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Secrets Chapter 2 “But, honey…….didn’t you know?” Ginger said. “He was a cop. He worked out of Hollywood Station, oh, probably four or five years. This person,” she pointed at the file, “was wanted for murder.” It was almost too much. So much worse than I’d expected. Bad enough to find out Wendell shot our father. Bad enough to know it was in self defense. Bad enough to know Daddy had killed somebody escaping. But somebody else was dead because of him……“Who?” I asked. “Who else did he murder?” She didn’t say anything right away. “Um. Well…..let me go get that file.” And she was gone. I’d found my handkerchief in my purse, blown my nose, and composed myself again fairly well by the time she came back. She seemed hesitant. “Are you sure you want to know this?” she asked. “Yes,” I said, “of course I do.” Looking back, I have to admire Ginger. If she knew what was in the file before she gave it to me, and I assume she did, she had to know what my reaction would be. She laid the folder down on the table like there was nitroglycerin in it, looked at me like I might explode; but she didn’t leave the room, she stayed right there with me. I’m not sure if, in her place, I’d have done the same. I opened it up……. In a small town, people are eager to let you know what’s what. If they think you’re interested. Who’s up, who’s down, who’s messing around. So I found out why Wendell was spending time at the hospital. It seemed out of character. I’ll admit I didn’t know a lot about men, but I couldn’t picture it at all---a tough guy like that, at someone’s bedside, holding that somebody’s hand. I went to the hospital with Lynn one day. I wanted to see for myself. I told her a story that I suppose no one could believe, I told her I’d heard so much about the Reverend that I was concerned, even though I didn’t know Reverend Skinner at all. I suppose she thought it was strange, but she didn’t say so. When we got there, Wendell was standing outside in the sun, looking up at the sky. We got out of the car…..and I saw the blood. In a puddle around his feet, all over his clothes….running off his fingers. Can you understand if I tell you I didn’t really grasp what was happening? I saw the blood, but it seemed so lurid, such a sensational thing, it didn’t seem real……I wasn’t even alarmed at first. Just confused. And then someone screamed. I don’t know who it was, I don’t think it was Lynn, she was running toward Wendell……. That’s when I saw my brother again. He looked around for us, he seemed as confused as I was, confused and a little lost; and in my mind I saw the photos in the police file, of the boy leaning against the wall next to our mother’s body, dressed in blood-soaked pajamas. The photographer had snapped the picture at a moment when Wendell looked straight at the camera……and his eyes were the same. The look in his eyes…… He fell, without knowing we were there. “Go in and get some help,” Lynn said, and knelt down next to him. She clapped her palm over the hole in his sleeve and pressed. I didn’t know what she meant, I couldn’t see what I needed to do, I felt like…..like I wasn’t really there, I felt like a disembodied spirit watching, with no responsibility for what happened next…. She threw a handful of gravel at me. “Hurry up!!! Go get somebody!!” I’d heard the phrase “snap out of it”---this was the first time I’d had that experience, but that’s exactly what it felt like. Like I’d suddenly snapped back into my body from out of wherever I was. And I ran. “Deputy White?” the waitress said, and blushed. She did. “I guess it’s not a secret….but I used to have a crush on him. When I was in high school.” “Why?” “Why? What do you mean?” “Why would you have a crush on him instead of…..oh, I don’t know, your math teacher?” “I can see you haven’t met Mr. Michaels,” she chuckled. “I think it probably started when he went looking for Tammy in the middle of the night that time she got into trouble…..that’s a long story, and I’m going to have to go back to work in a minute……I got to go along with him, and I saw what happened, so…..I was pretty silly over him for a while after that.” “Did he ever find out you had a crush on him?” She thought for a minute. “Wellllll……everybody else knew about it, I guess I don’t keep secrets very well….so I s’pose he probably did. But he never treated me any different.” “So he’s a cool guy.” “Cool?” She laughed. “I don’t think I’d go that far. He’s too old to be really cool. He’s sorta cornball sometimes, actually.” “So……you’re all over your crush.” “Well, sure. I’m going with somebody now. But you know what? If I was in trouble, he’s the guy I’d want to come looking for me.” No one told me my mother was dead. At first, what I heard from everyone was, “Times are tough, she’ll be back for you when she can,” or “Don’t you worry about a thing, you have a home here until Emma can come for you.” When I was a little older, it changed to, “I’m sure she has a good reason for staying away. You’ll see,” and “You just have to be patient.” I don’t remember when I knew she must be dead and I stopped asking questions. I didn’t decide it, the knowledge slowly grew in my mind, but after I was about fourteen, I never doubted it. The pictures of her body were a shock, even so. I knew she was dead; I read the report before I saw the pictures, so I knew she’d been murdered, and my logical mind knew she hadn’t been found for some days, but still……I wasn’t prepared for what I saw…… At least they untied Wendell before they started snapping pictures of him. I will never understand how any person can remain unaffected enough to raise his camera and capture scenes of such misery…….. Ginger handed me her handkerchief. “Here, honey, put your head down. Breathe. Breathe.” I held her hankie over my mouth. It smelled of lily-of-the-valley. Ever after that, the scent of that little white flower meant death and decay to me. The black and white images were sharp and clear and stayed in my mind for days. I swear I could smell the decomposition…..and lily-of-the-valley. Even now, that fragrance reminds me of nothing so much as the stink of the not-so-recently deceased. Eau de corpse. I watched Lynn and her friend Mrs. McAfee. We were all sitting in the waiting room, waiting; they sat together, I sat over in a corner, out of the way. They held hands. Hugged a couple times. There was conversation, but I don’t remember much of it; it was mostly about events and people I didn’t know anything about. When the older man, the doctor, came in and told them Wendell was going to be fine, their relief filled the room. Lynn stood up and asked when she could see Wendell; he said now, and she left to do that. Mrs. McAfee covered her breastbone with her hand, and gave a big sigh. “Thank God,” she said. “You know, I’m too old for this.” The doctor didn’t reply. He sat down next to her and folded his hands. Leaned forward and put his forearms on his knees. He cleared his throat. “I’d like to say I’m sorry for getting angry when you mentioned Alice.” They had forgotten I was there, I guess. Neither of them looked in my direction even once. Mrs. McAfee tilted her head and didn’t say anything. “At the barbeque. When you got so angry with me.” “I know when you mean.” She let out another big sigh. “I apologize for that; I shouldn’t have said her name to you in anger.” “No---it’s ok for you to talk about her. And I have to say that, because I want to talk about Bud.” There was a long silence. Then Mrs. McAfee said, “OK…….” The doctor’s knee began to bounce. He clamped his hand on it, and said, “You’ll never feel the same way about me that you feel about Bud. Will you?” “I think you’re gonna have to explain that a little better before I try to answer it.” The room was very quiet. I could hear the doctor’s breathing, loud and uneven, while he considered. “I’ve always thought of you as…..a little bit prickly. More than a little bit. Able to take care of yourself. Somebody I wouldn’t want mad at me. A hard woman.” “An old bitch, you mean.” He smiled. “Maybe. We’ve known each other a long time. In the past, I usually tried to stay out of your way.“ She nodded. “You’re gonna tell me what changed that.” She wasn’t asking. “Yep. I know what it was. I kept running into you with Bud and Lynn; at the hospital, in their house…….and you look different when you’re with him. You act different. Not prickly, not hard to get along with. You smile, you laugh, you look……softer.” He looked down at the floor and rubbed his hands together. “That’s the Arbutus I was attracted to.” “The soft one.” He nodded. “I thought when we got to know each other better……but it’s no use, is it? I’m too old and too boring to compete.” “Well,” Arbutus said, “You have one thing in your favor that Bud doesn’t have.” “What’s that?” “I can sleep with you.” He snorted. “I probably can’t measure up there either.” “What in hell is that supposed to mean?” “Well, Christ, woman, the two of you hold hands! In public. He’s at your house, you’re at his, you’ve been seen with his arm around you. What am I supposed to think?” “I may be an old bitch, but I can still knock you on your ass if you don’t watch your mouth.” She didn’t raise her voice, but she meant it. “If you think Bud would go behind Lynn’s back, you don’t know him very well.” “That’s what he told me about you. That I didn’t know you very well.” “You talked about this with him?” Silence. The doctor ran his hand over the top of his head. “Not this, exactly. Something else.” He sighed. “I always end up saying things to you I didn’t intend to say.” “Maybe you should just say what’s on your mind without thinking about it so much.” He nodded. “OK. OK. I think you love Bud, and you don’t love me.” “Because of that “soft” thing.” He nodded again. “Do you want me to love you?” He didn’t answer. “Uh-huh,” she said. “I thought so. You can’t even go that far. You want me to come all the way. You want me to be that soft woman you think you saw, you want me to love you, but you can’t even tell me that. Like it’s a bad thing, to wanna be loved.” She stood up. “I’m not a soft woman, I’m not a hard woman, I’m just a woman. If I seem softer when I’m with Bud, it’s because I don’t have to be hard when I’m with him. I don’t have to be careful what I say or do, I don’t have to protect myself. He ain’t gonna do anything to hurt me.” The doctor looked up at her. “You trying to tell me I do things to hurt you?” I could hear the astonishment in his voice. Arbutus sniffed. “You’re the one saying I’m a hard woman when I’m with you. You’re the doctor, figure it out.” She walked away from him, out the door. He sat there by himself for a long time. I was extremely quiet, I didn’t move. Hoping he’d leave before I couldn’t sit still anymore. Wondering if there was any way I could pretend to be asleep…… I’ve always been a lucky person. He didn’t catch me spying on them. No one caught me. No one suspected, not at all, not even a little bit. I didn’t let myself think about what had happened to Wendell for a long time. Couldn’t stand to. It hurt. He was my big brother, I had always thought of him that way. Older, bigger, stronger; he’d always looked after me. After I saw the pictures, and then after I let myself think about them…..he became an abused little boy in a horrifying situation. I tried to imagine what the experience would have been like for him, and couldn’t……but my heart broke. I stayed in bed and cried for a week. He should have been scarred by it. Should have been twisted, somehow. Damaged beyond repair. How had he survived it? How could he have turned into a man who kept vigil by the bedside of the dying; a man who inspired such faith and love from a woman who was old enough to know better; a man who touched children gently? I couldn’t quite believe it. I just couldn’t. But I wasn’t sure which part it was I didn’t believe.
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