Best Kept Secret: A Novel

The next day, I call Martin’s cell phone and it rings four times before he picks up. One more and it would have gone straight to voicemail; he must have been deliberating whether or not he was going to talk to me.

“Hello?” he says. The word is short and hard in my ear.

“Hi,” I say. “I was wondering . . . I know it’s not my weekend, but I’d really like to see Charlie. Just for a little bit. An hour or so.” I am missing my son; there is something in me too hollow to be filled by anything other than having my child in my arms.

Martin pauses before he answers. “Why?”

I have to take my own deep breath to keep from snapping at him. “I just miss him.” Please, I think. Can you please just do this for me? He’s my son, for God’s sake. He came out of my body. Heated humiliation floods my cheeks. I shouldn’t have to beg to spend time with my child. Only another few weeks, I remind myself, and the decision will be made and he’ll be back with me. I won’t have to go through this anymore.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” There is a sturdy wall built around his words. His pause is expectant—awaiting further explanation. I can picture that handsome face, elevated eyebrows raising impatient waves across his forehead.

“Martin,” I say after taking a few calming breaths. “Please.” I can hear the contemplation ticking through his mind.

“He’s at my mom’s,” he finally says. “I’ll call her and let her know you’re coming.”

I let go a sigh of relief, despite having to endure another encounter with Alice. “Thank you. I appreciate it.” I know, despite the custody dispute, at his core, Martin is a good man. The part of him that loved me once understands how much I need this.

He pauses. “Are you okay?”

“No,” I say. For some reason, his question brings on an onslaught of tears. “But I will be.” I hope he realizes I’m not just talking about today.

“Okay.” He hangs up without saying good-bye. I redirect my car toward Alice’s house. All I can think of is pulling Charlie into my lap, feeling his solid little body pressed against mine. I need to be reminded that there is good left in the world. Charlie is the best evidence of this I’ve ever known.

I park and take a couple more deep breaths to calm me before going inside. Dusk has already fallen, the pale afternoon haze melted into fuzzy gray shadow. She is waiting at the front door, opening it just as I am raising my fist to knock.

“It’s nice to see you, Alice,” I say, stepping inside. I look around, noting how little her house has changed in the years I’ve known her. Flat white walls, salmon velour couches, and teal plush carpeting grace the living room. Every windowsill and flat surface holds hundreds of porcelain trinkets collected over the years at garage sales. This is probably the only thing about Alice that clearly frustrated Martin, a minimalist. Dusting was a daily ritual with her, a habit she tried—and failed—to get me to adopt.

“Mama!” Charlie rushes in from the kitchen, throws his arms around me. Tears flood the muscles in my throat in response to his touch. I squat down, pull him close, breathe him in.

“I love you so much, Charlie bear.” There is more ache in my heart than it can hold. I feel it spilling throughout my body, weighing me down. “I missed you.” I can’t help it; the tears start to fall.

Charlie pulls back, looks at me, worried. “What’s wrong?”

I shake my head, try to wipe back the evidence from my cheek. “I’m okay, honey. I just had a hard couple of days.”

“Oh,” Charlie says.

I look up at Alice, who stands back, regarding the scene. There is an odd look on her face. I might venture to call it compassion.

“It’s cool out,” Alice says.

“It is,” I say, nodding, wondering if we’ll ever be able to talk about more than the weather.

“We were just about to have some cocoa and cookies. Why don’t you come join us?”

I know the invitation is born out of manners but I accept anyway, wanting Charlie to witness us getting along. I settle myself down in one of the breakfast nook chairs with Charlie on my lap. He chatters away about his day while Alice sets a plate of shortbread before us and begins to warm milk on the ancient avocado-colored stove.

“And then Omi took me to the park and I climbed to the top of the monkey bars and she told me to get down from there so I didn’t break my neck.”

“Ah,” I say with a smile. “That was probably a good thing. I’ve seen you on monkey bars. You fell once, remember?”

“I fell?” he asks. “Did I bleed?”

I nod, reaching up to touch the small scar over his right eyebrow. “You needed two stitches. Right there. I was very, very scared.”

“See, Charles?” Alice says. “Even your mother agrees with me.”

“Wow,” I say, hoping the intended levity in my voice comes through, “we might want to mark this as an historic day, huh, Alice?”

To my surprise, she laughs, though her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She stirs powdered cocoa mix into three mugs, setting Charlie’s in front of him, then turns to open the cabinet above the stove where I know she keeps her liquor. She pulls out a bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream, unscrews the lid. “I hope this doesn’t bother you,” she says. “I just like to have a drop in my cocoa.”

I watch her pour substantially more than a drop in one of the mugs. I lean over and wrap my fingers around the handle of the mug she left alone, pulling it toward me. “Doesn’t bother me a bit,” I say with a smile. I’ll be damned if she’s going to get the response she’s looking for: me eyeing her drink longingly, or rushing home because I can’t stand to be around the booze.

I snuggle Charlie in closer. “Want to go read a book after we’re done with our snack, honey?”

“Okay!” he says, kicking his legs out and letting them fall back again. His heels smack against my shins.

“Sh—Ouch!” I’m thrilled that is the only word that pops out of my mouth. It could have been—and almost was—much worse. “Watch it, there, Mr. Man. Your mom bruises easily.”

He twists his head around and lands a wet, cocoa-scented smack on my lips, then looks up at me with adoring eyes. He knows I’m a sucker for his kisses. “Sorry, Mama. I didn’t mean to.”

I set my forehead against his. “I know you didn’t. It’s okay.”

“Martin was that way, too,” Alice says, sipping from her mug.

I lift my gaze to her. “Really? What way was that exactly?” I’m not sure how successful I am at masking the automatic defiance I feel. Don’t you dare criticize my child, I think. Don’t you dare.

She lowers her drink, curls up the corners of her mouth. “A little careless with his movements.” She shrugs. “Not intentionally, of course. Just a little wild.”

“Huh.” “Wild” is not a word I’d associate with my ex-husband. Ordered? Definitely. Charismatic? When he wanted to be. Moody? Too often. But wild? Not that I’d ever seen.

“Charles reminds me so much of his dad.” Alice winks at Charlie, which makes me think she must have something in her eye. Charlie happily munches away on his second cookie. “Don’t you?”

“Yep!” Charlie exclaims, spraying crumbs onto the table in front of him and into my cocoa. I set my drink down.

“Charles, be careful!” Alice says, though not as sternly as I’ve heard her be with him before.

“Sorry, Omi.” He bats his big blue eyes at her and I see her body immediately soften. That’s something new. A few months ago, she was barking at him for staining his jeans. Apparently, he’s learned how to charm her.

“It’s okay.” Alice looks at me and lifts her jaw, blinking a couple of times. “He’s a good boy, Cadence. I want you to know that.”

I hesitate, unsure what to say. Maybe the Bailey’s is stronger than I previously thought. Or maybe she started drinking it before I got here. I can’t think of any reason outside of inebriation that she would be this nice to me.

“Mommy knows that, Omi,” Charlie jumps in, saving me. “She helped make me, remember?”

Alice watches my face and I don’t let my eyes drop. “You’re right,” she finally says. “She did.” She stands up, steps over to the counter. She grabs a dish rag from the sink behind her and vigorously wipes the stove of invisible spills. “Stay as long as you like,” she says.

“Thank you,” I say. I take her words for what they’re worth. It’s as close to a truce as we’re likely ever to come.

After leaving Charlie at Alice’s house, I try not to think about what Mr. Hines might have gathered from the meeting with Martin or what further conclusions he is coming to about me, my ability to parent, my drinking. The fact that I ever put my child in danger causes my heart to constrict. It threatens to stop beating altogether when I allow myself to consider the possibility that I won’t get him back at all. The thought strikes me that Martin might really succeed here—he might take my son away from me.

There’s still my mother, I think as I pull into my driveway. But who knows what she’s going to say. I’ve left her alone since our last conversation, not wanting her to feel pressured to give me an answer, considering all the painful memories my drinking brought up for her. And yet. She is my mother. Part of me wishes she could just let down her guard and show up for me once in my life.

Then I remember how her own mother abandoned her. First emotionally, with her drinking, then physically, when she died. Tenderness wells up in me as I close my eyes and put my mother in Charlie’s place—a little girl, unable to protect herself from her mother’s unstable, drunken rage. How she must have hidden herself—first in her room beneath the covers, then in the deepest recesses of her own soul. The walls she built were high and strong; I knew, because as her child many years later, I couldn’t break through them. She learned that cutting off emotion was the only way to keep herself safe, the only way to survive, then she passed that lesson on to me. If I hadn’t stopped drinking, I wonder if Charlie would have eventually learned that same thing from me.

We do what we’re taught, I suppose, unless life comes along and gives us a chance to change direction. Getting sober is my chance. And now I need to consider what kind of example I’ll be for Charlie. I could give in to this disease I have and teach him what my own mother learned—that a bottle of wine is more important than his life—or I can step up to the plate and learn a new way to live. A way that teaches my son that while his mother is fallible, she is also strong and capable of turning her life around. I’ll never know how my mother’s life could have been different, if my grandmother had found a way to get sober. But I do know I’m determined to undo any damage I’ve done to my child. I’m determined to teach him his worth.