Barbara Taylor Sissel - Safe Keeping

They were lifelong friends, still living in the houses they were raised in and that their mothers had been raised in. Like many of the other historic homes in the neighborhood, Anna’s house, a pale green, turreted Eastlake, was also a Hiram Winter creation. When Emily and Anna were sixteen, a new girl their same age moved with her family into the Winter-built, red-brick, Georgian colonial next door to Anna. Natalie’s closet was crammed with great-looking clothes she was willing to share and she could use her mother’s turquoise-blue Cadillac convertible pretty much whenever she wanted it. She drove Anna and Emily everywhere, top down, radio blasting. They became inseparable and never really lost touch, not even after high school. It was their good fortune when as newlyweds they returned with husbands in tow to the old neighborhood, like migratory birds, to live in the homes of their girlhood.

They shared nearly everything: pregnancies and diapers, recipes, celebrations. They raised their children together. Emily and Roy had Lissa and Tucker; Anna and her husband, Harvey, had their son, Cory; and Nat and her husband, Benny McPherson, had their daughter, Holly. Lissa was the oldest, Cory was the youngest and Tucker and Holly were the same age, born only weeks apart. It was a good life, filled with good times.

But like all good things, those times ended. Not easily. Not in any way Emily cared to remember.

Stirring a teaspoon of sugar into her coffee now, she glanced at Anna. “I probably shouldn’t have come. I’m not fit company in the mood I’m in.”

“Nonsense.” Anna patted Emily’s arm. “Is Tucker coming home? Did Lissa say?”

“She didn’t, and it worries me. I have a feeling they got into it, but it’s not as if she’d tell me. You know how those two keep secrets.” She was no different, Emily thought. She was keeping her own secrets. But when tempers were already strained to the max, sometimes keeping what you knew to yourself was for the best. Sometimes, if you just gave a situation a little time, it would resolve itself.

“We need something to nibble on.” Anna scooted from her chair and went to rummage in the pantry.

She was biting her tongue, but soon enough, she would speak her mind. She would give Emily her opinion, the benefit of her advice. In times of trouble, that’s what friends did, but Emily didn’t necessarily always want to hear what Anna had to say. As close as they were, and as much as they shared, Emily didn’t feel that Anna understood about Tucker. How could she? His nature was so much more complicated than Cory’s or Lissa’s. Who knew how or why? Emily had used up Tucker’s childhood trying to sort it out, to sort him out. It still mystified her that two children, who shared the same parents, could be so utterly different in almost every way. But it was watching Tucker struggle with those very differences, watching him try so hard to fit in, that made Emily want to defend him, to shield him. She could wish all she liked to have a son like Cory, one who fit the norm, a regular kid, but she didn’t.

Perfect Cory, Emily thought, and then she was ashamed.

Anna turned from the pantry, holding out a box of Milanos, her favorite cookie. She smiled.

“I don’t think those are on our diet, are they?” Emily smiled, too.

“Think of it this way. We can eat these or take Prozac. I think these are cheaper and better for us. Am I right?” Anna waggled her eyebrows, making a joke.

Emily laughed outright and then wondered how she could, given the circumstances.

Anna arranged the cookies on a plate and brought it to the table. “What has Roy said?”

Her casual tone didn’t fool Emily for a moment. “Oh, you know Roy,” she said just as casually, wanting to avoid contention, while at the same time knowing the impossibility, because she needed to talk this out, and who else was there but Anna? Emily flashed a glance at her and found her looking back.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Emily said, “but it isn’t as simple as blaming Roy every time Tucker disappears.”

“Did I say I blamed him?”

“You don’t have to. I know you think he’s controlling.”

“I’ve heard you say it yourself.”

“Yes, and you know why.”

“Look, I’m as sorry as you that Roy’s parents were tough on him and that he lost his leg in a war few of us wanted any part of, but you aren’t responsible for that. If memory serves, you tried to keep him from going.”

It was true. Roy had been two weeks into his first spring training camp with the Astros in Kissimmee, and happier, he said, than any man had a right to be, when his draft notice came. The effect was devastating. He was terrified of losing her and his budding baseball career. She was the one who said they should go to Canada. She had often wondered since what would have happened if he had agreed. Who would they be now? He would have been granted amnesty eventually. Maybe he would have found a place to work in baseball again. One thing was certain: he would still have both his legs.

Anna said, “I’m not passing judgment, Em. You know that, don’t you?”

Emily said she did, although Anna’s opinion of Roy always seemed faintly condemnatory to her. She toyed with her teaspoon, feeling Anna’s concern, and she was sorry for it. She regretted being the cause, and when Anna asked, “What is it?” she hesitated a long moment, drawing in a breath, before admitting that she was worried about Roy.

“He’s so quiet and withdrawn since he retired, and this morning, he talked to Lissa about tearing down the lake house.” She caught Anna’s gaze. “What if it’s coming back, all that old post-traumatic stress business?”

“You don’t think he’s drinking.”

“No.” Emily was definite.

“But you think he might—what? Hurt someone, himself? Is it that bad again?”

“I don’t know. I’m afraid to talk to him about it.” She paused. “He’s really had it with Tucker this time. I’m not sure what will happen when he comes home. I kind of dread it, actually.”

“Oh, Em.”

She stood up in the silence that fell and went to Anna’s kitchen sink to look out the window. “I was foolish to think that because Miranda was dead the craziness would be over. I so wanted to believe Tucker would come to his senses, but he hasn’t. He still associates with those people, her friends. Other women like her. It’s as if she’s still manipulating him, even from the grave.”

“They were together a long time.”

“I should have put my foot down at the very beginning. They were too serious about each other. But Roy said if we argued, if I made a thing of it, it would only make them more determined. How I wish I had listened to my own intuition.”

“You can’t blame yourself, Em. Miranda was a sweet girl growing up, remember? No one, not even her parents, knew why she went so far off the track. Tucker only wanted to help her.”

“For all the good it did him, and still, he persists. If he’s so determined to rescue the downtrodden, I’d much rather he’d become a missionary and render aid in some third-world country. It would be safer.”

When Emily sat down again, Anna patted her arm, and they shared a look deepened by years of familiarity and affection.

“The girl who was missing,” Emily said, “Jessica Sweet, did you hear they found her?”

Anna nodded, and Emily sensed that Anna had been biding the time, waiting until Emily brought it up.

“I’m so worried she’ll have some connection to Miranda. They were found in the same patch of woods.”

“I heard that on the news.”

“I need for him to come home, Anna. I need to look into his eyes, then I’ll know—”

“Know?”

“Whether he—” Emily hesitated. Whether he is a murderer. She wanted to say it—to test out the possibility of it being true with Anna, her dearest friend in all the world—but even if she could have brought the words past the knot in her throat, they wouldn’t be accurate. She couldn’t really tell anything about Tucker by looking at him anymore. Now that he was grown, he was as much of an enigma to her as to anyone. All smoke and mirrors. Mercurial. Here and gone. All his life she’d sought answers, the key to understanding his nature. Had he come with a different temperament, one that was more tightly wired? Was it the fault of genetics, or had he been marked by early childhood trauma, that handful of years when Roy had been so unstable? She didn’t know.