Secrets in the Attic (Secrets 1)

Her voice reverberated in the attic. I held my breath. She was crying, too.

"I'm sorry, Karen. I'm sorry."

"You're supposed to be helping me at my time of greatest need. We have a plan. Let's follow it."

What plan? I thought but didn't ask.

"Okay. Sorry. I can't help being nervous about it. I'm trying. Really, I am."

She started to calm down and returned to the sofa. She sat quietly for a moment, gathering her thoughts and nodding.

"The next few days are all set, then. You're off tomorrow for New York. You'll make the call. You'll do the stupid visit to my mother. You'll see Dana. We'll have much to talk about and do, as much as we ever would have. Right?"

"Yes," I said.

She smiled again, and then she hugged me. I looked at my watch, and she pulled back as if I had slapped her.

"Go on down before your mother drives in. You're worthless to me when you sit there on pins and needles."

I rose, grateful for permission to go.

"You sure you have everything you need for tonight? I won't be able to come back up here."

"I'm fine. I have everything I need in the trunk behind the sofa," she said, nodding at it.

I looked around the attic. As big as it was, it still seemed confining and dark to me. I always enjoyed our times up there, but we always knew we could throw open the window and shout or leave whenever we wanted to leave. Once, it had been magical for us. Could it be that way ever again? Was it still that way for Karen? Was that what sustained her during all those long and lonely hours alone?

"What do you do up here in the dark?"

"I use that little flashlight to read, but I put the blanket over me so the light can't be seen in the window, not even a tiny glow, and then I just go to sleep. I'm fine. I'm managing. I've done a lot more exploring of the things up here, too."

"What if my mother came up here one day while I was at school, and I wasn't here to give you any warning?"

"No problem. You know how those stairs announce visitors. I'd hear her, and guess what?"

"What?"

"I fit very well in that armoire in the corner. I've already tried it. I can breathe all right in it and watch through the cracks until I see her leave. I'm fine," she reassured me. "We'll be fine. In fact," she continued, "I have a lot to show you about the things up here and tell you about when we can spend more time together without worry. I've spent hours and hours looking at things we've never touched. You don't even know about the old journals and newspapers, I'm sure.

"And of course, I think about you and how you're living for both of us at the moment," she added. "That's why you can't fail. You won't be just failing yourself."

"I'm doing the best I can. It's hard lying to my parents and to everyone else, Karen."

"I know. Don't forget, I've been doing just that for most of my life," she said.

She smiled and hugged me again. I walked to the attic door, paused, and looked back at her.

"I could become like everything else up here," she said. "Another orphan in the nest of orphans if you desert me."

"I won't," I promised, and I left, closing the door behind me.

The tears I cried for her and myself all fell behind my eyes, like tiny hailstones pounding on my fractured heart.

12 A Collect Call

My parents prepared for our trip to New York as if we were going to another country. They carefully planned the travel schedule, how and when we would get to our hotel, where we would eat dinner before the show so we would be close enough to walk to the theater and, if we wanted, to walk back to the hotel. Since we had moved up to Sandburg, none of us had been to New York. Because we had lived so close to the city, we never stayed overnight in a hotel there, either. My mother was excited about it, because my father, through a friend, had gotten us a great deal on a suite in a very fancy Manhattan hotel, the St. Regis. I didn't know it before we left, but my bedroom in the suite had its own phone. When we arrived and I saw what our accommodations were like, I thought my opportunity to make the phone call Karen wanted was that much better and easier for me to accomplish, but I underestimated how hard my mother would work at having me do things with her in the city every minute, and it occurred to me that it would be unwise to have the call traced to our suite.

Almost as soon as we checked in, my mother plotted out our every move, and from there until we returned, I was never out of her sight. Together, we would walk up Fifth Avenue and go from one wonderful department store to another. She was eager to see and to show me the new fashions and buy me some new clothes. She wanted us to have lunch at a restaurant that looked out at the skating rink in Rockefeller Center. Our jaunt was to be girls only. My father was happy about that. He was meeting some old lawyer friends for lunch, anyway, and said he would then look for a new suit and some new shirts and shoes on his own, "without anyone looking over my shoulder."