Whisper Me This(32)

“He’s in the hospital.” A traitorous quaver wobbles my words, and I dig my fingernails into the palms of my hands in an effort to steady myself. If I cry now, every bank customer for the rest of the day is going to know about it. The stories are just too good not to share. On the other hand, I really need to get into that box, and maybe if Bethany feels sorry for me, she’ll play magnanimous heroine and help.

So I dab at my eyes with my fingertips and let the wobble stay. “He’s in the hospital, too. All confused. He can’t tell me anything, and I can’t bring him here. What am I going to do?”

I lift tear-filled eyes to hers.

You’d think we were long-lost friends, the way she places one hand over my arm and pats me, leaning forward to whisper, “Oh hell. It’s you. We’re friends, right? But you have to promise not to tell.”

“Of course.”

Decision made, she’s shifted into Nancy Drew. “Bring the key. We’ll just look, okay? And if the advance directive is there, we’ll make a copy, and you can say you found it at home.”

“Right. In Dad’s filing cabinet. Under legal documents. With the will.”

Bethany nods. “Come with me.”

I follow her over to the side of the bank, through an open steel door that looks like a giant safe. We stop in a small room that’s lined on all sides with keyed, silver panels. My skin prickles as I think about all the secrets contained here. Who knows what people hide away, out of sight? But there’s no time to daydream.

Bethany walks directly to box number 45. She puts the key in the lock but then hesitates, drops her hand, and says, “You do it. It’s not really my business what’s in there.”

Given the burn of sleuth fever in her eyes, this is nothing short of heroic. I turn the key and draw out the box, as cold and foreign in my hands as my mother’s gun. There’s a table to set the box down on while it’s opened. Bethany comes up behind me as I open the lid, her stint of martyrdom overcome by curiosity. I just look at her, hands on the lid, until her eyes fall, and she turns her back.

I’m prepared to find nothing, and at first that’s what I think I’ve found.

Some stocks and bonds. Copies of my parents’ wills. A legal-size manila envelope. Sealed. I pick it up and hold it, but the fact that one of my parents sealed it and put it here gives me pause. All those lectures from my childhood, through my adolescence, into my adult life: “Mind your own business, Maisey. Snoopers get their fingers caught in mousetraps.”

“Aren’t you going to open it?” Bethany asks, eyeing me over her shoulder. “That’s probably it.”

She’s right. Regular rules don’t apply here. I have no scissors, no letter opener, and my skin quivers with the violation of tearing the flap.

Inside are two sheets of paper. I see right away that this is not an advance directive, but I pull them out anyway, turning my back to screen my birth certificate from Bethany. If I’m adopted, the whole town will know before nightfall.

Only, it’s not my birth certificate I’m looking at. Or else they’ve changed my name. It says Marley, not Maisey. Mom’s name is on there, and that’s the only recognizable piece of information.

“What is it?” Bethany asks, behind me.

“Nothing. Just a birth certificate.” My voice sounds wrong to my own ears, as if it belongs to somebody else. I have just enough rational thought process left to know that Bethany must not see this. Can’t know about it. I shuffle it behind the other piece of paper. Also a birth certificate, and this one is mine. I stare at it, blindly, frozen into a statue. My inner warning system is blaring all kinds of alerts. Hide it. Shred it. Put it back in the envelope.

My fingers refuse to respond.

“That’s it?” Bethany asks. “Just a birth certificate?”

“Yep.” My voice rings tinny and false, but speaking corrects whatever was wrong with my brain-to-muscle connection, and my hands slide the documents back into the envelope. “Looks like the directive isn’t here.”

“Bummer,” she says. “Well, it was worth a try, right?”

“Right.”

I need to get out of here. Panic scrabbles at my rib cage. My heart feels like it’s vibrating, it’s beating so fast. I can’t get enough oxygen.

Somehow or other, I manage to put the envelope back in the box and lock it with the little key. Bethany slides the whole box of secrets back into its little slot. I don’t feel like my body belongs to me anymore, but the pair of legs I seem to be borrowing hold up to the challenge and carry me out of the suffocating space into the open area of the bank.

Every eye in this space seems to be focused on me, aware of the dissolution that has just occurred.

“Sorry that didn’t work out,” Bethany says. She sounds like she means it and pulls me into a hug.

My arms feel weighted and numb, like they’ve been injected with novocaine, and I don’t hug her back. I have to say something, and the automatic “Thank you so much for your help” that passes my lips comes straight from Mom’s indoctrination into politeness and manners. That’s one good thing about a thoroughly learned lesson—it doesn’t require any brainpower. Fortunately, there’s another customer waiting on Bethany’s services, and when she turns away, I take advantage of the opportunity to flee.