How to Keep a Secret

Lauren Stewart. Nancy Stewart.

Coastal Chic.

The garden room was a perfect example of the design style they hoped would become their trademark and now it was all ready for her group. Three bottles of white wine were chilling in the fridge and Jenna was in the kitchen making canapés while Mack worked on her laptop at the kitchen table.

Nancy plumped a couple of cushions and decided not to admit that she’d abandoned tonight’s book halfway through. It hadn’t been her selection, and she’d known immediately that she was going to hate it. The book had hit all the bestseller lists, but she’d chosen to avoid it because of the subject matter. As she was going to be forced to endure a discussion about it, she decided she should at least read a few chapters, and reading it had made her feel every bit as uncomfortable and unhappy as she’d anticipated. It was about the decline of a marriage, and she’d empathized closely with the heroine. The book had felt too much like real life for the reading experience to be described as enjoyable, not that she was about to admit that to anyone in her group because none of these women knew anything about the reality of her life with Tom.

Tonight, she’d let others do the talking.

Mary-Beth arrived first, armed with a bottle of wine and a notepad covered in her sprawling handwriting. “Wasn’t sure about this book—” She dropped her bag on the floor, put her notepad on the table and handed Nancy the wine.

Nancy was about to agree when the rest of her friends walked into the room.

“Your daughter let us in. Lauren.” Sophie kissed Nancy and then Mary-Beth. “She hasn’t changed since she was eighteen.”

Nancy suspected her daughter had changed a great deal. Being a widow tended to do that, particularly when there were unresolved issues.

One of the reasons she’d been so angry that Tom had died in that car was that she’d been deprived of the opportunity to tell him what she thought of his lying, cheating ways.

She’d visited his grave a few times recently and told him what she thought of him, although she had at least checked no one was within earshot. She’d found the experience therapeutic. Maybe it was because he no longer responded with lies and excuses. She had her say and he was forced to lie there and listen.

“I confess I didn’t love the book.” Margie selected a chair by the window. “The heroine was a doormat.”

She’d been a doormat, Nancy realized. She’d allowed Tom to behave the way he had. She’d enabled him.

“I agree.” Sophie took the glass of wine Nancy handed her. “She should have kicked him out and changed the locks.”

Yes, that would have been a good plan.

Nancy imagined herself doing it, maybe swinging one of his precious golf clubs instead of her foot.

Goodbye, Tom. Have a nice life.

Jenna walked in, carrying the canapés. The bruise on her head was still visible if you looked closely, but other than that she seemed back to her old self.

She put the plates down on the low table to a chorus of appreciative gasps.

“Well look at that—” Mary-Beth leaned forward to examine the contents of the plates more closely “—it’s art on a plate. How did you make the pastry look like a seashell?”

“Trade secret.” Jenna handed out napkins and Nancy helped herself to a canapé, agreeing that the food was indeed art on a plate.

She’d always thought Jenna was 100 percent Tom’s child, but now she realized she’d been wrong about that. She’d inherited his warmth, that was true, but she also had Nancy’s creativity and appreciation of the visual.

Why had it taken her this long to truly know her daughter? The acid burn of regret over the past was soothed by the balm of the present and the future.

It was never too late to move forward.

She thought about Ben, and smiled. It definitely wasn’t too late.

“I don’t agree with you about the heroine.” Angela helped herself to a pastry seashell. “She did it to protect her daughter. And kicking someone out isn’t the only valid response to infidelity. She loved him, so she forgave. You need forgiveness in a marriage. Being able to forgive doesn’t make her a doormat.”

Mary-Beth pulled a face. “You also need respect. Where was that? It was missing. And speaking of things that are missing, where’s Alice?”

“She couldn’t make it.” Nancy studied the plate of canapés. Bacon or shrimp?

“Alice has never missed a book group. Is she ill?”

Nancy settled for shrimp. “I don’t think so.”