The Last Secret

by Mary McGarry Morris

  “You mean Clay, don't you?”

  “Oh, Jesus,” he groans.

  “You've always compared them. Always. And don't think for a moment that's lost on Drew.”

  “You can't let anything go, can you? You just can't.”

  “No. Not when it comes to my children. Because that's sacred ground. To me, anyway.”

  They drive the rest of the way in cold silence. When they arrive at the rehab hospital, Oliver isn't in bed, but in a chair with a blanket over his legs. He is freshly shaved and his wiry hair has been trimmed closer than she's ever seen it. He's lost weight and his color is good. Except for his drooping right eye you might not think anything had happened to him.

  “Oliver!” Determined to be cheery, she kisses his cheek and holds out her arms, then knows instantly not to. Fond as they've always been of each other, theirs was never a hugging relationship and won't be now. No matter his troubles. And seeing his clenched jaw, she's afraid he's angry she's here.

  In his struggle to communicate Oliver hardly seems to notice her. This must be what Ken meant after his last visit. Perseveration, he called it. Once his brother gets something in his head, he can't seem to get past it. He gets stuck on a topic and won't let it go. Wasn't he always like that, in a way, Nora said, but sitting here now, observing, she understands.

  A week's worth of Chronicles is piled in Ken's lap. With one eye still seeing double, Oliver can't read for very long. So Ken has been reading aloud excerpts from various articles. Particularly, stories about the election, the two openings on the city council. One of the candidates is Helen McNally Oliver's old nemesis in local politics. Nora winces as Ken plods on, unaware of the irony here. She can see it in Oliver's trembling lips. For weeks now the Chronicle has had McNally under their microscope. This isn't the way Oliver runs the paper. This isn't even Ken's doing, but Joe Creel's, the managing editor. With Oliver gone, Creel runs what he wants, one less task for Ken.

  “Get this,” Ken says, shaking the paper for emphasis. “Records show that over the past four years McNally has accumulated nine hundred and eighty-five dollars' worth of unpaid parking tickets,” he reads.

  What the article doesn't report is that McNally paid those tickets last summer. Stop, she wants to tell Ken. In trying to impress his brother, he's making him feel more helpless. Oliver grunts and gestures with his good hand but can't articulate his thoughts. Something about Stephen, it seems. Ken continues reading.

  “No!” Oliver says with a thump on the tray table. “Don't! We don't …”

  “What? We don't what?” Ken looks over the paper, concerned.

  “Read … the … read,” Oliver says, shaking his head. “The point … it's no …”

  “You're tired. Want me to stop? I don't blame you. Getting a little sick of hearing my own voice,” Ken says, with that chipper nod she knows drives Oliver crazy.

  “No!” Oliver says in disgust, his face purple. “You don't know.” Every word is a struggle. “You … you never know. You don't care. That's … that's how. Why,” he adds, and his head sags in defeat.

  “Oliver,” she says, but he still won't look at her.

  “I told her … not to … you … don't … not to bring … her.”

  “Aw, c'mon.” Ken reaches to pat his brother's shoulder. “Don't make Nora—”

  “Don't! Don't … touch me,” Oliver shouts, and Ken looks stunned. The corners of Oliver's mouth glisten with foamy spittle. His chest rises and falls with agitated breathing. He rocks in his chair. Like a cornered child.

  “Oliver?” she says quietly, slipping into the old role, conduit between them. “I'm sorry. Do you want me to leave? I know, I shouldn't have come. But I wanted to see you.”

  “Well … here.” Oliver tries to hold out his good arm, even that clearly an effort. “For your … your … pressure.” Again, in his eyes that flash of panic, to have lost his language, to be unable to express himself the way he wants to, the way he used to, in all his sardonic incisiveness. She manages a weak smile. If she speaks she knows she'll cry, but his resentful stare turns to his brother.

  Stephen stopped in this morning, Oliver finally manages to get them to understand. “On his way to … fly …” He shakes his fist, frustrated.

  “Fly. Hey, that's good. Fly, his flight. See, we're getting good at this,” Ken says as if Oliver's grimacing struggle isn't happening. “It's just going to take time, Oll, that's all. Hey,” he says, with a tap on the tray table as he gets up. “Want anything? Magazine? Something from the snack bar?” he asks with a look at Nora. She knows how difficult this is for him, but on the other hand, it's hardly some nettlesome board meeting he can slip out of His frustration is not lost on his brother.

  “Stop rooning the paper, that's … what!” Oliver shouts after him.

  “What?” Ken wheels around in the doorway. “What're you talking about?”

  “That … that … Gendron! Your private … you can't … roon … the pa-per. You can't! No!” Oliver bellows.

  Ken's face reddens, but his lips are thin and white. Through his mangled speech, Oliver accuses his brother of not listening, always taking the easy way out, never caring about anyone or anything, not the paper or his family, just himself “You … roon … everything. Always!”

  “Stop it, Oliver!” she says, pointing at him. “Just stop it right now. Your brother is trying so hard to help you and help the paper and do the right thing for everyone. And I know how hard this is for you, what you're going through, but don't do this. Don't take it out on Ken.”

  “We don't do that! We don't hide … things!” Oliver shouts in a burst of clarity as she heads toward the door.

  “Oh, yes we do, Oliver. All of us. All the time,” she says, then leaves.

  “For you! For you! For you!” His bellowing follows her down the hallway. She is still shaking when Ken comes out to the car.

  “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that.” She feels terrible. Poor Oliver, an easy target for her own frustrations, she tries to explain. “But Stephen, I mean, why is he doing that? Especially now, running to Oliver whenever anything happens. Why doesn't he come to you if he's got a complaint?”

  “He did. I told him to go fuck himself!”

  Shocked, she stares at the sweep of the wipers and doesn't say anything for a moment.

  “Why?”

  “Because … because everywhere I turn, I'm …” He hits the wheel.

  “What? Trapped?”

  He glances over, then looks back at the puddled road ahead.

  “That's it, isn't it? Isn't it?”

  “Things, they just keep piling up, that's all.”

  “What things? Me? The children? The paper?”

  “I'm an ass, okay, I always knew that, but I never figured I'd be this much of a screwup.” His voice breaks.

  “What're you talking about? Of course this isn't going to be easy. It's going to take time, Ken. And probably a lot longer than either one of us thinks. Especially now with Oliver sick and you having to take on all this new responsibility. But in the end we'll both be so much stronger. I know we will.” She squeezes the back of his neck. The muscles are rigid, unyielding. “Okay?” she says, but he drives in silence. “We have to be able to talk, Ken. Especially when everything's so … so connected. The children, our work, the—”

  “You tell me then. Who's Eddie Hawkins? Who is he?”

  “What do you mean?” Her ears ring as if from a blow.

  “That guy I met. The night of Oliver's stroke. I told you about him. He said he knows you.”

  “Not really. I mean, I did. Years ago. Summer of my junior year. The job I had. Lake George? The hotel there, remember? I know I've told you.” Eyes wide, she sighs. “God, what was that? Twenty-five, twenty-six, years ago.”

  “He's seen you. He's talked to you. Just recently. He told me. You caught up on old times, he said. Some trip you took. The two of you. Together.”

  “He said that? Oh, for godsakes!”

  “N
ora. What's going on?”

  “I don't know. Nothing! He was just some guy, that's all. I was seventeen. If that.”

  “No. I mean now.” The way he says it scares her. “Why the secrecy?”

  “There's no secrecy.” The road blurs.

  “Then why didn't you say anything? That night. I told you his name. You—”

  “What're you getting at, Ken? What're you trying to say? I mean, with everything that's been going on … all the turmoil … half the time I'm lucky if I can remember my own goddamn name!”

  She stares out the side window. So it's true. Money won't stop him. He wants more. That's what he's doing, and Ken knows. She can tell. He's waiting for her to tell him.

  “All right,” she says when he pulls into their driveway. “He's strange, that's why. That's why I didn't say anything.”

  “What do you mean, strange?”

  “I don't know … like, the way he showed up. I mean, after all these years.”

  “What's wrong with that? It happens.” With his scrutiny, she feels steadied by his concern, reassured. She's not alone in this.

  “Because … because I can't stand him. And I couldn't then, and he knows it.” She hugs herself, shivering. Even this guarded admission floods her with relief “And … and him running into you like that, it gave me the creeps.” Her teeth chatter. “And now what, he shows up again? He comes to you?”

  rom its beginning, Sojourn House has gotten by with two residential dishwashers, both donated. Now, with one broken and costing too much to repair, it seems time, Father Grewley says from the head of the conference table, to invest in a large, commercial-grade dishwasher.

  It is 7:45 p.m. and this was a hastily convened meeting. With eight women and ten children currently sheltered here, kitchen efficiency is paramount, the priest continues. Nora nods. She is trying to pay attention, any problem a distraction from her own. She digs in her purse for a tissue. Pretending to wipe her nose, she's really trying to block the heavy smell of alcohol and musky perfume. It's coming from Letitia Crane, who sits beside her, lips pursed, twiddling her thumbs, alert for any point she can seize, then sermonize to death. As CraneCopley and Lyndell sink deeper into litigation and investigation, Letitia has become a most contentious presence at these meetings. Ever since the omission of her name from the House letterhead nothing escapes her boozy scrutiny. And yet, Nora thinks, aren't she and Letitia clinging to the same life raft here?

  Father Grewley passes the pamphlet around. A brand-new, heavy-duty Exlon dishwasher for only a thousand dollars. The wholesaler has agreed to free installation and removal of the old appliances. All Father Grewley needs now is the board's approval. He looks exhausted. He was up all night. One of the House children, a five-year-old boy, had to be rushed to the emergency room, with a raging fever.

  “Sure … sure … sounds good … great … aye …,” each member offers around the table.

  “Of course!” Nora says, pained by her exaggerated brightness. Everything feels forced, false, really. She shouldn't even be here. Not the caliber of person they need. Or deserve. Especially tonight.

  “Excuse me,” Letitia says rather loudly. Hers is the last vote. “But I think there's an even bigger issue here.” She poses it as a question.

  “And what might that be?” Chris Arrellio asks. The only male on the board, he makes little effort to hide his impatience with her nitpicking.

  “Communal spirit?” Letitia squints at him. “And so, here we are, once again, missing an opportunity to teach these women how to help themselves.”

  Papers crinkle. Feet scrape under the table. No one speaks until Betsy Gleason's natural sweetness wafts through the mute censure.

  “How, Letitia? In what way?”

  Chris Arrellio gives a deep sigh in his suede bomber jacket. His car wash franchise has made him wealthy, but he wears his rough-edged, self-made persona with pride. Here it comes: no bs, cut to the chase. Any minute now, Nora thinks, this time welcoming it. His smirk doesn't deter Letitia. She's already off and running.

  “Instead of always giving them free this and free that, isn't the best lesson of all self-reliance? By doing everything for them, aren't we just victimizing them more? Don't you see, they should be part of the solution. Instead of an expensive new dishwasher, they should be pitching in, helping out. Washing their own dirty dishes, for godsakes. I mean, what's—”

  A light tap rattles the door. One of the new counselors, Dale Morgan, hurries in and whispers to Father Grewley Excusing himself, he leaves quickly. In his absence, dissension crabs its way around the table. Surprisingly, Letitia has a compatriot, Krenna, the wizened German woman who never opens her mouth but now agrees that maybe we do do too much. Maybe we kill their spirit. Maybe that's what these women need, to learn how to fight back.

  Fight back, Nora thinks, closing her eyes. How? And with what, when we're barely holding on. Tonight at dinner, Drew and Ken's sullen standoff escalated from Drew's mumbling and not passing the butter when Chloe asked and Ken's demanding that he be more respectful of his sister to Drew's bolting from the table, shouting, “Go to hell. Go to fucking hell, all of you, for all I care!” before slamming the door.

  “Let him go!” Ken yelled as she started into the breezeway “I can't take it anymore. I'm sick of it. He wants to brood, he can go do it somewhere else.”

  “No, Ken,” she said, her tone and look putting him on notice that the day it came to that, the choice would be easy. He would leave. Not her son.

  “But Mom, he's always like that,” Chloe implored from the table. “You should see him in school. I mean, it's so embarrassing. He's always alone. He won't sit with anyone. He doesn't even talk to people. It's, like, weird.”

  “Well, then maybe you should sit with him and talk with him. You're his sister. Maybe that's all he needs, a little attention from you. From someone!” she declared, her voice ragged and trembling.

  “Mom!” Chloe cried, jumping up from the table. “That's not fair, and you know it!” She threw down her napkin and ran upstairs.

  “She's right,” Nora said, more to herself than to Ken who stared into his untouched dinner. “It isn't fair. It really isn't.”

  “Nora?” Father Grewley gestures through the opening door. Could she give him a hand with something? Her legs wobble. Drew. Something's happened. When she left he still wasn't home.

  “It's Alice,” he says as they hurry along the corridor to his office. “Her neighbor just brought her in. She's in a bad way. He really did a job on her this time.”

  Alice sits in shadows, her face in her hands. The neighbor, Roz, is a wrinkled, shrewd-eyed woman with long gray hair. She apologizes in a raspy voice for turning off the overhead light, but it was hurting Alice's eyes. Roz wanted to bring her to the hospital, but Alice refused. She's afraid they'll call the police on Luke and, besides, Roz adds, Alice doesn't have any insurance. Father Grewley asks where the children are. Roz's husband is bringing them to Alice's mother. Is this what she wants? he leans close to ask Alice, who shrugs. Her head bobs, a battered weight on its thin stem.

  “Poor thing. She don't know what she wants,” the neighbor whispers to Nora, who tries to hold her breath against the reek of cigarette smoke in the woman's clothes, jeans, and a hooded Patriots sweatshirt. “She thinks she's miscarrying. I don't know, maybe that's why. Like, this is the last thing she needs now.”

  The only available space is on the third floor. A dark, chilly room, its angled attic ceilings are still stained from last winter's ice dams. A frayed braided rug lies molded into the rippled contours of the gray floorboards. But there is a pretty stenciled chest of drawers and an old mahogany double bed with a frilly yellow duvet. And this room has its own attached bathroom; only a few do. Nora waits outside on the landing. Maizie Dennehy is in with Alice. Maizie is one of four nurses they can call on day or night whenever an emergency comes in. Father Grewley leaves the room energized. He will return to the meeting with new resolve. Alice's plight confirms their
mission. Before he starts downstairs, he whispers to Nora that if Letitia is so at odds with Sojourn House's purpose, then she must resign for the good of the board. And so must she, Nora realizes ashamedly So overwhelmed by her own troubles, she forgot to call Alice back. Her concern has become a charade. All she really cares about is her family.

  Maizie comes out and closes the door. “She may be miscarrying, but at least nothing's broken,” she says. A stocky woman, she is a pretty, perky blonde. Even now she manages to smile. Given a choice, the guests always want Maizie. “Terrible bruising. Mostly he slapped her. Every time she'd try to get up he'd start on her again. It's almost like he knew. Nothing that would send her to the hospital. After a while, they get pretty savvy.”

  For a moment Nora isn't sure who Maizie means, abused or abuser. Both, she decides, entering the room, and herself as well, here again, victim of her own mistakes. Eddie's bad penny, because on it goes. On and on. Pain and cruelty. Everywhere. To think she once considered herself somehow apart from all this. A spectator. Helper. But in the end, what is the difference between her and any of them?

  Alice is sitting up in bed. The ice pack for her face is in her lap. Her head turns from the gleam of entering light, from Nora.

  “I'm sorry,” Nora says. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “No.” Emptiness. A door closing on an abandoned house. Hope smothered. Love. Children, every youthful dream snuffed out with its utterance. No. Nothing.

  “Things will get better. You're strong. I know you don't think you are right now, but you'll see. You'll find out. Your strength will come from your children, Alice. That's what he keeps trying to beat out of you. But he can't. Because you're not going to let him, are you? Ever again.”

  “I wish I was dead.”

  “No, you don't. You don't mean that.” She leans on the bed and Alice winces. “You have everything to live for. You do.”

  “Not anymore,” Alice says with a slow, almost foolish smile. “I'm pregnant. That's why it happened. He's so mad. He said I did it on purpose. To trick him. Because I didn't know what else to do with my pathetic life.”