The Art of Keeping Secrets Part 10

ANNABELLE MURPHY.

The roof of Annabelle's childhood home was gone, as though the house was a movie set with only the walls and interior. Hundred-year-old trees lay across the streets like meager broken twigs. Whole landing piers had floated from the river onto land; half of an unmoored dock lay in front of Annabelle's house as though it had been placed there as a walkway.

Her father parked the car in the cracked driveway and examined the front yard. Annabelle's mother climbed out of the car and went to his side; he placed an arm over her shoulders, and together they stood and stared at the battered house. Annabelle stayed in the car gazing in wonder at the changed landscape, then in awe of her parents standing together, steadfast and still.

They turned to her, motioned for her to join them. She went to them. "It's not as bad as some. The Carpenters lost everything," her dad said.

Annabelle ran for the front door; her dad yelled at her to stop. "You don't know if it's safe yet, darling. Let me go in first." He stepped carefully through the front door.

The blazing sun mocked what had come before. How could a place of such balmy, beautiful, cloud-free days have such destruction wrought upon it?

Annabelle pointed to the garage, where a live oak lay on top of it like a Lincoln Log tossed by a child. "Good thing we put my car in the garage, eh?"

"Oh, Belle."

"Mom? Have you heard about anyone else? Is everyone okay?"

"Your father has been keeping in touch with the mayor, Mrs. Barkley refused to evacuate and still hasn't been found. She is presumed-"

"Dead."

"Yes, and the Chandlers lost their home and farm, both. Everyone else has severe damage like us. I'm sure we won't be able to stay here. No one is really able. . . ."

"It looks like a war zone," Annabelle said, stretched her hands across the yard. "I don't see how this will ever be cleaned up, how it will ever be the same."

Her mother pulled her close. "No, it won't be the same. Things never do stay the same, do they? But we can rebuild. The South is good at that, you know."

"I know." Annabelle squeezed her mother's hand. "But am I?"

Her mother spoke to her in a voice that resonated. "Now, listen to me. You are strong enough. For whatever storm your life brings, you are strong enough to endure and thrive because you are a Clark, and G.o.d has granted you an extraordinary legacy of strength. There are worse things in life than what we are about to endure."

"Thank you," Annabelle said, leaned against her mother's shoulder and marveled at the changes that had come about in the ten short days since she'd gone to the chaplain. Ten days-a lifetime.

Her father came to the door. "Y'all can come in, but be prepared. Not much can be saved."

They entered the foyer, which spoke in whispered tones of a receded flood. A thick line of black mud had climbed five feet up the wall. Mold grew in the heat and humidity below the line. The moist odor of mildew permeated the air in a sickening stench.

"Oh, my Scalamandre wallpaper-they don't make it anymore," her mother said, ran her hands along the stairwell and glanced into the dining room. "Mother's dining room table . . ."

The afternoon went on as her mother recounted all that was gone, calculated in a never-ending equation of loss. Then she gathered them together, and made the three of them drop to their knees and thank G.o.d for their safety, for this reminder that material possessions were nothing compared to the losses others might have suffered.

When they rose from their prayer, Annabelle asked for the car keys.

Her dad placed his hands on her shoulders. "You can't drive out there, honey. The roads are still dangerous. Lines are down. Martial law has been imposed in some places."

"Dad, I have to know if Knox and his family are okay."

He nodded. "I'll take you."

They drove their pickup truck with extreme caution through the local streets, and then out to Route 23 toward the farm. With a single-minded capriciousness, the hurricane had left the Murphy farm virtually untouched except for a few downed trees and a crushed chicken coop. Annabelle and her dad sat in the truck, stared at the white clapboard house with its pale blue shutters: a house Annabelle knew as well as her own.

"Looks like all is well here," her dad said.

She nodded. "Do you mind waiting while I see if they're home?"

He shook his head, got out of the truck and leaned against it, lifted his face to the sun. "Take your time. Not like I'm in any rush to get back. Aunt Sissy is picking your mama up right now, taking her to her town home, where we'll meet her."

Annabelle stepped around scattered tree branches to the front door. Her hand shook as she knocked on the door.

Mrs. Murphy immediately opened it, as though she'd been antic.i.p.ating her visit. "Hi," Annabelle said, lifted her fingers in a half wave. "I'm so glad to see your house is okay. . . . I wanted to check."

Mrs. Murphy placed a hand on Annabelle's arm. "And yours?"

"Mostly gone." And for the first time since they'd driven past the U.S. marshal on the entrance to the county road, tears filled Annabelle's eyes. "Oh, there are some things Dad thinks we can save, but . . ."

"Oh, dear. I am so sorry." She opened the door wide. "Come in, have a cup of sweet tea and . . . you must be exhausted."

Annabelle glanced over her shoulder and saw her dad lying on the hood of the pickup truck, his eyes closed and his body slack. He was obviously asleep.

"Okay . . . ," Annabelle said.

Mrs. Murphy followed her glance. "Should we wake him up and ask him in?"

"I think he's fine." Annabelle took a step into the pine-scented kitchen and asked the only thing she wanted to know. "Is Knox here?"

"No." Mrs. Murphy shook her head. "But I do know he's okay. I was hoping you could tell us where he is. He came home two days ago and ate like he hadn't eaten in days, told us he was fine and had survived the hurricane outside Charleston . . . and then he left again. We haven't seen him since then. I don't know where that boy keeps going, but a mama can't follow a twenty-two-year-old around."

"Oh." Annabelle sat down at the oak table, where she and Knox used to do their homework, eat fried chicken, hold hands while they read.

Mrs. Murphy sat next to her, placed a tall gla.s.s of tea on the table. "Dear, I'm sorry I can't help you. I know you miss him, and I know how torn up you must be about this breakup, but sometimes you just have to let things go to see if they return to you."

Dear G.o.d, how many times had Annabelle heard that? Let them fly free, and if they're really yours, they'll fly back. She'd even seen a poster with the saying and a flying bird. Maybe that was true about birds, but she didn't see, in any way, how it applied to Knox Murphy.

She took a long swallow of tea and smiled at Mrs. Murphy. If Knox returned in the next few days, she didn't want Mrs. Murphy telling him she had been morose, looking for him. "I'm fine, really. I was just worried about all of you, so was Dad, so we drove out here to make sure you were okay. G.o.d knows when the phone lines will be up."

"Where will you stay tonight?"

"I don't know. . . . I guess Aunt Sissy's-that's where Mom is right now."

"Your aunt lives in a one-bedroom town home."

Annabelle shrugged, leaned forward. "There don't appear to be a lot of options left in Marsh Cove. Dad wants to start emptying and cleaning the house as soon we can."

"Your family must stay here. Please. We have four bedrooms, and we're only using one. Daniel and I were wondering who we could help-and lookee here, the good Lord answered us right away-you and your family came knocking." She grinned as though Gabriel himself had just come down from heaven and told her to take care of the Clark family.

"Oh, no . . . really."

"Oh, yes, and as soon as Daniel is finished helping at the docks, he can help your dad with the house. We have been blessed with such little loss, we can surely help those who have lost so much more."

"I can't . . . I can't stay here if . . ."

Mrs. Murphy touched her face. "Yes, you can. You have been like a daughter to me for the past six years, and now I can help you and your family."

Annabelle nodded, overcome with the thought that she was carrying this woman's grandchild, how Mrs. Murphy would be housing her own flesh and blood without knowing it. She turned from Knox's mother and bit back the tears.

"Please don't cry, Belle-we'll all get to the other side of this. Now go tell your father."

Annabelle finished her tea, wondered if caffeine was okay to drink and rose to tell her dad they could stay here on this huge farm while they rebuilt their house and lives. Her heart lifted, like that bird on the poster, at the thought that eventually Knox would come home and she would be right here. They'd take a long walk to the barn . . . talk, and she'd tell him.

Shortly, soon, he'd know.

Two weeks of naked sun and throbbing heat pa.s.sed. Long days of manual labor left Mr. Murphy and Annabelle's father so exhausted they fell asleep each night immediately after Mrs Murphy's home-cooked meals. Annablle hadn't seen Knox's mother so animated in years-she had people to take care of, and by G.o.d, she'd do just that.

Mrs. Murphy did their laundry, cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner, put ironed sheets on their beds and fresh towels in their rooms, left cold gla.s.ses of water with lemon slices at their bedsides and fussed over Annabelle, her mother and dad.

Each day, Annabelle's blazing hope of seeing Knox dwindled to embers and then soot-she had given up thinking that he would return to his parents' home. She lay in bed each night envisioning where he was, what he might be doing and in what foreign place he could be doing those things without her. She went from hopeful, to sad, to angry and back again, like a clock's hands going around and around.

She imagined Knox came home, saw her parents' car, turned and left again.

At the beginning of the third week, when she knew that sooner rather than later she would have to tell her dad about the baby since her middle was starting to strain against her T-shirts, Knox walked casually through the kitchen doorway, as though he'd been gone for an hour.

Smiling, radiant at the sight of him, Annabelle felt the immediate joy of his presence like a balm. She jumped up from the kitchen chair, ran to him, knocked over a full bowl of snap peas and threw herself into his arms. For this first time in her life, she didn't care what the others thought of her, or why she went to him with such abandon. She only cared that he was finally there.

It would all be okay now.

She buried her face in his neck, in his chest, and inhaled him, listened to his heartbeat. He held on to her, and the world righted itself until she pulled back from him, saw his face. Confusion crossed his features like a school of menhaden startled in the river-quick, jumping and chaotic.

He stepped back and glanced around the room. "Hey," he said.

Mrs. Murphy jumped up from her chair; Annabelle moved to allow her to hug her son. "Where have you been?" his mother asked.

"I've been helping in Charleston, crashing with friends." He hugged her back, then draped his arm over her left shoulder as he faced the table. "You think it's bad here, you should see Charleston and the islands. Almost complete devastation . . . with mold."

Mrs. Murphy grinned at him. "I figured you were doing something like that."

His father rose, hugged Knox. "d.a.m.n glad you're safe, son."

"I'm sorry I haven't been in touch-not much in the way of phones out there, and whenever I finished, all I could do was sleep."

Annabelle took steps backward toward the table.

He glanced at her, then at her parents. "How are y'all? Your house?"

"We and the house have been in better shape." Annabelle's father stood, walked to Knox and shook his hand. "We're glad you're safe. These have been hard days and we were all worried about you."

"I'm sorry to have worried anyone. I told Mama I was all right."

"Yes," she said. "Yes, but it is good to see you. Sit, have some dinner."

Annabelle watched as he walked to the cabinet, noting something different about him when he reached for a plate and then set it on the table. Although it couldn't be true, he seemed to have become taller or wider, as though something of substance had been altered inside him.

He sat at the table, in the chair they'd kept empty for him during the past weeks. The evening spilled shadows into the room, morphed the shapes of the trees, tractor and birdhouse outside. The water pitcher on the table, sliced lemons floating on the surface, shook when Knox sat, the only movement in the room.

He glanced around the table. "What's wrong?"

"I think we're all just glad you're home," his father said and pa.s.sed the plate of chicken. "Don't know what to say . . . been waiting on you. You know, we could use your help around here, too. The Clarks' house was almost destroyed. After two weeks, all we've managed to do is haul the furniture to the dump, box up the salvageable items."

Knox took a large bite of the fried chicken, closed his eyes. "So good, Mama. So much better than the protein bars and canned soup I've been living on." He looked at Annabelle, finally. "Can the house be saved? Have any contractors been by or seen the damage?"

Annabelle shrugged, still speechless in his presence, the only words she wanted to say to him almost spilling out of their own accord. Her father spoke up. "We finally found a contractor from somewhere up in Asheville who is willing to come down and help us and the Carters. What survived was the most important things. My family." His voice quavered; he looked away toward the wall. "The Carters lost their seventeen-year-old son when his car slipped from the road into the river."

"Buddy Carter is dead?" Knox dropped the chicken onto his plate. "No."

"Yes, I'm afraid so." Mrs. Murphy reached across the table to Knox. "And a few more of your cla.s.smates haven't been found yet . . . but they hold out hope that, like you, they are somewhere safe but just can't call or come home yet."

Knox closed his eyes. "I'm sorry about Buddy."

"We all are," Annabelle said, her voice soft and frail.

Knox squinted at her. "Are you okay, Belle?"

She nodded. "It's been a long few weeks, Knox."

"Yes, it has." He picked at his peas with the fork. "It feels like a year or more. . . . So much has changed, it seems like more time should've gone by."

As Annabelle watched him say this, she knew, absolutely knew, that he was talking about more than the external landscape; he spoke of his internal terrain. Fear wrapped around her, and instinctively she rose from the table and left the house. She couldn't look at this boy she had loved for years, this boy whose baby grew inside her, this boy who suddenly and surely seemed a man sitting across the table talking of change.

She let the screen door bang shut behind her and ran toward the barn at the far end of the property. She couldn't see it, but she knew where it was, where the hayloft provided a respite, a place to be alone. Her mother had found many excuses why Annabelle couldn't work alongside the men in the heat of the day, still not wanting to reveal her daughter's condition to her husband. Why hadn't Annabelle thought of the hayloft before? She could have sat up there, pa.s.sed the hours in "their" place instead of staring out Mrs. Murphy's kitchen window waiting for Knox's Jeep to come into view, or hiding in the bedroom in the wee hours of the morning, hoping no one but her mother heard her vomit in the cramped farmhouse bathroom.

She ran in bare feet over sharp gravel, across broken gla.s.s from a toppled tractor, through mud and around a litter of kittens until she reached the edge of the field where the old barn sat atop a hill. She bent over to take a deep breath; dizziness washed over her. Despite having once been on the track team and jogging miles a day in college, she had not moved much beyond the house and yard in the past several weeks. She attempted to take another stabilizing breath, and fell to the ground in a heap.

She couldn't tell him now. The real Knox was gone, and a new man had appeared, a man she would never tell, a man distant and different, gone into some new internal place where she did not belong.

She added up the days: they hadn't seen each other for seven weeks, longer than anytime she'd ever been apart from him before they met.

The cool gra.s.s felt good against her cheek, and she faded into it, let the tears take her longing for Knox Murphy into the earth, away from her. Oh, if only it could work that way, if only she could release this need for him into the dirt, but the ground was still saturated with rainwater and seemed unable to absorb more than it already had.

She rolled over onto her back, spread her arms and legs, felt a dull pain where gla.s.s had cut into the arch of her foot. The branches above her were like a net across the sky, also catching whatever she wanted to release and sending it right back down to settle into her soul. The Spanish moss danced in a swaying motion that made her dizzy again. She closed her eyes.