Secrets in the Attic (Secrets 1)

interruption in either his reading or his relaxation.

My mother just looked curious.

"Well?" she asked.

"I went to get an ice cream at George's, but the store was already closed," I said. It was half true, and half-truths were not officially lies. I was still at the age when lying to my parents flooded me with guilt. When you're very young, you're filled more with fear, because you actually believe parents can see lies. If they don't contradict you, it's because they're being generous and permitting you an escape.

"I could have told you it would be," my father said, and returned to his book.

"You should at least tell us when you leave the house, Zipporah."

"That's right," my father seconded.

"I'm sorry."

"You do all your homework?" my mother asked. "Yep."

"Try yes and not yep," my father said, not taking his eyes off the page.

"Yes," I said. What was wrong with yep? Jesse sometimes said yep.

"I'm sure you did all your homework," he muttered.

"Yes, I did. Why don't you believe me?" I cried, with as much passion as if I were denying I had murdered someone.

He looked, up, his face pained.

"Okay," he said. "Sorry. Don't have a nervous breakdown."

"Don't forget we're heading up to Grandmother Stein's this Saturday, Zipporah," my mother said. She already had told me twice that we were visiting my father's mother at the adult residence in Liberty, New York. She had been moved there when it became clear that she couldn't look after herself. Since both my parents worked, it would have been impossible to have her live with us. At least the Liberty residence was close.

"Okay," I said, and started to leave the living room. "Don't you want to watch Ed Sullivan?" my mother asked.

I shook my head. I was still very disturbed about the way Karen had blown me off, and I wanted to go upstairs to the sanctity of my own room to think about it. There I could talk to myself in a full-blown split- personality mode, actually looking at myself as if I were a different person. I could ask myself questions, answer them, and criticize myself. I was confident that everyone, even my parents and Jesse, did the same things in the privacy of their rooms.

I was sure that from time to time, everyone thinks of himself or herself as weird. Keeping your sanity was truly like walking a tightrope. No matter what age, how successful, how happy you were, you could easily slip too far to the right or left and fall. Everything about us was so fragile. We spent most of our lives pretending we were too strong to be defeated by disappointments or disillusioned by anything that happened to us. It was like admitting we were mortal. Who would want to do that? Instead, we kept looking straight ahead and ignoring all that indicated we would get old, sicken, and die someday.

There was no place like your own room for such reassurance. Familiar places nourished the growth of hope. Your own room was a garden in which to plant secret thoughts and dreams that would grow into full- fledged ambitions.

I closed, the door and flopped onto my bed to look up at the ceiling and let my thoughts spin out of control.

Why was Karen crying?

Why wouldn't she talk to me? I thought I was her best friend. We were supposed to be birds of a feather. We had already translated it into French, les oiseaux d'une plume, and Karen thought we should print it on T-shirts that we would wear to school. Surely, all the other girls would be jealous once they found out what it meant. We even created the Bird Oath, which we recited in unison often: "We'll be friends forever and ever, and we swear to protect and help each other as much as we would ourselves."

"We're so close not only can we finish each other's sentences like we do in class, but we can finish each other's thoughts," she said, and we hugged.

But if that were really true, why did she lie to me about her bruise? Why did she suddenly have to make up story after story with me or change the subject quickly? I never did that with her. Come to think of it, I thought, I never even sulked or pulled the silent act on her, either.

Seeing her crying and having her be so indifferent to me was very troubling. What would she be like tomorrow? I wondered. Was our friendship about to die? Had I done something I was unaware of doing? Did something I said to my parents get back to her mother? I couldn't think of a thing for which she could blame me, but what if she was so angry at me she would no longer want me to be her friend? Even Jesse would think it was somehow my fault. We had swum too far out to sea together. I thought I would be lost without her.

I fell asleep with my clothes on and woke up when I heard my parents coming up the stairs. After undressing for bed, I looked out my window at the dark forest that surrounded our property. The woods were deep, and one could walk for hours north and not come upon another house or road. To the south, one would eventually reach the highway that connected to busier streets and roads.

It didn't bother me or frighten me that we lived in so isolated a place and that nearly a hundred years ago, someone might have been murdered here, and his bones might still be hidden on the property. I rarely thought about it, even after seeing a scary movie, unless Karen brought it up, of course. Most of the time, I rode my bike through the darkness unafraid. I was still at the age when I thought I was invincible, anyway. I couldn't even imagine myself terminally ill, chronically sick, or disabled. I never thought about being in an accident.

In effect, I was still living in that world of fantasy that we have to slip out of the way snakes slip out of old skin. We look back at it when we're older, and we long for the time when we didn't have many serious responsibilities, when someone took care of us and protected us. We walked on a shelf of selfconfidence that would be harder and harder to find as we grew older. We would realize that we were blessed then but never knew it. Whoever dared harm us- risked the wrath of the Almighty.

Karen surely knew this, too, I told my image in the mirror. And then, I thought, if that was so true, then why was she crying?