Carly's Secret

“Did you get cold last night, up in your cabin? It must be a lot colder up there than down here in the valley. I saw a lot of new snow on the mountains this morning.” We arrived at the parking lot at the same time and were walking into the office together.

“It was beautiful, amazing! All that sparkly snow! It is such a treat to wake up to that!” Carly trilled.

A typical Carly answer, I thought. “Your heat is working okay now?”

“Oh yes, it’s wonderful!”

“Were the roads slippery?”

“Not a bit, not with my Highlander. I can drive in any conditions. It’s so safe.”

“That’s good to know,” I murmured, wondering at the same time why I’d bothered to ask. Of course it was wonderful. What else would it be?

“I am just so blessed!” she continued. “Did you know my son is here to put in a bathroom for me?”

“A real one, with running water? I’m so glad. The thought of using a port-a-potty in this weather gives me the shivers.”

“It really wasn’t so bad, but this will be wonderful, not to have to go out in the rain and snow.”

“I honestly don’t know how you’ve been doing it, living under those conditions and coming to work every day.”

“What choice did I have?” she said cheerily.

I could think of plenty of others, but we’d been over all that before. At first, when her house burned down, I thought she was in denial, thought she wasn’t facing facts. Her dream home in the foothills, too far away from a fire station for insurance to cover it, burned down in the middle of the night. She had moved into a 300 square foot play house at the bottom of the property, never meant for actually living in. Yet she remained relentlessly chipper.

A tiny waif of a woman, she took off her new wool overcoat and hung it by her desk. She wore no makeup, never did, and she smoothed her white hair with her hands.

“It looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day,” she said, smiling her secretive smile. Talking to her often made me feel as if I’d been invited to be part of a conspiracy, that we shared an amazing secret. It never ceased to irritate me that I had no idea what the secret was.