The Art of Keeping Secrets

by Patti Callahan Henry

  The waiter returned, placed their plates on the table. Jake took a bite of the pecan-encrusted grouper he’d ordered, chewed and spoke simultaneously. “Mom, are you sure you don’t know where Sofie lives now?”

  Annabelle shook her head, laughed. “Don’t talk with your mouth full.” Then she looked away from him. “No, I don’t know where she lives. I drove most of the night to get here, and then found her by accident at the church. Guess I’ll have to do some sleuthing.”

  Jake stood abruptly and went to the bar, came back with a phone book. Annabelle laughed. “I would’ve thought of that . . . eventually.”

  Jake leafed through the pages until he came to the Ps for Parker. He looked up. “Nothing here with the names Liddy or Sofie, or even the initials.”

  “She said her name is Milford or Milstead now, something like that.”

  “Did she marry?” Jake sifted through the pages.

  “I doubt it. In the church she was with an older man she called her boyfriend. She’s awfully young to marry.”

  “Hmmm . . . don’t I know someone who married the love of her life when she was twenty?”

  “That was different,” Annabelle said. “Very different.”

  “I’m sure it was.” Jake laughed. He flipped through more pages. “Here’s an L. Milstead with an address and a phone number.”

  “Liddy.”

  “You have a pen?”

  Annabelle pulled a black Sharpie from her purse. “Here,” she said.

  Jake scribbled the name, address and phone number on a napkin. “She must still live with her mother.”

  “She told me her mother left. That’s all she said about her.”

  “Mom, this is all way weird.”

  Annabelle took a sip of wine, attempted to ignore her son’s comment as she looked out the porthole window to Bay Street. Sofie Milstead knew more than she had told, and the information was like a stranger Annabelle was unsure she wanted to meet.

  ELEVEN

  SOFIE MILSTEAD

  Bedford stroked Sofie’s back, muttered the words she loved to hear. She never understood all that he said, yet she got the meaning—she was loved and adored. And above all else—she was safe.

  He told her of her beauty and how her life had been made for his. If she examined this idea, if she probed for reciprocal feelings within herself, she couldn’t find them. There was not a space inside her that Bedford filled—only the dolphins did that for her. She understood there was something wrong with her, this failure to return his deeper love, but she basked in his adoration and assumed that eventually her immaturity would diminish and she would be able to truthfully love him back, tell him that he completed her.

  Bedford dozed off with his hand flat on her stomach, and Sofie thought how the hours that had passed that Sunday somehow added up to more than one day.

  The humidity outside had settled inside her veins, her very blood bringing on a languor. When they’d set off for church that morning, she’d felt slightly guilty for not having told Bedford that Michael Harley, the art historian, had come calling. Bedford had looked down at her and kissed her on the forehead.

  They had walked into the church as they had every Sunday since the first time she met him. He was a man of habit and of conscience, and these two qualities conspired to make him a churchgoer, if not a man of faith. This had baffled her at first—how could this man demand such strict church attendance when he found it hard to believe anything that couldn’t be empirically proven? Then she realized that the familiar liturgy, the same words repeated in the same order week after week, appealed to his need for order even as they called to her heart.

  They had walked toward their seats, the air dusty and stifling. Sofie had leaned against Bedford’s shoulder and allowed the calm of this place to comfort her. People had filed into the church, sat in their regular seats and nodded hello to Sofie and Bedford, whispered, “Humid out there, eh?” as if no one else knew. Sofie had stared at the doorway, where the refracted light fell in a single path along the blue carpet; she thought how it looked like the path a dolphin might make in the water. A sadness rose in her, in a lump below her throat. She had started to look away, but a woman who walked into the shaft of light had caused Sofie to stop and stare.

  She had dusty blond curls that fell wind whipped to her shoulders, and the awed, disoriented look of someone who had never entered this church before. She’d rubbed her hands together, then looked left and right and sat in the back pew to one side, her legs poised as if she might run at any minute.

  Then the woman looked straight at Sofie, stared at her, through her. Electricity ran through Sofie and caused her body to quiver beneath Bedford’s hand on her knee as she recognized Annabelle Murphy—Knox’s wife.

  Bedford patted her leg. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” Sofie whispered. “I’ll be right back. I have to go to the ladies’ room.” She stood and walked down the aisle, avoided this woman’s stare and entered the courtyard through a side door. This was it—this was when the consequences of her lies and secrets caught up with her.

  The bench at the end of the church courtyard faced a playground surrounded by gravestones. Sofie sat and stared at the date on one of the stones: 1875. She counted inside her head: how long would it take Annabelle Murphy to come outside, find her?

  She made it to fifty when Annabelle sat next to her, said her name as though they were intimate friends.

  Sofie stared at Annabelle Murphy in wonder and dull amusement. This woman had always seemed little more to her than a name—more a concept or picture than a person. Knox Murphy’s wife. The woman who had kept Knox from her mother and from her, a woman who only allowed Knox into their lives in small doses, none of them big enough.

  The few words said between her and Annabelle replayed in Sofie’s mind as she lay in her own bed next to Bedford and thought of all the events that had occurred that day. Chaotic feelings swirled while sleep eluded her. She rolled over and stared at Bedford’s face as though he had brought all this upon her; then she rose, wrapped her robe around her middle and walked to the window. Moonlight spilled over the sidewalks and bushes in the front yard. He rarely slept at her condominium, and his presence there now filled the space to overflowing.

  Sleep would not visit. She took her car keys off the dresser, tiptoed around the condo. Confusion and chaos always drove her to the water, to the research center. In less than ten minutes, she pulled into the empty parking lot. In the absence of streetlights, the stars shone as though the heavens had turned up their brightness.

  She walked to the seawall. Although she couldn’t see them, she felt the presence of dolphins below her. She lay down along the length of the wall and listened for their cries and calls. “Hello,” she said in a whisper. The thought occurred to her that maybe they didn’t want their names to be known—that they didn’t want the human world to know they had individual souls. Hadn’t Sofie’s mother hidden her and Sofie’s real names for a reason? Why wouldn’t these brilliant animals do the same?

  Sofie sat up, swung her legs over the wall and stared into the vast darkness. The crunch of gravel and the squeal of brakes caused her to turn around, stare over her shoulder. A squat dark car pulled into the lot and parked. A tall man unfolded himself from the front seat, looked around and then walked toward the research building.

  Sofie sat on the edge of the seawall and watched the man place his hands on either side of his face and peer into the windows. She held her breath until he went to the south side, out of sight. She stood, walked to her car, sidestepping stones so as not to cause noise in this quiet, starlit night. Whoever he was, she didn’t know this man or his purpose for being at the research center in the middle of the night.

  The car door squeaked as she opened it; she stood frozen, afraid he would come around the corner. She wanted to leave, call the police. She had never felt afraid here before, and she was unsure how to react now. The man didn’t return as she climbed behind the wheel, thinking
she was a fool for not bringing her cell phone.

  She released a long breath, started the engine. A knock on her window startled her so that she jammed the car into drive instead of reverse and rolled into the yellow concrete barrier in front of the tires. The man jumped back, laughed. Sofie stared at him through the driver’s-side window, tilted her head in confusion. She did know this man, and something in his face caused all fear to empty out of her in a rush.

  He smiled at her and leaned down to the window. His face was full of a warm smile, stubble on his chin, tousled brown hair moving in the breeze. There was something safe and calm about him. She opened her door and stepped out, but didn’t say a word, just stared at him.

  “Are you okay?” he asked in a voice she didn’t remember, but found familiar nonetheless.

  “I think so,” she said, walked to the front of the car, looked at the bumper. “Just a scratch.” She turned back to him. “Do I know you?”

  “Yep, you stole my crayons in first grade and blamed it on Chandler Hoover.”

  Sofie’s mind reeled backward. “I didn’t . . . live here in first grade.”

  “No, you lived in Marsh Cove.”

  Memories came to her in random order, half-remembered like the words that were painted under layers of paint on her mother’s canvases: phrases and pictures that were covered up and masked.

  The man tapped his chest. “I’m Jake . . . Jake Murphy.”

  Her hands flew to her face, her mind registering that a single news story was causing an ever-widening ripple of events over which she no longer had any control. Her initial reaction was wrong—totally wrong. Jake Murphy meant danger, not peace. She backed away from him.

  “Don’t you remember me?” He held his arms apart.

  “Of course I remember you,” she said, glanced around the parking lot as though expecting to find someone there to help her.

  “Don’t be afraid of me. I shouldn’t have followed you—don’t freak out. I went to your condo, then saw you leave. . . .”

  Sofie nodded, trapped now with the keys still in her car. He rubbed his forehead. “Wow. You know, you look the same as I remember you. I mean taller, of course, and all that, but same cute face.”

  She felt herself blush and hoped the meager starlight was not enough to let him see. “I have to go . . . please.” She stepped toward her car.

  “Please, just wait.” He moved away from her even as he said this, as though he were trying to prove he wasn’t a threat.

  “I can’t,” Sofie said.

  “Okay,” Jake said, and strode off toward the water. Sofie meant to climb in the car, shove it in reverse and leave, but without thinking she followed him.

  They reached the seawall and stood next to each other without speaking. Then Sofie turned to him. “You look just like your dad.”

  “That’s what they say.” Jake ran a hand down his face. “We really weren’t much alike, though.”

  “In what way?”

  “Oh, in the things we liked and didn’t like. But we got along great.” He turned to Sofie. “I mean, we used to get along great.”

  “I’m sorry about your dad. I really am. I loved him, too, you know.” Her words came as a surprise to her. She held up her hands. “Not like . . . that.”

  “Did you know him . . . here?”

  “Yes, he did some legal work for the underprivileged, helped . . . people.”

  “Why here?”

  Sofie battled within herself whether to tell him the entire truth, but the ingrained need for secrecy and safety held her tongue as surely as it ever had—as though her mother had locked the truth shut and taken the key with her. “I don’t know,” she lied.

  Jake sat on the seawall, and then as Sofie had done only moments ago, he lay down along its length and stared into the southern sky. “Triangulum,” he said, traced his finger along the stars, and then lowered his hand to the right. “Pegasus.” Then to the right again. “Delphinus.”

  Sofie sat down next to him. “How do you know the constellations?”

  He craned his neck to stare up at her. “Oh, I don’t know all of them—just the Greek gods. I haven’t seen stars this bright since I went skiing in Utah last year. Are they always like this here?”

  “Not always, but yes, we can see them better out here where there aren’t any city lights.” Sofie traced her finger along the same figure in the sky that he had. “Delphinus,” she said. “That’s the only one I know besides the Big Dipper.”

  He took her finger and traced it along a path. “That’s Pegasus. He is a complicated constellation and sits right next to Delphinus. One story says he is the son of Poseidon.”

  “God of the sea,” Sofie whispered, dreamlike, untethered from the logic of night and day.

  “Yep, and Delphinus is the constellation Poseidon put in the sky to honor the dolphin that brought him his wife, Amphitrite,” Jake said.

  Sofie picked up the story of redemption and love that she knew so well. “Amphitrite was hiding in a cave and wanted nothing to do with Poseidon when the dolphin Delphinus came and found her beyond the Pillars of Hercules, in the depths of the sea. Delphinus convinced her that Poseidon was the brightest of all gods and that she could be Queen of the Sea.”

  Jake sat up. “And then Delphinus performed the marriage ceremony.”

  Sofie traced the constellation again with her finger. “And Poseidon placed a constellation in the sky to honor the dolphin.”

  Jake smiled at her. “There are nine stars just like there are nine muses.”

  “Now that,” Sofie said, “I did not know.”

  “Glad I could broaden your horizons,” Jake said.

  Sofie released a long breath. “Some versions even say that dolphins were once men. . . .”

  “We have all these myths about the dolphins. Do you think they have myths about us?” Jake asked with a laugh.

  A sudden feeling of lightness came over Sofie; she could not remember the last time she’d laughed. Jake knew about her love of dolphins without her having to speak of it. What alternate world was this?

  Jake pointed upward. “So, you’re into Greek mythology?”

  “Nope,” she said. “Not at all. Just dolphins.”

  Jake waved toward the building. “Thus the research center.”

  She nodded, although she wasn’t sure he could see her. “Yes, I work here—for school. I go to UNC, but here at their satellite school. My major is marine conservation technology.”

  “All about dolphins?”

  “No, my studies cover all marine animals. . . . Dolphins are my side work. So . . . where do you go to school?”

  “University of North Carolina,” he said. “Funny, huh? I went to the main campus in Chapel Hill—but I just dropped out for this semester.”

  “Dropped out? Why?”

  “I was in prelaw and hated it. History was my minor, my side work. But maybe I’ll make my side work my main work.”

  She stood now with the sudden awareness that Bedford was probably awake, looking for her. Guilt filled the back of her throat with a metallic taste. “I have to go. . . .” What was she doing talking to this man?

  “Sofie, will you please tell me why my dad would come here—if you know?” Jake stood with her.

  She stared at him, wanting to do two things she didn’t understand: touch his face and tell him the entire story of his father. But she didn’t do either; she said goodbye and then took slow, deliberate steps to her car and drove from the parking lot with shaking hands and liquid legs.

  When she looked in her rearview mirror, she saw that he was still standing where she’d left him, staring up at the night sky.

  The lights were on in the windows of her condo. Sofie looked at the digital clock in her car: twelve thirty. She parked and ran back into the building, took the stairs two at time. When she entered the bedroom, Bedford sat on the edge of the mattress punching buttons on her cell phone.

  She stopped short, stared at him. “What are you
doing?”

  He started, looked up at her. “Trying to figure out where the hell you could’ve gone in the middle of the night without your purse.” He pointed to the dresser, where her purse lay open. “Or your cell phone.”

  “I couldn’t sleep and didn’t want to wake you. I went to the center, sat on the seawall. You know how I do that . . . nothing else.”

  He placed her cell phone on the bedside table. “You scared me.” He patted the bed for her to come sit next to him. “You’re upset about something.”

  “No, just work.” She sat and laid her head on his shoulder. What was she thinking, talking to Knox Murphy’s son about dolphins, myths and school? It was as if their encounter only moments ago had been a dream from another life.

  “Let’s just go to sleep,” she said. “I’m tired now.”

  Bedford laid her down and held her. Sofie rolled over and allowed sleep to come.

  In her dream the dolphins were calling her name in their language, and Jake Murphy dove into the water with her to hear them. She jolted from her light sleep and stared across the room to her open purse and the shadows of gnarled branches from the live oak falling onto the dresser, floor and bed. She rose and waited for morning as she stared out the window to the east.

  Bedford awoke at first light to find Sofie standing in the kitchen with a cup of tea. He rose and absently kissed her on the cheek, not caring that he’d missed her lips, then rushed off to his own home to get ready for his day,

  Sofie stared at her condo as though last night’s conversation with Jake might have changed something, but everything was the same: the covered canvas; paintbrushes sticking out of a jar: the mussed-bed proof of her restless sleep beside Bedford. Her closet door was open, and Sofie stood in front of it, clothes hanging haphazardly. She slipped on a pair of jeans, a green tank top and a long silver chain necklace with a single peridot.

  She grabbed her purse and headed out the door with the hope that routine behavior would return normalcy to her day, but she had the lingering feeing that her contact with Annabelle and Jake Murphy was already altering her life in imperceptible ways.