Secrets 01 Secrets in the Attic (12 page)

"Why didn't he complain about that?"
"He did, but she had ways of hiding things from him. I know she stole from him at the drugstore," she added casually.
"Really? She stole from her own husband? I can't believe it."
"Everything I tell you, Zipporah, is true. See what I mean about holding back some secrets sometimes? I wasn't exactly eager to brag about all this."
"I guess not," I said.
"Forget about it. It's all in the pasty' she said, waving her hand as if she easily could wipe away everything that had happened.
We both heard the sound of the garage door going up.
"Who is that, your father or mother?"
"I don't know. I didn't expect either one, but I'm glad we got the kitchen cleaned up. Hurry," I said.
She gathered everything she was going to take upstairs with her and went out.
"Oh, I've got to get something for your dinner," I moaned.
"Don't worry about it right now. When you get a chance, you'll do it," she said, and tiptoed up the stairs. I watched her enter the attic and close the door softly. Then I went downstairs to see who had come home and why.
It was my mother, and she didn't look happy. "Why are you home so early?" I asked.
She looked at me without speaking and then took a deep breath and put her purse on the kitchen counter. "I had a terrible to-do with Beverly Bucci."
"Alice Bucci's mother?"
Alice's mother worked in the radiology department at the hospital.
"Yes. In the cafeteria. Apparently, her daughter and her friends have done a lot of gossiping about you and Karen lately, and Beverly Bucci got an earful. She cross-examined me as if she was one of the detectives who interviewed you. She was very loud about it, and a crowd developed around us. I told her how upset you were and how you didn't know all that much more about it than anyone else, and she actually challenged me, wagging her head and saying she couldn't understand that. 'How could your daughter be practically her sister and not know what was going on?' I let her have it between the eyes and. . ."
"What?" I said when she hesitated.
"Some doctors and my supervisor had to break it up. My supervisor told me to take the rest of the day off. I'm glad about it. I didn't feel comfortable leaving you here by yourself all day after what happened, anyway."
"I'm all right, Mama."
"Of course, you are, but you don't know how these things will affect you or are affecting you, believe me. The nerve of some people. She practically accused you of being an accomplice. If that daughter of hers gives you even the slightest trouble tomorrow, I want you to call me immediately. I won't stand for it," she vowed.
"I can handle Alice Bucci," I said with as brave a face as I could put on. The word
accomplice
made me shudder.
"Sure you can." She smiled. She looked around. "Smells like you baked a pizza."
My heart started to thump. I had cleaned up the kitchen well, but I didn't air it out.
"Yes," I said. "I made a small one. I had to keep busy," I said, hoping she would be satisfied with that.
She kept her smile, but it turned into a little smile of curiosity.
"But you had pizza last night with Daddy."
"I didn't even think of it, but you know me and pizza. I guess I could eat it every night."
"I guess so. Okay." She looked at the time "I have an idea. Let's go for a ride. I don't think it's healthy for you to be shut up here all day. I don't care about anyone talking about it, either. There are too many busybodies."
"Where will we go?"
"Down to that little shop in Wurtsboro where they sell those pretty and unique things for the house. We don't spend enough time together," she added. "It's my fault. I give too much of myself to this job. Pretty soon, you'll be off to college like your brother."
"I like to be with you, Mama, but you don't have to do this. I'm not complaining."
"I know you're not." She hugged me. "You're too sweet. I'm going up to change into something comfortable, and then we'll be off." She started out and then paused in the doorway.
"You would tell me if she called you, wouldn't you, Zipporah?"
"I would tell you if she called me," I recited back to her.
She held her gaze on me for a few moments, scrutinizing my face. Some alarm had been triggered inside her. There it was again, I thought, that extraordinary sensitivity a mother has with her children. Maybe I was good at being as poker-faced as my father when if came to speaking to the police, but my mother surely honed in on my nervousness. She was just unsure whether it came from being in the spotlight because of Karen or something else.
"Okay. I'll call your father to let him know where we are, so he doesn't worry if he calls or gets home before we do."
"He's going to be upset when he hears what happened at the hospital."
"That's all right. It's not your fault, Zipporah. I know you're thinking that, but none of this is your fault, understand?"
"Yes:" I said.
She flashed another smile and headed for the stairs.
I felt my legs soften, and I plopped down onto a kitchen chair and listened to her footsteps on the stairway. If she ever discovered Karen, she would be devastated by my withholding the truth. She would surely feel betrayed. It would never be the same between us. I was risking so much. I felt like running after her and crying, "Mama, please listen. Karen's in the attic, hiding. I had to help her. She is my best friend, and when you hear why she had to do what she did, you won't be angry."
Why not?
I should do that,
I thought, and started to rise, but then another voice inside me asked, "What will your mother feel like after she learns it all, even now? She's been defending you. Your father's been defending you. It won't make that much difference, and you'll lose Karen forever. Besides, maybe you really will be accused of being an accomplice, especially after holding back information. That detective made, it very clear."
I stopped and sat again.
It's too late, I thought. I've got to go through with it and wait for Karen to leave on her own.
A short time later, as my mother and I were driving off, I looked up at the attic window. Karen would see us go and know she could go downstairs and get herself water and something to eat for dinner. I hoped and prayed she would leave no clues behind. Every minute of every day, I would feel like someone walking a tightrope, I thought.
I knew my mother expected that our drive together and our fun shopping would bring us both some desperately needed relaxation and divergence. I had to do my best to get her to believe it was happening. I've got to be more like Karen, I thought, and move smoothly from one emotion to the next. Concentrate on it, I ordered myself.
My father was home before we returned. Despite my mother's reassurances, it was obvious that he was upset about her incident in the hospital when he heard about it.
"I'm not going to put up with this," he declared. "You tell me if anyone makes even the slightest accusation."
I wasn't sure if he was directing that solely to my mother or to both of us.
"People can be very nasty," my mother said. "What about the funeral, Michael? Are you going to be free to attend it with me?"
"I'll make myself free:" he said. "I'm taking the morning off, anyway. I have to get up to see Mom and explain why we didn't visit on Saturday. I'll get to the funeral right after that."
"When is it?" I asked.
"Tomorrow, eleven a.m.," my mother told me. "I'm sure there'll be people from other areas who are just too curious to stay home. What they expect they'll see, I don't know, but it's the first murder victim in a long time"
"Chief Keiser tells me that aside from a few suspicious hobo deaths during the summer, there have been none since the one that occurred in this house:'
"Allegedly occurred," my mother reminded him, and he laughed.
"Whoa. Who's the attorney in this family?"
They both smiled at me, worried that the talk of Harry Pearson's funeral would upset me even more.
"Lawyering is contagious," my mother said. I laughed at that, and everyone relaxed.
"What's for supper?" my father asked, and my mother went to prepare our dinner.
"Hey," she called from the kitchen. "You've been nibbling, Michael Stein."
"I have not," my father said.
My heart skipped a beat as he walked to the kitchen.
"Well, when I left this morning, this box of graham crackers wasn't opened."
"I had some," I quickly confessed.
"I thought you didn't like them," my mother said.
"Someone told me they were good with some jelly on them, so I tried it," I added. Karen had once told me that.
"Well, is it?" my father asked.
I nodded. "It's not my favorite thing, but it's okay."
"Nerves make us nibble and munch On things almost unconsciously," my mother explained, but it looked as if she was explaining more for herself and my father than for me.
"Eileen, let's get her calmed down before she eats us out of house and home," my father joked, which again broke the tension.
Our happier mood lasted through dinner. The phone rang a few times as the story of my mother's argument in the hospital cafeteria was circulated through the gossip network. Karen and I were always amazed at how quickly news like that spread. She thought it might be the birds that lighted on telephone wires.
"They fly around depositing the gossip on different telephone lines."
It was a funny idea. I'd miss those silly little conversations, I thought, conversations we didn't have to hide from the world and conversations we could hold without a dark shadow hovering over us.
Once again, after dinner, I lay quietly in my room and listened to see if I could hear her moving about above me, giving herself away. She was remarkably quiet, so much so that I actually wondered if she had left. She would at least put a note in my bathroom, I thought. Where would she go, anyway? How would this end?
I had a harder time falling asleep this night than the one before, because I kept anticipating what it was going to be like in school. I couldn't stay away another day. My absence would attract even more attention and interest.
The following morning, my father decided he would drive me to school. He didn't want me riding the bus. I knew he was hoping to prolong any confrontations or unpleasant discussions for as long as possible, and he also thought I'd have more insulation against them when I was actually in the building and under the supervision of the teachers. He gave me advice all the way there.
"Don't be like your mother and react to anything. Try to shrug it off. In time, it will all go away, believe me. The girls who disliked Karen will probably be the nastiest," he told me. "Speaking of that, how come she didn't have more friends, Zipporah?"
"I don't know," I said. Was he going to ask me why I didn't, either?
"Kids in school can be so clannish. It's hard to be a real individual sometimes. If someone is really annoying, don't hesitate to go to your teacher and ask for help. Don't think you have to carry it all on your shoulders. Karen took the easy way out, running away," he added. "For now, it seems easier, but it won't be easier later on, believe me. If she had any reason to do what she did, she should have gone to people who could have helped her."
He glanced at me to see how I would react. I looked out the window. I knew what he was doing. He was giving me every opportunity to tell him more, to tell him what I really knew.
"I know you feel sorry for her. That's all right. You should. She was your friend," he continued. "But Harry Pearson was well liked. No one can say anything bad about him. His customers thought he was compassionate and considerate, and as far as anyone could tell, he was providing a nice home for Karen and her mother. That's all true, isn't it, Zipporah?"
I closed my eyes. "I thought you didn't want me to talk about it for a while," I said. "You keep talking about it. You're making me so nervous I don't want to go back to school." My voice got so shrill it even surprised me.
"Yes, you're right. You're right. Sorry. I'm just as guilty as everyone else around here. Damn."
He leaned over to give me a kiss when we drove into the school parking lot. He held me a moment longer.
"I'm proud of you, Zipporah," he said. "Proud of the way you're holding up under all this."
It nearly brought me to tears, tears of happiness and tears of guilt. One again, I was on the verge of confessing it all and asking for his help and
forgiveness. He turned away before I could.
"Thanks, Daddy," I said, and got out quickly. If I remained a moment longer, I was sure I would confess it all.
I didn't look back, but I sensed he was sitting there watching me walk toward the school entrance to be sure I was all right. I passed through the front door. It didn't occur to me until then that Karen wouldn't be inside. We wouldn't hang out at our lockers and enjoy making comments about some of the other girls who buzzed around us like frantic bees. What I was actually afraid of facing were not the questions that would come my way but the little silences that Karen and I filled for each other to make each other comfortable and secure.
I suddenly felt as if I were entering the school for the first time, with a first-time student's anxieties. I was alone once more, searching for a friendly smile.
Who would become my new friend?
Whom could I trust with my friendship?
And who would want to trust me with theirs? Especially now.
In a few hours, Karen's stepfather would be buried but hardly forgotten. Her name would be on everyone's lips. All this would be happening while she moved in the shadows and behind the curtains of my house, because I was keeping her secret, a secret like a daily dose of poison that could make me sicker and sicker.