Secrets from a Happy Marriage

by Maisey Yates

  It wasn’t even all about the affair, but how she’d gotten there. How she’d let her life get away from her, and allowed herself to be a passenger in her own existence, rather than the driver.

  She supposed all of that, those things that didn’t make sense, went right along with wearing her mother’s shawl to keep out the chill, even while she was so angry with her.

  Her life was splintered. Her feelings were fractured.

  And she wondered if they could ever be whole again.

  22

  We fought. He kissed me. I lost my mind. I am not myself here. I am not myself with him.

  —FROM THE DIARY OF JENNY HANSEN, APRIL 20, 1900

  RACHEL

  Rachel had no idea if Adam would still be down at J’s. But she also didn’t know where else to go. She drove too fast down the winding road. The rain, combined with the streetlights, made little dots of gold on the windshield. Maybe he wouldn’t be there. She could have called to check. But either way the drive would...help clear her head, maybe.

  Emma had told Rachel she wanted to go to Catherine’s house and it was probably lazy parenting to let her. Wasn’t she supposed to sit with her and have a heart-to-heart? But it was her birthday and it had ended explosively. If she wanted to go hang out with a friend...who was Rachel to stop her? She hoped that Emma didn’t think what Hannah had said about Adam was true.

  And here she was, on her way to see him.

  And you going to see Adam has nothing to do with how weird Hannah made you feel?

  Well, maybe it did. She needed to see him to be sure that...it was the same still.

  When she pulled up in front of the diner, she could see that there was still a light on. She parked by the curb and walked up to the door. It was locked. But she could see Adam, standing there behind the counter. She knocked, and he looked up, his blue eyes clashing with hers. His beard was a little longer than normal, and it made him look just a little bit dangerous.

  Which was weird. More than weird.

  Because Adam was her safe space. He wasn’t dangerous at all. But she couldn’t quite shake that thought, even as he came over to unlock the door.

  “Is everything all right?”

  She didn’t have an answer to that. “Can I come in?”

  He looked her up and down. “Of course.”

  He backed away from the door, and she slipped inside, the smell of his aftershave catching her for a moment. Then she just walked over to her regular stool.

  “I hope you’re not after food, because I just got everything cleaned up.”

  “No.”

  “You want some of Anna’s pie?”

  Of course, he offered food, even when he’d just said she couldn’t have it. “I didn’t come for food. I don’t really ever come for food. I just need to talk.”

  He nodded slowly. “Did you want me to turn the lights on?”

  She looked around. It was pleasantly dim, the only light coming from back behind the counter. She felt like it offered her just a little bit of privacy. Almost like a confessional.

  “Off is fine,” she said.

  “Whatever you want.”

  “What do you know about Emma’s boyfriend?” Of all the new information she had to process tonight, this was the safest place to start.

  “Um, I don’t know her boyfriend.”

  “The boy who works at the mechanic place over there,” she said, gesturing broadly toward the windows.

  “Right. Well... I don’t know that I consider him a boy.”

  “What? How old is he?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “But...older. Not like... I mean, he’s still a kid to me.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Is he a good kid? Should I be worried?”

  “Probably,” he said. “Just because as a parent it’s your job to be, right?”

  She laughed, hollowly. “Right. Sure.” She sighed. “She... She’s going away to Boston. And she has a boyfriend. And I didn’t know any of it. Because I thought I was there. And I thought that I was part of her life. But I’m not.” She felt like there was no ground under her feet.

  She didn’t know her daughter. She didn’t know her mother.

  “That’s normal. You do know that, right?” he asked.

  “Is it normal to not have any idea where your daughter has decided to go to college?”

  “Well, maybe not that. But it’s pretty normal for your teenager to not tell you every detail about her life.”

  “She had a plan to go across the country. Before Jacob died. She and her friend Catherine both want to do the marine-biology program at that school, and she spent a lot of time talking to this woman who runs an aquarium that has a connection with the college, and she was sure she was going to get a position there. But she told me she didn’t get accepted to the school. And I... I was glad. Because I wanted her here. With me. But she wanted to go. And I didn’t realize that.”

  “You still don’t want her to go,” Adam said.

  Those words cut through her chest.

  “Of course I don’t. I didn’t particularly want her to go before I was living by myself. And that’s...awful. It’s so selfish. I hate that I even have that...feeling inside of me. I want to be the kind of mom who just wants the best for her kids and doesn’t take her own happiness into consideration at all.”

  “I think they call parents like that liars.”

  She huffed a laugh. “No. Surely there are truly selfless mothers in the world.” That comment just brought her back to her own mother, but she didn’t want to get into that with Adam.

  “Maybe Emma won’t like it,” he said. “Maybe she’ll get over there and she’ll want to leave.”

  “That would be terrible. She would be across the country from me and upset...”

  “But at least it would be her decision. Or maybe she’ll love it. And she’ll come back and visit at the holidays, and it will be hard for years. But God knows you’ve been through worse.”

  Silence stretched between them. She hadn’t come for advice, but for that neutral listening ear he’d provided all this time. But she had broken their unspoken rule, and she had mentioned Jacob. She had talked about the problems in her real life.

  And she hadn’t realized it until it was too late.

  She splayed her hands over the counter and looked down at them. Her wedding ring was still on her left hand. She should probably take it off before she went out with Mark. Which was such a weird, stupid thought to have right now.

  “Yes. I have been through worse. You’re right. I don’t exactly want to go through more.”

  Adam leaned forward slightly, and his hands went with him, sliding over the countertop, and she watched them. The tips of his fingers were so close to hers.

  It wouldn’t take much. A slight shift, and their hands would touch.

  “How are you?” His voice was low, and it skimmed over her skin in a way that made her feel edgy and uncomfortable.

  She should move, because being close to him was making her uncomfortable, too.

  But she didn’t.

  “Ugh. Don’t ask me that,” she looked up at his face. “I’m here asking you advice at nine p.m. How do you think I am?”

  “In general,” he said.

  “We don’t talk about that stuff.”

  He shrugged. “We do now, I guess.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what to call how I am. Sad, and tired of being sad, because I feel like half of my life has been sadness for years. And it’s all kind of bittersweet, because the end that I knew was coming, came, and I don’t know what to do with myself. Except... I have a date.”

  Adam’s hands moved back a fraction. “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “With who?” Another fraction away.

  “That is not your business.” He
r own hands slid back slightly.

  “Why not? Do I know him?”

  “Probably. Mark.”

  “Mark from the plumbing store?” They moved an inch.

  “Yes. I went in to buy a pipe and he asked me on a date.”

  “Really?” His hands slid back with that repeated question.

  “Yes. You asked me that already.” She curled her hands into fists, still resting on the counter. “I mean, we’re going out as friends. It’s just...practice for being a human in the world. It’s not a thing.”

  “Well, I guess that’s the thing,” he said. “You go out, you find yourself a guy. You go on dates. That’s what you do while your daughter’s at college. Because...you can. Isn’t that kind of the point of empty nests?”

  “I don’t want one,” she insisted. “Not really.”

  “Life doesn’t tend to ask what you want. It’s not a diner. Things aren’t made to order.”

  “Neither is your food.”

  Their eyes caught. And then he quit moving away.

  He leaned in just slightly, and she caught that scent again. His aftershave. His skin. Her stomach fluttered, just a little bit. And she was absolutely and totally taken aback by the sensation.

  By her need to stay where she was, right in his orbit.

  She had always felt drawn to him. From the moment they’d met. But it was different right now.

  She swallowed and leaned back. For some reason, that motion triggered a response in him, and he straightened, taking two large steps backward.

  “Am I a bad mother?” she asked.

  “I’m not going to comment on anyone else’s parenting.”

  She frowned. “Anyone else’s?”

  “Never mind. Just...love her, Rachel. Like you do already. You’re going to make mistakes. But...don’t drive her away.”

  “I—I don’t want to. But I worry about her.”

  “She’s eighteen. You have to trust that the parenting you already did will keep her from doing too many things you don’t want her to do. And then you have to remember all the things that you did that your mom wouldn’t have wanted you to do.”

  She laughed. Hollow and bitter. “Except I barely did anything my mom wouldn’t have wanted me to do. My reasons were...silly. Because apparently my mom was a bigger rebel than Anna and I combined. Well, Anna up until a couple of months ago.”

  “Was that the source of the tension from earlier?”

  “Yeah. Oh...my dad, Adam. I just... I just thought that I would have to survive going through this huge milestone of my daughter being a legal adult without my husband. I didn’t think I’d also have to deal with family secrets, my daughter’s secrets and...” She met his gaze and the words died on her lips. “I’ll tell you. About my mom sometime.”

  “Well, if you ever need to talk. You know where to find me.”

  She did know where to find him. She always had.

  Hannah’s words echoed in her head and lodged a wedge of discomfort in her chest.

  “Yeah,” she said, “apparently you never leave.”

  “It’s true. I don’t actually have a life. I exist right here in this spot for whenever you show up.”

  He was joking, but there was something in his blue eyes that didn’t feel like a joke, and she had to turn away from him.

  “Good night, Adam,” she said, sliding off the stool.

  “Good night, Rachel.” His voice was low and husky, strange. “Have a good date.”

  She turned, and it took a lot longer than it should have for her to find some words. “I will.”

  “You deserve good things to happen to you,” Adam said, his voice soft now. “I mean it.”

  “Thank you.” She hoped more than anything that what he said was true. That maybe she deserved good things. And if he thought so...maybe they would happen.

  She had no other reason to hope.

  23

  Well, I did it. My parents would be furious if they knew. But it can be my secret. Just mine and his.

  —FROM THE DIARY OF SUSAN BRIGHT, AUGUST 1961

  RACHEL

  The next day, Rachel cleaned until her knuckles bled. Anna was hiding in the Shoreman’s Cabin and her mom was like a zombie.

  Rachel couldn’t stand the tension.

  When Emma finally got back from Catherine’s, Rachel felt like she needed to talk to her. Not only about Boston, and about this mysterious boyfriend of hers, but also about the accusations that Hannah had thrown around out on the street. It was weird, to acknowledge that there needed to be a shift in her relationship with her daughter. Because when Emma had looked at her and said that she just wanted to protect her mother, Rachel had felt shame. Intense shame.

  She was supposed to protect Emma. Emma wasn’t supposed to protect her. And, more importantly, Emma shouldn’t ever feel like she had to. But she did. And she realized that her daughter was carrying a lot more weight on her slender shoulders than Rachel had ever imagined.

  It was the same with Anna. The same with her mother, even, and it was hard to acknowledge that because she was still so mad at her mother, but it was true.

  She didn’t have a solution for the way things were between them. And she wasn’t even sure if...being conscious of it now, she could have fixed it before it got here.

  She had been lost in her own hurt. In the day-to-day doing, and caring for Jacob. Anna had been lost in trying to maintain the appearance that her marriage was okay. Her mother had been lost in this fiction she had created about herself. And Emma... Emma had been hiding herself.

  Rachel sighed heavily and made her way upstairs to her daughter’s room. She knocked tentatively.

  “Come in,” said a muffled voice.

  Rachel walked in and saw that Emma was stretched across her twin bed sideways, her legs hanging off the other side. She had a book in front of her, and her phone next to that.

  “Can we talk?”

  “Yeah,” Emma said. “Are you mad at me?”

  “No. I’m mad at myself.”

  “Are you mad at Grandma?”

  “A little bit.”

  “Yeah,” Emma said. “I can see why you would be.”

  “Aunt Anna is furious with her,” Rachel said. “She’s so mad she’s barely talking to me.”

  “I can’t blame her,” Emma said.

  “Me, neither.”

  Rachel hesitated for a moment. “About what Hannah said,” Rachel said. “About me. And about Adam...”

  Emma wrinkled her nose. “I didn’t take that seriously,” she said. “That woman is clearly insane. Like...what’s her deal?”

  “I don’t know,” Rachel said. She thought it best to hold back that she thought Hannah might be a frigid bitch. That was the kind of thing reserved for her sister, not her daughter.

  “Adam is my friend,” Rachel said, something about the words sitting wrong on her tongue. “And I swear to you, nothing... I was faithful to your father. I loved him. I love him still. Nothing will ever... It will never change that. Luke is your first boyfriend, right?”

  “Yes,” Emma said, frowning.

  “You’ll never forget them,” Rachel said. “Never. Whatever happens after this. You never forget the first time you fall in love.”

  Emma’s cheeks went pink. “I didn’t say I was in love with him.”

  “Are you?”

  “We’ve only been...hanging out for a couple of months.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s just... Those relationships that build who you are... You never move on from those. Your dad shaped me into the woman I am, just like I shaped him. He gave me you. He gave me twenty wonderful years. I will never not love him.”

  “That’s—” Emma blinked “—good.”

  “You know, people would never ask you to move on,” Rachel said. “They never
expect you to get over losing a father because they don’t expect you to replace him. People start asking widows and widowers to move on, though. And I’m not sure that’s the right way to look at it. I’ll love him forever, just like you will.”

  “Yeah,” Emma said.

  Rachel nodded slowly. “I just wanted to make sure you knew that. That you knew I wasn’t sneaking off and... I wasn’t.”

  And yet, something about what Hannah had said had tripped a guilt wire in her heart, and she couldn’t quite let it go. Because she might not have ever touched Adam, or fantasized about him or anything like that, but she had been down at that diner escaping.

  Insulating herself. Building a little space that belonged only to her.

  It was one reason she couldn’t be mad about Emma and her boyfriend. Because she understood. She understood just not wanting to talk about everything all the time. Not when it played over and over in your mind, and the feelings echoed around your heart all day, every day.

  To have a space that was separate from these big, epic changes that were happening in your life was... Sometimes it was the only thing that kept you going. The only thing that kept you breathing.

  “You can tell me things,” Rachel said. “I mean it.”

  “I think I’ve told you everything.”

  “I want you to go to the school that you want to go to,” Rachel said.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “I got asked on a date,” she said, not sure what had spurred that except that she was asking for honesty, so she supposed she better give it.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I don’t... I don’t know how I feel about it. Like I said, I don’t want to move on. I don’t want to replace Dad with anyone else... But...sometimes I think it would be nice to go to dinner.”

  “Just dinner?”

  “Just dinner,” she said.

  “I don’t see why you can’t do that.”

  “Really?”

  “Mom, I don’t want to stop doing things because—because Dad died. I don’t know why you shouldn’t have a life. It’s not like you’re going to marry him.”