I met Patricia going in as I was leaving. (The Micklethwaites have now been added to her jam distribution list.) She looked caught out. I smiled and said, “Doesn’t Kate look well,” which was a mighty effort, but your mother is the only family I have here, so I was prepared to make it. And it’s true: Kate is round and fat, like a big shiny apple.
I’ve asked Mel to go home and promised to go out there and stay with her for Christmas. We were booking flights this morning, when Richenda rang to let me know that Kate had gone into labor during the night and they were heading to the hospital. She didn’t give me any more details. I’m not sure I wanted any more details anyway. I knew the important thing: your baby was on her way. Kate texted me a little smiley face. (I feel so old, sometimes. Texting during labor? Really?) I texted back “Thinking of you.” It was the best I could manage. And it’s true. I am thinking of her.
I had a plan ready for this. Blake and Andy and the counselor all say it’s great that I feel I’m ready to start building a new life without you, but I need strategies. Apparently, hoping that it will all be all right somehow doesn’t count as strategy. (I can hear you saying that too.) So I left my phone on the kitchen table, and I took my bag from the door where it’s been packed and waiting for the last week, and I rattled Pepper’s lead until he woke up. I promised Mel that I wasn’t going to throw myself in. Then our funny little dog and I walked down to Butler’s Pond, to the place where you did the decent thing, or at least a decent thing, in getting Kate out of the water. I’m starting to think that all of the decent things you did during your life, added up, might outweigh the indecent thing. (Like the letter. The letter was good. Thank you. So was Kate being brave enough to tell me what happened in the end.) I haven’t finally decided on that, though, so you’re not out of the heavenly dog house just yet.
I miss you still, so terribly. My jaw hurts when I wake up in the morning, because I’ve been grinding my teeth in the night, all through my furious dreams. You’re such an ache of absence. If I look very far ahead, I get overwhelmed, and feel tiny and weak and as though it’s not worth trying to be anything except tiny and weak.
I tried sitting by the water and reading for a bit, but my mind wouldn’t settle, so I stowed my rucksack and ran a couple of laps around the lake. (I’m doing the London Marathon for us, by the way, for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust.) Then a couple more. Pepper was tired, so I sat on that fallen tree and looked at the water, and wondered how often we’d sat watching a sun start to set. Probably very often. Certainly not often enough.
Your mother and I had a long talk on the day after we’d met at the Micklethwaites’. It wasn’t easy, but it was easier than the way we’ve been avoiding confronting any of this. She said that this baby is not to blame for how she came to be, and should be welcomed and loved like any other baby. I said yes, and I meant it. I told her I wasn’t sure how good I would be at it. She said, “Elizabeth, none of us know that.”
I stayed at Butler’s Pond until the sun went down. I had some crackers in my bag and I shared them with Pepper. Blake came past with Hope but I waved them away. And when I felt, as certainly as it’s possible to feel without being faced with the reality of it, that I could do my bit of the baby blessing, I walked home. I walked home very slowly, and I felt sad and lonely, but I always feel that way when I remember that I’m going to put my key in the door and you won’t be on the other side, waiting for me.
There was a message, though, delivered by your mother in her special talking-to-an-answering-machine voice. (I switched it back on and changed the recording on it last week, so it’s my voice now.) Mel held my hand as I listened to it. The baby is here. She was born at 7:07 p.m., weighing 7 lb. 2 oz., and she is safe and sound. So is her mother. The birth was smooth and calm, in the birthing pool with the lights dimmed.
Her name is Daisy Gray Micklethwaite.
Congratulations, Daddy.
And, I think, good-bye.
E xxx
Reading Group Guide
1. Several of the characters are harboring devastating secrets. Are secrets always bad things? Has there been a time in your life when you kept a secret from someone you loved? How did it turn out?
2. Elizabeth and Mel see themselves as orphans, with only each other in the world. How has this belief shaped the way they behave?
3. Think about the marriages in the book. Which of them are healthy? Do love and marriage always go together?
4. How do Elizabeth’s and Kate’s ideas of what love is change during the course of the book?
5. Do you think Elizabeth really wanted to die?
6. Do you understand why Mike behaved the way he did? If you were Elizabeth, would you have understood?
7. The life events of having a baby, or not having a baby, are important to the story. If Elizabeth’s infertility treatment was successful, do you think that would have changed her and Mike’s outcome?
8. Patricia and Elizabeth grieve very differently. Have you had experience with someone in your life who grieves in a way you thought was odd or inappropriate? What does how we grieve say about us?
9. To what extent is Kate responsible for her own actions? Do you sympathize with her?
10. The image of water is significant throughout the book. What are some possible reasons the author chose this as a theme?
11. Is there one single point in The Secrets We Keep where it all goes wrong, or is it tough to pinpoint where everything begins to unravel? Can you look back on your own life and identify pivotal moments where things changed for you?
12. What do you think the characters will be doing five years after the end of the book?
A Conversation with the Author
How old were you when you wrote your first story? What was it about?
Goodness, that’s a tricky one! I remember doing a lesson on descriptive writing at school—I was probably about eight or nine—and the following Sunday at my grandmother’s, writing a description of her living room in the tall, narrow notebook she had for making shopping lists. She kept it for years, and whenever I did well or won prizes for English at school, she would talk about it. It obviously made an impression on her!
What do you love most about writing?
I love the possibility of a perfect world. Not perfect in the sense of everything being shiny and delightful—that would be the world’s dullest book—but perfection in the sense of a balanced world of cause and effect, action and reaction, the stars aligning at a single point and making someone’s world alter beyond recognition. The fact that that someone is made-up is neither here nor there.
What inspires you the most as a writer?
I get inspired by possibility, by the million directions every small step we make could take us.
Who are some of your favorite authors? Why are they your favorites?
I love books by John Updike, Margaret Atwood, and Jane Austen. They all have a knack for making characters who aren’t always likable but who you root for all the same. Updike’s Rabbit and Austen’s Elinor Dashwood are two of my favorite characters ever.
When do you know the story is finished?
When I think of a change and go back to make it to find that I’d already thought of it, or that the change I had in mind won’t make things better, only different. But that’s not to say that some sound editorial advice won’t mean that I make more changes. And I think any story is written from the place where you are in your life. If I wrote Elizabeth’s story a decade from now, it would be different, for sure.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Write. It sounds ridiculous, but I would say that 90 percent of the people I meet who say they want to be a writer haven’t written a word. Find the time of day that suits you best, and write five hundred words every day, regardless of whether you feel like it, whether you’re inspired. In six months, you’ll have a first draft. It will prob
ably be awful, because that’s what first drafts are for. But at least then you have something to work on.
What is one thing you know now that you wish you knew when you started your writing career?
That it’s the writing that gives the most pleasure, and I had that from the beginning. Don’t get me wrong: meeting readers is brilliant and holding your book in your hand is a thrill like nothing else. But the very best bit, for me, is when it’s just me and my tea and my screen and my words. If I’d known that at the start, I’d have worried less about being published and understood that I already had everything I wanted.
Did you always want to be a writer, or did you start off in a different career?
I always wanted to be a writer. I studied English at university, and for as long as I can remember, if I have a book in my hand, I’m happy. But I have another career too—I train organizations all over the world on creativity and thinking skills. I’ve been doing it for more than a decade, and I love it. And it brings me into contact with other worlds, other stories.
If you could spend one day with an author, dead or alive, who would it be and why?
George Eliot. Her writing is brilliant, and her breadth and depth of knowledge fascinates me. She was thinking and writing about things women weren’t supposed to be dabbling in. I’d want to talk to her and understand more about what motivated her—and what she thought she would do if she wasn’t constrained by the social mores of the time.
What are your favorite genres to read?
I like good writing that takes me along and doesn’t jar. So I read across almost all genres—literary fiction, science fiction, nonfiction, historical romance. Basically, I’ll try anything (except horror). I give a book fifty pages, and if I’m not engaged, I give up. There are too many books in the world to persevere with the ones that don’t work for me!
How would you describe your writing style in one word?
Emotionally intelligent. (Okay, that’s two. I cheated.)
What is the most challenging part of being a writer?
Sitting in bookshops at signings, being surrounded by books that, as the hours wear on, you become convinced are all a million times better than yours so that, in the end, you want to dissuade everyone who comes to your table from buying your book and recommend Jane Austen instead.
What research or preparation did you engage in before writing this book?
I talked to police officers about procedures, doctors and parents about medical issues that occur in the book, and a GP about how GPs operate in their communities. I quizzed Australian friends about being an expat and talked genetics, architecture, and running with anyone who was willing. I like to get details right, even if it is about what shoes you would wear for a marathon. I’m constantly amazed by how generous people are when it comes to helping me out with what must seem like really foolish, basic questions.
Which character do you feel most closely connected to?
I’m afraid they are all my book children, and I love them all equally (although I don’t always love their behavior). And that’s all I’m saying. (Oh, all right then. Maybe Elizabeth, because she has such a good heart. Or Kate, because she had no idea where that pumpkin jam was going to take her.)
Are any of your characters inspired by the people around you?
Yes and no. There’s no one I’ve taken from Real Life wholesale. But I borrowed Kate’s moon hair from a woman on a train and Blake’s compassion from a student doctor I met in the hospital. Patricia’s trying forbearance was the stock-in-trade of a friend of my maternal grandmother. I suppose what I do is Notice Things, and then, when I’m creating a character, I go to my store and see what’s in there that feels like a match. I saw a young man on the train with his shoes laced incorrectly, and a whole character in a forthcoming book has come from that. Oh, and Mel comes from a lot of the things I would say if I were able to think of something witty in time, instead of three days later.
Acknowledgments
I’m very grateful to Alan Butland, Jude Evans, Emily Medland, and Susan Young, who have read every word of this book in all its incarnations and been both honest and encouraging, which is quite a difficult trick to pull off. Thanks too to early readers Anne Booth, Camille Johnson, Claire Marriott, Alison Morton, and Ned Tilbrook.
Claire Malcolm at New Writing North gave me the key to unlocking the story I really wanted to tell. Joy Tilbrook insisted that I put a dog in, and that was immensely helpful to the story too. (She also loaned her dog, Hope, to Blake.) Charles Armstrong came up with the original title (Surrounded by Water) fifteen years ago, when we were very drunk indeed. Thank you all.
Sharon Birch and Karl Weston talked to me about police and legal matters. Dr. Jane Stewart gave up an afternoon to talk fertility treatments and cystic fibrosis, and Dr. Becky Haines gave great insights into the life of a GP. Alison Morton told me about being a translator. Diane Mulholland answered my questions about being an Australian expat in the UK; Sara Lancaster, about what it’s like to be an architect. Chris Schorah and Lyndsey-Jane Copeman talked genetics with me. Gemma Ravenscroft answered my first questions about cystic fibrosis with great patience and understanding. Michael Breeze, Peter Hepworth, Philippa Moore, and Jo Sullivan shared their experience of marathon running. Denyse Kirby and Kirsty Burfot helped me out with the midwifery side of things. Twitter named the twins. I appreciate all of your help.
My fabulous agent, Oliver Munson at A. M. Heath, is unfailingly supportive and insightful. Emma Buckley at Transworld in the UK did great work with bringing early versions of this book on. The team at Sourcebooks in the United States has been patient, professional, and a joy to work with. Thank you all.
For nonspecific but immensely valuable love and support, I am grateful to my family and friends: Alan, Ned, Joy, Mum, Dad, Auntie Susan, Lou, Jude, Rebecca, Scarlet, Nathalie, Emily, Kym—I don’t know what I’d do without you.
About the Author
Photo by Alan Butland
Stephanie Butland lives in Northumberland, in the northeast of England, with her family. This is her first novel. She has written two previous books about her dance with cancer.
You can follow Stephanie on Twitter @under_blue_sky and find her on Facebook. Her website is www.stephaniebutland.com.
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