A Secret Shared Read online

  “Your first mother was my very best friend in the world. We went all through school together.”

  “Even Kinder Garden?” asks Birdy.

  “Even kindergarten.”

  Then Birdy surprises us, mostly Mother.

  “And did she die?” asks Birdy with a serious look.

  I see tears in Mother’s eyes.

  “She did. She had you, a beautiful new baby she loved, but she was very sick with no family. And she wanted you to be in our family when she was gone!”

  “And we loved you already,” says Father.

  Birdy looks at him.

  “What about my true father?” she asks.

  Mother shakes her head. “We don’t know about him.”

  Father goes over and lifts Birdy off Ben’s lap and into his arms.

  “I am your true father,” he says.

  Birdy grins.

  Father puts her down next to Mother.

  “And—your first mother wanted us to wait to tell you about her until you were older. She wanted you to be happy in our family.”

  Mother takes Birdy’s hand. “But we now know that was a mistake,” she says.

  “We wish she had known that being your parents is our joy,” says Father.

  “Joy,” says Birdy softly. “Joy,” she repeats as if she loves the word. And she says it again.

  “I love that word, ‘joy’!”

  She looks at Mother, then Father.

  “What was her name?”

  Mother smiles.

  “Linnea,” says Father. “Her name was Linnea.”

  “That’s a beautiful name!” says Birdy.

  She looks up at Father.

  “She was at your wedding in the field of blooms,” says Birdy. “And when you find her picture I can put it up on my wall next to Mama’s painting. The wall of the mothers!!”

  I look at Ben. He smiles at me, but I know he is close to crying.

  “Linnea means ‘little flower’ in Swedish,” says Mother.

  “Do you think Linnea would mind if I use her name for my middle name?” asks Birdy.

  “Beatrix Linnea,” says Mother.

  “A fabulous name,” says Father.

  “She’d love that. And we’ll visit her grave where I visit every week,” says Mother.

  “Could I take her small little flowers for her Swedish name?” asks Birdy.

  “Yes, you can. We’ll go tomorrow.”

  “Can I take some of my favorite painted sea stones?”

  Mother nods. “Linnea would like that. She loved to paint. And I’ll tell you all about her—how we laughed—how we read books up in trees together—and how you made her happy.”

  Mother puts her arm around Birdy. “But I want you to know I was wrong to keep the secret,” she says.

  Birdy smiles.

  “You should be celebrated!”

  “I’m adopted! Like Nico!” says Birdy happily.

  Father gets up and goes to the sun porch.

  He brings back something wrapped in a blanket.

  “I’ve been working on this for you.”

  He uncovers a sculpted wood child, the size of a baby. It is smooth and shining in the light.

  He puts it on the table.

  “This is you,” he says.

  “This is me?!” Birdy asks.

  “You, Birdy,” says Father.

  Birdy runs her hands over the head of the child, the cheeks, the small hands with fingers curled into fists.

  “It’s yours to keep,” says Father.

  “In celebration of me!” Birdy says, looking at all of us. “I’m going to tell Nico we’re both adopted!”

  She takes the wood child into her arms. “And I’ll show him me!”

  And then Birdy is gone out the door—full of excitement—full of what she loves best—full of joy!

  14.

  A Poet’s Truth

  We sit quietly when Birdy leaves.

  Finally Father smiles.

  “Like the wind she goes,” he says in the silence left behind.

  Mother gets up and goes over to the kitchen counter and pours hot water from the kettle into her teacup.

  Ben lifts his shoulders. I know he’s about to say something. So far we have been silent.

  “The words you said,” he begins, watching Mother, “were very honest.”

  Mother sits down at the table. “So were your words. And Nora’s,” she says.

  She looks thoughtful.

  “A lie is dark and deep,” she says.

  Father looks at her and smiles a bit.

  “I wrote that in my poetry class,” she says.

  “You know—it’s amazing what the truth does for you. And to you.”

  “And around you,” says Father.

  “That, too,” says Mother.

  She takes two combs out of her hair and goes over to the wastebasket and tosses them away.

  “I think better without them,” she says to us. “It’s a celebration of me. I’m working tonight.”

  She smiles at us.

  “That’s the poet’s truth,” she says.

  I see a look on Ben’s face. He tilts his head toward the hallway.

  “Where are we going?” I whisper as we leave the kitchen.

  “Your bedroom. You have the best view.”

  In my room Ben goes right to my window.

  “I knew it!” he says.

  He begins to laugh. I haven’t heard his laugh in a long time.

  He points.

  Birdy and Nico are playing kick the can in their birthday clothes.

  I grin.

  “Look under the lilac bush,” says Ben.

  Below the bush is Birdy’s wood child, wrapped in its blanket.

  “The celebration of Birdy,” I say.

  “It is,” says Ben.

  I lie down on my bed, leaning against a pillow.

  “You’re right,” I say to Ben. “It is calming and comforting to hear them play outside.”

  “I know many things,” says Ben, making me laugh.

  “So, Father actually climbed in your window today?” Ben asks.

  “Yes. He had lilac bush stuck to his shirt.”

  Ben smiles.

  “He told me you were still in the kitchen talking to Mother about truth.”

  I peer over at Ben. “Actually, what did you tell Mother?”

  He shrugs.

  “‘Truth is safe’ is what I said.”

  We listen to the joyful voices outside my window—both of us comforted and calm.

  “The two Cs,” says Ben.

  Later that night Ben and I look in on Birdy sleeping. The wood child is on a pillow beside her, wrapped in its blanket. Charles, her stuffed horse, is close. Tillie is curled in the quilt. The painted sea stones for Linnea are arranged in a circle of color on her bedside table.

  Down the hall we see my mother’s kitchen light.

  “It’s late,” I say. “She told us she’d be working tonight.”

  “She wants to make the evening deadline for the morning newspaper,” says Ben.

  “And poets write at all hours,” he adds.

  He stands at my bedroom door.

  I get into bed.

  “Open or shut?” Ben asks.

  “Open, please,” I say. “I want to listen to the clicking of Mother’s keyboard.”

  He smiles at me.

  “Our ritual,” he says. “I always go to bed later than you do.”

  For a while I watch the stars out my window.

  Then I turn over.

  And I listen to the clicking of a poet writing in the night—

  until I sleep.

  15.

  Linked

  I wake late, sun coming across my bed. I get up and quickly go into Birdy’s room.

  The painted sea stones are gone.

  No wood child.

  I pick up Charles the horse and sit on Birdy’s scrambled bed, hold him in my arms.

  And I know.
<
br />   Birdy and Mother have gone to the cemetery.

  To Linnea’s grave.

  I sit there for a long time.

  Ben and Father are sitting at the kitchen table. Father is drawing in a large sketchbook with a pen. He looks up and smiles at me.

  “They’re gone?” I ask.

  “Yes. Carrying sea stones and the wood child. And handpicked small flowers from the garden.”

  Ben is eating cereal with raspberries. He points to Charles, still in my arms.

  I put Charles in his lap as he eats.

  He moves the open newspaper on the table.

  “Mom made her deadline,” he says quietly.

  “I heard the night clicking,” I say.

  Father gets up and pours a glass of juice for me.

  “Thanks.”

  He taps my shoulder and goes back to his sketchbook. I sit down and read the column.

  Una’s View

  The Three of Me

  The three of me are—

  The Columnist.

  The Mother.

  The Poet.

  You know me as a columnist.

  I invite responses. And you respond.

  The Columnist of me.

  An important part of me is my family.

  My children taught me this.

  The Mother of me.

  I know a mother who kept a big secret for a long time. She thought it was best. But her children taught her a secret can become a lie. They taught her the truth is safe. And truth can be forgiving.

  I know this.

  I am that mother.

  The third part of me I call “The Poet of me.”

  I tell my truth in a new personal way.

  A lie is deep and dark,

  tangled in my words—

  my head—

  my heart!

  until truth shines it away—

  Leaving joy!

  —Una Rossi

  I rub tears away with the back of my hand. Father hands me his folded handkerchief. He flips a page over in his sketchbook.

  Ben reaches over to me—his hand out.

  I reach out too. We link fingers.

  “Don’t move,” Father says to us suddenly.

  Ben and I stay linked. Father sketches, the only sound his pen on paper.

  “No more secret,” says Ben quietly, our fingers still linked.

  “And Birdy celebrating,” I say.

  “I’m thinking Miss Skylark will be happy to hear it.”

  Father flips his page for another sketch.

  Ben grins at me.

  “And I’m thinking Birdy will be happy telling Miss Skylark.”

  Even Father laughs at this as he sketches.

  It is oddly comfortable and peaceful for me and Ben to stay linked.

  “Okay!” Father says. “You can let go.”

  Ben laughs.

  “I’d almost forgotten,” he says.

  “I’m not surprised,” says Father. “You two were born with linked fingers.”

  “Really?!” says Ben.

  Father nods.

  He turns his sketchbook around for us to see.

  “Then,” he says. “A sketch remembered.”

  It’s a sketch of tiny baby fingers, linked.

  He flips the paper again.

  “And now,” he says. “A sketch of today.

  “I saw it when you were born—when you were little —and now.”

  Father looks at his sketches.

  “Yep,” he says, pleased with them. “Linked.”

  16.

  “This Is Great!”

  “I’m back!” calls Birdy. She carries the wood child and a heavy tote bag.

  Mother comes behind, her hair windblown.

  Birdy sits down at the table.

  “I put little white flowers on Linnea’s grave, and I made a design with my sea stones. The caretaker likes them and says he’ll look over them and play with them.”

  She sets the wood child on the table.

  “And!” she adds. “He called me ‘sweetish.’”

  Mother smiles.

  “‘Swedish,’ that is,” she says quietly.

  Father gets up and puts his arms around Birdy.

  “I think you’re ‘sweetish,’” he says.

  “What’s in your tote bag?”

  Birdy grins. “Library books!”

  She pulls them out of her bag, one after another, counting them, “one, two, three, four,” until we stop her.

  “They only let me take out twelve books,” she complains.

  “But this is the best of all!” says Birdy. “Mama bought me this!” She pulls out a large notebook. “I love books. Now I can write my own words!”

  She looks at all of us.

  “Why not?!” she says, her hands held out in the “why not” look.

  “Why not,” says Father.

  “And you can paint the illustrations for my writing,” Birdy tells Father.

  “Yep. In my spare time,” he says, making Mother burst out laughing.

  “This is great,” says Birdy.

  She picks up her bag of books, her notebook, and the wood child. Ben puts Charles the horse in her arms, too.

  Tillie runs into the kitchen, happy to see Birdy.

  “All this!” says Birdy, stopping at the kitchen door, looking back at us. “This is great!”

  And Birdy hurries down the hall to her room.

  It’s a quiet afternoon.

  Father is in his studio. Ben and Birdy are in their rooms.

  I sit on my bed and think about Mother and her words. I go looking for her.

  “You’re not at your desk,” I say, surprised.

  I look at her caller ID.

  “You have three calls from the newspaper. No messages left.”

  Mother nods. She’s cooking, pots of pasta and sauce on the stove, a large salad on the counter.

  She turns, leaning against the sink. “I turned off my computer. Want the truth? I’m nervous about this morning’s column.”

  I reach over and take her hand.

  “Want my truth?” I say. “I love what you wrote. Your readers will, too.”

  Mother puts her arms around me. “Your words had everything to do with it,” she says.

  She pushes her hair out of her eyes and takes a large red ribbon out of her pocket.

  “A favor, Nora? Tie my hair back in this ribbon? It will make cooking easier.”

  She grins at my look.

  “Birdy bought it for me today,” she says. “With her own allowance money.”

  I tie her hair back in a red bow. I feel like a mother caring for a child.

  “What’s happening here?” asks Ben, coming into the kitchen. He stares at Mother.

  “Oh wow! Red!” he says, making me and Mother laugh.

  “Where’s Birdy?” asks Mother.

  “In her room, becoming a writer,” says Ben.

  The phone rings.

  Mother sighs. She wipes her hands and goes over to her desk.

  “Hello?” She closes her eyes, listening. Then she quickly sits up.

  “What? Are you serious?!”

  She listens more.

  “I’ll turn on my computer. I promise.”

  She hangs up. She turns on her computer and prints a paper and reads it.

  Father comes into the kitchen.

  Mother hands him the paper. She looks shocked.

  “The newspaper got hundreds of replies to my column,” she says. “This was their most astonishing and different response.”

  Father reads it.

  “For Una Rossi:

  Where have you been ‘The Poet of me?!’

  We love the poet—the voice finds us and stays and becomes us. Just as your poetry is you. More please!

  —Lily, Marcus, Heidi, Emma, William, Justin, Rudy, Neal, and eighty others. We are parents, teachers, readers, and writers who support you!”

  “The newspaper wants me to write poems whenever I want—and
call that part of my work ‘The Poet of Me.’”

  “Beautiful sense,” says Ben, as I knew he would—in the way of twins.

  Father smiles at Mother.

  “What, Geo?” she asks.

  “I smile at the good news for you,” he says. “I smile for the poet of you. And I smile at the big red ribbon,” says Father.

  He puts his arms around Mother.

  “As Birdy would say, ‘This is great!’” he says.

  17.

  “My Joy”

  We eat dinner, Mother’s hair loose now. Her red ribbon is rolled up neatly on the spice rack, between garlic powder and ginger.

  Birdy sits on her new notebook.

  After dinner Father leans over and points to it.

  “Your writing?” he asks.

  Birdy nods.

  “I only have a beginning and middle. Not the right ending yet,” she says. “And I don’t have a name for what I wrote.”

  This makes Father smile. “Sometimes I begin a work and I don’t know the end.”

  “With writing, too,” adds Mother.

  “I remember the bird that flew in and out of your painting,” says Birdy. “You were surprised.”

  “And remember Dad’s dead tree,” says Ben.

  “This isn’t those things at all,” says Birdy. “You’ll see.”

  Birdy unearths the notebook from under her. She opens it and reads to us.

  My Joy

  Joy is every day,

  left to me by my first mother.

  Joy is laughter

  and secrets kept—

  finding my toad in the dark.

  Joy is the wood child

  next to me at night

  so I sleep with the child I was.

  Joy is the painting of my mother

  watching over me when I sleep.

  Birdy closes her notebook. She leans back in her chair. She opens her hands as if to say What do you think?

  “That’s very, very good,” says Ben, looking surprised.

  “Beautiful,” says Mother.

  Birdy looks at me.

  “I have a name for what you wrote,” I say.

  She grins.

  “You have written a poem, Birdy,” I tell her.

  “Yes,” says Mother.

  Birdy sighs.

  “I thought so,” she says.

  “Remember what Miss Skylark told you? She said: ‘You’ll soon be a writer,’” I say.

  Father leans over and takes a wrapped package out from under his chair.

  “I think Una and I have the ending to your poem,” he says.