Family Secrets

by Nancy Thayer

  Afterward, when he’d caught his breath, he rolled to one side.

  “That wasn’t how I meant to do this at all,” he confessed, embarrassed.

  She ran her fingers along his hairline where his dark hair had become ebony with sweat. She put her fingers on her lips and sucked them. His sweat tasted salty and sweet. “It was perfect,” she said.

  “Perfect? No, really, look—this is what I meant to do.” He pointed and, raising herself on her elbows, Diane looked around the room. On the bedside table was a tall candle, which had never been lighted. Next to it were two fine crystal glasses, his grandmother’s Waterford she guessed (and later discovered was right), and an unopened bottle of Dubonnet. “I wanted to make our first time memorable,” Jim told her.

  “Oh, it was memorable.” Diane laughed.

  Jim returned her smile. They stretched out together, naked, warm, sticky, yet more comfortable with each other now. Jim studied her body, and Diane ran her hand along the handsome lines of his shoulder, long torso, elegant flanks. Then he bent to her, and she closed her eyes. With his gentle mouth, he began to pleasure her, taking his time, for now he had no need to hurry, until Diane cried out for him to enter her again. This time she did not think: his skin, his hair; she did not think. Her thoughts and feelings blurred into a spectrum of fierce delight, and she sank, shivering, shuddering, completely unaware of where she ended and Jim began. He held her gently for a long time afterward, and she didn’t return to her apartment but slept all night through with the man she knew she’d love forever.

  Jim was passionate about genetics, and in his careful, scientific way, was a profound optimist. His belief in the orderly progress of human beings toward an enlightened state amazed Diane. After years of artistic boyfriends in savage rebellion, Jim’s world shone bright with an optimistic light. He showed her through his labs, white, healthy, organized rooms of rather domestic-looking appliances, where Vivaldi played softly in the background from the classical-music station, and people in white coats stared down into tubes and made notations in workbooks.

  Jim lived his private life with a similar tranquillity. True, he never dusted and he threw his dirty laundry on the floor of his closet until enough had accumulated to take to the Laundromat, yet he imposed a basic order among the bookcases, kitchen cabinets, and the photographs that hung on the cream-painted walls. Diane found it all immensely enticing. She loved listening to him talk about his work—he was so idealistic, so sweetly ambitious, believing that he would be part of the network of scientists who would be able to find the causes and cures of the world’s most terrible diseases. Her heart broke for him when he spoke of his mother’s death. She wrapped herself around him then, longing to protect and console him.

  Soon after they became lovers, Diane moved into Jim’s apartment, which was so much more romantic than her noisy, cluttered place. She had worried slightly that her creativity and concentration might be lost, absorbed by her passion for Jim; she found instead that she was able to work as never before. Perhaps the serenity nurtured her—or perhaps she was fueled by happiness.

  One night at the end of the summer, they lay in each other’s arms in the mussed bed. They were still engulfed in a blurry sexual haze so that they seemed to be one creature, beating with one heart.

  “I love you, Diane,” Jim said softly, his breath stirring her hair.

  “I love you,” she replied.

  “I believe we are meant for each other,” he told her.

  A small thrill ran down Diane’s spine. This man, this expert in chemistry, logic, and reason, believed they were destined to be together. She was filled with a sense of power, and connection, and even a small sense of wonder.

  Yet, soon after, when Jim told Diane he wanted to marry her, she was both thrilled and appalled.

  “If we get married, you’ll want to have children, I suppose.” They were in bed, where they often did their serious talking, and Diane was turned to face the wall, glad Jim couldn’t see the doubt in her eyes.

  “Well, of course I will! Think of what wonderful children we’ll have!”

  “Jim, my work is important to me. I’ve just started my business, and I’m doing so well, the designs are coming so easily, and I can’t keep up with the orders. I won’t ever want to give it up.”

  “Of course you won’t. Why are you worrying about that?”

  “I don’t know—marriage, a house—children. That’s a lot of work, a lot of responsibility.”

  “I’ll help you. You know that, Diane. I’ll share it with you completely.”

  Jim was above all things an honest and moral man. She knew he’d keep his word.

  Diane had trusted him, and married him.

  It was late. She was tired. Grabbing her briefcase, Diane set the alarm system, locked up her shop, and went down the stairs and across Richdale Avenue to the parking garage where her beloved car waited. It was a vintage 1960 red Thunderbird convertible with a white top and white leather interior. She could have had a Mercedes for the money she’d spent on this restored antique, but this was the car she’d longed for in her youth, and now that she had choices, it was what she chose. Just sitting in the Thunderbird, smelling the rich leather, flipping on the radio, or slipping in an Eric Clapton tape infused her routine, responsible days with a feeling of adventure, of endless possibilities. How she loved this car! It had a personality, but no will of its own.

  Why do people have families, she wondered as she sped down Massachusetts Avenue toward Route 2 and Belmont. Our relatives absolutely bring us as much worry and pain as pleasure.

  By the time she got home, the sky had clouded over and it had started to rain. She slipped through the cold garage into the warm house.

  The front hall smelled of arum lilies and roast lamb. Dumping her briefcase on a Windsor chair, she passed by the mahogany library table that held the vase of fresh flowers and the silver bowl with today’s mail. Picking up the letters, she crossed thick Oriental rugs directly for the kitchen. No matter how elegant the rest of her house, the rest of her life, the kitchen was still the heart of the house.

  Kaitlin, her housekeeper and cook, had left a welcoming note on the long built-in desk that stretched along the width of the kitchen wall. Next to it sat the new demon in her life, the answering machine, blinking with dictatorial urgency not just one red light that indicated message waiting, but the green light, too, protesting that the tape was full. Diane ignored it.

  Sinking into the padded swivel chair, she bent to remove her high heels while at the same time she took up Kaitlin’s note.

  Mrs. Randall,

  The lamb will be ready at eight, but another thirty minutes won’t ruin it. Put what you don’t eat in the fridge and I’ll make lamb stew tomorrow night. The vegetables and rice just need heating up in the microwave. Mr. Randall said he’d be home by eight. I set the table in the breakfast room. A Mr. Frost, who said he’s from the FBI, was here at five-thirty, asking to speak with you. He just knocked on the door, without an appointment or anything. I didn’t let him in. He said he’d be back.

  It was eight o’clock now. Jim wouldn’t be home for another thirty minutes at least. More and more, he lived his life at the lab.

  She had time for a lovely bath. She’d eat dinner in her robe. Another quirk of Jim’s was that he never noticed what she wore. Diane loved clothes and had many luxurious robes: twice in the past few years, Jim, arriving home late and finding Diane in a robe, had hit his forehead with his hand and exclaimed, “Are we late for a dance? The opera?” Julia and Chase loved their father’s fashion incompetence. As they went through their various adolescent phases, Julia with blue hair, Chase with black leather, never once did their father say, “You’re not leaving the house looking like that!”

  She’d dealt with the FBI before, Diane thought as she climbed the stairs. In the early years, when she’d started Arabesque and was traveling to Eastern Europe and the Orient for gems, the FBI had routinely questioned her. Always, before, th
ey’d come to her office and shop in Cambridge. She couldn’t imagine what they wanted now.

  Well, the FBI could wait. She wouldn’t let it worry her. She’d bathe, then she’d pour herself a glass of good white wine while she listened to her messages on the answering machine and waited for her husband to come home.

  On the second floor she passed by the closed door to her small study. She didn’t even want to look in. She had had enough work for the day.

  She entered her bedroom as if it were a sanctuary. An enormous room with bookshelves, a fireplace, and window seats, its colors were dark green and rich red, a primitive, pagan combination, like the holly with its glossy leaf and startling berry. She kept incense on her bedside table, candles in heavy silver candlesticks, and the latest hardcover novels. On Jim’s table, neatly stacked, were tattered periodicals, research folders, and half a year’s worth of Cell, the journal that he read cover to cover.

  The bathroom was huge and luxurious. She turned on the hot water and dumped the jasmine-scented bath crystals in. Several mirrors reflected her body back to her in all its ample beauty. Turning, she surveyed herself. As a young woman, she’d hated her broad shoulders, full bosom, and large hands. Gradually she’d come to accept and then to admire her hands for their skillfulness and talent, and over the years she’d come to feel the same way about her body. How easily it had carried two babies and given birth, how heartily it craved and consumed food, touch, sex. Hers was a very successful body, quick to give pleasure, almost never sick. She refused to see ugliness in her widened hips or full thighs, rounded stomach, and long, plump breasts. She was healthy. She was whole.

  Tying her wavy brown hair up in a scarf, she slipped into her bath. As the lovely heat soaked into her muscles, she relaxed, and her emotional vigilance relaxed also. She was tired. She did tire more easily and more profoundly these days. Between her large blue eyes two lines had engraved themselves, so that she always seemed to be puzzled or frowning. Once or twice over the summer Julia had said, “You look so sad, Mom. What’s wrong?” and Diane had realized that from now on, she would always look slightly worried. Tiny brown moles had popped up here and there on the skin on her neck and under her breasts. She’d put off having a mammogram for a year now, because the damn things were so unpleasant. She couldn’t read small print without glasses, and sometimes when she tried to recall someone’s name, her mind presented her with a blank. When she wore high heels all day, her legs ached. And it had been a long time since she’d felt a rush of pure animal delight.

  Minor complaints, all of them. Diane rose from her bath, toweled dry, and slipped into turquoise silk pajamas and a silk-and-cashmere robe of black and turquoise. Jim might not notice, but it made her feel sensually pleased, and more and more these days she had to be content with that.

  In the living room, she put a match to the pile of kindling and logs that Kaitlin had laid. She clicked in a gentle Brahms CD, then curled up with a flute of sparkling white wine. The firelight twisted and leaped into amazing shapes. Automatically she reached for the sketch pad and pen she kept near her chair—she had these in every room, near each favorite chair, in spite of Kaitlin’s misery over how they spoiled the grace of the rooms—and was just beginning to play with patterns when the doorbell rang.

  She went to the front door and looked out through the etched and leaded panels that bordered each side. A strange man stood there.

  “Yes?” She opened the door.

  “Mrs. Randall? Peter Frost, FBI.” The stranger held out an identifying badge.

  “It’s rather late in the evening. Couldn’t you come to my office tomorrow morning? I’ll be there all day.”

  “This isn’t about your work.”

  Peter Frost was protected from the gusting rain by the long porch ceiling. His face and water-spotted trenchcoat were illuminated by the porch light, so that he seemed to be haloed, set off from the dark sheets of rain that fell behind him, occasional drops catching the light and shining like falling coins. Black hair, blue eyes, a Botticelli nobleman in a gray suit and trenchcoat.

  “Well. All right. Come in.” She took his coat and hung it on the antique coat tree, then led him into the living room.

  “Please,” she said, gesturing to the sofa across from the one onto which she now sank. “Now. How can I help you?”

  “We’re trying to locate your mother,” Peter Frost said.

  “My mother!” Diane laughed in surprise.

  “We believe your mother has something we need.”

  “There must be some mistake.” Genuinely amused, Diane relaxed. “My mother’s in her seventies, Mr. Frost. She was recently widowed. All she did all her life was take care of a home and family.”

  “Do you know where we can reach her?”

  “Yes, of course”—Diane caught herself—“actually, I don’t. Not exactly. She’s in Europe. Somewhere in Europe. After Daddy died— Look, does this have something to do with my grandfather? Or my uncle? They were military men.”

  “No. With your mother.”

  “Mr. Frost. You guys don’t want my mother. My mother is a sweet little old white-haired lady. She never had a chance to travel around Europe, and she always wanted to. This summer, when my father died, she sold the big family house and moved to an apartment. She thought this might be the time to travel, and we all—my brothers and my sister and I—encouraged her. We thought it might be good for her.”

  “Do you have her itinerary?”

  “No. She didn’t really make one. She wanted to go where the mood took her, and she didn’t think she’d have trouble finding hotel rooms since it’s off-season. She talked about Paris, London, Rome, Brussels, perhaps Amsterdam, perhaps Berlin—my God! You’re not trying to tell me she did something stupid and got herself lost in Eastern Europe!”

  “No, no, nothing like that, as far as we know. This has nothing to do with her current travels.”

  “Well, what exactly does it have to do with?”

  “When your father died and your mother broke up the house, did she give you anything?”

  “Well, of course. She divided everything among my brothers and sister and myself. Furniture, jewelry, china, silver—”

  “Papers?”

  “Papers?”

  “Old love letters. That sort of thing.”

  Diane thought. “My parents were married at the beginning of World War Two. I’m sure my father wrote her often, but I don’t recall seeing any letters or hearing about any of them. Oh, a few are pasted in the World War Two scrapbook. Bert has that. But love letters—well, I’ve never seen any. It’s possible she has some hidden away somewhere.”

  “How about diaries? Or mementos?”

  “Mother kept diaries about us—her children—during the first few years after our births, but with four of us, she must have run out of time. I know she kept many of the little drawings and valentines we made for her, of course. But she wasn’t the sort to bring back souvenirs from vacation spots. Really, what is all this about? I can’t imagine what you’re getting at. Mother led the most blameless life. She did nothing unusual ever.”

  “Did she ever speak to you about a man she was involved with before she met your father?”

  “Mother knew Daddy from the time she was fourteen! There was never anyone else!”

  “She was in college in Boston for two years—”

  “Yes. Yes, that’s true.” Diane paused to think. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I can tell you. She never told me about any other man, and I’m the oldest. I don’t think she would have told Susan. Can’t you be more specific?”

  Peter Frost shook his glossy head. “I’m not trying to be difficult. There’s only so much I can tell you. We’re hoping that your mother still has in her possession something that was given to her a long time ago. It’s quite small. A piece of jewelry. A locket. We’re looking for the piece of paper that was put in the locket.”

  “And what’s on this precious piece of paper?”

 
; “I’ve told you all I can.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake! This is all ridiculous!” Diane rose, paced to the window, and looked out—no sign of Jim. Damn.

  She turned back to look across the room at the FBI agent. What could he want with her mother? To her dismay, her eyes filled with tears. She turned back to the window.

  The man rose and came to stand behind her. She could see his reflection in the windowpane.

  “There’s no cause for alarm, you know,” he said. “I can tell you that your mother was given something a long time ago, and if we can recover it, it will be helpful, but if we can’t—well, nothing terrible is at stake here.”

  “You don’t know my mother,” Diane said accusingly, turning to face the man.

  He was looking at her gently, kindly. “That’s true. I don’t know her at all. On the other hand—let me put it this way. You have children. Do you believe they know the true you, the whole you?”

  His words hit home.

  “I see your point.” She walked away from the window, sat down on the sofa, folded her hands. “You are looking for—a locket. Do you know that I am a jewelry designer?”

  “We do.”

  “Yes, of course you do. You think you know everything, don’t you, with your computerized files.”

  “If we knew everything,” Peter Frost said, coming back to sit in the chair across from her, still smiling, “I wouldn’t have to come here bothering you, would I?”

  “Is it possible that somehow your—records—have gotten confused and the locket is something I’ve made, or shipped to Eastern Europe, or something I’ve brought back from there as inspiration for new designs?”

  “No.”

  “I’ve been in this business for almost thirty years—”

  “What we are looking for was given to your mother before you were born.”