Her Secret Life

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.” He didn’t need to explain that he’d had the teacher quiz Willie and listened while his brother correctly answered every question. Or that their little brother wouldn’t lie to him.

They’d never believe that last part. With good reason. Willie lied to the rest of them on a regular basis.

“If you guys would have a little more faith in him, it would help,” he said now, arms crossed as he leaned against the counter and faced his sister.

Diane’s blond hair was short, darkening. She wore little makeup and her jeans were faded. But she was still every bit as pretty as she’d been when she was crowned prom queen in high school.

And she was still in love with her date from that long-ago night, too.

“It’s a little hard to have faith in someone who constantly lets you down.”

He got that, too.

“He thinks you all think he’s a loser.”

When Diane said nothing, his heart dropped a bit. Willie acted out. They lost faith in him. The more faith they lost in him, the more he acted out.

It was a vicious cycle.

Because Willie couldn’t stop blaming himself—couldn’t stop believing that everyone else still blamed him—for a mistake he’d made as a seven-year-old kid.

“He’s been breaking the rules since he was seven years old,” Diane said now, compounding Mike’s frustration. Willie wasn’t all wrong in his belief that his family blamed him for Mike’s changed life. At least two of them did—his sisters.

The family had been through it all multiple times—at home and in counseling—and while they all loved each other, and managed to coexist in a mostly peaceful fashion, they lived with a huge elephant in the room.

“Any word from your doctor?” he asked now to change the subject. And because he cared.

She shook her head. “No news is good news.”

Diane and her husband, Ben, had undergone genetic testing to determine if there was a medical reason she’d miscarried twice in a row. She’d already been through a barrage of tests herself and been told there was no discernible reason she shouldn’t be able to bear children.

“I’m sorry,” he said now. “About the coffee.”

She nodded. He felt better. He figured he could get another couple of hours work in when she said, “You never told me what’s got you so uptight today.”

“Nothing.” He shook his head. “Just work.”

“You love your work.”

True.

“The more challenging, the more you like it.”

True again.

“And since I have my nose in every billable account we have, I also know that there’s no out-of-the-ordinary problems hanging over us.”

True yet again.

“So if it’s not Willie, that means there’s something going on with you that I don’t know about.”

“I’m thirty-one years old, sis. I should have things you don’t know about.”

“Not if they make you bite my head off because you drank all the coffee. Twice the amount you normally drink in a day, I might add.”