Keeping Secrets & Telling Lies

by Trice Hickman

  “Again, your wisdom prevailed.” Victoria smiled. “Um, listen, Mom, I’ve gotta run. It’s lunchtime, and I need to take Alexandria to get something to eat.”

  Elizabeth knew that her daughter was withdrawing. It was what she often did when she didn’t want to face a situation right away. She wanted to press Victoria about what was really bothering her, but decided that it wasn’t the right time. “Okay, sweetheart,” she said, temporarily letting her daughter off the hook. “Tell Ted that your father and I send our prayers. Call me later and give me the name of the funeral home so we can send flowers.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “And, sweetheart ...”

  “Yes?”

  “Whenever you’re ready to talk, I’m here to listen.”

  Victoria held her emotions close. “I love you, Mom.”

  “Love you, too.”

  After she finished her conversation with her mother,Victoria and Alexandria ventured to a local deli for lunch, then shopped at a few specialty stores in the picturesque area. By late afternoon they’d both grown tired, so they headed back to the hotel.

  It was after five o’clock, and Victoria still hadn’t heard from Ted since he’d left their suite at eight thirty that morning. She wanted to call him, to make sure he was all right, but she knew he needed time to sort through whatever terrible secret he’d discovered about his mother. “Just be there for him,” she whispered to herself, repeating her mother’s advice.

  The Far-Reaching Consequences ...

  Alexandria was playing with her dolls in her room and Victoria was engrossed in work on her laptop when Ted walked through the door around dinnertime.

  “How did things go?” Victoria asked, putting her computer away so she could give her husband her full attention.

  She could see a drastic change in Ted’s demeanor. She studied his face and saw a type of frustration and worry that made alarm pulse through her veins.

  Ted walked over to where she was sitting on the couch and took a seat in the chair across from her. The fact that he chose a separate seat told her that he wanted space, but she was determined to be there for him, physically and emotionally. She wasn’t going to let him shut her out, and she wasn’t going to shut down on him, either. She leaned forward, placing her elbows on her knees, focusing her eyes on his. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

  Ted responded with a vacant stare in the direction of the window across the room.

  Victoria knew that she should exercise patience because of what Ted was going through, and she wanted to be the shoulder he leaned on, but not knowing about the secret that Carolyn had hidden in the safe-deposit box was more than she could take. Her thoughts weren’t just to satisfy her own curiosity; she wanted to make sure that her child would be safe from whatever crime Ted’s mother had committed.

  Victoria decided to revise her approach. “Did you get all the funeral arrangements straightened out? My mother wants to know the information so she can send flowers.”

  Ted finally looked in her direction, letting out a long sigh as he reached into his attaché. “That’s very thoughtful. Yes, here’s the information.” He placed a folder from the funeral home on the coffee table that sat between them.

  They both stared at the burial documents, but neither of them said a word. Finally, Victoria spoke up. “Was your mother’s secret that terrible?”

  Ted looked at her with hollow eyes, which sent a shiver through Victoria’s body. She rose to her feet and went over to him, kneeling between his legs as she held his face in the palms of her hands. “Ted, I’m here for you. I know this is hard, but you’re not in this alone. Just lean on me.”

  Ted wrapped his wife in his arms, rocking her back and forth in a slow and wordless trance.Victoria could feel his pain pouring out as he hugged her, but no tears came. So she held on tight, kissed the side of his cheek, and prayed for his peace of mind.

  Ted tried to bring himself to tell Victoria the truth about the secret his mother had been keeping, but in spite of what he knew he should do, he remained silent. All day he’d been thinking about how he was going to break the news to her. He’d already decided that it would take time before he revealed the truth to his siblings. His mother had been right. He was the youngest, but also the strongest, of the three, and if he was having a hard time accepting what his parents had done, he knew Lilly and Charlie wouldn’t be able to handle it. The secret affected them all.

  The fact that he couldn’t find the words to tell Victoria made Ted feel even worse. She was his soul mate, his closest friend, his lover, and his most cherished confidant. She was the only person he trusted implicitly, and he would willingly put his life in her hands without a second thought. But the information he’d learned today was so incredible that he didn’t know what to do with it and was still coming to grips with how he felt about what it all meant. He didn’t know how to tell her what he couldn’t make sense of himself.

  The far-reaching consequences of what had been set in motion over six decades ago would have a profound effect on all their lives today. It was explosive, yet delicate, and until he found a way to deal with the truth in his own mind, and in his own way, he couldn’t afford to expose anyone else to it.

  Ted knew that Lilly and Charlie would surely ask a million questions that he didn’t have answers to. But he also knew their curiosity would be nothing compared to the firing line of questions that Victoria would launch, and at the moment he didn’t want to deal with it. He had to get through the next two days, attending his mother’s wake tomorrow and her funeral the following day. Then he would accompany his wife and child back home safely before he booked a flight to Jackson, Mississippi. That was where he would look for the answers to secrets that had been buried in lies.

  Chapter Eight

  We Need Truth....

  Victoria’s and Ted’s uncomfortable evening rolled into a hectic day.Victoria still didn’t know any more about Carolyn’s secret than she did the day before, and even though she was desperate to find out what Ted had discovered, she was reluctant to push him while he was still so grief-stricken. For Ted’s part, he was doing his best at holding up a strong exterior while trying to tame Victoria’s curiosity.

  They made themselves busy by visiting Ted’s relatives and family friends. Victoria knew most of them, because they had met when she and Ted got married and had seen each other at family gatherings over the years since. She was glad that most were as warm and welcoming as Lilly and, surprisingly, Charlie had been when they first met. But there were quite a few faces that she didn’t recognize, and it was obvious that they weren’t happy to see the prized Thornton son on the arm of one so dark.

  Given their subtle, yet uncomfortable stares and near-complete silence when she attempted to engage them in conversation,Victoria understood their reactions all too well, knowing exactly what they meant.As she looked around Lilly’s large living room, filled with pale faces, her mind was focused on protecting her daughter from the ugliness that might rear its head. The sideways glances and hushed whispers made her want to tell a few of her bigoted in-laws to kiss her natural black ass! And if anyone had the bad judgment to exercise the least bit of prejudice toward her daughter, that was when the gloves would come off and the claws would come out.

  Victoria imagined that this must be similar to what her parents had encountered in the beginning of their marriage. Elizabeth’s “light, bright, and damned near white,” color-conscious family was furious when she married a man whose skin was the color of night.

  After an hour of forced smiles and tension-filled stares,Victoria assumed that the haters must have read her thoughts, because even though they were distant and unsociable, they weren’t outright hateful, and that was all that mattered to her.

  She was given a small break when Lilly offered to take Alexandria with her to pick up a few things from the grocery store. It was therapy for Lilly, because in her present state, she needed the innocent distraction of a child to mak
e her forget about the loss and sadness that had been clinging to her over the past few days. Victoria had always liked Lilly, because she possessed a genuinely good heart and kind spirit. And she was glad that Alexandria seemed to adore her aunt. She wanted her daughter to have a good relationship with relatives on both sides of her family, a luxury she didn’t have growing up. Her mother’s branch of her family tree was one she was largely unfamiliar with and had never really known.

  Elizabeth’s family had disowned her shortly after Victoria was born. They’d cut off all contact following a heated confrontation. Elizabeth’s mother had been greatly disappointed and had verbalized as much when she and a few other relatives came for a visit to see the new addition to their family. When she saw that little Victoria had inherited her father’s dark skin instead of their family’s prized alabaster hue, she was beside herself.

  She’d held her nose and bit her tongue when Elizabeth married John, giving her a coal-colored son-in-law. But now, having a chocolate brown grandchild was more than she could take. “At least you can tell she’s going to have good hair. She’s actually a cute little baby to be so dark,” she’d said, her way of trying to turn a bad situation into something she could stomach.

  John hit the roof. He threw his in-laws out of the house with Elizabeth’s approval, and from that day forward there was no contact between them. Little Victoria often asked her parents why her mother’s relatives never called on her birthday or came by to visit during the holidays, like her father’s family did. She’d seen pictures of them in her mother’s scrapbook, but with the exception of Elizabeth’s brother, Maxx, she’d never met any of them. John and Elizabeth skirted her questions, telling their daughter that all her family members loved her, whether they came to visit or not.

  But the truth was that it didn’t matter to Elizabeth’s clan that John hailed from the wealthiest black family in their small South Carolina town and owned considerable land and real estate, or that he was an Ivy League graduate who’d amassed a small fortune by founding Queens Bank, Raleigh, North Carolina’s first black-owned, black-financed, and black-operated bank, which eventually expanded to four branches throughout the city. None of it had mattered because neither his skin nor that of his baby daughter was light enough for their taste.

  Victoria watched from Lilly’s living room window as her sister-in-law backed her car out of the driveway en route to the store. Alexandria was strapped into the backseat, laughing with cheer because Lilly was obviously telling her a funny story.

  Victoria prayed that Alexandria would never know the kind of hurt that she’d experienced when she was just a little girl. She was seven years old when she awoke one night and overheard her parents talking about the fateful day when Elizabeth’s family had come to visit. Discovering the ugly truth— that her mother’s side of the family held distain for dark skin—had left a lasting mark. It had made her feel inadequate and had nearly crushed her young spirit.

  Victoria didn’t tell her parents what she’d heard them discuss that night, and she kept the pain locked away for the better part of her adult life, before finally opening up her old wounds so they could heal. But that night’s discovery still lived with her today, because that was when she learned how to shut off the unpleasantries of the world until she was ready to deal with them.

  Before Victoria could get too consumed in her thoughts, her cell phone rang. She tensed a bit when she saw who it was. “Hey, Debbie. How’s it going?”

  “That’s the question I want to ask you... . You okay?”

  Victoria sighed. “I guess I’m as good as can be expected. Carolyn’s wake is later this evening, and the funeral is at noon tomorrow. Ted’s holding up pretty well, but it’s tough. We’re just trying to make it through the next few days.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Just keep us in your prayers.”

  “That’s a done deal,” Debbie said.

  “How’re things with you?” Victoria was praying that Debbie wasn’t calling her with bad news, especially not right now.

  “Umm, things are okay.” She paused. “Ever since I got back home, I’ve been thinking about everything you said, and you were right. I ended things with Stan.”

  “Praise God.” This was the best news Victoria had gotten in over a week.

  “I knew that would make you happy. You can tell Tyler and Denise, too, because I’m sure they’ll share your relief. And by the way, Tyler confronted me at the reception.”

  “For the record, I didn’t say a word to either of them.You know they don’t sleep on anything. Besides, you gave yourself away by bringing Stan.”

  Debbie nodded her head on the other end. “I know. I got carried away,” she admitted, sounding deeply regretful. “Bringing Stan to Gigi’s wedding was a dumb decision and one of the worst mistakes I could have ever made.”

  The tone in her voice gave Victoria alarm. “Oh, no ... Don’t tell me that Rob found out.”

  “No.”

  “Whew!”

  “But I think I’m going to tell him.”

  “What?” Victoria nearly yelled, drawing the questioning stares of a few curious eyes in the room. “Hold on a minute.” She headed toward Lilly’s back door. She knew she had to get out of earshot of Ted’s nosy relatives.

  Once she reached the back deck, she resumed their conversation. “Debbie, why in the world would you tell Rob if you haven’t been caught?”

  “Because we need a fresh start in order to repair our marriage. The only way to fix things is to come completely clean. We need truth.”

  Victoria closed her eyes, biting her bottom lip. “If you truly want to repair your marriage, you better not say a word about Stan.”

  “But, Victoria, I think the only way Rob and I can fix what’s wrong is if we start with a clean slate. I had a long talk with him last night, and I told him that I want us to start being completely honest with each other about how we feel and how we communicate our needs. If I’m going to hold up my end of the bargain, there’s no way I can get around telling him what I’ve done.”

  Victoria was pacing back and forth on Lilly’s patio deck. “In theory you’re right. Honesty is very important in any relationship. But in reality you’ll be making a big mistake if you tell your husband that you’ve been sleeping with another man. Most men can’t recover from that kind of honesty.”

  “Well, I don’t plan on telling him all the gory details, or even how long I was seeing Stan.”

  “Then what’s the point? What are you going to tell him?”

  “Just that I made a mistake with someone at a weak moment, but now it’s over, and I want us to work on our marriage before it’s too late to salvage it. Funny thing is, when we talked last night, Rob told me that he knew our relationship has been on the edge for a while, yet he’s never said a word to me about how he’s been feeling. If I hadn’t pushed the subject, I doubt he would’ve ever brought it up on his own. He thinks I’m just a little unhappy. He has no idea that I’ve been having an affair. So you see, I need to make him understand how serious this is. He needs to know exactly how I feel, and he can only know if I’m completely honest.”

  “Oh, Lord!” Victoria sighed. She was starting to perspire—a combination of the ninety-degree New England summer heat and what she thought was a dangerous move on Debbie’s part. “I know you want to purge your system, but if Rob doesn’t suspect anything, why would you tell him? It’ll only hurt him, Debbie. Just keep your mouth shut.That way no one will get hurt.”

  Debbie let out a deep breath. “But that’s dishonest.”

  “You snuck off to hotels in the middle of the day so you could fuck another man while your husband was at work, and now you’re concerned about honesty?”

  Victoria hadn’t meant to be so blunt, but she didn’t know what else to say. Her friend’s naïveté about the decision she was about to make made her all the more concerned.

  “Don’t lecture me, damn it,” Debbie piped up. “I told you
this because you’re my closest and dearest friend and I thought you’d be glad that I’m going to do the right thing. Isn’t this what you told me I should do?”

  “Calm down,” Victoria said gently, continuing to pace back and forth on the deck. “That’s the problem. I don’t think you’re doing the right thing. I’m glad you ended your affair with Stan, but I didn’t tell you to confess everything to Rob.”

  “I want to make things right between us. Besides, what if by some chance Rob finds out on his own? He’d be devastated.”

  “What if he doesn’t? What if he never finds out and never suspects a thing?”

  Debbie was quiet for a moment. “I know myself, and I know my husband, and the only way we can fix this is if we have everything out in the open. No secrets, no lies.”

  “Okay, you know your relationship better than I do. But let me ask you a question.”

  “Okay.”

  Victoria brought her phone closer to her lips and whispered, “Do you want to confess to Rob because you want to make a clean start or because you want to ease your own conscience?”

  Debbie was silent again.

  “Think long and hard about this, Debbie. How is it possibly going to help Rob or your marriage?” Victoria couldn’t see her friend’s face, but she knew that Debbie was biting her tiny nails on the other end of the phone. “I love you, and I’m gonna be straight with you, just like you were with me back in the day, when you called me out because I wouldn’t admit I had feelings for Ted, just because he was white,” Victoria said in earnest. “This isn’t a movie or some kind of social experiment. This is real life, and you’re about to do something that could cost you everything you love. Are you honestly ready to lose your family over an affair that Rob doesn’t even suspect? Do you really think you can repair your marriage and make a fresh start by telling your husband that you slept with another man? Girl, that doesn’t even sound right.”