The Secret Keeper

by Dorien Grey

  Custody of his children and more than half his fortune went to his ex-wife, but he had persevered and, by shrewd business moves, not only made back every penny he’d lost in the divorce but doubled it. Probably having learned from his mistakes, he never remarried.

  One of the infinite number of things I love about Jonathan is that, while he is often initially intimidated to the point of being starstruck at the prospect of meeting someone he considers rich or famous, the intimidation vanished if he got to see them as people. He almost immediately felt at ease with Clarence Bement. Not really realizing who Bement was or just how wealthy he was might have been a factor, but Jonathan considered him just a nice, interesting old man who loved the same things he loved.

  Every night after spending time working on Bement’s garden, he would bring home stories—never of Bement’s wealth, but of his life outside the business world.

  “I feel kind of sorry for him,” he observed. “I think he’s really lonely, and I guess he isn’t all that close to his family, although I think most of them live here or close by. He never talks about them, except for a couple of his grandkids, especially one grandson. I don’t know if he has any friends left, as old as he is. That must really be hard. I know how hard it is to lose even one friend. But to lose them all, one by one…” He shook his head. “Wow.”

  “That’s a long way down the road, Babe,” I said. “Don’t worry about it now.”

  He nodded but did not seem convinced. I thought that a change of subject might be in order.

  “So, what does he do with all the stuff from his garden, other than give it to you? Surely he can’t eat it all himself, and from what you say it’s a pretty big garden.”

  “He has some people come over from a food bank every couple of days. I pick whatever’s ripe and put it on his patio near the back door. His housekeeper takes it in and keeps it until they come. I don’t think she likes me very much—I’ve never seen her smile, and she never says a word to me.

  “He always comes out to the edge of the garden while I’m working, and sometimes he’ll talk and other times he just reads. It’s always the same book: Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese. It’s not a very big book, but he asked if I’d read it, and I told him no.

  “Sometimes when we’re having coffee—he always insists I take time off from work to have coffee with him, and I feel kind of strange about that, because I get paid to work, not to drink coffee. But he insists, and he pays me for every minute I’m there, so I sit on the grass and listen to him talk.

  “Anyway, sometimes he’ll talk about Mrs. Browning—I didn’t remember she was the one who wrote ‘How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…’ I remember that one from school. I never would have thought such an important businessman like him would have time for poetry, but I guess you never know.

  “It’s interesting, though, that it seems like the housekeeper is always looking through the window, watching us. Actually, I think she’s watching me. Mr. Bement jokes about her always spying on him, but I’m not sure he’s really joking, because whenever he sees her coming out of the house he changes the subject to gardening until she goes away.”

  “Don’t let it bother you,” I said. “Some people are just strange. Probably she’s just watching out for him.”

  He shrugged, but said nothing.

  “So, when do think your assignment will be over?” I asked. “Fall’s coming, and the growing season is just about over for the year.”

  “True. But he wants me to turn the garden over to get it ready for next year. He has a great rototiller.”

  “Surely he’s not going to try to do a garden again next year?”

  He gave me a surprised look. “Of course he is! I don’t know what he’d do without his garden. I told him I’d help him. And I promised him I’d make a couple of paths across it so he can get close enough to the plants to do some hoeing himself without having to lean way over to do it.

  “And then there’s the greenhouse, and we’ll be able to start seedlings in there early in spring, then transfer them to the garden when it’s warm enough.”

  *

  So, aside from Jonathan dropping frequent hints about our buying a house in the suburbs with a garden of our own—though I shuddered at the thought of us turning into the Cleavers—God seemed to be in His heaven, and all was right with the world.

  *

  Shortly after the chorus’ last concert, their sign language interpreter had left the group, and Jonathan was very enthusiastic about his replacement, Cory Costas.

  “You should see Cory sign!” he said after Cory’s first session with the chorus. “He’s fantastic! He doesn’t just sign with his hands, but with his face and his entire body. He loves sign, and it shows. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

  “His partner, Nick, is deaf, and they just moved into town a month or so ago. They go to the Metropolitan Community Church, and that’s how Mr. Rothenberger met them. Quite a few deaf people go there, and Lisa, who interprets for the church, introduced Cory to Mr. Rothenberger when she heard Jerry was leaving the chorus. We were really lucky to have found him.”

  So when, after a few weeks, Jonathan suggested we have Nick and Cory over for dinner, I wasn’t surprised, and readily agreed. I’d had some deaf friends in college and learned a little ASL—American Sign Language—and though I’d forgotten most of it through lack of practice, I could still finger-spell.

  One thing I’d learned about the deaf is that they are infinitely patient with those who take the time and make the effort to learn to sign. It would be nice to have some new deaf friends, and it would be a good learning experience for Joshua.

  Though he went to the MCC with Jonathan every week, Joshua attended Sunday school downstairs while Jonathan was upstairs for the regular service. There were no deaf children in the Sunday school, and none at his day care, so he’d never been exposed to signing.

  Once, at the mall, he had seen a group of deaf teens in animated conversation, and he was utterly fascinated to the point we had to remind him gently it wasn’t polite to stare. We explained to him what being deaf was, and how the deaf use their hands to talk instead of their voices.

  “But they were making noises,” he said, “and faces. They look funny. Why do they do that?”

  “You know how when you’re telling us something really interesting your voice goes up and down to show how you feel?” Jonathan asked. “Like when you said last night that you really liked that story we were reading? Well, the deaf can’t always show how they feel with just their hands, so they use facial expressions, too. It’s perfectly normal.”

  At the next Tuesday night chorus practice, Jonathan extended the dinner invitation for the following Saturday, and gave Cory our phone number so he could get back to us after he’d checked with Nick. Cory called back that same night, just as we were getting ready for bed, to accept.

  *

  I’d noticed that lately, on the days Jonathan spent at Clarence Bement’s, he would more and more frequently call me at the last minute to ask me to pick up Joshua from day care. Usually, it was no problem, but every now and then I had to do some quick reshuffling of what I was doing in order to make it to Happy Day on time. And after four or five such incidents, it began to niggle at me.

  I really didn’t want to make an issue of it. Lord knows, Jonathan had put up with enough inconveniences from me in the course of my job. When he’d first started working for Bement he would give a lengthy and detailed rundown of everything he’d done and everything they had talked about that day. Bement always sat in his wheelchair beside the garden the whole time Jonathan was there, reading or talking or sometimes trying to do something with the hoe to maintain the illusion he was still actually able to do something.

  But over time, he became less and less forthcoming. When I asked him one night what they’d talked about that day, he just said, “Oh, everything and nothing. Poetry sometimes, though I’m embarrassed because I don’t know much
about it. But mostly we talk about garden stuff.”

  I certainly didn’t suspect anything nefarious was going on, but I couldn’t understand—if he was supposed to work two hours, why he couldn’t just work two hours and leave.

  Finally, on the Friday before Cory and Nick were coming for dinner, we’d made plans to go grocery shopping as soon as we got home, then take Joshua to Cap’n Rooney’s Fish Shack for dinner. However, Jonathan called at three thirty to ask me to pick up Joshua from Happy Day because he’d be a little late. I decided it was time to have a talk.

  *

  That evening, after Joshua was safely bathed, toothbrushed, pajama’d, Story-Timed and tucked in for the night, we went into the living room to watch a little TV before bed. I’d been thinking of what I was going to say and how to say it without overstating my case and without making him feel bad.

  But before I could start, he said, “Is something wrong?”

  So much for diplomacy. Why I answered “Nothing,” I don’t know.

  He reached over and took my hand. “Come on, ‘fess up. I know you. Tell me.”

  So I did.

  “I’m glad you have that job with Mr. Bement, and I’m glad that you obviously enjoy it so much. But it seems like you’re spending more and more time there, and—”

  “I know. Really. But he pays me for every minute I’m there, even for the time when we’re drinking coffee, though I’ve told him he doesn’t have to.”

  That one tripped me for a moment. “I’m sorry? I don’t follow. I wasn’t talking about the money.”

  He gave a deep sigh and squeezed my hand. “I know you weren’t. But, well, Mr. Bement is really a nice man, and he’s had a life I can hardly even imagine. But I can tell he’s really lonely, and he knows he isn’t going to be around much longer, and, well…so he talks to me, and I listen. I don’t think he has anyone to really listen to him.”

  “What about his family?”

  “Like I told you, I don’t think he has much to do with them except for a couple of his grandkids, especially that one grandson I mentioned, who’s a flight attendant for American, and he seldom sees him.”

  “So, what does he talk about?” I’d asked before, of course, and gotten evasions.

  He suddenly looked uncomfortable and dropped his eyes from mine.

  “Well, I didn’t want to say anything, but sometimes he—well, he’ll be talking about gardening and ordinary things, then it’s like his mind goes somewhere else, and he’ll start talking about things he worries about, and about people he never names. I wouldn’t know them if he did, of course, but I’d guess most of them are members of his family, and if they are, they don’t sound like nice people at all.

  “Sometimes I’m not quite sure what he’s talking about, but he’s very serious about it, and it seems to be pretty important to him, so I’ll just listen. And sometimes, he’ll ask me to promise not to tell anyone what he tells me. Who would I tell, other than you? But I always promise.”

  I was curious, but knew he would respect the old man’s wishes and not tell me. And it would be unfair of me to expect him to.

  “Well,” I said, “it’s nice that he feels he can confide in you.”

  He shrugged. “I suppose. I’m not sure why…why he tells me, that is. Maybe just because I listen. Maybe because he feels he’s been keeping things inside for so long he’s tired of them. Maybe because he wants to let someone know who he is and was before he isn’t anymore. Sometimes it’s easier to talk to a stranger than it is to a close friend—and I don’t think he has many, if any, of those anymore. I hope you understand.”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Anyway, I do feel guilty about being late getting home sometimes—I know it’s not fair to you and Joshua—but you’ll both be here for a long, long time. I don’t think Mr. Bement will be.”

  “Is he ill?”

  “I don’t think so. But when you’re ninety…”

  He had a point.

  *

  Saturday was a fast-forward version of our usual chore day, but we got it all done, including an only slightly truncated visit to the park for Joshua’s Saturday letting off of steam, and were home just before noon. A quick lunch, then the afternoon was devoted to housecleaning and getting ready for guests. Since this was Cory and Nick’s first visit, Joshua wanted to be sure everything was just so.

  We’d decided on a pot roast for dinner, and since a lot of cutting and peeling and chopping with sharp objects were involved, I volunteered to do it while Joshua, who always liked helping out, assisted Jonathan with watering the plants and feeding the fish.

  So everything was ready when the doorbell rang that evening at six thirty.

  Since I’d never met either of them, when Jonathan opened the door to a tall, butch-looking blond with a crewcut, and a slightly shorter brunette, both in their early thirties, I had no idea who was who. Extending his hand to the brunette, Jonathan said, “Hi, Cory. I’m glad you could make it.” Then he turned to the blond and said, “Nick.”

  Well, that took care of that.

  As they came into the room, Cory effortlessly signed the introductions as he talked, while Nick watched, smiling. After I’d shaken hands with Nick, I suddenly remembered enough to sign Nice to meet you. His face lit up, and he signed something quickly I recognized as You sign?

  “A little,” I said, trying to accompany my words with the appropriate sign. “Very little,” I added.

  “That’s great,” Cory said/signed.

  Joshua stood close by my side, watching in utter fascination. Nick looked at him and signed Hello, Joshua, finger-spelling the name very slowly as Cory interpreted. Joshua’s eyes moved from one to the other as though two magical beings had entered the room.

  *

  The evening went very well. Cory and Nick were both great guys, and I soon shared Jonathan’s opinion of Cory. He signed so fluidly and effortlessly, interpreting for Nick in sign and for us in words, that by halfway through dinner it seemed the most natural thing in the world, which, of course, it was. To both Jonathan’s and my great relief, Joshua was the perfect little gentleman all during dinner. Obviously, he’d been awed into his best behavior.

  Nick had been born deaf. Both Cory’s parents and his sister were deaf, from whom he learned to sign, and he had a hearing brother five years older than he. Cory and Nick had met at Gallaudet College in Washington D.C. when Cory went to visit his sister who, like Nick, was a student there. Gallaudet is the country’s only college specifically for the deaf. Only a tiny fraction of its 2,000 or so students are hearing.

  After dinner, Nick taught Joshua how to finger-spell “hi” and the signs for yes, no, and thank you. Joshua wanted to learn how to spell his name, but Cory said, “That might take a little while. Why don’t you have your uncle Dick teach you, and you can show us the next time we see you?”

  When it was Joshua’s bedtime, we used a ploy that had worked successfully a couple times in the past, announcing that it was time for his shower, which he equated with being a grown-up. While it was much easier to put him in the tub, an occasional shower was a way of acknowledging that he was, indeed, getting old enough to do more for himself. We still turned on and adjusted the water for him, and stood outside the shower door to make sure he didn’t fiddle with the knobs and risk scalding himself. I did the honors while Jonathan, Cory, and Nick carried on the conversation.

  The whole getting-ready-for-bed process went remarkably smoothly and with a relative minimum of objection, stalling, and balking. I returned to the living room after having overseen the goodnight to his parents’ picture, “Now I lay me down to sleep,” and Story Time rituals.

  Jonathan was telling Cory and Nick a modified version of how we’d met, omitting that it had been a very rough time for him and that he had been hustling to survive, and how Joshua had come into our lives. We, in turn, learned they had been together for four years. Nick was a statistician for a large corporation and had been transferred here from th
eir Washington headquarters, and Cory worked for a nonprofit human services organization.

  I asked how they liked living here after D.C.

  “We like it,” Cory said, signing as he did so. “We’ve met quite a few people, but most of them are deaf. Not surprisingly, it’s a pretty tight-knit community. You’re the first hearing couple we’ve had a chance to get to know here.”

  The conversation went on to roam over a number of subjects, many of them revolving around the deaf community and the problems its members face on a day-to-day basis, of which most hearing people are totally oblivious, such as the dangers of driving without being able to hear the sirens of emergency vehicles approaching intersections.

  We’re pretty invisible, Nick signed. And when the hearing find out we’re deaf, they usually don’t know how to act around us. He grinned. Cory loves it when they raise their voices on the assumption that if they shout, we’ll hear them. Or they talk very, very slowly thinking we can read their lips. Many of us can lip-read to an extent, but we don’t need people to speak in slow motion for us to do it.

  It was a really nice evening, and both Jonathan and I learned a lot.

  *

  Mondays were one of Jonathan’s Bement days, but he didn’t call to ask me to pick up Joshua and was home when I got there. I assumed that perhaps our little talk the preceding Friday had had some effect.

  “I didn’t go to work for Mr. Bement today,” he said.

  “Oh? Something wrong? Is he ill?”

  “I don’t think so. I went over there like I always do, but he wasn’t in the yard like he usually is, and before I could start to work, his housekeeper came out and told me to go home. She said Mr. Bement’s best friend had just died, and that he wouldn’t need me today. I felt terrible for him, but didn’t have a chance to talk to him to tell him so.”

  “I’m really sorry,” I said. “I can imagine how hard it must be on him.”

  “I don’t think I want to get old,” he said, and I went over to hug him.

  “Don’t talk like that! You’ll always have me and Joshua.”