The Secret Hour (40 page)

 
She liked Kate so much. Thinking she was going to be their baby-sitter had made Maggie happier than she’d been since her mother died. Kate had seemed so real and fun and practical and a little sad. That was important. Maggie needed a friend who knew how it was to lose someone, what that was like.

 
Looking at the envelope a second time, Maggie was thrilled to see that it didn’t have a stamp. Did that mean Kate was here, in Silver Bay?

 
She bit her lip. Gramps was downstairs in the basement with Maeve. She could hear their voices coming up the stairs with the smell of silver polish. If she asked him, he might start fixing her an after-school snack, wanting to hear about her school day. He might keep her from leaving…Teddy
definitely
would.

 
Maggie was grounded.

 
But maybe—just maybe—“grounded” didn’t really apply to what she had in mind. Dad was just being overprotective. Ever since that new lady had been killed, everyone was being cautious. Maggie understood; she felt the same way, and she would never go someplace unfamiliar, NEVER get into a car with a stranger.

 
He had expressly forbidden her to go to their own house alone. But she wasn’t exactly going to the
house
. She was going to the fields
around
the house, near the lighthouse…the grasses there were perfect.

 
If she just rode her bike out there, very fast, and filled her basket with dried grasses, she could be back before anyone even noticed she was gone. Teddy wasn’t home yet, but he’d be there any minute.

 
No, she was pretty sure that any second he’d get dropped off by his coach or Mrs. Carroll. He’d come to Maggie’s room, ask her how school was. Since their mother’s death, and with their father always working so hard, Teddy tried to act like her parent. That was why he said he’d make place cards with her. Her big, strong, soccer-playing brother, coming home to draw with Maggie.

 
It made her heart ache, to think of her brother loving her so much. Did he know how much she loved him, too? Holding Kate’s note, Maggie closed her eyes and put Teddy right at the top of things to be thankful for. She would make her family, especially Teddy, the most beautiful centerpiece imaginable.

 
She wouldn’t stop with dry grasses.

 
She’d pick bayberry and bittersweet, vines of woodbine and ivy. Beach grass, goldenrod, rose hips, dry lavender, wild thyme…and she’d go down on the sand to pick up scallop, ladyslipper, and clam shells to scatter around the table.

 
Running upstairs, to place Kate’s note in her special drawer, she grabbed her Swiss Army knife for cutting tough stems. She stuck it into her pocket like a good tomboy.

 
And then she headed out on her Thanksgiving mission.

 
The house was as nice as Kate remembered it—although she had only been inside for a little while, the morning of the brick. Late-afternoon light streamed in, through the new plate-glass window, making squares of sunlight on the Oriental rug.

 
Kate took in the seascapes on the wall, the family photos on the piano. Her gaze traveled to a picture of Sally Carroll with another woman—very trim, pretty, with bright blue eyes. The two friends, grinning, wore white tennis dresses and held a gold trophy between them. That same trophy stood on the mantel, engraved with the names and date: Theresa O’Rourke and Sally Carroll, Club Champions, September 15,1999.

 
Kate glanced at John, but he was already shepherding the dogs upstairs. She followed behind and, laughing, they filled the big upstairs bathtub with water. The enterprise seemed hilarious, and the more they thought about it, the harder they laughed. John undid his tie. Kate tossed off her beret. Both rolled up their sleeves. The dogs, as if sensing what was about to befall them, hid under the bed in John’s room.

 
“What’re they doing?” John asked, on his knees and peering under the skirt of the big bed.

 
“Making themselves as flat as pancakes, hoping you won’t notice them there,” Kate called from the other side, trying to lure Bonnie out with a dog treat she’d carried for the walk.

 
“He’s pretty obvious under there…big yellow dog,” John said, peering under the bed, catching Kate’s eye on the other side.

 
“Not Bonnie,” Kate laughed. “Look at her, all curled up in a ball, doing her best imitation of a stuffed animal.”

 
They finally got Brainer out first, threw him into the tub, and soaped him up. He sat very still, sad eyes beseeching them to stop, leave him his dignity, as soap clung to his beard and eyebrows and made Kate and John laugh even harder.

 
“Think we’re hurting his feelings?” John asked.

 
“No way,” Kate said. “He’s about to become the handsomest hound in Silver Bay.”

 
“Yeah? You sure?”

 
“Haven’t you ever given your dog a bath before?”

 
“I have to confess—no.”

 
“Well, wait till we’re done. He’ll be so happy and proud, you won’t believe it.”

 
“He was the last time,” John said. “And the best part was, you made Teddy really happy by doing it. Teddy worries about Brainer.”

 
“Willa used to worry about Bonnie,” Kate said.

 
“How?”

 
“Oh, that she’d get Lyme disease or heartworm…or that she’d slip her collar and get lost somewhere.” Kate laughed. “She was so concerned, she nearly got Bonnie tattooed. They do that in France, she’d heard. Tattoo license numbers inside animals’ ears, as a way of identifying them.”

 
“France?”

 
“Yes. She became a Francophile on one of our trips. We used to take these vacations…anyway, she loves France and everything French. We sometimes used to speak French together.”

 
“Say something in French.”

 
Kate smiled, suddenly shy.

 
“Go ahead,” John said, forearms submerged in dirty water, the smell of wet dog rising around him, soap suds on his cheek.

 
“
D’accord
,” Kate said. “
Ce chien est très beau.
”

 
“Okay, translate.”

 
“‘This dog is very handsome.’ And now,” Kate said, because she felt embarrassed by the amused delight she saw in John’s eyes, “it’s Bonnie’s turn…”

 
They drained the bathtub and filled it again, drying Brainer off with a dozen clean towels. He raced through the big house, rolling on the carpets, shaking himself off. John laughed in amazement. “It’s wild—I wish the kids could be here to see this. Their mother would never in a million years have given Brainer a bath in our bathroom…”

 
Kate waited.

 
“She always filled a washbin outside.”

 
The conversation stopped. As if realizing that he had just crossed into territory where he didn’t want to be, John turned stern. He went back into the room, waited while Kate caught Bonnie and plunked her into the warm tub.

 
 
“You can tell me,” Kate said, quietly, rubbing shampoo into Bonnie’s black fur. “You’ve let me talk about missing Willa. It’s your turn to talk about missing Theresa.”

 
He didn’t speak for a minute. “That’s one way of putting it,” he said.

 
Kate looked up.

 
“We were very happy for a long time,” he said. “Very much in love.”

 
Kate nodded. Why did the words feel so sharp? She thought of herself and Andrew, of how it used to feel to be happy together, what it was like to have it all drain away. As John spoke, he rinsed the soap through Bonnie’s brindle coat, combing out twigs. Kate stared at his hands, listening.

 
“High school sweethearts,” he said. “Inseparable. We made it through college, got married during law school, and came back here. We had a great pack of old friends—did everything as a pack. Us, Sally and her husband, Billy and Jen Manning, and the Jenkinses.”

 
“Felicity and Barkley?”

 
John nodded, his eyes narrowing.

 
“I’m so sorry you lost her,” Kate said. “It must have ripped everything apart.”

 
“Her accident?” John asked.

 
Kate knew from her own experience that there were layers and layers in a marriage, so many things to be pulled away before the final tear. She stared at John, wondering whether she should be polite and pretend she didn’t know what he was going to tell her. Kate couldn’t fake it—it would have been like trying to hide a scar.

 
“I know, John,” she said. “I could tell from the questions you’ve asked me. About me and Andrew and Willa…”

 
He leaned on the bathtub, looking into her eyes. “I thought you might have guessed,” he said. “I wasn’t sure, but I thought you’d understand. You’re right—everything was ripped apart before her accident. See, Theresa was on her way home from a date that night. A
tryst
.”

 
Kate just watched him, listened to the way he said the word: tryst. Such a pretty word for such a horrible thing.

 
“She was having an affair, Kate,” he said, his eyes bruised and his voice suddenly hoarse, as if telling her had hurt his throat. “With Barkley Jenkins.”

 
“I’m sorry,” Kate said, tears suddenly filling her eyes. An old friend: someone John had trusted. Water ran down her arm, soaking her shirt. She couldn’t move, thinking of John finding out, of the pain of knowing the person you love wants someone else.

 
“She was on her way home from being with him,” John said. “The night of the accident.”

 
“I’m so sorry,” she said.

 
“She was very pretty, like the girl next door, but with something more…her eyes were full of secrets, and that made her, somehow, gorgeous. Exotic, in a black-Irish way. She’d look at you as if she knew you inside out, your deepest darkest secrets, before you’d even said a word. Men were always drawn to her.”

 
Kate waited, listening, holding her breath.

 
“I got so I hated secrets,” John said.

 
As he looked down, Kate saw him try to hide the pain in his eyes.

 
“Because that was her great gift. She’d make men feel there was nothing they couldn’t tell her. She’d take in their secrets—I’d see her huddled in the corner with someone at a cocktail party, and I’d know she was drawing it out of him…the one thing he’d never told anyone before…Everyone has a gift. Painting, acting, soccer, the law…Theresa’s was listening.”

 
“She must have listened to you,” Kate said. “Heard all of your secrets…”

 
John shook his head. “I couldn’t tell her mine,” he said. “She was my wife, but knowing that she listened to everyone else made me hold back.”

 
“That must have hurt,” Kate said quietly.

 
John nodded, his face hard. He scrubbed the dog, and Kate noticed that, in contrast to his expression, his hands were moving so tenderly over Bonnie’s back. He touched the Scottie as if he knew she was small and delicate, and he didn’t want to scare or hurt her.

 
“John,” she said softly, dropping her hands into the water, covering his on the dog’s back.

 
“You know,” he whispered. “I knew, as soon as you told me about your husband, that I could tell you about Theresa’s affair. My secret.”

 
“I guess I could feel that,” Kate said. “I just knew, by your questions.”

 
“So much for secrets,” he said, trying to laugh.

 
“Finding out about Andrew and Willa hurt more than anything I’ve ever felt in my life,” she said. “You think you won’t survive. You think you’ll fall off the face of the earth, that it will just keep turning and turning and no one will ever notice you’re not there anymore.”

 
“I’d notice, Kate,” John said, pulling her close to him, their hands all wet and not even caring. “I’d notice if you weren’t here.”

 
“You, too,” she said, touching his face.

 
They kissed, hungry for each other, soaking wet from the tub. Kate felt herself melting inside, holding onto John. He was here, in her arms, solid and real. His kiss was fire, and Kate knew he wanted her the same way she wanted him. His fingers brushed, then interlocked with hers.

 
Bonnie whimpered; Kate came back to earth.

 
Breathless, breaking apart, she looked into John’s eyes. Brown flecked with gold, they held her gaze. She felt her heart beating in her throat. She slowly pulled her hand away from his, reluctantly, looking down, turning back to Bonnie.