Page 11 of Small Town Hero
“Maybe you’ll be in different classes,” Susannah said, “but they’ll still be your friends. And you can make new ones, too, of course. Taking a class or joining a group is a good way to do that.”
“Do you have a lot of friends, Aunt Susannah?”
Susannah hesitated, but only for a moment. “Yes,” she said. “Some I met in college, and some I met through work, before and after I started my business. There are others from a theatre group I joined for a while, and a gardening club—things like that.”
“Were people mean to you when you were my age?”
Again, she hesitated. “No,” she said.
“Did Mom have lots of friends back then? When both of you were kids?”
Oh, boy.
Susannah drew a deep breath, let it out again, very slowly. “Your mom is my big sister, and when we were young—even younger than you are now—she had lots of friends. She was funny and mischievous and sweet and everyone liked her.”
“But then—?” Ellie’s expression was somber again. She held Nico a little closer, and he squirmed a bit, so she released her hold on him. “Things changed, didn’t they?”
Susannah bit her lower lip, then replied, “Something bad happened to your mom when she was thirteen. She would never tell anyone what it was—not even our parents, or her doctors, or the pastor of our church.”
Ellie’s pale eyebrows drew together for a second or so, as she tried to understand.
Her response, when it finally came, startled Susannah.
“She has really horrible nightmares sometimes. When that happens, she screams and cries. A few times, she made me hide in the coat closet, or downstairs in the basement, behind the furnace. She thought somebody was after us.”
Susannah was cautious. She couldn’t afford to go rushing in with a lot of specific questions; that might spook Ellie into silence. Like it had always done with Becky.
“Really?” she asked, almost in a whisper.
Ellie nodded. “Most times, she wakes herself up with all that screaming, and then she can’t go back to sleep.”
“Did she ever tell you what her nightmares were about?”
Ellie shook her head. “I asked her lots of times, but she said I was too young to be burdened with a lot of bad thoughts.”
Susannah understood, of course she did.
Ellie was still a child, after all.
“I wish I knew what frightens her so much,” Susannah said thoughtfully, more to herself than Ellie. “Maybe then I could really help her.”
Ellie was quiet for a long time, clearly wandering through a maze of memories, all of them sad and scary. What a toll Becky’s mental illness had taken— was taking— on this innocent girl.
It was so frustrating.
In the next moment, Ellie startled Susannah all over again.
“Mom used to write stuff in those little notebooks—the kind they sell at Dollar Tree. She kept them hidden, though, so I never got to read any of them.”
Susannah nearly bolted to her feet.
Becky kept journals?
She’d never known that. Although she was intelligent, Becky wasn’t much for reading or writing; when she was in a good place mentally, she watched movies on Hallmark and Lifetime. She bowled and went dancing, wore makeup and did up her hair.
Susannah’s heart ached, but learning that Becky must have recorded at least a few of her bad dreams, and some of her waking feelings and struggles as well, gave her a rush of hope.
“Do you know where the notebooks are now?” she asked carefully.
Ellie’s answer—a shake of her head—was what Susannah had expected, but she still felt a buzz of excitement.
She had to find those notebooks; they might well be the key to reaching Becky, convincing her that sharing whatever trauma she had experienced, however horrible it might have been, might lead to a turning point.
If it wasn’t for the secret she was harboring, Becky could begin the healing process, at long last, and build new lives for herself and for Ellie.
Tears sprang to Susannah’s eyes, and she turned, looked away. Then, deciding that hiding things from Ellie was unfair, and might do more harm than good, she met her niece’s concerned, curious gaze.
“What’s wrong, Aunt Susannah?” the child asked, in a near whisper. By that time, Nico had jumped down from her lap and wandered into the kitchen, probably heading for his food and water bowls.
“All this trouble, it breaks my heart. I love you and your mom so much,” Susannah said frankly. “With Mom and Dad—Gramma and Grampa—both gone, you and Becky are all the family I have. And more than anything in the world, I want you both to be safe and happy.”
Ellie tipped sideways and rested her head against Susannah’s shoulder. “Grampa Jake wasn’t Mom’s dad, huh? He was yours.”
Yet again, Susannah had to reorient herself.
“That’s right,” she said. “Your mom’s father was Michael Bennet. He died when she was only about six months old. Your grandmother—my mom—married my dad, John Holiday, around a year and a half after she became a widow. I was born when Becky was three.”
Ellie nodded. She’d been told that part of the story before, of course, but she seemed to like hearing it anyway.
“I miss Gramma and Grampa,” she said.
Susannah gave her a one-armed hug. Stella and John Holiday had died of severe cases of Covid during the pandemic, only a month apart, and a day didn’t go by when Susannah didn’t wish she could see them again, hear their voices, hug them and be hugged in return.
They’d been excellent parents, both of them, and John Holiday had loved his stepdaughter, Becky, as much as he’d loved Susannah. And they’d both adored Ellie, their only grandchild.
The loss of them had been devastating for all concerned—especially Becky.
Susannah steered her thoughts back to the notebooks Ellie had just mentioned. Had Becky kept them, or thrown them away, during one of her bouts of depression?
There was only one way to find out, and that was by entering the storage unit where Susannah had had her things stored after Becky’s landlord decided the ramshackle little house had to be emptied so that his niece and her family could move in, and going through every single box and bag in search of her sister’s journals.
If she found them, it might change everything.
The odds were against her, but that was nothing new.
She intended to forge ahead, no matter what.