Read Online The Secrets She Keeps by Deb Caletti - Free Book Online Page B

listening, but because I forgot to really see him across from me—for the most part I did see him, and he saw me, and it wasn’t about having someone, it was about having Thomas, the way he understood exactly what I meant when I said, Remember Vegas? or waved my arms in our private joke, which referred to the time his sister got hysterical at that party but which had come to mean any time a person overreacted.
    He wasn’t just the one I told things to. He was the one.
    I picked up the phone. I’d set the little patches around the injury, as you must; opened myself to the prospect of forgiveness. Likely I’d be heading home soon, maybe in a day or two, after Shaye and I assessed .
    Thomas was out of breath when he finally picked up. “I was taking out the garbage. I didn’t hear the phone.”
    I didn’t know what to say, now that he’d answered. As soon as I heard his actual voice, the warm balloon of my goodwill seemed to lift off and disappear.

    “Callie?”
    “I’m here.” I picked the tiny balls of fuzz from the quilt and made a small hill.
    “You’re at the ranch, huh? That old place, Jesus. Melissa told me.”
    “Yeah, well.”
    Silence.
    “If you’re mad about how much the therapy costs, insurance covers it, so don’t worry.”
    “I don’t care about the money . When have I ever been the one to care about money?” Thomas—he was the one who thought it was an extravagance to throw away a yogurt carton past its due date. I saw his words for what they were, one of those alluring, argument side trails, the sort that you both careen down even when they’re so far off the main road, you’ll end up walking in circles for hours. He would remind me of the one time he ever bought anything for himself, and I would remind him that when he bought that car, we only had four hundred dollars in the bank. He’d say I was controlling, and I’d say he loved to play the victim. But the main road—this time I was scared where it was headed. The trails have a purpose, which is probably why they’re so widely used.
    His voice was tight and strained, a thin wire. “I just…I needed to talk to someone.”
    I wondered what it was like. A couch, the requisite box of Kleenex, two people in one intimate, silent space.
    “I’m here, you know, as far as someone to talk to. Your wife?”
    “There’s no need to be threatened.”
    “I wouldn’t be threatened if you hadn’t kept it a secret. You lied to me, Thomas. And why? How often did I suggest it myself? Remember that Saturday when you barely got out of bed? I said, Thomas, you’ve got to call someone. You’re clearly depressed. And what did you say? I don’t believe in paying someone to listen to my troubles.”

    I tried to keep my voice down, so Shaye and Nash wouldn’t hear. Things could get so confusing so fast between two people. You wouldn’t think it was possible, and every time it happened, it astonished me. In a second, we—lovers, friends, partners—could be two animals thrashing over one carcass. “You lied for six months , Thomas. I doubt Mary Evans would think that was burgeoning good health.”
    “She doesn’t know I haven’t told you.”
    “Oh, great. Super. We should be going together, Thomas, if you feel like this. Marriage counseling—”
    “Why is this suddenly about you? This is mine . I kept this to myself, yes. So sue me! I wanted to figure out my own head first.”
    Here was the question that had to be asked. It was the boulder that must be dropped from the cliff, and when I shoved it over, I heard the gruesome thud and felt the landing in the pit of my stomach. “And what is in your own head?”
    There was no sound, just the buzz of phone static. And then I realized something awful. He was crying. Thomas, who never cried. I could hear the eck eck of his sobs, the struggle for words.
    “I’m wondering. If this…is all. ”
    “This? Us?” Oh, God. It was awful.
    “No!” He blew his nose. From my side of the phone, it