Our Secret

Paula sat hunched over the kitchen table, a small waif of a figure swaddled in a tattered blue flannel bathrobe, black hair tousled, face haggard from lack of sleep. She took a long drag off her cigarette, grimacing as the cool menthol tore at her lungs. She had combed the cupboards and drawers to find the pack, stashed some months ago when she had made up her mind to quit.

“Smokin’ again,” Sarah, Paula’s seventeen-year-old daughter observed as she quietly entered the kitchen.

Paula, lost in a sea of tangled thoughts, reacted with a jerk then with an edgy hand, stubbed out the cigarette into a large overflowing ashtray, “Just the one.”

Sarah grabbed an apple from the bowl on the counter. She brushed against an empty whiskey bottle and it toppled over with a clatter. “So? Nate’s feelin’ a little green today?” Sarah inquired contemptuously; gesturing toward the twenty-six-ounce bottle freshly cracked the night before. She bit into the apple with a resounding crunch.

Paula nodded, fixated on the vivid black bruise that covered the back of Sarah’s delicate wrist. “I’ll be checking on him in a bit.”

Sarah and Paula exchanged a long, intense look. A volume of words mutely shared through an arched eyebrow, a tilt of the chin; the secret language only a mother and daughter can comprehend. The moment was ephemeral, interrupted by the sound of the school bus chugging up the lane, a signal for Sarah to hurry. Sarah opened the kitchen door, allowing it to slam behind her as she trotted down the path.

Paula downed her coffee, lit the last cigarette from the pack, and then hastily put it out after a few long drags. As she climbed the stairs, she fought a wave of nervous queasiness. No time left for wondering if she made the right decision.

She hesitated outside her bedroom for a moment; the resonance of her deep breathing invaded her ears as she firmly grasped the cold glass doorknob. She listened intently, holding her breath, waiting for a repetition of the reverberating sound. Someone was rapping on the kitchen door. She tried to ignore it, but a little voice nagged her that it would be best to answer.

The postman greeted her cheerfully, “Good morning. Parcel for Nathan Keats.”

“Thanks,” Paula took the parcel then hurriedly shut the door and again headed upstairs.

“Helllll-ooooo.” A faint voice reached Paula’s ears. “Anyone home?”

Paula tossed the parcel toward the chair in the upstairs hallway. Missing by a fraction, it landed on the floor with a thud.

“Mary,” Paula intercepted her neighbor at the bottom of the stairs, annoyed that Mary Jones, barely an acquaintance, would enter her home uninvited. “What brings you over this way?”

“I was on my way into town and thought you might like to join me. I knocked…” Mary offered with a smirk.

“That’s very kind of you, Mary, but…Nathan…my husband, is sleeping. Poor guy is not well at all today. I should really stay home just in case he needs me.”

“That’s too bad." A thoughtful look crossed Mary's face, "Say, you know I’m a nurse. Would you like me to look in on him?”

“No, no, that’s okay. If he isn’t feeling better by dinner I warned him I’d get Doc Thomas to come by.”

“Well, alright then,” Mary agreed reluctantly, as Paula herded her toward the door, “But you better not leave it too long. That SARS virus is going around, and, well, you can’t be too careful these days.”

“I know. Thanks.” Paula watched through the window as Mary poked her way down the gravel path toward the bright red Ford pickup that sat idling in the lane. She ran up the stairs, speculating if she should have had Mary look in on Nathan.

Less than a half-hour later Paula again answered a rap on the front door, only this time she expected her callers. Two paramedics and two policemen stared at her, their expressionless faces waiting for permission to enter.

Paula wiped the tears from her eyes, and sniffled, “He’s upstairs, the door at the end of the hallway.”

“There’s a note.” One of the policemen informed her.

Paula, supported by a wall, nodded in response. She knew the one he was talking about. It was Nathan’s handwriting. Signed, but not dated.

The coroner arrived to take Nathan away. Then, one of the policemen informed Paula, “Sorry, Mrs. Keats, but you’ll have to come down to the station. It’s routine.”

“My daughter, Sarah, will be home soon.”

“We’ll have a car pick her up.”

“She’s at Westmont, grade twelve. Ask for Sarah Bartley.” Paula rambled in explanation.

Late that afternoon an unmarked police car dropped Sarah and Paula off at home, then quickly sped away down the lane. The police and coroner had vacated the house hours before. A duty officer at the station told Paula that Nathan’s case would automatically close in six weeks. It was an unfortunate suicide. They were very sorry for her loss. Did she want a prescription for sedatives? Paula had declined that offer.

Impulsively, Paula checked upstairs, expecting to see Nathan in their bed. She could not believe he was gone.

She turned, momentarily startled by the figure in the doorway. It was Sarah. “Come on, hon, let’s take a walk.”

Paula and Sarah strolled along the bank of the lake that bordered their acreage. It was a beautiful spring evening, and Paula felt as light and free as the swooping swallows.

“I guess he won’t be cheatin’ anymore,” Sarah surmised grimly. “And his days of beatin’ on you are done forever.”

Paula grimaced, jamming her fists deep into the pockets of her green cardigan. “When he raised his hand to you the other night...well... Good thing I found that farewell note to his latest side dish. Lucky for us he didn’t use her name…Darling was the best he could come up with.”

Sarah listened silently as Paula continued to ramble.

“You know, I can’t remember the last time so many people came to the door in one week, let alone one day. I thought afterward that it might look more convincing if Mary Jones had found him, but she’s such a busy body, the whole town would be whispering by now.” Paula sighed deeply, “Besides, I wasn’t sure he’d be dead, and then what? Where’d you get that liquid stuff, anyway?”

“I’ll never say,” Sarah grinned mysteriously.

“It sure mixed well with whiskey.”

“How’d you convince the police?”

“Cried.”

“You? Cried?” Sarah was skeptical.

“Soap helped, but I was petrified they’d figure it all out.”

A loon’s solemn cry broke the stillness, a sign that it would soon be dark. Mother and daughter walked arm in arm toward the house as the setting sun cast a rosy hue over the countryside.