The Art of Keeping Secrets Part 5

The Southern Belle

Annabelle clicked send to Mrs. Thurgood and leaned back in her chair. A slow laugh began below her chest and rose until she sat giggling at her computer. There was no way Mrs. Thurgood would let an abrasive and rude column through her "Southern Belle" filter.

Annabelle began to type her real answer.

Dear Guilt-ridden,

This is a complicated question, just as relationships are complicated and multifaceted.

Annabelle leaned back on her office chair, rubbed her fingers on her temples and thought about what to say next. She was staring at the ceiling when the ding of incoming mail made her look back down at another e-mail from Mrs. Thurgood:

Thank you for the quick reply on the column. See next e-mail for article on Knox's plane. Please let me know if you have any input.

Annabelle took in a sharp breath. Mrs. Thurgood must not have read the advice column-she had sent it straight to print. Yet what really knocked the air out of her lungs was the new attachment that scrolled across her screen:

KNOX MURPHY'S PLANE FOUND

Annabelle slowly read the facts she already knew from the sheriff. But here they were, about to appear in the evening and then morning papers for all of Marsh Cove and South Carolina to see, for Internet readers and the a.s.sociated Press to find.

Annabelle dropped her head into her hands. "Oh, Knox. Sweet, sweet Knox, what were you doing?"

The room seemed to spin and Annabelle closed her eyes until footsteps entered the room. "Mom?"

Annabelle lifted her head. "Yes?" Keeley stood before her with a coat in one hand, car keys in her other.

"I'm headed out."

"No, you're not."

Keeley laughed and Annabelle marveled at the unknown child before her. "Yes, I am," Keeley said.

Annabelle stood, took four steps toward her daughter and grabbed the car keys from her hand. "You cannot skip school and then take the car. What is wrong with you?"

"Nothing is wrong with me. But there is definitely something wrong with this family-Dad was running off with some woman."

Annabelle dropped her hands, gripped them behind her back. "Is that what you think?"

"Isn't it what you think, Mom? Come on, really."

"No, that is not what I think."

"Please." Keeley rolled her eyes. "Don't be a fool. He didn't want any of us, and he was running away with some woman."

Annabelle shook her head at hearing her worst fear coming out of her daughter's mouth. "We've been through this together before, Keeley. Your dad did not willfully leave us. He did not choose to leave us. His plane crashed and he died."

Keeley backed a step away from her. "Yeah, I finally believed all that s.h.i.t you and the counselor told me. Now I see he really was running away. He might not have meant to die, but he did mean to leave. Lucky Jake, away at college. I wish I was gone and didn't have to see and hear all this."

"Do not curse. And no, he wasn't leaving us. Just because we don't know why he was on that plane with that woman doesn't mean there isn't a good reason."

"Mother, do you hear yourself? Quoting the same old stupid thing my whole life: 'Just because we don't know the reason doesn't mean there isn't one.' I am so out of here." Keeley tried to grab the car keys back from Annabelle, then dropped her face into her hands and attempted, unsuccessfully, to stem the flow of her tears.

Keeley's words threatened to open a drain at the bottom of Annabelle's soul. She wrapped her arms around her daughter. "Oh, Keeley."

The mystery overwhelmed Annabelle-how giving herself away in love filled her up with more to give. To love her child was to offer part of her heart while hers grew larger. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, she swore she could feel Keeley breathing, or hear her heartbeat.

The phone rang behind them and Keeley released her mother, wiped the tears from her face. "I'm going to . . . my room."

"I'll make us a nice dinner . . . and . . ." The phone rang again.

Keeley ran up the stairs and Annabelle grabbed the receiver.

"Hi, Annabelle dear. This is Lila. We're all sitting here at Bible study, wondering where you are. You were in charge of the food today."

"I was, wasn't I?" Annabelle stared across the room, wondering what she might have in the kitchen cupboard that would suffice for a snack for ten women: stale m.u.f.fins, brown grapes.

"Yes, and Reverend Preston is our guest speaker today. Remember?" Lila trilled into the phone.

"Yes, but I just can't make it today."

"You should have called someone to take your duties . . . or at least dropped food off for us."

"Yes, I should have, shouldn't I?"

Lila's irritated exhale traveled through the receiver. "I guess we'll just continue without food."

"Sorry. I can drop some off, if you'd like," Annabelle said as she went to the kitchen with the intention of finding something, anything to pack in a Tupperware container. She acted on autopilot-obligation moving her forward, commitment thrusting her into action as it had the day after the news of Knox's death, when she'd stood in the laundry room and folded clothes into neat little piles while family and friends crowded the living room and kitchen.

"Too late," Lila said.

"I really am sorry." Annabelle's hand rested on the refrigerator door in defeat. She hung up and sank onto a bar stool. She was making a mess of things-a complete and utter chaotic jumble. Pretending to go through the regular motions of life was not working. All she could think about was who had been on that plane with her husband and how someone had to know something. She mentally ticked through the list of people she needed to call and talk to before the newspaper landed on their doorstep that evening.

Who might know about this woman? If not Shawn, if not Cooper, then who? She believed both of them. They'd all grown up together, kept one another's secrets and hidden their mishaps. Even so, in such a close-knit group, there might be unknowns. Maybe the years had spread far and wide enough to weaken the bonds that held them together, pushing the joints and junctures where they were connected.

The only person left to ask in their original group of five-Cooper, Shawn, Annabelle, Mae and Knox-was Mae.

Annabelle grabbed her car keys, left Keeley a quick note that she'd run to the store and instead headed out to the county road that led to Mae's horse farm.

The asphalt unwound as her mind reeled backward-to the day Knox had left on his hunting trip. Nothing had seemed amiss. She'd kissed him goodbye. They'd said, "I love you." He'd pulled out of the driveway and waved out the driver's-side window. This was her last memory of him; she'd gone over it a million times and knew it to be true: he'd smiled and waved, a shadow from the magnolia tree crossing his forehead.

The memory was as palpable as a person sitting in the pa.s.senger seat while Annabelle drove toward Mae's house. Mae had been the last to know about her and Knox's wedding. Their joy had been subdued in the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo, which had just blown up the coast. They'd gone from one friend to the next and informed them of their decision to marry.

The simple ceremony had been held in the pasture of Knox's family farm. Annabelle wore a white dress borrowed from Aunt Barbara in Atlanta, and Knox slipped his grandmother's wedding ring onto her finger. She'd been twenty years old. They'd moved into the guest house at the far end of the Murphy property and started their life together. Every time anxiety had overcome Annabelle, Knox had said, "Trust me." And she had.

Now Annabelle parked in Mae's driveway and heard his words again. Trust me.

"I'm trying. I'm really trying," Annabelle said out loud in the car. She tried to remember the peace she'd felt when she'd relied on Knox before-Trust me-and how those words had comforted her during the tortuous days when she couldn't find him during Hurricane Hugo. His "trust me" had always been enough.

But now the words she'd said to Mrs. Thurgood echoed in her head, stronger and louder than Knox's. What if everything I've ever believed about my life was a lie? What if all I trusted and relied on wasn't true?

She jogged up to the front door. Mae answered her knock with a cup of tea in one hand. "Well, h.e.l.lo, Belle." She hugged Annabelle with her free arm, held her mug out to the side. "You okay?"

Still in the foyer, Annabelle plopped into a side chair, which was probably meant just for show.

Mae pulled up another chair, sat and faced her. "What's happened?"

And for the third time that day, Annabelle repeated the story. "No," Mae said when Annabelle finished.

"Yes."

"Men are so stupid. They have everything they've ever wanted right in front of their faces, and they still think they need to go find it somewhere else. But, just d.a.m.n, I never thought it would be Knox."

"So, you think it was an affair?" Annabelle leaned forward, touched Mae's knee.

"Isn't that what you just said?"

"No, I said they found a woman-I didn't say I knew who she was or why she was there."

"Oh, I just a.s.sumed. I'm sorry."

"Yeah, that's the problem. I just a.s.sume, too. But now I don't know. There could be . . . other reasons; through all the trials, you've always been a dear friend. But you've also been Knox's friend, and if you've kept a secret for him or kept something from me, I need to know now. It will come out in the papers, and the police are looking for the woman's ident.i.ty. . . . If you know, please tell me."

Mae shook her head. "I have no idea. I really don't. I never, ever saw Knox with anyone but you. Ever. He never talked of anyone else. You knew everyone he knew that I know."

Annabelle looked at Mae's face, stared hard and long; she was telling the truth. Annabelle leaned back in the chair. "I've been going over our lives, and I can't find the moment when he would've lied or known someone else or left with someone else. I mean . . . maybe on a business trip or another hunting trip."

"I guess there could be a million explanations. . . ."

"Yeah, I guess so. But there's only one true one. . . . I just don't know what it is."

Mae rubbed her face. "Did you have any reason, whatsoever, not to trust him? Was anything weird going on?"

"No, I always trusted him." And this was true.

"Then don't stop now."

"I'm trying not to." Annabelle stood up. "Can you think of anyone else I should ask? Do you think Frank would know anything?"

Mae gently shook her head. "No, I don't think Frank would have a clue. But I'll ask him. Who else have you asked?"

"Shawn, Cooper and Christine."

Mae shrugged. "If we don't know, I don't know who else would."

"Someone has to know. I mean someone has to know she's gone or missing. People don't just not come home without someone being affected."

"I'm sure the police will figure it out."

"Yes," Annabelle said, "but I'd like to know first."

Mae hugged her. "Call me if there's anything I can do."

"If you think of something else . . . someone else, please tell me."

"Of course. It doesn't change anything, you know."