The last secret_ a novel - Mary McGarry Morris [129]
Now. Yes, of course. Far more so than the truth. She understands.
hey still don't believe her. Not really. No one ever comes right out and says so, but when they look away or suddenly stop speaking with her approach, she knows. Like white noise the rumor of her complicity is a hum in the room, constant yet, in recent years, low enough to be endured. She manages, on the surface, to lead a normal life. For all those who do avoid her there are as many sympathizers who insist, given the circumstances, they might have gone out and hired a hit man themselves. Her children love her and they are good young people, which, in the end, is all that really matters. With Chloe and Drew away at school, she lives alone most of the time.
For the last year, Ken and Robin have been renovating FairWinds. After two even more damaging strokes, Oliver has been admitted to a nursing home, with little hope of returning to that enormous old house. An elevator has been installed, primarily for Robin's needs, but for some reason, whether their tenacious optimism or perhaps to salve their consciences, they tell people that it's also for Oliver so that when he does come home, he can have his own wing in the house. They hope to be able to move back in between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
They were married a year ago, before 350 friends and relatives. Typical of Robin, it was a storybook wedding, an amazing fairy tale come true, a happy ending for the childhood sweethearts, kept so long apart, finally marrying, with beautiful Lyra sprinkling pink and white rose petals in her brave mother's halting path down the aisle on Clay's arm. After the ceremony hundreds of pink and white balloons and doves were released from the church steps. Even Bob attended, well into his fourteenth month of sobriety. He sat in a back pew and was the first guest out to embrace both bride and groom in the receiving line. Nora didn't go, of course. The details came from Chloe. The wedding was originally going to be a small, private affair, but how could they possibly limit the guest list when so many people had been so kind, cooking meals for them, driving Robin back and forth to physical therapy appointments, minding Lyra whenever Robin has one of her blinding headaches. The pain, which is so debilitating that even the slightest glimmer of light is unbearable, confines her to bed rest for days at a time behind closed blinds and heavy drapes.
At those unavoidable family occasions when they must be together, such as Chloe's and Drew's graduations, Robin is always gracious, her kindness as natural as ever. Women admire her courage and men want to protect her even more now. Her unspoken forgiveness is painful for Nora. There can be no setting things straight. Life can only run its obdurate course. She still dreams the same dream, still wakes in a cold sweat, afraid of being found out, even though one demon is dead, his known homicides three women and a child but, as it turns out, not that drunken man in the desert roadhouse. The man was robbed and badly beaten, but survived. And his assailant, according to Silver Tellmine police records, was a stranger, a young man they never found. No mention of a teenage girl. Not a word.
Just as in the law she studies, whatever the truth proves in one case may little matter in another. More important than answers in an examined life are the questions. And like flames round the phoenix these continue to sustain her. Why did she pay him? What was she trying to protect? Why did she stand there doing nothing? What did she really want to happen? Evil is contagious. It thrives on blindness and denial, inevitably infecting those who are afraid to speak or act against it.
She no longer works at the Chronicle, where Ken, according to Stephen, chafes under the mantle of publisher. Instead, she is a full-time law student nearing the end of her first year. She volunteers twice a week at Sojourn House, one of those nights in the dining room