How to Keep a Secret

Mack stepped out of the boat cautiously. “Worried?”

“You weren’t in your room. You didn’t say where you were going. You didn’t answer your phone.”

“Okay, calm down.” Mack backed away but her escape was blocked by Scott.

“She called you, Lauren. I heard her do it.”

“Is that what she told you?” Lauren stuck out her hand. “Give me your phone, Mack.”

“But—”

“Now.”

Mack handed it over and Lauren checked the calls and held up the evidence. “She hasn’t made a call this morning.”

Mack shrugged. “I wanted to go on the boat with Scott and I thought you might say no.”

“Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been?” She was shrieking. She knew she was shrieking but she couldn’t control it. Worry had ripped through the last layers of control, exposing everything she was feeling.

Mack shifted uncomfortably. “Calm down.”

“I’m angry, Mack.”

“Yeah, I’m getting that.”

“Do not use that tone with me. You can’t do this! You can’t wander off, not come home and not say anything about where you are, not call, not text—” She snatched in an unsteady breath. “It is selfish and thoughtless and—cruel.”

“Cruel?” Mack stood frozen to the spot. “How is it cruel?”

“I thought you might have done something, Mack. I thought you might be lying dead in a ditch or drowned or—”

“Dead?” Mack gaped at her. “Why would I be dead?”

“You’re unhappy! I know you’re unhappy.”

“Maybe, but I don’t want to be dead. You know that.”

“No, I don’t know that because you don’t talk to me. All I know is that every day you vanish to your room and slam the door. You’re upset about Dad—Ed—but you won’t talk about it. I know you hate school but you won’t talk about that either. You don’t talk about anything. If I had facts to go on I might not have been so anxious but you don’t give me facts so my imagination is all I have left.”

“I didn’t think.”

“Then it’s time you started thinking, Mackenzie!”

Mack pressed herself against Scott. “Okay, but could you calm down? You’re going to blow a blood vessel or something.”

She wanted to calm down, but she couldn’t.

Scott stepped forward and closed his hands over her arms. “It’s my fault. I should have called you myself. I should have known.”

“Why would you have known? You don’t have any experience of teenage girls.”

“She’s okay, Lauren. And she’s learned a lesson. Enough now.”

“I decide when it’s enough. You don’t get to tell me how to parent my child.” She stepped away from him and looked at Mack. “I know you’re sad. Confused. Grieving, but there still have to be boundaries and today you stepped right over that line. From now on I want to know where you are and who you’re with at all times. If you’re going to be late home from school, I want to know. Is that clear?”

Mack’s eyes were swimming. “What’s clear is that my life sucks.”

“Maybe, but it’s going to suck in a place where I can see you.” She turned to Scott. “And The Captain’s House is no longer for sale.”