The Art of Keeping Secrets Part 29

"My mother told me this story ever since I can remember. It is a true story, although I didn't know that until later in life. She told it to me so many times when I was young that I thought it was a fairy tale. I knew it by heart. I don't recall exactly when I realized it was true, that it was my story. I think that sometimes . . . sometimes we don't always know things right away-just slowly. And that's how the truth of this story was for me. . . ."

"Can we move this along?" Keeley said.

"Not another word, young lady," Annabelle said, looked over at Sofie. "Go on."

"My mother was always one to tell stories, use them as another would use Vicks VapoRub on a sick child. She told fairy tales, myths and stories of running and being saved. My mother told me that my name was always Sofie. She said that when she was pregnant with me, she understood from the very beginning that I was a girl and I would fill her with wisdom, which had escaped her in her earlier years."

Jake spread his hands like an offering. "That's what you meant by the woman who gave birth to wisdom."

Annabelle shifted in her chair. "What are you talking about?"

Jake looked at Sofie. "Nothing. I'm sorry. Just go on."

"You're right," she said. "The name Sophia means wisdom and was one of the first words in the Bible for G.o.d's wisdom."

"Ridiculous," Keeley said.

Sofie ignored her and continued, feeling the strength of the story swelling. "Mother said the story was about a man with no wisdom. He was a man bent on control. A powerful man who wore a mask of gentility that fooled her into believing that what she saw was real. She'd say to me, always, 'Remember this, my Sofie: what you see is rarely the full truth; things are not what they seem-except in maybe art and nature and even then be careful, be wise.'

"She told me that my father was cruel with his words and with his hands. He hurt her. Badly. But she had no one to turn to for help. She'd come from the poorer section of her city, and this man took care of my mother and moved her mother, my grandmother, to a beautiful resort in Colorado. My mother didn't understand, until later, that he did this to gain complete control over her. In this man, my mother thought she saw a chance to escape from poverty.

"What she didn't know was that sometimes we can escape into something even worse. He married her when she was eighteen. When she was twenty years old, he brought her to Charleston, said he wanted her to have a little vacation while he was on a business trip. She was pregnant with me, but hadn't told him. She didn't want to travel, but she went out of fear and a learned obedience.

"When they arrived in Charleston, she felt as though she had come home. In every piece of her being, she felt as if she'd once been torn from there, although she knew she'd never been there before. Her husband was busy with his work while she wandered the streets of the city that captured her heart. In their preoccupation, they didn't watch the news, didn't pay attention to the incoming hurricane until the hotel personnel informed them that they had to evacuate. My mother felt she could never leave that place, that land. The thought of leaving broke her heart more than it had been broken in those months of fear and abuse."

Fatigue spread through Sofie's body, as though the trapped story took her energy with it as she released it to the Murphy family. She wanted more iced tea, but she didn't ask for it.

"This man was confident in all his ways and didn't believe they needed to evacuate. My mother stood on the deck of their hotel room, the opulence surrounding her like a thick, smothering blanket. She watched a man and woman below her balcony. The man touched the woman's face, moved her hair off her cheek and gazed at her, and my mother knew she'd never experience anything like this with her husband.

"When Mother got to this part of the story, she always placed her palm over the place where my ribs met in a V, and told me, 'There is a sacred place inside you that will always tell you when you see or meet something that is yours, that is for your heart.' She said that when she saw that couple, she understood that this kind of feeling waited for her in this land. She also knew, despite what her husband told her, that the hurricane was coming. She saw it in the wind, the rain, and she also knew I was growing inside her. She decided right then to run with the storm."

Sofie stopped, looked at the Murphy family. Annabelle planted her elbows on her knees, leaned over. "The hurricane was Hurricane Hugo."

"Yes," Sofie said.

"Your mother ran into Hurricane Hugo."

Sofie nodded.

Annabelle looked between her children, seemed to bite back words, then sat back, closed her eyes. "Finish, please."

"Mother said it mustn't look like she ran on purpose, only out of fear of the wind and rain that she actually welcomed. The man-my father-was in the bar, drinking and laughing with other men, joking that anyone should be scared of a little storm. They knew nothing of nature's fury."

"Whoa." Keeley held up her hand. "You keep calling him 'the man.' Who calls their father 'the man'? That's totally weird, don't you think, Jake?"

Sofie pulled her feet under her, curled her spine into the back of the chair. "It's because my mother never told me his name . . . ," she said.

"Oh." Keeley looked around the room. "Oh."

"Anyway, Mother took very little from their hotel room: some cash and all her jewelry-which would not seem odd to a man who liked to see his wife decked in finery to prove his own worth. She left a note saying she didn't want to bother him in the bar with his friends, but she had to go to the drugstore for some things she'd forgotten.

"The note must not raise his suspicions about where she'd gone. She took the rental car and drove as far and fast as she could-past the city limits. She knew she had to make it look as if she'd died in the storm, that she was irretrievably lost.

"The police flagged her down, told her she would not be allowed over the bridge toward the coast, only traffic going inland was permitted. She drove the car down a side road and wound through the streets. She made it as far as the Ben Sawyer Bridge and stopped, stared into the rushing water below. There she saw her answer: clear and running, moving and shaping her life. The traffic was clogged. She drove to the far end of the street that ended where a guardrail remained shattered from a previous accident-a providential one that allowed her to take advantage of another's misfortune. She found a large rock, placed it on the gas pedal, stood outside the car and jammed the gearshift into drive.

"Mother said the car took off like a lightning bolt, throwing her arm backward against her body, ripping a tear in her forearm where the side of the door caught her flesh. She had that scar the rest of her life. . . . Anyway, then she fell and watched the car enter the river without a sound. The fury of the storm and honking cars, of nature's chaos, shrouded the sound of a single car entering the raging river. She stepped back and watched the car move toward the opposite sh.o.r.e, sent up a prayer that it would not wash out to sea. If he was to think she was dead, the car must be found.

"Then she started to walk. And walk. She was scared for me, knew she needed to conserve her strength, find food and water. She walked through the storm, and when night fell and the storm hit its climax, she'd made it to Marsh Cove, where she saw a farmhouse on a small hill.

"There was no strength left in her by then. She didn't care if the storm took us both-at least we were free of him. She opened the wide red doors of the barn-thick with paint and solid as though they'd been left there for her. The hayloft was warm, dry, and there were no animals. She found out later they'd been moved the day before to a safe place inland. She crawled into the hay, and slept through the storm. Looking back, she didn't see how this was possible-that she slept through the devastation that caused so many deaths, destroyed towns and families and farms.

"Finally hunger woke her-and a panic that she'd threatened my well-being, not just her own. Hungry now, she tried to figure out what to do next, even as she wept with relief-she'd broken free of his chains, ones she thought would bind her forever."

Sofie rubbed her face; this was the part of the story where she could not tell them every emotion her mother had shared with her. Only the facts here.

"What happened then?" Keeley had scooted to the edge of her seat. "Is this really true?"

"Yes," Sofie said. "And this is where your father comes in. He came into the barn just then."

Annabelle spoke. "It was Knox's family barn."

"I guess so," Sofie said, closed her eyes and heard her mother's words, remembered how her mother's face would fill with joy when she told the part of the story Sofie would not say aloud now-how her mother would stare into a far-off place as she described the moment she saw Knox Murphy, how she believed she had been made for him and he for her. He threw open the barn doors, sunlight creating a halo around him. He looked to her like heaven.

His face was rugged and covered in stubble, his dark hair tousled by the wind. His eyebrows were dark, like his hair, his eyes a warm brown. His jaw was rounded, but then squared off as it met his ears, and his hair was long, curled at the ends and toward the back. His voice was gravelly and deep when he called out, "Bootsie, are you in here?" He was looking for his cat.

He squinted into the barn and Liddy could see that he was young, her age, but he looked older when he did this, as if certain wisdom were already evident in his features. She held her breath for fear that if he saw her, his features would change, and like a myth, this beautiful creature would turn into something ugly or deformed.

The hay beneath her rustled, and he looked up at her, saw her and stepped back. She wanted to tell him not to be afraid, not to go away. But she couldn't find the words. And, as he did from that day forward, he seemed to know what she wanted to say without her having to speak. He stepped forward, climbed the ladder to the loft and came to her.

Liddy told Knox Murphy her entire story, about how she was pregnant, how she had run and faked her own death to escape an abusive husband. She told Sofie that she never remembered the exact words they had said to each other and part of her believed they'd had this conversation without ever talking. Knox left to get food and water and first aid for the jagged cut on her forearm; he returned to take care of her.

Sometimes he slept there with her, yet never touched her beyond offering the comfort of holding her when fear overcame her. Together, they devised a future for her. They found a solution, and although they never once talked of what existed between them in that hayloft, she thought she and Knox had time, a lifetime, for words unsaid, touches not yet given.

But Sofie did not tell all of this to the Murphy family. She only said, "He came in looking for his cat and found my mother in the hayloft. He helped her through the bad days after the storm and then found a small studio and loft in town, and offered the down payment. She opened the Marsh Cove Art Studio beneath the loft. . . ."

Sofie stopped now, slumped back on the chair. "That's the story you never knew. Knox Murphy saved my mother and helped her start a new life. He helped her get a new name, find a new home. That is what he did."

"How?" Keeley whispered, as if the story had stolen her anger.

"He took an old birth certificate from a flooded and ravaged courthouse closer to Charleston. When the town of Marsh Cove met her, her name was Liddy Parker and she was an artist come there to open the town's first art studio."

Sofie closed her eyes for a moment, remembered what her mother had told her about the flat above the art studio. Knox had the flat painted all in white-white walls, white furniture, white bed with a white quilt. It was as though he had washed her clean of the past. He told her she could add the color, she could choose her new life. But in the end, she could not choose him.

"Were they . . . a couple?" Keeley's breath caught inside her question.

Sofie looked across the room at Knox's daughter. "No. He told her he was engaged to his high school girlfriend. He only helped her."

"Why did you leave Marsh Cove all those years later?" Annabelle asked.

"The way Mom told it, a man from Ohio came and bought a piece of her art. This man took the piece home, and my father saw it in a display at a party, then called the art studio looking for the artist, since he thought it looked just like something his dead wife might have done. Mother was terrified he would find us. So we had to move. Knox helped us choose a new place, and helped Mom change our name from Parker to Milstead."

This also Sofie did not tell the Murphy family-that when she was in high school and her boyfriend broke off their relationship, Sofie was so brokenhearted that her mother confided in her as she never had before. She told Sofie that their secret life would have its casualties. That her own heart was still broken for Knox. She'd thought that being gone from him would cure her of wanting him, but it hadn't. This desperate desire for Knox Murphy never left Sofie's mother.

"We didn't see Knox much through the years. He came when Mother was in a bad situation." Sofie avoided eye contact. "When she ran out of money, or needed to see her own mother. He came about once every two years. He was so good to us. I don't think I can make clear to you how he saved us, how he . . . made sure we were okay."

"That last time he was taking her to see her mother?" Jake's voice filled the silence.

"Mother wouldn't fly commercial airlines since she constantly feared she would be caught with her fake ID. Yes, Knox was taking her to see my dying grandmother, but they never arrived. That day, that terrible day, I lost my mother and . . . a dear friend. Then two weeks later, I lost my grandmother."

Sofie glanced around the room cast in soft light from the setting sun. Annabelle was silent; Keeley had placed her hands over her face; Jake sat back on his chair. Finally Annabelle spoke. "Why did you keep this a secret? Why couldn't you have told us?"

"I didn't want my father to find me. Michael Harley and all of you were suddenly asking about a woman who was dead and never wanted to be found. She taught me to make sure I never, ever told anyone who we were-or he would come after us. After me. She knew he would kill us both. Mother told me this fact all my life. I have never spoken a word about him, or what happened. Fear has held me tight. Mother didn't tell me the most terrible parts until I was older. When I was a child, she only told me he was bad, that he mustn't find us, like a real live boogeyman. It wasn't until I was in high school that she told me how he beat her, how he . . ." Sofie hesitated. "I have hidden my ident.i.ty for fear of this man. I'm sorry for any pain it has caused you."

Jake stood, came to her. "He can't touch you, Sofie. He doesn't know you exist."

"He would have if Mother's name and story came out sooner. But you know what? Here is the craziest part-it doesn't matter anymore."

"Why not?" Keeley asked. "Why would it matter all this time and not now?"

"A few weeks ago, I dug through our old papers, and found my mother's Ohio driver's license and original name. I called an . . . investigator and asked him to find out everything he could about my mother. He called back within a day to say that the information was so easy to find he wouldn't even charge me."

"What information?"

Embarra.s.sment overwhelmed Sofie, and she turned away to speak these words. "I've been hiding from a man who has been in jail for five years."

"What?" Keeley spoke first.

Annabelle stood, came to Sofie's side. "You're telling us that my husband helped you and your mother hide from a criminal who has been locked up for years?"

Sofie turned. "I don't think she knew it. She never sought him out. She was so scared of him that she had become accustomed to hiding. The investigator found the newspaper articles about my mother's supposed death in Charleston, then about how my father-a man named Brayden Collins-was convicted of killing a man in a bar fight five years ago."

"d.a.m.n," Jake said.

"This is ridiculous. My dad died protecting your mother . . . and she didn't even need it?" Keeley asked.

Annabelle placed her hand on Sofie's shoulder. "We can only act on what we know. All we can live with is the part we do understand."

Sofie spoke over her shoulder. "I should have . . . tried to find out sooner. I should have. . . . I don't know why my mother didn't try and find out . . . or tell me."

"Maybe she liked her life exactly the way it was," Annabelle said in a quiet voice. "We all get used to things the way they are, and we can't imagine them any other way."

Sofie looked at Annabelle. "All his power over my life . . ."

"What power?" Jake asked.

"The power of making us afraid. My mother perfected the art of keeping secrets: from me, from Knox, from your family. But it's over now."

Jake touched her elbow. "Thank you," he said.

"That's why I came. The one thing I feared-my father discovering my name-is also the one thing I've craved, that this secret would no longer hold any power over my life." She looked at each of them in turn and thought of the turmoil that could have been avoided, the hurt and pain that should never have existed.

"Are you okay?" Annabelle asked.

Sofie nodded as a terrible thought crossed her mind: Maybe Mother needed Knox more than she needed the truth.

There would be many more thoughts and emotions to examine and try to understand. Revealing the story to the Murphy family ended one chapter and began another. "I'll show myself out," Sofie said, turned and walked from the room. She followed the long hall to the front door and out into the evening. She didn't hear Jake come up behind her until he clasped her elbow. "Oh," she said, stumbled.

"You are a brave woman," he said, and placed his hands on both her shoulders, pulled her close and kissed her.

For the first time in her life, she understood what her mother had meant when she said that just being with the right person can fill the empty places.

Jake ran his hand up her back, into her hair, and then released her.

"Jake," she whispered, "these past few weeks, I've had to let go of so many things, and I'm glad I did. But there is one thing I don't want to let go of."

"What is that?"

"You," she whispered into the twilight.

TWENTY-FIVE.

ANNABELLE MURPHY.

Annabelle and Keeley stared at each other across the sunroom. Mosquitoes buzzed outside the screen door; the condensation from the iced tea gla.s.ses formed puddles on the side tables.

"Okay then," Keeley said.

"Are you really okay?" Annabelle moved to sit next to her daughter on the couch, pulled her onto her shoulder and ran her fingers through her hair.

"I'm not sure, Mom. I mean, if all that stuff is true-then we didn't know everything about Dad."

"I'm not sure you can ever know everything about anyone, even someone you love."

"Her mother loved Dad. She didn't say it, but I can tell."

"Liddy Parker might have loved your father, but you can't make someone love you back if their heart belongs somewhere else."

Keeley sat up. "You really believe that?"

"Yes, I do," Annabelle said. "Just like I can't make myself stop loving him just because he's gone."

Keeley nodded. "I know."