Lovey

One Big Secret

In life, you have to be prepared for the surprises, good and bad, and take them in stride with grace and humility. But I never saw it coming that day. I was lounging in the elevated nursing home bed, sipping a cup of coffee with impossibly fresh cream that Luella had procured from the farmers’ market, thinking that this nursing home gig wasn’t so bad after all. All of my meals were prepared, Dan was taken care of and, even though I was as ready to get out of here as a two-week overdue woman is to give birth, there was such a sense of safety in knowing that, in an emergency, a team could be assembled for Dan as quickly as I could push a button.

I had talked to each of my girls that morning and was thrilled that all five of them would be coming that weekend. The love they had for each other, that bond, it made me so happy. But, in the quiet moments, it made me a little bit sad too. Even after my sister Lib and her husband had come back home, when the war had ended, we’d never been close. Through all of those years of her living in Charlotte and me in Raleigh, only a few hours up the road, we had never seen each other more than once or twice a year, never grazed beyond the niceties of conversations about children and work, cooking and keeping the house. Sometimes I ached for that missed opportunity, wondered what kind of sister I could have had if either of us had made the effort.

But, happily, I had been there a few days before she died. It had been unexpected, her death. Although, certainly, at ninety-four, death is always an expectation. Her last words to me were, “Lynn, I know I was never much of a sister to you. But I’ve always loved you so much. I’ve always prayed for you and the girls and been so happy for your happy life.”

Even as she said it, I wondered if my happy life had driven a wedge between us. I wondered if I had confided in her more, if we hadn’t been so busy keeping up appearances, if our paths could have collided in a more meaningful way, if we could have had even a fraction of what my girls had.

As well as my own face in the mirror, I knew there was no use harping on what might have been. And, besides, there was a silver lining. On the very bright side, where He hadn’t given me a close relationship with my real one, God had given me a sister to navigate every up and down with. In fact, I had spoken with Katie Jo that morning. While I was laid up in bed, she was getting in a new one. “I have a new beau,” she had said, giggling as though we were fourteen again.

“A boyfriend?” I had asked, feigning shock. Katie Jo had married once, years and years ago, but never had children. And that was just as well because her marriage began after I had Sally and ended before I had Louise. She swore she’d never do it again, and, truth be told, some birds just shouldn’t be caged.

“And, oh my Lord, he really is a boy, Lynn. It’s almost embarrassing.”

I laughed, the pain pulsing in my hip. But, in that moment, I envied her. I looked over at Dan, confined to his bed, me confined to mine. And I realized that maybe I’d had my last adventure. But not Katie Jo. Her last adventure would coincide with her last breath. That’s how it was always meant to be. “Do tell.”

“He is seventy-two, Lynn. Can you believe that? What would a seventy-two-year-old want with an eighty-eight-year-old?”

I laughed again. “Oh, mercy, Katie Jo. You know, I can’t imagine any man worth his salt that wouldn’t want you.”

She promised to visit. I hoped in the deepest part of my soul that I would see her again before one of us was gone. Hearing my best friend’s voice, the way we could still pick up right where we left off, had done my heart good. And I realized again that we might not have had the same momma and daddy. But, in my mind, Katie Jo would always be my sister.

I looked over at Dan again. He was dozing between frames of the black-and-white film on the screen, and I knew that everyone else in the world, everyone besides me, would say that my comfort in having a team to save him at any moment was an idiotic, cruel thought. Why, they would wonder, would I want to revive a man who had virtually no quality of life? But the thing about a long marriage, the overriding factor in an existence where you became one flesh with a man and never looked back, is that, no matter the personal cost, no matter the reasonable reality, you can’t bear the thought of being away from him. As incongruous as it may seem to the outside world, to the person with whom their body and mind has been joined for longer than a good many people are on the earth, not having them there, in any state, feels as impossible as staying on the ground without gravity.

I was nearly dozing off myself when the door slammed and both Dan and I popped up, alarmed. I couldn’t even question who it was before Annabelle peeked around the corner.

My family had been as faithful as hunting dogs about coming to visit us while we were here, realizing that, when you’re basically confined to a bed, the days seem too long even for someone who knows that her hourglass is almost out of sand.

“Hello, my darling girl,” I said, trying to sit up.

My smile faded quickly when I saw her closed body language, the way her normally relaxed and shining countenance was wrinkled and worried. “I know, Lovey,” was all she said.

My mind raced, and I could feel myself going pale because, in all my life, I’d had only one big secret. I looked over at Dan; he was gazing back into the television screen, completely unaware that the one thing we had tried the hardest to hide for more than fifty years might be out in the open. But that was impossible, I reassured myself. There was no conceivable way that she could know.

And so, taking a leisurely sip of my coffee, trying to calm myself, I said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about, darling.”

“I know about Mom,” she said.

I could feel my pulse racing again, realizing that it contributed to a vile throbbing in my hip. Calm down, I told myself. That could mean practically anything. Maybe Jean had been caught doing something illicit with campaign funds and Annabelle thought I knew. Or maybe one of my only daughters that I believed to be squeaky clean was also having a little fling.

“Darling, what in heaven’s name are you talking about?” I took another sip of my coffee, as casually as I could, though my heart was beating out of my chest.

“I saw the paper,” she said, crossing her arms indignantly. “I saw that form you filled out about Mom being adopted.”

I was racking my brain. I had burned those forms immediately when the new birth certificate was issued. “What form, sweetheart? Maybe you should sit down. Are you feeling all right?”

Annabelle laughed cruelly. “I wondered why someone as smart and methodical and prepared as you are would possibly risk keeping that form and getting caught. But now I see. You didn’t know it was in the lockbox, did you?”

I had been in that lockbox thousands of times. And I always looked at those birth certificates. I compared them to make sure that they were perfect. I counted pictures to make sure that each girl had the same number. I had created a spot where all five of my daughters would go after Dan and I were gone and never have a single question. I knew for certain that there wasn’t any sort of form in that lockbox. She was bluffing. I could feel myself calming. “Annabelle,” I said. “Why don’t you come sit by me. You’re not making any sense.”

That look she gave me, it was so mean and so hideous that I couldn’t believe it could even come from those big, beautiful eyes of hers. They were all beautiful. Every last one of the children and grandchildren in our family. But Annabelle was in a class all her own. Long and lithe, with skin that seemed to have an otherworldly glow. To see her so angry, the shadow on that gorgeous face with those impossibly high cheekbones, was the shock of my lifetime.

“It was stuck, Lovey. Practically glued to Mom’s birth certificate. The others might never have even noticed it. But it felt thick to me. And when I rubbed it together, that second piece of paper started to peel off. That piece of paper that you didn’t even know was there.”

I was finding it difficult to catch my breath. I looked over at Dan again, as if he was going to spring to life and save me from this inquisition. It had happened before. When I had needed him, even in this state, he had seemed to come back and take charge once again. But this time, just blankness. If I had been younger, I could have thought of an explanation. If Dan had been well, he could have smoothed this over. But she had seen the paper. She knew.

But then Annabelle said, “I can’t believe that you could cheat on D-daddy,” and I felt a flood of relief wash over me.

Daughters and granddaughters have a complicated relationship with their mothers and grandmothers. There is a vicious kind of love there, one that I would venture to say, while not as pure and untainted as their love for their fathers and grandfathers, goes deeper. It is the kind of love that ebbs and flows, fights and forgives. It is the kind of love that takes the bullet, recovers in the ICU and lives to tell about it. And I realized right then and there that I had two choices: I could stand in front of the firing squad and take it. Or I could tell the truth. I looked over at my husband, completely indefensible in his current state, and felt that rush of pity come over me.

And so I made the decision that any wartime wife worth her salt would. “I can’t be sorry for anything that led to the creation of a daughter and a granddaughter so sensational and first in my heart.”

I hadn’t admitted anything, so, in that way, I hadn’t actually lied. But I hadn’t totally told the truth either. But, like I’ve said before and I’ll likely say again, those little white lies are the only things that make any of our families what they are. When the truth would be too large a pill to swallow, a tiny omission of fact here or there keeps the peace like nothing else I know.

“How could you do that, Lovey? How could you lie like that forever? I mean, does Mom even know?”

“Calm down, love. Your mother is a perfectly happy, grown woman, content in the knowledge that two parents love her unconditionally. And there is no reason for her to ever have to question that.”

She shook her head. “I thought you were better. I have always had you up on such a pedestal, that you were there for D-daddy no matter what, that you had the kind of love story that would go down in the history books. I had you pictured as this steel magnolia who stood by his side faithfully no matter what. But you were no better than anyone else, after all.”

Before the lying and deceitful part, I would say she hit the nail right on the head about what kind of wife I’d been. And then she shocked me again, spinning around toward the door and saying, “You’re no better than Ben.”

And, with that puzzling and horrifying sentence, my girl was gone.