Free Secret Language by Monica Wood Page A

in?” She winces. As a child she hated this question: there were too many schools, too many grades.
    “Eighth,” he says patiently.
    “Eighth. I keep forgetting.”
    Ben runs one spidery hand through his hair. “I’m gonna go help those guys with the car, okay?” He chucks the dog on the head. “Come on, Sammy.”
    Then he, too, is gone, and the dog is gone, leaving her alone with the house, and her sister. She tightens her grip on her purse, on the letter inside it. The letter contains just the sort of thing they’re not good at.
    She finds Faith in the kitchen, laying silverware around five plates.
    “Sorry I’m early,” Connie says.
    Faith looks up. “Safe flight?”
    “We got stuck in London for a while but we still touched down on time.” She sits down. “How’s work?”
    “Fine. Marion’s out with the flu, so it’s pretty busy.”
    They have been having this conversation, more or less, ever since Connie first left this house to work for AtlanticAir. Connie considers how little her life has changed: she’s had the same schedule—Portland to Boston to London to Paris; Paris to London to Boston to Portland—for years now. Her final return is always on a Saturday, when her routine is the same: she waters her one plant, puts on some coffee, calls her friend Stewart in Boston if she can get him home. From time to time she also has a boyfriend to call. She straightens her already tidy apartment, then lies down for a nap. When she gets up she takes a shower, puts on her makeup, and heads out to pick up her mail and drive the few blocks to Faith’s.
    “This is our first warm day,” Faith says.
    “It’s freezing in Paris.” Connie moves a fork next to one of the plates. “Is Joe eating with us?”
    “Uh-huh,” Faith says. “They’ll be tinkering with that car half the night, by the looks.” She rolls her eyes. “So far it needs nine hundred parts and a new tire.”
    Connie smiles. Faith’s life hasn’t changed much, either. She has worked at Dr. Howe’s for nineteen years, ten as the office manager. And despite a divorce that’s five years old, Joe is still a dependable presence. He lives with another woman but always seems to turn up here.
    The aroma of chicken and ginger wafts out of the oven. Connie recognizes the recipe, one of Phoebe’s. The table is set exactly the way Phoebe once showed them.
    “Faith, can I talk to you?”
    Faith looks up, startled, as if Connie has asked permission to remove her clothes. “Not if it has anything to do with Isadora James,” she says. She opens the oven, then shuts it without looking inside.
    “I got another letter.” Connie fishes it out of her purse and presents it on the palm of her hand.
    Faith looks at the letter as if it were a dead mouse. “What does it say?”
    “The same. She thinks the first one got lost in the mail.” She places it square on the table between the neatly arranged dishes. The handwriting is big and scrawly. “She thinks Billy’s her father, Faith. She
believes
it.”
    Connie can almost count the shifting muscles in her sister’s face.
    “I don’t want anything to do with her,” Faith says. “She’s probably nuts.”
    “Then what am I supposed to do with this?”
    “I don’t know. Send it to Armand. He can add it to his collection.”
    “His collection doesn’t have anything like this, Faith.”
    “Yes it does. I bet she’s writing a book on the theater. It’s a mystery to me why any of these people want to include Billy and Delle anyway—they only had one legitimate hit.”
    “She’s not writing a book on the theater, Faith.”
    “Maybe not. But you can bet she wants
something
. Besides, if Billy had another kid I don’t want to know about it.”
    Connie watches Faith move back and forth across her kitchen, her meal materializing. It reminds her of when they were teenagers, trying to run a household around their mother.
    Dear Connie
, the letter begins.
My name is Isadora James and I believe I am