Whisper Me This Read online

  He watches her walk out of the room—the glorious hair, the slim hips, the easy way she walks even when she’s clearly exhausted—and knows he has opened the door to a whole heap of trouble.

  Chapter Ten

  Exhausted as I am, sleep lurks just outside the boundaries of consciousness and refuses to come closer. The old couch has a lump right under my shoulder blade and is about an inch too short to let me stretch out my full length.

  Awake, I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a precarious slope of secrets. One tiny misstep and I’m going down in a rattle of loose shale. Truth is more likely to kill me than set me free. My subconscious grasps this theme, and every time I manage to drift off, I wake with a start and the sensation of falling.

  My brain goes over and over and over all the problems I need to solve. My dad, so lost and confused and accused of unthinkable atrocities. My mother. Her injuries, her missing advance directive, her gun. Which leads me to Tony. I can’t decide whether he counts as problem or solution. Either way, the memory of my face pressed up against his hard-muscled chest, his hands smoothing my back, does nothing to relax me into sleep.

  At the first sign of the coming dawn, I give up the battle and get up. Breakfast is leftover pizza, cold out of the box.

  I take a bite, but the congealed cheese and flabby crust make me gag. I’m too worried to eat.

  I’ve already called the hospital. My father is resting comfortably, whatever that means in medical speak, and my mother is stable. Neither of these terms reassures me.

  “Can we please go to the grocery store?” Elle asks. “Not that I’m opposed to pizza. But maybe we should have a vegetable for lunch.”

  “You’ve got a point.” My brain is running on Mom’s missing advance directive and whether I really want to find it or not, and if so where it might be and how to access her safe-deposit box. But a stop by the grocery store might just be more immediately important.

  When the house phone rings, I figure it’s Greg again and don’t answer, but Elle picks it up.

  “Hey,” she says, “do I know you?”

  This is her standard initial response to telemarketers. What happens after that varies depending on her mood. Sometimes she’ll lead them on by pretending to be me and having great interest in whatever is being offered. Sometimes she’ll ask the sort of questions that would make a preacher run for the hills.

  Listen, Steve, my mom won’t talk to me about this. Since I’ve got you on the phone, can you explain why women were stoned in the New Testament if a man slept with them during that time of the month?

  So I’m only half listening before I realize that she’s actually making plans with some unknown caller.

  “Sure, that would be awesome. Ten? Yep, hang on, I’ll ask her.” She mutes the phone. “Hey, Mom, can I go to the gym with Mia? And then maybe shopping and the afternoon movie?”

  I stare at my daughter, bewildered. She’s been with me the whole time we’ve been here, and somehow she’s managed to make a friend.

  “Who?”

  “Mia. Tony’s sister. Here, you can talk to her.”

  She unmutes the phone. “Here’s my mom.”

  “Hey,” a female voice says, as casual as if we’ve been BFFs forever. “How are you doing this morning? Sorry about last night, by the way. Tony said you thought I was his girlfriend. Now that’s the funniest joke, like, ever.” And she laughs as though she means this, then stops, just as abruptly. “Oh God, I’m doing it again, aren’t I? I can’t help myself. You haven’t said a word yet, and I’m still going on. You are actually there, right? Hello?”

  “Yes. Hi. I’m here.”

  “Cool. So anyhoo, if I haven’t scared the pants off you yet—I promise I’m not a nutcase. You can ask Tony. I just talk. A lot. Anyway, I wanted to help if I can. So I thought maybe you’d like to have me pick up Elle and keep her busy today so you can take care of family stuff.”

  “Um . . .”

  “I’m good with kids. I’ll be by in about twenty minutes. Okay? She’s in good hands, I promise. Nothing on my driving record. Or my legal record. Oh, wait. Better come clean on that. There was that shoplifting charge when I was eleven, but I’m all over that. Scout’s honor.”

  She pauses for a breath, and I dive in with, “Look, I—”

  “Right? It will be so much better this way. And don’t worry—I’ll enjoy it. I happen to have the day off and not a single plan. Colville is incredibly dull this time of year. See you in a few.”

  “Listen, Mia, I don’t think . . .” But she’s already gone, and I’m talking to dead air.

  Elle squints her eyes and wrinkles her nose. “Don’t you look at me like that, Mom. I know what you’re thinking. Do you really want to drag me around with you doing boring stuff when I could be having fun?”

  “Elle, we don’t even know this woman.”

  “She’s Tony’s sister.” This declaration is delivered as if we’ve known Tony for thirty years, rather than a few hours.

  “Right. And Tony responded to our 911 call and bought us a pizza. That doesn’t exclude him from the predator pool. He could be a serial killer, for all we know.”

  A damned attractive serial killer, I add to myself.

  “Mom. Please. You’ve been watching way too much TV. Maybe she could take me to see Nana. I should visit her, right?”

  Guilt again.

  I’m not fond of Greg’s mother and she isn’t fond of me, but she is still Elle’s grandmother, and they don’t get to see each other often. I hadn’t even thought about Elle wanting to visit her. And I really do have some things I need to do that would be better accomplished without the assistance of a twelve-year-old Sherlock Holmes.

  “Well,” I say, considering, and Elle knows she’s won.

  She hugs me, a quick, tempestuous squeeze around the neck. “You worry too much,” she says. “It will be fine.”

  Mia shows up at about double her estimated twenty minutes, out of breath and apologetic. “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t find my shoes. And then I left my phone at home and had to go back for it. There was actually traffic. Can you believe it? Like, when is there a traffic problem in Colville? Only today.”

  She looks like Tony, minus the crooked nose. She has huge blue eyes accented with black eyeliner and shimmery shadow, waves of nearly black hair falling over her shoulders, and an expressive face reflecting every emotional shift suggested by her rapid speech. I’m relieved to see she’s not a fashion plate and neither is she Goth nor punk, although the beaded bracelets at her wrists and the huge quartz crystal swinging from a chain around her neck hint at some New Age voodoo. None of that is likely to hurt Elle.

  “I’m ready,” my daughter says, as if she has just accomplished this state of readiness and has not been fidgeting at the door for the last twenty minutes. She drops a kiss on my cheek. “Say hi to Grandma and Grandpa,” she says, and she’s out the door.

  Mia lingers. “I’ll take good care of her, I promise. I’m more responsible than you’ll be thinking I am. Honest. Here’s my cell number, but you should know that around here sometimes I’m out of range, so leave a message and I’ll call back a-sap.”

  She hands me a business card, and with that, the two of them are down the sidewalk and climbing into a Jeep of indeterminate age. When Mia starts the engine, it belches out a cloud of black smoke. I have one foot out on the porch, ready to run after them, but the vehicle is already moving. Elle waves enthusiastically.

  Mia drives carefully, using a turn signal even though the street is empty, and I take a deep breath and try to let go of my worry. The business card is professionally done, advertising her services in massage therapy and Reiki. Maybe I’ll have to make an appointment. God knows I could use both a massage and an energy alignment, both on a cosmic scale.

  Before I head up to the hospital to check on my parents, I swing by the bank—the grocery store can wait. There’s a short line, giving me just enough time to work up sweaty palms and an accelerated heart
rate.

  The bank teller has to call out twice, and when I step up to her window, my first thought is that she should still be in high school. Short spiky hair, vivid eye shadow, a tiny diamond lodged in her left nostril. There’s also a slight bulge in her cheek that makes me think she’s got gum stashed there, the way Elle does sometimes.

  When I tell her what I need, she stares at me for a minute and then picks up her phone and speaks into it. When she hangs up, she points to an office cube behind me. “Bethany can help you. I can’t do safe-deposit boxes.”

  Bethany is not still in high school. In fact, she went to school with me. She dated Greg before I did, which gives us way too much in common. Despite the fact that we were sworn enemies the last time I saw her, she sweeps me into an enthusiastic hug.

  “Oh my God. It’s Maisey! How long has it been? You look fabulous!”

  I know full well I look anything but. I’ve had a shower and donned clean clothes, but skipped the makeup. There are tears in the emotional weather forecast for today, and it would only end up smeared all over my face. I’m well aware that I’m pale and baggy, that my eyes are red and swollen. Bethany, on the other hand, does look fantastic. I’m trying to figure out what work she’s had done—that Invisalign thing to her teeth, maybe a little Botox—when her face assumes the expression of sympathy.

  “I heard about your mother. How is she doing?” she asks, head tilted enough that her dangly earrings graze her shoulder, her penciled eyebrows lifted in the questions she has yet to ask. Her eyes have a gleam in them that is a little too avid for a question about safe-deposit boxes, and I can only guess what sort of stories are circulating around town about my parents.

  “She’s in the ICU. She’s still unconscious. She’s got pneumonia.”

  “Oh no. I can’t believe it! She was in here only two weeks ago. She seemed so healthy. I guess we just never know, do we?”

  I don’t like being part of this we. I don’t like this conversation. I don’t even want to be here.

  “Listen. I need to have a look in my parents’ safe-deposit box. Can I do that?”

  “Let me see. Do you have the key?”

  I produce a key, hoping it is the right one. It was in an envelope in Dad’s file cabinet, marked as important financial records, the name of the bank written across the front in Mom’s handwriting, not his.

  Bethany approves the key with a nod, setting it down on the desk between us while she taps away at the computer with red lacquered nails. “Here we go,” she says, which sounds promising. A furrow appears between her eyebrows as she scrolls down the page, and that does not look promising at all.

  “Oh dear,” she says. “You are not listed as one of the parties granted access. Only your parents.”

  “What does that mean, exactly?”

  “According to the law, you can only access the box if both of your parents die and you bring in the key and a death certificate.”

  I stare at her. “No. There has to be another way.”

  “Get your dad to sign for you. I’ll give you a form.” She catches my expression and leans forward, lowering her voice. “Or, if he’s not fit to sign, you might be able to get a court order.”

  “No. You don’t understand. There isn’t time for this. I’m looking for Mom’s advance directive. We need it yesterday. Or last week. If we wait until she’s dead, that kind of negates the purpose of any directives she might have specified.”

  “Oh dear.” Bethany stares at me, and this time there’s pity in her eyes. “Well. Bring your dad down, maybe?” But her tone of voice makes it clear she’s heard all the rumors about Dad.

  “He’s in the hospital.” A traitorous quaver wobbles my words, and I dig my fingernails into the palms of my hands in an effort to steady myself. If I cry now, every bank customer for the rest of the day is going to know about it. The stories are just too good not to share. On the other hand, I really need to get into that box, and maybe if Bethany feels sorry for me, she’ll play magnanimous heroine and help.

  So I dab at my eyes with my fingertips and let the wobble stay. “He’s in the hospital, too. All confused. He can’t tell me anything, and I can’t bring him here. What am I going to do?”

  I lift tear-filled eyes to hers.

  You’d think we were long-lost friends, the way she places one hand over my arm and pats me, leaning forward to whisper, “Oh hell. It’s you. We’re friends, right? But you have to promise not to tell.”

  “Of course.”

  Decision made, she’s shifted into Nancy Drew. “Bring the key. We’ll just look, okay? And if the advance directive is there, we’ll make a copy, and you can say you found it at home.”

  “Right. In Dad’s filing cabinet. Under legal documents. With the will.”

  Bethany nods. “Come with me.”

  I follow her over to the side of the bank, through an open steel door that looks like a giant safe. We stop in a small room that’s lined on all sides with keyed, silver panels. My skin prickles as I think about all the secrets contained here. Who knows what people hide away, out of sight? But there’s no time to daydream.

  Bethany walks directly to box number 45. She puts the key in the lock but then hesitates, drops her hand, and says, “You do it. It’s not really my business what’s in there.”

  Given the burn of sleuth fever in her eyes, this is nothing short of heroic. I turn the key and draw out the box, as cold and foreign in my hands as my mother’s gun. There’s a table to set the box down on while it’s opened. Bethany comes up behind me as I open the lid, her stint of martyrdom overcome by curiosity. I just look at her, hands on the lid, until her eyes fall, and she turns her back.

  I’m prepared to find nothing, and at first that’s what I think I’ve found.

  Some stocks and bonds. Copies of my parents’ wills. A legal-size manila envelope. Sealed. I pick it up and hold it, but the fact that one of my parents sealed it and put it here gives me pause. All those lectures from my childhood, through my adolescence, into my adult life: “Mind your own business, Maisey. Snoopers get their fingers caught in mousetraps.”

  “Aren’t you going to open it?” Bethany asks, eyeing me over her shoulder. “That’s probably it.”

  She’s right. Regular rules don’t apply here. I have no scissors, no letter opener, and my skin quivers with the violation of tearing the flap.

  Inside are two sheets of paper. I see right away that this is not an advance directive, but I pull them out anyway, turning my back to screen my birth certificate from Bethany. If I’m adopted, the whole town will know before nightfall.

  Only, it’s not my birth certificate I’m looking at. Or else they’ve changed my name. It says Marley, not Maisey. Mom’s name is on there, and that’s the only recognizable piece of information.

  “What is it?” Bethany asks, behind me.

  “Nothing. Just a birth certificate.” My voice sounds wrong to my own ears, as if it belongs to somebody else. I have just enough rational thought process left to know that Bethany must not see this. Can’t know about it. I shuffle it behind the other piece of paper. Also a birth certificate, and this one is mine. I stare at it, blindly, frozen into a statue. My inner warning system is blaring all kinds of alerts. Hide it. Shred it. Put it back in the envelope.

  My fingers refuse to respond.

  “That’s it?” Bethany asks. “Just a birth certificate?”

  “Yep.” My voice rings tinny and false, but speaking corrects whatever was wrong with my brain-to-muscle connection, and my hands slide the documents back into the envelope. “Looks like the directive isn’t here.”

  “Bummer,” she says. “Well, it was worth a try, right?”

  “Right.”

  I need to get out of here. Panic scrabbles at my rib cage. My heart feels like it’s vibrating, it’s beating so fast. I can’t get enough oxygen.

  Somehow or other, I manage to put the envelope back in the box and lock it with the little key. Bethany slides the whole box of s
ecrets back into its little slot. I don’t feel like my body belongs to me anymore, but the pair of legs I seem to be borrowing hold up to the challenge and carry me out of the suffocating space into the open area of the bank.

  Every eye in this space seems to be focused on me, aware of the dissolution that has just occurred.

  “Sorry that didn’t work out,” Bethany says. She sounds like she means it and pulls me into a hug.

  My arms feel weighted and numb, like they’ve been injected with novocaine, and I don’t hug her back. I have to say something, and the automatic “Thank you so much for your help” that passes my lips comes straight from Mom’s indoctrination into politeness and manners. That’s one good thing about a thoroughly learned lesson—it doesn’t require any brainpower. Fortunately, there’s another customer waiting on Bethany’s services, and when she turns away, I take advantage of the opportunity to flee.

  Once through the doors, I keep moving. Sidewalk under my stranger feet, bits of sand and gravel crunching. Amazing how these feet—my feet, even though they feel so awkward and numb—know exactly what to do. I can’t think. Can’t feel. Instinctively, I keep walking, away from Bethany’s sympathy and the weight of her curiosity. The sunshine is bright and blinding, but I don’t feel any warmth. Don’t feel anything at all.

  I forget to check for traffic before stepping into the crosswalk, and a horn blares at me.

  That wakes me up enough to draw a breath on purpose. Sensation rushes back in with that conscious breath and the next one. My feet, my hands, are all pins and needles. I realize I’ve been hyperventilating, and I slow myself down, counting in and out breaths in my head and coordinating the count with my footsteps.

  This is not my first attack of panic, not the first time I’ve felt like the entire fabric of reality has unraveled and left me floating and terrified. It’s just the first time that there has been a legitimate, identified reason.

  Usually, what Mom always called my “anxious fits,” as if they were nothing more than a childhood meltdown over bedtime or a denied treat, come and go without rhyme or reason. The raft of counselors I’ve seen for this have offered a variety of explanations, my favorite of which is that sometimes the body just does things for no reason whatsoever, and my anxiety has no basis in my psyche.