How to Keep a Secret Read online

  She’s not the problem.

  “I had a crisis when I turned forty,” Ruth said. “Having a sixteen-year-old daughter reminds you how old you are. I don’t have daughter envy yet, but I can see how it could happen. You don’t have that problem—” she glanced at Lauren “—because you had Mack when you were still in your pram, or whatever you call it across the pond.”

  Lauren laughed. “I was nineteen. Not that young.”

  But she’d been pregnant at eighteen, which was only two years older than Mack was now.

  “And you still look twenty-one, which makes me want to kill you.” Ruth waved a hand in disgust. “At least your daughter doesn’t think you’re too old to understand anything.”

  Thinking of some of the conversations she’d had with Mack lately, Lauren gave a tight smile. “Oh, she does.”

  “But you have energy. I’m too tired to cope with a teenager. I thought the terrible twos were supposed to be the worst age and now I’m discovering it’s sixteen. Peer pressure, puberty, sex—”

  Lauren put her cup down. “Abigail is having sex?”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me. She has a ‘boyfriend.’” Ruth stroked the air with her fingers, putting in the quote marks. “The phone pings all the time because he’s messaging her.” Was that the problem with Mack? Was it a boy?

  “Phoebe is always on her phone, too,” Helen said. “Why is it they don’t have the energy to tidy their rooms, but manage to hold a phone? Last night when I finally wrenched it from her grabby hand and told her all electronic devices were banned from the bedroom, she told me she hated me. Joy.”

  Lauren’s sympathy was tinged with relief. Even during their most prickly encounters, Mack had never said she hated her. Things could be worse.

  “They don’t mean it,” Ruth said. “It’s one of those lines straight out of the teenage phrase book, along with I hate my life—my life is so crap.”

  “And but all my friends are doing it.”

  “Nobody does that stuff, Mom. It’s the moods that get me. I know it’s hormones, but knowing that doesn’t help.” Helen finished her coffee. “It makes me feel guilty because I know I was the same with my mum, weren’t you?”

  Ruth nodded. Lauren said nothing.

  As long as they weren’t doing anything that interrupted her painting, her mother had left her and Jenna alone. It was one of the reasons she and her sister were close.

  “The only one with a predictable temperament in our house is the dog.” Ruth gave a wicked smile. “Do you ever wonder what your life would have been like if you’d married your first boyfriend?”

  “I’d be divorced,” Helen said. “My first boyfriend was a total nightmare.”

  They looked at Lauren and she felt her face heat. “Ed was my first real boyfriend.”

  It wasn’t really a lie, she told herself. Boyfriend meant someone you had a relationship with. The word conjured up images of exploratory kisses, trips to the movies and awkward fumbling. A boyfriend was a public thing. I’m going out with my boyfriend tonight.

  Using that definition, Ed had been her first boyfriend.

  “You’ve been with one man your whole adult life? No flings? No crazy, naughty teenage sex?”

  Lauren felt her heart pick up speed. That didn’t count, she told herself. “For me it’s always been Ed.”

  “Well—” Helen spoke first. “I’m going to stop talking before I incriminate myself.”

  “I auditioned a lot of men before finally awarding the role of my husband to Pete.” Ruth finished her croissant. “I’d better go. I left my house in chaos.” She reached for her bag. “See you at the party tonight, Lauren. Sure there’s nothing we can do?”

  “No thanks, I’ve got it covered.”

  “Is your sister coming over from the States?”

  “No, she can’t get away from school right now.”

  Lauren felt another stab of guilt. When they’d last spoken, Jenna had confessed that her period was late. Lauren had heard the excitement in her voice and felt excited with her. She knew how desperately Jenna wanted a baby and how upset her sister was each month when it didn’t happen. She’d intended to call, but party planning had driven it from her head.

  “What about your mum? She’s not coming either?”

  Lauren kept her smile in place. “No.”

  Of course that had a lot to do with the fact that she hadn’t been invited.

  Lauren had never had a close relationship with her mother, but things had been particularly strained last time she’d visited home. Her mother had seemed preoccupied and even more distant than usual.

  When her father had died five years earlier, Lauren had expected Nancy to be devastated.

  She’d flown home for the funeral and been humbled by how strong her mother was. Her father had been a much-loved member of the community and there had been plenty of people sobbing at his funeral. Her mother hadn’t been one of them. Nancy Stewart had stood with her back as straight as the mast of a ship, dry-eyed, as if part of her was somewhere else. Lauren assumed she handled grief the way she handled everything else life threw her—by vanishing to her studio and losing herself in her painting.

  Lauren stared into her coffee.

  Growing up, her father had been the “fun” parent.

  “Let’s go to the beach, girls,” he’d say, and scoop them up without giving a thought to what they were doing. He’d bring them back long past bedtime with sandy feet, burned skin and salty hair. They were hungry and overtired and it was their mother who had dealt with the fallout.

  Nancy would be waiting tight-lipped, the supper she’d prepared congealing on cold plates. She’d serve the ruined food in silence and then dunk both girls in the shower, where Jenna would scream and howl as the water stung her burned flesh.

  By the end of the summer the sun had bleached their hair almost white and freckles had exploded over Jenna’s face. To Lauren they looked like sand sprinkled over her skin, but Jenna thought they looked like dirt. She’d scrub at her skin until it was red and sore and the freckles merged.

  “You could at least remember sunscreen,” Nancy had said to Tom one night and Lauren had heard him laugh.

  “I forgot. Loosen up.”

  It seemed to Lauren that the more her father told Nancy to loosen up, the tighter she was wound.

  She’d long since given up wishing her relationship with her mother were different.

  She and Ed returned to Martha’s Vineyard for ten days every summer, but Lauren felt edgy the whole time. It was part of a life she’d left behind, and being there made her feel uncomfortable, as if she was dressing in old clothes that no longer fit. Not having her father there with his endless jokes and energy made the visit even more awkward.

  The only good part about it was seeing her sister in person.

  Lauren saw Helen stand up and realized she’d missed half the conversation.

  Her friend reached for her bag. “Have your girls finished this wretched ancestry project? Martin’s been wishing we’d picked a different school to send her to. One that doesn’t take education so seriously.”

  Lauren grabbed her coat, too. “What ancestry project?”

  Helen and Ruth exchanged looks.

  “This is why we envy you,” Ruth said. “Your Mack is so smart she does all these things without your help.”

  “Mack does tend to figure these things out on her own.” All the same, she made a mental note to ask Mack about it, just to be sure.

  “Everything okay with Mack?” Helen held the door open for them and they swapped warm scented air for frozen winds. “No more trouble with those bitches from the year above?”

  Lauren was tempted to mention the pink hair and the fact that something felt “off,” but decided not to. She was still hoping it was nothing.

  “Everything seems fine.”<
br />
  “Abigail hasn’t mentioned anything, and she was the one who found that Facebook page when it happened.” Ruth squeezed her arm. “I’m sure it’s over and done.”

  She hoped so. She knew she had a tendency to blow things out of proportion. According to Ed, she catastrophized.

  If he was right, then his words earlier should be nothing more than a throwaway comment.

  If they had a problem, they would have talked about it.

  She checked her phone and saw she was on time for her hair appointment. “I’ll see you both later.”

  Ed was going to be fine and so was Mack. True, she was behaving oddly but the chances were it was nothing more than a phase.

  It didn’t mean she was keeping secrets.

  Lauren tried to ignore the voice in her head reminding her that she and her sister had kept secrets all the time.

  2

  Sisters

  Loyalty: the quality of staying firm in your friendship

  or support for someone or something

  “Please don’t do it.” I watched her climb onto the railing. Below lay the water, dark and deep.

  It was early morning and the beach was deserted. Later in the season the place would be teeming with tourists all lined up waiting to jump off the Jaws Bridge, so called because it featured in the movie, but right now we were the only people.

  And we weren’t supposed to be here.

  Our bikes lay on the edge of the path, abandoned. The beaches on either side of the bridge were deserted. No cars had passed since we’d arrived five minutes earlier.

  “If you’re afraid, go home.” She issued the challenge with a toss of her head and a blaze of her eyes.

  My sister, the rebel.

  She was right. I could have gone home. But then who would have taken care of her? What if she knocked herself unconscious or was swept out to sea? The current was pretty strong and you had to swim hard away from the bridge once you jumped. I’d positioned myself down on the beach because I figured that was the only way I’d be able to rescue her.

  The seaweed was slippery under my shoes and the wind was cold.

  I was shivering, although I wasn’t sure whether it was through cold or fear. I wanted to be anywhere but here.

  Like all families, we had rules.

  My sister had broken all of them.

  Was I my sister’s keeper? Well yes, I was. Self-appointed, admittedly. What choice did I have? I loved her. We told each other everything. She was my best friend. I would have died for her, although I would have preferred that to be a last resort.

  I tried one more time. “The sign says No Jumping Off the Bridge.”

  She looked across at me and shrugged. “Don’t look at it.”

  “Mom will kill us.”

  “She won’t know. She doesn’t know about any of the things we do. She only cares about painting.”

  “If someone tells her, she’ll care.”

  “Then we’d better hope no one tells her.”

  That was her answer to everything.

  I squirmed at mealtimes, terrified Mom might ask what we’d done all day. Guilt stuck to my skin until I was sure she would be able to see it. I felt as if I was glowing like a neon sign.

  Fortunately for me, our mother usually had other things on her mind.

  “It isn’t safe. Come back in the summer when there are more people.”

  “I hate the crowds.” She clambered onto the top of the railing, balancing like a circus performer, arms stretched to the sky. “I’ll go on three. One, two—”

  Throwing a wicked smile in my direction she pushed off and flew.

  She sailed through the air and hit the water with a splash, disappearing under the surface. I felt a moment of raw terror. If she was in trouble, would I be strong enough to save her? The image in my head was so real I almost felt her body slipping from my hands. It was only when her head bobbed up and I let out a relieved sigh that I realized I’d been holding my breath. My toes hurt and I realized I’d curled them tight inside my shoes, ready to push off the rocks into the water.

  She swam toward me, working hard against the current that was trying to pull her out to sea.

  “You almost gave me a heart attack.” I threw her the towel, relief making my legs shaky. Another one of my sister’s wild adventures and we were still alive. There were days when I felt like her mother, not her sister. “We need to get home before someone sees you with wet hair.”

  “No one will see us.” She emerged from the water, her clothes dripping and clinging to her skinny arms and legs. “Dad is away and Mom is in the studio.”

  “What do we say when she asks what we did today?”

  “She won’t ask.” My sister rubbed her head with the towel and tossed her hair back. She looked exhilarated and excited the way she always did when we did something we weren’t supposed to. “But if she does, we’ll tell her we went for a scenic bike ride.”

  This was part of our pact. We always made sure there were no flaws in our story.

  Whatever happened, she knew I’d protect her.

  She was my sister.

  3

  Jenna

  Yearning: an intense or overpowering longing

  Not pregnant.

  Were there two more depressing words in the English language?

  In the small bathroom of their two-bedroom cottage on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, Jenna dropped the remains of the pregnancy test onto the bathroom floor and resisted the temptation to grind it under her heel.

  She wanted to swear, but she tried never to do that even in the privacy of her own bathroom in case one day it slipped out in front of her class of impressionable six-year-olds. Imagine that.

  Mrs. Sullivan said fuck, Mommy. FUCK. It was her word of the day. First we had to spell it, and then we had to use it in a sentence.

  No, swearing was out of the question and she refused to cry. She already had to contend with freckles. She didn’t want blotches, too.

  “Jenna?” Greg’s voice came through the door. “Are you okay, honey?”

  “I’m good. I’ll be out in a moment.”

  She stared at herself in the mirror, daring her eyes to spill even a single drop of the tears that gathered there.

  She was not okay.

  Her body wasn’t doing what it was supposed to do. What it was supposed to do was get pregnant on the first attempt, or at least the second, nurture a baby carefully for nine months and then deliver it with no crisis or drama.

  All those times she’d peed on the stick in the grip of panic, hoping and praying that it wouldn’t be positive. The first time she’d had sex with Greg, both of them fumbling and inept on the beach, she’d been more terrified than turned on. Please don’t let me get pregnant.

  Now she badly wanted it to be positive and it wasn’t happening.

  They’d been having sex all winter, although to be fair there wasn’t much else to do on the Vineyard once the temperature dropped. Sex was a reasonable alternative to burning fossil fuels. Maybe she should teach it in class. Hey, kids, there is solar energy, geothermal energy, wind energy and sex. Ask your parents about that one.

  She was burning more calories in her bedroom than she ever had on a treadmill.

  She was thirty-two.

  By thirty-two, her mother already had Lauren.

  Jenna’s sister, Lauren, had been pregnant at eighteen. She’d barely said “I do” to Ed before announcing she was expecting. It seemed to Jenna that her sister had gotten pregnant by simply brushing against him.

  And yes, that made her envious. She loved her sister, but she’d discovered that love wasn’t enough to keep those uncomfortable feelings at bay.

  She’d wanted to be a teacher since her sixth birthday when her mother had bought her a chalkboard, and she’d fo
rced her sister to play school.

  Everyone knew it was only a matter of time until she had her own family.

  At first she’d been relaxed about it, but as each month passed she was growing more and more desperate.

  She’d tried everything to maximize her chances, from taking her temperature every day to making Greg wear loose boxer shorts. They’d had sex in every conceivable position and a few inconceivable positions, which had caused one broken lamp and Greg to mutter that he felt like a circus performer. Nothing had worked.

  The injustice made her heart hurt, but worse was the sense of total emptiness. It embarrassed her a little because she knew she was lucky. She had so much. She had Greg, for goodness’ sake. Greg Sullivan, who was loved by every single person on the island including Jenna. Greg, who had graduated top of his year and had excelled at everything he’d ever tried.

  She’d loved him since she was five years old and he’d pulled her out of the ditch where she’d fallen in an ungainly heap. He was her hero. They’d sat next to each other in senior year and run the school newspaper together. People talked about them as if they were one person. They were Jenna-and-Greg.

  Until recently, being with Greg was all she’d ever wanted.

  Suddenly it didn’t seem like enough.

  The worst thing was that she couldn’t talk about it with anyone, which had led to some almost awkward moments because she didn’t find keeping things to herself easy. Chatty, her school reports had said, much to her mother’s irritation. You’re there to learn, Jenna.

  She might be chatty, but even Jenna drew the line at talking about her sex life while browsing the aisles at the local store.

  Hi, Mary, good to see you. By the way, how many times did you and Pete have sex before you got pregnant?

  Hi, Kelly, I’d love to stop and chat but I’m ovulating and I need to rush home and get naked with Greg. See you soon!

  “Jenna?” He rattled the handle. “I know you’re not okay, so open the door and we can talk.”

  What was there to talk about?

  She was desperate for a baby and talking wasn’t going to fix that.

  She opened the door. She was Jolly Jenna. The girl who always smiled. The girl who had always tried to accept things she couldn’t change. She had freckles on her nose, hair that curled no matter what she did to it and a body that refused to make babies.