The Secret Between Us

by Barbara Delinsky

  “He must have been crushed.”

  “That’s what I’d have been, but who knew with Cal? He clammed up. No expression of sorrow at all. Except he barely ate. When he decided he’d had enough and started packing in his meals again, it was like he had never met her. He had grown an even harder shell.” Tom looked at her, bewildered. “Does this sound like a person who would feel enough to attempt suicide?”

  Deborah wanted to deny it, but couldn’t. “The unhappiness was there.”

  Tom slumped down on the bench. “My parents must have known it, but none of us did anything. We could have gotten him help. But we didn’t.”

  “Was that your job?”

  “Maybe not when I was a kid, but it’s been a while since then.” He looked at her, clearly agonizing. “He was my brother. I was supposed to love him, but how can you love someone who keeps so much to himself? We weren’t ever really friends. So do you love your brother because he’s your brother? And if you do love him, don’t you owe it to him to keep in touch and see if he’s okay?”

  Deborah had no answers. She sat down beside him. “You said you were Cal’s only family. Does that mean your parents are dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your dad died of that stroke?”

  “No. He recovered. But he lost his taste for life. He decided to go out in a blaze of glory. Drove off a bridge in the middle of the night with his wife at his side.”

  “Suicide?”

  “No. The autopsy said he had another stroke.” He made a wry sound. “You can imagine what Selena said when I told her that. All this time, she had thought they were killed by a drunk driver. Apparently, that was what Cal told her. Maybe she feels she’s avenging Cal’s death and theirs by suing you.” He looked at Deborah. “I knew she was upset when the accident report didn’t find you guilty, and I knew that she was thinking of suing. When she finally told me, I tried to talk her out of it, because I had this feeling that Cal was partly responsible for his own death, and I didn’t think she’d want that to come out. I did not know until last night that she had actually gone to the D.A. We had a huge argument about it then and another one this morning. When I used the word suicide, she went beserk.”

  “She hadn’t seen anything different in him in the days before his death?”

  “No.”

  “Had he ever tried it before?”

  “Not that I know of, but there was all that deep unhappiness. Could be it finally just got to him.”

  Deborah was silent. Then, quietly, she asked, “Do you think it was suicide?”

  He studied her for a minute before looking downstream. “In my dark moments, I do, and I blame myself.”

  She reached for his arm. “You can’t do that to yourself, Tom. At some point your brother was responsible for himself. I think you feel you should have been able to stop him, but there is a limit to responsibility. Cal made choices. At some point you have to respect those choices.” She caught herself and frowned. “I’m sorry. Maybe that’s not applicable. But I just said it to my dad.”

  “About?”

  “Meeting you. He didn’t think it was a good idea.”

  Tom held her gaze. Her hand was still on his arm. Before she could remove it, he took it in his own. “It probably isn’t,” he said in a voice so low that if she hadn’t been sitting close, she mightn’t have heard.

  His fingers linked with hers. “What are we?” he asked quietly.

  She swallowed. “I don’t know.”

  “This is bad timing.”

  “Very.”

  He drew her hand to his chest, pressed it to a heart whose beat she felt, then slowly, deliberately, put it down on the bench. Deborah gently entwined her fingers with his.

  She wanted to get up and walk away—thought it the safest thing to do—but she had played by the rules for so long that safe didn’t appeal. There were too many reasons why she shouldn’t be holding Tom’s hand, not the least of which was Grace. Still, his skin was warm and his fingers strong. She needed their comfort.

  “The thing with suicide,” he said, “is that there’s no way to prove it without a note.”

  She didn’t remove her hand. “Is there a note?”

  “No. Not yet. I’m looking.”

  “If Selena found one, would she tell you?”

  “I think I’d see it on her face. She’s not the kind of woman who can hide much.”

  “Is there anywhere other than the house where he might have left something?”

  “I checked his office at school. It’s not there. There are all those P.O. boxes. I’m in the process of getting everything forwarded to me. He also had half a dozen safety deposit boxes. I’ve only located two. He did have some investments. They’ll give Selena a kitty, and if she sells the house, she’ll have money from that.”

  “Did he have life insurance?”

  Tom rubbed his thumb against hers. “There’s a small policy that came with his job.”

  “Not one he took out for Selena if he died?”

  “No, but null and void if suicide is proven.”

  He looked at Deborah. He didn’t have to say that a suicide note would be good for her and not good for him. The irony of it was in his eyes.

  She nodded in acknowledgment, then whispered, “I have to get back to work.”

  Reaching with his free hand, he raised her sunglasses. He didn’t say anything, just looked at her for a long minute before replacing them. Then he brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers.

  Deborah returned to her car feeling nearly as bereft as she had driving there. Then, she had been mourning something that was. Now, she mourned something that might have been.

  And the irony of that? She hadn’t known she wanted it.

  Chapter 18

  Grace decided that if she didn’t become a doctor, she’d write TV scripts, which was what she’d been doing in her head all morning. They were all crime shows, and she had conjured up a dozen different scenarios. All started with an accident, a death, then a police investigation. Each involved different evidence and produced a different result.

  A civil suit. Everything was supposed to be over. She had actually been feeling better. Jill knew the whole truth and still loved her, which meant Grace had an ally. And Grace had driven Jill’s van without incident, even though she didn’t plan to ever drive again.

  Then her mother had casually mentioned that the D.A.’s office might want to interview her.

  Labyrinthine—that described the accident—labyrinthine, as in being intricate, complicated, or elaborately involved. She hated studying flash cards, hated thinking of PSATs, hated the words that kept echoing in her mind. But labyrinthine fit.

  She hadn’t called around to get the assignments she missed yesterday, so she sat in class zoning out. And it was amazing. None of her teachers called on her. But then, she was Grace Monroe, honor roll student going through a tough time, so she was let off the hook.

  That freed her to obsess over the D.A.’s investigation. She avoided meeting people’s eyes and walked from class to class with her nose in a book, as good a prop as any while her mind went from one awful scenario to another. Her friends had stopped bugging her, but rather than feeling relieved, she felt guilty and very alone. She tried to think about her aunt, pregnant and single, and about her brother, cut off because of his bad eyesight. They were alone, but in different ways from her. There was a solution for Dylan’s eyes, just as there would be an end to Jill’s aloneness.

  Grace was digging through books at the foot of her locker, not sure what she was looking for but content to let everyone pass by, when a warm body crouched close beside her.

  “Hey.”

  She jumped and might have slid away if Danielle hadn’t put an arm around her waist. “Don’t,” the older girl said. “Please. I need to talk.”

  Grace shook her head. “I can’t, Dani. I have a test next period.” It was a lie, but what was one more?

  “At lunch then.”

&n
bsp; “I can’t,” Grace said, and, for the first time, it hurt her to turn away her friend. Danielle was the sister she’d never had. Once Grace would have told her anything.

  “I know about the beer,” Dani murmured, “so if you think I’m asking about that, I’m not. I mean, your stupid friends have been telling everyone about it, so it isn’t a secret anymore.”

  “They told? Who? Who knows?”

  “I don’t know, but word got around—”

  “Did they tell parents?”

  “I don’t know, but that isn’t what I want to discuss, Grace. I need to discuss the accident.”

  The accident was about beer, Grace might have screamed. All she said was, “I can’t talk, Dani.”

  “It’s about your mom and my dad. Is something going on?”

  Grace was confused. “What are you talking about?”

  “He was so angry at her last night. He told my mom she wasn’t a friend, but my mom needs her, and, anyway, something’s going on with my dad. I really need to talk, Gracie. Please?”

  Grace knew what was going on between her mother and Hal, and it had to do with John Colby. Hal was furious because Deborah had talked to John without him, and now detectives were showing up at the door, and it was all Grace’s fault. If she hadn’t been driving that night, none of this would have happened.

  And Danielle wanted to talk about that?

  Grace hung her head. “I can’t. I can’t.” If she talked with Dani, she would break down and tell her who was driving that night, and then she’d have to worry whether Dani would tell Karen, who might tell Hal, who would be even more furious with Deborah, and then things would be ten times worse.

  Jill knew. Grace trusted her, but couldn’t risk telling anyone else. If her mother learned about the beer, she would go crazy.

  “But you’re a part of my family,” Danielle insisted. “I need you.”

  Grace lifted her head. “I’m not a good person for anyone to need right now.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Danielle whispered. “You’re as good a person as I know. The accident just messed you up.”

  “Fine. It messed me up,” Grace whispered vehemently, “but if I can’t help myself right now, how can I help you?” She went back to looking for whichever book she was looking for. The bell rang. Danielle’s arm fell away.

  Grace half turned and pleaded, “Please understand. If I talked to anyone, I’d talk to you, but I just can’t.”

  She almost gave in then, because Danielle looked ready to cry. But someone called her name. Danielle looked down the hall and back to Grace for a second. Then she was gone.

  Grace didn’t plan to run well, but once she got going, it was like all her fear drove her on. She ran a personal best. The coach, who acted as though she’d been gone for a month, couldn’t stop congratulating her. She felt like a phony. Avoiding her friends, she changed and walked the short distance to the bakery.

  The day was warm, which meant that every sidewalk table was taken, even this late in the afternoon. Keeping her head down, Grace passed them and went inside to find Jill. She was with a customer. From the looks of the papers fanned out between SoMa Smoothies, they were planning a catered event.

  When Jill saw her, she gave her a thumbs-up with a buoyancy that left no doubt she was not only feeling better, but didn’t want anyone telling her she should be upstairs in bed, which was precisely what Grace loved about her aunt. She knew what she wanted and what was best for her, and she did it. She took control of her life.

  Dylan was at a table not far away. His math book was open, but his arms were stretched across the orange tabletop. He was wearing a grin as he looked at Grace through those thick glasses of his, and a tiny piece of her melted. She might hate herself and the world, but she couldn’t hate Dylan.

  Dropping her backpack to the floor, she sat down beside him. “You look happy. Ready for the game?”

  His grin widened. “I’m not going.”

  For her little brother, who not only needed two eye surgeries now, but repair to that grin in the form of braces on his teeth, Grace played along. “Why not?” she asked.

  “I’m quitting baseball.”

  “You are? Does Mom know?”

  He nodded. “She said it herself. She stopped by when I got here, and I thought she was going to say she couldn’t come to the game, but all she wanted to talk about was how I felt and whether I really wanted to play.” His grin faded to worry. “Think Dad’ll be angry?”

  “Why do you care?” Grace asked but rushed on, because she knew what her brother’s answer would be, and she couldn’t agree with him less. “I can’t believe Mom is letting you quit.”

  “I can’t play, Grace. I just suck at it, because I can’t see.”

  “She hates quitters.”

  “That was when it was only one eye. She kept saying I could do it, but now that it’s both eyes, she knows I can’t.”

  “Did she say that?”

  He nodded.

  “She said you can’t?” Grace was shocked. Her mother liked to say that everything was possible. She also liked to say that ten-year-old boys needed to play sports.

  “She said I could choose. She said that it wasn’t fair of her to expect something that isn’t right for me, and that she didn’t want me to feel pressure to do something I hated. I chose to be off the team. She was gonna call the coach, so I don’t even have to go tonight.”

  Grace didn’t ask if he was pleased. It was written all over his face. She envied him that. It was nice being able to choose. It was nice being included in decisions. It was nice when people saw the kind of pressure you felt and realized that what was right for them wasn’t right for you.

  So was that weird? Something bad, like Dylan’s second cornea, produced something good.

  “I’m hungry,” she decided and, leaving the table, went out to the kitchen. The baking was done for the day, but what wasn’t out front was stacked on storage racks. She helped herself to a cupcake, ate the frosting off the top, and tossed the cake part in the trash. She did the same to a second and was about to reach for a third when she realized that cupcakes wouldn’t make things better. Her aunt wouldn’t care if she ate the frosting off ten cupcakes. She might not even notice.

  Lately, it was like Grace was invisible, like she could do the worst possible thing and no one cared. But that wasn’t right. There had to be rules.

  Heading out the back door, she passed the van and went up the alley. At the street, she turned left and started down the sidewalk. She passed the first store, stopped, and backed up. It was perfect. She went inside.

  Sole Singer was a shoe store of the upscale variety that could only exist in a suburb wealthy enough to draw other top-notch stores, which Leyland did. It had been open for barely a year, its owners a pair of gay guys who had great taste in shoes. The brands they sold ranged from exclusive to designer, and were usually Italian. None were cheap.

  Grace had been inside many times browsing with friends, and had even bought a pair of Reefs. She saw no one she knew now, just a pair of girls who were totally absorbed in themselves. Jed, one of the owners, was at the front of the store running a credit card through for a woman. He smiled and raised his chin to acknowledge her arrival, then returned to the task.

  There weren’t aisles. The store was too small and too chic. Shoes were arranged on tiered shelves, with boxes of different sizes stacked artfully beneath.

  Grace had been eyeing a particular pair of Pradas since they had arrived several months before. They were hot pink metallic leather sandals. She went over to them, took the appropriate box from under the shelf, and settled into a nearby chair, but she didn’t need to try them on. She’d done that before. She knew they would fit.

  The woman at the front shouldered her bag and left. One of the girls wanted to try on a pair of Marc Jacobs flats, but couldn’t find her size, so Jed went out back to look there. When the other girl got a call, both put their ears to the phone.

  Grace sli
pped a sandal in each of her pockets and stood. Thinking twice, she knelt again, closed the shoe box, and slid it into the spot where she’d found it. Then she stood and turned to leave, but froze. John Colby was standing at the open front door with a hand on the elegant brass handle. She had no idea how long he’d been there, but he was watching her.

  This was what she wanted—to be held accountable for doing something wrong—but the reality of it was so foreign to the old Grace Monroe that she was scared.

  Colby left the door open and came to her. In a voice quiet enough not to be heard by the girls, he said, “Please sit down and put those back.”

  She considered asking what he meant, only that would have been pathetic. She considered lying—I was just going up to the register to pay—only she didn’t have money or a credit card and, besides, the shoes were in her pockets.

  Docilely, she sat, removed the empty box from its stack, took first one, then the other of the sandals from her pockets and put them back. When the box was in its place, she looked up at the police chief.

  That was when Jed came from the back. “John. Hey. How’re you doin’?”

  The chief smiled. “Not bad. You?”

  Jed shrugged. “Can’t complain.” His gaze slid to Grace. “Did you get your mom to spring for them?”

  Grace shook her head.

  “Maybe another time,” Jed said.

  Grace nodded and started for the door, knowing that John would follow. Once on the street, she had a wild impulse to flee. But that would be stupid. Definitely. And besides, she wanted to be punished.

  “This way,” John said and guided her down the alley. When they reached the parking area, he released her shoulder. She went to the van, crossed her arms, and turned to face him. She expected to see anger, surely disappointment, but he simply looked sad.

  “What were you thinking?” he asked.

  She said nothing.

  “Grace?”

  “Have you been following me?” she asked.