January 5, 1956
I love the word “sacrifice.” I love the hard and soft sound of it, the hard and soft meaning. Making it is the hard part, feeling good afterwards is the soft. Motherhood is like that, always having to put Eden's needs ahead of my own. I haven't had time to write more than a word or two since she was born, but I'm not complaining. The reward is great, because she is truly a beautiful, flowering little child. I like knowing that I'm absolutely necessary to someone else.
For Christmas, Kyle and Lou sent Eden a wonderful rocking horse carved from wood and painted a shiny gold with real horsehair for its mane and tail. Eden is seven months old now and not yet too impressed with any of her gifts, but I held her on the horse and Susanna took pictures we can send to Kyle.
He and Lou sent pictures of Machu Picchu and the other incredible archaeological sites in Peru. I'm a little envious of their work, but I know I could never go someplace like that. Even little trips to Coolbrook terrify me these days. It scares me sometimes. I cannot raise a child in a cave.
May 22, 1956
Kyle and Lou just left to return to Peru after a wonderful three-week visit. Kyle had a hard time tearing himself away from Eden. He adores her. I've tried hard over the past year to let him feel as though he knows her. I've sent pictures each week, and letters describing every new tooth, every cute little thing she does. Some men—most, I guess—would be bored by this. But Kyle writes back asking for more. He doesn't want Eden to feel like a stranger to him.
I offered them my big bedroom and double bed on the second floor but they refused to put me out. Instead they slept in my old room, the one Kyle and I used to share.
We spent much of their visit in the cavern where I've moved my typewriter again now that the weather's warmer. I see a difference in the way Kyle acts with Eden in the house, where Daddy and Susanna are around, and in the cave, where he is free to act more like a father than an uncle. Eden says da-da-da-da all the time—it is about all she can say so far—and I loved hearing her say that to Kyle. It made him nervous though. “Say Uncle Kyle, Eden,” he'd say to her, and Eden would respond “Da-da-da-da.”
She took her first steps right into his arms. For months now, she's been walking by holding on to my hands. I was walking her around the cave one day when Kyle crouched down and said, “Come to me, Eden,” and stretched out his arms. I let go of her hands and she staggered over to him, giggling all the way. That led Kyle to believe that she will never learn a thing unless he's around. He's taken to telling me how to raise her now, which amuses me and makes Lou roll her eyes.
They brought me a copy of one of my books, Child of the North Star, that had been translated into Spanish! I knew my books were in other languages, but I had never actually seen one. It was amazing, and what is even more amazing is that Kyle and Lou can read it.
A few nights before they left, they gave me a dance lesson in the cave. They'd brought a Victrola and some records with them and first Lou put on some Spanish music and danced by herself. She studied dance when she was in her teens and twenties. She is a very good and very sexy dancer. She wore a black top and skirt and she danced around the cave looking like she should be in the movies, kicking her leg up next to her head and letting it down real slowly, her head tossed back and one arm cutting through the air. Then she danced with Kyle, and I have to admit they look wonderful together.
I just watched them at first while Eden fell asleep in my arms. Then I took Eden back to the house and by the time I'd returned to the cave, Kyle had poured us each a glass of wine and said it was time for my lesson. First, Lou showed me the woman's steps, and then I tried to dance with Kyle. I don't know if it was the wine or just my natural poor coordination, but I could not master the steps and we got to laughing so hard we couldn't hear the music. Then Lou got behind me so she could guide me and we were both dancing with Kyle, me pressed between them, and suddenly none of us were laughing. I felt Lou's breasts warm against my back, one of her hands light on my waist, guiding me. Kyle held both of us against him with his arm. He's grown a beard and I liked the way it felt against my forehead. At first we followed the steps, and then we shifted into a tight circle, arms around each other and swaying to the music, rather drunkenly, I suppose. It had been so long since I felt the touch of adult human beings. I didn't want to breathe or speak for fear of breaking the spell. I felt enormous desire for the first time in a long time and I'm certain they felt it as well. But I knew none of us would give in to it. It seemed an unspoken rule between us, that we would enjoy this moment but carry it no further. So it seemed safe to rub my brother's back as we stood there, and he must have felt safe as well, because he rested his hand on the side of my breast and nuzzled my forehead with his lips. My body was so full of life. I felt drawn even to Lou, and I let my imagination dream for just a moment of the three of us undressing one another, making love on the cold floor of the cavern. I don't know how long we stood there like that, aware only of touching and being touched. The needle of the Victrola had been at the end of the record for many minutes by the time Kyle chuckled and said, “Lord, are we drunk.”
Lou lifted her head to kiss him. “We're smashed all right,” she said.
“I think we're stuck like this forever,” I said, pleased by the thought. “If any one of us lets go, the other two will topple over.”
“We'll have to move as a unit back to the house,” Kyle slurred, and that brought me to my senses. We would have to go back to the house, back to our separate rooms. I knew I would lie awake with that longing in my body, knowing that sometime during the night Kyle would leave his bed and join Lou in hers. He would make love to her in the bed that used to be mine.
I pulled myself gently from the circle. “I'd better get back to look in on Eden,” I said. That brought Lou and Kyle back to life and within seconds we had the Victrola turned off, the glasses picked up, and were heading through the dark forest to the house.
April 10, 1957
Eden is nearly two. She has loads of energy and it is a scramble to keep up with her. She will sit still for a picture book, though. Last night I was thinking about an old picture book Daddy used to read to Kyle and me when we were little. I went down to our old room and hunted in the bottom drawer of Kyle's dresser where the books Daddy used to hide for us are still kept. I found the book, but I couldn't get the drawer back in, so I pulled it all the way out and peered inside the dresser. Wedged into the back of the dresser I saw a long white box. I pulled it out, opened it and nearly screamed when I saw what was inside. My hair! The hair Mama lopped off for some misdeed I can't even recall now. I'd never thought about it or wondered what had become of it. Obviously Kyle had saved it. He'd tied a blue ribbon around one end and found this box somewhere. I sat and stared at the hair for a long time. It is blond, a dozen shades blonder than my hair is now, though not quite as blond as Eden's. The texture too is somewhere between my daughter's and my own. I wonder if Kyle remembers he squirreled this away. I managed to get it back in place in the dresser. I took the book I'd found into the parlor and settled down to read it to Eden, but my mind was in Peru. After I put Eden to bed I wrote Kyle a long letter. I didn't mention the hair. I don't want to embarrass him. I just wanted to feel close to him.
I try hard not to wish things were different. When the fantasy of being with Kyle tries to come into my mind, I push it out. On the back of my ledge in the cavern, I have dozens of stories I wrote long ago in which I imagined being with him, being his lover. Sometimes still I let those fantasies blossom to full flower. I think of Kyle being with Eden and me every day, working here by my side, sleeping with me at night. But thinking about it makes reality unendurable. So I try to put those thoughts aside and attend to the business of being a mother, a writer, an archaeologist. And a sister. That should be a full enough life for anyone.
Eden was making Cassie's bed in the morning when she noticed the long white box resting on the little dresser by the door. She knew what was in it immediately, although
the box was larger than she had imagined it to be from the journal. Kyle must have set it there when he came up to kiss Cassie good night the night before.
She finished making the bed while Cassie struggled to dress herself. Then she slowly, deliberately walked over to the dresser and lifted the top from the box. She gasped as the shiny gold tresses sprang free. She had expected something less, a few locks, perhaps, a hundred strands tied with ribbon. But the box overflowed with glittery blond hair.
She held the end tied with blue ribbon and lifted the hair from the box. “Look, Cassie,” she said. The hair was at least a foot and a half long and nearly too thick to get her hand around. Kyle must have scraped every strand from the kitchen floor on that morning fifty years ago.
“What's that?” Cassie looked up from the floor where she was fighting with her sandals.
“Your grandmother's hair. It was cut off when she was thirteen. Isn't it beautiful?”
“My grandma in the picture?”
“That's right. Grandma Riley.”
Cassie stood up and touched the hair, softly, the way she would stroke her kitten. “It's exquisite,” she said, and then sat down to resume dressing.
Eden set the hair back in the box, but first she checked the ribbon to make sure it was still holding. It was. The ribbon was tied in a series of double knots that would last forever, the meticulous handiwork of a devoted fourteen-year-old boy.
–44–
She was standing in the kitchen watching the rain spike against the driveway when the car pulled up in front of the house. The rain was so fierce she couldn't tell the color or make. Lou and Kyle were out for the afternoon and Eden hoped one of their older friends had not driven through this storm for a visit.
A man got out of the car, his face obscured by a large black umbrella, and it wasn't until she opened the kitchen door that she recognized Sam Alexander.
“Come in, Sam,” she said, as if she'd been expecting him. In a way she had. She'd thought he might call to tell her exactly what he thought of her now.
Sam left his umbrella on the porch and stepped into the kitchen, shaking off the rain. “Incredible storm,” he said. His blue shirt was damp, but every hair was still in place.
“This is my daughter, Cassie,” Eden said as Cassie emerged from the living room.
Sam reached his hand toward Cassie as though the little girl were an adult. Cassie took a step backward and gave him that hooded look she reserved for strangers.
“Cassie, Sam is Ben's brother.”
“No he's not,” Cassie said. “Ben's too old to have a brother.”
Sam smiled and Cassie grinned back, pleased that she'd amused him. “Ben builded me a dollhouse,” she said.
“Yes, I know.”
“Do you want to see it?” Cassie asked.
“I'll take a look at it before I go, Cassie.” Sam looked at Eden. “But right now, I'd like to talk with your mother.”
Eden sent Cassie back to the living room and Sam sat down at the table. He refused her offer of something to drink. She sat across from him. “You're angry with me,” she said.
He took off his gold-rimmed glasses and began cleaning them with his handkerchief, his green eyes never leaving Eden's face. “I'm way beyond anger, Eden. Anger's what I felt when Ben told me the two of you split up. What I felt after I read your quote in the paper was closer to rage. Closer to disgust.”
“I know,” she said. “I'm not proud of it.”
“Then why the hell did you do it?”
“Circumstances,” she said weakly. “Nothing I can really defend.”
He slipped his glasses into his shirt pocket. “You kick a man when he's down, Eden, you'd better be able to defend it.”
She leaned forward. “Sam, I'm worried about him. He has that Valium you prescribed. I know in the past he's thought of killing himself.”
Sam frowned. “He's always denied feeling suicidal.”
“He told me he considered it at one time.”
Sam stared at her. “God, if he ever…” He closed his eyes and covered his face with his hands, and Eden hurt for him.
She leaned forward, touched his arm. “Sam?”
He slowly lowered his hands to the table and she wasn't surprised at the tears in his eyes. “This has gone too far,” he said. “It's gone on too long. He's suffered more than…” He looked up at her, his eyes piercing. “Eden, I know for a fact that Ben is innocent.”
“How can anyone besides Ben know that?”
“Because I'm a psychiatrist. I understand human behavior. He didn't ever hurt your little girl, did he?”
“No.”
“See? If he were a child molester, he wouldn't be able to help himself. If the opportunity is there, he has to take it.” Sam's voice rose and beads of perspiration dotted his forehead. He stood up abruptly and paced to the sink and back again. “It's like a drug addict. A force outside himself takes over and he's helpless to stop it.”
“But there can be isolated incidents, can't there? I mean, he may have hurt Bliss but would never—”
Sam slammed his fist into the table and she jumped. “He did not hurt Bliss.”
Eden leaned away from him. She felt a little fear. Irrational. Still, she wished Kyle and Lou were home.
“I've got to be everything to Bliss now,” Sam said, pacing again. “Uncle and father. Jeff is useless. I can't stand the sight of him. He and Sharon include us in a lot of things for Bliss's sake—we're going over there for a barbecue tomorrow night—and I have to sit there and watch his smug face as he enjoys everything Ben worked for and no longer has.” Sam pulled his handkerchief from his pants pocket again and mopped at his forehead. Then he turned to face Eden, hands on his hips. “And you've certainly done a lot for Ben, haven't you? With your goddamned public condemnation of him?”
“Please lower your voice. I don't want Cassie to—”
Sam's face was flushed; the tendons stood out in his neck. “It would have been bad enough if you'd just broken up with him. He was so hung up on you that that would have devastated him quite enough. But to make him look like a liar, a user, when the truth is, you used him, right? I had your number all along. The superstar needed some entertainment while she was stuck out here in the country. He was good-looking, good in bed. You could—”
She stood up quickly, nearly knocking over her chair. “I think you'd better go.”
He looked at her, stunned, as though he'd surprised himself with his words. “God, I'm sorry.” He shook his head tiredly. “I'm very sorry. It's just that I don't see what's left for him.”
She thought of telling him he'd better worry about himself for a while. He seemed close to the breaking point. But she knew her concern would not be welcome.
He glanced toward the living room. “Let me see that dollhouse before I go,” he said.
She stood trembling against the sink, listening to Sam chat with Cassie. Hearing his voice from the next room, she would have sworn he was Ben. In a moment he was back in the kitchen. He opened the door for himself, and the sound of driving rain filled the room. He turned to look at her one last time.
“I'm angry with you because I'm angry with myself, Eden. You're not the only person in this room who's betrayed Ben. Think about that, will you?”
She frowned as she watched his car disappear behind the curtain of rain. Then she walked into the living room, where Cassie had every stick of furniture out of the dollhouse and on the floor.
“Let's put this away, Cassie,” she said. “We need to straighten up before Aunt Lou and Uncle Kyle get home.”
Cassie was quiet as she knelt in front of the dollhouse, helping Eden move the furniture inside the little rooms. “I don't like Ben's brother,” she said after a few minutes of silence.
Eden could certainly understand that. Sam was more than a little scary. She wondered what he was like with a fragile child like Bliss. “Why not, honey?” she asked.
“He's creepy. And he touched me in a bad way, M
om.”
She looked up indignantly and Eden's hands turned to ice.
“What do you mean, he touched you in a bad way?”
“He pinched my bottom.”
“He did?” Calm, Eden, calm. “When did he do that?”
Cassie pushed the little sofa against the back wall of the living room, the room Ben had wallpapered with tiny yellow daisies. “When he was going away he did it with his stupid old hand.”
Eden clapped her hand over her own mouth. “Oh my God,” she said. “Oh my God.”
Cassie looked frightened. She leaned over to hug her mother. “I'm sorry, Mommy.”
“No,” Eden said. “You have nothing to be sorry about. You're such a good girl to tell me.”
You're not the only person in this room who's betrayed Ben.
“You're so smart to know a bad touch from a good one.”
Think about that, will you?
She called Maggie DeMarco to ask her to watch Cassie for a while. Then she looked up the address she needed in Kyle's phone book. She left a note for Lou and Kyle, ran with Cassie through the rain to her car, and headed out of Lynch Hollow.
It was dark and the rain had finally let up by the time she found the house. She recognized it from the picture Ben had shown her, but it was more imposing in reality, with its long, clean lines and huge angular windows. She parked the car in the street and walked up the curved sidewalk to the front door. Although she'd spent the last few hours rehearsing what she would say, she was nervous.
She knew that the woman who answered her knock was Sharon, although her hair was shorter and blonder than in the pictures Eden had seen of her. Sharon obviously recognized her as well. She stood behind the screen door, lips pursed.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I need to talk to you, Sharon.”
“You've been intrusive enough already. That whole ruse about visiting Bliss's classroom—I thought that was so nice, Eden Riley taking time out to read to a bunch of little kids—until I found out that you were seeing Ben. He put you up to it, didn't he? Sent you to spy on her? He just can't leave her alone.”
Secret Lives Page 38
