The Silent Sister by Diane Chamberlain Page A

cabinets. I’d seen how Daddy crammed papers into them with as little care as if he was tossing them in the trash.
    â€œLook at those hydrangeas!” Jeannie took a step toward the windows that overlooked the side yard. “How your father loved them,” she said. “I wish he could have had one more summer. He was looking forward to it. His favorite season.”
    I hadn’t known that about my father and it irked me that she did. But I was determined to be nice to her today. I really needed her help.
    â€œWhat the hell…?” She suddenly noticed that the sliding glass doors were missing from the pipe collection. “Where’s the glass?”
    I thought of making something up, but decided to tell her the truth. “Danny was over the other night and he got upset about something and threw a beer bottle at them,” I said.
    â€œThat’s terrible!” she said. “Your father always insisted Danny wasn’t violent.”
    â€œHe’s not.” I remembered Danny saying he’d put on his PTSD act for Jeannie, whatever that meant. “He was just angry. He’d never hurt a person.”
    â€œAre you very close to him?”
    â€œI was when we were young. He was more withdrawn as he got older and we didn’t talk as much. He became more like my father, I guess. Very introverted.” I missed the Danny I’d grown up with.
    â€œI don’t think of your father as all that introverted,” Jeannie said.
    I worked hard to produce a smile. I was sick of her thinking she knew Daddy so much better than I did. “I guess we experienced him differently,” I said.
    â€œOh, well.” She smiled. “We both know he was a good man, and that’s what counts.”
    I nodded. I would let it go at that.
    Jeannie walked over to the pipes and lifted one of them from its ledge in the display case. “I’ve always been drawn to this one,” she said. The barrel of the pipe was carved in the shape of a bird’s head, complete with ruffled feathers and green beads for eyes. I noticed a serious tremor in her hands as she held the pipe. Was she nervous or ill? Whatever the cause, seeing that small weakness in her made me feel slightly sympathetic toward her. You never knew what demons people were dealing with.
    â€œWould you like to have it?” I asked.
    She looked surprised. “Oh, no,” she said. “I wouldn’t know what to do with it. I have to say, though, that I still can’t get over Frank leaving this collection to the Kyles.”
    â€œWell, I guess they’ve helped him a lot with the park, and they—”
    She made a sound of disgust. “I’ll tell you something,” she said. “I don’t like to gossip, but you should know why this makes no sense to me. Tom Kyle was beholden to your father, not the other way around.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    Jeannie carefully replaced the pipe in the cabinet. “Your father was his supervisor back when they worked for the Marshals Service,” she said. “Tom had an affair with a client he was supposed to be protecting and Frank found out about it. He should have canned Tom, but he didn’t. He even helped him cover it up. Tom owed him his job and probably his marriage. So why would your father—”
    â€œHe’s been giving Tom checks for five hundred dollars every month, too,” I said.
    Jeannie stared at me, and I saw a blaze starting in her eyes. “You’re joking.”
    I shook my head.
    â€œHe could have given that money to me, if he was so hot to part with it,” she said bitterly. “I’m underwater on my mortgage, and I thought that after a six-year relationship, he—” She shook her head. “Sorry,” she said. “It is what it is.”
    Now I understood her lukewarm reaction to my father leaving her only the piano and ten thousand dollars. And I thought of the hundred