How to Keep a Secret

by Sarah Morgan

  Lauren rubbed her forehead with her fingers. “I’m being selfish talking about me the whole time. How are you? You thought you might be pregnant—”

  Jenna felt as if someone had delivered a light kick to her stomach. “Not this time.”

  Lauren looked stricken. “I’m sorry—”

  “It’s not a big deal.” She caught her sister’s incredulous look and shrugged. “So it’s a big deal. Let’s talk about it another time. Right now the priority is you, and poor Mack. You should go to her. Does she drink tea?” Mack was more British than American, wasn’t she? “You could take her one.”

  The mention of Mack seemed to rouse Lauren. “I should try to talk to her again, but no tea. She’d probably throw it at me.” She let out a long breath. “I thought the day Ed died was the worst day of my life, but this one is coming close.”

  Jenna didn’t know what to say. “I feel helpless, but I’m here for you.”

  “I’m grateful to you for coming.” Lauren gave a faint smile. “If I could have chosen my sister, I would have chosen you.”

  Hearing those words from their childhood tugged at Jenna’s heart. “We’ll get through this.”

  “I hope so.” Lauren didn’t move. “There’s something else. That morning before he left for work, Ed was acting weird. We were talking about Mack, and he said, ‘She’s not the problem.’ The implication being that we had another problem.”

  “What?”

  Lauren shook her head. “Not a clue.”

  “Forget it. I’m sure it was nothing.” Her phone buzzed and Jenna grabbed it, expecting to see Greg’s number. “Oh joy—it’s Mom.”

  “I can’t talk to her now.” Lauren stood up so suddenly she knocked her mug flying. Tea spilled over the table and soaked the papers.

  “I’ve got this—” Used to dealing with overenthusiastic children, Jenna scooped up the papers and threw a cloth onto the spreading puddle.

  She shook the papers. “Is this something important?” She squinted at the blurred ink. “Looks like a list.”

  “I made it the night Ed died. I didn’t want to forget anything.”

  Her sister had been making lists the night her husband died? “This is four pages long.”

  “There’s a lot to think about when someone dies.”

  Jenna put the papers down away from the wet patch. “If you forget something I doubt anyone will blame you.” The phone was still ringing and Jenna leaned across and muted it. “I’ll call her later.”

  Lauren sent her a look of gratitude. “Thanks. She offered to come, but I put her off. I told her it was too far. I—I couldn’t handle it. Pathetic, I know.”

  “You don’t have to explain to me.” Their mother was great in a crisis, providing that crisis wasn’t within her own family. “I’ll call her when I’ve psyched myself up. Do you have anything stronger than tea? Wine? If I have to talk to Mom about something serious, I need to be drunk or medicated.”

  Lauren didn’t seem to hear her. She sleepwalked her way across the kitchen as if someone had programmed her via remote control.

  “I’m going to check on Mack. I know she doesn’t want to talk to me right now, but she has to have questions.”

  They all had questions, such as who is Mack’s father if it isn’t Ed?

  Lauren paused in the doorway. “I’m glad you came.”

  “Me, too.” Jenna felt a rush of love for her sister. “We’ll figure all this out, I promise. Come home with me.”

  “To the Vineyard? I couldn’t do that. My life is here now. And Mack has school and her friends—”

  “Is that really why?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Jenna shrugged. “I always had the feeling there was a reason you spent so little time there.” And it had hurt her feelings that her sister, who seemed to have limitless funds, hadn’t come home more often. She hadn’t come over for Greg’s thirtieth birthday party or to attend the wedding of one of her school friends. It was as if something on the island had scared her away.

  Now Jenna was wondering if it had something to do with Mack’s real father.

  “Ed was always busy.”

  But you could have come without him. “Sure. Forget it.”

  Lauren’s hand tightened on the door. “Don’t tell Mom about Mack. Not yet. I need to work out how to handle it.”

  “No one is better at keeping secrets than I am. You should know that.”

  But maybe, Jenna thought, they’d learned to keep their secrets a little too well.

  She waited until Lauren was halfway up the stairs before calling Greg.

  Late evening in London meant late afternoon on the Vineyard. He was probably finishing up with clients, but she felt a desperate need to talk to him. If there was one thing guaranteed to make you appreciate your husband, it was watching another woman lose hers.

  Gratitude: a feeling of thankfulness or appreciation.

  “Hey, sweetheart.” The sound of his voice was as welcome as a cool breeze on a summer’s day.

  “Hey, you. I love you.”

  “Love you, too. How’s it going?”

  “Awful.” She gave him an update, skipping the part about Ed not being able to have kids.

  “You didn’t know? But you two talk about everything.”

  “Apparently not.” And it shouldn’t bother her, should it? A person didn’t have to know every single little thing about another person, even when that person was a sister. “Lauren is talking to Mack now.”

  “That won’t be an easy conversation. Not exactly the kind of information you want to learn when you’re heading into adulthood.”

  “Lauren is a great mom. Whatever you may think of the decision, she did what she genuinely believed was best for Mack.” As she jumped to the defense of her sister, she wondered what she would have done in the same situation.

  “No one is questioning her intentions. But discovering your parentage isn’t what you thought it was is a tough thing to deal with when a child is as old as Mack.”

  Jenna felt a rush of irritation. “Could you quit being a therapist for five minutes? This is my sister we’re talking about. My family. Lauren had her reasons.”

  And she knew what those reasons were.

  Cold washed over her skin.

  Dammit, Lauren, why didn’t you talk to me?

  But it sounded as if Ed hadn’t wanted to tell Mack either.

  Feeling the sudden kick of jet lag, she toed off her shoes and went to stretch out on the sofa and then decided the place was too pristine to encourage lounging and slipped her shoes back on. She thought about her own comfortable living room with the sofa handed down from Greg’s parents and the dining table they’d had from his grandmother. She felt a wave of homesickness so strong that for a moment she couldn’t breathe. “Sorry to be irritable. I miss you. I wish you were here. I wasn’t expecting to fly into a storm of drama.”

  “I’m the one who is sorry. It’s been a long day. I guess I forgot to switch off the therapist when I walked through the door. You’ll handle this, honey, I know you will.”

  Her relationship with Greg wasn’t something she examined closely or even thought about. Other people said she was lucky and she knew she was, but she didn’t wake up in the morning and think I’m married to Greg Sullivan, lucky me. But tonight she was thinking it. Tonight what they had felt precious, as if she’d had a piece of china in her house for years and only now understood its true worth.

  She tightened her hand on the phone and glanced quickly toward the door to check she was still alone. She felt guilty thinking about her own problems when her sister was going through hell. “I’m sorry if I seem obsessed about this whole baby thing. I promise to relax more. When I’m home I’ll go to yoga. Buy me a mindfulness book. I promise not to throw it at you.”

  They talked a little
longer and then said their goodbyes.

  Jenna wandered into the hallway and glanced up the stairs where Lauren had vanished an hour before.

  It shook her to acknowledge that she and Lauren weren’t as close as they’d once been.

  But maybe that was inevitable.

  She walked back into the living room and stared into the street. Her sister’s house was big, but it was still hemmed in by other houses. The house across from them was digging into the basement and there were construction noises and clouds of dust from dawn to dusk.

  She’d forgotten what it was like to be in a city, to live with the thunder of noise, the crush of people and so much traffic that crossing the road felt like an extreme sport.

  It reminded her of her first few months of college in Boston. At first it had felt exciting to be away from the island, but over time the gloss had faded and she’d missed the Vineyard. She’d missed being able to walk to the beach and chat to the fishermen as they brought in their catch. She’d missed bumping into people she knew when she went to buy a loaf of bread. She missed sunrises and salt air, the feel of sand under her feet and the breeze lifting her hair. Most of all she’d missed Greg, who had gone to college in New York City. It was as if someone had wrenched part of her away.

  Was that how Lauren was feeling without Ed?

  All it had taken was a few days in her sister’s company for her to realize how wrong she’d been to envy her.

  You never really knew what was going on in someone else’s life.

  She, of all people, should have remembered that.

  9

  Mack

  Humiliate: to say or do something which makes

  someone feel ashamed or stupid

  I hate my stupid life.

  Mack lay in the dark, wishing the house would collapse and bury her in the rubble.

  She hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that. She’d meant to say a few nice things about her dad—Ed? What was she even supposed to call him?—and then sit down, but in the end what came out of her mouth hadn’t been what was in her head. Epic fail. And now she didn’t know what to do. She’d cried herself dry and she didn’t know if she was crying for herself or Ed.

  She knew she was acting loopy.

  She’d felt loopy ever since she’d discovered her dad wasn’t her dad.

  That had been the worst day of her life. She’d started to shake like a little kid on her first day at kindergarten. She’d lived in terror of someone finding out and now she’d made the nightmare come true.

  Abigail, Phoebe and Tracy had been in the back row at the funeral, supposedly to give her moral support. And David had been there, too. David, from the neighboring boys’ school, who she’d been exchanging looks with for a while. Boys didn’t usually look at her, but she’d been quietly hoping he might ask her to the movies or something. She’d even tried making herself more “girly,” but it had all been for nothing.

  It would be round the whole school that Mackenzie didn’t know who her dad was. A few of the kids in her class had divorced parents, but at least they knew who they were. No one had identity issues. She’d walk into class and everyone would stare at her. She’d be on display, like some sort of museum exhibit.

  An idea formed in her head. Wild, desperate, but possible.

  She could run away.

  No one could stare at her if she wasn’t there, could they? She didn’t have to go to school ever again. She had some savings and if she wore a push-up bra and a ton of makeup she could pass for eighteen. She’d get a job. Would she need her passport for that? Her birth certificate?

  With a groan, she rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. It was still covered in those tiny fluorescent stars her mother had put there when Mack was six. Bookshelves lined the wall above her bed so she could reach out her hand and grab one whenever she couldn’t sleep, which was depressingly often. Closest to her was her tattered copy of Moby-Dick and next to that The Old Man and the Sea. Her mother wanted to box them up and put them in the attic but Mack couldn’t bear to be parted from them.

  She didn’t much like English or writing essays, but she did love reading and those books connected her to her past. They made her feel as if she belonged somewhere. Not London, where the traffic and the people crammed together so tightly that there were days when it felt as if there was no oxygen left, but somewhere by the sea where there was air and room to breathe. Her favorite place in the world was The Captain’s House on Martha’s Vineyard, where her other grandmother lived. The house had a room on the top floor where Mack always slept. If you half closed your eyes you could imagine you were on a ship.

  Maybe she could get a job on a boat and spend months away at sea like her ancestors.

  Not whaling like the old days, she’d never do anything that cruel, but anything that meant not being back on land for at least a year.

  If she got really lucky she’d be shipwrecked like Robinson Crusoe.

  Anything was more appealing than going back to school on Monday.

  She wished she’d never done that stupid ancestry project; then she never would have dug out her birth certificate and found out the truth.

  Instead of a name where her father’s name should have been, there was a line. A line. Like she’d appeared from nowhere or something.

  She’d stared at it for at least an hour, sure there was some mistake.

  Her parents must have filled it out wrong. Some stupid admin person must have had a hearing problem. Hello? Why has someone drawn a line? The father’s name is Edward Hudson. Hudson, like the river.

  She’d bombarded a search engine with questions.

  What does it mean when it’s not your dad’s name on your birth certificate?

  Can your birth certificate be wrong?

  She’d wanted there to be an alternative explanation, something simple, but the simple truth was she had no idea who her father was and her birth certificate was no help at all.

  Every time she’d looked at it she’d felt a hot flush of embarrassment.

  And almost as bad as not knowing the identity of her father was the thought of her mother having sex with someone. If there was one thing no teenager ever wanted to think about it was parents having sex.

  She shook her head, trying to get rid of the vision.

  She’d always been close to her mother, but now she couldn’t even be in a room with her without imagining her with a man. It was hideous.

  She’d worried that her dad might find out and leave. Then she’d be shuttled back and forth between warring parents like a couple of the kids in her class.

  But now Ed was never going to find out.

  He was never coming back.

  It felt as if someone had thrown her emotions into a blender. One portion of misery, two of fear, one of anger and a handful of freshly picked resentment. Pulse on full power until the whole thing is so mixed up you can’t identify any of it and there you have it—one head case smoothie. Drink in one gulp and wonder if you’ll ever feel normal again.

  Her phone lit up and she saw Phoebe’s name pop up.

  Phoebe the dreamer. Phoebe who, if she knew what Mack was going through, would probably say, Are you sure you’re not a secret princess?

  Did her real dad even know she existed? Was he suddenly going to turn up and try to yank her into a whole new life? She wanted to know who he was and what happened next, but it was obvious her mother was freaking so there was no chance of a proper conversation and honestly Mack wasn’t sure she wanted to talk about it. What if the truth was even worse? Maybe her dad was an ax murderer or something. Maybe he’d chopped up old ladies or messed with little kids.

  Maybe she’d rather have a line on her birth certificate.

  She heard a soft tap on the door and quickly stuffed her phone under the pillow and rolled onto her side, keeping her back to the room.


  “Mack?”

  At least her mom was talking again. When she’d gone silent in the church, Mack had been scared she’d killed her or something.

  She heard the door open, then footsteps. The bed dipped as her mother sat down next to her. She smoothed her hair as she’d always done when Mack was little and it made her feel like crying again. She was so mad at her mom and yet she’d never needed her more.

  Whenever Mack had a problem, her mom was the person she talked to. She never freaked like all the other moms she knew. Phoebe’s mother lectured her. Abigail’s mother shrieked, sometimes when Mack was there, which was oh-so embarrassing. Her mom listened. They’d always laughed together. Because her mother was younger than the other moms, sometimes she’d felt more like an older sister. And her friends had all envied her, although not anymore.

  But this time her mother was the problem. She’d lied. How could Mack ever trust her again?

  She jerked her head away from the soothing touch even though part of her desperately wanted it.

  “Talk to me, Mack. You’re very upset and I understand that.”

  “You’re the one who should be talking.” She felt physically sick. What if she threw up in her bed like a little kid?

  “Could you at least turn round so I can see your face?”

  “Why?” Mack turned, the movement sending her hair whipping across the face. “Checking for something familiar? Trying to work out who my father is?” She hadn’t thought it was possible to feel worse than she already did but she saw the hurt in her mother’s eyes and realized it was possible.

  How could you be mad at someone and feel guilty all at the same time?

  Her mother took a deep breath. “I don’t need to work anything out. I know exactly who your father is, Mack.”

  10

  Lauren

  Despair: total loss of hope

  Lauren stared down at her daughter. How was she supposed to handle this?

  This wasn’t how today was supposed to turn out.

  She’d had a plan for the funeral. Forty-six carefully laid-out points on her list, all with a red tick next to them. Nowhere on that list had been “Tell Mack about her real father.”