How to Keep a Secret

“You must be angry.” She remembered that feeling. The searing heat of it burning her up inside.

“About the money?” Lauren stabbed the needle into the fabric. “I was, but more because he didn’t tell me the truth. When we got together we agreed that we’d never lie to each other. Our honesty was the one thing we shared that was real.”

“You were in love with Scott, but you married Ed.” Even though she’d never considered herself to be particularly romantic, the thought tore at her.

“Life doesn’t always send you easy choices, Mama.”

Mama.

Nancy felt her throat constrict. She’d only ever heard that word a few times, when Lauren was very young. As a toddler, she’d been bright and bubbly. Look at me, Mama.

When had they lost that?

“I wish you’d felt able to talk to me.”

“I didn’t talk to anyone. Not even Jenna. The only person I ever told everything to in my whole life was Scott.” She measured a new length of thread. “You’re probably wondering why I fell for him.”

“I don’t wonder that.” That, at least, was easy to answer. “Scott is troubled—complicated—but the way he has pushed forward through his terrible childhood to become the man he is—” she paused “—there’s strength there. So much strength. And integrity. Maybe you sensed something in him that you didn’t see in your father.”

“Plenty of the islanders were suspicious of Scott.”

“Humans, as you discovered early in life, are deeply flawed. Scott doesn’t stick to the rules. He doesn’t always conform, and instead of embracing different, we’re suspicious.”

“Not you.” Lauren stabbed the needle into the fabric and put it to one side. “After he took you on the boat that night, you became friends? He talked to you?”

“I’m not sure I’d call what we had friendship.” What would she call it? She thought about the members of her book group. She thought about Alice. “On the other hand he was there when I needed him and he has never once disappointed me. If that’s not friendship I don’t know what is. We saw each other from time to time. When he was on the island, he did work for me on the house. He’s skilled. I trust him, which is more than can be said for some of the people I’ve had here in the past. I know he wouldn’t believe it, but he would have made a good father.”

“I thought so, too.” Lauren paused. “Mack is confiding in him a lot.”

Nancy hid her surprise. “She told you that?”

“He did. She barely says anything to me, although she did at least tell me where she was going this time.”

Nancy wanted to help, but she was so afraid of saying the wrong thing and bruising this new, tender relationship.

“How do you feel about her seeing Scott?”

“I’m not sure.” Lauren stood up and walked to the window. “To begin with I was hurt that she’d talk to him and not me, but now I feel grateful that she’s talking to anyone. I don’t want her to be on her own with all of this. I miss our chats. At home we used to sit at the kitchen island and talk while she ate a snack. I miss knowing what’s going on in her life. I miss the laughs and the closeness.”

“You’ll get that back.”

“Will we?”

“I know it. And in the meantime, if you need someone to listen, I’m here.”

Lauren glanced at her and there was surprise in her eyes. “Thanks, Mom. And how about you? We’re stripping away your old life and you’re throwing away things you thought you’d be keeping forever. How does it feel?”

How did it feel?

Nancy looked around her transformed garden room.

She’d hold her book group in here, she decided, at least until they moved out for the summer. Usually they gathered in the kitchen, but this room was light and airy. Now that the weather was warmer they would be able to throw open the windows and let in the sea air. It would be a glorious space in which to meet friends and enjoy good wine and conversation. “It feels good. I feel like a teenager. And it’s all down to you and Jenna. The house feels different.”

“Being a teenager isn’t all it’s made out to be, Grams.” Mack strolled into the room, her laptop under her arm and her phone in her hand. “It’s not all carefree dancing in the streets you know. If you’ve got five minutes, I have something to show you.” There was a bounce in her step, and an excitement in her eyes that hadn’t been there before.

This was the first time Mack had come in from school and not gone straight to her room.

Progress? Nancy glanced at her daughter, saw tension in her slender frame and knew she wasn’t the only one afraid of doing, or saying, the wrong thing.