How to Keep a Secret

Lauren told herself it was natural for Mack to be withdrawn. She’d lost her father. Lauren had already found a grief counselor who specialized in teenagers. She intended to call her as soon as the funeral was over, and she couldn’t wait for that moment to come.

Lauren willed her daughter to have the strength to get through the next few minutes.

There was an expectant silence broken only by the occasional cough and a muffled sob.

Mack said nothing.

The silence stretched for so long that people began to fidget. Expectation turned to impatience.

Lauren felt a rush of fierce protectiveness.

Why had she allowed Mack to do this? She was sixteen years old. It was too much.

She was about to stride up to the front of the church like a mother hen reclaiming her chick, when the chick opened its mouth.

“I’m supposed to say a few words about my father.” Mack’s voice was clear and steady, cutting through the tense atmosphere of the church.

Lauren relaxed.

Her daughter had aced drama. She could do this.

“The problem is,” Mack said, “I don’t exactly know who my father is. You’d have to ask my mother about that. All I know for sure is that it wasn’t Ed.”

8

Jenna

Startle: to be, or cause to be, surprised or frightened

“Where do you keep mugs?” Jenna prowled around Lauren’s shiny perfect kitchen. Every cabinet was neat and ordered. She tried not to think about her kitchen at home, where assorted plates nestled alongside mismatched mugs hand painted by the children she taught. Her mugs said things like World’s Best Teacher and Superwoman. It was like drinking her coffee with subtitles.

Lauren’s mugs were white and they all matched. Not a chip. Not a crack. Not a single accolade emblazoned on the side. Her home looked like something out of one of those glossy magazines she’d been addicted to growing up.

Jenna glanced at her sister. She’d changed into black yoga pants and a black roll-neck sweater. Her hair was twisted into a severe knot a

t the back of her head and the pallor of her skin emphasized the dark hollows under her eyes.

Her sister could have taken a role in a horror movie without bothering with makeup, Jenna thought. She suspected Lauren spent most of the night crying, although during the day she managed to hold it together.

After Mack’s revelation, the gathering had been more farce than funeral. Her confession had shaken the atmosphere so dramatically the resulting shock waves should have been measurable on the Richter scale.

Everyone’s mouths had been open, with the exception of Mack’s. With hindsight, Jenna wished her niece had closed hers sooner.

At first she’d assumed it was grief talking, but then she’d seen her sister’s frozen expression and had second thoughts. She knew that look. It was the same look Lauren had worn as a child when they’d been caught doing something they shouldn’t, like the time William Foster had reported them for letting his chickens out.

Jenna considered what she knew about her sister’s relationship.

Lauren and Ed had met on the beach and married a month later. It had been a whirlwind, but everyone who met Ed found it easy to understand why Lauren had fallen in love with him so nobody questioned it too deeply.

When Mack had been born barely nine months later, Jenna had wondered if Lauren had already been pregnant when she and Ed had married, but so what?

Now she felt like one of the kids in her class doing a basic math puzzle. If Jane has four apples and Mary takes one away, how many apples does Jane have left?

Could she have had an affair? No. Lauren had already been pregnant when she’d come back from her honeymoon.

How could Ed not be Mack’s father?

Like Mack and the rest of the people at the funeral, Jenna wanted to know the answer to the key question.