning to come back inside. What the hell was going on?

  Vince eyed Natalie. For today she was his first priority, but his heart went out to Tessa, too. Her life was an avalanche at the moment, everything sure crumbling away beneath her feet.

  Vita tried not to show it, but her hands were shaking. She sent Annie back into the kitchen—“We’ll all talk later”—and poured a cup of coffee for herself. Around her swirled the familiar Saturday morning noises, the clop and clatter of dishes, the ding of the bell as an order came in, the rising and falling hum of voices. She stood where she was, sipping the slightly burned coffee as she tried to center herself, to bring her fluttering thoughts back into some kind of order, but they wouldn’t be herded. Memories, reactions, emotions all swirled together.

  She watched Sam through the windows, watched as Tessa put up her guard against him, took her dog, and went into the market, disappearing. Sam stood for what seemed like a long time, staring after her, his body as lean and beautiful as it always had been. She was glad that he’d cut his hair, come into the modern era at least that much.

  When he turned and headed back toward the café, Vita felt her heart pounding in surprise and reaction—fury and joy, sorrow and despair and joy again washing over her in wave after wave, soaking her body with sweat.

  He came back in and crossed the room, holding her gaze unapologetically His eyes were still the color of the lake, deep bright blue, with a laughing wickedness that nobody but a dead woman could help responding to. Even at—what?—sixty, sixty-two, he was very sexy. It made her chest hurt.

  He sat down at the counter. As if he had not disappeared. As if she had not thought him dead for more than three decades. As if she had not thought of him ten thousand times over the years, always with terrible regret.

  He gave her a half grin, the blue eyes twinkling, and said, “I’m so hungry I could eat an elephant. You always were a great cook. Whatcha got back there this morning?”

  Vita slapped him, hard enough that he nearly fell off the stool. It shocked her. And the entire restaurant. The whole place went still; you couldn’t hear a single fork or a voice.

  Sam touched his cheekbone. “I reckon I earned that.”

  “You sure did,” she said, and looked around. “Eat your breakfast, everybody. Show’s over.” She turned, took a cup off the stack, poured coffee into it, and put the cup down in front of Sam. “I’ll get your breakfast. I guess I knew you were coming.”

  At least she knew why she’d made carnitas. They always had been his favorite.

  Tessa walked up and down the rows of the farmers’ market until her adrenaline slowed down. The rain had stopped. Felix paced with her, but he was panting by the time she finally stopped and went to sit on a bench beneath the hanging tree. There, smoking a cigarette not twenty feet away, was the Coyote Man, with his beautiful face and mean eyes. He had one hand in the pocket of his jeans and stared at the café as if he was waiting for someone.

  She narrowed her eyes. Was he dangerous? He always seemed to be skulking around, that air of red fury radiating from him like an evil fog. It touched her, made her feel sick to her stomach. Anger added to her own anger. She had half a mind to stomp over there and ask him his business.

  What she wanted to do was bend over and put her head in her arms and cry like a two-year-old. She had told herself, all these years, that she was normal. Ordinary. Sensible. Despite the years wandering as a magician’s daughter. Despite the strange story of her early life—who was born at a commune? Despite all of it, she had felt normal.

  And now she had to admit she was not. Her father was not her father. Her life and history were all built on a lie. She had a sister, who had been lost to her all these years, who had suffered as Tessa had not, and who bore the scars.

  Sitting in airless reaction, Tessa looked toward the café. Rhiannon. Annie. Her tattoos and sad eyes and broken nose and fierce survivor instinct. Tessa wanted to talk to her, but not with anyone else around. It seemed too private, too precious, to share.

  Not, now that she thought about it, that Annie had seemed particularly interested in Tessa. She’d latched on to Sam. Why hadn’t Sam taken Annie, too?

  She buried her face in her hands. What a mess!

  “You okay?”

  She looked up to see Vince standing there. Jade and Hannah were with him, but Natalie was marching along the portico toward the salt store.

  “Shit,” she said, realizing that she’d yanked away from Nat when she grew so angry with her father. “I’m sorry. I was thoughtless, but I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings.”

  “Yeah, well.” He shrugged, but not in a good way. This morning he was wearing a long-sleeved ivory shirt that showed off the symmetry and power of his shoulders, his chest. “You did.”

  Tessa bowed her head. “Sorry.”

  Jade came over and patted her back. “It’s okay. She gets mad all the time.”

  “It’s never okay to be mean out of selfishness,” Tessa said. “But thank you. Hey, by the way, how is your tooth?”

  She smiled in an exaggerated way. “The dentist fixed it! Later I might have to do something different, but it’s okay for now.”

  “Good.”

  Hannah crawled up on Tessa’s lap and offered her a dandelion she had picked out of the grass. She smelled of little-girl sweat and syrup and that sweet, milky baby note that disappeared after the age of four or so. “Thank you, honey,” she said, and looked up at Vince. “Do you want to sit down?”

  “No. We’re supposed to go through the farmers’ market.” He inclined his head. “How are you doing, sweetheart?”

  She took a breath, blew it out, felt tears threaten. “I don’t know. It’s all craziness. That’s my dad—my not-dad—back there, in case you didn’t guess.”

  Jade said, eyes wide, “Vita slapped him!”

  That startled a laugh out of Tessa. “Good. He deserved it.” She frowned, wondering what Vita had to do with the whole sorry mess.

  Natalie strolled out of the salt shop and came toward them, across the cobblestones of the plaza. For no reason she could have named, Tessa felt a ripple of foreboding.

  A woman came out of the salt shop. “Young lady! Come back here right now!”

  Natalie broke into a run.

  “Shit,” Vince said, and gave Tessa a look. “Watch these two, will you? I’ll be right back.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Natalie looped through the farmers’ market in pure terror, her breath coming in ragged gasps as she navigated the fruits and corn and around a lady with a stroller. She bumped into a man who yelled, “Hey, watch out, little girl!” but she just kept going. She ran through the market and then into an alley and out onto the trail and finally behind the church, into the graveyard, where she fell, gasping for breath. She slunk down against the wall, careful not to land on a grave, and took the salt out
of her pocket. It was the gigantic crystal of pink Himalayan, and she held it up to the light. She had looked up “Himalayan” on the Internet, and it turned out to be mountains near India, including Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world. So now she could think about people in turbans and pretty bracelets carrying this big rock out of the ground. So far away. If she was in the Himalayas, she would never get treated mean.

  She started to cry and closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the wall. Why did she do that? She was going to get in so much trouble, and they would never let her in that store again, and she really loved it.

  Hidden beneath the trees, sitting on the damp ground, she cried and cried, afraid to move, afraid to go find her dad, afraid not to. Afraid, afraid, afraid. She wished for Pedro, or even Sasha. She wished for her grandma, all pinch-mouthed. She wished for her dad, even mad.

  Most of all, she wished for her mother. She wanted her mommy to come and sit and brush her hair. She wanted her mommy to give her a bath and fix her torn blouse and tell her everything was going to be okay.

  On the breeze, as if someone was right close by, came the sound of a lady singing. “There are suitors at my door, o le le o bahia,” the voice sang. “Six or eight or even more, o le le o bahia. And my father wants me wed, o le le o bahia. Or at least that’s what he said, o le le o bahia.”

  Natalie looked around, holding her breath, but she was alone by the graves. There were no windows.

  “And I told him that I will, o le le o bahia

  When the rivers run uphill, o le le o bahia

  And the fish begin to fly, o le le o bahia

  And the day before I die, o le le o bahia.”

  It was her mother’s voice. She didn’t know how. She didn’t know where her mother was, but she knew that voice. It had sung her to sleep over and over, brushing her hair back from her forehead. She could feel her doing it now, brushing her hair, softly, softly, singing and then humming.