Secret Lives

by Diane Chamberlain

  A warm rain was falling and a bolt of lightning lit the woods as they climbed out of the truck. Ben laid the blanket on the ground above a cushion of leaves. He moved quickly, acting as if it were an emergency. And maybe it was in a way. She caught his frenzy as she lowered herself to the blanket. She pulled off her shirt and the loose bra while he tugged her shorts to her knees with one hand and unzipped his own pants with the other.

  She felt impatient with kissing. When he moved his hand from her breast to her stomach she caught it and guided him lower. He let out his breath when he slipped his fingers inside her.

  “You're soaked,” he said.

  “I know.” She felt her pulse beating where he touched her and she whimpered when he drew his hand away.

  “Hold on,” he said.

  She heard him unwrap the condom but couldn't see him in the darkness. Then his hands were on her knees, easy and unhurried now as he parted her thighs and lowered his head between her legs. She sank her fingers gratefully into his hair, lifted her hips to meet him.

  The rain washed over her face, spiked against her belly. When she was very close Ben raised himself to his knees and entered her. For a moment the momentum was lost and she panicked, thrusting against him in her struggle to find it again.

  “Easy,” he said, holding her hips, drawing her into a rhythm. The feeling grew again as she rocked with him. “Okay?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  Lightning struck dangerously close to them just as she peaked, and a clap of thunder shook the ground beneath their blanket. Ben's hands were on her shoulders, holding her, containing her as her body spun out of control. He pressed into her one final time, deeper now, his breath caught somewhere in his throat, and then she felt him shudder and go still. Eden breathed with her mouth open, pulling in warm, wet air. She ran her hands down the length of his back, slick with rain, and he said in her ear, “You really ought to do something about that lack of desire of yours, Eden.”

  She laughed as he raised himself to his elbow. He leaned down to kiss her and in the darkness found her eyes instead of her lips. “That was pretty dramatic,” he said. “I thought maybe you'd been struck by lightning.”

  “That's what it felt like.” She wished she could see him. She reached up and stroked his lips with her fingertips. He caught her hand and turned it to kiss the palm, and in that simple gesture she felt reassured that what she had just done was not a mistake.

  “You can have the shower first,” Ben said when they reached the cabin. “I'll dig up something for you to wear.”

  The bathroom was tiny. There was barely enough room for her to turn around. Ben knocked on the door and handed her a towel.

  “Oh, and leave Charlotte alone, please.”

  “Charlotte?”

  “She's in the shower stall and she was here when I moved in. She's kind of my roommate.”

  He shut the door and Eden pulled open the shower curtain to reveal a huge black spider hanging in the corner near the ceiling. She kept her eye on it while she showered in case Charlotte was the jealous type.

  She brushed her teeth with Ben's toothpaste on her finger. Then she noticed the bottle of Valium on the ledge of the sink. She lifted it, read the label. Ben Alexander. The date was six months earlier. The doctor's name was also Alexander. His brother, most likely. The label specified twenty pills. She opened the bottle and poured the pills into her palm to count them. Twenty. He hadn't taken any. But they were here, close at hand. She looked at the bathroom door as if she could see Ben on the other side. Poor man. What had he been through?

  She jumped at the knock on the door and a few of the pills fell to the floor.

  “You ready for some clothes?” Ben asked.

  “In a second.” She picked up the pills that had fallen and set the bottle back on the sink before opening the door.

  “You look great,” he said when she finally emerged from the bathroom.

  The T-shirt he'd given her was black and, she thought, looked passably sexy on her. The blue drawstring shorts were cinched at her waist but otherwise hung from her.

  “How about some dinner?” he asked.

  She looked at her watch. Nearly ten. She was starving. “Okay.”

  “I have some hot dogs and a can of baked beans but that's about it.”

  “I'll cook while you shower.”

  “Will you stay tonight?”

  “After you feed me baked beans?”

  He smiled. “Please?”

  She wanted to. “I'll have to call Lou and Kyle.”

  Ben lost his smile. “Maybe I'd better call them.”

  “No.” She gave him a push. “Take your shower.”

  She had never seen a kitchen so desolate. The shelf above the stove held a couple of cans of soup, some rice, and a box of cornflakes. The refrigerator was no better with its lettuce and hot dogs, milk and wine and orange juice. She put three hot dogs in a frying pan, poured the can of baked beans into a saucepan and set it on the stove, all the while staring at the green phone on his night table. What was the worst they could say? Ben was not Tex or Will or Bo. They loved Ben.

  Lou answered.

  “Hi, Lou,” Eden said. “It's so stormy out. I'm going to stay up here tonight.” She grimaced, and for a moment Lou said nothing.

  “You're at Ben's?” Lou asked finally.

  “Yes.”

  “The storm's really letting up.”

  “I want to stay, Lou.” She twisted the cord in her fingers. Lou sighed. “You know how it is, dear. You never stop worrying. Wait until Cassie's a grown woman. You'll see.”

  “I'm fine.”

  “Of course.”

  –25–

  It was still dark when he heard Eden gasp and sit up in the bed.

  “Eden?”

  “Nightmare,” she said.

  He tugged at her shoulder. “Lie down again.”

  “I can't. Can we turn the light on?”

  He switched on the lamp on the apple crate. She raised the sheet to her chest and looked around the room, from object to object as though assuring herself she was here, awake. She reminded him of Bliss when she'd awaken from a bad dream and need reassurance that she was in her own room, surrounded by the safe and familiar.

  In the circle of light from the lamp he could see rough shadows on her face, fine lines across her forehead. The signs of age in her face touched him, the signs so few people were allowed to see.

  “Tell me about the dream.” He laid his hand on her back. Her skin was damp with perspiration.

  “I've had it nearly every night since I've been in Virginia.”

  “Really?”

  “It's about Lou.” She shook her head, smiled as though she felt foolish. He could see the threads of the dream leaving her, falling away. “Can't talk about it,” she said.

  He did not mind that she wanted to have a secret. It gave him more right to keep his from her. Still, he felt sad that reality was so quickly seeping into this perfect night.

  “We can leave the light on.” He eased her back to the pillow. She was shivering in spite of the heat, and he tucked the sheet around her shoulders. “Are you all right?”

  “I gave myself to you.”

  “Yes,” he said, puzzled.

  “I don't mean physically.” She looked up at him, her eyes credulous, unmasked. “I mean, I've told you so much. I've let you know the real me. It's always scared me to do that. But it's okay, isn't it? I'm safe.”

  “Yes,” he said, and he felt a lump form in his throat because he knew that she was not safe with him at all.

  She sighed and pulled herself closer to him. “Just hold me, Ben,” she said, although he already was.

  When he woke for a second time, the sun was pouring into the cabin. Eden's head was on his shoulder, and a sinking feeling lay heavily in the pit of his stomach. Kyle would be angry with him, and justified in his anger. The only way he could make it right was to tell her.

  He felt the heavy warmth of her
in his arms. She stretched, her body lithe and catlike, then leaned back to look at him. She gave him a big smile, a smile that told him she was waking up exactly where she wanted to be.

  “Would you consider moving to California?” she asked.

  He laughed. “Sure. I could become one of the plastic people.”

  “I wasn't joking.”

  He kissed her. “I need to talk to you.”

  She set the tip of her finger on his lips. “I don't want to hear.”

  This was not the time or place, anyway, he thought with some relief. Not in bed, for Christ's sake.

  She sat up and turned to face him, holding the sheet against her chest as she had the night before. She grinned at him. “We wrecked your bed.”

  “We certainly did.” The sheets had pulled free of the mattress and were twisted like sailors' knots over their legs. In the middle of the night they'd heard one of the bed slats give way under their endeavors but had been in no mood to do anything about it. He had not had a night like this in many years.

  Whatever signs of age or fatigue he had seen in her face the night before were gone now. Her skin was smooth and the sun rested like gold on her long eyelashes. He carefully pried her fingers from the top of the sheet and it fell to her lap. He watched her nipples rise under the touch of his eyes. He was about to tell her that he wanted to make love to her in the sunlight, but he stopped himself. He knew he would not be able to. The trap he was in was entirely too clear to him this morning.

  Suddenly she stretched over him, her breasts a delicate weight on his chest, her lips on his. He should have told her last night. He had no right to make love to her without her knowing. She set her head on his chest and reached for his lifeless penis with her long silky fingers. He let her stroke him, but he felt nothing. What words could he possibly use to tell her? He ran his fingers down her arm until he reached her hand and drew it up to his lips. “I think we wore it out,” he said. “I'm sorry.”

  “No, I'm sorry. I don't mean to be greedy.”

  He got out of bed and headed for the shower without looking at her because he had a horrible feeling he was going to cry. I gave myself to you, she'd said. Jesus. He'd had no right to take as much as he did.

  When he returned to the room she was dressed and sitting on the edge of his bed, an empty orange juice glass in her hand. She looked up at him with worry in her face. “Are you upset with me?”

  “God, no.” He bent over and kissed her. “I'm in love with you.

  He watched her swallow, watched how quickly her eyes filled. “Oh, Ben,” she said.

  “But it's absolutely essential that you and I talk about my divorce.”

  “Okay.”

  “Why don't I take you out for an early dinner tonight?” Probably not a great idea. Could he tell her in a restaurant?

  “Okay. But it's my treat this time. You bought me lunch, and I've been drinking your wine and eating your baked beans.”

  She was pitying him, patronizing him. He thought of the four dollars he had in his wallet and his body jerked as though he'd touched a live wire. A terrible impotent fury reared up inside him.

  “I don't want to live this way any longer!” He grabbed the empty orange juice glass from her hand and threw it across the room, where it hit the wooden wall with a dull crack and fell in pieces on the floor.

  She stood up calmly and folded him into a tight embrace. “It's all right,” she said.

  His body shook beneath her arms; his breathing was raspy, uneven. “I'm sorry, Eden.” He clutched the hem of her T-shirt in his fist. “I scare myself sometimes. I don't recognize myself.”

  Her arms tightened around him. “Money isn't important,” she said.

  He let go of her and took a few steps backward, sinking his hands into his pockets. “Eden, no matter what happens between us from now on, thank you for last night. I don't remember the last time I felt that completely happy.”

  “You make it sound as though it has to end.”

  He felt the happiness slipping away. “I think that will be up to you.”

  It was nearly eleven when Kyle joined him at the site. He climbed down the ladder into the pit where Ben was working and turned a bucket upside down to sit on. Ben felt the muscles in his chest contract. Kyle wasn't here to work.

  Ben stood up to face him. “I guess you have a few things to say to me.”

  “About January. Do you want me to write to Carl Petrie? He can use some help down there in Florida.”

  Ben frowned. He'd expected Kyle to talk about Eden. But this was the same thing, wasn't it? “What if I said I was going to try to find something in California so I could be near Eden?”

  “Well, I'd say maybe you weren't being too realistic.”

  “You mean I'm not good enough for her.”

  Kyle sighed, set his hands on his knees. “If things were different, you'd be the best thing in the world for her. But your situation, Ben…I don't want to see her hurt.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “She came home this morning all light and smiling—and a little tired.” He gave Ben a concessionary smile. “I've never seen her like that. She doesn't trust easily. She's been let down once too often, and I worry that the higher she goes with you, the steeper the drop's going to be.”

  “Maybe there won't be a drop.”

  “And it seems to me you're setting yourself up for a lot of grief, Ben. Even if you could work out this one major snag, I can't picture you fitting into her lifestyle. You barely know her. And she certainly doesn't know you.”

  “I'm going to tell her today,” Ben said quietly. “She's bringing something over here later for a picnic.”

  “Nice timing. You tell her after you sleep with her.”

  Ben ignored the cut. He looked down at Kyle. “I'm going to lose her.”

  Kyle shook his head. “You don't have her to lose. The little you have you got under false pretenses.”

  Ben's throat tightened, and his voice shook when he spoke. “What's happening between you and me?” he asked. “I don't want to argue with you, Kyle. You're just about all I've got.”

  Kyle rose to his feet. He walked over to Ben and put his arms around him, held him close. “I don't want to argue with you either,” he said. He stood back and reached for the ladder, avoiding Ben's eyes. There was something unfamiliar in his face. A helplessness. A powerlessness so alien to Kyle's demeanor that for a moment he looked like a completely different man, and Ben felt afraid for him.

  “Kyle?”

  Kyle turned back to face him, one hand on the ladder. “I'm going to have to hurt her myself soon, Ben.”

  Ben stepped toward him, truly frightened now. “What do you mean? You're not sick, are you?”

  Kyle shook his head. “No, nothing like that. I can't say just now. I'm only telling you that it's going to happen. I don't want her to feel betrayed by both of us at the same time.”

  –26–

  August 3, 1947

  Last night, on my 20th birthday, Sara Jane gave birth to a baby girl who has no arms. Susanna told me this morning and I guess it is the talk of Coolbrook. This baby has little dangly hands where her arms should be. Much as I had differences with Sara Jane in the past, I feel sorry for her now. Imagine how it feels to carry a baby all those months and be full of hope and joy, only to take one look at it and know it has no chance for happiness. I was trying to work on a story in the cave this afternoon, but I just can't get Sara Jane and her baby off my mind, so I figured I would have to write about it in my journal.

  I haven't touched this journal in a very long time. From time to time I come across the notebooks and feel like throwing them out. The journal seems like such a part of my childhood, and there is not too much about my childhood I want to remember. But something stops me from throwing them out each time I have a mind to. I feel awkward writing in the journal now. It's like meeting up with an old friend after too long an absence, having to get a feel for them all over again.

 
I did do a lot of writing this year, though. More than twenty children's stories—I needed the companionship of my young characters with both Kyle and Matt gone. But they are back now for the summer and Matt is quitting school to start a paper in Coolbrook. He's taken to wearing suits and smoking a pipe! But when he can, he changes to dungarees and helps Kyle and me dig. We have carved a pit into the earth in front of the cave and are finding arrowheads and pieces of clay. Even though Kyle's going back to school next month, he'll be home weekends to work in the pit. His interest in discovering what lies below the earth will keep him here. As for me, I've decided never to leave Lynch Hollow again. There is nothing for me outside except discomfort.

  I wrote other stories this summer too that would put Lady Chatterley and her lovers to shame. Those I've hidden. They are just for me and they were far more important than my children's stories in helping me survive this last year without Kyle and Matt.

  August 5, 1947

  Today I met Ellie Miller, Sara Jane's new baby. I woke up this morning after having dreamt about that baby for the fourth time—this time she had no feet, the last time no face—and I knew I had to see her.

  I asked Kyle if he would take me and he looked at me like I was crazy. “Leave her alone, Kate,” he said. “Let Sara Jane have her grief in private.”

  But something was driving me. Susanna said I could borrow her old bicycle, and though it's been a few years since I was on one, I had no trouble riding it. I picked a bunch of wildflowers from the field near Ferry Creek, stuck them in the basket, and went on my way.

  I've kept so close to the cave this last year that I'd forgotten how bad I feel out in the world. When I reached the part of the road with the cornfields on both sides I felt dizzy, like I would fall off the bicycle any minute. But I made it all the way to Coolbrook and felt right proud of myself. I was still nervous, though, and by the time I got to Sara Jane's door I was trembling.

  Sara Jane herself opened the door. She is big as a house and her eyes were puffed out, from crying, I assumed, and I felt sad for her.