Jenna
Startle: to be, or cause to be, surprised or frightened
“Where do you keep mugs?” Jenna prowled around Lauren’s shiny perfect kitchen. Every cabinet was neat and ordered. She tried not to think about her kitchen at home, where assorted plates nestled alongside mismatched mugs hand painted by the children she taught. Her mugs said things like World’s Best Teacher and Superwoman. It was like drinking her coffee with subtitles.
Lauren’s mugs were white and they all matched. Not a chip. Not a crack. Not a single accolade emblazoned on the side. Her home looked like something out of one of those glossy magazines she’d been addicted to growing up.
Jenna glanced at her sister. She’d changed into black yoga pants and a black roll-neck sweater. Her hair was twisted into a severe knot at the back of her head and the pallor of her skin emphasized the dark hollows under her eyes.
Her sister could have taken a role in a horror movie without bothering with makeup, Jenna thought. She suspected Lauren spent most of the night crying, although during the day she managed to hold it together.
After Mack’s revelation, the gathering had been more farce than funeral. Her confession had shaken the atmosphere so dramatically the resulting shock waves should have been measurable on the Richter scale.
Everyone’s mouths had been open, with the exception of Mack’s. With hindsight, Jenna wished her niece had closed hers sooner.
At first she’d assumed it was grief talking, but then she’d seen her sister’s frozen expression and had second thoughts. She knew that look. It was the same look Lauren had worn as a child when they’d been caught doing something they shouldn’t, like the time William Foster had reported them for letting his chickens out.
Jenna considered what she knew about her sister’s relationship.
Lauren and Ed had met on the beach and married a month later. It had been a whirlwind, but everyone who met Ed found it easy to understand why Lauren had fallen in love with him so nobody questioned it too deeply.
When Mack had been born barely nine months later, Jenna had wondered if Lauren had already been pregnant when she and Ed had married, but so what?
Now she felt like one of the kids in her class doing a basic math puzzle. If Jane has four apples and Mary takes one away, how many apples does Jane have left?
Could she have had an affair? No. Lauren had already been pregnant when she’d come back from her honeymoon.
How could Ed not be Mack’s father?
Like Mack and the rest of the people at the funeral, Jenna wanted to know the answer to the key question.
Lauren hadn’t spoken a word since they’d left the funeral.
Jenna wanted to call Greg for advice, but since when had she needed Greg’s advice on how to talk to her sister, someone she knew almost as well as she knew herself?
She removed two perfect matching mugs from the cabinet, boiled water and made hot tea.
That was what the British did in a crisis, wasn’t it? They drank tea. Lauren had lived here for sixteen years, which made her as close to British as it was possible to be without being born here. “Was Mack telling the truth?” She pushed aside a stack of papers and put the two mugs on the table.
Lauren stared at the tea but didn’t touch it. “Yes.”
Jenna sat down next to her and took her hand. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t tell anyone.”
I’m not anyone. I’m your sister. “Since when do we not talk to each other?”
“I wanted to protect my daughter. I always planned to tell her, but I was waiting until I was sure she was old enough to understand. I wanted her to grow up in a secure, stable home knowing she was loved. I didn’t want her to have doubts or fears. I didn’t want her to be—” She lifted bruised, exhausted eyes to Jenna. An ocean of memories flowed between them.
“You didn’t want her to be like us.”
Lauren’s eyes glistened. “You’re probably the only person who can understand.”
Jenna felt sweat prickle at the back of her neck. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Please don’t let her want to talk about it.
“No. It’s not relevant.”
It was funny, Jenna thought, how they’d both managed to ignore the past. It was like being in the room with a wild animal and hoping that if you didn’t look at it, it wouldn’t bite you.
“If it’s impacting the choices you make, then it’s relevant.”
“Didn’t it impact yours?”
Jenna felt her cheeks grow hot. “This is about you, not me. You kept a major secret from your husband and daughter.”
“No, I didn’t. Ed agreed we should wait until Mack was older. We were planning on sitting her down and talking to her soon.”
“Wait—you’re saying Ed knew?”
“From the beginning.”
“And he married you in spite of that?”
“He married me because of that.” Lauren let go of Jenna’s hand and reached for her tea. “It’s complicated.”
No kidding.
Jenna was still getting her head round the fact there was a huge part of her sister’s life she knew nothing about. “Did you tell him everything? He also knew about—”
“No. Not that. Just about Mack. And she’s all that matters now. She’s lost her dad, and she can’t even grieve properly because she’s so confused.” Lauren’s voice wobbled and she glanced toward the door that Mack had slammed between them the moment they’d arrived back at the house. “Is she going to be okay? I need you to tell me she’s going to be okay.”
“She’s going to be okay,” Jenna said, hoping it was true. “It will take time of course, but she’ll figure it out and so will you. And you have each other.”
“Right now I don’t think she finds that a comfort. She’s so mad at me.” Lauren blew her nose. “She’s obviously known Ed wasn’t her father for a while. It explains so much. She’s been difficult lately. Moody. I thought there might be something she wasn’t telling me—” She glanced at Jenna, who shrugged.
“No one is better qualified to recognize the signs of secret keeping than the Stewart sisters, right? Do you know how she found out?”
“She was doing an ancestry project at school as part of her history coursework. I guess it must have been to do with that. I haven’t worked out the details yet. But why didn’t she talk to me? Why not ask me?”
“Er—did we ever talk to Mom about things?”
“No, but we didn’t talk to Mom about anything. Mack and I talked about everything.”
Not quite everything, Jenna thought.
“Did Ed adopt Mack?”
Lauren stared at her tea. “No. We talked about it, but at the beginning it would have meant—” she drew in a breath “—contacting the father, and neither of us wanted to do that. Later it would have meant visits from social workers and they would have insisted we tell her right away. We always planned to tell her, but we wanted to do it when we felt she was able to handle it. And I didn’t want that to be when she was young. Also, there was Ed’s Mom.”
“What about his mom?”
Lauren shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“She didn’t know about Mack?”
“Ed didn’t want her to know.” Lauren toyed with her mug. “He knew there was no way Gwen would accept him raising another man’s child.”
Jenna thought about the woman she’d met at the funeral. “Is she always like that?”
Lauren finally took a sip of tea. “Like what?”
“Scary. Fierce. Dragon-like.” Unsympathetic. She was shocked by the unkindness shown toward her sister. “Don’t take any notice of those things she said. She’s distraught, and people say things they don’t mean in those circumstances. Looking for someone to blame is part of the process.” She was pretty sure she’d heard Greg say that at some point.
“She doesn’t like me.”
“What did you ever do to offend her? Before today, I mean—”
“I married her son.”
“That made you her daughter-in-law, not the enemy.”
“I wasn’t what she wanted for Ed.”
“But you’re gorgeous, kind, loyal—”
“—and American. It was like Edward and Mrs. Simpson all over again.” Lauren put the mug down. “Ed was with someone before me. She was the one his mother wanted him to marry.”
“But presumably he didn’t want to marry her.”
“In fact he did, but she—That situation was complicated, too.” Lauren sounded exhausted. “She was there today. Caroline Fordyce Smith. She sat next to Gwen in the church.”
The whole event was a blur in Jenna’s mind. “The blonde with the dead bird on her head?”
Lauren gave a faint smile. “I think it was supposed to be a hat.”
“Yeah? Because if that landed on my head, I’d call pest control. Ed had a narrow escape.” Relieved to see her sister come close to a smile, Jenna plowed on. “Why did it end?”
There was a long silence.
“Ed can’t have kids.” Lauren’s eyes filled and she shook her head. “I keep doing that. I keep talking about him in the present tense and then I realize he’s gone.”
Jenna didn’t know what to say, so she simply reached out and took her sister’s hand.
Lauren blinked back the tears. “No one knows that. Apart from Caroline of course. Ed didn’t want people to know. I’m only telling you because he’s gone—” her voice juddered “—and because I trust you. His mom doesn’t know. Mack doesn’t know either. She used to ask for a baby brother or sister, but of course that was never going to happen.”
“Why couldn’t he have kids?” Jenna felt cold. The mere mention of someone not being able to have children made her feel unsettled.
“It was something to do with an accident he had in college.”
Jenna relaxed slightly. That wasn’t something that could apply to her. She could cross it off the list.
“So Dead Bird Caroline dumped him?”
“Yes. And said some pretty awful things. I guess she was upset and disappointed, too, but her words stayed with Ed. His mother thinks they broke up because Ed met me, and Ed didn’t want to tell her the truth. He hated the fact that he wouldn’t ever be a father.” Lauren gripped her mug. “I think for a lot of the time he pretended Mack was his.”
“Why were they sitting together in church? She doesn’t know Caroline dumped him?”
“No. They’ve stayed friends. Bizarre.”
What a mess. “I know you’re upset about what happened, but people will soon forget about it.”
“Forget about the fact that Ed isn’t Mack’s father? I don’t think so.”
“It’s none of their business. The only people that truly matter here are you and Mack.”
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.