Shades of Secrecy

By Mikayla Olsson

In one instant, Kathryn Fairholm’s life has become a shadow of its former self. With her mother gone, she must sift through the wreckage of Sophia Carrington’s life for anything that will lead her to the truth. As she makes her way deeper into Sophia’s mind, Kathryn realizes she may know less about her mother than she ever imagined. With the help of her friends, Kathryn will put the pieces together, but will the picture that emerges threaten her very existence or give her the closure that she deeply desires? "Shades of Secrecy” is a story of imperfect love, loss, and redemption. It’s about one woman’s decision to live in the glaring light of honesty... no matter what the cost.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mikayla Olsson
• Release date: Mar 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301179800

Mikayla Olsson

Mikayla’s journey to authorship began as an only child with a vivid imagination and a voracious appetite for reading and writing. She further cultivated those pursuits upon her acceptance into the Theatre program at the prestigious Governor’s School for the Arts in Virginia. Mikayla then went on to earn a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication with a minor in Theatre from George Mason University. As a newlywed, she moved to Baltimore and began using her spare time to write her first full-length novel, Shades of Secrecy, which both stimulated and was inspired by her kaleidoscopic dreams.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

As she picked her way through the darkness of what had ultimately been her mother’s last home, Kathryn felt the weight of responsibility grinding further down on her already weary shoulders. The piles of debris that lay everywhere throughout the house had, in retrospect, been glaring signals of Sophia’s rapidly deteriorating condition, and no one had been the wiser. What had begun as a numbness born of resignation had evolved into the painful realization that as her only child, she could have seen the signs and perhaps stopped the slow motion train wreck of events that had led to her demise.

Kathryn groped her way along the wall and finally found a light switch. Nothing. Again and again, she moved it up and down, as if the repetitive action would somehow magically turn on the obviously faulty light. With a self-pitying sigh, she began tripping her way along the wall again to find another switch, and after about six feet of stubbing her toes and knocking stacks of books and magazines to the floor, she finally found one. She tried it. Again, nothing. This time, a pathetic sob almost found its way out of her throat, but she choked it back and slumped down to a small area on the carpet that was mercifully empty. What she had assumed was a simple broken bulb was in fact another clue into her mother’s last few days in the enormous house.

As she looked around with eyes now adjusted to the gloom, she saw that there was no sign of electric current anywhere. The open floor plan of the main level allowed her to see the kitchen, study, living room, and dining room simultaneously. There were no standby LED lights on the television or DVD player, no steady hum of the refrigerator or any other appliance, and no blinking clock on the stove (her mother had always refused to program the clock again after a storm, preferring instead to let it strobe continuously until Kathryn reset it during one of her occasional visits).

She began to breathe slowly and methodically in order to calm her racing heart. The anxiety of the last few weeks would normally have rendered her borderline spastic, but her recently renewed commitment to yoga had finally become useful. At last, her blood pressure started lowering, the hot flashes stemming from fear and stress began to subside, and Kathryn started to relax as she began assessing the scope of the job ahead of her.

Suddenly, a streak of fur flew over her legs and landed on her chest, which prompted Kathryn to shriek and flail her arms like an epileptic. Claws sank into her thick but loosely woven sweater, and an almost human howl began to match hers in pitch and volume. Finally, she managed to pry the creature off of her, and she curled up into a defensive fetal position to ward off any attacks on her face. She wasn’t the most beautiful woman in the world, but she still had hopes of attracting a man to marry one day and knew full well that her average body wouldn’t be enough to compensate much for a mangled face. Muffling her screams into her sweater, she prayed that the monster had been scared enough by her reaction to leave her alone. After a full minute of waiting and hearing nothing, she decided to venture out of her woolen cocoon and survey her surroundings. What she saw made her gasp in surprise and then dissolve into a fit of almost hysterical giggles; it was her mother’s cat.

Affectionately named Prozac, in honor of Sophia’s favorite psychiatric medication, the rescued cat had managed to survive five years in her mother’s sporadic care. It wasn’t that she was intentionally negligent; it was simply that, as with most things, she had lost interest in him after the first six months. Her relationship to the adorable little kitten eventually mirrored the pattern of all her other relationships. At first she was loving and affectionate—thriving on the exquisite joy of owning a needy, living thing. Then, as time wore on and the novelty of being responsible for something twenty-four hours a day began to grate on her nerves, she became largely disinterested. Such had been the progression of most of Sophia’s love interests, although none of them had lasted as long as the cat.

To her, in spite of the tedium involved in caring for the animal, Prozac had become sort of like a gay best friend, but without the drama of listening to his problems and pretending to care. And, aside from the occasional bouts of malnutrition and an unkempt litter box, Prozac was pretty happy too. They had developed a good system over the years: Sophia generally opened a huge bag of food and left it sitting out, and he ate with an uncanny restraint that seemed to stem from unforgotten days of starving as a kitten on the streets of Baltimore. One faucet in the house was always dripping so that she wouldn’t have to constantly refill a small bowl of water, and that seemed to suit Prozac just fine. Sometimes she forgot to change the litter as often as she should, but he would promptly leave a smelly present on her bathtub floor to gently remind her. Considering that he never did it on the carpet, Sophia would take it with a surprisingly good sense of humor. Once the mess had been cleaned up and the litter replaced by a maid or her current partner, order would be restored to their world once again.

As she remembered these tender moments between her mother and the cat that squatted next to her face, slowly swishing his tail back and forth across her forehead, Kathryn felt a twinge of sadness. She had no idea what to do with him now that Sophia was gone. It was her final year of school, and she was living with a friend who already had two cats in a tiny two-bedroom apartment. Plus, with a heavy load at school this semester, and working full-time to pay for it, she didn’t have the time or money to care for him. Another item appeared on her mental list of things to do: find a decent home for the cat.

In the meantime, she had to get some light into the house so that she could start sorting through the mess that her mother had left behind. Rolling over to her side, Kathryn pushed herself up on all fours and began to crawl over to the draped windows in the living room. Next to her, Prozac trotted nimbly along the mess as if to say, hey, this is nothing… you should’ve seen it last week. They reached the floor-to-ceiling windows, and she stood up to drag the fabric to one side so that the dwindling rays of the sun could finally illuminate the entire area. One would have imagined that in a house of this size (4,800 square feet, to be exact), there would be a fabulous view of something, but the window only provided an outlook to the flemish bond brick pattern of the next door neighbor’s house. Kathryn had never understood why her mother’s fifth and last ex-husband had chosen to buy such an expensive house on so little land in such a claustrophobic neighborhood. Her mother, however, had loved it, and while Richard was an ogre of a man in the conference rooms of his company, he was like a beaten puppy dog in his relationships. It was a testament to his business acumen that two other ex-wives had not managed to clean out his coffers entirely.

Sophia, for her part, had never been a gold digger, as the snotty country club members had openly branded her. She just had a passion for variety, and had long ago come to terms with her need for serial monogamy. Wealthy men loved her because of the challenge she presented, and she loved rich, socially awkward men because of their insatiable desire to please. She was the most interesting of all of the trophy wives, and her notorious inability to stay with one man for more than a few years drove every suitor’s competitive spirit into overdrive. As a result, she never lacked a dance partner or a husband if she wanted one, and her brief periods of singledom struck terror into the hearts of wives in loveless marriages everywhere.

Kathryn, on the other hand, had never developed the traits that gave a man pause when they studied her. While her mother’s five feet five inches seemed to stretch into statuesque beauty, her own even taller frame appeared lanky and slouched. Instead of mimicking Sophia’s two-hour morning beauty ritual, Kathryn managed to shower, dress, apply makeup and do her hair in less than seventeen minutes. She had timed it. And while her mother had offered for many years to dress her daughter in designer clothing, she had opted instead to outfit herself in boyish, ill-fitting clothes.

The last time her mother had managed to squeeze her into a dress for a party was at the age of four. Kathryn had waited patiently until they arrived at the house and promptly threw herself into a bowl of brightly colored fruit punch being carried by an unsuspecting waiter. Infuriated by her daughter’s lack of respect for Versace, her mother had demanded an explanation for what had seemed to everyone else a typical child’s accident. Calmly and quietly, this precocious little girl had explained that she would no longer be strapped into the crinkly, frilly abominations of Sophia’s choosing.

From that moment on, Sophia knew that her daughter was a force that she had neither the intelligence nor the energy to subdue. At that point, it became a truly symbiotic mother-daughter relationship in which Kathryn did whatever she wanted to do, and her mother let her. While most children with such a lack of boundaries would have evolved into highly spoiled brats, she in fact did not. She was, instead, much like Prozac—extraordinarily self-disciplined, intelligent, and frighteningly capable of surviving in less than optimal circumstances. Perhaps that was the reason why Sophia had adopted and kept the cat for so many years.

Kathryn had moved out at the early age of sixteen. When her Advanced Placement classes in high school turned into a diploma, she finally had her ticket to freedom. With the endless strings of parties and new step-daddies behind her, the little girl who had early on become a parent to herself and to her own mother began to reclaim her long-overdue childhood. Immersed in her classes at Johns Hopkins University, she found her niche academically, and for the first time ever, socially. Sophia, on the other hand, had floundered for a long time. Without the stabilizing presence of her daughter close at hand, she had managed to end another marriage, alienate herself almost entirely from her neighborhood acquaintances, rack up two DUI’s and one indecent exposure charge for sunbathing in the nude at the community pool, and had even stooped to dressing in clothes bought online at the Gap. It was one the lowest points Sophia had ever known.

Although she never gave him credit for it, Prozac’s arrival was the reason she had stepped back from the brink of insanity. Without her daughter at home every day or the annoying presence of her last husband, and with no neighborhood friends to speak of, Sophia had never been so lonely. Not even the protracted arguments with her maid Ming-Ming (or whatever the hell her name was—she could never remember), were enough to fill the void. Oh, sure, it was amusing to try to overcome the language barrier in order to explain the joys of folding the missus’ laundry just-so, or polishing the fine silver to a high sheen… but eventually all of the yelling would subside and she would be left alone again to while away endless spans of time. Sadly, after the nude sunbathing incident, most of the women in the community had ostracized her like a healthy girl in a runway fashion show. Those who still had a childish admiration of her antics kept it well hidden because no one would risk the social suicide that would be the consequence of talking to Sophia.

Driven by her need for attention, she resorted to extreme measures to receive even the barest minimum of social contact. Once in a while, she would do something that was in blatant violation of the Homeowners’ Association bylaws just to get someone to knock on the door to complain. Unfortunately, there were only so many times that the front door could be painted an obnoxious color before it wouldn’t close properly anymore, and even Sophia hated pink flamingo lawn ornaments too much to have them in the front yard for very long. Occasionally, she would park just close enough to the edge of another driveway so as to make safe passage impossible, and would then wait excitedly by the door for the irritated knock that would be the highlight of her day.

During this time, Kathryn called her frequently to make sure Sophia was managing life without her, and to tell her how well she was progressing in school. She finally had friends and a social life now; there was no denying that she was doing better without her mother. This realization was what pushed Sophia to pray one day to some vague entity for anything that would make her feel better. In her usual disciplined manner, Kathryn had always had an unshakable faith in one God, but Sophia went through religions the way she went through romances. She had dabbled in Hinduism and Buddhism for a time before realizing it was too much work to be such a good, calm person. Catholicism had only lasted for about a month, as the time she spent in the confessional seemed to stretch longer every week. Baptists did too much jumping around and hollering for her refined tastes. Running into Ming-Ming at the Korean church a few miles away had been an uncomfortable experience for both of them, and she couldn’t understand the sermon anyway. And she had fallen asleep at too many of the WASPy country club-goers’ churches to ever set foot in any of them again.

One night, after another self-pitying prayer for help, Sophia fell asleep on the couch while a re-run of The Golden Girls flickered on the television (she always pictured herself becoming like Blanche Devereaux in her older years). A couple of hours later, she heard a persistent scratching at the door. Stumbling blindly, she opened it and looked around for the prowler she imagined to be attempting a break-in. Unlike most single women in this situation, she felt no fear because she had never failed in her attempts to overcome a man with her carefully honed wiles. In her mind, even a hardened criminal would be malleable enough to be withered down into an apologetic mess. Besides, she could use the company.

Eventually, a tickling sensation made its way through her pill-induced stupor and onto her delicate skin, and she looked down to see a street-worn kitten crying desperately at her feet. Unable to ignore the need for compassion and elated at the opportunity to turn her attention to something new, Sophia picked up the tiny animal in her arms, and felt something break inside of her—a visceral reaction that she could not explain at the time. As she administered what basic care she could in her ill-equipped mini-mansion, the kitten slowly quieted and its lids closed with a newfound sense of security.

CHAPTER ONE

It was late October, and the setting sun was transforming the sky into a beautiful twilight outside the windows. Kathryn turned away from her thoughts and began to do what she could to sort through the jumble. A quick call would get the electricity back on. Until then, she would have to take the cat home with her and come back later to start organizing the things her mother had left behind. With a fuzzy mental map of the chaos, she began to pick her way a little more confidently to the kitchen where all of the cat’s supplies were kept in a haphazard pile in the corner. Quickly she gathered the essentials. Kitty carrier? Check. Bag of food? Check. Pocketful of squeaky toys? Check. Length of string to tie to cat’s tail once in a while for sick pleasure? Check. Litter box? She would buy a new one on her way home.

Prozac, sensing the oncoming adventure, jumped up to the kitchen faucet to take a last drink of water, and then turned purposefully around to stare at Kathryn. The message was pretty clear: hey, you wanna turn this water off before we go, or should I? That’s just how responsible he was. Grinning, she turned off the faucet and thought about how he would act if he was human. She imagined him nervously checking the knobs on the stove to make sure they were all off, and asking in a querulous voice whether or not she had made sure that the doors were locked once they were roughly two miles away from home. His otherwise admirable character had at some point developed a bizarre fussy side that occasionally reared its ugly head for no reason.

Kathryn ran a final check on the house to make sure that nothing was dangerously amiss, and then carefully made her way around the perimeter of the disaster area to the front door. As she went, she flicked the light switches into what she hoped was the off position so that when the electricity finally did come back on, it wouldn’t blow all of the bulbs at one time. At the door, she paused to put everything down to get Prozac into the carrier, mistaking his faithful trotting by her side to be an implicit agreement between them that he would get in without a struggle. He was, unfortunately, only following the smell of cat chow wafting from the bag. Kathryn crouched down to coax him in by throwing one of his favorite toys into the carrier. He stared at her, as if insulted that she would think such a sad ploy would work on him. Hey lady, what do you think I am, stupid? Try again.

Come on, Prozac, please get in the crate. I have a lot to do tonight, and I can’t leave you here. It’s for your own good, I promise.

Her reasoning fell on deaf ears as the cat gazed at her impassively, flicking his tail back and forth in a hypnotic rhythm. With a dejected sigh, she stooped to a new personal low: baby talk, a high-pitched cooing that she despised on all occasions, and especially when directed at animals by their owners.

Heeeeere, kitty-kitty-kitty! Come here, boy! We’re going on a fun little ride—yes we aaaare!, she squeaked, her voice box unused to such a high register.

This time, the cat turned neatly around and planted himself on the floor, with his enormous rump facing Kathryn. Baby-talk apparently didn’t even merit a response in his book. Unfortunately, that was the straw that broke her overloaded back, and with a growl of frustration, she scooped him up and crammed him into the crate. It wasn’t as easy as all that, because he had a second to react and splay his legs out to stop the rest of his body from going in, but eventually she managed to stuff him inside and quickly latch the door. With her adrenaline pumping once again, she opened the front door, tossed everything on the steps, locked up, and marched angrily to her car.

After a couple of trips to get everything stowed inside, Kathryn said a quick prayer, turned the key to her beat-up, electric blue, fourteen-year-old Chevy Corsica, and amazingly, it coughed and shivered to life. Almost fainting with shock and relief, she gently put the junker into drive and started her journey home. Prozac, having come to the conclusion that this was a critical power play between them that would determine the destiny of their future relationship, started crying. As he reached into the deepest recesses of his memory to mimic his most pitiful kitten mewling from days long gone, he hoped she would quickly realize who was in charge. You may have managed to shove me in a crate and into the car, toots, but I can make this ride a living hell for you. As she tried with increasing desperation to get the wretched noise to stop, he kept turning up the level of urgency bit by bit. Not knowing what he wanted, but imagining that it was some sort of claustrophobia due to PTSD in his kitten days, she finally sprung open the latch at a red light. He had won. A small battle, to be sure, but now they were on level playing ground.

As he strutted out of the cage and stretched, Kathryn realized she couldn’t just spring another cat on Basia without warning. She took out her cell phone to call her roommate, a JHU student she’d quickly befriended in a cultural studies course when the professor had mistakenly pronounced her name Bay-see-uh instead of Bah-sha, and had been politely but loudly corrected. Basia had become a perfect balance for Kathryn—she cooked elaborate gourmet dinners, listened to Polish folk music at top volume while she studied, spoke her native language at a hurricane clip with her family on a regular basis, and did everything in an adorably scatterbrained fashion. Photographs from her trips around the world adorned the apartment, and her bubbly personality made the place seem brighter and larger than it otherwise would have been.

Kathryn, for her part, had never quite embraced her mixed heritage. Originally named Katarina, she had always felt that her beautiful Swedish name was somewhat of a sham, because in her mind she was neither beautiful nor really Swedish. Her biological father, whom she had never met, had been her mother’s first fling into the realm of foreign men before graduating from high school. She had given her daughter a name from his native land not because of her enduring love for the naïve exchange student so much as because of her persistent flair for the dramatic.

Like her mother, Kathryn had also met and become friends with a Swedish foreign exchange student in her last year of high school. Unlike her mother, she hadn’t produced an illegitimate child from the relationship. Partly because her friend had been a girl, and partly because even if Brigitte had been a boy, Kathryn had been too awkward then to delve into the intricacies of teenage dating rituals. In any case, it was then that she had realized she wasn’t exotic enough to pull off a name like Katarina, that she was tired of being mistakenly called Katrina, and that she needed to follow in her mother’s footsteps by changing her name to something more fitting. Prior to starting college, she had become Kathryn—much to Sophia’s disappointment.

Sophia, on the other hand, had been born Susanna Lynn Johnson in the humble city of Baltimore, but that had never suited her larger-than-life personality. On her eighteenth birthday, Susanna had won the court’s approval to change her name to Sophia, and then waited for an acceptable man to give her a regal surname that would finally complete her identity. A year later, she did, in the form of one un-glamorous banker by the name of Walter Fairholm, who had happily married her and accepted Kathryn as his own child. It lasted four years; it was her longest marriage and probably the happiest. Although he was crushed when she quietly asked him for a divorce, he gave her the house, the BMW, and a comfortable alimony for her and her child. She took these things with a gracious air of entitlement, and for a couple of years, only took a few lovers to while away the time in between her social commitments and superficial charity work.

Snapping back to reality as Basia yelled on the phone to one of her cats to get down from the top of the fridge, Kathryn smiled to herself for the first time that day. After facing such a depressing task at her mother’s house, spending a few minutes with Basia would be a breath of fresh air.

"Hallo? Hallo? Kathryn, are you still there? I’m sorry, the cat was at it again—you would think there was filet mignon up there, the way he sneaks up all the time and doesn’t come down! Are you all right? How did everything go at your mom’s?