Scrapbook of Secrets

by Mollie Cox Bryan

  Her boys’ laughter filled the air, along with the creaking of the swings. Maggie’s three children were each on a swing—none were smiling.

  “I thought I’d try to get them out of the house for a while,” she whispered, her voice quavering. Her lavender winter coat made a crinkling sound as she reached up to blow her nose. “The baby ... is sick. I left her with my mom.”

  Yes, the woman was clearly distraught, and she looked a lot like Maggie Rae. However, she was not as thin as her sister—or as pretty. Her ski jacket looked about twenty years out of style. She looked like a puffy, haggard version of Maggie Rae. Same doelike brown eyes. Her dark hair was pulled back into a loose bun. She was in bright colors—the lavender ski jacket, dusty rose jeans, and her fingernails were even painted a bright pink. Funny, Annie didn’t realize until now that every time she’d seen Maggie Rae, the woman had been in black or very dark blue. In contrast, her sister was all color coming at you.

  A large, dark man emerged from what Annie assumed was Tina Sue’s car. A brooding presence walking up to the bench. Annie glanced at him and smiled. He looked away quickly, sticking his hands in the pocket of his camouflage jacket. This must be her husband. Tina Sue hadn’t realized he was standing behind her yet.

  “Will they stay with you, then?” Annie asked, immediately sorry that she had. The man looked at her—and she almost gasped as his hand went to Tina Sue’s shoulder. The gesture was a silencing one.

  Tina Sue looked daggers at her. “Are you kidding? He won’t let them go. He won’t let them go.”

  “Oh, well, ” Annie said, feeling as if she had stepped into a snare. “Of course not—they are his kids. But I remember Maggie Rae saying he travels a lot for work. Who will take care of them?”

  The woman looked at her, but without meeting her eyes. Then she started to say something, but instead looked at the man and shrugged, lifting her hand up as if perplexed. Annie noticed how red Tina Sue’s hands were, as if she had been cleaning or gardening hard.

  Annie’s thoughts were interrupted by Ben’s screams. He had fallen off the swing. She ran to get him, and wrapped him in her arms and calmed him down.

  When Ben’s cries finally subsided, she looked up, and they were all gone. All of them, leaving Annie with another odd feeling as she watched the empty swings still moving.

  Chapter 10

  After Vera said good night to Beatrice at the hospital, she hurried over to Sheila’s home—where all of the other scrapbookers were.

  She walked in through the glass sliding door in the basement and saw Annie looking over Sheila’s shelves. She was wide-eyed and in awe of it.

  Scrapbooks were coded by color and stacked neatly on the metal shelves. Plastic containers held colorful pens, markers, and cutting tools. Other shelves were stacked with paper. Once again, coded by color. Smooth, milky vellum papers were their own category. Handmade paper, like mulberry, was in its own stack. The rest were categorized by color, and within the color by occasion—birthday, wedding, anniversary, and so on. On her desk sat craft drawers filled with embellishments—charms, ribbons, stickers, wire art. Each drawer was labeled. If anybody called Sheila to ask if she stocked a certain scrapbook, marker, paper, or embellishment, she could get her hands on it quickly. Efficiently.

  “It’s a sickness,” Vera said to Annie.

  “Oh, hi, Vera. I was just admiring it all,” Annie said.

  “She knows where everything is, that’s for sure,” Vera said. “But she was always like that, even as a child. She’d line her Barbie dolls up just so, knew where all of their clothes and accessories were. Me? I lost everything. Still do. I don’t know. It must be an extra gene that she has.”

  “I can’t keep track of my own stuff, let alone my boys’ stuff,” Annie said. “It’s overwhelming. And they are always getting into my things, so it makes it even harder.”

  “I don’t allow my children into the basement,” Sheila said as she approached them. “C’mon. Look at this.”

  The women followed her around the corner to a huge table. Paige and DeeAnn sat looking over pictures. The table behind them was piled with baked goods—muffins, bread, and cupcakes.

  The pictures were in envelopes, neatly labeled with names and dates, sometimes events: Grace’s Fifth Birthday, Daniel’s First Christmas, Bringing Joshua Home. Annie gasped when she realized what these pictures and envelope were—Maggie Rae’s things.

  “I think we should each take a child, and one of us could take Maggie Rae. The box over there seems to be her photos—wedding, graduation, postcards, letters, things like that,” Sheila said.

  “I’ll take that one,” Annie offered.

  “I’ll take Grace,” Vera said. “She’s one of my students.”

  “I’ll take Daniel,” Paige volunteered.

  Sheila took the youngest daughter, Beth, which left DeeAnn to work on Joshua’s scrapbook.

  “This will be a great thing for these children to have someday,” Sheila said, turning to the stereo. “Classical tonight, ladies?”

  “Hell no,” DeeAnn said, getting up to head for her bag and pulling out a CD. “Let’s hear some Stones.”

  “Sounds great,” Vera said, sitting down in her usual chair at the table. She opened the envelope that held the pictures of Grace dancing. She was a good little dancer, Vera mused. Grace at her first recital smiled up at her from a photo—dressed in a pink tutu and silver sequins. Her jet-black hair was pulled from her beautiful little face, with a wide grin splayed across it. Such a happy kid. A born performer.

  This would give her a chance to work some fabric into a scrapbook. She’d wanted to experiment with this for quite some time, and even already collected some cotton pieces in her scrapbook bag for just such an occasion. Pink-and-black calico. Black velvet. Pink tulle. Pink and black would be her color scheme. Perfect for a ballet scrapbook.

  Mick Jagger sang in the background. The sounds of “Brown Sugar” filled the air.

  “I’ll do a dance scrapbook for Grace,” she said almost to herself.

  “You may as well,” Sheila said. “There are plenty of books—probably more than we need. Maybe that pink one over there?”

  Vera reached for the book and dug in her scrapbook tote for her fabric. She placed the black velvet against the soft pink leather and decided to use a brad to make a bow for the cover. She wrapped the bow around her fingers and pinned it to the book. Usually, she did not think about the cover until the book was done—but the black velvet and pink leather just spoke to her. She would place Grace’s name in the center of the cover.

  “Lovely,” Sheila said approvingly.

  “You know, Daniel looks so much like her,” Paige said, holding up a picture. “It’s kind of scary.” She took a sip of wine.

  “I wish I’d known her better,” Vera said. “She just wasn’t an easy person to get to know.”

  “She’d never come to our crops,” Sheila said. “I invited her all the time.”

  “She probably just couldn’t get away from the kids,” Annie offered. “It’s not easy when they are little. And if her husband was gone a lot ...”

  “Yeah,” DeeAnn said after a while. “I forget what it was like to have little ones. I have two in college. But that was tough.”

  “There’s plenty of wine and soda and things in the fridge over there, ladies, and have some of that spinach dip. It’s so good,” Sheila said. “Be careful if you bring it to the table. You don’t want to ruin these photos.”

  Annie got up to get herself a drink. “Can I get anybody anything?”

  Vera gingerly set out all of the dance photos—from the time Grace was four until now, age nine. One fell out of the pile. She picked it up and was surprised to see herself, holding Grace when she was four, posing for the camera. She wondered how many girls she had held in her arms like this, how many pictures were floating around of her and other people’s children? Butterflies of jealousy danced in her stomach.

  In the picture, she was a brunett
e, with blond stripes going down either side of her face. She had thought she looked good at the time—but her face, despite the piles of makeup that she wore—looked worn and drawn. She looked like a big sad Kewpie doll. The lines around her eyes were deep, even then. The makeup just wasn’t hiding it. And there was a look in her eyes—oh, she didn’t know what to call it—but maybe a look of regret. It gave her pause. What was she so regretful about? Could she even remember?

  It struck her at that moment that she wasn’t happy—and hadn’t been for years. Just the expression on her face, the pain in her eyes, all of a sudden, it was too much to bear. It was overwhelming to see this happy little girl, with her mother behind the camera, so proud taking pictures—being held by this sad old woman who would never have children of her own. Now the child, the girl, the little dancer in her class, had lost her mother. Such a loss would never heal completely.

  Vera caught her breath as a tear formed in her eye. She took a sip of her wine and thought she would need something stronger than wine ... soon.

  “Well, my goodness, Vera,” Paige said to her from across the table as Vera felt the first tear slip down her face. “Are you okay?”

  “It’s just so damn sad,” Vera said. “I mean, this young woman, with these beautiful children. She killed herself, and now they will have to live with that for the rest of their lives. No mother.”

  “I’m sorry, but it doesn’t add up to me,” Sheila said.

  “Me neither,” Annie said from the corner.

  “What do you mean?” DeeAnn questioned her.

  “It’s all just a bit too tidy. Look at this—all of this stuff, out on the sidewalk. I mean, what’s that all about?”

  The room filled with silence as the scrapbookers dug through their pictures, trying to formulate design and pattern to the children’s lives. Annie dropped a scrapbook onto the table; her face was drained of its warm tones. Her hand went to her mouth.

  “What is it, Annie?” Sheila asked.

  “I found this postcard from a fan of Maggie Rae’s.”

  “Fan?”

  “Turns out she did a little writing on the side.” Annie grinned. “This was in an envelope addressed to her. Inside is a letter from her publisher. Her pen name was Juicy X.”

  “Well, now, isn’t that something?” DeeAnn remarked.

  “Listen to this. ‘Dear Ms. Juicy X, I have been a fan for so many years I’ve lost count. My wife and I love your erotic writing. It helps to keep some spice in our marriage.’”

  “What? Obviously they have the wrong person,” DeeAnn responded.

  “No. It was in this envelope full of letters and cards.” Annie held up a huge brown envelope. “Here is the letter from her publisher, and this is a sales report to Maggie Rae Dasher, aka Ms. Juicy X.” She placed the sales report on the table for them to ooh and aah over. Thousands of dollars in sales.

  Sheila was the first to giggle; then they all started. Even Vera, who was still crying, started to giggle.

  “You mean dirty stories? Maggie Rae? Wrote dirty stories?” Sheila wondered aloud.

  After they all calmed down, Annie told them, “Yes, but there’s more. So much more.”

  “Well?” Sheila said.

  “Here’s a card from Robert, her husband. Listen to this,” Annie said, and began to read:

  “‘Maggie, I know you love writing about sex. But I wish you’d stop. It makes me feel like I can’t be a man and support you. I’m so sorry that I lost my temper and hurt you last night. I just don’t know what gets into me.’ And Maggie Rae scrawled across it: ‘I’ll write want I want to write,’ set off with big red X’s.”

  “Well, now, it seems she wasn’t the mouse we thought she was,” Vera finally said.

  Chapter 11

  When Vera came into the room, Beatrice was sitting in a chair with her bag packed.

  “About damn time,” Beatrice said, looking over her daughter’s pink sweat suit with a scowl.

  “Sorry, Mama. You know Sunday mornings I like to sleep in a bit,” Vera said.

  “Good morning, Bea,” Bill said, walking in the door.

  “Morning was over a half an hour ago,” she mumbled.

  “Are you ready to go home?” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  God, could I ask for a more dim-witted son-in-law? Bea just looked at him; then she looked at her bag.

  “I’ll get the nurse, Mama, so we can get the process under way. You know, they will need to officially discharge you and get you a wheelchair,” Vera said, leaving the room.

  “Have they figured out who stabbed me yet?” Bea asked Bill.

  “I’ve not heard,” he said. “Are you scared to go home?”

  “Scared? Just because someone stabbed me in the neck? Hmmph,” she said. “Someone comes into my house, I’ll shoot the bastard.”

  “Maybe we should get you an alarm system, just to be on the safe side,” he said, smiling, and then smoothing over the blanket.

  Alarm system? Bea never thought she’d ever hear about that, but things were changing in her little town, faster than she knew it. She used to know all of the families in town—and most of the farmers and mountain folk on the outskirts, too. With all the new people coming from the cities—like Charlottesville, Lynchburg, and Roanoke—hell, even from Washington, D.C., she didn’t know half the people in her town.

  It used to be she could walk from one end of the town to the other and smile and greet everybody along the way. Now she found herself searching, sometimes for one familiar face.

  She remembered how pleasant it was to live right on Main Street, her end now called Ivy Street, quiet at the appropriate times and with just enough activity throughout the day to keep it interesting. Her house was one in a row of five at one time, though the one at the very end burned in 1965; then the one next to it was purchased by a real estate company just a few years back, after “Old Man” Miller died. Now she had two neighbors on her side of the street, each living in identical Victorian-style houses—all different colors. Hers was pink and blue; on one side was a yellow house trimmed in blue; the other house was blue, trimmed in red.

  Across the street were the old brick town houses—some were almost covered by ivy. Betty’s place was the prettiest—she was quite a gardener, with something blooming all year long. Beatrice always liked to look out her bedroom window, which faced the front of the street, at Betty’s garden.

  If she walked across the street and into town, it gave her a different vantage point. She liked to change her path once in a while. Dolly’s Beauty Shop was first; then came the post office, expanded to fill almost the whole block. On the other side of the post office was the bakery, and then Vera’s dancing school. It had been a big warehouse at one point, until Vera bought it, that is. Her daughter painted it the prettiest shade of yellow Beatrice had ever seen—it reminded her of butter, though it was even prettier than that. The bakery was chocolate brown and pink, with two wrought-iron tables out on the street for people to sit down and eat their muffins and drink coffee. It was so clean and beautiful, with those pink window boxes and cascading petunias in the summers.

  Dogwood trees were planted all along Main Street. In the spring, it was a magnificent sight to behold as she walked through her little town. At the end of the business district, she often stood and looked out over the mountains—where she grew up—deep in the hills, nothing but earth and rock and tree and sky. The winding Cumberland Creek started as a trickle in one of the deep caves on Jenkins Mountain.

  Across the street from the dancing school was the Wrigley’s, which leveled several of the small businesses for that huge parking lot. A few small restaurants were lined up next to it. Mr. Wong’s was a Chinese place, and the other place was a greasy hot dog shop.

  Lord, what people will put into their bodies these days!

  But sometimes Beatrice liked to sit outside of the drugstore, which was between the hot dog shop and the local museum, and watch as people streamed in and out of her da
ughter’s dancing school. Vera was a small-business success—by all definitions. But a great sadness hung over Vera. She thought her mother didn’t know this, but mothers always do.

  That she could never have a child tore at Vera’s heart, so she became a mother to the children she taught. Beatrice always wondered, but never asked, for fear of dipping too far into Vera’s business, why didn’t they adopt? There were so many children who needed a good home. Biology was only one part of mothering, and any mother worth her salt could second that.

  Bea’s favorite part of her town was the small park in between the town buildings. This was not the park where the playground was—thank God for that. She loved kids, but there was a place and a time for them. She found a measure of peace, surrounded by beautiful fountains, lovely plants, and good company—this is where the people who were closer to her age gathered. No loud music, no strange modern slang, just pleasant companionship. Some days, she’d sit next to the fountain with two or three other women—men were rare—and just listen to the water trickling, watch the goldfish swim, think about days gone by. In fact, it was always best when they didn’t talk: sometimes the small talk nearly drove her mad. But few people were left in her world with whom she could chat about quantum physics. Or history. As she got older, she had learned to appreciate history, and was fluent in the town’s past.

  Cumberland Creek, at first called Miller’s Gap, was settled in 1755 by a group of Pennsylvania farmers of German descent. Pennsylvania was too expensive and crowded. Land in this part of Virginia was still plentiful and cheap then. Sometimes Beatrice liked to imagine what Cumberland Creek would have looked like to the settlers—no buildings, no fences, no real roads, just paths leading horses and wagons around the mountains. She’d read that at one point in Virginia’s history, the trees were so large and dense that squirrels could travel from the mountains to the ocean without touching down on the ground.

  Imagine the mountains and forests pristine. So dense that the sun barely peeked through. So clean that you could inhale deeply and not get one whiff of another human.