Authors: Misha Crews
“Midge, listen to me.” Jenna gripped the phone with both hands, struggling to stay calm. “I have an emergency, and I need help.”
* * *
Jenna and Kitty spent the rest of the trip in silence. Jenna drove as fast as she dared, realizing that if they got into an accident, Christopher would be the one to pay the price.
Finally the river came into view, long and gray and sluggish along the shoreline. Jenna pulled the car onto the short grass by the water. She looked in all directions, hoping to catch a glimpse of Christopher, of Frank, or his car — anything, anything that would indicate they were close by. But she saw nothing except dead grass and dingy water, with icy frost rimming the shoreline. A long gray dock jutted sharply out into the icy river. Rowboats were lined up along the top of it, upside down, safely stored and dry. She switched off the ignition. “Now what?”
Kitty didn’t answer.
Jenna looked at her impatiently. “Kitty, what do we do now?”
Kitty turned tortured eyes toward Jenna, but still said nothing. Her face was pinched with fear.
Jenna tried to control her temper, but she could feel anger rising up inside her, masking the anguish of her fear and guilt. She reached out and grabbed Kitty’s arm, shaking it. “Pray to God, but row for shore. That’s what you said to me when my father died, remember? It’s time to row! Now tell me what Frank said to do when we got here!”
“Row,”
Kitty whispered.
Gibberish. Jenna collapsed backward with despair. Kitty must be out of her mind with fear. What were they going to do?
But then Kitty gestured toward the river. Jenna turned and looked where she was pointing. When Kitty spoke, her voice was weak. “He said to take a boat and row out into the water. He’s watching us. He’ll meet us out there.”
“And will he have Christopher?” Jenna asked thinly.
“He said he would.”
They looked at each other. It was madness, but what choice did they have?
The boats were heavy. The first one that Jenna and Kitty tried to right ended up splashing, upside down, into the icy water, throwing small but frigid waves up onto the dock and over their feet. Jenna could feel her teeth begin to chatter. Underneath her wool coat she wore only her housedress and sweater. She hadn’t even thought to put on socks underneath her boots, so desperate had she been to get out of the house and find her son. She clenched her jaw.
“We have to be careful,” she told Kitty. “We can’t let ourselves get injured, or we may not be able to help Christopher. We have to be careful for
him,
okay?”
Kitty nodded.
Slowly, with powerful determination and much screaming of muscles, they managed to flip the next rowboat into the water. They watched it bob, almost weeping with relief at their success. Then they climbed in.
It had been years since Jenna had rowed a boat. After getting herself and Kitty positioned as safely as possible, she inserted the oars into their hooks and moved them back and forth carefully, trying to get a feel for what she was doing.
The boat began to move. Each stroke took them farther from shore, and sent frosty droplets flying into the air and sprinkling back down again. Occasionally the heavy wooden oars would encounter a thin coating of ice floating on the hoary water, but they broke through easily and moved on. Jenna’s fingers grew cramped with cold and strain. Her arms burned with the unaccustomed exertion, and her lungs ached with each gulp of frigid air.
When it seemed like they were far enough out, she stopped and pulled the oars back into the boat with them.
They sat in silence, under the gray and unforgiving sky. Jenna could hear nothing but the lap of the water against the wood of the little wooden boat, and the terrifyingly delicate
chink
of ice drifting against itself.
Her eyes scanned the shoreline, but found no sign of Frank.
Cold wind blew soundlessly against Jenna’s ears. Her breath made lacy clouds of steam in the air. Her fingers and toes were already beginning to lose feeling. She flexed them determinedly, then tucked her hands under her arms, preparing for the eventual row back to shore.
Whenever that might be.
Suddenly it seemed possible to her that Frank might have no intention of coming to meet them at all. Maybe he would leave them out here all night to freeze to death. She had an image of floating out here in this tiny boat, she and Kitty. With darkness creeping across the sky, and frost crawling over their skin, killing it, turning it black and hard….
“The truth must come out,” Kitty said abruptly.
Jenna started. Those were the first words that had been spoken between them since they climbed into the boat. “What?”
Kitty repeated herself. “That’s what Frank said to me on the phone. ‘The truth must come out.’ Do you know what he meant by that?”
Jenna’s heart sank. This was the moment when she had to tell Kitty about Joseph and Maya. After telling her the truth about Christopher, this seemed like a small secret in comparison.
So why was it so difficult to speak? It was as if fear had crammed its fist down her throat, gagging her. She closed her eyes and thought of Christopher. “Kitty — ”
“Because
I
do,” Kitty interrupted.
Jenna sagged weakly on her plank seat.
“What?”
she asked again.
Kitty looked her full in the eyes. “I know what Frank was talking about. Oh, God, this is all my fault.”
She withdrew her gloved hand from the pocket of her coat. In it was a small, thick piece of paper, folded several times. She shoved it roughly toward Jenna. “I’m sorry,” she said brusquely. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”
Jenna took the paper, unfolded it and stared blankly at a familiar sight. It was the photograph of Bud, Maya, and Joseph — the same one she had found in Bud’s drawer all those years ago. This copy was heavily creased, and dirty, as if it had been folded and unfolded many times over the years.
Jenna looked up at Kitty. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say,” she said. “This picture — ”
“That woman is your sister,” Kitty said bleakly. Then she amended the statement. “Well, your half-sister.”
“This
woman?” Jenna felt shock rip right through her, blinding and hot. For a moment, she forgot everything: her guilt, her secrets, even her son. She searched Kitty’s face for the truth.
“Yes.” Kitty swallowed. Her face was gray with cold and grief. “Her name is Maya Sinclair. Her mother was…a friend of your father’s when you lived in Chicago. You probably don’t remember her. You were only three at the time.”
But Jenna did remember. She had seen a photograph of the woman sitting on Maya’s mantle piece. Jenna looked down at Maya’s face, and suddenly she saw the resemblance. Maya’s graceful carriage and flashing eyes were her mother’s, but the arrogant tilt to her head, and the square line of her jaw were all Lucien. “Dominique.”
Kitty looked out over the water, lips trembling.
Jenna continued softly. “That was the woman’s name: Dominique. She was a painter. I remember her now. She was a beautiful woman, very gay, always laughing. She gave me a watercolor set that I kept for years.” Another memory flashed. “And she painted that picture that Lucien loved. The one he took everywhere with him. The one I gave to Adam.”
“Your father loved her very much. When you left Chicago and went to the Netherlands, he asked Dominique to marry him and come with you, but she refused. Her life was in Chicago, and she was happy there. She wanted him to take an early retirement from the government and stay with her, but of course he would never do that. So he left. He didn’t know about the child until later. After Chicago, you moved overseas, and when you came back to Burke, he finally convinced Dominique to come east so he could be near his daughter. Dominique had remarried by that time, and she had a little boy. I think his name was Alan, or something.”
Alexander
, Jenna corrected silently. She didn’t dare to speak.
Kitty continued. “Lucien helped them find a house, a friend of his was able to line up a good job for Dominique’s husband. The husband was friendly with Lucien, he knew that Lucien was Maya’s father, although I’m not sure that Maya herself was ever told. Before Lucien died, he asked me to help take care of Maya, who was sixteen at the time. Dominique had passed away a few years before that, and Maya lived with her stepfather while she finished high school. I would sometimes go and visit her — ”
“Why?” Jenna finally broke in. A tight ball of anger had been growing inside her as she listened to Kitty speak.
Secrets,
she thought.
Lies. Frank was right. They’re all around us.
Kitty blinked. “Why, what?”
“Why did Lucien ask you to look after Maya? And why didn’t he ever tell me about her?” Jenna heard her voice break, and she struggled for control.
Kitty’s face softened. “Oh, sweetheart, don’t be hurt. He was afraid to tell you about Dominique or Maya. You were so young, and this was the ‘30s after all. The world is much more tolerant now.”
Jenna laughed bitterly. “I guess that maybe
tolerant
is a relative term. He should have told me. I was twenty when he died. That’s plenty old enough to hear the truth.”
“I wish he had told you about her. Just like I wish you had told me about Christopher.”
Jenna winced, but Kitty’s voice was gentle. Jenna tried to match the tone when she spoke next. “So why did he ask you to look out for Maya?”
“Well, her mother was gone, and I think he wanted — ”
“No, I mean why
you
. Why not someone else?”
Kitty looked away. “We were close, your father and I.”
“Close?” Jenna stared. “How ‘close’?”
Kitty met her gaze. “Very close.” She saw Jenna start to speak and rushed to forestall another barrage of questions. “When you moved to Burke in 1939, we began seeing each other.”
“Sexually.”
Kitty’s cheeks tinged with red. “Romantically,” she corrected. “Your father was a fascinating man, and I was lonely.”
“And Bill?”
“Bill never knew.”
It took a heartbeat for Jenna to make the next leap. “But Frank knows, doesn’t he? Frank knows all of this.”
Kitty nodded jerkily. “I don’t know why I told him. I just couldn’t seem to help it.”
“Frank has a way of finding things out,” Jenna said wearily. “It’s not your fault.” No wonder he was so furious, so confused, so crazed. Carrying all this knowledge around with him, not saying anything to anybody. It wouldn’t make for an easy mind. Jenna wondered what other secrets he was carrying. She thought about Oak Ridge, about the work he was doing at the Naval Station, and she shivered. She really didn’t want to know.
Jenna fiddled with the edge of the photograph that she still held in her hand. “And so how did you get this?”
“Bud gave it to me.”
“Why?”
“As punishment, I suppose.” She paused, her pale face growing grayer. “I took Denny with me to Arlington once, dropped him off at the local movie house while I went to visit Maya. This was the spring after Lucien died. Denny made friends with one of the ushers at the theater, and ended up going back there a few more times over the next month. The two of them met there and — ”
“Denny fell in love with her,” Jenna finished.
“Yes. I like Maya. She was a good girl, and I’m sure she’s grown into a fine woman. But — ”
Again, Jenna interrupted. “But you weren’t going to let your son marry her.”
Kitty drew herself up. “No. No, I wasn’t about to let that happen. I know what the world is like. Denny and Maya wouldn’t have had any more chance than Lucien and Dominique.”
No wonder Maya had insisted that Kitty wouldn’t accept her. “I thought you said the world was a more tolerant place now.”
“Tolerance and acceptance are two different things. Denny had a bright future ahead of him. So I sent him away, just for a little while.”
“On a trip to Mexico.” Disgust sat thickly in Jenna’s stomach.
“Yes.”
“And he died there.”
“Yes.” Kitty closed her eyes, trembling with grief long carried. “It’s appalling, I know. You don’t have to tell me.”
“And you don’t know the half of it.” Jenna held the photo out so that it was in front of Kitty’s face when she opened her eyes. Kitty recoiled slightly, but Jenna ploughed forward. She tapped the image of Joseph. “Do you see this little boy here? That’s your
grandson
, Kitty. That’s Denny’s child.”
“What?” Kitty grabbed the photo and studied it intently, as if she might see her dead son’s face come swimming out of it.
Jenna slumped backwards. “Did you ever even ask Bud who the baby was?”
“He said it was the child of a friend,” Kitty said numbly. All the animation had gone out of her.
Jenna shook her head. “It was his brother’s son. Your grandson. My nephew.”