Secrets from a Happy Marriage

by Maisey Yates

  Maybe it wasn’t the best thing for a guy that you liked to tell you to move across the country, but...he believed in her. That felt like it mattered.

  “I really like him.”

  “Good,” Catherine said, her ire clearly decreasing. “I’m glad you like him.”

  “Thank you. I’ll figure out how to fix it. I’ll just say that we lost track of time.”

  “Okay. And then stop lying.”

  “You lie to your parents all the time.”

  “Yes. But you don’t.”

  Catherine hung up right as Emma pulled into the private drive and she sighed, trying to figure out exactly what she was going to say to her mom. She parked in front of the Lightkeeper’s House and stared for a moment, and then she killed the engine and trudged inside.

  “Where have you been?” Her mom was right there, looking pale and afraid. And mad.

  “I’m sorry. Catherine and I lost track of time.”

  “Catherine didn’t answer her phone, you didn’t answer your phone.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. By the time I realized how late it was and that I’d missed calls from you it was too late for me to fix it.”

  “What were you doing?”

  “Hanging out,” Emma said.

  “You normally have your phone welded to your hand, Emma.”

  “I didn’t tonight.”

  “Why not?”

  “Mom,” Emma said, “I’m not even going to live at home in a couple of months. You can’t police everything I do all the time.”

  Emma didn’t know where her anger came from. Because she was the one who had lied. And she was the one who hadn’t kept track of the time. And her mom was afraid, and Emma could understand why. Except for some reason all of it just made her mad, and she didn’t want to deal with it.

  She didn’t want to deal with her mom’s feelings. She didn’t want to have to live to make her happy.

  She didn’t want to have to calculate her every move to spare her mom worry. Because she had been doing it for too long.

  Tonight had felt amazing.

  And she had felt free.

  She had had something that belonged to her, only to her. And she hadn’t gotten the lecture on safe sex and waiting until after college to get serious about someone. She had just...gotten to see where it went. And she’d liked that.

  “Emma Jane,” Rachel said. “I pay for your life—your minimum-wage diner job doesn’t. And who do you think will be financing your collegiate independence? Not you. So, yes, I do get to know where you are, and who you’re with, and what you’re doing.”

  “Not if I don’t tell you.” Emma turned and stomped toward the stairs, but her mother’s hand coming down hard on the countertop stopped her.

  “Listen to me,” Rachel said. “I have lost enough. I’m not going to lose you, too. Not to some fit of teenage rebellion.”

  “And I’m not yours,” Emma, turning, shouted back. “I’m my own. I lost Dad, too. That hurt me. That was my loss, too. And I’m not your possession to sit around making you feel better. I’m my own person. With my own...pain. And I don’t have to sit in this house every night so that you still have something to take care of, because you don’t know how to go out and have a life of your own.”

  She went up the stairs, shaking, feeling sick to her stomach that she’d said those things to her mother. But part of her had meant them. Maybe even most of her.

  She sat down at her computer, her heart thundering in her ears. And then she saw the pink folder that was sitting on top of her desk, with her acceptance letters inside. She opened it, and she found the one from Boston.

  She hadn’t confirmed with OSU. She hadn’t confirmed anywhere.

  Boston.

  She was going to Boston.

  She wasn’t going to let anything stop her.

  17

  My new husband commands light that guides ships on the sea, and yet we cannot seem to find each other.

  —FROM THE DIARY OF JENNY HANSEN, APRIL 8, 1900

  RACHEL

  Rachel was surprised when she didn’t cry. She was...angry. Absolutely enraged at her seventeen-year-old. Which seemed...silly.

  Suddenly she remembered when Emma was two years old, and had torn up a beautiful, precious book that had been given to her by Jacob’s mother, one that had been hers when she was a girl. She remembered yelling, helplessly. At a tiny child who didn’t understand what she had done wrong and couldn’t fix her transgression even if she had.

  And she remembered sitting in the absurdity of that. The absolute uselessness of her own anger, and the potential destructiveness of it.

  Then, she had taken the pieces of the torn book and gone to her room, closing the door behind her and praying quietly that God or Emma would forgive her for losing her temper.

  She felt that silly now.

  Getting angry at this almost adult whom she still felt responsible for. Who had wounded her in the perfect and most precise spot.

  Had managed to hone her words into a needle and stab them directly into every one of Rachel’s worst fears.

  That she didn’t know how to live. That she didn’t know who she was apart from being Jacob’s wife and Emma’s mother.

  “Well,” Rachel said to the empty room, “that’s because it’s all I’ve been.”

  There. How was that for anger? Useless, stupid anger. Her whole life had been them, and now somehow she was supposed to just let go? She had poured herself into them, into their needs, and she did it because she loved them, but to have it turned around on her and...

  Fine.

  She would do something else. She would be something else.

  She picked up her phone, ignoring that it was eleven o’clock at night, and called the number that Mark had given her. “Hello?”

  “I hope I didn’t wake you,” Rachel said.

  “Rachel?”

  “Yeah,” Rachel said.

  “No. You didn’t wake me.” He was a nice man, which she should care about.

  “Good. I... I’d love to go out. I would totally love to go out with you.” The words tasted weird. “As friends,” she added in a rush. “If you’re interested in that. Friends.”

  “Uh...yes.”

  “Maybe in a couple of weeks? When things calm down on the weekends here at the inn. We are doing this new dinner thing, and until we get it down, I don’t think I should be gone. But after that.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Whatever works.”

  “That would work. So...let’s say May 15.”

  Two days after Emma’s birthday.

  And after the surprise party that she was going to throw the ungrateful little brat.

  Maybe she shouldn’t throw Emma a surprise party. Maybe she should make herself a cake in honor of the day that she had destroyed her body only to have it never snap back to its original state ever again, and then had taken abuse for her love in the eighteen years since.

  Maybe she should commemorate that.

  “Yeah. Works for me. I’d clear my schedule if it didn’t.”

  “Okay. Looking forward to it.” She hung up, possibly faster than he was ready for her to hang up.

  And then she dropped her phone onto the sofa and covered her mouth with her hand.

  She was going on a date with a man who wasn’t Jacob. As a friend, but even so. Her daughter hated her. She was leaving. To go to college. And she was right.

  She was very nearly an adult, and she wasn’t going to live here, where Rachel could keep track of her, and all of this was probably some last gasp at control. And hanging on because life had already forced her to let go of the single other most important relationship in her life.

  A sob did escape then.

  She didn’t want to go on a date. She didn’t want to be with someone else.

>   But maybe she needed to do this. Go on some dates. Get out of her house. Figure out who she was without Jacob.

  Without Emma.

  But she probably did need friends. But she’d let some of her long-standing friendships go fallow as she’d dealt with her life.

  At least she had Anna. This new, tenuous relationship with her sister that was building up slowly and surely as the weeks wore on.

  But right now she just felt alien. Disconnected. Like she was forcing herself to eat broccoli so she could maybe someday have the hope of dessert.

  Dessert—in this instance—was a life that didn’t feel so sharp. So painful. Where she had easy friendships, and maybe enjoyed going out on dates.

  Where she found men that she liked to kiss, and maybe even sleep with.

  She didn’t think she’d ever get married again.

  That thought actually made her...excited.

  She didn’t have to be a wife if she didn’t want to be. She could let go of the responsibility.

  Vows that bound you to a man through everything. That wrapped your life in theirs so tight it was one.

  She loved Jacob. She didn’t think of him as work, not as more work than any marriage was.

  But marriage was work.

  And she didn’t have to enter into that kind of relationship ever again.

  But she hadn’t chosen the loss of her marriage. And she wouldn’t have.

  But it had happened. So she had to find a new way to live, and figure out what she wanted that new state of living to look like.

  Rachel felt numb, and she didn’t have anyone to talk to. Even if she could talk to Emma right now, this would not be the subject she would want to broach.

  Her friendships had fallen by the wayside.

  Anna.

  Of course, she could talk to Anna. Her little sister wasn’t little anymore, and she likely would understand more about this whole situation and the reasons behind why Rachel had said yes than even Rachel would.

  She grabbed a shawl off the peg by the door and wrapped herself in it, charging down toward the Shoreman’s Cabin, which was at the bottom of the winding path that led right to the beach. The little building was nestled in a cove, surrounded by rocks that kept it safe from the waves.

  It had been built sometime in the 1930s, and had largely been inhabited by lone fishermen over the years.

  And right now, it was inhabited by her sister.

  Rachel knocked firmly, and when the door opened, Anna greeted her with round eyes. “What are you doing down here?”

  “I said yes to going on a date with Mark. From the plumbing store.”

  “You’d better come in.”

  Rachel accepted the offer happily, though was slightly worried that the instant access she’d been granted spoke volumes about the fact that what she had done was a little bit crazy. And worthy of a sisterly intervention.

  “I just heated up some water. You want some tea?”

  “As long as there’s whiskey in it.”

  Anna laughed. “That’s disgusting. Let’s try it.”

  “Do you really have whiskey?”

  “I do,” Anna said. “Which is a little bit wild, all things considered.”

  “I guess pastors’ wives are not supposed to have bottles of whiskey?”

  “Having a glass of wine at dinner with you and Mom was considered edgy by my husband.”

  “Really?”

  “He never would have said anything at the house. But...yeah, he was always a little bit irritated when I would have one. Anyway. We’re not here to talk about me. Tell me about your date.” She gestured to a small table with two chairs in the kitchen. One was red, one yellow. Anna opened up a cupboard, took out to teacups that were mismatched and poured hot water into them.

  “I just... I don’t know. I don’t have feelings for him. Not like that. I don’t know if I’ll ever have feelings for anyone like that again. I know that I want to. But I have to...do something. And it’s not moving on.”

  Anna moved around, a ginger blur of motion, strands of hair escaping from her bun as she readied the tea bags and put a generous amount of whiskey into each cup. Then she set one in front of Rachel, and put one in front of the empty chair, before taking her seat.

  “It’s just about moving. I guess. If that makes sense. Because... I need to find a way to feel something again. I need a new place to have dinner. And a new face to have it across from. Not so I can forget, not to replace anyone. But just... I’m here. I wake up in the morning. I work at the end. And I love it. I love being here. I love you and Mom.”

  “Sometimes there aren’t words,” Anna said slowly. “Sometimes it’s just your heart groaning. And it takes a good long while for groans to become actual words. For you to be able to understand them. And sometimes you shove them away for a long time, Rachel. Because it’s terrifying to try and understand them, because then you’ll feel compelled to act on them. But sometimes when there’s a deep sadness in your heart, your heart cries out for something. It’s not right or wrong—it just is. Your heart needs something. Give it what it’s asking for.”

  “I don’t want to fall in love. And I don’t think I could fall in love with him. Which, honestly, is why it’s such an ideal date.”

  “Maybe you just want to feel like a woman again. Beautiful. There’s nothing wrong with that. It kills you inside, losing sight of that.”

  “Jacob made me feel beautiful.”

  “I know. I loved Jacob,” Anna said. “I love him. He’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a brother. And I know—I believe—that he’s always going to matter to you. And I don’t see this as you letting go of him. Set grief to the side for a moment. Timelines. What other people might think. What do you need?”

  “I guess I just want to see what life looks like now. And this feels like...a way to do that. A new view. Like I said. I—I can go out on dates now. There’s a new reality that I’m living in, and if I don’t do something to explore that, I’m going to end up... Sometimes I walk by our bedroom and I think he’s still there. And the more I sink into isolation here, the more that’s true.”

  “It’s okay, Rachel. All of it is okay. There are about a hundred guidebooks for things like this, but the people who wrote them still never went through what you did. Because they didn’t have your marriage. Your husband. And they don’t have your life or your heart. We know what’s right. We have a generic set of rules for how were supposed to handle everything... But when you’re in the weeds, looking for solutions to your problems, sometimes things that never made sense before look a whole lot different.”

  Rachel tried to smile, her heart twisting. “You sound like the older sister now.”

  “Well, that’s the thing. I’m not a kid anymore. We’ve both... Lived some life. We can learn from each other. We can be there for each other. You don’t have to just take care of me, Rachel.” She slid her hand across the space and covered Rachel’s with her own. “Let me take care of you, too.”

  Rachel looked down into her teacup and took a sip, the whiskey burning a trail down her throat. She coughed, and then started to laugh. “I like the way you take care of me,” she wheezed, pounding on her chest.

  Anna took a sip, too, and blinked. “That’s strong.”

  “I’m so tired,” Rachel said. “And I don’t want to go to sleep.”

  “Bunk with me tonight,” Anna said, raising her dainty teacup. “We’ll get hammered and watch HGTV.”

  That was a new view. A new thing.

  And as she settled onto the couch with her sister, pulling a wool blanket over her knees, clutching her spiked tea, she thought that for now this was a pretty great view, after all.

  18

  Patrol does give a man time to think. It reminds him of what’s important. I think often of you.

  —FROM A LETTER
WRITTEN BY STAFF SERGEANT RICHARD JOHNSON, JULY 25, 1944

  ANNA

  She had done a lot of thinking about her life over pie.

  Either making it, or eating it, Anna felt that pie was an extremely good source of clarity. This had always been true. Whether her problems had been with friends in high school, or concerns over a child in the church who was sick and in the hospital.

  It was true now, while she went over her own problems.

  She had been baking continually at the Lighthouse Inn over the last week, turning over the altercation with Hannah in her mind, and the conversation she’d had with Rachel after.

  A few nights after she’d had her drunken slumber party with Rachel, when they had been working on croissants one evening, her sister had asked her why she didn’t consider expanding her baking, and reminded her that she’d told Adam to consider using her to bake pies.

  Rachel’s confidence in her sparked something, and made her feel...well, made her feel like she’d found some of her own confidence, too.

  Which was why she found herself on her way to J’s, ready to go in and speak to him. And feeling as nervous as if she was going on a job interview, which she’d never done in her life.

  It was funny, because she had been avoiding town. Resolutely. But the worst had already happened. Someone had actually come and yelled at her. Gotten in her face. And they had come up to her sanctuary and done that, so the real question now was...what was there to be afraid of?

  She could certainly run in to Thomas, which she didn’t want, but the thing about Thomas was he hardly went anywhere other than church. It was there, or he was in his office. Sometimes, he did meet with people and have a coffee, engage in some public counseling at the coffeehouse. But he didn’t go to J’s.

  She parked in an empty spot across the street, the nose of her car pointing downhill. She put on the parking brake and got out, standing for a moment as she looked at the yellow, slightly run-down building.

  She turned and looked at the mechanic shop she’d parked in front of, glancing through the window and locking eyes with a young man behind the counter. She hoped he wasn’t annoyed that she’d parked there. But if he was, he could just join the whole club of people that were annoyed with her.