Dark Places

we were.
    “I read your book too,” Crystal added.
“A Brand New Day
. It was really good. I wanted to tell someone I knew you because, you know, I was proud.” Her voice lilted like a flute, as if she was perpetually on the verge of laughter.
    “Oh, thanks.”
    “You OK, Libby?” Diondra said.
    “Um, I guess, I guess I still just don’t understand why you all stayed secret for so long. Why you have Ben still swearing he doesn’t know you. I mean, I’m assuming he’s never even met his daughter.”
    Crystal was shaking her head no. “I’d love to meet him though. He’s my hero. He’s protected my mom, me, all these years.”
    “We really need you to keep this secret for us, Libby,” Diondra said. “We’re really hoping you do. I just can’t risk it, that they think I was an accomplice or something. I can’t risk that. For Crystal.”
    “I just don’t think there’s a need for that—”
    “Please?” Crystal said. Her voice was simple, but urgent. “Please. I seriously can’t stand the idea that they can come any minute and take my mom away from me. She’s really my best friend.”
    So they’d both said. I almost rolled my eyes but saw the girl was on the edge of tears. So she was actually frightened of this specter Diondra had created: the vengeful bogeymen cops who might bust in and take Mommy away. I just bet Diondra was her best friend. All these years, they lived in a two-person pod. Secret. Gotta stay secret for Mommy.
    “So you ran away and never told your folks?”
    “I left right when I was really starting to show,” Diondra said. “My parents were maniacs. I was happy to be rid of them. It was just our secret, the baby, Ben and mine.”
    A secret in the Day house, how unusual. Michelle finally missed a scoop.
    “You’re smiling.” Crystal said, a matching small smile on her lips.
    “Ha, I was just thinking how much my sister Michelle would have loved getting her hands on that bit of gossip. She loved drama.”
    They looked like I slapped them.
    “I wasn’t trying to make light, sorry,” I said.
    “Oh, no, no don’t worry about it,” Diondra said. We all stared at each other, fingers and hands and feet wiggling about. Diondra broke the silence: “Would you like to stay for dinner, Libby?”
    SHE FED ME a salty pot roast that I tried to swallow and a lot of pink wine from a box that seemed to have no bottom. We didn’t sip,we drank. My kind of women. We talked about silly things, stories about my brother, with Crystal layering on questions I felt embarrassed I couldn’t answer: Did Ben like rock or classical? Did he read much? Did he have any diabetes, because she had low blood-sugar problems. And what about her grandma Patty, what was she like?
    “I want to know them, as, you know, people. Not victims,” she said with twenty-something piousness.
    I excused myself to the bathroom, needing a moment away from the memories, the girl, Diondra. The realization I was out of people to talk to, that I’d come to the end, and now had to loop around and think about Runner again. The bathroom was as gross as the rest of the place, mucked with mold, the toilet perpetually running, wads of toilet paper smeared with lipstick dotting the floor around the trash-bin. Alone for the first time in the house, I couldn’t resist looking for a souvenir. A glazed red vase sat on the back of the toilet tank, but I didn’t have my purse with me. I needed something small. I opened the medicine cabinet and found several prescription bottles with Polly Palm written on the label. Sleeping pills and painkillers and allergy stuff. I took a few Vicodin, then pocketed a light pink lipstick and a thermometer. Very good fortune, as I would never, ever think to buy a thermometer, but I’d always wanted one. When I take to my bed, it’s good to know whether I’m sick or just lazy.
    I got back to the table, Crystal sitting with one foot on her chair, her chin resting on her knee. “I still have more questions,” she said, her flute voice doing scales.
    “I probably don’t have the answers,” I started, trying to ward her off. “I was just so young when it happened. I mean, I’d forgotten so much about my family until I began talking with Ben.”
    “Don’t you have photo albums?” Crystal asked.
    “I do. I’d put them away for a while, boxed them up.”
    “Too painful,” Crystal said in a hushed voice.
    “So I only just started looking through the boxes again—photo albums and