How to Keep a Secret

Had she been painting for money she would have given up, but she’d never painted for commercial gain. She painted because doing so made her happy. When she was painting, everything else vanished from her mind. It was art, but it was also a form of meditation. She could no more give up painting than she could give up breathing.

Her sudden and unexpected career success had coincided with the birth of her first child.

Lauren had been two weeks old when a wealthy summer visitor had spotted one of Nancy’s paintings in a local café. He owned a gallery in Boston and had a buyer who he knew would devour Nancy’s atmospheric seascapes.

He’d taken everything she had, and come back for more.

Her work went from being largely ignored to being much in demand.

Soon she was the one who had to travel. She had exhibitions in New York, Paris, Geneva, London.

With two young children it would have been impossible but by then Tom had lost his job and failed to get another, which meant that when he wasn’t on the golf course he was home. He was a wonderful father to the girls, always playing with them and making them laugh. He held them enthralled in that beam of light that drew everyone to him, while Nancy stood hovering in the shadows.

She tried to feel grateful rather than hurt. She reminded herself that it was because Tom was good with the children that she was able to embark on the tour.

She’d arrive home exhausted, and feel like a stranger in her own house.

Without her there to add structure to the day, the girls were almost feral and any attempt on her part to instill discipline seemed to widen the rift.

The harder she tried, the more alienated she felt.

Tom would scoop up the girls and say, “The three musketeers are off to the beach. See you later.”

Nancy felt excluded, but she had no idea how to insert herself into their cozy triumvirate. She loved her daughters. She loved Tom. What was the matter with her? Why did she always feel as if she was on the outside looking in?

And then came that day in June, when she’d arrived home early from an exhibition in Europe and found Tom in bed with a girl he’d met on the beach.

Nancy stared at the tangle of bedding and bare limbs and knew her world would never be the same again.

“It didn’t mean anything, Nancy.” At the same time as he was throwing the girl out the door, he’d thrown a hundred excuses at his shattered wife.

He was lonely. She was always painting or traveling.

Nancy heard one thing—

It was her fault.

She wasn’t good at relationships. She couldn’t keep her husband and her children preferred their father.

It was worse than bereavement, because every time she saw him she remembered that she wasn’t enough. That girl had turned out to be the first of many. Tom grew more adept at hiding it, but Nancy always knew. There would be late-night phone calls. Nights when he disappeared without telling her where he was going. It grew so bad she found it hard to be in the house with him, and one day she tackled it head-on.

“I think you should move out.”

“Why? You’re never here anyway. I’m the one who is there for the girls while you’re flying around the world being a big star.”

Nancy had held the hurt inside. “I’m supporting my family.”

“That’s right, rub it in. Make me feel less of a man because I’m not earning. There are plenty of women out there who appreciate me.”

She knew about those women, and she’d watched as he’d raked his hands through his hair, those same hands that had stroked their way over flesh that wasn’t hers.

“I think you should go to them.”

This time there was panic in his eyes. “Leave my kids? No. I love them and they love me. We have fun together. They need their father.”

The implication was that she was boring and that they didn’t need her.

My kids. As if Nancy didn’t have a role to play.