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  The Deepest Secret is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by Carla Buckley

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  BANTAM BOOKS and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

  Grateful acknowledgment is given for permission to reprint the lines from “i carry your heart with me (i carry it in”. Copyright 1952, © 1980, 1991 by the Trustees for the E.E. Cummings Trust, from COMPLETE POEMS: 1904–1962 by E. E. Cummings, edited by George J. Firmage.

  Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Buckley, Carla (Carla S.)

  The deepest secret : a novel / Carla Buckley.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-0-345-53524-5

  ebook ISBN 978-0-345-53966-3

  1. Secrets—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3602.U2645D33 2013

  813′.6—dc23 2013020477

  www.bantamdell.com

  Jacket design: Shasti O’Leary Soundant

  Jacket images: Patryce Bak/Photonica Collection/Getty Images (neighborhood), iStockphoto (leaves), Photodisc (window frame)

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Thursday, August 28 Eve

  Tyler in the Night

  Friday, August 29 Eve

  David

  Eve

  Gone

  Eve

  Come Out, Come Out: Wherever You are

  David

  Little Red Riding Hood

  Eve

  Saturday, August 30 David

  Eve

  David

  Eve

  Holly

  Sunday, August 31 Eve

  David

  Eve

  David

  Mister

  Monday, September 1 Eve

  David

  The Boathouse

  Tuesday, September 2 Eve

  David

  The Wolf

  Wednesday, September 3 Eve

  David

  Star Light, Star Bright

  Thursday, September 4 Eve

  David

  The Naked Mannequin

  Friday, September 5 Eve

  David

  Claws

  Saturday, September 6 Eve

  David

  SSSSS

  Sunday, September 7 Eve

  David

  Second Base

  Monday, September 8 Eve

  David

  Do-Over

  Tuesday, September 9 Eve

  David

  Vanishing Point

  Wednesday, September 10 Eve

  David

  Freak

  Thursday, September 11 Eve

  The Beast

  Friday, September 12 Eve

  The Flash

  Eve

  Saturday, September 13 David

  Tuesday, April 15 Tyler

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  A Reader’s Guide

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  here is the deepest secret nobody knows

  (here is the root of the root

  and the bud of the bud

  and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

  higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

  and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

  i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

  —e. e. cummings

  By the window, she sits in her favorite chair, jumping a doll up and down in her lap. A shadow flickers in the doorway behind her. Someone else is watching her, too.

  EVE

  Birthdays are supposed to be happy occasions, so Eve plans a party. There are the usual anxieties. Who would come? Would Tyler like his presents? Then there are the special worries, the ones other people didn’t have to think about. She won’t focus on those.

  She makes a cake, a bigger-than-life-size iPad that takes a day and a half to decorate instead of the six hours the Internet site promised. The problem is getting the paint the right consistency so the lake doesn’t bleed into the shoreline. And all those tiny icons. She’s tossed dozens in the trash, false starts where the Facebook f was too wobbly and the camera came out looking as though a giant thumb had pressed down hard. She hesitates over balloons. Do they even matter at night? In the end, she decides, why not, and drives home from the party store with so many fat balloons crammed into her backseat that she can’t see out her rearview mirror. She imagines being pulled over by the police for driving under the influence of helium.

  Melissa’s in the kitchen when Eve arrives home, and helps carry in the bags. She reaches for the balloons and frowns at the rainbow of colors. “Pink, Mom, really?”

  Melissa’s long black hair is pulled back in an untidy topknot Eve knows her daughter has worked for hours to achieve. One of her tank top straps is twisted, revealing the pale strip of skin beneath where the sun hasn’t lingered. Eve wants to tug it straight and warn her daughter to be careful, but Melissa has heard it all before. “Pink looks good in moonlight,” Eve says.

  A knock on the kitchen door. It’s Charlotte and Amy, arriving early to help. Dear Charlotte. What would Eve do without her kindness, her humor? Charlotte has pulled her through the dark days. She has kept Eve sane.

  “One spicy chili dip, extra sour cream by request,” Charlotte says, setting down the dish on the counter. She’s wearing a determined smile on her face. Amy looks mutinous. Eve guesses they’ve been having another mother-daughter battle all the way down the street.

  Charlotte’s hair is short and dyed dark red. It cups her head and suits her high cheekbones and long neck. The day after Owen served her with divorce papers, Charlotte went out and had her long blond hair chopped off. What do you think? she’d demanded as she stepped into Eve’s kitchen. She’d run her fingers through the short wisps, making them stand up. Do I look like someone who knows how to have a good time?

  Amy’s carrying a package, the electric blue wrapping paper crumpled at the corners and the white ribbon twisted into a crooked bow. “It’s Force Field Three,” she confides in a whisper, as if Tyler could hear her all the way from his room upstairs. “Do you think he’ll like it?” Her brown eyes are wide and her lashes pale gold, a smatter of freckles across the tops of her cheeks. She’s a sprite, a funny little elf always dressed in shades of pink, much to Charlotte’s private dismay. She thinks it shows no imagination.

  “He’ll love it,” Eve promises, putting a hand on the child’s small shoulder. Is it okay that Tyler spends so much time staring at a computer screen?

  They go out onto the patio, the air heavy with heat. Amy skips off to help Melissa tie the balloons to the trampoline. The sun’s holding itself just above the horizon, sending out greedy shoots of orange light that carves shadows across the patio and grass. Eve used to love the sun, would lounge outside for hours, letting it toast her skin, her face tilted to the warmth. But this is as close as she comes to the sun now.

  “Any word from David?” Charlotte asks, and Eve shakes her head. There weren’t that many flights between Columbus and Washington, DC. It could be that David had raced to make the last one and hadn’t had a chance to call beforehand. I’ll try and be there, he’d said. If he could wrap up the proje
ct he’s working on. If he could catch an earlier flight. She could drown in ifs. “He’s bringing Tyler’s present. He would have let me know if he wasn’t going to be here.” She says this, wanting reassurance. She says this, wanting to make it true.

  “Maybe he wants to surprise you.”

  Wouldn’t that be wonderful? The gate would creak open and David would step into the yard, his brown hair rumpled over his high forehead, that knowing smile that reached up to his blue eyes. David used to love to surprise her with a note taped to the bathroom mirror, a single flower sent special delivery.

  Her parents haven’t called, either. But at least they’d sent a card, a blue envelope propped on the kitchen table where Tyler would find it when he came downstairs. Inside would be the usual check, which Tyler would pretend to be thrilled about. Money meant nothing to him. How could it?

  At 8:11, the bolt shoots back and Tyler shuffles out of his room, his camera in his hand. “Happy birthday,” she says, throwing her arms around him. He ducks his head in embarrassment, lamplight winking across the lenses of his sunglasses.

  “Happy birthday, dweeb,” Melissa says, lightly cuffing him on the shoulder.

  His friends are on the patio, elbowing and jostling. Four of them, when there should be seven, but at least his best friend’s there. The boys are all different heights and sizes, caught at that awkward stage where they don’t even look like they belong to the same species. They cheer when Tyler steps out to join them. He fits right among them, not too tall, not too short. He smiles when he sees the glowing paper lanterns. “Cool,” he says, and holds up his camera.

  The pizza arrives and Charlotte helps her set out the food. Amy flits around, snatching up a piece of fruit, chasing fireflies blinking in the distance. A few neighbors have shown up. It’s painful to see Albert without Rosemary. He’s aged, moving slowly, holding onto the back of a chair for support. Sophie makes a brief appearance, and so does Neil Cipriano, who stands a careful distance away from everyone. No sign of the new neighbors, the Rylands, but that’s no surprise. Charlotte had been the one to sell them the house, and she’d raved about how wonderful they were. You’ll love them, she’d assured Eve. They’re the sweetest family. But Charlotte knew her reassurances meant nothing until Eve had a chance to talk to them about Tyler. Eve had stopped on her way to the party store to greet them as they stood in their driveway watching the movers unload their furniture. Holly had listened to Eve’s request, but it had been Mark who’d reached out to accept the basket of incandescent light bulbs. Sure, he’d said. No problem.

  What would she have done, otherwise? Tyler would never have been able to walk out his front door, let alone go into his own backyard. She’d called David to share the news and gotten his voicemail. Guess what, she’d said, leaving her message, not knowing when he’d pick it up.

  Tyler seems to be having a good time. He’s jumping on the trampoline with his friends, the fabric sagging alarmingly low, burdened as it is by the weight of five adolescent boys. They’ve rigged the sprinkler to rotate beneath them, and they’re howling with laughter as the water sprays back and forth. Eve had offered to rent out a movie theater, or drive everyone to a nearby cave to spelunk, but Tyler had shaken his head at every suggestion. Nothing, he’d told her. I don’t want anything.

  He’s growing up, David said when she worried Tyler might be depressed. It would be reassuring if that was true, but what if it wasn’t? Tyler hadn’t liked the therapist she’d found. I’ll find someone else, she’d offered, but Tyler had scowled. Just stop, Mom, he’d said, and so she has. But she and the other XP moms talk. Fourteen’s a dangerous age, old enough to understand, but too young to accept. Fourteen-year-olds chafe against restrictions, defy the rules that have kept them safe. She’s heard about the terrible battles the other mothers have waged. Doesn’t he know that he has to wear his sunglasses? I caught her sneaking outside! She’s listened and commiserated. Tyler’s already started to take risks. He won’t wear his mask when she takes him to his medical appointments. He hates it, keeps it on the shelf of his closet. It’s not like she can force him to put it on. The other mothers listen, murmur reassurances. Even the best kids rebel.

  She brings out the cake, candles flickering in the darkness, and they sing happy birthday. She sees her husband’s features reflected in their candlelit son, the fullness of his lower lip, the roundness of his eyes. Tyler makes a wish and blows. Charlotte glances at her and immediately picks up the knife and begins serving cake, so that Eve can step back into the shadows and compose herself.

  Fourteen birthdays so far. She remembers them all: His fourth, when all the kids ran around barking, wearing floppy Dalmatian ears she’d hot-glued out of black and white felt, and ate birthday cake baked in a big steel bowl like dog food. His fifth, where they fished for prizes with magnets tied to strings. His seventh, when they wore cowboy hats and roasted hot dogs over a bonfire. His ninth, when she wrote HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! in phosphorescent chalk on the sidewalk all the way down to the park where his friends waited to jump out and surprise him. His eleventh, when she converted the backyard into a moonscape, and everyone ate astronaut ice cream and flung glow-in-the-dark Frisbees that trailed white blurs of false light.

  They’d all been wonderful, in that imperfect way birthdays are, but the best had been his very first, before they knew. She’d set up a wading pool and Tyler had splashed in and out all afternoon, clapping his hands, his dimpled knees churning. Her parents and David’s father had been there, laden down with presents, so many that she had to set a few aside to open later. Three-year-old Melissa had run around singing her favorite Barney song and fallen asleep in David’s lap. It had been the happiest birthday by far. There would never be another like it.

  TYLER IN THE NIGHT

  The balloons tied to the trampoline hover above the grass like small animals on leashes, restless. Their smooth sides are shades of gray. The kitchen light behind him falls on the patio stones, bleaching them pale yellow. Everything else is shadowed. Tyler doesn’t remember what it’s like to see the world in full color.

  It’s cooled off. Earlier, it had been steamy, but his mom wouldn’t even think about moving the party inside. The earth would have had to roll off its axis for her to do that. The radio’s playing and she’s humming along. It’s that stupid song about walking like Egyptians. What does that even mean? he’d asked her once, and she’d laughed. Who knows? We were starved for music in the eighties.

  He shakes open the plastic trash bag and his mom drops in forks and crumpled napkins, paper plates smeared with frosting. “I think everyone had a nice time,” she says.

  It had been weird when Dr. Cipriano showed up that evening, stepping through the gate holding a gift. How many kids had their dentist come to their birthday party? Zach hadn’t kidded Tyler about it, but he could’ve.

  “I can’t believe how tall Mitch has gotten. I almost didn’t recognize him.” She crouches to retrieve a cup lying on its side beneath the table.

  The sharp peak of the house next door cuts into the night sky. All day he’d heard the shouts of the men coming up through the air vents in the floor of his bedroom. His mom texted him to say she’d gone over to talk to them and the new neighbors had agreed to use regular light bulbs. She’d typed five smiley faces, one after another. The lights are on upstairs, and shadows move across the windows. A ceiling fan rotates in the blue-painted room. A tall bookcase stands against the wall, empty. “Where do you want this?” a man says, startling Tyler, he sounds so close.

  A woman’s voice answers him.

  They could have come to his party, but they hadn’t. They had just moved in, his mom said. She’d invited them, along with almost everyone else on the street, as though they were One Big Happy, which was lame. The people he’d wished had come, hadn’t. His dad had gotten stuck in DC; Rosemary was gone, and of course Yoshi couldn’t make it all the way from Japan. Yoshi’s not his best friend, but she’s something. She told him she was planning a special su
rprise for his birthday, and he’d waited all day but he never heard from her.

  “Zach says he’s playing football this year.” His mom plucks a long curl of ribbon tangled among the rosebushes.

  Zach’s been freaking out about high school starting. He and Tyler had downloaded the school map from the website and plotted out Zach’s schedule, tracing the route he has to take from building to building. Turns out Zach only has five minutes to get from one end of the school to the other in order to make it to gym on time. Don’t worry, Tyler had said. You can do it. And Zach had answered, Dude. It’s not like middle school.

  For Tyler, high school will be exactly like middle school. He’ll turn on his computer, click the mouse, and nod to the teacher standing in front of the classroom. His mom’s told him that there will be a lot more kids in his classes, which is supposed to be a good thing. You’ll have the chance to make new friends. But her voice had that forced cheer to it that tells him she’s worried, too. And all he can think about is that he won’t be in any of the same classes as his friends.

  “What about you, sweetheart?” She picks up a ball of wrapping paper. He and the guys had taken turns kicking it across the grass. “Did you have fun?”

  “Sure.” He knows how much she wants to hear it. She’d spent ages planning, making the food, decorating. But how could he have had fun? It’s not like when he was little and thought birthday parties were cool. Yay, birthday cake. Yay, presents. But now he gets it. Yay, fucking nothing. He twists the top of the bag closed, carries it over to the garbage can. He looks down into the deep darkness. He wishes he could crawl inside, too, and pull the lid on over him.

  Something zaps him on his cheek. Surprised, he touches his face and finds it’s wet. Is it raining? Puzzled, he looks up to the sky, sees the stars there, twinkling. Another splash, this time on his hand, and he looks across the yard to where his mom stands, holding the Super Soaker Mitch had given him.