The Secrets We Carried

by Mary McNear

  “How are they doing?” she asked Tanner now.

  “It’s hard,” he said. “My dad’s better, I think, but my mom . . .” He lowered his voice. “It’s still really difficult for her. Sometimes she goes and sits in Jake’s old room by herself . . .” he said, his voice trailing off.

  “Oh, Tanner,” Quinn said, because there was something awful about that image. Tanner, she could see, thought this, too, and Quinn wanted to comfort him. “Having you, though—” she began.

  “Doesn’t make it easier,” he interrupted, looking away. “But I try. I’m down in Minneapolis. But I get up here at least once a month. And I take my vacations up here too. I’ll be here this week.” He added, “I stay at Loon Bay Cabins, though.” Loon Bay Cabins was a rustic resort with a bar and restaurant, a marina, and a dozen or so cabins on Butternut Lake. “The three of us do better if we give each other some space,” he continued. “Especially my mom and I. We don’t always . . . get along.” The crowd was breaking up now. In the parking lot, good-byes were being said, car doors were slamming, and engines were starting. Quinn watched as a group of high school students who’d been clustered around a couple of nearby picnic tables, talking in low voices and smoking cigarettes, started to move away. Mr. Mulvaney and another man were standing over the dedication stone, admiring it. She didn’t want to see the stone close up, though. What she wanted, she realized, was to go somewhere with Tanner, to get in his car, to go to Pearl’s or the Mosquito Inn bar, or somewhere else, anywhere, really, where they could have that cup of coffee, or a drink, and just talk. Talk about Jake. Tanner, after all, knew Jake better than anyone. And he’d loved Jake, as she had. But, of course, he had his parents to take care of.

  “Hey,” Quinn said, remembering the clipping. “Did you by any chance send me the article from the Butternut Express about this?” she asked, gesturing around them.

  Tanner looked surprised. “No. Why?”

  “Someone sent it to me. But there was no return address or note.”

  “That’s odd,” he said.

  The smell of cigarette smoke drifted over to her, and the queasiness she’d felt earlier returned. She tried to shake it off, but Tanner noticed.

  “You okay?” he asked, looking concerned.

  She nodded. “I’ll be fine once I get something to eat,” she said, knowing it wasn’t hunger making her queasy.

  “There’ll be finger sandwiches at the reception,” he said, leaning down to give her a good-bye kiss on the cheek. She caught the subtle, spicy smell of his aftershave. “And don’t forget, I’m at Loon Bay Cabins. Call if you want to meet up before you leave.”

  “Thanks, Tanner,” she said and started to turn away. “Oh, wait, one more thing. Did you know Gabriel? Gabriel Shipp?”

  “Yeah. One of his brothers was in my class.”

  “Right,” she said. “Well, he was a friend of mine. We lost touch, though. Do you know . . . what happened to him? I mean, where he ended up?”

  “He ended up right here,” he said, looking amused.

  “In Butternut?”

  “Uh-huh. Not everyone escapes, Quinn,” he said with a smile.

  “No, I know, but . . . are we talking about the same person?” Because the Gabriel she knew was more likely to be living in Timbuktu than here in Butternut.

  “I think so. Gabriel Shipp. He works on people’s cars.”

  Quinn frowned. Gabriel had known how to repair cars. His dad had owned an auto shop. But he hadn’t particularly liked doing it.

  “No, it’s true,” Tanner said. “People drop their cars off at his place. You know that driveway past Birch Tree Bait? The one on the right that says B. Phipps on the sign? That’s where he lives. Down that drive.”

  Tanner said good-bye and Quinn watched as he made his way over to his parents. He was stopped, again, before he got to his car by a blond woman—she, too, looked vaguely familiar, but from this distance Quinn couldn’t quite place her. She wondered if women were always stopping Tanner. She had a feeling that they were. She smiled to herself, but then her thoughts returned to Gabriel. So, he was here. Living in Butternut. How was that even possible? Like her, of course, he’d been born here. Lived his whole life here. But when they’d become friends in high school at the end of tenth grade, they’d both acted as if they were only passing through, pausing here on their way to somewhere else. Somewhere bigger. Somewhere better. She looked, now, out at the lake for the first time since arriving and noticed how dark the water was. A gust of wind ruffled its glassy surface. She wanted to see Gabriel, she realized. But something about him being here, after all these years, made her feel almost afraid. Why hadn’t he left? And what if he didn’t want to see her? But that was silly. He’d been a good friend once. The closest friend she’d ever had. He’d probably be glad to see her. After all, you didn’t have a friendship like that every day. And it occurred to Quinn, as she headed to her car, that she hadn’t had a friendship like that since . . . well, since theirs.

  Chapter 5

  Quinn knocked on the cabin’s front door. Nothing. She knocked again. Still nothing. She turned and looked at the beat-up red pickup truck she’d parked next to in the cabin’s gravel driveway. Was it Gabriel’s? She doubted it. Driving a pickup truck was the antithesis of everything he was; he’d be more likely to own a vintage Indian motorcycle or a refurbished 1968 Ford Mustang, like the one Steve McQueen drove in Bullitt. Maybe Tanner was mistaken about him living here. Or maybe the truck belonged to Gabriel’s roommate or to a friend. But if that was the case, why weren’t they answering the door? She was about to knock one more time when the door swung open and Gabriel was standing there. In that split second, Quinn felt an electrical current pass through her.

  She watched as an expression traveled over his face, like the shadow of a cloud on a windy day. There was surprise, yes, but something else, too, something that she could have sworn was happiness, or maybe even joy. And then it was gone, and his expression was so guarded, his gray-blue eyes so opaque, that she wondered if she’d imagined having seen it.

  “Quinn,” he said, after what felt like an almost unbearable silence.

  “Gabriel,” she said, relieved that he had broken some spell between them. She hugged him, hard, a completely different hug from the polite hug she’d given Tanner. She thought he was taken aback, at first, but then he raised a hand and patted her on the back. Patted her cautiously, the way you might pat a wild animal.

  She stepped back, wanting to study him. She would have recognized him anywhere. But he was still very . . . changed. Some of the changes were easy to see. His hair, which was sandy brown, was cut shorter than he’d worn it in high school, when it was perennially brushing against his neck and falling into his eyes. And where he used to be clean-shaven, he now had stubble on his chin and jaw. His clothes were also different. In high school, Gabriel had favored dark jeans, T-shirts featuring ’70s punk rock bands that nobody but him had ever heard of, and Vans sneakers. He’d been cool, there was no other word for it. Today, he was wearing a flannel shirt, faded jeans, and a pair of work boots. Other changes were harder to describe. Where before he’d had a lightness, a quickness, now he had a kind of gravity that she didn’t remember him having. Perhaps, though, that was only the difference between him being a teenager and being a man.

  “You look different,” she said, after a silence.

  “You look exactly the same,” he said.

  “You’re the second person today who’s told me that.”

  “You sound disappointed.”

  “Not disappointed. But do I really look like I’m eighteen?”

  “No,” he said, after a pause. “The clothes are better.”

  “They better be,” she joked, indicating her long wool coat and high-heeled leather boots. “They cost enough.” She’d meant to lighten the mood, but it didn’t work. And for a moment she wanted to take it back, the implication that her clothes were expensive. Gabriel raised his shoulders, fractionally, though whet
her it was a shrug of indifference or worse—a dismissal—she couldn’t be quite sure. Either way, she understood now that she wouldn’t be getting a warm welcome from him. And the truth was, this hurt, a lot. But she tried to push this aside. Yes, she had lost touch with him. Yes, she hadn’t seen him in years, but she hadn’t imagined he’d be so disinterested in her when she did see him. Despite his lack of warmth, though, she decided to press on.

  “Can I come in?” she asked, since he was standing in the cabin’s doorway. He tilted his head back, fractionally, and moved aside to let her pass.

  When Quinn came into the cabin, she had another surprise. Its interior was as unlike the old Gabriel as the clothes he was wearing. The small living room, dining room, and kitchen, all visible from where she stood, were all neat, but they were otherwise so bland, and so forgettable, that later, back in her motel room, Quinn, who had a mind for details, couldn’t re-create them. There was a threadbare couch in the living room, but it wasn’t shabby enough to be interesting, and there might have been a rough pine table in the dining room with a few mismatched chairs around it, but it didn’t look as if anyone had ever eaten at it before. In the kitchen, there were no real signs of habitation other than a coffee mug on the counter and a folded dish towel hanging on a drawer handle. None of these rooms had any of the things—keys in a bowl, loose change on a countertop, an indented sofa cushion, a stack of books, a sweater tossed on a chair—that Quinn associated with a place where someone lived. A place where life happened.

  The Gabriel she’d known in high school had been a minimalist. That much was true. But his minimalism had served a purpose. It was to make his few possessions—all of which he loved—stand out. An original poster of the movie Easy Rider, which he had scoured the internet for. A vintage working record player he’d bought at a yard sale, and his collection of 78s, also scavenged at yard sales. And there were the other odd, eclectic touches in his bedroom: a dresser he’d made from repurposed lockers, a light fixture fashioned out of chicken wire. Oh, and cameras, of course, including his prized 35-millimeter Nikon. She wondered where that camera was now. And she almost asked him, but something stopped her.

  “Can I take your coat?” he asked, and she saw his politeness wasn’t so much welcoming as it was habitual. Her father had always liked that about Gabriel. He had nice manners.

  “Sure,” Quinn said. As soon as she slid it off and handed it to him, though, she realized how chilly the cabin was.

  “Do you want a cup of coffee?” he asked, once he’d hung up her coat. “It’s already made.”

  “Sure,” Quinn said. More coffee was the last thing she wanted, especially since the cup she’d had that morning already felt as if it were burning a hole in her stomach, but she thought it might keep her warm, and, besides, she needed a moment to collect herself. So, when Gabriel went into the kitchen, she sat down on the couch and, suppressing a shiver, tried to rally herself. Yes, the cabin was devoid of personal touches. And no, Gabriel wasn’t thrilled to see her, but she wasn’t leaving. Not until . . . until what? Until she felt that emotional connection between them that she hoped was still there. It was dormant now, she knew, buried under the years. But it was still there. It had to be. Something that real, and that strong, didn’t just disappear, did it? Just evaporate?

  “Is this your place?” she called to him while he was in the kitchen.

  “No, it’s Mr. Phipps’s. I rent it by the month,” he called back.

  “Hey, by the way,” she asked, “did you send me the Butternut Express clipping for the dedication?”

  He reappeared with two mugs of coffee. “Did I send you the clipping? No. I don’t even know your address,” he said, handing her one of the mugs.

  “Someone sent it to me with no note or return address,” she said, taking the coffee and setting it down on a worn brown coffee table in front of her.

  “Maybe one of your old friends at the Butternut Express sent it,” he said, of the paper where she’d interned between her junior and senior year in high school. “Are you cold?” he asked. “I could start a fire.” He gestured at the fireplace. It was empty now, but logs were stacked on either side of it.

  “No, I’ll warm up,” Quinn said, taking a sip of the coffee. It was black.

  “Sorry. No cream,” he said, sitting down in a chair across from her and then taking a sip of his coffee. He set it down carefully in front of him and looked at her with an expression on his face she couldn’t quite read.

  “This is fine,” she said, wrapping her hands around her coffee cup for warmth. She couldn’t help but notice how classically handsome he’d become. She looked away and searched the small room for something familiar, something from the past. But she couldn’t find anything. They were silent for a moment as they sipped their coffee.

  “You weren’t at the dedication,” she said now, turning to him and stating the obvious.

  “I’m there all the time, Quinn,” he said.

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  He shook his head. Even he looked surprised that he’d said this. “I don’t know. It doesn’t mean anything,” he said, with a kind of finality that precluded further discussion.

  Quinn was baffled; she didn’t know what to say. They were quiet again. Communicating with him was difficult, a struggle. That had never been true in high school. The old Gabriel was so easy to talk to. She wanted him back, but she knew that, on some level, she had no right to expect him. Nervously, she took another sip of her coffee.

  “Why did you come here?” Gabriel finally asked. “To my place?”

  “To see you, obviously,” she said.

  “But why now, Quinn? Why after all this time?” And the way he asked this, quietly, almost intimately, made her face flush.

  “I didn’t want to wait this long,” she said, not quite able to meet his steady gaze.

  “But you did,” he said, sounding, once again, disinterested, emotionless. She was confused. She couldn’t reconcile his questions, which seemed personal, with his general air of detachment.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “But you know, you could have looked me up, too. I think we’re both at fault here,” she added, feeling defensive now. “We both let this friendship . . .” Don’t say die. “I called you,” she said, starting over again. “I called you when I got to college. But you never called me back. I mean, you weren’t such a great communicator yourself.” Quinn had called him more than once. Every time she did, though, the call would go straight to voice mail. And when she did leave a message, he wouldn’t call her back. She reached him once, early that fall, after her first semester had started, and he’d had little to say. And when she’d called him again, later in the fall, he’d been vague and had found an excuse to hang up. She’d asked him, then, when she could call him back. And he’d said “I’ll call you.” But he didn’t. Then, that winter, when she’d discovered his cell-phone number was out of service, she’d tried to reach him at his parents’ house but no one ever answered the phone. After that she didn’t call him again. And he’d closed down his old high school Yahoo email account and his MySpace page in the summer after they graduated, so Quinn couldn’t contact him that way either. “You didn’t make it easy for us to stay in touch, Gabriel.”

  He shrugged. An admission of culpability, maybe, but then he leaned forward and said, “You’re right. I didn’t make it easy, Quinn. That was a tough year.” He sat back as if he was done, but then he added, quietly, “I could have used a friend.”

  “Gabriel, I didn’t know that. You didn’t tell me that.” The realization that he’d needed her that year, and that she hadn’t known that, brought a lump to her throat. “Do you want me to leave?” she asked, trying to control her emotions. “Because if you don’t want me here, I will.” She started to stand up, but Gabriel, looking apologetic, waved her back down.

  “Stay,” he said. “Forget about me. I want to hear about you. How’s the writing life?” He leaned back in his chair then and stret
ched his long legs out in front of him.

  “It’s good,” she said, sinking back onto the threadbare couch. Her face still felt warm. She took another sip of her coffee, hoping to gather herself. “It’s fine,” she added. She didn’t want to talk about her writing, though. She set her cup down and looked directly at him. Why was meeting his eyes so hard all of a sudden? She couldn’t help but feel that he was looking straight through her, judging her. Or maybe, she thought, she was judging herself.

  “Your writing is fine?” he asked.

  “Actually, I’d rather talk about you. Did you ever go to RISD?” He’d been accepted to the Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence, Rhode Island, in the winter of their senior year, but that summer, after they graduated, he told Quinn he’d deferred his admission for a year. Sitting here in this cabin, however, she realized that he’d never gone.

  “You know I didn’t, Quinn,” he said, as if he’d read her mind.

  “But why, Gabriel?” she asked. “You always wanted to go there.”

  “I couldn’t leave here,” he said.

  “You couldn’t leave? You sound like you were being held prisoner here.” She was joking, but he looked momentarily taken aback.

  “I didn’t have the money for school,” he said, quickly. “I didn’t have the drive, either.”

  “No money? Gabriel, you had a scholarship. And no drive? You were so driven in high school that you tried to make a case for graduating early. And furthermore, you were—and I’m sure you still are—hugely talented.”

  “That’s debatable.” He ran his fingers through his hair and smiled, just a little, as though remembering some internal joke. Then abruptly he was serious again. “Tell me about the memorial,” he said.