The last secret_ a novel - Mary McGarry Morris [39]
NEW YORK
A week has passed. Eddie hasn't been back, so he's probably gone for good. He couldn't rattle her the way he wanted. Random, that's all, a blip on the screen. She doesn't believe the man died or that Eddie went to jail. There's no denying the violence of that night, the pipe, blood pouring from the man's face. Ugly, but not murder. Couldn't have been. No. Impossible. He would have told the police she'd been there, too. He never would have protected her all these years, serving a prison sentence in noble silence. Not the type. No. Just a down-on-his-luck loser working a newfound connection.
The shock of seeing him, though, has been an antidote. Injecting one poison into her system to fight another, rousing her from malaise. As in a fever, at its hallucinatory pitch the phantom has slipped from one nightmare into another. The past is dead. Only family matters, her marriage. Now, with perspective, she will be well again. She calls up the back stairs to Chloe. What's taking so long? School starts in twenty minutes. Nora sits at the table with her toast. Stirring his coffee, Ken says he heard the shower go off an hour ago.
“Probably still trying to get the stripes out,” he says, and she can almost smile. Chloe sprayed green stripes into her hair for last Friday's varsity basketball game.
“I know. Poor kid,” Nora says. Days later, and the stripes still show, even after countless shampooings.
“I'll ask Oliver, maybe Nana's wig's still up in the attic.” His grandmother Geraldine Hammond's singed blonde wig is part of family lore. A candle set it on fire one night at a dinner party. After snipping away the burned strands she continued wearing it. Hammondian frugality, Oliver calls it in justification of his own dated wardrobe.
“Don't. Don't even mention a wig. That'll be the next thing, driving around to wig shops.” Laughing with him again feels good. A relief. The way things used to be here.
“Outfit us all. The whole family, bewigged, bothered, and bewildered,” Ken croons, making her laugh even more. His hand slides over hers. “You look good,” he says, and she tries to hold her eyes level with his, but can't. “Are you okay?”
“All right. I guess.” Again, ice in her voice; can't help it. Stay on safe ground. So much easier talking about the children.
“Here, Mom.” Chloe runs into the kitchen, listing under the weight of her bulging backpack slung over one shoulder. “Can you sign this? I am so wicked late.” She holds out a pen and folded paper. “My ride's waiting. That line,” she adds in a faltering voice as Nora reads. “The bottom one.”
“It's your progress report.”
“I know and it sucks and I'm sorry, and I'm really gonna try, but right now you have to sign it so I can bring it back. Please? Please, Mom? Please?” she begs, rocking back and forth on wedged heels.
“One D and three C minuses.” Nora pushes it across the table to Ken.
“What's this all about?” he says. “What're you thinking? What do you want, to end up in some two-bit junior college somewhere?”
“If she's lucky,” Nora says.
“I know,” Chloe groans, pleading for release.
Nora asks how long she's had the progress report. A week, Chloe admits, but she forgot about it. She did. And that's the truth. Nora refuses to sign it until Chloe discusses the poor grades with them and explains how she plans to raise them.
“I can't now, Mom! So just sign it, please! I'm gonna be late and I've already got three tardies.”
“Apparently you're going to have to get another one,” Nora says, scraping butter onto her cold toast.
“But then I'll get detention!” Chloe cries.
“That's not my problem now, is it?”
“Dad! Please! Will you sign it? Please? It's just the progress report, and I'm trying so much harder now. I swear. I am! I've got the whole rest of the term.”
Ken looks at Nora. “What's the harm? Gotta sign it, sooner or later.” He clicks open his pen with a stern look at Chloe. “But just so you'll know, your mother's right. This has got to be discussed. Whatever's going on here has got to change.”
“I know. I know. Please, Dad.” Chloe glances at her watch. “Now