NO SECRET SO CLOSE: Excerpt # 13

In the end, it was she who made the first move. Stepping up to the car, she handed me a piece of paper. “Claire, your dad’s not back from his run,” she said, her voice trembling. “You need to call the police sergeant right away. Ok? He wants to know Bob’s running routes.” On the paper, she had scribbled the name, Sergeant Brady, and a phone number.

I had run with my dad enough to know there could only be one reason he hadn’t returned. He’d been hurt. My body went numb with the thought of what, or who, might have overtaken him. I had felt that strangeness in the area any number of times while running, and knew he had too. We’d never exactly spoken about our fears. But we had all kinds of names for the strange types we’d see while running. 

It could have been me, was all I could think. Why him and not me? I would have been an easier target, certainly. 

The panic suddenly kicked me back to life, and I raced up the stairs and through the house to the kitchen. With one hand on the sliding glass door out to the back deck, I picked up the phone and held the receiver to my ear with my shoulder as I dialed the number.

“This is Sergeant Brady.” A soft voice answered.

“Um, my mom told me to call you?” I said. 

“Is this Claire?”

“Yes.” My voice wavered.

“We’re trying to find your father, Claire.” He sounded kinder than I would have imagined a detective to be. I pictured a genteel man in his late forties. “Can you tell me all of the routes he may have run?”

I pulled one of the dining table chairs close and sat down. Carefully, I went through all of the possible routes. “Well, it’s Sunday, so he may have added on the 4.1 down toward the lake, or he could have gone to the other end of Lake Wohlford Drive to add on 2.4.”

“Okay, there are detectives down toward the lake. Would he maybe have gone off the road?” he asked, “You know, onto the trail?” 

“No, he didn’t really like to run on the trails. He would have stuck to the road. He might have been feeling good and run a bit past the Café, though. I could see him doing that.” 

The 4.1 mile route toward the lake that my father had mapped out went to the 2^nd telephone pole past the five-mile marker on the side of the road, and the Lake Wohlford Café that overlooked the lake was 3.2 miles out, creating a round trip of 6.4 miles, just over the distance of a 10k, or 6.2 miles.  

“Okay,” he said. “We’ll look that way again, then. Thank you, Claire.” 

“Can I go with you?” I asked. There was a pause at the other end of the line. My father and I had run together many times. In fact, we’d just run a marathon together the weekend before, still, it was hard to predict where he might have headed and I somehow felt I might think more clearly, might be able to give Sergeant Brady more direction, if I could see the curves of the road, the trees, the lake, all of the things my dad would have seen while running. Being runners, we had shared the feeling that sometimes the way a place looks would move us to run in a different direction, or farther than we’d thought we could. It was hard to describe; it could be the way the light was falling through the trees, a certain crispness in the air, or just the way the road opened up, and we would find ourselves wanting to press on farther. It was a sense of exploration, that my father and I both shared through our running--a desire to see differently, to experience things differently, to be different. 

And we were different, he and I. My dad had been a high school football star in Texas at a time when injuries like dislocated shoulders were not a reason to stop playing. You just get back in the game. Running track in high school, a scratched cornea and a patch over my eye were not reason for me to miss practice either. I had no depth perception and would have to live with the name “Cyclops” that my teammates chided me with for years after, but you just get back in the game. 

Excerpt #10

“Hi Claire”, she said, in her bubbly, if somewhat tense voice. 

Trying to disguise my shock, I replied, “Oh hi Debbie.” It was a big horse show, and as far as I knew, she had only been showing at the smaller shows.

“I heard about your mom,” she stood back and crossed her arms.

“Yeah”, I responded. This again, I thought to myself.

“So what happened?” she asked, her eyes glaring at me.

“Don’t know,” I replied, looking away.

She stepped closer, “Well did she do it?”

“What?” I stepped back.

“Did she kill him?” she didn’t divert her eyes.

My hand tightened on the crop I had been holding, as rage boiled inside me, “I gotta go, Debbie, my class is coming up.” I turned and started back toward my stalls. “See you later,” I said turning my head to catch one last glimpse of her standing there, the horse completing it’s round in the ring behind her. She didn’t seem like such a nervous young rider anymore. Her face looked almost angry, eyes fixated on me, seemingly appalled at my refusal to discuss the case with her. I didn’t realize I owed it to her. Was this the same person I had helped at the horse shows last year? How could she be so heartless? I felt so cheated having helped her out of good faith, because I wanted her to do well with her new horse. Now it felt like I was being stabbed in the back. I looked down at my hand, starting to cramp. I hadn’t realized how tightly I had been gripping the crop. 

Tears filled my eyes, as I took the little black bat with the fluttered tail that popped when you used it and tossed it on the ground next to my tack trunk. I went inside Flying Cat’s stall and sat down in the corner. He’d been resting quietly his eyes half open, and his bottom lip hanging loosely. He turned to look at me, inquisitively. Walking over tentatively, he slowly dropped his head toward my knees. 

“How you doing, old friend?” I whispered to him.

He stepped a little closer.

“Sort of seems like we’re all alone in this,” I whispered again.

He stepped closer again.

“Don’t know if we can trust anyone anymore,” I buried my face in my hands.

He stepped closer again, his head almost in my lap.

“Pretty scary thought,” I wiped away the tears, starting to drip on my breeches.

He nuzzled my knees.

“You trying to tell me we’ll be ok?” I asked.

He put his nose to my cheek.

“Is that a yes?” 

He stayed right there, breathing softly.

“I hope you’re right” 

He didn’t move.

I whispered again, “Just hope you’re right.”

Excerpt #3

But I wanted to believe that my mother was kind and loving. I’d see her with my brother’s friends, and think that she was a great mom. They’d all talk to her about what was going on with them, in a way every parent hopes their teenager will talk to them.  She’d sit and listen for hours. And they’d all say that they wished they could talk to their own parents this way. I’d watch, just sitting around the edges, wondering why not me? Why can’t I be listened to like that? But maybe Dad was right, maybe I was the source of the family’s financial strain. Maybe we would’ve been better off without the horses.  

It was then that I wanted my mother to defend me the most. Not so much for me, but for what I loved. I wanted her to tell Dad that I loved the horses more than anything else, and that loving them was not the cause of the family’s problems. I think I really wanted her to tell him, that without the horses, maybe the family would be ok, but I wouldn’t. But maybe it was a system that she couldn’t change. Maybe the family’s happiness needed to be at my expense. But somehow that thought didn’t make any of this seem ok to me. At least it didn’t remove my wish that my mother would have defended what I loved.

Now, the tables were turned. Now it was I who was supposed to defend her. I thought about how things would change if she were convicted. What would life be like without her? Would I be able to keep up the horse business myself? I had gone to a few shows alone while she was in jail, but it wasn’t the same. Mom had always been there, right at the in gate. She’d cheer me on, meet me when I came out of the ring. And she never criticized my riding, instead insisting that I was too hard on myself. I always wanted the horses to be as perfect as they could be. In a lot of ways, I think we fought because she didn’t understand how much I depended on riding perfectly -- needed it. It was all I had, after all, and probably the only thing that held me together throughout childhood. But just give the horses a day off, they’ll be fine. Sure they’ll be fine, Mom, but will I?

Excerpt #2

And did I really think Mom could’ve killed Dad anyway? It seemed so hard to believe. She’d never been unkind to me, but in so many ways, she never seemed to notice what was going on with me. I know Dad couldn’t help resenting me -- I was tied to the horses. Yet short of selling them, I don’t know that she could’ve done anything about it. And maybe she couldn’t have stopped Alex from pummeling Nick and I either. He was, after all, a tyrant. But could she have noticed that I spent all of my time on horses, and aside from them, lived a solitary life?

But I wanted to believe that my mother was kind and loving. I’d see her with my brother’s friends, and think that she was a great mom. They’d all talk to her about what was going on with them, in a way every parent hopes their teenager will talk to them.  She’d sit and listen for hours. And they’d all say that they wished they could talk to their own parents this way. I’d watch, just sitting around the edges, wondering why not me? Why can’t I be listened to like that? But maybe Dad was right, maybe I was the source of the family’s financial strain. Maybe we would’ve been better off without the horses.  

It was then that I wanted my mother to defend me the most. Not so much for me, but for what I loved. I wanted her to tell Dad that I loved the horses more than anything else, and that loving them was not the cause of the family’s problems. I think I really wanted her to tell him, that without the horses, maybe the family would be ok, but I wouldn’t. But maybe it was a system that she couldn’t change. Maybe the family’s happiness needed to be at my expense. But somehow that thought didn’t make any of this seem ok to me. At least it didn’t remove my wish that my mother would have defended what I loved.

Now, the tables were turned. Now it was I who was supposed to defend her. I thought about how things would change if she were convicted. What would life be like without her? Would I be able to keep up the horse business myself? I had gone to a few shows alone while she was in jail, but it wasn’t the same. Mom had always been there, right at the in gate. She’d cheer me on, meet me when I came out of the ring. And she never criticized my riding, instead insisting that I was too hard on myself. I always wanted the horses to be as perfect as they could be. In a lot of ways, I think we fought because she didn’t understand how much I depended on riding perfectly -- needed it. It was all I had, after all, and probably the only thing that held me together throughout childhood. But just give the horses a day off, they’ll be fine. Sure they’ll be fine, Mom, but will I?

Book except #1

When I entered the house, there was no warm smell. Only the faint odor of dog pee. My mother’s dog, Simone, hadn’t taken the news lightly. She was permanently planted on the couch. Her couch. She had done this before. Whenever my mom left her alone, she would retaliate. She’d claim the couch, and adorn it with whatever she wanted. Houseplants, her dog bowl, my mom’s underwear. Alex’s friends had tried to move her. But she snapped at them. Even though she wasn’t particularly a large dog, her bite was intimidating nonetheless. She was my mother’s negotiation. After years of breeding Irish Wolfhounds and discovering that an unmanaged pack of them became aggressive toward the neighbors pets, and even the foals a few times, she thought she should try something different. Simone was a Russian Wolfhound. They are lighter and supposedly more docile. Of course it wasn’t until the last of the Wolfhounds died, five small dogs and one foal with a slashed side later, that my mother thought it might be time for a change. One of those small dogs was mine. My little Rudy, a perfect little white Maltese that I’d got from a rescue. His previous owner had died, and I felt like I had won the lottery. I had always wanted a Maltese, but you never find them at the rescues. If you do, they don’t really look like a Maltese, and the rescues are just trying to pass them off as purebred to get them adopted. I had him only six months. But I should have never brought him home for Christmas with me. Merry Christmas. All I wanted was for my mom to stop the Wolfhounds from killing other dogs, or get rid of them. But my pleas, like many things, fell on deaf ears.