The Art of Keeping Secrets (25 page)

“That’s sick. We have Dad’s mistress’ painting in our house? I think I’m going to throw up.”

“I don’t think she was his mistress, Keeley. I did think that, but I don’t believe it now.”

“Then why the hell was she in that plane?”

Annabelle touched her daughter’s face and considered reprimanding her for the curse word, but changed her mind. “Your dad was taking her to see her sick mother in Colorado. That is all I know.”

“How can you be so sure he wasn’t . . . with her? There isn’t any other explanation. Unless you’re not telling me something . . .”

“No, there seems to be a lot of mystery around this woman. I went to Newboro because that’s where she lived with her little girl, Sofie. And everyone there believes she is someone else entirely.”

“Either way, Dad lied to us.”

“Or didn’t tell us the entire story.”

“Same thing.” Keeley kicked at the ground. “He said he was going hunting alone in Colorado, not flying with some woman from Newboro.”

Annabelle nodded.

“Don’t have an answer for that one, do you, Mother?”

“No, I don’t. You’re right about this, Keeley, I don’t have the answer to everything. I can only tell you what I believe.”

Keeley took four steps away before she turned around and headed down the bay toward the beach. Annabelle fell into step beside her. They walked in silence until they reached the end of the bay. Together they cut across the wooden boardwalk that was built so no one would walk on the sand dunes and hurt the roots of the sea oats. When they reached the sand, Keeley bent over, rolled her jeans up to her knees. Annabelle pulled off her shoes, placed them side by side on the beach.

They stood, mother and daughter, in silence until Annabelle whispered, “Remember when your dad brought us out here for the lunar eclipse?” She reached down, picked up a smooth shell, bleached white and pure, rolled her thumb into the concave portion, and handed it to Keeley. “Remember?”

Keeley took the shell, held it in her open palm, and then closed her hand around it. “Yes, I remember. He woke me and Jake up in the middle of the night, wrapped us in blankets. Jake walked, dragging his blanket in the sand, and Dad carried me. We lay on the blankets, stared up at the sky, and he told us that story about the god racing across the sky in a chariot.”

Annabelle laughed. “That’s probably why Jake is so into Greek and Roman mythology. It’s all Dad’s fault.”

Keeley’s eyes opened wide. “You know about that?”

“You mean that your brother dropped out this semester because he wants to change majors?”

“Oh, I thought he didn’t tell you.”

“He told me in Newboro.”

“He was there, too?”

“Yes, he was worried about me, which he shouldn’t have been—but I was glad for his company. He’s still there. He wanted to stay another day or so.”

“This is crazy.” Keeley bent down, picked up another shell. “Remember when Dad came to career day dressed like a fireman because he thought his real job was too boring for me, and he wanted to make the class laugh?”

Annabelle felt a giggle rise in her belly, and as if it were a loved one returned, she welcomed the feeling. “Yes, I remember.”

“It might have been funny in second grade, but this was eighth grade. I wanted to crawl under my desk.”

Annabelle reached down and picked up another shell, cream-colored and cracked, held it up to the sun. “Remember when Jake brought home that girlfriend none of us liked?”

“The one with the tongue ring?’

“No, not her. I liked her. The one with the makeup so thick she looked like a mannequin.”

Keeley laughed and Annabelle wanted to take that sound, wrap her arms around it and carry it in her heart like a gift. “Oh, Mom, Lilly-Rose was her name. And Dad asked her why her mother named her after two flowers instead of just one, and she told Dad it was because she was double sweet and Dad said, ‘Yeah, I smelled that when you walked in the door.’ ”

Keeley took the third shell from her mother’s hand, held them all together and rolled them between her palms until they sounded like wind chimes. “This is how, huh?”

“How what?” Annabelle asked.

“This is how you believe. You just add them all together. All the remembers—you add them together and you believe.”

“Yes,” Annabelle said; her voice cracked. “We don’t know all the reasons yet, but we do know certain things.”

Without answering, Keeley began to walk farther down the beach. Annabelle didn’t follow—this time it was right for Keeley to walk alone. Annabelle watched her for a few moments as Keely bent over, picked up a shell, ran her fingers over it. Annabelle turned toward home.

 
Grace Clark stood in the kitchen emptying the dishwasher; Annabelle came up behind her mother and hugged her around the middle. Grace turned and smiled at her. “Tough trip?”

“Yes,” Annabelle said, took two glasses from the dishwasher and placed them in the cupboard. “Take a break, Mom. Sit down.”

Together they sat at the counter. Grace held out her hand for Annabelle, who squeezed it. “Thanks for helping me, Mom. I would never have asked if I didn’t really need it.”

“You know how much I love Keeley. It was no problem at all. You feel like talking about what happened while you were gone?”

Annabelle rubbed her eyes. “Mom, did you ever think Dad was lying . . . or keeping something from you? I know it’s a strange question, but do you think we can know everything there is to know about the person we love?”

“No, we can’t. We all keep secrets, Belle. Sometimes we won’t admit it even to ourselves, but there are spaces in our hearts where we hide things from ourselves and others. Do I think your dad lived a life of integrity and honor? Yes. Do I think he might have kept some things from me? Of course.”

“Do you think he ever had an affair?”

“No, I don’t think so. But how can we ever really know?”

Annabelle sighed. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

Grace squeezed Annabelle’s hand. “Darling, you don’t have to figure everything out. Life is confusing and messy and doesn’t always make sense. Remember the hurricane?”

“Mom, how could I not?”

“It was the worst time of my life. I was so worried about you and the pregnancy. Worried about the house. Sick about my family’s heirlooms. But do you see how far we’ve come since then? Who we are?”

“What do you mean?”

“Out of that brokenness, out of that tragedy, came a new and stronger house, a marriage between you and Knox that gave me my grandbabies, a sense of community that had never existed in Marsh Cove. . . . You don’t have to figure this all out. You only have to know what you know.”

Annabelle stared off toward the hallway, felt the crunch of sand between her toes. She pulled a shell from her jacket, laid it on the kitchen counter.

Grace stood. “I have to get to my garden club meetin’. Call me if you need me.” She kissed Annabelle on the cheek and held her in a hug a fraction longer than usual.

When her mother had left, Annabelle took a glass jar from the kitchen cupboard, placed it on the front hall table and dropped her shell into it. She would collect the shells she found. She would gather memories and keep them in a place of honor in her home and in her heart.

EIGHTEEN

SOFIE MILSTEAD

Every breath brought sharp pain into Sofie’s chest, and when she willed herself not to take another, somehow air was forced into her lungs. She contracted her abdomen, tried to release a cry, but her speech was stopped.

She pried her eyes open and saw the lights—too bright. Her hand weighed too much, and when she tried to lift it to shield her eyes, it wouldn’t move. One by one the sensations of her body came to her: needle in the right hand, plastic in her nose, restraints on her wrists. She glanced frantically around the room: taupe drapes closed over what she assumed were windows, a white curtain between her and the next bed. After the freedom she’d found deep underwater, she was now trapped in its opposite: her personal hell, penance for all her lies and deceit.

Monitors beeped next to her ear, but she couldn’t turn her head to see what they measured. The most significant pain came from her chest, where each breath burned.

She attempted to piece together the events that had brought her here. Nothing came to mind except a slight remembrance of waking, of Bedford in the shower, then static-filled noise and no memory.

An empty metal chair faced her bed as if someone had just vacated it. An upholstered chair was shoved in the far-left corner against the drapes. Oh, how she wanted to cry out, to call for someone.

She closed her eyes and told herself to remain calm; she was in a hospital and someone would check on her soon. Then loud voices filled the room—words overlapping so that, like her mother’s paintings, she could understand only the general meaning, not the specifics.

The voices belonged to Bedford and Jake. They were arguing about her safety, Bedford saying Jake was not allowed to enter the room. Bedford thought Jake had hurt her, had brought her to this state. Had he?

Confusion spread down her arms and legs in a tingling sensation. She was diving. Yes, she’d been diving and something had happened.

She opened her eyes, tried to sit up, call out to Jake that he was allowed to come in. The door swished open on air hinges, and both men entered the room. Bedford’s hand was on Jake’s upper arm, attempting to pull him out again. They both stopped in midstep when they saw her staring at them.

Bedford released Jake, came to her bedside. “Oh, baby, you’re awake. You’re okay.”

She attempted to shake her head that she was not okay, that she needed to pull the tubes out of her nose and arm, but she couldn’t move.

“Don’t try to talk. You’re restrained. I’ll get the doctor. . . . Wait, wait. I’ll get the doctor.” Before Bedford ran from the room, he pushed Jake up against the wall. “Don’t talk to her, don’t touch her.”

As soon as the door swished shut behind Bedford, Jake took tentative steps toward her bedside. “Oh, Sofie, I’m so sorry about this. Thank God you’re awake. You have friends out there in the waiting room who are on their knees with worry.” He sat in the chair next to her, and she wondered if he was the one who had left it there in the first place.

He wound his fingers through hers, around the restraints. “You’re probably wondering what happened, right?”

She attempted to nod, but could make only a slight movement.

“Yes?” he said.

She squeezed his fingers.

“You were diving. You stayed down too long and came up too fast. The doctors say it was a combination of low oxygen and the bends. Then you came up and hit your head on the bottom of a shrimp boat.”

Sofie closed her eyes and tried to remember, but found a blank white space, as if her mind had been wiped clean of that day.

“The dolphins . . . they saved you,” he whispered close to her ear.

The door swished open again, and a woman in a white lab coat and stethoscope came into the room followed by Bedford. She reached Sofie’s side. “Hello, Sofie. Glad you could join us.” She lifted her stethoscope and placed it in her ears as she scanned the monitors.

Bedford grabbed Jake’s arm, pulled him to his feet. “I told you not to touch her. Get out.”

The woman—Dr. Burke, the name tag said—turned to Bedford as she placed the stethoscope on Sofie’s chest. “Not here. If you two have a problem, take it outside. Now.”

“I don’t have a problem,” Jake said, “except that I’m worried about Sofie.”

Bedford squared off in front of him. “You don’t even know her. Don’t say her name. Get out.”

“I’ve known her since she was a child. . . .” Jake touched Sofie’s forehead. “I’ll be waiting outside.”

Sofie’s eyes shifted from the doctor to Jake, then back to Bedford and to the doctor again. How awful it was not to be able to say what filled her mind. She wondered if this was how the dolphins felt with her—trying to talk to her but not knowing her language. If only she could tell them all exactly what she wanted to say:
Let Jake stay; tell me what the dolphins did for me; give me a drink of water; my head hurts; am I okay? Is John mad at me?

Dr. Burke smiled at her. Her gray-and-black hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. Her eyes crinkled with her smile, and her forehead was etched with deep furrows, probably from looking at patients just the way she was looking at Sofie. “You gave us quite a scare. Your boat captain probably saved your life by calling the coast guard, which was right there when a crewman on the shrimp boat pulled you out of the water.”

I thought the dolphins saved me. Jake said it was the dolphins . . .
Her mind screamed unspoken words.

The doctor patted her arm. “I know you must have a lot of questions. We’ll get you off the oxygen, and then we’ll catch you up on everything. Meanwhile, try and rest quietly while I get respiratory in here, okay?”

Sofie blinked as her only response. Bedford sat down in the metal chair, grabbed her hand. Tears filled his eyes. “You scared me.”

He loves me
.
He really loves me.

“I knew something bad was going to happen. Something bad always happens when we lie to each other. I couldn’t live without you, Sofie. Please tell me you didn’t try and kill yourself.”

Kill herself? Had she run from the house to kill herself, and her mind had gone blank at the horrible thought?

She gave a hoarse answer that tasted like fire. “No.”

“
Shhh . . . shh . . .
I didn’t mean to upset you. I’d just never seen you do anything like that.”

He laid his head next to her on the pillow, stroked her hair. “My sweet girl.”

Then weariness such as she’d never known overtook her like a wave; she closed her eyes and fell into a sleep where there was water and peace. Sunlight warmed her; dolphins soothed her with clicks, whistles and squeals. Bedford’s voice faded into a muffled murmur. Jake took his place, and although she didn’t understand what he said, his words were comforting and familiar.