How to Keep a Secret

by Sarah Morgan

Nancy walked into the room. In those few seconds before she noticed both of them sitting there, she looked tired and beaten.

  Jenna felt an ache in her chest.

  How long had that look been there? Lauren was right. She should have paid more attention. Maybe they weren’t exactly close, but Nancy was still her mother. She’d pulled away as a defense mechanism, not because she didn’t care.

  The look was gone the second she saw them. “Jenna! I didn’t know you were visiting today.”

  “I asked her over,” Lauren said. “We want to talk to you, Mom.”

  Nancy dropped her bags and sat down without bothering to remove her coat. “About what?”

  “The house.” Jenna noticed that her mother’s hands were curled into fists.

  Lauren pulled out an empty chair and sat down. “Why didn’t you tell us before now that you were thinking of selling?”

  “It only came together recently. I don’t need a house this size.”

  Jenna thought that with all the junk around the place her mother probably needed every one of the ten bedrooms. Looking closely at her mother, she realized that her mother’s smile was fixed and strained. She wondered if Lauren had noticed, too.

  “You love this place,” Lauren blurted out. “You love it more than—anything.”

  Jenna knew her sister had just managed to stop herself saying you love it more than us.

  “It’s a house,” Nancy said. “One can’t have feelings for a building.”

  “But you do have feelings for it. All those times people wanted you to sell and you never would. ‘Over my dead body,’ you said once.”

  “How dramatic. I realize the timing is inconvenient for Lauren, but—”

  “This isn’t about me, Mom,” Lauren said. “It’s about you.”

  Jenna felt a rush of frustration but underneath was compassion. “Why can’t you talk to us, Mom? You talk to your friends, to the people you visit in hospital, the mailman, the gardener, but not to your own daughters?”

  Nancy sat very still. “I don’t know what you mean. We see each other every week. We talk all the time. And Ben is more than the gardener. He’s a dear friend.”

  “We don’t talk about the things that matter. We talk about your book group, my class and the weather.”

  “That’s because there isn’t much going on in our lives.”

  “There’s plenty going on in our lives!” Jenna almost blurted out the fact that she couldn’t get pregnant, but something stopped her. She wasn’t ready to discuss something as personal as that with her mother.

  Lauren reached across the table and grabbed her hand, squeezing hard. Jenna felt a rush of gratitude toward her sister.

  “Talk to us, Mom. We want the truth.”

  There was a long silence. Nancy cleared her throat. “Are you sure?”

  Jenna felt a flash of foreboding. “Yes.”

  Nancy stood up and paced to the window, keeping her back to them. “I’m selling the house because I can no longer afford it.”

  “If money is tight then maybe—”

  “Money isn’t just tight, Jenna. It’s gone. I’m broke and have been for a while.”

  Broke?

  Jenna looked at Lauren, who seemed as shocked as she was.

  “But—how? You made a fortune with your paintings and it’s not as if you’re exactly a big spender.” She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her mother wearing anything new.

  Nancy dug her fingers into the countertop. “Your father was a big spender.”

  “Big spender? How big?” How much money could one man spend on the golf course?

  “He went through money like water and unfortunately in the latter years of our marriage made none of his own. I didn’t realize until it was too late. I left him to deal with that side of things, as I left him to deal with the childcare. I thought we were an unusually modern couple, but it turned out I was deluding myself—something I did far too often. I’ve known for at least a year that I was going to have to sell, but I’ve been cowardly. Putting off the inevitable. I didn’t want to admit to being a failure.”

  Jenna couldn’t remember ever seeing her mother vulnerable before. “You’re not a failure, Mom. Why would you think that?”

  “This house has been in my family since it was built. My ancestors protected it, and I’m the one to sell it. I’ve let everyone down, including my own daughters.” She looked at Lauren. “The one time you need something from me, and I can’t give it to you. That’s not a good feeling.”

  “I’m an adult,” Lauren said. “It’s not your role to support me. But are you saying Dad spent all your money?”

  “I thought of it as ‘our’ money, but yes. He spent it.”

  “That’s terrible, but surely you could make more? You’re a brilliant artist.” Jenna groped around for options. “Couldn’t you paint something new and sell it for a fortune?”

  Nancy picked up a cloth from the side and folded it. “It’s been five years since I painted anything.”

  Jenna felt a flash of shock. Five years? No. That wasn’t possible. “Mom?” How could she have not known this? “You stopped when Dad died? You were heartbroken.”

  Nancy put the cloth down. “I wasn’t heartbroken. I was angry. So angry that for the first time in my life it clouded everything. I couldn’t see to paint. There was nothing in my head except anger.”

  If Jenna had been shocked before, she was stunned now.

  Lauren spoke first. “We don’t blame you for feeling angry, Mom. Dad left you in a bad way financially. I’m angry with Ed for much the same reason. It’s killing me because part of me is grieving and another part wants to yell at him. You must have felt the same way.”

  “I wasn’t angry because of the money. At least not at that point. I thought I’d be able to keep the ship afloat, as I always had. It was the one thing I could do. Earning the money was my role. I thought I could paint my way out of trouble. I like to think I was confident, rather than arrogant.”

  Jenna was confused. “But—”

  “I was angry because of the way he spent the money. My money. Your money.” She grabbed an apron from the back of the door. “I should be cooking, not talking. Mack will be home from school and she’ll be hungry. You know what teenagers are like.”

  “Wait. Mom, sit down.”

  But her mother was rattling round the kitchen, pulling out bowls and weighing scales. “I thought I’d make a vegetable potpie for supper. Will Mack eat that?”

  “Yes, but it can wait.” Lauren was on her feet. “How did Dad spend the money?”

  Nancy thumped the bag of flour onto the countertop. “He threw it away trying to impress women.”

  “Women?”

  Nancy seemed to deflate. It was like watching the air leave a balloon. “I was never going to tell you girls. I know you adored your father. He had some wonderful qualities.”

  “Wait a minute—” Jenna didn’t dare look at Lauren. “You’re saying Dad had another woman?”

  “Not one woman. One woman would never have been enough for your father. He blamed me, of course. Said that the fact that I earned the money ‘emasculated’ him and made him look foolish among his friends. Apparently his ability to pick up women somehow solved that, although I’ve never understood how multiple affairs made him more of a man.”

  Jenna saw Lauren glance in her direction.

  Knowing exactly what her sister was thinking, Jenna shook her head fractionally. Warning bells were clanging in her head and she wondered why her sister wasn’t hearing them, too.

  Do not say what you’re thinking of saying.

  “Why didn’t you leave him?”

  Nancy gave a wistful smile. “Because of you girls. You, Jenna, in particular, used to wrap yourself around him the moment he came in from work.”

 
Jenna remembered it. Daddy, Daddy, Daddy...

  “I couldn’t take that away from you,” Nancy said. “Anyone who saw the three of you together would have understood that. The three musketeers. That’s what he called you. Everyone remarked on what a good father he was. I couldn’t spoil that for you. And I didn’t want to tarnish those memories, but now I have and I’m sorry for it. I want you to forget it.”

  Forget it?

  “We knew,” Lauren said. “We knew he had another woman.”

  Jenna wished she’d gagged her sister.

  “That isn’t possible.” Nancy’s face drained of color. “I was so careful. I never talked about it when you were in the house.”

  “You weren’t the reason we knew.”

  Jenna didn’t know how to stop what was coming. “Lauren, don’t—” Was she really going to do this after all those years of keeping it to themselves? And now, when her mother was obviously feeling vulnerable? What if telling the truth made their mother feel worse? But then she saw Lauren’s jaw lift and knew that nothing she did or said was going to stop what happened next. She recognized that look.

  It was a look she hadn’t seen on her sister’s face in a long time.

  She wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or nervous.

  “We saw him, Mom.”

  “You saw him with a woman?” Her mother’s face contorted. “He swore to me he never brought them to the house after that first time—”

  Her mom had caught her dad with a woman in the house?

  Jenna’s head was spinning.

  “Not the house,” Lauren said. “It was at your studio. You were in Europe. We thought Dad was asleep and we sneaked out of the house. We did it all the time. And we saw him through the window.”

  How could her sister be so calm?

  Jenna was shivering as if she had a bad case of the flu.

  She tried never to think about that day.

  She’d pressed her nose to the glass, trying to work out what was happening. She’d seen her father’s naked, hairy limbs tangled with those of a woman. For a moment she’d thought they were wrestling, and couldn’t understand why her charming, easygoing father would be fighting. Was the woman an intruder? But why would her father be naked?

  And then she’d seen something else that she’d never been able to completely wipe from her mind.

  She felt hot all of a sudden, and then cold.

  Nancy curled her fingers over the back of the nearest chair to steady herself. “What exactly did you see?”

  Please don’t let Lauren give her the details.

  “Far too much,” Lauren said. “It put us off sex for a while, didn’t it, Jenna?”

  “This isn’t about us.” Jenna felt as if she was choking. “It’s about Mom. I can’t bear to think you were going through that and you never told us. Did you confide in Alice? Does she know?”

  Her mother didn’t look at her. “I—I didn’t talk about it with anyone.”

  She hadn’t even told her closest friend?

  “Who did you talk to? Who was there for you?”

  “No one. It was humiliating enough without confessing it to everyone, although I’m sure some of the Vineyarders knew. The ones he slept with for a start.”

  “Who?”

  Her mother shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now. But the fact that you saw him—” Her voice was threaded with anger. “If he wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him. The philandering waster—” She broke off and breathed deeply. “How old were you?”

  “Eleven,” Lauren said. “So I guess Jenna was eight. It was the year Meredith Painter caught her dad having sex with the woman who ran the sailing club. She told her mother and the marriage fell apart. Meredith was distraught. Her father blamed her for breaking up the family and the whole thing was terrible. She told us again and again that she wished she’d never said anything. We didn’t want it to happen to us. We thought we were protecting you.”

  Little white lies, Jenna thought. So many little white lies.

  “Eight and eleven.” Nancy closed her eyes, as if she didn’t like the vision she was seeing. “Babies. My poor girls.”

  Jenna couldn’t remember a time when her mother had spoken in that tone, or used words like that. She wasn’t sure how to react.

  She’d expected to be blamed for leaving the house and going to the Sail Loft, but her mother didn’t seem to be thinking about that.

  “How many affairs did he have, Mom?”

  Nancy looked tired. “I don’t know. There are some things you are better off not knowing. I knew about three of them. One of them turned up here one day looking for him. At the beginning I tried hard to fix things. I was desperate not to lose him.”

  “Because of us?”

  “Not only because of that. I loved him, too. Desperately. Tom had this gift of drawing people to him. The same qualities that dazzled you, dazzled me. It makes me feel ashamed when I think back to the things I tolerated. The humiliations I endured.”

  “I don’t know how you stood it.” Jenna tried to imagine how she’d feel if Greg had one affair, let alone several. “I would have kicked him out.”

  “I hope you would. I tried to do that once, and he told me that if I did that you girls would resent me forever for breaking up the home. I knew he was right.” She paused. “Tom was the ‘fun’ parent. Your father had so much charisma he could make the simplest moment seem magical. You three were a unit, and I wasn’t part of it. But I could at least make sure you were well provided for.”

  Jenna was horrified. “Why did you think earning the money was your role?”

  “I was good at it. Not so good at being a mother.” Nancy spoke quietly. “I enjoyed being with the two of you, but Tom would always interrupt with an idea that was more fun, more inventive, more crazy, and off you’d all go, the three of you together. It knocked my confidence. That happens when you’re not good at something.”

  Jenna felt as if her heart was being crushed. “Mom—”

  “It was my fault. I let Tom make me feel inadequate—and he was good at it. It was as if he was always saying, ‘Look how much better at this I am than you.’ It was obvious how much you enjoyed being with him, and instead of finding ways we could have our own type of fun together, I retreated and let him get on with it.” Nancy blinked and Jenna realized her mother was struggling not to cry.

  Never in her life had she seen her mother shed tears and seeing it now tore through the flimsy barriers she’d put between them.

  Jenna sprang out of the chair so quickly it crashed to the floor. Crossing the room in three strides, she then wrapped her arms round her mother. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She thought about all the times they’d played with their father. She’d assumed her mother disapproved and had no wish to join in. It hadn’t ever occurred to her that Nancy hadn’t joined in because she didn’t know how. Nor had it occurred to her that her father was being manipulative. Using his children to hurt his wife.

  She half expected her mother to push her away and when Nancy clung tightly Jenna couldn’t hold back her own tears.

  How could she have been so blind?

  “I’m the one who is sorry.” Nancy patted her shoulder. “I never wanted you to know.”

  Jenna glanced across the room and saw that her sister was crying, too. It was the first time she’d seen her sister cry since she’d lost Ed.

  Lauren cleared her throat. “We’re glad you told us.”

  “You probably think I was a fool.” Nancy fumbled in her purse and pulled out a tissue. “If the same thing ever happened to either of you two girls I would be the first to tell you to leave. Walk out. You deserve only the best. You deserve to be treated with love and respect. Anything less than that isn’t worth sticking around for. But it’s too late to wish I’d made different choices. All I can do is make the right choice
now. Selling The Captain’s House will mean I have enough money to buy a small place, and give the rest to you girls.” She blew her nose hard and looked at Lauren. “I can’t protect you from what you’re going through, but at least I should be able to help you financially.”

  All this and sell her home?

  Jenna wasn’t going to let that happen. There had to be another way.

  Lauren obviously agreed. “You’re not selling this house, Mom, and that’s final. This time you’re not the provider.”

  Nancy swallowed, visibly moved. “We don’t have any other option.”

  It was the first time Jenna could remember hearing her mother say we.

  The first time she’d ever turned to them for help in solving a problem.

  She felt a warmth inside that she hadn’t felt before. For once her family felt like a unit instead of the sum of disparate parts.

  It was funny how such a low point could also feel like a high.

  “Maybe we do.” She let go of her mother and picked up Lauren’s pad of paper and a pen from the table. “We’re going to figure something out. Put the kettle on, Lauren. Let’s make a start.”

  20

  Mack

  Rebellion: organized resistance or opposition

  to an authority

  Mack sat on the jetty in the marina with her arms looped round her knees. Her bike was propped against a wall in the harbor.

  She didn’t even know what she was doing here. All she knew was that she didn’t want to spend another lonely weekend in the house trapped with her family. She couldn’t handle her own emotions, let alone theirs. It was like being caught in a flash flood. She couldn’t get her head above the surface to breathe. Something else had happened, although she had no idea what. She’d returned home from school a few days before to find her grandmother, her mother and her aunt huddled around the kitchen table. She couldn’t remember ever seeing them huddled before. It was clear she’d interrupted something big. She hadn’t hung around waiting for someone to tell her because no one in her family was big on confessions. Instead she’d grabbed milk from the fridge and gone straight to her room.

  For once her mother hadn’t followed her. She’d told herself she was glad about that, but the truth was that she felt lonelier than she ever had in her life before.