Secrets in the Shadows (3 page)

"The school is full of cliques. I don't exactly fit in with most of them."
"Nonsense. Tell me the truth. Have you turned down invitations to things, Alice, because .. ."
"No," I said sharply.
"Well, sometimes you have to go halfway. It's hard to find a perfect friend or friends. You have to forgive them for their failures. Why don't you just join something? Isn't there any club, activity that interests you besides your art? Once you're in something, you'll see how much easier it is to make friends, because you'll have common interests."
I didn't say anything. We walked on.
"It's just a suggestion," he said. "I want you to be happier."
He paused and looked out over a field of high, wild grass.
"I was thinking of buying this property once," he said. "Developing some modest housing. It's going to happen soon. People from New York are thinking more and more of this area for second homes. I might still do it. I've sent out some feelers through a real estate agent."
He glanced at me.
I didn't have much interest in any of that and he knew it.
He's just trying to change the subject,
I thought.
"No one's made fun of you lately, have they, Alice?" he asked sharply.
Last April there was a very bad incident. Two of the girls in my class, Peggy Okun and Mindy Taylor, were slipping nasty notes into my hall locker, asking things like, How can you sleep there? Do you hear the moans of Brandon Doral? (Brandon was supposedly murdered by his wife and buried on the property.) The worst note was, Who's hiding in your attic now? Is your mother back?
I didn't tell anyone about it, but one afternoon, after I had come home, one of the notes fell out of the math book in which I had put it, and my grandmother found it near the front door. She showed it to my grandfather and he went ballistic. I had to tell him it had been going on for some time. At his insistence, the principal put the dean of students on the case. Through observation, they discovered who had been doing it by catching them in the act. The hullabaloo it created was more disturbing for me than the notes had been. Both Mindy and Peggy were suspended for two days and then had a week's detention, but all that did was bring them more sympathy and make me look more terrible.
"No," I said.
"You'd tell me if they were, right?"
"Yes," I said, but not with any enthusiasm. He knew I wouldn't.
"Maybe we should have moved away," he muttered. I didn't think he meant for me to hear it.
He snapped out of his dark mood quickly, however, and talked about taking the family to a fun new restaurant in Middletown tomorrow night.
"Your grandmother made sure she had time off while Jesse and the kids are here."
"Isn't Aunt Zipporah coming to visit?"
"Oh, sure. She'll be here tomorrow morning," he said. "But Tyler will have to stay at the cafe. She'll be with us for a couple of days."
"That's good," I said. I so looked forward to seeing Aunt Zipporah, especially when my father and Rachel had come.
We turned back toward the house.
"Well," my grandfather said, "I suppose I should seriously consider resurfacing the driveway. I've resisted all these years, but your grandmother says it's embarrassing. I imagine the birds have been saying nasty things about us," he joked. "I can't think of anyone else who would care. The rabbits don't seem to mind, right?"
I smiled. It was so much easier to be with him than it was to be with my grandmother. Why wasn't he as worried about what I might have inherited and what I hadn't as she was? I wondered. Did he see or know something I didn't? Did he know the truth all these years?
"Can I ask you something, Grandpa?"
"Sure. Anything," he said. "Just don't ask me to be late for dinner."
"I'm serious," I said.
"Oh, no. When one of these Stein women gets serious, I'm in deep trouble." He paused. "What is it, Alice?"
"Were you absolutely positive that the things my mother claimed Harry Pearson had done to her were never done to her?"
He glanced at the house as if he wanted to be absolutely positive we were too far from it for my grandmother to overhear the conversation.
"I really wish you wouldn't be thinking about that so much, honey."
"I can't help it," I said.
He nodded.
"Well, I'm sorry to say there was never any doubt that she was a very disturbed person."
He looked like he was going to tell me more. I waited, holding my breath.
"Her story was quite fantastic, and there just wasn't any concrete evidence to support any of it. Could it somehow still have been true? Well, I suppose we should never absolutely discount anything. It's so long ago and so much damage has been done to the truth, whatever it is, that it's impossible to make any firm conclusions that will satisfy you--or me, for that matter. It won't change anything now."
"It would for me," I said.
"I meant for your mother." He turned to me. His face darkened with the shadow of his deep thoughts. "I don't know how you can do it or if you ever will, but somehow, I wish you could let it all go, Alice. Be your own person and put it away."
"I don't know who I am, Grandpa. I don't know how to be my own person."
"You will," he said and put his arm around me to squeeze me to him. "Someday, you will. I'm confident."
We saw the car my father and Rachel had rented coming down the road toward the house.
"Why does Rachel hate me?" I dared ask.
We watched my father turn into the driveway.
"She doesn't hate you, Alice," my grandfather said in a tired, frustrated voice. "She's threatened by you. I think you're old enough to understand. You're a part of Jesse that she doesn't want to admit exists. In time, she'll get more comfortable with you, especially when you come into your own. Until then, treat her like thin ice. Don't worry. I'll always be there," he added.
Even if my father isn't,
I wanted to add but didn't.
"Hey," my father called to us when he stepped out of the car. "You know how big the potholes are in this driveway already?"
"Really? I never noticed," my grandfather said and winked at me.
I smiled, and we walked back to join them. Rachel walked faster into the house.
"Where you guys been?" my father asked.
"I took Alice over to look at the Bedik property.
Still thinking about buying it all for
development. As an artist, Alice could envision it all better than I can."
My father looked at me.
"So what do you think, Alice?" he asked. "Is your grandfather crazy?"
"No."
"And even if I were, she wouldn't say so," Grandpa told him. They laughed.
"I'd like to see that painting we were talking about before I left," my father told me. "Where is it?"
"In the attic," I said. He flashed a look at my grandfather and then at me, his eyes at first full of trepidation and then, suddenly, brightening with excitement.
"Okay. Let's go take a look."
He had never, ever been up there with me alone. My heart didn't pound; it twittered and then filled me with an electric excitement that streamed down my body as we all headed for the front door.
Rachel had gone to put away whatever she had gotten at the drugstore. My grandmother was in the kitchen, and the twins were still fast asleep.
"I have to make a few calls," my grandfather said. He glanced at me I think he wanted to make it possible for my father to be alone with me.
My father nodded. He looked a little nervous but started up the stairway. I looked down the hallway to see if Rachel was coming back, and then I hurried up after him. When we reached the second landing and the short stairway to the attic door, he stepped aside to let me go first.
My eyes were practically glued to him when he came into the attic behind me. Of course, he knew how it had been changed, but still, coming up here had to have a special meaning for him. As he panned the room, I could almost see him turn back into the boy he had been years ago. Memories were surely flashing across his eyes in snapshot fashion. Selfconscious at how he was behaving, he quickly turned to me.
"Dad's improved the lighting up here, I see." He nodded at the rows of lights in the ceiling. "Where's the new painting?"
I stepped up to an easel and uncovered the picture. He approached and studied it as if he were truly an art critic, nodding and smiling.
"I see what Dad means. It's very good, Alice. You've really blended those colors well, and I love the sort of -kinetic energy you have in the turn of the leaves. Is this any particular tree on the property?"
"Yes," I said, moving toward the windows that faced the rear of the house.
He stepped alongside.
"See across the field to the left?"
"Oh yes."
"When I'm up here for a while, looking out the window, concentrating, I see things that would ordinarily be missed," I told him
"Really? Like what?"
"Things," I said. I took a breath. "Things I imagine my mother must have seen spending hours and hours alone, looking at the same scene."
He was silent.
Had I violated some unwritten rule by mentioning her? Was this the end of our special time together?
"Actually," he said, "I'd like to talk to you about all that."
Was I hearing correctly? I dared not utter a word, a syllable, even breathe.
"Dad . . . and Mom are worried about you, Alice. It's part of why I worked out this short holiday for Rachel, the boys and myself."
"What is?"
"You," he said.
"What do you mean, me?"
"You have to start thinking about your future. Even if you want to become an artist, you've got to expand. Any artist, writer, songwriter, anyone in the creative fields has to have real experiences from which he or she can draw to create."
"Emily Dickinson didn't," I said. "She was like a hermit. She wrote poems on pillowcases."
"But think of what she might have achieved if she had gone out among people, events, activities."
"She's in our English literature hook. She's that important to our literature. She didn't need real experiences. She invented them, imagined them."
"You're a pretty smart girl, Alice, a lot smarter than I was at your age, I'm sure, but believe me, you have a great, deal to give to other people and draw from other people. You've got to let yourself go. Join things. Dive into it."
"That's what Grandpa was just telling me," I said. I nodded to myself.
This is a conspiracy, all right.
"You should listen to him. He never gave me bad advice."
The entire time we spoke to each other, my father and I looked out the window and not at each other. We rarely looked at each other directly.
"I know it's been hard for you," he continued. "You inherited a lot of baggage, but you have to step out of it."
"Like you did?" I asked and turned to see his reaction.
For a moment his lips trembled and I thought he was going to be angry, but then his face softened and he nodded.
"Yes," he said. "I was selfish, but you do selfish things to survive sometimes. What I owe you, I can't even begin to pay back. Your grandparents stepped up to the plate on my behalf, pinched hit. They've done a better job than I could have. That's for sure, but they're ,,both very worried about you, as I said, and it's time I stepped in, too."
"To do what?"
"Help you in any way I can, Alice."
"Any way?"
"I'll do whatever I can," he said, which I knew meant whatever Rachel permitted. "I mean, I want to give you advice, guidance, be a sounding board. I hope it's not too little too late, but . . . well, you see what I'm trying to say, don't you?"
I turned away and looked out the window again. I did, but I wasn't sure that what he was offering was anywhere nearly enough.
"Dad's right," he continued. "You have to let go of the darkness, Alice."
"You want to help me do that?"
"Yes. Very much," he said. "If I can."
"Okay," I said and slowly turned to look at him, blue eyes to blue eyes. "If you really mean that, then tell me everything," I said.
"Everything?"
"Tell me exactly who she was and tell me what happened up here."

Of course, I expected my father to shake his head, mumble some excuses and flee the attic, but instead, he walked back to the small settee my grandfather had put up here and sat. I didn't move from the window.

"When I see you standing there by that window, Alice, with the afternoon light playing around you like that, you really do remind me of her. There is a remarkable resemblance. I used to think that was lucky for me. No one would look at you and think there's Jesse Stein's daughter. I could continue to pretend I wasn't responsible. I was very immature then."

"I'm about the same age she was when she was up here, right?"
"Yes, but of course, I knew her before all that. The truth is, and your aunt Zipporah doesn't even know the true extent of this to this day, I had seen your mother secretly a few times before she was up here. I knew how close your aunt and your mother were, and I thought your aunt would be quite upset about it."
"Then you didn't think she was crazy all the time or else you wouldn't have been seeing her, right?"
"No, I didn't think that," he said and smiled. "She was pretty unusual, unpredictable, however. You'd never know what she would do or say. She could change moods in an instant and loved doing and saying things that had shock value. I had never met another girl like her and haven't since. She was like a wild mare you wanted to corral but never could. She couldn't stand any sort of confinement, whether it was physical or mental or emotional, which was why I'm sure she hated being up here."
He laughed.
"Why is that funny?"
"That isn't, but she once told me she'd never fall in love because falling in love turned you into a slave, took away your independence. She said she'd rather fall in and out of love continuously, even with the same person, which is what I think she did with me."
"Why did you want to help her? Why did you keep her secretly up here after you learned what she had done?"
He looked away, and he was quiet so long, I thought that was that. He had told me as much as he ever would or could. I gazed out the window, then looked at him again.
"It was selfish," he finally said.
"Selfish? How?"
"I had found a way to control her, to keep her under my power. She needed me, depended on me. The short time we had up here before it all fell apart was ironically the happiest time I had with her. We pretended we were married and in our own home.
Actually, pretending anything made her comfortable.
"It was very wrong and later, it was very painful I had betrayed the people who loved, trusted and believed in me the most. For that reason alone, nobody wanted Karen to be telling the truth about what had been going on in her home more than I did. It wouldn't completely excuse what I had done, but it would help explain it and in some ways rationalize it. No one was more disappointed than I was the night your aunt and I discovered that the story your mother was spinning was a total fabrication."
"Total?"
"It was just too fantastic, bizarre. She had depicted her stepfather to be some Norman Bates character from
Psycho.
She told both Zipporah and me some things going on at her house that we found not to be true. All the stories about a separate apartment for Harry Pearson's mother proved false, for example, and therefore all the things she claimed had gone on in there were obviously just as false."
"But why would she do something so terrible to her stepfather then?"
"As I said, she was a very complicated person. Something just cracked inside her, I suppose. That's something people trained and educated in psychology will have to answer or maybe have already."
"You don't know?"
He shook his head, a look of shame washing over his face.
"No, I didn't keep up with her situation."
"Did you ever tell her that you knew what she had told you and Aunt Zipporah was all untrue?"
"Yes, of course. Right in this attic," he said, looking around. "Matter of fact, she stood by that window when we told her."
"What did she say?"
"She said her mother was lying, the police were lying, everyone was lying but her."
"Then what did she do?"
"She just walked out and went home, or tried to. Your aunt and I called your grandfather, and he called the police. They picked her up strolling down the street as if nothing was wrong, nothing had happened. I suppose she was in some state of shock. From there, she went to a mental clinic where they diagnosed her as delusional and, well, you know the rest of it."
"No, I don't. Talking about my mother is practically forbidden in this house. Grandma gets so upset at the mention of her name, she practically faints. Didn't you ever go to see her? Ever?"
He stared at me, and then I saw him glance at the attic door.
"You did, didn't you?" I pounced.
"No one knows," he said almost in a whisper. "Not even your grandfather." He thought for a moment and then said, "Maybe keeping it secret doesn't matter anymore."
"Tell me about her. Please," I begged and inched closer to him. "What was she like when you visited her?"
"She was Karen again," he began. "Doing what she does so well to cope with the reality she hated."
"What do you mean?"
"She had created a whole new scenario to explain where she was and why she was there. She didn't act at all like a patient in a clinic. It was as if the whole thing, everyone working there, was at her beck and call, there solely for her.
"First, she looked absolutely beautiful--radiant, in fact. I had been expecting to find a defeated, mousy young woman, wrapped up in her own madness, impenetrable, shut up tightly. I feared that not only would she ignore me, but she might turn on me, be enraged."
"And?"
"She was the complete opposite, buoyant, cheerful, back to the way she had been when Zipporah first had met her. She came rushing out of her room into the hallway to greet me. Her hair was longer and she had done something clever with her bangs. She extended her hand and, NI never forget, said, 'Jesse, how sweet of you to make the trip to see me. How are your parents and your sister? You must fill me in on everything you've been doing. Don't leave out a single thing.'
"I glanced at the nurse who had escorted me down the corridor and saw she was smiling. Later, I found out everyone there enjoyed your mother. Contrary to what I had expected, she was not only not depressing, but she cheered up other patients and made the staff comfortable as well. It was remarkable. I felt as if a coat made of iron guilt had been lifted off me. I couldn't help but laugh myself."
"When was this? I mean, had I been born?" "Yes. It was nearly a year later."
I hesitated to ask and then blurted, "Did she remember giving birth to me?"
"She never mentioned it and I was afraid to say a word until she did."
"Then she never asked about me?"
"No," he said. "I'm sorry, Alice. I'm sure it had to do with her mental condition."
I nodded. My grandmother had told me the truth, but that didn't make me feel any better. If anything, I felt even more alone now, even more lost.
I sat on the settee.
"That seems so incredible," I muttered in disappointment.
"Psychiatrists attribute it to the brain's defense mechanisms. It was too difficult for her to face it, admit to it, whatever. Selective amnesia, I once heard it called. We all do some of that."
"Well, what did she remember then?"
"Seemingly most everything else, but nothing specific about the events relating to Harry Pearson. She went around ugly things, babbled about the village, the people, laughed about things she had done with Zipporah. After a while I realized she was talking incessantly partly to keep me from talking, from asking anything, I think."
"How did she explain being where she was?"
"That was what I was referring to. She told me she was being studied by some of the world's most renowned psychotherapists, and had agreed to it to do something worthwhile in her life. She told me as a result she was treated like some sort of princess and everything I saw, all these people, were at her disposal. She could order anything she wanted to eat. She had her own television set, clothes, magazines, books, anything. 'I merely ask and it is done,' she told me. She assured me I would be reading about her someday in magazines and books.
"She acted as if the clinic were a palace, her palace. She showed me about the place and introduced me to everyone, telling them I was her first high school crush. The way some of the staff members reacted to her made me think that they thought she was telling the truth. She was there because she had volunteered to be there. She did appear to have the run of the place without any restrictions.
"Toward the end of my visit, she asked me if I didn't think she had been so lucky to get out of our sleepy village and do something interesting with her life. Of course, I said yes and she told me not to worry. I'd surely find my way out as well and do something worthwhile.
"I asked her if there was anything she needed, anything she wanted. She smiled and countered with, 'But Jesse, what could I possibly want that I don't have?'
"I kissed her on the cheek and started out. Before I reached the door, she was talking and laughing with some of the staff as if my visit were nothing more than a slight interruption, as if what she had said was true, I was a young girl's infatuation, some memory pasted in an old album and basically forgotten.
"It did me a lot of good to make that visit, however. As I said, it relieved me of guilt. Maybe she knew what she was doing. Maybe that was her gift to me. I never went back, never wrote to her or called. That's why I don't know anything about her condition now. I'm sorry," he added, seeing how silent I was, "sorry that I don't have anything to tell you that would help you understand more."
"Jesse!" we heard Rachel calling
He looked at me.
I had to get it out quickly, get out what gnawed at my heart, my very soul.
"If the only explanation for what she did is madness," I said, "then I'm afraid whatever that madness was will someday awaken in me, too."
I didn't think he had ever thought I had that fear. He looked a bit shocked for a moment.
"Jesse!" Rachel called again.
"Coming!"
He stood up. "The wonder of the genetic pool is that we're all different, Alice," he said gently. "You look like her, but you're not her, and besides, you're growing up under different circumstances, different conditions. That plays a role in things as well."
He looked at the door.
"We'll talk about it some more when we can, but what you're feeling and thinking is what's worrying Grandma and Grandpa, Alice. You've got to break out of this. Get into the stream of things so you can develop all your potential."
"I know," I said. "Join clubs, make friends." "There's nothing wrong with being happy," he said, starting away.
"Unless it's all pretend," I tossed at him. He paused at the doorway.
"It won't be for you," he said. "Give yourself a chance." He nodded toward the painting I had done of the tree. "That is a remarkable piece of work for someone as young and as untrained as you are. Grandpa is right: you're going to do something with your art."
He left the door open and descended. I looked at the window again. Using my memory from the pictures, I imagined my mother standing there and listening to my father and my aunt reveal that they had determined she had fabricated the whole story and therefore had done a terrible, terrible thing The two people she had trusted and depended upon were casting her out to sea in a small boat. She would soon be at the mercy of whatever winds occurred, tossed and thrown every which way, and no one would be there to rescue her, not even her own mother. No wonder she had wandered off in a daze.
I had never met my mother, but I could cry for her, because in my mind and heart, I was crying for myself.
I rose and walked out of the attic, closing the door softly behind me. I could hear the twins below. They had wakened and were running through the house, playing some sort of hide-and-seek game with my grandfather. I quickly realized my father and Rachel were in their bedroom with the door closed. Was he already paying the price for being my father for fifteen minutes?
When he came out, I saw that the tips of his ears were crimson. Whatever had been said in privacy had stung him. It was easy to envision Rachel as a bee or a hornet. There was a sharpness to her every move and gesture, a biting precision to her words. I went right to work to help my grandmother with the evening meal and avoided Rachel for as long as I could.
It wasn't the most pleasant dinner we had with all of us. Nothing the twins did at the table pleased Rachel, and soon it felt as if we were all on edge. My father's eyes were full of apologies. I saw how unhappy my grandfather was becoming, too. I was glad when we were finished with our dessert and I could help my grandmother in the kitchen and get away for a while. While I was helping her, I realized just how well planned the conspiracy was. She surprised me with her new offer.
"How would you like to do a little shopping with Rachel, Zipporah and me tomorrow? Zipporah should be here by late morning. We thought we'd all go to lunch and hit some of the department stores."
"What sort of shopping?"
"You need some new clothes, Alice."
"Rachel wants to go, too?"
"Yes. You see how fashionable Rachel is. She keeps up on it all better than either Zipporah or I do. Your grandfather and Jesse are taking the twins to the fun park. Okay?"
I shrugged.
"I don't care," I said.
"You'll feel better about yourself when you have new things, Alice. I know I do. Sometimes, nice clothing gives us more self-confidence."
"Changing clothes isn't going to win me new friends, Grandma," I said.
She slapped the kitchen counter so hard, I was sure she hurt her hand.
"Do you have to always be so negative, Alice? Do you have to bite every hand that tries to feed you?"
I didn't respond, but I felt the tears burning under my eyelids.
She turned to me.
"We're all going to enjoy ourselves," she said firmly, "whether we like it or not."
I nearly smiled
"Okay, Grandma," I said. "I'm sorry."
"Good. I'll finish here. Go spend some time with the twins," she told me.
They were lying against and over Grandpa Michael in the den and watching television as if he was a big human pillow. The moment they saw me, however, they practically leaped up to play the mechanical bowling game my grandfather had in his den.
"Thank God! Reinforcements," my grandfather cried.
I didn't mind spending time with the twins. Despite Rachel's continually complaining about their behavior, I found them to be very intelligent and very perceptive. Of course, I wondered what, if anything, we shared because we shared a father. Their outgoing, buoyant-personalities were so different from mine. Someday, I thought, they would learn I was not their aunt; I was their half sister. How would they react, feel? Would that make them think of me as weird? Would they then not want to have much to do with me? The lines that tied me to family were so fragile that I was sure it wouldn't take much to shatter them.
That night I went to sleep thinking about all the things my father had finally told me. I wondered if this meant that other doors would open, that Aunt Zipporah would be more forthcoming as well. Of everyone, she had been the least reluctant to talk about my mother, but I always felt she held back things nevertheless. Maybe, just maybe, they had all discussed me and had decided I was now old enough to know whatever they knew. Once again, I felt this wasn't just another family gathering. This was the beginning of some new day, and I couldn't wait to see what exactly it would bring and what it would change inside me.