Secrets from a Happy Marriage

by Maisey Yates

  “And you know, he does have some of the blame. He married me, and he could never give me what a husband should. Talking with him today confirmed that. But I wasn’t brave. I wasn’t brave all on my own.”

  Wendy’s heart contracted again as she watched her daughter, pale but determined, saying she wasn’t brave while she cut open her soul and let it bleed out.

  “I used Michael to escape. I did think I might be falling in love with him, but I don’t think I was. I saw a hand being reached down to where I was in the pit, and I just wanted to take it rather than keep trying to climb out on my own.”

  A tear slipped down her face and Wendy had to put her hand over her mouth to keep from interrupting. To keep from crying out.

  She should have been that hand for Anna. But her fear, her stubbornness and her secrets had driven a wedge between them.

  “I knew that Thomas wouldn’t be able to forgive me for cheating on him. I knew that it would end it. Because I wasn’t brave enough to say the words to him. I wasn’t brave enough to ask for a divorce. I made him be the one to do it. And then I was still looking for reasons why. When the reasons were just that we... We’re two people who don’t see love the same. Who don’t see marriage the same. And neither of us love the other enough to set down what we needed, what we wanted.”

  “Come sit down,” Wendy said, making her way over to the stove and turning the heat on for the kettle. Anna followed, and sat down at the tiny table in the kitchen. There were two seats at that table, just the right size for an honest talk, for a breakdown. To heal. To mend.

  “I’ve replayed what you said to me the night I told my secret over and over, Anna. And you’re right. I was protecting myself. I was protecting myself from the judgment of everyone else because I couldn’t bear any more of it. My mother was always so fearful of who I would become. Any mistake I made she blamed on blood. The weakness from my birth mother, and I began to wonder if she was right. When I got a good look at who I was and what I’d done, at the end of everything... I despised myself.”

  She swallowed hard and pressed on. “But I did it to you. I was so afraid of the parts of you that looked like me. So afraid of what trouble your wild spirit would find for you. I hurt you more than I helped you. It’s a mother’s job to help her girls fly, not to clip their wings. I should have been the one to reach out and help you. You should never have had to be that desperate.”

  “Mom...”

  “I’m sorry,” Wendy said. “I’m so sorry.”

  Anna stretched her arms across the table and hugged her, wordlessly, for a long, long time.

  “I want forgiveness,” she whispered. Then she pulled away, wiping tears off her cheeks. “I want to forgive you and to forgive myself. I want you to forgive you. I keep thinking there has to be a way where you can admit that you did something wrong, but still forgive yourself completely. And I want to find it. That real forgiveness. I don’t want to live hating myself. I don’t want to live hating you. I want it gone. I don’t even want the seeds of it there. I want to dig it out completely.”

  “I never knew how to do that for me,” Wendy said, her heart squeezing tight, because what Anna was saying was so beautiful and compelling, and she wanted it so very much. “Because I was afraid that if I did I would just...stay the same. That I wouldn’t change. That I might do something else that later I could see was wrong or repellent. I felt so much guilt for what I did.

  “But I look at you, Anna, and I see that you deserve a new life. One where you’re happy. And you certainly don’t deserve to walk around carrying the weight of your mistakes for the rest of your life. And I don’t even mean the affair. I mean your marriage. You and Thomas weren’t suited to each other. And you know what? The one thing that I regret isn’t the affair that I had that resulted in you and Rachel—I got to the place where I can never regret that, because it gave me the two of you. What I regret is the pain that I caused you. I didn’t mean to set up a fake, unrealistic standard for you. And I didn’t mean to push you into marriage. But I was afraid. I was afraid of the pain that I knew you could feel in this world. I’m afraid I pushed you into it, anyway.”

  Anna shook her head. “I loved Thomas. You could never have told me that he was wrong for me. You could never have told me that I shouldn’t be with him. Not ever. Because I was sure that I loved him, and that I wanted to be with him. And maybe, knowing what you thought about marriage made it all the easier for me to jump into that kind of commitment... But who knows? I could have found whatever justification I wanted. I was eighteen and thought that I knew the world, and you know how that is.”

  “Most definitely.”

  “You don’t deserve to be kept in your past,” Anna said. “Least of all by me. I think part of moving forward is learning to take my own fault and just deal with it. To accept that what I did was wrong, the method that I went about getting out of my marriage was wrong, and let myself move on, anyway. So what. We made a mistake. We’re not perfect.”

  Wendy looked at Anna, and she felt...proud. Because it had taken her more than thirty years to even begin to move on from who she’d been and what she’d done.

  And if she’d known that dragging her secret out into the light would be the beginning of all that ugliness inside her dying, she would have done it ages ago.

  “I didn’t think...” Wendy shook her head. “I didn’t think that it was possible. That exposing all this rot was what would get rid of it. I’m just glad that you figured all this out earlier than I did. That you don’t have to sit in a mistake forever.”

  Last night with John had been a revelation. Not just because it had been wonderful, pleasurable and deeply gratifying to be with a man again in that way, but because she’d allowed herself to have pleasure, and she hadn’t been instantly punished. Because she’d let herself feel something wonderful, and she hadn’t dissolved.

  Because without so many words, that had been part of forgiving herself. And maybe it was a strange thing, that the forgiveness had come when so many other people were angry at her.

  But it was like she had taken out her own personal demon into the open and discovered it was old, decrepit and losing its teeth.

  In the darkness, hidden away, it had been free to be the snarling, fanged monster that haunted her dreams and made her feel a deep sense of unease with who she was and everything she had in her life.

  And seeing Anna like this... It was like all the pieces fit together. Because, of course, she didn’t think that Anna should exist in that darkness. Of course, she didn’t think she should be punished. Not for the decision she’d made at eighteen to marry Thomas, when she hadn’t had the first idea of what she wanted from her life, and who she wanted to be, but also for what she’d done when she’d existed in a state of such despair that the smile from a stranger had been the only hope she’d been able to see.

  But that left only one thing.

  “The thing I’m the sorriest for is that you couldn’t talk to me. And that is because of the lie that I constructed. I might not be responsible for all your choices, but you didn’t feel that you could come to me when your marriage was falling apart, and you should have. I should have made it clear that I was here for you. That I supported you no matter what. And that I would love you no matter what happened in the end. But I didn’t. I’m sorry. I want you to know, from now on, no matter what you do, no matter who you’re with, who you aren’t with, I’m proud of you, Anna. Everything you are. You were the light of my life from the time you were born. If I didn’t have you, if I didn’t have Rachel, I wouldn’t have had the strength to carve this new life out for myself. To make this place. You’re part of it—you’re a part of me. The best part. You were brilliantly and wonderfully loved, no matter what. And I’m saying this too late, but I am always on your side. Even when you’re wrong. Especially when you’re wrong. Because you have to be wrong in life to get where you can be right. And I w
ill walk with you, through all of that. Because all I want is for you to be happy.”

  A tear slipped down Anna’s cheek, and she leaned across the space, and pulled Wendy in for a hug. Wendy clung to her daughter, a sob lodged in her throat.

  “I know, Mom,” she whispered. “I know that you love me.”

  In those words were the absolution that Wendy needed.

  And she thought that maybe for the first time in more than thirty years, she might be okay with who she was.

  In the end, she hadn’t been the one to teach her daughter how to live.

  Anna had been the one to teach her.

  28

  Sometimes we’re a storm. At night, we are the very waves crashing on the rocks. I wonder what has overtaken me. By day, I don’t know how to speak to him. And a smile from him is like the sun is here. Rare. Why do I treasure it so?

  —FROM THE DIARY OF JENNY HANSEN, AUGUST 1, 1900

  RACHEL

  Rachel had intended to go to J’s to order a hamburger. Truly. That had been her intent. She hadn’t meant to stay chatting until the last customer had conveniently left. And she hadn’t counted on Adam locking the door and closing up early. She hadn’t meant to start kissing him, and she really, really hadn’t meant to end up right back in his bed.

  But there she was. Naked, and beautifully, brilliantly satisfied, fitted against his hard, muscled body.

  And tonight...she just didn’t have the energy to run away.

  It was done. They’d slept together, and whatever the messy implications this new phase of their relationship added to their previous one, she couldn’t turn away from it now.

  What she had figured was that eventually, she and Adam would talk about what had happened between them. After all, talking had always been about the easiest thing in the world to do with Adam.

  It turned out there was something that was even easier to do with him.

  He rolled over on his side and rested his hand on her bare hip. She wanted to purr over how good it felt. The weight of that masculine hand.

  “That was amazing,” she said. She turned over so that she was facing him. “Really. I don’t think that I stayed long enough last time to tell you just how...wow.”

  “Thank you,” he said, his mouth quirking up into a half smile. “I’m flattered.”

  She turned over on her back. “I know that we didn’t ever talk about...things. You know, before.”

  She didn’t know if she wanted to talk about them now. But there were just a couple of things that she felt like he should know, given everything they’d done.

  “No,” he said. “I didn’t get the impression you wanted to.”

  “I didn’t. Because coming and seeing you was... It was an escape. And it was one I needed. I needed it so much. I loved him. I feel like people would never understand how I could be with someone so quickly if they fully knew how much I loved him. But I haven’t had this in a long time. A really long time. I forgot what it was like to have something for myself. And remembering how good my body can feel... It’s...amazing. I’m glad it was with you.”

  “I’m going to tell you something,” he said. “I wasn’t just a disinterested listener, you know. I knew you were married, and I respected that. But... I wanted you from the first time you walked in.”

  She shifted back to her side, away from him, her face heating. “I didn’t know.”

  “I came here because I didn’t have anything else. And then there was you. And it didn’t matter... Whatever your real life was. Our conversations weren’t real life. They were something better than that.”

  “I felt the same way.”

  He had been escaping with her, too. It amazed her. Left her in awe. And she wanted to know... She wanted to know why. Even if she shouldn’t. Even if she should leave it alone. Because they had this brilliant, beautiful thing. This relationship that she’d never had with anyone else before. Something that transcended reality, like he’d said. And it seemed like adding real things to it would only cause pain.

  “What are you escaping from, Adam?” she whispered.

  Silence stretched between them and she rested in it. In the heat of his body. The comfort of his touch. Being in an unfamiliar bed and feeling altogether unfamiliar to herself.

  Finally, he let out a slow breath, his fingers tracing a pattern on her hip. “I was in finance,” he said. “In another life. Made a lot of money. I was busy. Very important. But I had everything you were supposed to have. Big house. Wife. Kids.”

  Her heart stilled, her breath stopped short.

  “You know, I thought I was doing things right. Because you have to support your family. But it was more than that. I cared more about that job than I cared about anything. And before I realized it, my best friend had stolen my wife. And my kids right along with her.”

  “What?”

  “I mean, not legally. But you know... They’re teenagers, I can’t make them see me. There are court agreements, sure. But—but to force kids who don’t want anything to do with me to come and stay over? Hell. No. And I would go to work and I would wonder...what the hell it even meant anymore, because I had all that money and no one to spend it on. No life to put it toward. Nothing. My grandpa died, he left me this place. I came.”

  Rachel didn’t know what to say. She was utterly and completely blown away that Adam wasn’t this solitary, single man who simply stood behind a counter every night. That they weren’t actually so different.

  She had assumed all this time that he was single, childless, that he may never have been in a serious relationship. That he was unattached in every way, because that was how he had seemed to her. She had assumed that she was the only person holding back anything of her life, and she’d known full well that he was aware of most of it, whether he spoke about it or not.

  Because living in a town this size, there was no way he hadn’t heard some details about her, at least whispered when she walked out of the diner.

  And she’d thought...

  That he was just there for her. Handsome and safe, and then handsome and not so safe when it had become the right moment for her to have those feelings.

  But he had been there all along with feelings of his own, and a past that she couldn’t have even guessed at.

  “How many kids?”

  “Two,” he said, his voice rough. “My daughter is a year older than Emma. My son is sixteen.”

  “Neither of them speak to you?”

  “No,” he said, his voice rough. “I believe that the last time my son saw me he said he never wanted to speak to me again.”

  “How? How did this happen?”

  “I wasn’t around,” Adam said.

  “I can’t imagine that. I can’t imagine you...were devoted to a job to the point where you weren’t with your family.”

  “But it’s true. It’s who I was. I thought it was taking care of them, and so it was all that mattered. Yeah, I can see it all now, with a whole lot of clarity that I wish I didn’t have, or I wish I’d had sooner. But it doesn’t do me a shit lot of good now. I can’t fix it. I was commuting into San Francisco every day, and my wife was having an affair in my big house up on the hill. But I left her there to have that affair. I wasn’t around. We didn’t have a connection anymore. But I was arrogant enough to think that my money was going to keep her with me.”

  “Did you cheat?”

  He shook his head. “No. I probably would have, though. Eventually. My life was split in two pieces. Everything I did at work, everything I did at home. And the work piece just got bigger and bigger. I forgot why I was doing all of it.”

  He cleared his throat, shifted behind her.

  She wanted to look at him but she was afraid of what would happen if he did.

  Afraid he would stop.

  Afraid he would continue.

  Eventually, he
did. “When the kids were little, and we were poor, I knew exactly who I was and why I was working like that. To make a better life, for our survival, for their education. But eventually it became all about me. It was like a sickness. Being the best. The most aggressive. The smartest. At every meeting. Always early. My blood pressure was sky-high. I probably would’ve keeled over before I managed to cheat on my wife, if I’m honest. I was going to have a heart attack before I was forty.”

  His breath was heavy, jagged. “I can get mad, and I could blame Katie for making the kids hate me, but I made the kids hate me. I was a stranger, so it was easy for her to tell them who I was, and how I felt. They didn’t know me well enough to know what was true and what was a lie, and that’s my own damn fault. I’m angry. I won’t pretend I’m not. But I’m mostly angry at myself. I had the real thing. When it was gone, I realized how little the rest of it mattered. She didn’t even take my money, you know. Tad has money of his own. But that’s how much she wanted to be rid of me. Everything that I worked for in that marriage... In the end, she didn’t even want that. I would have felt better if she would’ve taken my money from me.”

  Suddenly it was like she’d switched to the other side of the diner counter, and she saw what they were, what they’d been to each other so differently. She’d thought he was being there for her.

  All this time, he’d been lonely. All this time, she’d been there for him.

  Just by being.

  “Adam, I’m so sorry. But, you know, people heal rifts all the time. They can. They do.” She thought of her mother, her sister. They would fix it. They would fix it because they were family. Family always would.

  “I hope so,” he said. “But the thing is, even if we do fix it... I’ve only seen Jack a handful of times since he was eleven. And Callie... She goes to her room every time I come over. At first, I took my weekend visitations, but as they got older they started making their own choices. By the time Callie was sixteen she wouldn’t come anymore. I tried to keep things going, but I couldn’t. Well, I came here three years ago. I haven’t been back. Not for more than their birthdays.”