Buch lesen: «The Secret Sister»

To my nephew, Travis. I loved having you come and stay with us so often as a boy.

Some of my very best memories are of you, which makes it even more of a joy

to see that you have grown into a man we can all be proud of.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Also by Brenda Novak

Title Page

Dedication

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Epilogue

Author’s Note

Reader’s Guide

Questions for Discussion

Copyright

1

MAISEY LAZAROW’S BROTHER met her at the ferry—alone. Part of her, a big part, was grateful her mother wasn’t with him. Even after ten years, Maisey wasn’t ready to confront the autocratic and all-powerful “queen” of Fairham, South Carolina. The fact that Josephine hadn’t deigned to come with Keith made it clear Maisey would not be easily forgiven. Only after her mother had punished her sufficiently would she be welcomed back into Josephine’s good graces.

Although Maisey had expected as much, coming up against that reality nearly made her balk. What was she doing here? She’d sworn she’d never return to the small island where she’d been raised, that she’d never again subject herself to Josephine’s manipulation and control.

But that was before, when she’d set off to build her shiny new life. And this was now, when that shiny new life had imploded on her. She was coming back to Fairham because her brother needed her but, truth be told, she needed Keith, too.

At least her mother wasn’t currently married. The men Josephine chose were almost as bad as she was, just in different ways.

What Maisey needed most was her father, she realized as she stood at the railing, peering through the passengers crowding the gangway. Breathing in the island air, smelling the salty ocean and wet wood of the wharf, it all reminded her of him. But Malcolm had died in a boating accident when she was ten. That was when her mother had grown even more overbearing. Without Malcolm, there was no one to soften Josephine’s sharper edges, no one to hold her in check. Not that the buffer he’d provided was the only reason, or even the primary reason, she missed him...

“There you are!” Keith called across the distance, waving to make sure he had her attention.

Grabbing the handles of her two suitcases, which contained everything she hadn’t shipped to the island in boxes, she stepped into the flow of people so she could disembark. It was too late to change her mind about moving home. She’d given up her apartment in Manhattan and depleted most of her savings, thanks to the exorbitant fees of the divorce attorney she’d had to hire.

“You look great,” Keith told her as she moved closer.

Maisey conjured up her best approximation of a smile—she seemed unable to smile spontaneously these days—and embraced him. “Thanks.” She was wearing an expensive white tunic with Jimmy Choo shoes and Chanel jewelry, but she’d never looked worse and she knew it. She hadn’t been sleeping or eating well—not since that day two years ago, the worst day of her life. It didn’t help that her brother was also going through a difficult time. Once she’d learned about his suicide attempt, she’d been so manic about selling her furniture and what she could sacrifice of her other belongings so she could return to Fairham to be with him that she hadn’t bothered to do much shopping or cooking, which had caused her to lose even more weight. Her color wasn’t good, either.

But her brother didn’t look much better. Nearly six-foot-six with a set of broad shoulders that gave him a nice frame, he could stand to gain some weight, too. And he had dark circles under his eyes—the same blue-green eyes she possessed that always drew so much attention.

“You look good, too,” she lied, and suppressed a wry chuckle. She was home, all right. The pretense was already starting. Her ex-husband’s frank honesty was one of the things that had attracted her to him, which made his actions at the end of their marriage seem especially ironic.

“How was your trip?” Keith pulled her thoughts away from the past, where they resided far too frequently.

“Not bad,” she replied. No way did she want to regale him with stories of how difficult she found it just to walk out of her apartment building. She’d spent weeks at a time holed up in bed, but he didn’t need to know that only the urgency of his situation had been sufficient motivation to get her on her feet again. “How’s Mom?”

He shot her a look that acknowledged the tension any reference to Josephine created. “The same. She might not act like it, but she’s excited to have you home. She’s had a room in the east wing prepared for you.”

The guest wing? The significance of that didn’t escape Maisey. If there’d been any doubt that she was to be treated with cool disdain until she’d done her penance, this proved it.

The anger that flared up, making her stiffen, surprised Maisey. Apparently she wasn’t completely cowed and broken. The idea of walking into Coldiron House—named after Josephine’s father, Henry Coldiron, who’d owned most of the island before Josephine inherited it—brought back a hint of her old defiance. She couldn’t cope with living there, couldn’t submit, as she would have to submit, in order to regain her mother’s approval.

“I won’t be staying at Mom’s,” she said.

Keith had started to reach for her suitcases. At this, he straightened. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I have to find somewhere else.”

He measured her with his eyes, and she found them so hollow she grew frightened for him all over again. Was he doing as well as he claimed? He didn’t seem to be particularly robust—in body or spirit.

“I understand it’ll be a bit uncomfortable for you at first.” He glanced away as if he could tell she was trying to see behind the front he was putting on. “But trust me. Mom will come around. You’ll piss her off if you don’t stay at the house, and that’ll only make matters worse. After a few weeks...”

“No.” She broke in before he could get any further into his appeal. “I can’t do it.”

He stared at her. “You’re serious. You’ve barely arrived, and you’re going to make her angry? She has too much pride to put up with the rejection.”

“She rejected me first. And I don’t have a relationship with her, anyway,” Maisey said. “We communicate through email or her housekeeper, for crying out loud. I’ve spoken to her only a handful of times over the past decade.” And when they had talked, there’d been more silence than anything. There’d even been silence when Maisey had desperately craved consolation.

“You need her,” he said. “We both do. And that means we’ll always be under her thumb.”

Although she was secretly frightened that might be true, Maisey scoffed at it. “No. I’ll help you, stand by you. I just need to...to get back on my feet, and she can only hurt my ability to do that.” The thought of walking through those heavy doors, dragging her belongings behind her, almost gave her a panic attack. At least, if she didn’t stay at Coldiron House, she’d retain some autonomy, some independence. She had to protect the little peace of mind she had left.

He rubbed his gaunt face. “So where will you stay?”

“I could rent a room from someone in town.” She had enough money for that, didn’t she? Her reserves would last six months or so...

“Here on Fairham?” Her brother shook his head, adamant. “That would provoke an all-out war.”

He was right. To maintain some semblance of peace, she couldn’t cross certain lines. She couldn’t embarrass her mother by revealing that there was any strain inside the family. Appearances were everything to Josephine. They were Coldirons, even though their surname was technically Lazarow, and they needed to comport themselves as such.

How many times had she heard that lecture?

“What if I got an apartment in Charleston?” she asked, but decided against it almost as soon as the words passed her lips. Charleston would cost too much and, left on her own, she wouldn’t recover. Being sequestered in a cheap, unfamiliar apartment would be worse than living alone in New York with the furniture Jack hadn’t taken.

“I don’t see...” he started, but she cut him off again.

“Wait.” The solution had occurred to her, and it was so obvious she couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before. “Why couldn’t I stay in one of the bungalows?”

“The vacation rentals? They’re on the far side of the island!”

“So?” Going back and forth to Coldiron House wouldn’t require a ferry, like it would from Charleston. And it was September, when the small influx of vacationers who visited Fairham each summer returned to their regular lives. One of the nine units should be available. “We’re talking ten miles if I take the bike path. I’ll buy a bike and ride over whenever you want me to. Or you can come hang out at my place.”

Maisey felt that would be even better. Not only would living in Smuggler’s Cove enable her to avoid their mother, it would provide Keith a place to go occasionally, a place where he wouldn’t have to deal with Josephine—meaning he wouldn’t have to resort to drugs as his escape.

“Most of them haven’t been refurbished since Hurricane Lorna last fall,” he said.

“I could’ve sworn you told me months ago that Mom was hiring a contractor.” That was well before Keith’s last big blowup with Josephine, when he’d stormed off to “live his own life.” He’d disappeared for several months before ending up on another drug binge, which had culminated in the black moment that had brought him home again—the same black moment that had ultimately brought her home, too.

“She has hired a contractor,” he said, “but she didn’t get around to it until I got back a couple of weeks ago. Construction’s just begun.”

Her mother had waited a year to rebuild? “Why’d she wait so long?”

He took her suitcase, and walked toward the sleek gray Mercedes he’d parked in the lot. It was their mother’s car. He no longer owned anything to speak of. Although he’d turned thirty-six in February, an age by which most people had managed to accumulate a vehicle and some furniture or other personal property, he’d sold everything for drug money. What he hadn’t sold, he’d given away while he was high or destroyed out of anger and frustration.

“She was in another relationship with some off-islander, so she couldn’t be bothered,” he said in response to her question. “But I’m sure she’ll tell you the delay was all my fault. As you know, I haven’t made things easy on her—or anyone else.”

Including himself... Keith had caused nothing but heartache. But it disturbed Maisey that her mother always had to assign blame. “The future doesn’t have to be a reflection of the past.” She touched his arm for encouragement. “We’ll get through the coming months together. It’ll be okay now that we have each other.”

When he didn’t respond, Maisey wished she hadn’t questioned him about the delay in construction, hadn’t made him accept responsibility for it. He needed to look ahead—not behind. “I’m sure the bungalows will be ready by next summer, which means we only missed one tourist season.”

He was putting her suitcases in the trunk, so she couldn’t read his expression. “That’s the goal,” he said.

“Have you been out to see them recently?” she asked as they slid into the sun-warmed interior of the Mercedes and buckled their seat belts.

“Mom’s sent me over once or twice, yeah.”

“How bad are they?”

“Pretty bad.”

She cringed. “Structurally?”

“Units 1 to 4 need structural repairs.”

“What about 5 to 9?” They were set back off the beach, in the trees. Maisey assumed the wind hadn’t hit them as hard.

“They’re sound, but they still need a lot of work.”

Maisey hated that the bungalows had been damaged. Since the eighties, when her father’d had them built, Smuggler’s Cove had been a magical place for her, a place where she could find him, or some essence of him, even after he was gone. She had so many fond memories of tagging along to the rentals that, when he died, she’d wanted to scatter his ashes there on the beach. But her mother retained control of his remains, like she did everything else. His ashes were kept in a decorative urn on the mantel of the formal living room at Coldiron House. Not for any sentimental reason. But because it allowed Josephine to pretend he was her one great love, since she hadn’t been able to get along with anyone else—not for long, anyway. Every other relationship had fallen apart within two or three years.

“I don’t mind helping with the cleanup and repairs, maybe doing some painting, that sort of thing.” There was a period when she and Jack, her ex-husband, had watched almost every do-it-yourself show on TV, and used much of what they’d learned to improve their small cabin in the Catskill Mountains. It had been sold, as stipulated by the divorce decree, but she’d always loved it there.

Keith backed out of the parking space. “I’m not sure the contractor’s going to like having you in the middle of everything.”

“I’ll stay out of his way.” She tucked her dark hair behind her ears. It was getting too long; she needed to have it trimmed. “Who’d Mom hire? Anyone from around here?”

“Raphael Something. Can’t remember his last name. I didn’t ask where he was from. I know he’s done other work on the island, though, because I’ve seen his sign—High Tide Construction.”

Maisey had never met anyone by that name or heard of the company. But then, plenty could’ve changed since she’d been gone. “Can we go to Smuggler’s Cove now, see if it’s even a possibility?”

He hit the brake, stopping before they could exit the lot. “You’re not thinking of moving in without asking Mom...”

Knowing that she had a viable alternative—if she did have one—would help her get through that daunting first encounter. “I can’t imagine she’d refuse to let me live in one of Dad’s bungalows. He’d turn over in his grave if she did.” They were something her father had created and paid for with the money he’d brought into the relationship. “Besides, I’m supposed to inherit the development, remember?”

“If she follows his wishes.”

Maisey had to acknowledge that the future of the cottages rested in her mother’s hands, since Josephine had inherited them first. “Well, you’ve heard the cliché—it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission.”

He pursed his lips. “Not with her.”

The complexity of Keith’s relationship with Josephine accounted for a lot of his problems. Maisey wished he could get out on his own so he wouldn’t need Josephine’s help. Then he could also reject her advice and any unwanted intrusions into his life. But, so far, that hadn’t happened; he and Josephine were mutually dependent on each other. She provided financial support, and since she couldn’t be satisfied with any of her romances, he gave her companionship—when he wasn’t acting out. They loved each other but hated each other, too. But because Maisey was coming home with almost nothing, she wasn’t exactly the perfect example of how to get away, so she hesitated to say too much.

“Come on, I’m on her shit list, anyway,” she said, pretending more indifference than she felt.

He released a sigh. “Fine. Then why not really piss her off, huh?”

2

KEYS CROSSING WAS the island’s only town. It was also the only land not owned by her mother. As the marina, and the downtown streets with their various municipal services and private businesses—the small town hall with adjoining police station, the fire house for the even smaller volunteer fire department, the Sugar Shack, the Drift Inn, the various gift shops and the one grocery store in town, not to mention Love’s in Bloom, her mother’s flower shop—gave way to swaying palm trees, sandy beaches and lush vegetation, Maisey felt her heart begin to lighten. She’d been right to come here. She could sense it deep in her bones—now that she wasn’t heading directly to her childhood home.

She closed her eyes, enjoying the hot sun beating down on her through the windshield. This summer she hadn’t spent nearly enough time outdoors...

Keith interrupted her moment of tranquility. “Do you ever hear from Jack?”

She and her brother hadn’t talked about the divorce for months. There’d been too many more dire things to focus on, most recently his attempt to take his own life with a bottle of sleeping pills. If the manager at the dumpy motel where he’d been staying in New Orleans hadn’t come into his room to kick him out for nonpayment, he’d probably be dead.

“No, not a word,” she said. “He has no reason to contact me. Why?”

“Just curious.”

“Maybe the situation would be different if we still had Ellie,” she added, “but...now that she’s gone, our divorce really is goodbye.”

Her brother didn’t say anything about her child. Like most people, he shied away from the grief a loss like that inspired. “What happened?” he asked instead. “Why’d he cheat?”

She’d asked herself the same question so many times—and didn’t like any of the answers. She couldn’t help blaming herself for being unable to recover from Ellie’s death as quickly as he could, for being less of a woman than he wanted, for needing him when he wasn’t capable of giving her any solace. “He said he wasn’t fulfilled in our marriage. Whatever that means.”

Keith shifted in the driver’s seat. “Have you met your replacement?”

“Once. We ran into her on Fifth Avenue.” It was difficult not to hate Jack’s new girlfriend. She wasn’t particularly attractive, and didn’t seem to have anything else that should’ve been hard for Jack to refuse, which only made Maisey feel more inadequate.

“After he left?” Keith asked.

“Before. They went to high school together, so they’d known each other in the past. I believe that accidental run-in on Fifth Avenue is where the affair started. She must’ve contacted him on Facebook or emailed him afterward—or he contacted her, and...their relationship grew from there.”

“Does it hurt to talk about it?”

It hurt to even think about Jack. Maisey wasn’t sure she’d ever get over him. Her marriage was supposed to last forever. But Keith was fighting enough battles. She couldn’t expect him to prop her up. “No, I’ve put it behind me.”

Her brother shook his head. “How’d we miss that he was such a douchebag?”

Grateful for his attempt to lighten the conversation, she smiled ruefully. “You mean how did I miss it? If I remember right, you were never too fond of him.”

“He hated me.”

Jack hadn’t understood Keith’s volatile nature, and had no patience with it. “The funny thing is that I can’t blame Mom for the collapse of my marriage. I moved away so she couldn’t turn me into the person I become when I’m around her. I thought that would make it easier to be successful in a relationship, but even that didn’t change the ending.”

“You gave it your best shot.” He gripped the steering wheel with both hands. “Believe me, there are no answers for some things.”

“How are you doing?” she asked. “Okay?”

“Taking it minute by minute.”

“Have you been working at the flower shop?” Josephine had started the business four years after Malcolm died, following the demise of her next marriage.

“Almost every morning.”

“Is Mom there very often?”

“Only when she’s lonely or bored. Lately that amounts to about three days a week, for an hour here or an hour there. She has Nancy now, who manages it for her.”

“So you spend your afternoons...”

“Going to my NA meetings. I hate having to catch the ferry for those. It all takes up so much time.”

She could believe that. But they were an important part of his recovery. He wouldn’t want to spend all day at the flower shop, anyway. And it wasn’t as if he could find other work. The island had a population of only 2,500, so jobs weren’t easy to come by. His temper and drug use would preclude him from maintaining a steady job, no matter where he lived. He’d proven that in the past.

“I’ll go to the meetings with you,” she said. “Give you some company.”

“You don’t want to come.” He grimaced. “‘Hi, I’m Keith Lazarow, and I’m an addict.’ Why would you want to listen to that bullshit?”

“Because I care about you, and I’m hoping that having a companion will make attending those meetings more...tolerable.”

“What about your career? Don’t you have a new children’s book under contract?”

Feigning preoccupation with the scenery flying past, she turned her face to the window. “My career’s on hold for the time being.”

“On hold? You haven’t said anything about that before.”

“Because it’s not a big deal. I’m just taking a break.” She couldn’t bring herself to tell him that she couldn’t do it anymore. That the drawing, the ideas, the words, the enthusiasm...it was all gone. She couldn’t come up with another Little Molly Brimble book, had no idea how she’d created her other books, since that kind of creativity seemed so out of reach to her now. To make it official and to escape the pressure she’d felt, she’d even fired her agent. “For the next few months, I’m going to figure out something else I can do.”

He pushed aside the hank of dark hair that fell across his forehead. “Sounds to me like you’re giving it up.”

“Not necessarily.”

“You can’t quit creating, Maisey—not because of Ellie or Jack or me. You love what you do. You’re good at it. And famous!”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not famous.”

“You were making a name for yourself. You were on your way.”

Acutely conscious of the absence of her wedding ring, which had represented an important part of her identity for nine of the past ten years, she laced her fingers together in her lap. “Doesn’t matter. Molly Brimble is on an indefinite leave of absence.” She sounded more absolute than she’d intended. She didn’t want him to continue prodding her since she was suddenly struggling to ward off tears. Lazarows didn’t cry, especially in front of other people, and that included family. She’d only embarrass herself and make Keith uncomfortable.

“It was Ellie who died, Maisey,” he said softly.

Her child’s life had been so short, only six weeks... “You think I don’t know that?” she said. “You think I haven’t missed her every minute of every day since that terrible morning when I found her?”

He set his jaw. “My point is that it was two years ago. You have to figure out a way to get beyond it.”

She couldn’t look at him, not without losing her battle with those tears. Because of her relationship with Josephine, she’d let Jack talk her into burying Ellie not far from where he’d been raised in Philadelphia. But since she’d never lived there, and he was now out of her life, that felt so strange and far away. She wished she’d insisted on burying Ellie on the island, as she’d initially requested. “Get beyond it?” she repeated as if that was impossible.

“Yes. Unless, of course, that only applies to me.” He was throwing her own words back at her.

“No, of course not. I am getting beyond it in the only way I believe someone can get beyond something like that. I told you, I’ll do something else until I’m ready to start writing again.” She couldn’t fall apart after all the encouragement and advice she’d offered him. She couldn’t even admit how close to despair she really was. She had to stand tall and lead the way, set an example for him.

They turned onto the narrow dirt road that led into Smuggler’s Cove and, about a quarter of a mile ahead, spotted a black pickup with a High Tide Construction placard on the door. It was parked outside the first bungalow on the back row—Unit 5. Maisey knew because of her familiarity with the cove; she couldn’t see the house through the trees that’d grown so much since she’d last been on the island.

“Looks like Mom’s contractor’s hard at work,” she said.

“Actually, he must be at lunch.”

“How do you know?”

Keith shrugged as he slowed to navigate the various potholes. “He lives there.”

Maisey gaped at him. “Only for the duration of the project, though, right?”

“Permanently—unless he decides to move. He told Mom he’d give her a heck of a deal on refurbishing the others if she’d sell him one. So she did.”

A wave of resentment washed over Maisey. Her mother had mentioned other interested parties through the years but Josephine had always refused them. “The bungalows aren’t for sale. They never have been.” And if it was up to her, they never would be. Her father had told her they’d belong to her.

“Since Dad’s gone, Mom’s in charge, and I have to admit that selling made sense.”

As soon as they passed the black truck, which was loaded with lumber, and the curved drive came into view, Keith pulled to the far side of the road.

“How do you figure?” she asked.

“He’s going to maintain and manage the properties once he’s finished with the refurbishing. Maybe you’ll wind up with one less house, but they’ll be in good shape when you take over.”

“And what does he get for staying on? Will he become one of her employees?”

“Not really. He just won’t have to make house payments.”

“That’s generous, considering the winter months are so quiet around here. Once he gets all the cottages fixed up, he won’t have much to keep him busy.”

Keith put the transmission in Park but didn’t turn off the engine. “If I had to guess, I’d say it’s about cash flow. What she would’ve had to pay for the repairs she keeps as the down payment. What she would’ve had to pay for an on-site manager she keeps in lieu of a mortgage payment.”

“She’s sacrificed a valuable asset!”

“Sacrificed? It’s not a sacrifice if she receives fair compensation.”

“Is she that tight for money?” Would she sell the others? Maisey wouldn’t put it past her. What her father had brought to the marriage paled in comparison to what Josephine had contributed, so she wouldn’t hesitate to do whatever she wanted, despite his promises to Maisey.