Secrets from a Happy Marriage

by Maisey Yates

  Her aunt Anna’s words—about how Emma hadn’t known—flashed back to her mind, and she had to admit to herself, her aunt was right.

  She knew now, and that made certain mysteries in the world close and intimate, rather than gauzy and faraway.

  She didn’t like realizing how complicated all of the women in her life were. She preferred to put them in neat boxes. Her grandma, her mom, her aunt. They’d existed only in those roles to her. But they’d seen too many messy, terrible things happen in the world, to each other, recently, and it was impossible to pretend that they were anything but women. Who made mistakes, who tried to fix them.

  And like her grandma had said, they were women who deserved to have all the good things that life could offer.

  Her mom deserved to be happy. Whatever that meant.

  “No. He didn’t... He didn’t do anything. I mean, he did. I don’t want to have feelings for anyone. No one but your dad. I’ve already been there and done that. I’ve already loved a man, and I can’t love another one. Not more. Not more than him.”

  “You wouldn’t be crying if you didn’t have feelings, though.”

  She had to wonder if her mother was feeling the vast, terrifying things that Emma had felt when she’d slept with Luke. Which...horrified her on every level, but also made her feel a deep amount of sympathy. It was strange. This full realization of the humanity of the women in her life. That they could be uncertain. That sex could feel as big and terrifying to them, too.

  “Why don’t you want to love him?”

  “Because,” her mom said. “It’s not... It’s so different. It’s so different, what I have with him. And it makes me feel like I’m betraying what I had. The timing is awful. If I was going to meet him it should have been in ten years, you know? Not a minute before then. I don’t want this now.”

  “I understand that.” Emma nodded. “Every time I start feeling happy I think it’s not time yet. I feel that way whenever I don’t think about Dad being dead for more than a few minutes. And I felt that way about going to school. I just wish it could all happen later and I could sit around being sad now.”

  “I don’t want that for you.”

  “I know. I don’t know if... I don’t know if it’ll ever quit hurting. But...can we have things that don’t hurt around it?”

  “It’s different, though,” her mom said. “I loved your dad. I love him.”

  It was hard, so hard to not let her heart close up and want to save all the feelings—hers and her mom’s—for her dad.

  But he wasn’t here.

  And she...she knew what it felt like to be touched by a man. What it felt like to be held and kissed. And what it felt like to worry that man she loved would never hold or touch her again.

  Her mom had lost the man she’d loved like that. There was no getting him back.

  She could never, ever wish her mom a lifetime of knowing she couldn’t have it ever again.

  “Is there a rule that says you can’t love Adam, too?”

  “I don’t think that’s how it works.”

  “I want to stay here. And I want to go to school. And I want to make you happy, and I want to be with my boyfriend. And I don’t know how to have all those things,” Emma said. “I don’t... I don’t know how to ask for all of that. And it means that I have to believe that everything somehow is going to work out. Even though it’s messy.”

  “I’m afraid that he wants more from me than...than I want to give him. Than I can give him.”

  “You gave more than Dad could give you for a long time. What’s wrong with taking more than you can give?”

  That seemed to stop her mother completely. “That isn’t true, though,” she said. “He loved me. And that made it... Not a burden to take care of him. He gave everything he had.”

  “Well, maybe that’s all Adam wants from you.”

  “Oh. Just everything I can give? Like that’s nothing?” If it wasn’t all so painful it would be funny to watch her mom contort her face like she was the bratty teenager, waving her arms in broad, dramatic strokes.

  “I don’t know,” Emma said. “I don’t know. Grandma said... Grandma said that we shouldn’t be afraid to want everything. She said that she didn’t. That she didn’t want everything for herself for a long time. And that...she wished that she had.”

  “I don’t want everything,” her mom said, wrapping her arms around herself. “Because it hurts too much when you lose it.” She took a jagged breath. “Besides, he’s nothing like your father. Why would I want to be with a man who’s completely different?”

  “That makes more sense to me, anyway,” she said. “If you had someone who was like him...it would be replacing him. Or trying to. Trying to make that person like Dad. I don’t know—doesn’t it say something that the person that you’re with isn’t like him? Something about how real it is?”

  “I’m not taking love advice from you. As much as I admire you.”

  Emma sniffed. “I am in love.”

  “Don’t give everything up for him,” her mom said. “I did love your dad. So much. And it makes me feel guilty to even...think the thing that I’m going to say to you next. I went into marriage not knowing what I was going to sacrifice. Not realizing just how much the sickness part of the vows would be part of who we were. Don’t walk in knowing that you’re sacrificing. Don’t start sacrificing from the outset. Because when you marry someone, it’s a series of sacrifices. You choose, every day in ways small and large, to set aside your way of doing things. Your vision of life to make your shared vision of life. And sometimes you have to set everything aside and give that person all that you are. Because they needed it. Marriage is not fifty-fifty, Em. It’s two people giving everything they’ve got, and sometimes that’s not equal. It can’t be. But you do it, anyway. You carry the portion of the burden you can shoulder. That’s how you have a marriage that’s real.”

  A tear escaped and slide down her mom’s cheek. “People want a happy marriage,” she continued, “but that is... It’s not that simple. You want a marriage that’s deep. One that’s fulfilling. But it means that you give. And give and give.”

  She looked squarely at Emma. “Go have your life for a while. Do what you want. He’ll love you enough to be here when you come back. Just like we do. Don’t sacrifice anything for me, either. Because I love you. And I’m going to be here when you get back. Love is patient, Emma. Let it be patient for you.”

  She reached her hand out and squeezed Emma’s.

  “Thanks, Mom,” Emma said. “I... I’m going to do that. I’m going to go to Boston, and I’m going to come home during break. I’m going to end up back here.”

  “You might not,” Rachel said. “You might stay there. You might meet the man of your dreams there. You might meet the whale of your dreams there. The aquarium might be the place you want to stay. You might fall in love with a building, or the air. You don’t know. But it’s okay. Because...” She closed her eyes. “I was selfish. I’m sorry. I did want you to stay. I felt like I was losing you. And it all felt like loss in the face of losing your dad. And I couldn’t cope with that. But it’s not the same. It isn’t. My whole job loving you was to love you into a strong woman who made her own decisions, and could follow all of her dreams. It wasn’t to keep you here as part of mine. So you go off, and you live. Don’t worry about living the way that I did, or making me proud. Because you already have, Emma. In every way.”

  Emma flung her arms around her mom’s neck. “I love you,” she whispered.

  “I love you, too. And I’m always here for you.”

  “I’m always here for you, too, Mom. And I know...it isn’t the same. But I want you to be happy. It sounds stupid. But I am so proud of you. Because I don’t know very many people who could’ve loved Dad the way that you did. And he had that. All the bad things, but he had you. You deserve to have whatever life y
ou want.”

  “Emma,” Rachel said. “You’re so sweet. I had a marriage. I had love. It’s okay if I can’t have it again.”

  “Well, I’ll love you either way.”

  “I know you will.”

  They hugged and the only sound was their breath and the waves. Emma closed her eyes. “Sometimes I think I can hear them,” Emma said. “All the people who were here before us. Soldiers and sailors and lightkeepers. Students.”

  Her mom moved away and wiped her eyes. “I’ve always liked thinking about them. Life moves on. The older generation passes, but life keeps moving forward. And at the same time I can feel everyone, every year contained in this house.”

  “Jenny Hansen had to start over, too,” Emma pointed out. “With nothing but a letter and the hope of a place she hadn’t even seen.”

  She smiled, small and sad. “I’m not sure I’m as brave as Jenny.”

  While Emma was resolute in her decision, and what she was going to do next, she didn’t feel satisfied.

  Because she knew that her mom was heartbroken. And there was nothing that she could do to fix it.

  33

  As the baby grows, so do my feelings for him. I couldn’t recognize them at first because they weren’t what I knew before. But, oh, how deep they have become.

  —FROM THE DIARY OF JENNY HANSEN, JANUARY 5, 1901

  RACHEL

  Rachel stayed out at the beach until it was dark. Until the beams of the lighthouse split the night. She was sitting in the cold sand, her wedding bouquet clutched tightly in her fists. Like it might bring him closer to her.

  She didn’t have any clarity.

  Everything she’d said to Emma was true. Except she just felt...guilty. Because it wasn’t that she couldn’t find it in her to have feelings for Adam.

  It was that she did have feelings for him. And she didn’t understand how. It confused her.

  It made her question herself. Everything she knew about who she was.

  But who are you, anyway?

  She knew exactly who she had been when she had married Jacob. A young woman who had been largely shielded from the pain of life.

  Yes, her mom had been single, and she had never known her dad, but for the most part, the sense of community, the joy that she’d gotten out of growing up here at the lighthouse, overlooking the sea, had compensated for any of that pain.

  It had always been secure and warm.

  They’d always had food.

  She hadn’t learned how truly cruel life could be until she’d watched illness steel Jacob’s vitality, take his dreams and move them out of his reach.

  Take their plans and twist them, bend them so that they had to take on an entirely different shape.

  They had refused to be broken.

  They had refused to allow his sickness to drive them apart.

  She had stayed with him. Through seizures and surgeries, the side effects of those surgeries, medical event after medical event.

  Cancer. Chemotherapy.

  Everything.

  And she had gotten hard. Because she’d had to. She learned to stand strong, because she had no other choice.

  You need me.

  Those were the most terrifying words he could have said to her. Most especially because she was afraid they could be true.

  She’d had that moment, that fantasy in his apartment about sinking into that life.

  And on top of it all she felt disloyal. Because so much of her craved this thing that Jacob hadn’t been able to give her. That he never would’ve denied her if he had a choice. It didn’t feel fair to want it so very much. To glory in the physical aspect of her relationship with Adam, and to crave having someone in her life who would take care of things. Who would be able to carry some of the weight.

  She could carry it all on her own. She knew she could. As long as she was loved. Because she had done it.

  But she didn’t want to anymore. And Adam created such a tempting vision of life.

  But she didn’t know how she could let herself have it. Didn’t know how she could let herself have him.

  Jacob.

  She whispered his name beneath the roar of the waves.

  But there was no response.

  The lighthouse illuminated the ocean, guiding in the ships.

  She remembered the history of the place. When three lightkeepers had been needed to keep it lit.

  No one kept it lit now—it was automated.

  And suddenly, something clicked inside of her.

  She was still acting like a lighthouse keeper, tirelessly keeping the flame lit. And it just didn’t matter anymore. It wasn’t needed.

  Emma was ready to go off on her own.

  And Jacob’s ship was home.

  He was no longer in danger of being dashed on the rocks. It was finished.

  It was like the fog had lifted away.

  And she could...love.

  She could simply love Jacob.

  The work, the sacrifice... It was done.

  She didn’t have to quit loving him. But there was nothing left to do. The love wouldn’t shrink, wouldn’t go away, but it would need to shift. Otherwise, she was just lighting a flame that wasn’t in danger of going out. Doing work that no one had asked her to.

  And it wasn’t selfless. It was selfish. It had made Emma feel like she was beholden to her, like she might need to stay here instead of going to the school of her dreams.

  Jacob was gone. Emma was grown.

  There were no dreams left to follow but her own.

  That was the terrifying thing. The one that scared her down to her bones. Beneath everything else, she told herself. Grief, guilt and responsibility.

  What scared her most was the idea that she could reach out and take something she wanted. That there would be nothing holding her back.

  Something just for her.

  Giving had been her life. Because she’d been sure giving would keep her from being selfish. From being the kind of woman her mother had warned her not to be. It had also preserved her. Given her tasks to perform so she didn’t have to sit with the weight of her emotions.

  Now she was free to be whatever she chose. Free to have the life she wanted.

  She could think of nothing more frightening. She stood, and the breeze caught her hair. Then she ripped the petals off of the flowers, those flowers she’d thought before were so much like her. Tired and worn from the years. And she let the wind carry the petals out of her hand, into the air and over the sea. She couldn’t keep flowers in a vase and pretend they still lived. She couldn’t hold a memory like it was a person. But that didn’t mean that love went away. Love remained. And when she turned away and began to walk back to the house, it wasn’t grief that burned brightest in her chest. It was love.

  ANNA

  Anna hummed while she finished doing the dishes in the kitchen, and surveyed her morning’s baking as it cooled on the counter.

  It was two weeks into her expanded baking initiative, and Anna was feeling good. She’d been out and about town since she’d started making deliveries to the different coffee shops and J’s every day.

  She’d also had coffee with Laura earlier in the week.

  Laura was interesting. Genuinely happy with her husband of five years, with a two-year-old, but not as overly sunny as Anna had first taken her for.

  She had a dry wit and her jokes slipped in under the radar sometimes. Anna liked it.

  Laura, for her part, wanted to understand Anna, not so she could judge her, or chide her for the decisions that she made.

  She no longer felt like the town was full of enemies. Yes, there were people who avoided her. Somebody literally crossed the street to avoid running into her, and Anna had to pretend that she didn’t notice, because she wouldn’t give the woman the satisfaction.

/>   The older lady in the grocery store whose name Anna still didn’t know always looked sour-faced when she rang up Anna’s groceries.

  But it was fading. And it would fade even more, she knew that.

  She had ripped off the Band-Aid with the interaction with Thomas. She had sought it out.

  But it was funny the way that interactions with people that weren’t Thomas remained more uncomfortable most of the time than any potential interaction with him.

  But they were finished. And it was mutual.

  Anna walked into the sitting room, where her mother was clutching a stack of letters in her hand. “I was wondering if you wanted to read these and put them into a book. Something for the guests.”

  Wendy’s eyes were bright and damp-looking, and Anna wondered why. “Mom, are you okay?”

  “Fine,” she said. “I think that you’ll find something in here. Something that might... I know how much you always loved the history of the soldiers. I think you’ll appreciate this more than anyone else.”

  She handed the stack of letters to Anna, and then walked quietly out of the room. Anna unfolded the first one and sat down slowly on the couch, and began to read.

  By the time she was finished her cheeks were wet, her shoulders shaking.

  She went into the bathroom and splashed water on her face, and looked at her reflection.

  I have spent much time hating myself. I find I’ve lost the taste for it. Is it so wrong to try to find forgiveness of ourselves...

  Those words, and others echoed in her mind. Wisdom from the past. A gift from the past.

  From her mother, who had known what it would mean to her.

  Her heart felt swollen, sore but happy.

  Things felt...bright. Like it was the first real sunny day in a long time. Or maybe it was just how it felt to be remade. That pastor’s-wife coat had been shed and she could feel light and warmth on her skin. All those protective layers gone.