When Secrets Die

by Lynn S. Hightower

  She’d always admired her mother for staying independent. It meant money troubles, but she’d never handed the power over to some guy in exchange for a wallet.

  But then her mother was pregnant and throwing up with really bad morning sickness. And she and Blaine had sat together and had a really adult talk about abortion. Blaine had been on the fence about it, as had her mother, but they’d decided to have the child because Mom did not get pregnant easily, and because she loved Clayton and he really, really wanted a baby. Her mom had told Blaine before she told Clayton, and they’d made the decision to have the baby without his help or input. And her mother had warned her, always be prepared to take complete responsibility for any child you have, Blaine, because you’ll be the one responsible no matter what any man says. Some are good fathers, some aren’t, so be ready to take it all on yourself.

  But the dance studio had been making good money, and Mom could teach pregnant for a long time, and so they’d gotten kind of excited about it and bought a lot of baby stuff. Clayton had moved in, and for a while they’d been the kind of two-parent family Blaine occasionally envied. She, who did not have a father who cared for her, was not one to underestimate their value.

  Then Ned had gotten sick. He’d cried and screamed and turned red in the face, and thrown up so much it was scary. But Mom had been calm the whole time, calling doctors and taking him to the hospital. Sometimes he got better, then he’d get sick again, but Blaine never thought … she never thought he could die. Not these days, with all the advances in medical science. It had happened so fast too. Sick, screaming, off to the hospital. And then Mom coming home in the middle of the night, opening the door to Blaine’s room, and in the light from the hallway Blaine could see her mother’s eyes, dead eyes, with deep pockets of black beneath, and she knew that something awful had happened. It never made much sense, the details about liver enzymes, and his system shutting down and organ failure. She just couldn’t believe it. This kind of stuff didn’t happen in other families. It happened only in hers.

  Everything was a mess, and nothing would get better, it couldn’t. And there was no point in saying hang on till you get out of high school and go to college, because she had two more years of high school, and what college would give her scholarship money if she couldn’t even pass Algebra I?

  And then, all she did was ask if Twyla could spend the night. A small little request, for God’s sake. She didn’t want to go home to that sadness, those quiet dreary weekends where her mother walked around like a robot and other kids hung out with their friends, and the only thing Mom said to her was Clean up your room, Have you done your homework? and What do you want for dinner?

  Blaine felt her eye swelling. It was going to be a shiner. Her own mother had given her a black eye. So now she had an abusive mother. Maybe it had something to do with the drinking.

  Blaine had been worried about her mom for months now. Hearing her get up in the night, hearing her throwing up so violently, seeing her face go white like it did, and watching her hold her side. It was Amaryllis Burton who had told her what was going on. She had been over to the house with one of those baskets from the clinic, and her mom had been sick the night before and was sound asleep, and Blaine had refused to wake her mother up. But she had been very polite to Amaryllis, although she didn’t much like her. She was Mom’s friend and clearly disappointed that her mother wasn’t available, and kind of hinting that Blaine should wake her up anyway. But Blaine had stuck to her guns, though she had invited the woman to sit down in the living room and offered to make coffee or hot tea or get her a soda. Amaryllis had given her that sickly sweet smile and made some remark about how grown-up Blaine could be, the kind of remark that sounded polite to other adults, but that Blaine knew was meant to put her down and make fun of her.

  Amaryllis had said that perhaps they should have a talk. That Blaine should know that her mother was drinking, and not to think too badly of her, because her mother had been through hell, though it was a shame she could not put Blaine before this weakness.

  Blaine hadn’t believed her. She didn’t like Amaryllis, and the way she was so obviously jealous of her mom. Mom was pretty, she wasn’t fat, she was built, and she was funny and smart and a great dancer, and she would never embarrass Blaine in front of her friends by showing off her double-jointed arm like her grandmother used to do to her. Blaine was kind of proud of her, too. Mom, at least, had lots of friends—girlfriends as well as men friends, and boyfriends, because her mother at least was fun.

  Blaine had tried to talk to her mom about it, but her mother just denied it right to Blaine’s face about even being sick at all. That was a lie—her mother was sick all the time, Blaine heard her in the night. She knew she should get up and help her, but she was scared, because what if Mom had what Ned had? What if she died too? Blaine stayed in bed and pretended not to hear, which was what her mother seemed to want.

  It was over between her and Mom anyway—for real this time. Her mother had gone too far; she herself had gone too far. Blaine couldn’t go home if she wanted to, and she didn’t want to. It was a cold empty feeling, knowing for a fact that her mother did not love her, that her mother was an alcohol addict with no concern about raising her daughter. And here she herself was saying no to all those drugs, most of them anyway, most of the time, and was that good enough? Oh, hell no. Nothing was good enough for her mother.

  Today was one of those days when Blaine envied those kids with parents from the perfect households, where the money never ran out or got short, where both parents were home every night for dinner, where all the siblings stayed together and none of them died a long horrible death that nobody knew the cause of, where you didn’t have to get used to new fathers. Blaine wasn’t like her friends who never wanted their parents to remarry until they moved out, for no better reason than they didn’t want to share the bathroom and get bumped down the line when it came to who got the first shower. She was more mature than that, she was kinder, she wanted her mother to be happy. Not that her mother appreciated her. Nope. But she remembered those years with her father, remembered how mean he was, remembered how she had missed him, but not near as much as she’d expected, and never ever wanted her mom and him to get back together. Most of the time, she liked the single-parent home. She liked it just being her and Mom, and she felt she’d been through life experiences that her friends had no idea how to handle. But money was too tight too often, and Blaine did not like having to sweat the deposits for the school field trips, and see that tight look on her mother’s face when she made out the checks. If her mother was a better budgeter, these things wouldn’t happen. If her father actually paid his child support, their life would be easier. Blaine never understood why all the newspaper articles and information made it seem like there were all kinds of agencies and help for single mothers to collect child support, when she knew better. It was like all that mythical grant money for college. She worried constantly, about financing her education. She wanted a top-notch private East Coast university, Harvard or Yale or maybe even Brown, and the odds were against her mother coming up with that kind of tuition, and her father made too much money for her to qualify for anything, even though he wouldn’t dream of using any of that money to put her through school. Nope, college grants were just as mythical as child support. It always gave Blaine a sick feeling, thinking about her dad not paying. She knew lots of kids of divorced parents, and the dads paid child support, plus bought the kids stuff. She thought that maybe she was just the kind of daughter that a dad didn’t want to pay child support for. In her head, she knew that was crap, but sometimes she couldn’t help thinking it.

  It had been better when Clayton was there, but Blaine always knew he wouldn’t last. A man who didn’t marry you when you were pregnant was a guy who wasn’t going to stick. That was something Blaine knew at the age of twelve.

  Blaine set her jaw. She missed her little brother, and thought about him all the time. She didn’t think anybody knew that, how
much she missed him. Sometimes late at night she’d think she smelled his milky, baby powder smell, and it was crazy but it didn’t scare her. It happened mostly right after he died, and it hadn’t happened for a long time now, and that made Blaine sad. She never minded watching him, or playing with him while Mom cooked dinner, or changing his diapers or giving him a bath. She liked reading to him, and doing puppet shows with the stuffed animals. He had this amazing belly laugh, and he would topple over, and he would always run right to her when she came home, calling “Bain, Bain.” She’d taught him to say “Kick butt” for his first sentence, and Mom had laughed her ass off, but Clayton had given her the pursed lip.

  Blaine kept her heart in cold storage. It was safer that way. Safer not to think of the bewildered look on her mother’s face, about how she had cried. Blaine had no idea why she’d gone off like that, but she’d wanted to kill her mother, she really had. The rage had washed over her with a violence that literally made her almost throw up.

  There was a Texaco station down the road, a long way down the road if you were in platform shoes that were already rubbing blisters. But Blaine set her jaw and kept walking. She’d just get whoever was behind the counter to let her use the phone. She hoped it was a woman, and not some man who would stare at her. Please God let it be some nice older woman. She could decide who to call while she walked. But she already knew, in the back of her mind, she would call her mother. In Blaine’s life, there really was nobody else.

  By the time Blaine limped into the Texaco station, her left foot was so sore she could barely put her weight on it. The woman behind the counter, taking money from an old man who had a wad of tobacco stuffed in his cheek, looked approachable. She had gray hair and brown eyes, and wore a sweatshirt that read “I Love My Grandchildren.”

  She caught sight of Blaine standing shyly just inside the door. “Well, honey, you must be freezing to come out on a day like this without no jacket or coat.”

  Blaine smiled and said, “Yes, ma’am.” She felt the shyness hit her. She tensed as the older man turned to look at her, but he just nodded at her in a friendly way, and didn’t look at her or make her feel uncomfortable.

  “Morning, little missy.”

  “Good morning, sir.”

  Blaine waited till the man gathered up his pouch of Red Man and shuffled toward the door. His back was bent; he wore heavy work shoes and a thick and muddy corduroy jacket, and looked like he spent most of his days working outside. He nodded at Blaine as he went by, but didn’t stare, then settled himself in an old chair near the door. He smelled like dust and tobacco.

  The woman smiled at Blaine in kind of a worried way. It was a school day, and Blaine knew the woman would be wondering why she wasn’t in class.

  “I’m sorry,” Blaine said. “Is there any way I can use your phone? I need to call my mom.”

  The woman motioned for her to come around the counter. “Why don’t you hop up on that stool there, and you can use the phone while I ring the register? I got two people coming in to pay for gas.”

  So Blaine went behind the counter and climbed up on the wooden stool, and used the black phone that sat on a ledge near the back wall to call home.

  She got the answering machine, and her stomach dropped. Was her mother there and not picking up? Or maybe she was looking for her, for Blaine, driving up and down the road? Except she hadn’t seen Blaine walking to the Texaco station. So where was she?

  The woman’s back was turned, she was ringing up people at the register. Blaine felt she should just slide off the stool and leave, but then what?

  “Did you get your mama?” the woman asked.

  “She’s not there,” Blaine said.

  “How about your dad?”

  “He’s—” Blaine didn’t have to explain, though, because the woman waved a hand the minute she heard the hesitation in Blaine’s voice.

  “Why don’t you try her again in a few minutes? Meanwhile, I think you could use a hot chocolate to warm you up. And don’t you worry about paying, because I work here so I get them free.”

  Blaine had friends who worked part-time in gas stations, and she knew the woman didn’t get the hot chocolate free, and she wondered if her grandmother who had died before she was born would have been like this. It would be so nice to have a grandmother like that. Of course, she did have Great-Aunt Jodina, and Great-Aunt Jodina was like her grandmother, so that was good.

  The woman brought her hot chocolate, a package of Dolly Madison White Gem Donuts, and a big Band-Aid for her blistered heel. Blaine ate the doughnuts and got powdered sugar all over her shirt, and she looked like her mother looked when she was baking something and getting flour all over everything. The lady helped her with her shoe buckle, which was awkward to reach when perched up on a wooden stool, and Blaine put the Band-Aid over her heel and put her shoe back on, the lady buckling it really loose, so that it would stay on but not rub so much.

  Blaine tried her mother three more times, but she wasn’t home, and she wasn’t at the dance studio.

  “Does your mom have a friend you could call?” the lady asked.

  Blaine thought of Amaryllis Burton. For one, she could get ahold of her, because she would be at work, at the Tundridge Children’s Clinic. Amaryllis would know the name of that detective who had come to the house, and the detective might very well know where her mother was. It was worth a try.

  “Do you have a phone book?” Blaine asked.

  The lady rummaged under the counter, then brought up a tattered Yellow Book that had coffee rings on the top. “I’ve got this.”

  Blaine thumbed through, found the number of the Tundridge Children’s Clinic, and asked for Amaryllis Burton. She waited on hold while the phone made regular beeps until Amaryllis came on.

  “Blaine Marsden? Well, hello there, young lady. How can I help you today?”

  Amaryllis sounded friendly and fake, like somebody was listening to her talk.

  “I was wondering if you knew where my mom is?”

  “No, honey, I don’t. Why? What’s the matter?”

  Blaine didn’t say anything. She wasn’t sure exactly what to say.

  “Aren’t you in school?” Amaryllis asked.

  “I need my mom to come and pick me up. I was wondering if she might be with that detective—the lady who was at the house, remember?”

  “Of course I remember. Blaine, honey, I’ll come pick you up.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m at the Texaco station on Melton Road.”

  “All the way out in Athens, ha?”

  “See, it’s such a long way for you, and you’re at work and everything.”

  “What’s the number there, in case I have trouble finding it?”

  Blaine put her hand over the mouthpiece. “Can you tell me the number here, ma’am?”

  The woman wrote it down for her on a piece of paper and smiled, happy that Blaine had found someone to come and pick her up.

  “Okay,” Amaryllis said. “You just sit tight and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “Thank you so much,” Blaine said. The woman was being incredibly nice, and Blaine felt bad that she had misjudged her.

  The woman in the grocery was named Mrs. Webb, and she showed Blaine pictures of her grandchildren. There were three of them, all little and cute. Blaine felt conspicuous sitting up on the stool, but it was nice to be warm, and off her feet. It was a relief to have a ride coming, although it seemed to be taking Amaryllis Burton a long time to get there. Not much chance of getting to school by lunchtime. Maybe it would be better just to go home, since she didn’t have a written excuse for being tardy. She would spend the afternoon studying her algebra and get her homework assignments from Twyla.

  Blaine recognized the car as soon as Amaryllis drove into the Texaco station—a turquoise Nova with a crumpled front bumper.

  She jumped down from the stool. “That’s my ride. Thank you so so much for being so nice to me.
”

  The lady gave Blaine a hug. “I enjoyed the company, honey. I’ve got loads of sons and grandsons, but the only girls we get are the ones who marry into the family. It was a pleasure to pretend you were my little granddaughter, even if it was just for one morning.”

  “Thank you,” Blaine said. Perfect strangers were nicer to her than her own family sometimes.

  Amaryllis was waiting for her in the car, and she reached across the seat and opened the door from the inside.

  “Thank you so much for coming to get me,” Blaine said. She slid into the front seat. The woman had been running the heater and it was nice and warm, a little too warm, but she had been cold all morning so it felt good.

  The interior was a surprise. Wadded tissues on the floor, a lot of cardboard boxes on the backseat, magazines with the covers torn off, and candy wrappers and fast food bags. Every time Amaryllis had been at the house, she had looked around like she was judging them by their housekeeping and they were coming up short, so Blaine would have expected the woman’s car to be vacuumed and free of the trash that was all over the place.

  “I’m so sorry that you had to leave work to come and pick me up,” Blaine said. “Was it hard to get away?”

  “Oh, no, I had to stop off at my house and pick up a few things. To tell you the truth, I was only supposed to work the morning anyway. I’m taking some time off.”

  “Are you going on vacation?” Blaine asked politely. “Oh, you missed that turn. You have to go left to get to my house.”

  “I know that, honey.”

  But she did not turn the car around.

  Blaine waited, hands knotted in her lap. Maybe Amaryllis knew another way to go. Or, more likely, she just thought she did, and she’d go another mile or two before she realized she would have to turn around. Blaine took a deep breath. She would just be patient. Amaryllis Burton would figure it out sooner or later.