Mack
Remorse: a sense of deep regret and guilt
for some misdeed
“Mom, wake up.” She felt the concrete of the dock pressing through her jeans and the cold bite of the wind on her neck, but the only thing she cared about was that her mother wasn’t moving. “Please don’t be dead.” She couldn’t possibly die and leave Mack now, when her life was a disaster and her brain was jammed with so many confused feelings she couldn’t begin to unravel them.
The tears she’d been holding back rose like the tide, scalding her throat.
“Mom!” Why had she been so vile? She’d said mean and hateful things and now her mom was going to die, too, and Mack would be alone with a big fat guilty conscience to add to all the other emotions churning uncomfortably inside her.
Worst of all was the fact that she wouldn’t have the chance to say sorry.
The thought terrified her so badly she knew she was going to break down and sob right here in front of everyone.
Her mother was pale, and the dark rings under her eyes made her look like something from one of those zombie movies Abigail had made them watch.
Mack felt as if she were being choked. There was no air and her chest hurt. Was she having a heart attack? She was going to die, too.
She sent a desperate look to her grandmother, but Nancy was standing immobile.
It was as if she’d been turned to stone.
Mack was trying to come to terms with the fact that she was going to die right alongside her mother when a strong hand closed over her shoulder.
“Breathe out slowly—” The voice was deep and reassuring. “You’re going to be all right.”
She was not all right.
“Dying—” She gasped out the word and he crouched down next to her, his hand warm and steady on her back.
“You’re not dying. You’re safe.”
Safe? How could he think she was safe?
And why wasn’t her grandmother doing something or saying something?
But the feel of that hand on her back gradually calmed her. It soothed and comforted. He didn’t talk nonstop, but he was quiet and calm. Perhaps she wasn’t dying. Surely no one could be that calm if they were about to witness a catastrophe?
“Keep breathing slowly. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” Something about that rough, firm voice made it impossible to do anything but respond.
Gradually her heartbeat started to slow. The tingling feeling faded.
“My mom—”
“She’s going to be fine, too. She fainted, that’s all. I’m going to take a look at her now, so you keep up that slow breathing for me.” He shifted away slightly and she resisted the temptation to grab him and yell don’t let me go.
“Are you a doctor or something?”
“No.”
He glanced at her and she found herself staring into eyes exactly like her own.
She swallowed.
Did he know? Did he see what she saw?
She waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. Instead he placed his fingers on her mother’s wrist and checked her pulse.
Then he let go of her mom’s wrist and stroked her hair away from her face. “Laurie—”
Laurie?
Mack stared at him. No one ever called her mother Laurie. She was always Lauren. And she’d never heard anyone use that tone before when talking to her. Not even her dad. Ed. Scott’s tone was gentle. Personal. More like a purr than a bark. Like he really knew her.
Feeling self-conscious and insecure, she sneaked another look at her grandmother.
Her mom had told her that Grams hadn’t known about Scott, but she had to know, otherwise why would she have brought him here? Maybe they’d had a conversation over the phone and her mom had forgotten to tell her. There had been plenty of occasions when her mother had tried to talk to her over the past few weeks and Mack had rebuffed her.
Of course she wouldn’t have rebuffed her if she’d known she was going to die.
“Should we call 911?” Her grandmother’s voice was thready and weak and she was looking at Scott Rhodes as if he was likely to have an answer for every problem.
Mack was surprised by the trust she saw there.
Why were her grandmother and this man so comfortable around each other? Why wasn’t she yelling at him for having killed her daughter? Or making her pregnant? It was hard to know which might seem worse to an adult.
“She’s going to be fine. Let’s get her to the house.” He slid his arms under Lauren’s limp body and lifted her easily.
Mack knew her mouth was open but she couldn’t help it.
Not in a million years would Ed have ever picked her mom up. In fact Mack had never seen a man pick a woman up before, except in the movies. She’d always assumed that in real life you’d probably put your back out. “Where are you taking her?” What if he was going to drop her mom in the cold water or something? Maybe he was angry she’d married Ed.
“I’m taking her to the car.”
Mack was relieved to hear her mother give a moan of protest as Scott placed her on the seat of the pickup. If she was moaning, that meant she was alive, didn’t it?
Relief turned her legs to water.
She saw her mother’s eyes open and widen as she stared at Scott.
In that instant it was as if the rest of the world had vanished.
They gazed at each other for so long that Mack wanted to yell, I’m still here!
She felt like crying, and she wasn’t sure if it was exhaustion after the flight or relief that her mother wasn’t dead.
She wanted to get to The Captain’s House before she broke down and embarrassed herself. She was way past the age when it might be considered okay to cry in public.
Scott, however, didn’t seem to be in a hurry. He worked at his own pace. He leaned across to fasten the seat belt and Mack saw her mom turn her head away, as if she didn’t dare have her face that close to his.
Mack was relieved when Scott opened a door and gestured to the pickup.
She climbed in with a small chin lift of defiance, as if she hadn’t almost thrown up on the pier and died of fear. If first impressions counted, then she’d blown it. He was probably thinking she wouldn’t have been such a wimp if he’d raised her.
Fortunately it was a relatively short drive to her grandmother’s house. Her grandmother started asking Mack about schools, exams and friends—normal stuff. She didn’t mention the fact that Ed had died or that her mom had passed out on the dock.
Hello, can we talk about some real issues here?
The weirdness of it couldn’t be expressed, but her whole life was weird now.
She missed Ed so badly it made her chest ache, and she didn’t understand how it was possible to love someone and be mad at the same time.
Mack stole a glance at her grandmother, trying to work out why she’d brought Scott.
Maybe her grandmother had thought her mom needed a replacement for Ed, although it was a bit quick, wasn’t it? And anyway her mom had said Scott hadn’t wanted responsibility. Unless something had changed radically he wasn’t likely to be interested in taking on a fainting, superskinny broke woman and her messed-up teenage daughter.
Mack didn’t know much about relationships, but she suspected they weren’t much of a catch.
They arrived at the house and her mother insisted on walking from the car.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Mack hovered, trying to prove she wasn’t the heartless teen Scott seemed to think she was. “I don’t want you to faint again. Let him carry you.”
“I don’t need anyone to carry me.”
That had to be a good sign, surely? Her mother had always been strong, calm and capable. Even when Mack had blurted out the truth about her dad at the funeral, Lauren had stayed calm and together. She’d been calm and together right until the moment she’d stepped off the boat and seen Scott.
Right now she looked pale and frail. Scott obviously thought so, too, because he prowled close to her, presumably ready to catch her.
It was a relief when they finally stepped inside the house.
The Captain’s House felt like an old friend and was exactly the way Mack remembered it.
Despite what she’d said to her mother, it gave her a little buzz of excitement to be back. She’d once heard a bunch of tourists talking about its “historic charm,” but that wasn’t why she loved it. She loved it because you could literally smell the sea, not just because the ocean was right there outside the door, but because it seemed to have permeated the walls of the house. The place had nooks, secret doors and balconies, and all the rooms were crammed full of stuff. There were books, old naval charts, objects that had been gathering dust for over a century. Her grandmother never threw anything away, which Mack thought was pretty cool although she knew it drove her mother and Aunt Jenna to despair. There were cracks in the paintwork and character. Like an older person, Mack thought, with plenty of life experience and lots of stories to tell.
On the walls of the entryway there were old black-and-white photographs as well as one of her grandmother’s paintings. Except—the painting was no longer there.
She frowned at the faded wallpaper.
“Where’s the painting, Grams? The pretty blue one?” It was the only one of her grandmother’s paintings that she liked. The rest were gloomy. Looking at them made Mack want to dress in warmer clothes.
Her grandmother looked flustered. “I moved it.”
Scott hauled their bags from the pickup and put them in the entryway.
“You must be exhausted after your journey,” her grandmother said. “I’ve made something to eat.”
Mack’s stomach was still churning. “That’s kind, but I’m not that hungry, Grams.”
“You must eat something before you take a nap.”
Mack opened her mouth to point out that she was sixteen not six, and generally made it through the day without needing a nap, but then it occurred to her that it would give her an excuse to escape from all this stress and be on her own. She could message Phoebe.
Anything to get away from her crazy family. And Scott.
“That would be good, thank you.” She felt Scott’s gaze settle on her. She had a feeling he could read her mind and it was a little unnerving.
She slumped on one of the kitchen chairs, lack of sleep and jet lag catching up with her.
“Toast,” her grandmother said vaguely. “I’ll make toast.”
“Great.” She could probably choke down a couple of mouthfuls to appease her grandmother.
“You’ve never met Scott, so I should introduce him properly.”
“We haven’t met in person.” Mack looked at Scott. “In case you’re wondering, yes, I do know that you’re my real father. And I know you basically resigned from the job years ago, which should make me mad at you, but given that I’m low on family right now and can’t afford to be picky, you needn’t worry about me making trouble.”
“Mackenzie!” Her grandmother dropped the cup on the floor, where it shattered into pieces, splashing tea over the floor and the cabinets. “What are you talking about?” She turned to Lauren. “Is this grief talking? I don’t understand.”
Lauren closed her eyes. “Mom—”
Oh crappity crap. Mack felt a wash of horror as she stared at her mother. “Wait. Are you saying Grams didn’t know? I thought you already told her!”
Her mother looked like a ghost. “When would I have told her?”
“On the phone or something! I heard you talking.”
“About travel plans. Not about—anything else. I was waiting to do it face-to-face.”
Her grandmother hadn’t known?
“But why did she bring him to the ferry then?”
This whole situation was starting to drive her insane. It was worse than the Shakespeare play she’d studied, where characters dressed up as different people.
Her grandmother hadn’t moved. Tea dripped off the cabinets. “What were you waiting to tell me? That Scott is Mack’s father? Where would you ever get an idea like that, Mack?”
Mack said nothing. From now on she was keeping her mouth shut.
First the funeral, now this.
She was never talking again.
Instead she grabbed a cloth and kept her head down as she mopped up tea and retrieved shards of china.
“Scott, I must apologize for my granddaughter.” Nancy sounded faint. “I have no idea why she’d say a thing like that. It’s ridiculous.”
Scott stirred. “Does Lauren have other kids?”
Nancy looked perplexed. “Only Mack.”
“In that case, Mack is my daughter.”
Her grandmother was clutching the back of a chair and staring at Scott. “All this time you knew and didn’t tell me? Why?”
“It was Lauren’s decision.”
“But if it’s true that Mack is your daughter, that would mean you and Lauren—”
“Don’t say it!” Mack interrupted. “We get the picture.” She saw her grandmother lift her hand to her throat and felt a flash of alarm.
What now?
She stood up slowly and approached her grandmother as she would someone was poised to jump off a ledge. “Grams—”
“But this is Lauren we’re talking about. If it were Jenna, I could understand it because she was always a wild one, but Lauren—” Nancy shook her head, bemused. “That’s not the daughter I know!” She looked at Scott and he returned her gaze without flinching.
“Then I guess we know a different person.”
Scott, Mack thought, seemed like the only sane person in the room.
Nancy turned her head to look at Lauren. “But you married Ed, and—why would you keep something like that from me?”
Mack rolled her eyes. “Mom is like a big well of secrets—she’s like MI5 or the CIA or something.”
“Mackenzie.” Her mother’s voice sounded strangled. “Go to your room. You shouldn’t be listening to this discussion.”
“No way. Any discussions are happening right here in front of me, otherwise no doubt something else will emerge that I won’t find out for another ten years and by then I’ll be psychologically damaged for life.” Maybe she already was. Sometimes the stuff going on inside her head scared her. “Whatever happened to telling the truth? Right now I have had enough of my totally fucked-up family.”
Lauren inhaled sharply. “Do not use that language.” She snatched her bag from the table and pulled out her phone. “I’m letting Aunt Jenna know we arrived safely.”
Sending an SOS more like, Mack thought.
Her grandmother seemed to rouse herself. “Aunt Jenna is teaching today.”
Mack shared her mother’s desperation. “She needs to come over as soon as she’s finished. And she needs to bring cookies, or cupcakes—preferably both. And also Uncle Greg because he knows how to fix situations and this situation definitely needs fixing.”
She realized her mother hadn’t spoken to Scott. Nothing. No words had been exchanged. Just that one look so hot that if you stood in the middle of it you would have come away with seared flesh.
The atmosphere was so still and tight it was as if someone had sucked all the air from the room.
“Scott?” Her grandmother’s voice sounded faint. “I wonder if you’d mind leaving us? I think I need to catch up with my family. It seems we have rather a lot to talk about.”
Scott eased away from the counter where he’d been leaning and watching Lauren.
“You know where I am.”
It was Nancy who answered. “Thank you, Scott.”
Mack wondered why her grandmother was thanking Scott when he was, in a way, responsible for this whole mess in the first place.