Secrets in the Attic (Secrets 1)

"First, I told him I had been in New York. I figured I had better use our phone call, the call you made to my mother, in case he found out. I told him that it wasn't as easy as I had imagined to hide out there, to find a decent place to stay with the little money I had, but when I thought where I should go, I could think only of your house. I talked about our attic, our nest, and how it had been our world away from the world, how I had felt safe there always, even when I was living under terrible circumstances. I described how I came up the fire escape and into the attic but that I was hungry and had come down to get something to eat.

"He felt so sorry for me that he almost cried himself. He insisted he get me some food right away. That was when he put on his pants, but he didn't bother with shoes or socks or a shirt. He led me down to the kitchen and fixed me a pretty good toasted cheese sandwich with a tomato and a pickle and a cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream."

"How could you think about food?"

"I was pretty hungry, Zipporah. Anyway, while I sat and watched him make the sandwich, I began to put my story together. I described hitching to New York City. I put in this episode with an older man who tried to get me to go to a motel with him and how I jumped out of the car at the first red light. I told him how I wandered through the city streets, lost and afraid, and how I almost ended up in an alleyway. He kept shaking his head and saying, 'Damn, what you've gone through.' Then I told him how I made up my mind to chance returning but that I had hoped to hide out in the attic a while. He served me the sandwich, and while I ate, he asked me what had happened and why, and I told him everything, everything about Harry, including his madness over his dead mother."

"That explains it," I said, nodding.

"Explains what?"

"Why Jesse wasn't surprised about it when I told him and why he was so adamant about your having told me the truth. He had already heard it all from you."

She smiled. "He's very, very sweet," she said. "Anyway, I started to cry again when I got to the part about my mother and how she wasn't going to come to my defense or support my story. That made him angry. I threw myself on him, crying, 'What should I do, Jesse? You're so much smarter than I am. What should I do?' He thought for a moment and decided I should do just what I had intended for now."

"Meaning what?"

"You'll love this. Meaning I should remain hidden in the attic. He would take care of me, be sure I had what I needed, only he was insistent that no one find out, even you. So you're not supposed to know I'm here. Isn't that funny?"

"My brother wants to hide you in the attic?"

She nodded, smiling "He thought I should stay here until he figured out something better for me. He said my mother should somehow be forced to come forward and tell the truth, so that when I appeared, turned myself in to the police, there would be a great deal of sympathy for me. He said he was going to think hard about it and come up with a plan. He made me promise that if I screwed up, made noise, gave myself away, I would not involve him, however. He said his parents would be devastated. If I did get caught or discovered, I was to say no one knew I was up there. He was especially insistent that you not know."

"Why?"

"He thought you would do something that would give me away. I almost laughed then. I was even tempted to tell him you already knew, but it was too late. You don't change your story in midstream," she said, as if she were giving me instructions for lying. "Of course, I agreed. It would be our little secret. So you see, you had better get downstairs quickly and not reveal in any way that you know I'm here."

I shook my head. "It's not like him to do something like this, to hide something like this from our parents."

"Why not? You did," she reminded me.

I looked at her. Yes, I did, I thought, but I always thought Jesse was better than I was. He was'the good son, the perfect son, rarely disappointing our parents in any way, polite, responsible, and far more mature than most boys his age. My father trusted him with his work, was going to use him to help research his cases. He had brought home only trophies and honor roll status on his report cards.

"Jesse's different," I said.

"Sure, he's different, silly. He's a man, and remember, I know things about him that he doesn't know I know," she said.

"If he did, he wouldn't want to help you a bit," I fired back at her.

"Well, you're not going to tell on me now, are you?"

I was silent a moment. "I left you a note in the book," I said.

"I have it," she said. "I'm not surprised at how the police treated you. Now you know why I'm not so anxious to walk into the police station and cry, 'Here I am!'"

She stood up abruptly. "You'd better go down quickly and quietly, Zipporah. You don't want our Jesse to discover you found me. He'll be so embarrassed."

I rose slowly. Our Jesse? When did he become our Jesse?

"Hurry," she said in a loud whisper. "You've been here too long already."

I walked to the doorway and opened it slowly to listen. They were all still downstairs.

She stepped up to me, her body pressed against mine as she brought her lips close to my ear.

"I feel so much better knowing Jesse is trying to help me:' she whispered.

I didn't say anything.