Little Secrets Read online

  “No. Then my mom left him, and I went with her.”

  Ginny’s cup was long empty and her bladder had begun its protests. “And you never went back? Or had anything to do with your dad ever again?”

  Miller shook his head. “No. And that bastard…he never…”

  She waited for him to compose himself, embarrassed not just by his story but by the somehow confessional nature of it. She shifted in her chair, needing the bathroom and not wanting to get up before he was finished. Miller swallowed hard and gave her another of those bright, hard stares.

  “He never bothered trying to see me, I mean. We left, he never bothered or cared about us after that. He sent checks on time; that was all my mother cared about. And that was it.” He drew in a shaky breath and let it out. “Like I said. He had his favorite, and it wasn’t me.”

  Before Ginny could say something, even to offer sympathy, Miller had pushed the train case back toward her.

  “So I don’t really care to read my sister’s journal or whatever it is. Throw it in the trash. It’s old news. She’s gone, and she’s never ever coming back.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  He shrugged. Then nodded. Stood. He tossed a couple dollar bills on the table, though she’d offered to pay for the coffee he’d barely touched. Miller stared down at her.

  “I’m sure of it. All those stories about seeing her in California or wherever are bullshit, and you think so too, or else you wouldn’t have come after me so hard. You think my sister’s haunting your house, Mrs. Bohn? Well. You might be right. But, guess what, I don’t care. And I don’t want to know about it. Never contact me again, or I’ll have no problem going to the authorities. And if you find anything else…” he paused to give the box a sneer, “…consider it yours. I don’t want it back.”

  She didn’t want to shout after him, but it took her two or three steps for every one of his just so she could catch up. Ignoring her suddenly violent urge to pee, Ginny caught him again at the curb. “You think your father did something to her, don’t you?”

  Miller gave her the side eye. “I don’t think it. I know he did.”

  Then he stepped off the curb and crossed the street, leaving her behind.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  This was it. She was going to open it and read it. Ginny plucked the key from beneath the stack of faded pictures, and fit it into the lock. She turned it. She opened Caroline Miller’s diary and started to read.

  Four pages of random thoughts scrawled in an uneven hand. Nothing important, no revelations. Then…nothing. Blank pages.

  “Wow. So that’s kind of a letdown, huh?” Sean leaned over her shoulder. “Bummer.”

  Ginny had told him the entire story, come clean about everything. The things she’d seen and heard and felt and thought. The time for secrets had ended, for both of them. Sean didn’t believe her about there being a ghost in the house, but he did believe that Ginny thought it was true. That was enough for her; it had to be.

  In the past, Ginny hadn’t asked him to quit smoking or sell his motorcycle. He’d decided those things on his own. She didn’t ask him to stay, either. She hadn’t asked Sean if he’d thought of leaving her, but she’d faced the idea of leaving him and hadn’t done it; now she waited. Some things that were broken could be repaired, good as new. Others, even if they worked again, would always bear evidence of the damage that had been done. That was their marriage. Broken, repaired, working somehow. But not unscathed. Perhaps someday they’d both stop tiptoeing around each other, or maybe they’d always hold what each had done between them for the rest of their lives. The baby would make a difference. Or not.

  “I love you” was all she’d said, over and over, as Sean paced and ran his hands through his hair and when he’d asked her if it was his fault, any of this. “I love you,” she’d told him. “That’s what matters.”

  She wasn’t sure if he believed in her love, any more than he believed in the ghost of Caroline Miller, but it seemed as though he believed Ginny believed in it. And that also had to be enough.

  Now, he squeezed her shoulders before withdrawing. “I’m sorry. I know you hoped it would give you some clues. Or something.”

  “It’s okay. I’m not sure I’d have learned anything I didn’t already know. Or couldn’t guess.” Ginny closed the diary and put it back into the train case, along with the pictures and all the other bits and pieces of things that had once belonged to Caroline Miller. She looked at him. “And maybe…maybe someone in a white van really did carry her off. Or maybe she’s okay.”

  “We’ll just never know,” Sean said.

  And maybe it was better that way.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The worst winter in twenty years was turning into the worst spring. While usually an early thaw would’ve been welcome, this year the massive amounts of snow that had accumulated were melting too fast for the earth to handle it. Water rushed day and night, down the street and into the drains, which overflowed and made lakes across the sidewalks and into the yards. Kids sloshed in it and ran paper boats down it.

  Ginny looked for Pennywise, the clown.

  Not really, though she did avoid the drains when she went out to get the mail. Debris had clogged many of them, making the problem worse. So did the gray skies dumping more rain every day. She was sick of the sound it made on the roof. Sick of sloshing. Sick of everything being damp.

  She was sick of waiting, waiting, for things to change.

  She could see the star of her due date on the calendar now. The obstetrician told her she could go early. She could go late. This wasn’t her first pregnancy, but it was her first to go to term and there was no predicting what her body was going to do. The baby would come when it was ready, the doctor told her. That was the way babies worked.

  From the nursery window, Ginny watched Kelly and Carson duck through the hedge and into her yard. The snow had gone, replaced by mud and the grass that had been overlong before winter came. They ran through it in their rain boots and slickers, slashing at the overgrowth with long sticks. Then back through the hedge, widening the hole for a moment before the brush closed behind them again.

  The rocking chair Sean had struggled so hard to put together still squeaked, but rather than finding this annoying, Ginny took comfort in the consistent noise. She closed her eyes and rocked in the nursery she’d finally allowed herself to decorate, both hands on her big belly. She listened to the squeak and the creak of wood on wood.

  She listened for the sound of footsteps.

  Something like a sigh brushed past her on a swirl of cool air. They’d turned off the heat at the beginning of last week, and even in an unseasonably warm late February, it was not yet time for air-conditioning. She wanted to open the windows at least, but the rain prevented it. Instead, Sean had turned on the house fan.

  Ginny rocked and breathed. Another whisper, another sigh, the soft pad of footsteps in the hallway. If she opened her eyes, she’d see nothing but shadows. Ghosts never showed themselves in the daytime. But she felt a presence, eyes watching. She felt a hopefulness. It was the only way to describe it.

  So, she sang.

  Her gran had sung this lullaby to her when she was small. Like the best of Grimm’s fairy tales, the song about a pair of children lost in the woods had delighted her childhood love of all things macabre, and it wasn’t until Ginny got older that the horror of the lyrics had become clear. She sang it now anyway, to the baby in her womb and for those she’d lost.

  For the one who seemed unable to leave.

  In the yard, Kelly and Carson chased each other again. Their screams snapped open Ginny’s eyes. She sighed herself, annoyed that they couldn’t seem to stay in their own yard, that they had to be so loud. Her child would never, she thought mildly. Never, never.

  They disappeared around the side of the house, heading back toward their yard