Dead Secret

Susan.
    Diane was suprised. There weren’t that many times during their childhood that they had acted sisterly toward each other. But something had changed between the time she talked with Susan on the phone yesterday and now.
    They walked up the stairs and down the hall to what Diane’s mother called the Yukon room. The centerpiece of the room was a huge pine bed covered with a duvet of red-and-hunter-green plaid and littered with fleece pillows. All the furniture was rustic, from the dresser to the table and chairs in the corner. It was a cozy room.
    Susan rummaged through the bathroom for fresh bandages. “Is it still hurting?” she called from the bathroom.
    “Unfortunately it is. I’m going to take a painkiller tonight, so please call me in the morning when you get up.” Diane took off her jacket and her blouse.
    “I’m going to put some Betadine on the wound.” Susan frowned at Diane. “Are you telling me that this didn’t hurt when it happened?”
    “I felt something like a pulled muscle. It was crowded, and my attention was focused elsewhere.”
    Susan left for a couple of minutes and came back with a bottle of Betadine and some cotton pads.
    “I still can’t believe Alan grabbed you like that,” Susan said as she sat down next to Diane on the bed. “Diane, when you were married to Alan, did he . . . was he . . .”
    “Abusive? No. He tried to be controlling.”
    “Mother and Dad should have told him that wouldn’t work.”
    Diane smiled at her. “Alan’s main deal was pouting when he didn’t get his way. That didn’t work either. I was happiest when he wasn’t talking to me. He also liked to try to wear me down until I agreed with him. He was like a dog with a bone trying to get me to drop out of graduate school. I could dig my heels in when I’d a mind to, so we argued constantly. He locked me out of the bedroom once for some reason, thinking that would be a deterrent to my disagreeing with him. I was very happy on the couch,” Diane said with a laugh as she swiveled her body sideways slightly so that Susan could reach her arm.
    “Why did you marry him?” Susan asked.
    Diane felt her sister blot the incision with a cotton pad soaked with Betadine. It was cool on the hot wound.
    “Alan proposed. It was Mother and Dad’s wish that I accept. I wanted them to approve of something I did, so I accepted. It was a big mistake, and I regretted it immediately.”
    Susan taped a fresh sterile pad on Diane’s arm. Diane turned back toward her and noticed how worn-out her sister suddenly looked.
    “Diane, I need a favor,” she said after a long, awkward moment. “I know we haven’t gotten along . . . ever, I guess. But you’ve always been good to my kids. You remember their birthdays and Christmas. You write them letters. Kayla loves getting letters from you.”
    “What’s the matter, Susan? Has something happened?”
    “Something. Yes. Something happened. I made a terrible mistake, and I don’t know what to do. I need you to speak to Gerald. He respects you.”
    “I didn’t think anyone in the family respected me.”
    “Do you think that, really?” Susan looked at the painting of a moose at the edge of the woods that hung on the wall opposite the bed. “You’re the smart one. Everyone respects that.”
    Yes, the smart one . . . and Susan’s the pretty one , Diane thought. That was how Diane’s mother described her children. Diane guessed her mother was trying to tell people that each had her own special qualities, but what it had always sounded like to her—and she guessed to Susan too—was that Diane was the ugly one and Susan was the dumb one.
    Susan must have been thinking the same thing. “Prettiness fades with time,” she said. “I didn’t realize that when I was young, and if that’s all you have . . . ” Susan looked down at her hands and twisted her wedding ring on her finger.
    “Would it do any good for me to tell you that is not all you have and that you are plenty smart . . . and still pretty? What’s this about, Susan?”
    “Last New Year’s Eve, Alan and I kissed. It was nothing. I don’t know why I even did it. But that’s all it was. Honest. We never went beyond that one rather silly kiss.”
    “Did Gerald see it or something?”
    “No. Alan”—she spit his name out like it tasted bitter—“Alan told Gerald this morning.”
    “Why?”
    “I know you think Alan is a good financial lawyer, but he isn’t. Dad had to find him a job