Secrets She Left Behind

by Diane Chamberlain

  “I’ve never had a pedicure,” I said.

  “Not even, you know, at home?”

  “Not even.”

  “Oh, you are in for a treat, Maggie.”

  We ate in silence for a few minutes. Outside, the stars were beginning to pop out of the sky.

  “So who owns this cottage?” I asked. “Not that the word cottage really fits this place.”

  “You’re right. It’s pretty incredible, isn’t it?”

  “It is.”

  “It belongs to some family friends. The Roscoes. They live in Chicago and don’t use it at all off season, but they spend the whole summer here.”

  “Chicago.” I didn’t know anyone who came to Topsail Island from Chicago. “How does your family know them if you live in Asheville?”

  “Oh—” she moved a slice of zucchini around on her plate “—Mrs. Roscoe and my mother went to college together.” She set her fork down and raised her arms to take in the whole house. “Did I luck out, or what?”

  “You really did.”

  “Where do you live, exactly?”

  “On the sound in North Topsail,” I said.

  “Right on the sound? I bet you get great sunsets.”

  “Yeah, we do,” I said, thinking how glad I was to be home, and—although I was ashamed of myself for feeling that way—how totally thrilled I was that Keith didn’t want to live with us. Mom had left a message on my cell while I was driving to my appointment with Dr. Jakes, saying he turned down the offer. “I really lucked out, too,” I said.

  After dinner, we went upstairs to the huge family room. Jen turned on the TV while we looked through the shelves of movies. These Roscoe people had to be rolling in dough, especially if this was just their summer movie collection. Jen liked slasher flicks. Bad news. I used to like them, too, before I ended up living with a bunch of real-life slashers.

  “You know—” I was going to have to be straight with her “—I’m just not in the horror mood these days. Any chance of a comedy?”

  Her head was turned sideways as she looked at the movie titles. “You get nightmares?” she asked.

  “Not really. I’m just into lighter stuff right now.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’ve had enough horror to last a while.” She glanced at the TV screen where a commercial for Viagra was airing. She rolled her eyes at me. “Men,” she said. “I swear.”

  I laughed.

  “A comedy’d be cool,” she said. “You pick, and I’ll go get the stuff ready for our pedicures.”

  I’d pulled out a few movies and was waiting for Jen to return when another commercial came on the screen. “Brier Glen Hospital needs you!” a man’s voice said. There were pictures of an old woman in a hospital bed. A man pushing another man in a wheelchair. A little girl smiling up from a coloring book. I sank onto the sectional, watching. I remembered seeing volunteers at New Hanover Hospital when I delivered cards to the fire victims. They’d all been elderly. Were the volunteers at Brier Glen old, too? Would they let someone my age volunteer? More specifically, would they let me? It was far enough from the island that patients probably wouldn’t know who I was. Could that be my community service? I thought of Dr. Jakes pretty much telling me that I should find community service on my own. Ugh. I hated to please that man, but I felt excited. Maybe I could work with kids there. I smiled at the TV screen just as a man dressed in a white coat and stethoscope pointed his finger at me and repeated, “Brier Glen Hospital needs you!”

  Jen came back into the room, carrying a basin of fragrant, bubbly water, along with two rolled-up towels under her arm. “I filled yours, too,” she said. “It’s in the master bath. Last door on the left.”

  I found the master bedroom. It was enormous, cut into two separate spaces that were connected by a big arched opening. The largest space had a bed and dresser and an armoire in it. The smaller space had a love seat and one of those long, luxurious lounge chairs. A huge painting of the ocean was on an easel in front of the window. I turned on the light for a better look. It was just the water and sky, but the colors were awesome.

  In the main part of the bedroom, there were two huge windows and I envied Jen waking up with an ocean view in the morning. It was obvious that was the room she was staying in. For starters, why not? No one else was there and it was probably the best bedroom in the house. But also, her suitcase was in the corner, and her clothes were scattered across the bed. And it smelled like her. A citrusy smell that was strong and really nice. In the bathroom, with its sunken tub and glassed-in shower, her makeup covered the marble countertop. There was an eyelash curler, moisturizer, a tube of fake bronzer and a small tan rectangular case I recognized instantly as birth control pills. I touched the case lightly with my fingertip, remembering how careful I’d been about taking mine. How wise and responsible I thought I was being! I’d stopped taking them after everything ended with Ben. Who knew when I’d ever need them again?

  So, I wondered as I picked up the basin of water from the closed toilet-bowl lid, did Jen have a boyfriend?

  I carried the basin back into the family room. Jen had moved the coffee table aside and put her basin on a towel in front of the sectional. She was already soaking her feet. I lowered my tub to a second towel.

  “I put on In Her Shoes,” Jen said. “I thought that was appropriate to watch during a pedicure.”

  “I love that one,” I said.

  “Me, too.”

  I sat down and rolled up the hem of my capris.

  “Is one of the people who own this house an artist?” I asked.

  “Why?” She held the remote toward the TV, pumping the volume button.

  “I saw the painting in the bedroom.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Mrs. Roscoe paints, I think.” She fiddled with the remote for a second. “You have great hair,” she said suddenly.

  “Are you kidding?” I lowered my feet into the warm, slippery water. “I’d give anything to have yours.”

  “Mine’s so totally straight. You’ve got those amazing waves.”

  “I’d rather have straight,” I said. This felt so high school, the two of us pampering ourselves and talking girl talk. I was loving it.

  “Ready?” She pointed the remote toward the screen.

  “Uh-huh.”

  She clicked the button, then groaned. “A preview,” she said. “I hate previews.”

  “Me, too.” The preview was for The Holiday, which I’d seen about five times.

  “Oh, well.” She hit the mute button, then reached for one of the throw pillows on the sectional, plumping it up behind her back. “So,” she said, “what was it really like in prison?”

  Huh? It was such a totally weird time to ask a question like that, that I was too surprised to answer right away. I guessed it was her idea of small talk while the preview was on, but there was nothing small about the subject.

  “It was what you’d expect,” I said finally. I stared straight ahead at the TV, where Jack Black was chatting with Kate Winslet. “It was scary. Lonely. A lot of really tough women.” I so did not want to think about prison.

  “You see those shows that make it seem not all that bad.” Jen lifted one foot out of the basin and watched the water stream off her heel for a couple of seconds before submerging it again. “You get three meals a day and health care if you get sick and recreational stuff to do, right?”

  She was so far off the mark that I didn’t know what to say.

  “You get all that for free,” she said. “I mean, I know it’s not like being on the outside, but how bad could it be? You don’t have to have a job and go to work every day.”

  “Jen,” I said. I felt like there was a huge animal inside my chest that was fighting to get out. “It’s nothing like that. It’s—”

  “Shh, shh! It’s starting!” She pressed the volume button on the remote, then suddenly laughed out loud. “Oh, God!” she said. “Cameron Diaz is such a hoot in this movie!”

  I fantasized about grabbing the remote. Turnin
g off the movie so I could set her straight about the last year of my life, but Jen was smiling. Giggling. Totally absorbed in the movie, and I knew the animal in my chest would stay trapped in there for the rest of the night.

  Maybe forever.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Sara

  A Hole in My Heart

  1991

  “HEY!” JAMIE SAID AS HE WALKED INTO MY HOSPITAL ROOM, and I pressed my lips together to keep from crying. I felt as though I’d been waiting weeks instead of hours to see him. He didn’t look at me as he reached toward Steve, who sat next to my bed. “Congratulations!”

  “Thanks!” Steve stood up and shook his hand. “Did you get to see him?” He nodded toward the hallway and the nursery. “Nine pounds, four ounces.”

  “I saw him. He looks great.” Jamie leaned down to kiss my cheek. “How’re you doing, Mama?” he asked softly.

  “Okay.” I smiled, although I was not doing okay at all. My calm exterior was an act. Inside, I was falling apart.

  “I think he has your lips,” Jamie said to me.

  No, I thought. He has your lips. Your hair. Your eyes.

  “Listen.” Steve stuck his hands in his pockets. “I’m going to take advantage of you being here to grab a bite in the cafeteria. Is that okay with you, Sara?”

  I nodded. It was better than okay. I didn’t know how I was going to hold it together with both men in the room.

  We listened to Steve’s footsteps receding down the hallway and when I knew he was far enough away that he couldn’t hear me, I burst into tears. Jamie pulled the curtain around my bed—I had a sleeping roommate in her own curtained cubicle—then sat on my mattress and wrapped me in his arms.

  “Shh,” he said, “it’s okay. It’s okay.”

  “Oh, God, Jamie.” I tried to keep my voice a whisper, but it was so hard. “I needed you here.”

  “I’m here now,” he said.

  My voice caught on a sob. “I wanted it to be you with me.”

  “I know.” He rubbed my back. “I wish I could have been.”

  Steve had surprised me with how well he’d handled my labor and the delivery. I’d been afraid he wouldn’t be able to get through it after what happened the last time with Sam, but he hardly left my side. I was grateful to him for that, but he wasn’t Jamie.

  “The baby’s sick,” I said as Jamie let go of me. I wasn’t sure he knew.

  “He’s going to be all right.”

  “He has a hole in his heart!”

  “I know, but it’s small. I called Dr. Glaser, the pediatrician Laurel used to work for. He said it’s not that uncommon and that it usually goes away on its own, and—”

  “They said he might need surgery when he’s older!” I grabbed his arm. In my mind, I was already burying another precious son.

  “Dr. Glaser said that even if he needs surgery down the road, it’s successful in ninety-nine percent of the cases.”

  Steve suddenly pulled back the curtain, and I jumped. “They told us more like ninety-nine-point-nine, didn’t they, Sara,” he said.

  Jamie got to his feet. “Cafeteria closed?” He looked so guilty. As guilty as I felt.

  “I didn’t go to the cafeteria,” Steve said. “I went to the nursery to have a chat with one of the nurses.”

  “About Keith’s heart?” I asked.

  Steve shook his head. “No, not about his heart.” His voice sounded tight, and the cold-steel color of his eyes made my own heart start to pound.

  “What do you mean?” Jamie asked.

  Steve leaned against the wall by the window. “I was confused by something the pediatrician said when he was in here earlier.” He looked at me. “About the baby being forty-one weeks.”

  Oh, God.

  “I thought I must have heard wrong, because according to what you told me, you were only thirty-eight weeks along.”

  “Steve,” Jamie said. “It’s not an exact—”

  “Science?” Steve finished his sentence. “Actually, it is. And I had the nurse check his chart and it said, yup. Forty-one weeks. You think I’m an idiot? I can count. I was in Monterey forty-one weeks ago. And forty weeks ago, and forty-two weeks ago, just in case you want to try the ‘not an exact science’ argument again.”

  “What are you saying?” I tried desperately to play dumb.

  “How could you do that to me, Sara?” Steve looked so hurt, and for the first time—truly, the first time—I wondered if maybe he did love me after all.

  “Look, Steve,” Jamie said, “let’s—”

  Steve suddenly stepped away from the window and pushed Jamie hard, shoving him into the footboard of my bed.

  “Steve! Don’t!” I said.

  “I opened my house to you, you son of a bitch!” Steve shouted as Jamie recovered his balance.

  “Settle down.” Jamie held his hands in the air, either in surrender or to ward off another blow. “Let’s you and me go out in the hall—”

  “That’s supposed to be my son in there!” Steve pointed toward the hallway. “My son! I already lost one and now you’re taking this one away from me, too!”

  I saw the tears in his eyes, and my heart broke for him. “Steve.” I leaned forward, reaching toward him, but he ignored me.

  “Why couldn’t you be like the other wives?” he asked me. “You never even try to fit in. They’re just happy to have a man who cares about them and a roof over their heads. Do you think they screw around when their husbands are away?”

  “C’mon, Steve.” Jamie reached for Steve’s shoulder.

  “Get off me!” Steve shrugged his hand away.

  “We need to talk, but not here,” Jamie said. Suddenly, he shut his eyes, two deep lines between his eyebrows. His face was gray. “Let’s get out of Sara’s room,” he said.

  The way he looked frightened me. “Jamie, are you all right?” I asked.

  “What’s the point in talking?” Steve shouted. “The damage is done, isn’t it?”

  Jamie suddenly sucked his breath as if he were in pain. He bent over, his hand on his chest. “Oh, shit!” He grabbed the footboard of my bed. “Call someone, Sara!” he said. “I think I’m dying.”

  At first, the doctors in the emergency room thought Jamie was having a heart attack, but I guessed it was his guilt that finally brought him to his knees. Steve called Laurel to tell her Jamie was in the E.R., and I listened to his call to her in terror, afraid he would tell her the truth about the baby. But he didn’t. And Laurel, who somehow managed to drive herself to the hospital in Jacksonville by herself, thought Jamie’s chest pains were just his overdeveloped capacity for empathy acting up. Our baby had a heart problem, so Jamie’s pain made perfect sense to her.

  Late that night, Steve told me he’d made a decision: he wanted a divorce. Our marriage had been a mistake from the start, he said. He couldn’t live with a woman who’d betrayed him the way I had, and he absolutely couldn’t live with another man’s child. He’d stay home for the next week, so my mother, who was coming to help out, wouldn’t know anything was wrong. Jamie and Maggie would be gone anyway, since the plan all along had been for them to spend that week back in the Sea Tender.

  I listened quietly. I was so tired. All I felt was relief that he was making all the decisions for me.

  “And here’s the deal,” he said. “My name’s on that birth certificate, so I know I’m legally responsible for child support for that…”

  I watched him reach for and discard the word bastard.

  “That boy,” he said finally. “But I’m not paying it.”

  “I agree,” I said. “You shouldn’t have to.” Yet I was scared. How would I manage with no money and a baby to take care of?

  “I know you can come after me for it,” Steve said as if I hadn’t spoken, “but if you do, I’ll make sure that everyone knows whose kid he is. Laurel Lockwood’ll know. Your mother’ll know. Jamie Lockwood’s…ridiculous congregation will know.”

  I winced.

  “Do yo
u understand me?”

  “Yes.”

  “The…baby will have health insurance through the military, but you’ll lose yours. But don’t think that means you can go on welfare. Not ever. Because then the government will come after me for child support, and then…Well, I’ve explained what will happen then.”

  I nodded.

  “So when your mother leaves, I’m packing up and moving out. Then your minister buddy can move back in and you can live out your years together or whatever you want. At least until the end of the month when the rent is due. Because I won’t be paying it anymore.”

  “I’m sorry, Steve.” I remembered his emotional words about losing Sam. “I’m so sorry I hurt you.”

  “Yeah, well.” He rubbed his hands together and looked out the window. “You should have thought about that forty-two weeks ago.”

  I was afraid Jamie might not return to my house once Steve was gone. Without Steve there, would he worry about how our living together might look? But the day after Steve moved out, Jamie and Maggie returned. If anyone talked about us, I never heard about it and I didn’t really care. I had my family together. Jamie still slept in his room while I slept in mine, but that would change eventually, I thought. I would be patient.

  “Laurel’s worse than ever,” Jamie said as he told me about his week back at the Sea Tender. “She’s drinking. I mean, seriously drinking, now. She hangs out with Marcus. It’s out of control and I can’t tell you how glad I am to be back here with you and Mags and Keith.”

  Jamie paid the rent on the house so that I—we—didn’t have to move. I was exhausted, taking care of the baby with a not-quite-two-year-old underfoot, but there was such joy in my heart when I saw Jamie interacting with Keith that my lack of energy was easy to bear. I was too tired to visit Laurel—too tired to keep up that pretense of friendship. Jamie had given Laurel every chance to get well, and now that she was starting to self-destruct, I felt little sympathy for her.

  Finally, one evening when the children were in bed, he sat with me on the sofa. He was very close to me. We were physically closer than we’d been in a long time.