by Julie Clark
“We went downstairs and had breakfast with her.” She sighs. “I’ve told her I can’t handle doing a regular Christmas. Not this year. I feel bad for Nick, but I think we both need a change of scenery. Neither of us can deal with getting a tree or decorating without Aaron.” Her voice catches.
“Maybe you guys could go somewhere totally different. The Caribbean, maybe. Or India.”
“Actually, that’s why I called. I was thinking you and Miles might like to come up to the cabin with us. We could have a different kind of Christmas. Skiing, hot chocolate, sledding. Unless you have plans? I don’t want to tear you away from your family.”
“We don’t,” I tell her. Rose has been talking about a big family Christmas with our dad. And even though I know she’s right, that there are a thousand ways for me to get hurt in this world, I can’t bring myself to attend. “That sounds great.”
“Good.” She sounds relieved. “I was thinking we could leave next week, right after the boys get out for vacation.”
“Perfect,” I say. But the way Beverly looked at Miles at the funeral still haunts me, and I try not to think of what I might be running into.
SECRETS
* * *
Scientists have found a strong correlation between keeping a traumatic secret and the onset of anxiety, depression, and other biological symptoms. A study done in the 1970s linked traumatic secrets to hypertension, influenza, and even cancer. Neuroscientists have found that keeping a secret can impact brain function as well. Through EEGs and blood tests, they’ve shown that writing a secret down and then destroying it, or revealing a secret to another person, led to tangible health benefits such as improved sleep and T cell counts.
However, studies have also shown that for individuals who have learned of a traumatic secret, the biological damage can have a long-lasting, negative impact.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Six
I feel like a girl on the run. Jackie has the volume cranked up to Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer,” and we sing along—loudly and badly—while Miles and Nick look appropriately horrified in the back seat.
Taking a trip with Jackie wasn’t exactly what Rose meant when she said I needed to step outside of the penalty box. But I’d rather be up here, singing bad eighties anthems with Jackie than home alone, thinking about the party I wasn’t invited to.
The song ends, and I reach across the console and turn the volume down just in time to hear Nick say, “I don’t understand. How is the game multiplayer if you’re not connected to the Internet?”
“The interface is different,” Miles says.
I turn to face the boys. “What are you talking about?”
Miles looks at me, his face void of any expression. “The new game Liam is working on.”
“How did you find out about it?”
Miles glances at Nick, as if to say, You see what I have to put up with? before turning to me and saying, “He told me.”
“When? Where?” Trees whiz by my window, and my head spins.
Miles shrugs. “I don’t know. Tuesday? I was at Aunt Rose’s.”
So now it’s not just Tuesdays with Dad; it’s Tuesdays with Dad and Liam. For all Rose’s assurances that I haven’t been erased, it sure seems like I have. At least on Tuesdays, when everyone knows I teach a late class. I should drop it, but I can’t resist. I look over my shoulder again and say, “What was Liam doing at Rose’s on Tuesday?”
Miles’s answer is frustrating in its brevity. “Talking to me about his new video game.”
Jackie glances at me with sympathetic eyes and says, “You okay?”
“Sure,” I say, my mood ruined. I train my eyes forward. “Are we almost there?”
—
Finally, she puts on her turn signal, and we glide off the highway and onto a small road that backs up to one of the ski resorts. Jackie pulls up in front of a large A-frame, with windows reflecting the bright snow back at us.
The boys leap from the car, and Miles, inexperienced with snow, sinks in a drift up to his knees. “Mom!” he calls, half laughing, half crying.
“You’re okay,” I tell him, lifting him under his armpits and pulling him out. We wobble and slide our way to the front door and step into a cavernous room with a floor-to-ceiling fireplace made entirely out of river rock. Worn leather chairs and couches flank the fireplace, and a backgammon table stands next to a corner window that overlooks the back of the resort. My eyes travel upward to a mezzanine that looks down into the living room. Nick is already upstairs, looking over the railing.
“Miles, come up and check out our room!”
Miles sprints upstairs, disappearing from sight. “Take off those pants and shoes!” I call after him.
Jackie stacks logs and twists newspaper in the fireplace, and soon she’s got a fire going. She stands, wiping her hands on her pants. “It’s five o’clock somewhere. Want a cocktail?”
“Gin and tonic?” I ask.
“Absolutely,” she says, and I follow her into the kitchen, where she pulls a half-empty bottle of gin and an unopened bottle of tonic water from a cupboard.
As she mixes the cocktails, she says, “I feel like I’ve stepped out of one life and into another. I can pretend we’re celebrating the holiday and Aaron is home working.” She gives a shaky smile. “That’s not unhealthy, right?”
“It sounds like an excellent coping strategy to me,” I say.
I take a sip of my drink, letting the bitter lime and fizzy tonic slide down my throat and settle my stomach before following her back to the living room.
“We never did holidays here, so I don’t feel like I have to hide from the memories the way I would have at home.” She looks out the enormous window, swirling the ice in the glass, before looking back again. “And Nick needs this. He’s been having a really hard time. I think he forgets every once in a while.” She looks so sad, tears pooling in her eyes. “He’ll seem normal, and then his expression will just crumble. I can literally see it slamming into him. And I can’t fix it.” She rubs her eyes, as if to blot out the image.
“How did Beverly take the news of the trip?”
“Not well. Luckily, Leonard intervened on our behalf.”
“And how is he doing?”
“Okay, I guess. The same.”
This would be a logical segue to ask about the testing. Were you able to have Aaron tested in the hospital? Oh, I’ve been wondering, did you or Aaron’s parents think to request a test for him that day? But no matter how I approach the question, it feels intrusive and self-serving. I swirl the ice in my glass. I can only assume if she did, she’ll eventually tell me about the results. Aaron’s words on the hill come back to me. We’re already either doomed or saved. Knowing for sure won’t change anything.
I gulp the last of my drink, which is mostly water now that the ice cubes have melted, and stand.
“Can I get you another one?” I ask, holding up my glass.
“I’m good, but help yourself,” Jackie says, leaning back in her chair and propping her feet on the low table between us. “What’s mine is yours.”
Her words stop me for a moment, and I can feel Rose’s sharp gaze judging me from three hundred miles away. I hurry into the kitchen, chased by my guilt, and pour a new drink—going a little heavier on the gin than the tonic. I’ve run away from my problems with Liam and my dad, but I’ve stepped into a different set, with much more significant consequences.
—
“I have to tell you, I’m not a very good skier,” Jackie says as the two of us sit in the chairlift, gliding to the top of the mountain. We’ve just left the boys at ski school and are taking the first run of the day.
“You’re kidding, right?” Snow and trees reflect off her goggles so it’s impossible to see her expression.
“I kind of suck,” she admits, turning to me with an awkward smile.
I’d assumed she was an expert and could lead me down the hill. But now we’re floating toward the top of a moun
tain, and I’ve got no idea how we’re going to get down.
Her goggles reflect the shock and terror on my face, causing a bubble of laughter to well up inside of me. “Shit,” I say.
She giggles, a slow build toward a full belly laugh, and the next thing I know we’re collapsed into each other, laughing so hard tears are streaming from our eyes, and my goggles fog up so much that I have to prop them on top of my head so I can see.
“Oh no!” She points at the operator shed looming in front of us and the steep ramp intended to carry us down and away from the lift.
I clutch my poles tighter, my muscles tensing. “Keep your tips up,” I say, repeating something a friend once told me.
“My tits?” she says, turning toward me at the last minute. Shocked, I look at her as my skis touch the snow. The chair pushes me forward, but I stand too late. Jackie’s skis veer toward mine, and soon we’re rolling in a ball down the ramp, forcing other skiers to jump out of the way. Something pokes me hard in the side, but I’m too busy disentangling myself from Jackie to pay attention to what it was. As I look up, through cockeyed goggles and a skewed hat, I see Jackie splayed facedown, skis crossed behind her, covered in snow and cackling hysterically.
She catches sight of me across the way as skiers glide between us off the lift, skis perfectly parallel. Someone angles to a sharp stop, throwing a shower of snow into my face, leaving me sputtering.
Jackie laughs even harder. The absurdity of the situation is contagious.
“Ladies, get off the ground before you get hurt,” the lift operator calls to us from the shed. “I have to stop the lift if I leave the shed. Do I need to stop the lift?”
This sends us both into a new gale of laughter. “We’re okay!” I try to push myself up onto my knees but my crossed skis keep me from kneeling, so I reach behind and release my boots from their bindings. Jackie has rolled onto her back and is sprawled out, spread-eagle, looking up at the sky. “Paige, get over here!”
I drag my skis and poles behind me, nearly colliding with a couple disembarking from the lift.
“Sorry,” I shout behind me, settling myself next to Jackie. Coldness creeps through the insulation of my coat and ski pants. We lie there, staring up at the sky, the green tips of the pine trees a dark contrast against the endless blue sky.
She breathes, long and slow. “This place always restores me.”
“Ladies! Get up off the ground!”
“In a minute,” she whispers to me. I turn to face her and notice a tear sliding down her cheek. “I feel closer to him here.”
I take her mittened hand and squeeze it.
—
The lodge is a cavernous room with the feel of a men’s club, with dark wood, a roaring fireplace taking up an entire wall, and a bar lining the other side. Leather chairs are scattered across the room, intimate and cozy despite being able to accommodate at least a hundred people. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame the mountain, crawling with skiers.
We sit in large armchairs, warming up with Irish coffees.
“Enough of me and my problems,” Jackie says. “What’s going on with you?” She leans back in her chair, propping her stocking feet up on a low table between us.
“Well . . . you’re not the only one hiding up here from her family,” I say. “Turns out, my entire family is gathering on Tuesdays—with Liam—for dinner and game night.” I explain about the games of Risk and about Liam’s holiday party.
“Wow, that must feel like a huge betrayal,” she says.
I think about it. “I don’t feel betrayed so much as I feel left out. Like there’s a giant phone tree going on behind my back. She’s gone! Come over!”
Jackie smiles gently. “I don’t need to tell you that’s not true, do I?”
“I know, but it feels that way.”
“You miss Liam,” she says. Not a question, a statement. I don’t even bother denying it. “Is there anything you can do to fix it?”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so.” I think about everything that’s come to pass since we broke up—the discovery of Aaron as Miles’s donor and my decision to conceal it from Jackie—and I shudder at the idea of telling him. I don’t want him to see how lost I am, how much I’ve messed everything up. I’m hanging by a string, just trying to make it, minute to minute—with my dad, with Jackie, Aaron, and Miles. There’s no way he’d want to jump into this mess with me. There’s too much ground to make up. I look out the window, the glare of the sun bouncing off the snow and making my eyes water. In a quiet voice I say, “He wants all access to my life, and I just don’t operate that way. There are things I don’t think he’d understand or agree with.” That’s as close as I’ll come to telling Jackie the truth.
She studies me, thoughtful. “Everyone has things they keep private. I did with Aaron.” Jackie takes a drink from her mug and continues, “I’m sure he did with me.”
“What do you mean?”
“No relationship is completely open. If it won’t impact things going forward, then leave it alone. But you also have to trust their love. You have to believe that no matter what, no matter how hard, they won’t walk away.”
Except Liam did walk away.
Jackie continues, “I don’t think there’s anything I wouldn’t have forgiven Aaron for,” she says, her eyes growing wet. “When you love someone, forgiveness is easy.”
“What if what he did was unforgivable?” I ask, my voice just above a whisper.
“Even then,” she says. “It might have been hard, but I loved him.”
I look down into my mug. It’s easier to forgive someone when you know they’re never coming back, when you know there’s nothing else they can do to hurt you. I think of my father. When he’s gone, he’ll be done disappointing me. Will I be able to forgive him then?
When I look back up at her, she smiles. “You don’t have to do anything about Liam,” she says. “But just know that if you want to, you can.”
I think about what Rose said, about how she can’t figure out when I forgot how to be brave. I wish I knew.
We fall into an easy silence, looking into the fire, lost in our own thoughts. I don’t know what I hate more—the weight of the secret that sits inside of me or not believing in Liam enough to tell him.
SIBLINGS
* * *
SIBLING RELATIONSHIPS AND THEIR IMPACT ON SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL HEALTH
Allison Monroe, Columbia University Press
The sibling relationship is one of the most important and long-lasting relationships a person can develop. This bond affects a child’s social-emotional development and has far-reaching consequences well into adulthood. Positive sibling relationships contribute to higher cognitive ability, emotional stability, and greater independence.
FROM THE DONOR SIBLING REGISTRY WEBSITE: SUCCESS STORIES
5 Kids on Vacation—Oh My!
My partner and I conceived our son via donor eight years ago. We have recently connected with four of his genetic siblings and took a trip to Great Wolf Lodge to meet them. The kids (two boys, three girls) connected immediately. I can’t describe how incredible it was—as if they were just picking up a conversation they’d started years ago. Two of them could be twins; they look so much alike! I admit, we had reservations at first—what if the kids didn’t get along? What if our son got hurt or was rejected in some way? But our fears were put to rest immediately. This was truly a gift—for all the kids, and for those of us who love them. I can honestly say I feel as if our family has just expanded fivefold.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jackie calls shortly after the New Year. “I need to ask a huge favor, and please say no if you think it’s too much.”
Intrigued, I say, “What is it?”
“I need to clean out Aaron’s closet and drawers. I feel like I’m living in a shrine. Every time I come into my room, it feels like I’m entering some kind of mausoleum, filled with Aaron’s things. His change jar. His clothes. Cuff links.
I need them gone.”
I sit on the edge of my bed, thinking of the file hidden in my own closet and wondering what might be hiding in Aaron’s. Light filters through the curtains in my bedroom, and I can hear Miles watching TV in the living room. “Of course.”
“Thank you,” she says. “If Beverly helped, it would turn into another afternoon of tears and reminiscing, and I can’t deal with that. I need to do it before she offers, and if I do it alone, you’ll find me buried and wallowing under all of his clothes. You’ll keep me on task. I need you to be ruthless.”
“When do you want to do it?”
“This afternoon, if you can. The boys can watch a movie or something. I don’t think it’ll take more than a couple of hours. We’ll load up some trash bags, and I can take them to Goodwill tomorrow.”
I cringe at the idea of Aaron’s belongings shoved into Hefty bags. But I can only imagine what it must be like for her to go to bed every night surrounded by his things.
“We can be there around two,” I tell her, trying to quiet my racing thoughts.
—
Once we get the boys situated in front of a movie, I follow Jackie down the hall past a half-open door. An enormous desk with files stacked on top dominates the room, a paper shredder next to it, and bags of trash litter the floor.
Jackie catches me peeking. “Aaron’s office. He’s kept every piece of paper he’s ever touched since the Clinton administration. I try to go through a few files every night, but it’s slow going. Our attorney wants anything that might be important, so I have to read it all myself.” She leans against the doorjamb, and I stand next to her, wondering if a file holding all the details of Aaron’s sperm donation is in there somewhere.
I imagine the moment Jackie discovers the paperwork, alone in a small circle of lamplight, an empty wineglass next to her. She pulls out yet another file, expecting a receipt for a trip or a new appliance. She scans the top page—the same donor profile I have. As understanding clicks in, she turns the pages faster, until she reaches the end of the file with more questions than answers. Aaron’s secrets laid bare, with no way to confront him or ask for an explanation. Selfishly, I worry how I’ll react when she tells me. If I’ll be able to feign surprise and keep from burdening Jackie with not only another secret but also another betrayal.
