The Secret Between Us

Chapter 2

It was another hour before the state agents dismantled their lights, and a few minutes more before a tow truck arrived. Deborah knew the driver. He worked at the service station in the center of town and was a frequent customer at her sister’s bakery. That meant Jill would hear about the accident soon after she opened at six.

Brian drove her home, pulling into the circular drive and, at her direction, past the fieldstone house to the shingled garage. She was exhausted and thoroughly wet, but as soon as she had closed the cruiser door and was sprinting forward hugging her medical bag and Grace’s books, she opened her phone and called the hospital. While she waited for an answer, she punched in the code for the garage. The door rumbled up as the call went through. “Joyce? It’s Deborah Monroe again. Any word on Calvin McKenna?”

“Hold on, Dr. Monroe. Let me check.”

Deborah dropped her armload and hung her slicker on a hook not far from the bay where her car should have stood. Leaving her flip-flops on the landing, she hurried inside, through the kitchen to the laundry room.

“Dr. Monroe? He’s in stable condition. They’re running tests now, but the neurologist doesn’t see any evidence of vertebral fracture or paralysis. He has a broken hip. They’ll deal with that in the operating room once this last scan is done.”

“Is he conscious?” Deborah asked, back in the kitchen, drying her arms with a towel.

“Yes, but not communicating.”

“He can’t speak?”

“They suspect he can but won’t. They can’t find a physical explanation.”

Deborah had run the towel over her face and was lowering it when she spotted Grace in the corner. “Trauma, maybe?” she speculated. “Thanks, Joyce. Would you do me a favor? Let me know if there’s any change?”

Still dressed, Grace was hunched over, biting her nail. Deborah pulled the hand away and drew her close.

“Where were you?” the girl asked meekly.

“Same place.”

“All this time?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Why did the police drive you home?”

“Because they don’t want me driving my car until they’ve examined it in daylight.”

“Isn’t the cop who drove you home coming in?”

Deborah drew back to study her face. They weren’t quite the same height, but almost. “No. They’re done for the night.”

Grace’s voice went up a notch. “How can they be done?”

“They’ve asked their questions.”

“Asked you, not me. What did you tell them?”

“I said we were driving home in the rain, visibility was terrible, and Mr. McKenna ran out from nowhere. They’ll have to go back along the road in the morning to see if there’s anything they missed that the rain didn’t get. I’ll file a report at the station tomorrow and get the car. Where’s Dylan?”

“He went to bed. He must have thought you were home. What do we tell him, Mom? I mean, he’ll know something happened when he sees your car missing, and besides, it was Mr. McKenna. This is such my luck that it was my teacher. I mean, like, I’m so bad at American history, people will think it was deliberate. What do I tell my friends?”

“You are not bad at U.S. history.”

“I shouldn’t be in the AP section. I don’t have a prayer of placing out when I take the test in June. I suck.”

If she did, it was news to Deborah. “You tell them that we couldn’t see Mr. McKenna in the rain, and that we weren’t going very fast.”

“You keep saying we.”

Yes. Deborah realized that. “I was the licensed driver in the car. I was the one responsible.”

“But I was the one at the wheel.”

“You were my responsibility.”

“If you’d been driving, the accident wouldn’t have happened.”

“Not true, Grace. I didn’t see Mr. McKenna, and I was watching the road as closely as if my own foot was on the gas.”

“But it wasn’t your foot on the gas.”

Deborah paused, but only for a minute. Slowly, she said, “The police assume it was.”

“And you’re not telling them the truth? Mom, that’s lying.”

“No,” she said, sorting it out even as she spoke. “They drew their own conclusion. I just haven’t corrected them.”

“Mom.”

“You’re a juvenile, Grace,” Deborah reasoned. “You were only driving on a permit, which means that you were driving on my license, which makes me responsible. I’ve been driving for twenty-two years and have a spotless record. I can weather this better than you can.” When Grace opened her mouth to protest again, Deborah pressed a hand to her lips. “This is right, sweetie. I know it is. We can’t control the weather, and we can’t control what other people do. We were compliant with every law in the book and did our very best to stop. There was no negligence involved on our part.”

“What if he dies?”

“He won’t.”

“But what if he does? That’s murder.”

“No,” Deborah argued, though the word murder gave her a chill, “it would be vehicular homicide, but since we did absolutely nothing wrong, there won’t be any charges.”

“Is that what Uncle Hal said?”

Hal Trutter was the husband of Deborah’s friend Karen, and while neither he nor Karen were actually related to the Monroes, they had known the children since birth. Their daughter, Danielle, was a year ahead of Grace.

Deborah saw Karen often. Lately, she had felt more awkward with Hal, but that was a whole other story.

“I haven’t talked with him yet,” she told Grace, “but I know he’d agree. And anyway, Mr. McKenna is not going to die.”

“What if he’s crippled for life?”

“You’re getting carried away with this, Grace,” Deborah warned, though she harbored the same fears. The difference was that she was the mother. She couldn’t panic.

“I saw his leg,” the girl wailed. “It was sticking out all wrong, like he fell from the top of a building.”

“But he didn’t fall from the top of a building. He is definitely alive, the nurse just told me so, and broken bones can be fixed.”

Grace’s face crumbled. “It was awful. I will never forget that sound.”

Nor would Deborah. She could still hear it—that thud—hours after the fact. Seeking purchase, she clutched Grace’s shoulders. “I need a shower, sweetie. I’m chilled, and my legs are filthy.” Keeping an arm around the girl, she walked her up the stairs and down the hall. In addition to the three children’s rooms, the third for a last child that Deborah and Greg might have had, there was a family room that had built-in desks, a sofa, matching armchairs, and a flat-screen TV. After Greg left, Deborah had spent so many nights here with the kids that she finally just moved into the third bedroom.

Grace was biting her nails again by the time they reached her door. Taking the hand from her mouth, Deborah looked at her daughter for a long, silent moment. “Everything will be fine,” she whispered before letting her go.

The texting had stopped before her mother got home, for which Grace was grateful. What could she tell Megan? Or Stephie? Or Becca? My mom is taking the blame for something I did? My mom is lying so I won’t be arrested? My mom could go tojail if Mr. McKenna dies?

Grace had thought the divorce was bad. This was worse.

Deborah had hoped that the shower would calm her, but warm, clean, and finally dry, she could think more clearly, and a clearer mind simply magnified what had happened. The sound of the rain didn’t help. It pounded the roof much as it had the car, and she remembered another night, the one when her mother had died. It had been pouring then, too.

Creeping into Dylan’s room, she knelt by the bed. His eyes were closed, dark lashes lying on cheeks that wouldn’t be smooth much longer. He was a gentle child with more than his share of worry, and while she knew that there were cures for his vision problems, her heart ached.

Not wanting to wake him, but helpless to leave without a touch, she moved her hand over his sandy hair. Then she went to her room, slipped into bed, and pulled the covers to her chin. She had barely settled when she heard Dylan’s steps, muted by the old slipper-socks that he wore every night. They were the last pair Ruth Barr had knit before her death, too big for him at first, now stretched so thin that they were about to fall apart. He refused to let Deborah throw them out, saying that they kept his Nana Ruth alive. In that instant, Deborah needed her mother, too.

“I tried to stay awake ’til you got home,” he mumbled.

Pulling him toward her, Deborah waited only until he set his glasses on the nightstand before tucking him in next to her. He was asleep almost at once. Moments later, Grace joined them, crawling in on the other side. It was a snug fit, though preferable to lying awake alone. Deborah reached for her daughter’s hand.

“I won’t be able to sleep,” the girl whispered, “not at all, the whole night.”

Deborah turned her head in the dark and whispered back, “Here’s the thing. We can’t rewind the clock. What happened happened. We know that Mr. McKenna is in good hands and that if there’s any change, we’ll get a call. Right?”

Grace made a doubtful sound but said nothing more. In time her breathing lengthened, but she slept in fits and starts. Deborah knew because she remained awake for a long time after that, and for reasons that went well beyond the drumming of rain on the roof. She kept seeing that striped running suit, kept feeling the jolt of impact.

Sandwiched between the children, though, she knew she couldn’t panic. After her marriage ended, she had made a vow. No more harm to the kids. No … more … harm.

The phone rang at six the next morning. Deborah had been sleeping for less than three hours, and the press of her children made her slow to react. Then she remembered what had happened, and her stomach clenched.

Fearing Calvin McKenna had taken a turn for the worse, she bolted up and, reaching over Dylan, grabbed the phone. “Hello?”

“It’s me,” said her sister. “I figured your alarm would be going off soon. Mack Tully was just in here. He said you hit someone last night.”

“Oh. Jill.” Relieved, Deborah let out a breath. She and her sister were close, though very different from each other. Jill was thirty-four to Deborah’s thirty-eight, blonde to her brunette, five-two to Deborah’s five-six, and the maverick of the family. Despite two long-term relationships, she hadn’t married, and while Deborah had followed their father into medicine, Jill flat-out refused to take any science courses. After one post–high school year as a baker’s apprentice in New Jersey, then a second year in New York and four more as a dessert chef on the West Coast, she had come back to Leyland to open her own bakery. In the ten years since her return, she had expanded three times—all to her father’s chagrin. Michael still prayed she would wake up one day, go back to school, and do something real with her life.

Deborah had always loved her little sister, even more in the three years since their mother had died. Jill was Ruth. She lived simply but smartly, and, like her bakery, she exuded warmth. Just hearing her voice was a comfort. Talking with Ruth on the phone had conjured the smell of warm, fresh-baked bread. Talking with Jill on the phone conjured the smell of pecan-topped sticky buns.

The image soothed the rough edges of fear. “It was a nightmare, Jill,” she murmured tiredly. “I had just gotten Grace, and it was rainy and dark. We were driving slowly. He came out of nowhere.”

“Was he drunk?”

“I don’t think so. I didn’t smell anything.”

“Vodka doesn’t smell.”

“I couldn’t exactly ask him, Jill. He wasn’t talking.”

“The history teacher, huh? Is he badly hurt?”

“He was operated on last night, likely to put a pin in his hip.”

“Marty Stevens says the guy is odd—a loner, not real friendly.”

“Serious is the word, I think. He doesn’t smile much. Did Marty say anything else?”

“No, but Shelley Wyeth did. She lives near the McKennas. She said his wife is weird, too. They don’t mix much with the neighbors.” There was a brief pause. “Wow. You actually ran someone down. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Deborah was a minute reacting. Then she said, “Excuse me?”

“Have you ever been in an accident before?”

“No.”

“The rest of us have.”

“Jill.”

“It’s okay, Deborah. This makes you human. I love you all the more for it.”

“Jill,” Deborah protested, but Dylan was awake and reaching for his glasses. “My boy, here, needs an explanation. I’ll see you as soon as I drop off the kids.”

“You’re not driving the BMW, are you?” Jill asked. She shared Deborah’s disdain for the car, albeit more for its cost than for memories of a marriage gone bad.

“I have no choice.”

“You do. I’ll be there at seven-thirty. Once you get to Dad’s, you can use his car. I don’t envy you having to tell him about the accident. He won’t be happy. He likes perfect records.”

Deborah didn’t need the reminder. The thought of telling her father made her ill. “I like perfect records, too, but we don’t always get what we want. Trust me, I didn’t plan on this. My car was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Gotta go, Jill. Seven-thirty. Thanks.” She hung up the phone and looked down at Dylan. At ten, he was more of an introvert than his sister had been at that age. He was also more sensitive, a character trait exacerbated by both the divorce and his vision.

“You hit someone?” he asked now, brown eyes abnormally wide behind his lenses.

“It was on the rim road, very dark, very wet.”

“Was he splattered all over the road?” the boy asked with a hard blink.

“Jerk,” Grace mumbled from behind Deborah.

“He was not splattered anywhere,” Deborah scolded. “We weren’t going fast enough to do serious harm.”

Dylan rubbed one of his eyes. “Have you ever hit anyone before?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Has Dad?”

“Not that I know of.”

“I’m going to call him and tell him.”

“Not now, please,” Deborah said, because Greg would insist that Dylan put her on the phone and would then hassle her with questions. Glancing past Dylan at the clock, she said, “He’ll be sleeping and, anyway, you need to get dressed. Aunt Jill is coming for us.”

There was another hard blink. “Why?”

“Because the police have my car.”

“Why?”

“They have to make sure it’s in good working order.”

“Is there blood on the front?”

“No. Get up, Dylan,” Deborah said and gave him a gentle push.

He got out of bed, started for the door, then turned back. “Who’d you hit?”

“No one you know,” Deborah said and pointed toward the door.

He had barely left when Grace was hovering at her shoulder. “But he’s someone I know,” she whispered, “and someone all my friends know. And you can bet Dylan’s gonna call Dad, who’s then gonna think we can’t take care of ourselves. Like there’s someone else who’ll take care of us if we don’t, not that Dad cares. Mom, what if Mr. McKenna died on the operating table?”

“The hospital would have called.”

“What if you get a call today? I need to stay home.”

Deborah faced her. “If you stay home, you’ll have to retake the test—and miss track practice, which isn’t a great idea with a meet on Saturday.”

Grace looked horrified. “I can’t run after what happened.”

Deborah knew how she felt. When Greg left, she had wanted nothing more than to stay in bed nursing her wounds. She had a similar urge now, but it would only make things worse. “I have to work, Grace, and you need to run. We were involved in an accident. We can’t let it paralyze us.”

“What if it paralyzes Mr. McKenna?”

“They said it didn’t.”

“You can really work today?”

“I have to. People depend on me. Same with you. You’re the team’s best hope for winning the meet. Besides, if you’re afraid of people talking, the best thing is to behave as you always do.”

“And say what?”

Deborah swallowed. “What I just told Aunt Jill. That it was a horrible storm, and that the car was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“I’ll flunk the bio test if I take it today. There’s another AP section I shouldn’t be in.”

“You won’t flunk the test. You’re pre-med, and you’re acing bio.”

“How can I take a test when I barely slept?”

“You know the material. Besides, once you’re in college, you’ll be taking tests on next to no sleep all the time. Think of this as practice. It’ll build character.”

“Yeah, well, if character’s the thing, shouldn’t I go with you to file the police report?”

Deborah felt a flash of pride, followed by a quick pang of conscience. Both turned to fear when she thought of the possible fallout if she let Grace take the blame. The repercussions wouldn’t be productive at all.

Very slowly, she shook her head, then held her daughter’s gaze for a moment before drawing her out of bed.

As always, it hit Deborah in the shower—the second-guessing about what she was doing. Between diagnosing dozens of patients each week, helping her father run his household without Ruth, being a single mother and having to make sensitive decisions like the one she had just made, she was often on the hot seat. Now she stood with her head bowed, hot water hitting her back with the sting of too many choices, until she was close to tears.

Feeling profoundly alone, she turned the water off and quickly dressed. The clothes she wore for work were tailored, fitting her slim frame well and restoring a sense of professionalism. Makeup added color to her pale skin and softened the worry in brown eyes that were wide-set, the adult version of Grace’s. But when she tried to fasten her hair in a clasp so that it would be neat and tidy as her life was not, it fought her. Shy of shoulder length, the dark waves had a mind of their own. Accepting that there was no going back to her orderly life, she let them curl as they would and turned her back on the mirror.

Mercifully, the rain had stopped. Sun was beginning to break through the clouds, scattering gold on trees whose still-wet limbs were just beginning to bud. Grateful for a brighter day, she went down to the kitchen, set out cereal for the kids, then phoned the hospital. Calvin McKenna was in recovery, soon to be moved to a room. He hadn’t talked yet, but he was listed in stable condition.

Reassured, she skimmed her Post-its on the fridge: pay property tax—Dylan dentist at 4—tennis camp deposit. Then she logged on to her e-mail and phoned the answering service. Had there been an emergency, she would have been called. The messages she received now—the flare-up of a chronic ear infection, a stubborn migraine headache, a severe case of heartburn—were from patients the receptionist would schedule when she arrived at eight. Her nurse-practitioner would examine the earliest to arrive.

Deborah was usually at her office by eight-fifteen, after seeing the kids off to school, stopping to have coffee with Jill, and checking on her father. He was booked to see his first patient at eight-thirty. These days, it was Deborah’s job to make sure that he did.

Her sister, Jill, though perennially at odds with the man, respected that. She appeared at the house this morning at seven-thirty on the nose. Having come from work, she wore jeans and a T-shirt. The T-shirt, always either red, orange, or yellow to match the bakery’s colors, was red today, and her boy-short blonde hair was rumpled from whipping off her apron. She had their mother’s bright, hazel eyes and the shadow of childhood freckles, but the fine lines of her chin mirrored Deborah’s.