The last secret_ a novel - Mary McGarry Morris [10]
There was the night last summer when Ken was called down to the police station. Chloe had been brought in along with a lot of her friends from a keg party that had been raided. She was drunk and vomiting, the chief said. “She needs a lawyer,” Nora said, starting to dial Stephen's number, but Ken said he'd handle it. The only reason she was vomiting, Ken informed the chief, was because she'd been sick for days with the flu. Even though she reeked of booze and could barely talk, the chief let him take her home. The other parents were called and nothing was ever in the paper. Days later Nora was still angry, shaken. Chloe's losing control like that hit too close to home. But for Ken it was just one of those hot shit things all kids do sooner or later. He thought it was wild the way boys flocked around his Chloe. Her poor grades and his had always been a joke between them. Although lately, with college looming, he's been after her to study more. Last September he promised Chloe her own gold card if she made honor roll.
“Absolutely not!” Nora protested. That would be irresponsible of him. Last month he'd found Chloe smoking a joint in her room. Stubbing it out, he told her there was a time and place for everything. “And this isn't it,” he said. “Not on a school night. Not up in your room all by yourself.”
Nora sailed into him. “So it's okay? But just don't do it alone, that's what you're saying.”
“That's not what I said.” His eyes dulled with a familiar weariness.
“Yes it is. In other words, it's okay as a social act, just watch out for the whole bad habit thing.”
For the rest of that night Ken was so quiet she accused him of sulking, though she's always been the brooder, the grudge holder, the darker spirit. “You're mad at me,” she said when she looked up to find him staring at her.
“Actually,” he sighed, resting his head back on the chair, “I was just envying you.”
“For marrying you, you mean,” she laughed. Their oldest joke, but that time he didn't even smile.
“It's your good sense, your values. You always get right straight at things, you know what I mean?” he said with a sigh that even now, weeks later, bothers her.
She opens Ken's office door. The only light comes from the black-shaded lamp on the credenza. Day and night, he usually has every light burning in here. He sits with his hand on his chin. Just thinking, he says, when she asks if he has a headache.
“What's wrong, Ken?” And with his long gaze, she is acutely aware of the tangle of potted vines hanging in the dark window and, beyond the glass, the jagged row of icicles dripping onto the granite sill. “My God, what is it?” She sinks into the chair and unbuttons her coat. His hair is mussed and he's unshaven. “You're scaring me, Ken!” Chloe: she knows by his utter devastation.
“This is so hard.” He has to clear his throat.
Though she won't say it now, her mind is made up. Chloe will have to find her own way out of whatever mess she's gotten herself into. This time she'll make her own appointment. Chloe needs to see how this is tearing her father apart. Oh, Kenny! she thinks, with her hand over his, dear carefree Kenny, this is what you get for spoiling our little girl rotten.
“This is so hard,” he repeats, wincing. “I've got to tell you this. I've got to. And I don't know how. Jesus, this is the hardest thing I've ever had to do. But then I think you know. I think you know some of it. A little. You must.” His hand slips free. “I tried to stop it. I never wanted to hurt you. More than anything else it was that, not wanting to hurt you and Chloe and Drew.” His voice cracks. “That's what tears me apart. That's the worst of it—hurting anyone, especially you. Especially you.” He blows his nose. “The thing is,