Open Secret

by Janice Kay Johnson

  At 7:19, a truck rumbled around the corner, slowed with a screech of brakes that made Mark wince, then backed into the driveway. Two muscular young guys leaped out and unloaded bundles and pallets with stunning speed. It was a surprisingly large pile when they were done; too much lumber for a mere gazebo. Maybe Perry planned a new deck, Mark speculated, perhaps surrounding a spa.

  One of the guys set the invoice atop the pile, weighted it down with a handful of gravel from beside the driveway and both sprang back up into the truck. It rumbled to life just as the front door shot open and Perry Smith himself came out yelling. Mark adjusted his lens and snapped a few photos, liking the pajamas decorated with hearts. Then he waited.

  The truck lumbered—bad pun—out of the driveway and down the street, the customer’s shouts apparently unheard. Perry disappeared inside, probably to call the lumberyard to berate the manager. There was always the chance he’d buckle and send the two young guys back to reload and move the lumber, but Mark was betting not—Perry wasn’t a contractor and therefore not a regular customer, and fickle demands would be grating, especially before seven-thirty in the morning.

  Sure enough, twenty minutes later the garage door rolled up and Perry reappeared, dressed this time. Mark slid low in his seat. His target peered up and down the street, quiet this early in the morning, then sidled out and hefted a load of two-by-fours.

  Smiling, Mark lifted his camera and began shooting.

  CARRIE LEANED FORWARD in her seat. Like a child, she asked again, “Are we almost there?”

  “Next corner, if I remember right.”

  Mark was being so patient, so kind. She wished she had a better idea what he really thought of her.

  This neighborhood in Edmonds was nice. Houses were standard three-or four-bedroom, ramblers and split-levels dating from the 1970s and later, a few older homes mixed in. Family homes. All were tenderly cared for, with unusually beautiful yards. Right now, tulips were in glorious, gaudy bloom, thick clumps lining the tops of stone retaining walls, massing in beds and filling pots and tubs. Everyone in Edmonds gardened, it appeared.

  Her mother, she thought with a pang, would have tulips in bloom, too, although hers were all in containers. She didn’t like the untidiness of the leaves drying up later. This way, she could shuttle the pots out of sight once the bloom had passed, bringing out others filled with annuals.

  “Here we are,” Mark said, pulling to the curb in front of a small gray-and-white house with a garden that made tears burn in Carrie’s eyes. A messy garden, the pocket lawn rough, the shrubs rambling and old, the flower beds half-weeded but filled with plants that were budding out. Bird feeders hung from a couple of tree limbs. What appeared to be a fruit tree bloomed in the sideyard. Wind chimes hung from a branch.

  Perhaps Carrie’s single greatest difference from her mother was her impatience with order. She craved sublime disorder. Nothing made her happier than the kind of antique or secondhand store where stuff was crammed everywhere, treasures poked in amongst the cheap bud vases and snagged baskets, yellowing linens filling the drawers of antique bureaus and commode chests, a jumble of collectibles behind glass. She liked mysteries, surprises, unexpected combinations. She’d always thought her attraction to disarray was her form of rebellion.

  Suddenly she knew: it was hereditary. In her genes.

  She hadn’t even met her sister, and she was already sniveling.

  Mark smiled at her, his eyes kind. “Scared?”

  She shook her head, nodded, shook her head again and laughed even as tears filled her eyes. “Oh, damn. I need to blow my nose!”

  He opened the glove compartment and took out a small box of tissues. “Help yourself.”

  Gratefully Carrie snatched a handful and blew her nose with a decided honk. Wiping, she said, “A man who’s prepared for anything.”

  “When you have a kid, it pays.”

  “Michael.”

  He gave her a sideways glance in which she read surprise. That she remembered his son’s name?

  Then she forgot to wonder, because the front door of the house opened and a woman came out.

  Carrie’s breath escaped her in a thin cry as she stared. “She’s…me,” she whispered.

  “No. You just look a lot alike. She’s your sister.”

  My sister. The idea hadn’t seemed quite real until this moment. Joy and shock and, oh, a thousand unnamed emotions swelled in her chest, until only one clear thought rose. Finally she too had a family member who people would recognize at a glance. Who would make them smile and say, “Well, I can tell you two are sisters.”

  As if on autopilot, Carrie got out of the car and started up the driveway even as her sister stared in turn.

  “Oh, my,” was all she clearly said. Tears swam in her eyes, too, as she pressed her fingers to her mouth. Then, openly sobbing, she rushed forward and they went into each other’s arms.

  When they finally pulled back enough to look at each other, both their faces were wet and they smiled through their tears.

  “Linette…Carrie… Oh, I don’t even know what to call you!”

  “Carrie, if you don’t mind. The Linette part…well, that’ll take some getting used to.”

  Her sister’s smile wavered and she wiped at her cheeks. “I’m a mess.” Then her smile widened again and she looked past Carrie. “Mark, thank you again. I keep saying that, don’t I?”

  “Yeah, you do.” He stepped forward, wrapping an arm around each woman, his gaze touching on each face. “Amazing. I saw the resemblance, but…wow.”

  What a funny time to be so aware of a man’s scent, of the strength of his arm and the perfect way she seemed to fit against his hard, muscled body. Perhaps to distract herself, Carrie studied her sister again.

  Her dark hair was long, sleek and smooth. A difference. She didn’t have to battle hair that was determined to be tousled.

  But their faces were astonishingly alike, from the curve of brows to the shade of brown in their eyes. Oh, there were differences—Suzanne’s nose was longer, with a hint of a bump on the bridge, her lips more generous. And a few more years showed on Suzanne’s face, in lines beside her eyes and cheekbones that seemed sharper, less childishly rounded. Still…

  “Suzanne.” Carrie tried out the name, as if she were sampling a new food.

  Her sister’s smile was quick and warm. “Our family is French to the core. Dad came here to college and stayed. He was bilingual, of course. Mom’s parents were French-Canadian originally. We have an uncle and cousins in France, but I’ve never been able to afford a trip over there. We exchange Christmas cards. Maybe you and I can go together.”

  Dazed, imagining Parisian cafés and terraced vineyards, Carrie said, “That would be wonderful.”

  Suzanne shook herself. “Come in. Both of you.”

  Mark’s arms dropped to his sides. He gave her a gentle push on the small of her back and she cast him a glance filled with questions, doubts, astonishing emotions.

  Somehow, everything she needed was in his answering smile, in the light in his blue eyes, and she was both reassured and startled by an intense knot of longing.

  What if she never saw him again after today? What excuse would she ever have?

  Her breath shuddered out and she started blindly toward the porch.

  His hand settled on her lower back again, warm and secure. “Hey,” he murmured, “you’re doing fine.”

  Thank God he didn’t know she’d been thinking about him. Maybe it was just the emotion of the moment. This bubbling brew of stuff swirling around in her. Some of it was bound to spill over.

  She took a deep breath and aimed a blind smile his direction. “I’m okay.”

  “Good.” His hand left her back again.

  The interior of her sister’s house was much like the outside, and Carrie felt instantly comfortable. Too much furniture was squeezed into too-small a room, but how else could Suzanne have gotten in all her books and a collection of some kind of rough-hewn stoneware
and yarn. One whole hutch was filled with skeins of yarn in a thousand hues. A basket beside one of the worn, saggy chairs brimmed with more yarn, this all nubby and heathered.

  “How pretty!” Carrie exclaimed.

  “Do you knit?” her sister asked.

  She shook her head. “I never learned any kind of handiwork, but… Oh! Those colors are enough to make me itch to learn.”

  “Knitting is my hobby.” Suzanne rolled her eyes. “Okay, more than that. Yarn is taking over my house! But I love it, and I love to knit. I’ve sold some patterns and I’m working on a whole book of patterns for sort of funky sweaters I think teenagers would like.” She gave an embarrassed laugh. “I’ve actually been thinking that what I’d love to do is have a shop. As if I can afford to do that.”

  “There are small business loans,” Mark suggested.

  “Well, sure, but you still have to pay your bills. Well.” She smiled again. “Can I get you something to drink? Are you ready for photo albums?”

  “Can I see the rest of the house first?” Carrie begged.

  No doubt being tactful and sensing he wasn’t needed, Mark stayed behind when Suzanne led Carrie through an arched doorway.

  The house was bigger than it appeared from the outside, with a generously sized kitchen and eating area and, down a hall, three bedrooms and two bathrooms. They went that way first.

  One room was obviously for guests, the double bed covered with a red and white quilt and, laid at the foot of it, the most luscious throw Carrie had ever seen.

  She stepped forward and stroked the fire-engine red mohair. “Yours?”

  “I made that years ago.”

  “It’s stunning.”

  “Bless you.”

  She had an unsettling moment of disorientation, startled by how much that quick, delighted smile reminded her of her own, caught in passing in mirrors or photos. She bit her lip. “I wonder…”

  When she stopped, Suzanne turned in the doorway of the next bedroom. “Whether Lucien looks as much like us?”

  Carrie gave an incredulous laugh. “You read my mind!”

  “You look more like Mommy than I do.” She shook her head. “Oh, dear. I still call her that in my head. Isn’t that funny? Mommy and Daddy. They weren’t there when I got to the age when I would have curled my lip and said, ‘Mo-om, why can’t I go? Everyone else is!’”

  Carrie laughed at her sister’s perfect, teenage whine even as the words “Mommy and Daddy” resonated inside her. She’d had a mommy and daddy. But this mommy and daddy were really hers.

  So, she thought in fairness, were the ones she had, however angry she was at them right this minute.

  “Your yarn room,” she said, looking past her sister.

  “You see? I really do need to open a store.”

  This wasn’t a hobby room; it was the space where a professional worked. Open shelves were stacked with a rainbow of yarn that shaded from white to cream and yellow and orange and crimson and then into purples and blues and greens. There were delicate, almost thread-fine yarns, thick, fluffy ones, and everything in between. More shelves held books about knitting and zillions of those thin, fold-open patterns for single projects. The desk must be where she worked out her own patterns.

  Carrie thought, I’ll ask, another time. When there wasn’t so much to say.

  “I’ll knit you a sweater,” Suzanne promised. “Now that I know what size you are.”

  “You can tell?”

  “We’re the same size,” she said simply.

  They would be, wouldn’t they? “You’re a little taller.”

  “Mmm…maybe an inch. Hey! There’s a mirror in my bedroom.” Suzanne paused in the doorway. “I didn’t know anybody was going to be seeing it today.”

  Carrie laughed and stood on tiptoe to peek over her shoulder. “You sound just like me.”

  The bedroom looked like hers, too, with discarded clothes slung over chairs, the hamper overflowing, the dresser top cluttered, notes and photos and keepsakes poked all around the frame of its mirror.

  They went to the floor-length mirror on the closet door and stood side by side, their arms brushing, and gazed at themselves in its reflection.

  Suzanne wore loose-fitting pants with a drawstring waist, sandals and an orange T-shirt. Carrie had on a gauzy rayon skirt and a tissue-thin, three-quarter length sleeved, turquoise T-shirt over a darker blue spaghetti-strap tank top. She, too, wore sandals. Both women wore tiny gold stud earrings, and Carrie had a thin gold chain around one ankle. Her hair looked like she’d done no more than shove her fingers through it that morning, while Suzanne’s hung smooth to midback.

  But they were so clearly sisters! Not twins, but so much alike they’d have surely recognized each other if they’d met by chance. They both stared in silence, each searching the other’s face in the mirror with identical intensity.

  “It’s amazing,” Suzanne said finally, softly.

  “We must have looked alike as babies.”

  “I suppose, but…” Suzanne gave an uncertain laugh. “Mostly, I remembered your curly hair. You were born with an amazing amount of hair! Within weeks, it was obvious it was going to curl. I was so jealous, I made Mom braid mine when it was wet so it was curly the next day, too.”

  Carrie had a lump in her throat. “Do you know, that’s the first time in my life anyone has ever said anything to me about my birth? I never really noticed that Mom—my adoptive mother—never said, ‘Your hands were so tiny when you were newborn.’ Or whether I had colic—”

  Suzanne laughed. “Nope.”

  “—or how much I weighed.”

  “Six pounds, ten ounces.”

  Carrie found herself crying again. “I’m sorry!”

  “No.” Eyes wet, too, Suzanne faced her. “I can’t believe you’re here. Oh, Carrie! I’m so sorry! If I’d just been older…”

  She swiped at her cheeks. “You couldn’t have done anything if you’d been ten or twelve or even sixteen,” she said practically. “Kids are powerless.”

  Suzanne tried to smile. “When they took you two away, I felt so helpless…” She bit her lip. “I’ve never forgotten. I never will.”

  Carrie hugged her. “You know, I really was okay. I just wish…”

  “We knew about Lucien. I know.” She squeezed Carrie’s hands. “Let’s go sit down and talk. I want to hear all about you.”

  Mark’s gaze went straight to Carrie’s face when they returned to the living room. She gave a little nod in response to the question in his eyes, warmed again by his concern. Suzanne was his client; logically, he should be looking at her to see how she was doing. The fact that he wasn’t made Carrie feel as if she actually did matter to him.

  Suzanne poured them all coffee and they sat, the sisters at opposite ends of a comfortable, flowered sofa, Mark in one of the two broad-armed chairs. At Suzanne’s urging, Carrie talked about herself.

  She told them about growing up privileged, doing ballet and tennis, skiing and taking horseback riding lessons. “I had—have—this incredible collection of porcelain dolls. I loved the fairy tale ones, even though I couldn’t play with them because they’re so breakable. Madame Alexander…” She saw that neither of them had ever heard of the dollmaker and she stopped. “Anyway, most of them are still in my bedroom at my parents’ house. I took a couple of favorites with me.” She laughed, a little sadly. “Now that I don’t live there, my bedroom at home looks like my mom always wanted it to. It’s girly and lacy, with pretty stuffed animals on the bed and the dolls on shelves. In real life, I was this horrible slob, and of course I covered the walls with posters of people like Kurt Cobain that just horrified my mother. I was always a repulsively good girl, but not quite the way she would have liked me to be. The room is a lot nicer without me in it.”

  “Do any teenage girls ever act and dress the way their mothers want them to?” Suzanne asked with a laugh.

  “Teenage boys,” Mark told them, “are even worse. They become a complete mystery to
their mothers in particular. I remember being incapable of doing much but grunting in response to my poor mother asking every day so hopefully, ‘How was school?’ I must have seemed like a smelly, incoherent, hulking stranger holing up in her sweet little boy’s bedroom.”

  They both giggled.

  “Okay, you win,” Carrie told him. “At least my voice wasn’t changing and my face getting bristly.”

  After they shared another laugh, Suzanne asked wistfully, “They were nice to you? Your adoptive parents?”

  Something like grief kept her silent for a moment. Finally, ignoring the sting in her eyes, she nodded. “They were really good to me.”

  “I’m glad.”

  Mark stirred and then stood. “Ladies, I’m going to leave you alone for a while. Neither of you seems to need me to protect you.”

  Carrie said with remorse, “I should have driven myself so you could go home. I’m sorry!”

  “Nah, I’ll go have lunch and check out the antique stores. I’ll come back in—” he glanced at his watch “—say, a couple of hours?”

  “Thank you!” Carrie said in a rush, tears starting again in her eyes. She’d turned into a watering can!

  His brows drew together, as if he didn’t want to be thanked, or was tired of seeing her cry, or… She didn’t know. She just had the sense that he was irritated, if not with her then with himself.

  How funny that she could read all that into a frown and a brief nod.

  “Isn’t he the nicest man?” Suzanne asked, when the front door had closed behind him. It didn’t appear she’d noticed his change of mood. “I was so terrified about hiring a P.I. I feel really lucky to have found Mark.”

  “Why were you terrified?” Carrie asked in surprise.

  “I just pictured them as seedy. You know?”

  “The first time he approached me, the minute he said that’s what he was, I thought, Of course! He had to be a cop or a P.I.”

  Suzanne stared at her as if she were crazy. “You thought he looked seedy?”