Secret Language

by Monica Wood

  “This is our first warm day,” Faith says.

  “It’s freezing in Paris.” Connie moves a fork next to one of the plates. “Is Joe eating with us?”

  “Uh-huh,” Faith says. “They’ll be tinkering with that car half the night, by the looks.” She rolls her eyes. “So far it needs nine hundred parts and a new tire.”

  Connie smiles. Faith’s life hasn’t changed much, either. She has worked at Dr. Howe’s for nineteen years, ten as the office manager. And despite a divorce that’s five years old, Joe is still a dependable presence. He lives with another woman but always seems to turn up here.

  The aroma of chicken and ginger wafts out of the oven. Connie recognizes the recipe, one of Phoebe’s. The table is set exactly the way Phoebe once showed them.

  “Faith, can I talk to you?”

  Faith looks up, startled, as if Connie has asked permission to remove her clothes. “Not if it has anything to do with Isadora James,” she says. She opens the oven, then shuts it without looking inside.

  “I got another letter.” Connie fishes it out of her purse and presents it on the palm of her hand.

  Faith looks at the letter as if it were a dead mouse. “What does it say?”

  “The same. She thinks the first one got lost in the mail.” She places it square on the table between the neatly arranged dishes. The handwriting is big and scrawly. “She thinks Billy’s her father, Faith. She believes it.”

  Connie can almost count the shifting muscles in her sister’s face.

  “I don’t want anything to do with her,” Faith says. “She’s probably nuts.”

  “Then what am I supposed to do with this?”

  “I don’t know. Send it to Armand. He can add it to his collection.”

  “His collection doesn’t have anything like this, Faith.”

  “Yes it does. I bet she’s writing a book on the theater. It’s a mystery to me why any of these people want to include Billy and Delle anyway—they only had one legitimate hit.”

  “She’s not writing a book on the theater, Faith.”

  “Maybe not. But you can bet she wants something. Besides, if Billy had another kid I don’t want to know about it.”

  Connie watches Faith move back and forth across her kitchen, her meal materializing. It reminds her of when they were teenagers, trying to run a household around their mother.

  Dear Connie, the letter begins. My name is Isadora James and I believe I am your sister …

  She has carried the two letters back and forth to Paris three times now. The thought of another sister, another blood tie, is a cruel temptation, one that bares the pitiful ties she already has.

  My mother was a dancer in a show called “Silver Moon.”

  Connie stares out the window, chin in hand. Faith’s neighborhood looks solid, the houses and trees heavy and safe. Connie’s condominium complex, though not far from here, has a temporary, antiseptic feel, its slim, well-formed trees no more than decoration. Faith’s house is old and settling. What would it would be like to belong to a place like this? Connie’s sense of belonging is more mobile: for years she has expected to find her true place in life at the other end of the next flight.

  When the boys and Joe return, clattering through the door, the house begins to breathe. They gather at the sink to dip their hands in soap and sugar, their voices rising amiably over the running water. Arguing about what might be wrong with the car, they assemble at the table, Chris with an optimistic smear of grease across the front of his T-shirt.

  “How long will it take to fix the car?” Connie asks him.

  The three of them chuckle, a conspiracy of men. “Only all his life,” Joe says.

  Faith doesn’t seem to hear anything. She stands with her back to them, tossing a salad at the counter.

  “Everything okay here?” Joe asks, looking from one sister to the other.

  “Just fine,” Faith calls out.

  Joe stacks plates and begins to serve from the stove. Connie gets up to help, grateful for the chance to move.

  “I’ve been talking to Faith about meeting Isadora James,” she says.

  “Who’s Isadora James?” Chris asks.

  Faith shoots Connie a look: the surprise of betrayal, the look she gave every time Connie tried to make Billy and Delle behave kindly.

  “Sorry,” Connie says. “I assumed you’d mentioned it.” She carries over the last plate and sits down, steeped in a miserable silence, her place at her sister’s table ready, good food steaming into her face. She senses the boys’ held breath, their fierce interest. Their mother’s discomfort has not been lost on them.

  “Is this any of my business?” Joe says. His voice breaks the spell and again everyone moves, taking up forks, reaching for bread and salad.

  “Connie got a letter from somebody in Brooklyn, that’s all,” Faith says, as if that explained anything.

  Joe stops chewing. “So?”

  “She thinks she’s our sister,” Connie says.

  “Half sister,” Faith adds. “She thinks Billy was her father.”

  Joe lets out a long whistle, and the boys wait, their mouths parted.

  “What does she want?” Joe asks.

  “Nothing,” Connie says.

  Faith lays down her fork. “She probably thinks we have money.”

  “She says she wants to share our memories,” Connie says. The thought is a cold hand on her shoulder.

  “Another Spaulding sister,” Joe says. “I’ll be damned.” His eyes darken with interest. “Why did she wait till now?”

  “She didn’t know. Her mother finally told her a few months ago, just before she died.” Saying this, Connie already believes it. “She grew up thinking her mother’s husband was her father. He’s dead, too.”

  “How old is she?”

  Joe’s questions are a comfort; they anchor Connie to Isadora James’s story in a way that makes it true.

  “Let’s see, they left Silver Moon in the spring of … she must be about twenty-six. I would’ve been ten when she was born. Faith, you were almost twelve.”

  Faith is taking tiny mouthfuls of food, one after another. The boys are vigilant, eating mechanically, suspended on the next word.

  “I don’t know why we’re even talking about this,” Faith says. She collects her plate, scrapes most of her dinner into the sink. “She probably works for a tabloid. ‘Dead Crooners Speak from the Grave,’ something like that.”

  “Crooners,” Ben says, and he and Chris laugh. Their habit is to make gentle fun of their mother, but Faith never seems to mind. Connie watches her relax again, letting her sons coax her into a smile. She looks at them as she looks at no one else: she listens. It’s the way she used to look at Joe.

  “She might be for real, Faith,” Joe says. “You never know. What about that stuff in the attic, all that stuff you moved from your mother’s?”

  “What about it?”

  “Maybe there’s a clue somewhere.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Faith says. She turns to Connie. “Why are we falling all over ourselves just because some girl in Brooklyn says she’s our sister?”

  “I believe her,” Connie says. Her words feel pronged, her voice hard; the recognition of something shuddering between them lends the smallest thrill to her discomfort. Their exchange has the texture of something living. Emboldened, she makes her claim: “I think we should meet her.”

  Faith closes her eyes.

  “I’ve already talked to Armand about it, Faith. We could meet her in New York, in his office. Neutral territory. We’d never have to see her again.”

  “No.”

  “I just want to meet her once.”

  Faith shakes her head. “Connie.”

  “I hate to ask you, Faith, believe me.” This truth presses on her like a soft wound.

  “But I hate New York,” Faith says. “I hate it there.”

  Connie keeps on: “I don’t want to go alone.”

  “Then don’t go.” Faith look
s away. “I’d have to inconvenience everyone at work,” she says weakly. “I’d have to take the boys out of school—”

  “Whoa, remember me?” Joe says, waving his hand. “They can stay with Brenda and me.”

  “We can take care of ourselves,” Chris announces, indignant. Not quite seventeen, he’s already bigger than most men.

  “I’d rather go to New York with Mom and Aunt Connie,” Ben says. “No offense, Dad.”

  Joe laughs. “None taken.” He looks at Faith. “I think it’s a good idea.”

  Faith leans back against the counter, her arms loosely crossed, staring into some thought known only to her. It’s the mention of Brenda that has disarmed her, Connie knows; she can see it in the set of her lower lip.

  “Meeting this woman will take what, an hour?” Joe says. “It might even be interesting. And look at the pluses: you get to do Connie a favor and the boys get to see New York City. Besides, you haven’t seen Armand in years.”

  Faith flicks her eyes toward Connie, a green warning. “Armand will expose this thing in about five seconds,” she says. “I hope you know that.”

  Is Faith saying yes? “I just want to know, one way or the other,” Connie says. But it isn’t true; she only wants to know one way.

  Faith comes back to the table and sits down heavily. “Can you at least wait till school’s out?”

  Ben lets out a yip. “You mean we’re going?”

  “Thanks,” Connie says softly. Faith has come through.

  The boys talk through the rest of dinner about what they want to do in New York, but make no mention of meeting their possible aunt. By the time the plates are cleared, Faith is more herself, though she is quiet, even for her.

  “Aunt Connie, watch,” Chris says, standing at the refrigerator. He makes a clucking sound. The dog, who has been slumbering near the kitchen door, pricks up his ears. Chris opens the freezer and fishes out an ice cube.

  Ben nudges her. “This is really good,” he says as Chris tosses the cube into the air. The dog springs from all fours to catch it on its upward arc, then drops like a sack, intent on the meaty crunch of ice between his teeth.

  Chris shuts the freezer and grins. “He thinks we buy them.”

  Connie laughs, slipping under the sound of the boys’ voices, the crunching dog, the faraway neighborhood noises of the season’s first warm night. These are only the motions of comfort, she knows, but for the moment it seems like enough.

  All at once the boys are off: Chris to pick up his girlfriend, Ben to walk the dog. Joe stays.

  “Another Spaulding,” he says, shaking his head.

  They’re still at the kitchen table, the lights on. Eighteen years ago, Connie thinks, we’d be getting out a deck of cards.

  “Faith, thank you,” she says. “Really, I mean it. We can make it a quick trip. An overnight, if you want.”

  Faith looks into her lap. “I don’t want another sister.”

  Connie can’t tell how she means this. “Aren’t you even a little curious, Faith? Imagine if she’s really—I mean, if she’s been out there all this time …”

  Faith looks up. “I said I’d go. I’m sorry you had to beg.”

  Joe scrapes his chair back and looks at his watch. Connie has almost forgotten that he no longer belongs to this house.

  “Thanks for dinner,” he says to Faith, and presses her shoulders as he passes. “Don’t worry.”

  “I thought you were going to work on the car.”

  “Tomorrow,” he says. “Good night.”

  He tosses Connie a little salute, then he’s gone, leaving her and Faith in their customary silence, a silence that has always come from not having enough to say to each other, until tonight, when it seems instead like too much.

  TWO

  Faith sits alone among a scattering of other parents on the bleachers at the edge of the ball field. The air smells of blossom and dirt and grass and boys. She spots Ben among the players on the Scouts’ bench, his head bent toward another boy. Ben is a listener. He is liked by other kids, but lacks Chris’s knack for attracting swarms of them. Ben has one or two best friends, and otherwise seems content in his own company and the company of the dog. She hopes he is happy.

  He lifts a bat above his head—his hair squashed under a crimson Scouts cap, his skinniness masked by a bulky crimson Scouts shirt—and uses it to stretch, first far to the left, then far to the right. He does this exactly the same way before every game. A couple of the other boys join him, imitate him, bats hoisted, visors similarly curled, cleats dug into the sand.

  “Hi, stranger,” comes a voice near her. Joe Senior smiles out from under the brown visor of a FULLER MACHINE COMPANY cap.

  “Well, hi.” She smiles back. “Ben’s playing shortstop again.”

  Joe Senior laughs, his face collapsing into deep lines. “I knew they’d see it his way. He was sleeping in the outfield. The kid needed action.”

  Across the field voices begin to ring out, the scratchy orders of the young coach, the higher, more urgent calls from the boys. They assemble into twosomes to pass balls, and words, back and forth, talking in their special code.

  “Where’s Phoebe?” Faith asks.

  Joe Senior looks around. “Working the crowd, I imagine.”

  Eventually Phoebe appears, bony as a heron, in a cotton sundress flapping above a pair of red hightop sneakers. Her white hair, rolled into braids, glints against the sun.

  “Hello there!” she shouts, working her way up the bleachers, hands in the air. “Let the games begin!”

  She sits down and draws Faith against her fragile chest, her talc-scented skin pressed against Faith’s hair.

  “Where’ve you been lately? Your kids are always underfoot, but we never see you.”

  Joe Senior corrects her. “When do we ever see Chris? If he isn’t working at the Shop ’n’ Save then he’s out chasing that girlfriend of his.”

  “Oh, I know,” Phoebe sighs, shaking her head. “And Ben’s right behind him. My last grandchild, all grown up.”

  Joe Senior squints into the sun-bleached field. “Seven great-grandchildren and she’s moaning about Ben.”

  “But there’s something about the last one of anything, don’t you think?”

  “There is,” Faith says. She knows exactly what Phoebe means. As a child she never ate the whole of anything because she did not want it to be gone.

  Phoebe leans close to Faith, one finger poised in the air. “Redpoll at the tube feeder.”

  “No. This late? I didn’t get one all winter.”

  “Yessiree,” Phoebe says, triumphant. “I almost called you, but I made myself wait till I could see your face.”

  Faith laughs. Phoebe had introduced her to birdwatching when she was home with the infant Chris, and they’d been engaged in a friendly rivalry ever since.

  “Will you look at this,” Phoebe says to Joe Senior. “Those no-good sons of yours are playing hooky.”

  Up through the bleachers bob two more FULLER MACHINE COMPANY caps. Joe and Brian. With them are Brian’s wife, Maggie, and their oldest son, Jack, with Marilyn, his wife. They all greet Phoebe, Joe Senior, and Faith as if they haven’t seen each other for months: the Fuller family axis has always turned on hellos and goodbyes.

  “Greg and Will are covering the shop,” Joe says to his father. He winks at Faith. “Slow day.”

  “The hell,” Joe Senior says. “You just want to see how that kid of yours handles himself at shortstop.”

  Faith watches this scene as she has so many others. She still thinks of it as the family dance. The divorce halted the music not a whit, and when she sees them now they’re as relentlessly cheerful as they were the first time she appeared at their door.

  Faith is quiet at these games, especially amidst the noisy cadre of Fullers, who follow the nuances of every play with practiced fervor. For Faith the game is something that happens around Ben, whom she watches tenderly: his labored movements, his determination, his fierce will. He’s not
a natural athlete like his brother; he is gawky, a little hesitant, not entirely used to his body, but he tries hard and never gives up.

  Whenever Ben leaves the field, Faith loses interest in the game, the score, who is next at bat. She prefers to watch the other parents, their feverish faces, the way their tightened fists and chewed lower lips seem to will the ball into the sky’s farthest reaches. Faith wonders at them, for in Ben she looks instead for the smallest triumphs: a good swing, the thwack of connection. It doesn’t matter to her where the ball ends up.

  Today it’s harder than usual to keep her head in the game. The trip to New York with Connie is looming, and there’s a new horror in her constant worry over the boys: this morning she found a condom in Chris’s laundry, casual as a gum wrapper in the pocket of his jeans. FOR HER PLEASURE, read the jaunty red packet.

  The game ends and the Scouts lose. Faith picks her way down the bleachers to the balding grass and waits alone, watching the Fullers move in a pack to the Scouts’ bench. In the thinning sunlight she hangs back, until they have made Ben smile in the face of defeat. As the crowd dwindles she lifts her hand to him, and he crosses the field: a trudging, crimson, backlit figure, her son. When his face comes into focus, his freckles standing out on his cheeks, she speaks to him.

  “You were the best one,” she says.

  He squints at her, unbelieving. “Mom, I screwed up a zillion times. I muffed two grounders.” So serious, so like her. Chris is like his father and will dance his way through the rest of his life. Ben will tiptoe, peering around every turn. One day soon he’ll wake up a man. She missed the moment somehow with Chris; with Ben she’ll be watching.

  “No one else looks like you, Ben,” she tells him. “You’re a one-and-only out there.”

  He shakes his head, his father’s black hair shivering out the back door of his cap. “You don’t have to say that stuff, Mom. I sucked out loud.”