The Children's Secret
Page 30
* * *
Kaitlin carries the turkey into the main hall and looks around.
She walks past Priscilla, laying out her pies on the dessert table, and True, setting up the projector and screen at the far end of the church so that everyone can watch the Patriots game.
She puts the turkey down on the table and walks to the far end of the church where Ben’s untangling a strings of fairy lights by the altar.
It hasn’t been easy between them—to change a lifetime of doing things the same way. They’ve removed the gun safe from their bedroom and the one from the living room. But there’s still one in the basement for his hunting rifles. She doesn’t go down there any more and sometimes she can’t bear it, the thought of those guns in her house. Because once you see something—once you believe something—you can’t unsee it, or unbelieve it. But they both know that they have to meet each other halfway. That marriage doesn’t survive absolutes.
He’s wearing his border patrol uniform. He won’t be staying for the Thanksgiving meal; he likes to take the holiday shifts so that his colleagues can be with their families. And she doesn’t mind: it’s part of who he is. Doing things for others. Putting them first. He’s a good man. Maybe the best she’s ever known.
She watches him pulling at the fairy lights, the knots getting tighter the harder he works at them.
“Here, let me help,” she says, holding out her hands.
He looks up at her and smiles.
“I’m making it worse,” he says, handing her the lights.
She shakes them loose and then eases her fingers under the knots. She feels him standing close to her: the smell of his skin—the warmth of his breath.
When the biggest knots come loose, the smaller ones give way. She hands the string of lights back to Ben. “There—I think they’re good now.”
He kisses her forehead. She puts her arms around him, leans her head against his chest and listens to his heart. They hold on to each other for a while, the lights trailing on the floor between them.
* * *
Avery looks around the church, filled with friends and neighbors. She came here when she was twenty-three, straight out of her ministry training. Her parents had been gone for five years. The town was suspicious of her, being so young and a woman. Preaching about a religion that included everyone. They’d never thought of faith like that before. Sometimes, she’d feared she’d never win them over. But now, here they are: her congregation.
She notices a shaft of sunlight falling in through the stained glass window with the picture of the Virgin Mary. And then something else, too: a gentle white fluttering, like blossom.
Excitement shoots through her. Growing up in the Middle East, she’d never seen snow. It was one of the things she loved most about living in New Hampshire: how you could rely on the fact that, come winter, the sky would open up and the world would turn white.
“Snow!” she calls out.
And then she runs out through the main church doors and looks up at the sky. It’s a brilliant white. And it’s cold. So cold she can feel it biting right down to her bones. But it’s a good cold. It makes her feel alive.
She tilts her head to the sky, closes her eyes, and feels the first light flakes falling on her cheeks and her eyelashes.
Others press out of the church behind her: they want to come and see the snow too. No matter how many times they’ve seen it, no matter how hard and long and cold the winters are here, the first snowfall always feels like a miracle.
* * *
As Priscilla stands in the snow outside the church, her phone goes off.
“First snow,” she says, before he even has time to say anything.
“Wow, I miss that.”
“Then come home.”
There’s a silence.
“You know, I think I might.”
Things aren’t going well with Kim. Apparently, they argued on the drive back to California. Something about him not keeping in touch while he was away.
She made it sound like I was on a business trip, Peter said.
Priscilla should have found it strange, how her husband had called her the night he got back to California and confided in her about the first big argument he’d had with the woman he left her for. She should have found it strange that he’d call her at all. And she should have hung up. The audacity of it—after what he’d put her through—to expect her to sit there and listen to him talking about his girlfriend problems.
But she didn’t hang up. Because hearing his voice felt good. Familiar. She missed him. The week they spent together had felt longer, somehow, than their whole marriage. The way they talked in the long, silent hours, sitting next to Astrid’s hospital bed. How they’d spent an afternoon, back in their old bed at home, their bodies curled into each other. And how, together, they’d watched their little girl coming back to life.
So instead, she’d said, You want some advice for free?
You’re going to give it anyway, aren’t you?
I can hang up if you want.
No, don’t hang up, he said quickly, scared that she might. Please. What’s the advice?
A pause. And then: You should go back to your wife. Another pause. Your wife never nagged you about staying in touch.
And he’d laughed. And she’d laughed too. And strangely, things had felt better.
And then he called again. Over and over.
And they fell into joking with each other. Because it was easier, for now. Joking about them getting back together. Joking about him not getting on with Kim. Joking about how the divorce papers were still sitting on the front passenger seat of her car, unsigned.
And here he was, calling again.
“She left,” he says.
Priscilla’s heart jolts. “Oh.”
“So now I’m stuck in sunny California, on my own, longing for snow.”
“Poor you.”
“Yes, poor me.”
A beat.
“So, can I come home?” he asks again.
“We’re doing quite well, you know, Astrid and me—just the two of us.”
And it was true. Since coming back from hospital, she and Astrid have gotten along better than—well, ever.
“I should stay here, then? Do my penance? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
A hesitation. Sometimes, it’s hard to know when the joking has stopped.
“You don’t mean that.”
“It’s presumptuous to assume you know what a woman means. And anyway, I think we get on better on the phone than in person, don’t you?”
Another beat.
“I sometimes feel I can’t read you any more, Cil. I don’t know whether you’re kidding around—”
“Well, why don’t we keep calling each other for a bit longer. Work at getting to know each other again. See how things pan out. And who knows, Kim might come back, and then you’ll need some more relationship advice.”
“She’s not coming back, Cil.”
“How do you know?”
“I know.”
Priscilla’s heart jolts again.
Don’t let yourself hope, she tells herself. Not yet.
“Maybe I could visit for Christmas, then? The snow will still be around, won’t it?”
“Can’t guarantee it—not these days, climate change and all that,” she says.
“Our president doesn’t believe in climate change.”
“Our next one might,” she says.
Another beat. Longer this time. Maybe she’s pushed him too far.
“Christmas could work,” she says, her voice wavering.
“It could?”
She nods, even though she knows he can’t see it. “I’d better go—the party’s about to begin.”
“Give Astrid a hug from me,” he says.
“Will do.”
“And Cil?”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
Her heart stops. They haven�
��t gone there. Not once since he left last February.
“I love you too,” she says, and hangs up.
* * *
As Eva walks toward the church with Will, she hears laughter coming from the woods behind the church. And then the sound of branches snapping and heavy footsteps.
The grown-ups, standing outside, look up.
And then she sees them. The children running toward the church.
Some of them holding hands, some pushing past each other, racing to be first, others with their arms stretched wide, trying to catch snowflakes as they run.
Lily is at the front, with Bryar and Astrid. She tilts her head up to the sky and tries to catch flakes of snow on her tongue.
As the children draw closer, Eva sees the small trail of footsteps stretching behind them on the thin, new layer of snow.
Also available by Nina Monroe
(Writing as Virginia Macgregor)
What Milo Saw
The Return of Norah Wells
Before I Was Yours
You Found Me
And for Young Adults
Wishbones
As Far as the Stars
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Nina Monroe moved from England to New Hampshire in 2016, where she now lives with her husband and three children.
The Children’s Secret is her first book writing as Nina Monroe. She has also written four adult and two young adult novels as Virginia Macgregor.
This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2021 by Nina Monroe
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.
ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-64385-875-3
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-64385-876-0
Cover design by Melanie Sun
Printed in the United States.
www.crookedlanebooks.com
Crooked Lane Books
34 West 27th St., 10th Floor
New York, NY 10001
First Edition: July 2021
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