The Art of Keeping Secrets Part 6

"Of course it does," Annabelle said. "It changes everything." She opened the front door, turned back to Mae. "Thanks."

Annabelle got into her car and shoved the key into the ignition a little harder than necessary. She drove home through the familiar streets of Marsh Cove, every corner and curve filled with reminders of Knox and of their life together.

FIVE.

ANNABELLE MURPHY.

The mirror fogged over with steam from the hot shower Annabelle had just taken, clouding her face, softening the lines and puffiness. She'd made such a mess of the day, forgetting all her obligations. They'd never ask her back to Bible study, nor would her book club, the volunteer organizations, the library and school.

She wrapped the tie around her bathrobe and walked through the hall to the kitchen. A slight thump echoed from the front door: the evening paper landing on her porch. Keeley's footsteps clicked on the hall stairs and Annabelle bolted for the front door in her dripping hair, not wanting Keeley to see the headline before Annabelle had a chance to read it first, to figure out how to discuss the situation with her daughter.

Her stocking feet skidded across the hardwood floors when she ran around the corner. She grasped the handle, threw open the front door and reached for the paper lying on top of the WELCOME TO OUR HOME mat. She shut the door, leaned against the bead-board wall and slid down to the floor to rip off the plastic and open to the front page.

Her eyes blurred with tears at Knox's photo filling the entire left column. Annabelle began to reread the article she'd already received from Mrs. Thurgood.

Keeley's voice startled her into looking up at her daughter standing at the foot of the stairs. "Oh, my G.o.d, you're insane now, aren't you?"

"What?"

"You're reading the paper half-nude. Should I call nine-one-one?"

Annabelle pulled her bathrobe closed where it had slipped to reveal her chest. "I am not insane." Annabelle pinched her daughter's foot in a teasing gesture. "I was in the shower. . . ."

"No, you're insane." Keeley laughed, then her gaze went to the floor, to the scattered paper. "Dad." She mentioned her father as simply as if he had just walked in the door after another day at work.

Annabelle fumbled with the newspaper, closed it on the article. "I wanted to read it before you. . . . This is hard."

Keeley sat down next to her, took the front page and read the entire article. Annabelle watched her daughter with a tightening of her chest. She wanted to protect this young woman from pain as much as she had the newborn and toddler Keeley once was. Even as her children changed, the need to guard them from the arrows of life remained the same. Anger rose at Knox for shooting this near-fatal arrow at their family, at their daughter.

Keeley finished the article, handed the paper back. A single tear dangled at the edge of her right eye, and then fell. She stood and ran up the stairs, and the foyer chandelier shook with her slammed door. Annabelle swallowed around the lump in her throat and took the newspaper to the kitchen, poured herself a generous amount of Hendricks' Gin, tossed a splash of white cranberry juice over it, cut a cuc.u.mber and placed a thin slice in the gla.s.s. She took long sips until it was gone, then made herself another.

This had been their favorite drink on Friday afternoons-hers and Knox's. They'd make a batch in a small gla.s.s pitcher, place thin slices of cuc.u.mber on top and take gla.s.ses to the porch to talk about their week. As she poured her second drink, she realized that she hadn't pulled out this bottle of gin in two years.

The bar stool wobbled where, years ago, their dog at the time had chewed on the back left leg, and Annabelle stabilized herself by bracing her thigh against the underside of the counter. Then she reread the full article.

The printed words had more impact than they had had in an e-mail. It had always been this way with her: someone could tell her a sad story, but if she read it on paper, the story made more of an impression. The written word held a power she almost revered: to be able to write so as to influence the hearts and minds of other readers seemed nothing short of a miracle.

She folded the paper into a neat pile, took another sip of her drink, tasted the cold liquid at the back of her mouth and ached for Knox in every part of her body, for his touch and his talk, for his brown eyes softening in understanding while she told him about her day.

The deepest loneliness came from not knowing whom to call to share the mundane details of her life. With habitual motions, she opened the paper to her column before she remembered her smart-a.s.s answer to Confused in Charleston.

Annabelle held her breath as she read exactly what she'd written in her fury, thinking no one but Mrs. Thurgood would see it. She groaned just as the phone rang. She flicked open the front cover of the cell phone, and heard Mrs. Thurgood chastising her in rapid and formal words of rebuke.

"Mrs. Thurgood . . . ma'am . . . ," Annabelle said. "I can't understand a single word you're saying."

"What in the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l were you thinking? Have you lost your ever-loving mind?"

"Okay, okay. I know it was rash, but I thought only you would read it, then tell me no way were you going to publish it-it was a joke. I meant it as a sarcastic joke. I was in the middle of typing another, nicer answer when I got your e-mail about Knox's article and I just . . . forgot."

"Belle, I haven't felt the need to check your articles in over two years. I read them in the paper just like everyone else."

"Oh." Annabelle bit her lower lip. "I didn't know that."

"d.a.m.n, we are going to get so much flak about this."

"Maybe it was what Confused in Charleston needed to hear."

"It's not about what the readers need to hear. It's about what they want to hear, my dear. You know that."

"Hmmm . . . maybe that's just half the problem-everyone is always telling everyone what they want to hear and not what they need to hear."

"Love makes the world go round, baby." Mrs. Thurgood laughed her deep, husky laugh. "Listen, Annabelle, I can't have you ruining the reputation of this column or my paper, so why don't you take a week or two off, and we'll figure this out later, okay?"

"What am I going to do with a week or two? Wander aimlessly through South Carolina and ask everyone if they knew who the h.e.l.l my husband took a trip with two years ago?"

"Newspaper articles seem to bring out answers. . . . Someone will call. Someone knows."

"Yeah," Annabelle said. "And it's not me."

"No, it's not, is it?"

Annabelle hung up the phone, poured herself another drink and walked to the living room, sat on the couch and stared out the window. Keeley ran the upstairs shower. A complete sense of uselessness took over, and Annabelle lay down, closed her eyes. It didn't matter how hard she attempted to hold their family together. It was now coming apart at the weakened and ill-st.i.tched seams.

When a pounding on the front door wouldn't stop, Annabelle roused herself. It was dark outside, the front porch light spilling into the room. The aftertaste of gin had soured in her mouth. She had no idea what time it was.

The clock on the far wall hid in shadow, her watch was somewhere in the kitchen and she was still in her bathrobe. She stood, hollered to whoever was at the front door, "Hold on."

She ran to her room, threw on a pair of jeans and a beige tunic, clasped her half-wet hair behind her head and hurried back to the front door without ever looking in the mirror. Shawn stood on the other side of the door "Hey," he said, smiled. "Were you asleep?"

Annabelle opened the door. "Can't fool you, can I? Come in. I'm sure you're here to check on me, find out if I'm okay after that article. Well, I'm just fine."

"Yeah, fine and drunk."

"I'm not drunk." Shawn wavered in front of her eyes.

"Oh, okay . . ." He took her hand and they walked to the living room, sat down. "So this really sucks."

"Well, yes, Shawn, that is a very adult description." Annabelle rested her head on the back of the chenille couch.

"I sound juvenile?" he teased.

"I have screwed up so many things. I am falling apart. I have got to let this go-drop it. You know?"

"Why?"

"Okay, I'll list the multiple reasons. I will soon be kicked out of every volunteer organization in Marsh Cove; I will lose my job; the church will have a sign on the front door that says 'Annabelle, Go Home'; Keeley will run away and join some cult."

He laughed at the last comment. "Okay, I think you're overreacting now, don't you?"

"No, I don't. Shawn." She stood and motioned for him to follow her into the kitchen, where she put her gla.s.s in the sink and leaned against the counter. "I really cannot let Knox's death consume my life again. G.o.d, just when I had begun to move forward."

He came to her, put his arm around her shoulder. "What can I do?"

"Let's go get something to eat like regular people, okay?"

"Belle, it's midnight."

"Oh, is it really?" She squinted at him. "Why are you here so late?"

He shrugged. "I couldn't sleep and then I saw the article and I thought you might need a little company. All your lights were on, so I thought you must be up."

"Do you have something to tell me?"

He stared at her for a long moment, then placed his palm on her cheek. "No, I don't have any idea whatsoever who was on that plane, okay?"

"Okay . . ." Annabelle touched his hand on her face, and he quickly removed it. "Doesn't Pizza Plus have twenty-four-hour delivery?"

"I guess it does." Shawn picked up the phone.

Annabelle sat on the bar stool. "Shawn, do you think Knox cheated on me? I mean, really cheated-not just some unfaithful thought or flirting, but a girl on the side he snuck off with, needed and loved, and then he returned to his family. Is that even vaguely possible?"

Shawn lifted the Hendricks' bottle. "Annabelle, that is this bottle talking, not you."

"I asked you a question."

Shawn ordered the pizza and then sat down next to her. "No, he couldn't have cheated on you. He wouldn't have been able to tolerate himself, living and loving his family and friends like he did."

"People do it all the time. Have affairs and then go back to living their regular lives, no one the wiser."

Shawn broke eye contact, stared through the back window into the darkness. "Not Knox."

Even in her fog of gin and half-sleep, Annabelle knew Shawn well enough to recognize the gap between his words and his emotions, but she couldn't tell what he was really saying. "Did you ever . . . cheat or . . . ?"

"This isn't about me." He turned back to her. "But, Annabelle, he was never gone, always here."

"No, he went on business trips, hunting trips. And when he was here . . . what if it was because he was supposed to be, not because he really wanted to be?"

"You can't go on believing in your own made-up reasons. You can only trust what he said-then."

"An affair is too terrible a thought to consider," she said, "and yet I am. What is worse than anything is thinking that he might have been with me not because he longed for me, but out of a sense of obligation."

Shawn released a s.h.i.+ver, put his arm around her and pulled her head to his shoulder. She felt something in him tremble. "You okay?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "Sometimes what is worse is not being able to be with the person you long for."

"Exactly . . ." She lifted her head. "Are we talking about you?"

He shook his head. "No. I have everything I need." He released her.

"So, what if Knox longed for her?"

"No, I would have known. I know what that terrible feeling looks like and acts like, and it didn't look or act like Knox Murphy."

Annabelle nodded as the doorbell rang with their pizza. Shawn answered the door and paid, then handed the box to Annabelle. They each ate a slice in complete silence, comfortable as only old friends can be.

Shawn stood, stretched. "I need to get on home. You get some sleep, okay?"

"Okay," she said, and hugged him. "Thanks for checking on me . . . and feeding me."

He touched her arm, then squeezed her hand. "Good night."

Annabelle locked the door behind him, and climbed the stairs to Keeley's room. She knocked lightly, and when there was no answer, she slipped the door open and saw Keeley's body beneath the yellow quilt. Annabelle walked in, brushed the hair off her daughter's face. Just as Annabelle's life had become uncertain and full of doubt, so had Keeley's. Like the magnolia tree outside, their roots were intertwined. Annabelle sat on the edge of the bed.

"Oh, Keeley," she whispered. Keeley appeared younger with her face scrunched up against the pillow, her features reminiscent of the toddler who'd listened to Dr. Seuss before bedtime.

Annabelle lay down next to Keeley and thought of their life like a lopsided sand fortress built by a pack of children at low tide: a sandcastle built on the belief that Knox had truly loved her and their family, that she knew everything there was to know about him.

Keeley stirred beside her, opened one eye. "Mama, what ya doing?"

"Couldn't sleep."

"Oh," Keeley said, rolled over and returned to her own sleep. "You can lie here."

Whatever Knox had been doing then-on that plane with that woman-was affecting them more now than it had at the time he was doing it.

Starting tomorrow, she would face her neighbors' questions and odd looks with smiles of false certainty, with expressions of a faith and bravado she didn't possess. And maybe if she faked the feelings long enough, they would become real.

SIX.

ANNABELLE MURPHY.

Pus.h.i.+ng a full grocery cart, Annabelle ticked through a mental checklist of items she needed for the dinner party that night at Cooper and Christine's house. She was in charge of the appetizers. Although only three days had pa.s.sed since the last dinner party, the group had decided they needed to get together again. Annabelle wasn't a bit fooled by their talk of a free night and "Why not just meet tonight?"-they were worried about her. Keeley was being asked questions at school, and Jake hadn't returned any of her calls in two days, but she would tell her friends she was doing just fine, thank you for asking.

A calm she couldn't explain had come over her, a sense that all would be well. If the ache and longing for Knox were here to stay-so be it. The possibility that she could move on, maybe love again, now seemed foolish. Some people lived their entire lives loving someone they couldn't have. She could, too. The plane's discovery was a simple reminder that for her love was a once-in-a-lifetime event. She needed to get on with the business of living, yet it would forever and only be Knox who dwelled in her soul.

Whoever was on that plane could stay on that plane, not enter her life-past or present.