Buch lesen: «How To Keep A Secret»

For my sister (from whom I have no secrets!)

If I could have chosen my sister, I would have chosen you.

For there is no friend like a sister

In calm or stormy weather;

To cheer one on the tedious way,

To fetch one if one goes astray,

To lift one if one totters down,

To strengthen whilst one stands.

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Contents

Cover

About the Author

Also by Sarah Morgan

Title Page

Copyright

Dear Reader

Dedication

PROLOGUE

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

PART TWO

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Extract

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

Sisters

“WHAT ARE WE going to do? We shouldn’t even be here.” I tugged at my sister’s skirt to pull her away from the window. “If we’re caught, we’re going to be in big trouble.”

I wasn’t about to wait around for that to happen.

My sister was taking those big gulping breaths that always preceded a fit of crying.

Giving her a final tug, I dropped to my hands and knees and scurried back along the path the way we’d come, grateful for the protective shadow of darkness. I wanted to stand up and run, but if we did that we’d be seen, so I stayed low, crawling like a fugitive. It had been a long, hot summer and the earth was dry and crumbly. It was only when I felt a cooling splash on the backs of my hands that I realized I was crying, too. Small stones bit into my palms and knees, and I clamped my teeth together to stop myself making a sound. I brushed past the jungle of honeysuckle and the sweet cloying smell almost choked me. There was nothing sweet about what we’d seen and I knew that when I was grown up and had a house of my own I’d never have honeysuckle in the garden.

There was a rustling sound behind me. I hoped it was my sister and not some nocturnal creature with sharp teeth and an appetite.

I couldn’t see the gate, but I knew it was there. Beyond the gate was the footpath. If we made it that far, we’d be protected by the high hedge. Through the panicked pumping of blood in my ears I could hear the rhythmic crash of the sea. It sounded closer than usual, louder, as if the tide was colluding, helping to drown the sounds of our escape. The salt breeze dried my cheeks and cooled my skin.

Finally I reached the gate and slid through the gap, ignoring the twigs that stabbed my back. There, right in front of me, was the path. Leaning against the hedge were our bikes, right where we’d left them. I wanted to grab mine and pedal hard into the night without looking back, but there was no way I was leaving my sister.

I’d never leave my sister.

There was another rustle and she emerged through the gate, her hair wild from our frantic retreat.

Now that safety was within reach, anger burst through the anxiety.

“It was your idea to come here tonight.” I almost choked on the emotion that had built up inside. “Why do you always have to do what you’re not supposed to do?”

“Because the things I’m not supposed to do always seem like more fun.” The wobble in her voice reminded us both that this hadn’t been fun at all.

I felt her hand creep into mine and instantly I forgave her. We stood like that for a moment, clinging for comfort.

My sister moved closer. “If I could have chosen my sister, I would have chosen you.”

I would have chosen her, too, although right then I wished there was a way of curbing her adventurous spirit.

“I wish we hadn’t looked.”

“Me, too.” For once my sister sounded subdued. “We can’t ever tell anyone. Remember what happened to Meredith?”

Of course I remembered. Meredith was a cautionary tale.

“I hate keeping secrets.”

“It’s a small secret, that’s all. You can keep a small secret.”

I swallowed, my throat so dry it hurt. We both knew that this was a lot bigger than the other secrets we kept. This wasn’t sneaking out after dark to play on the beach, stealing flowers from Mrs. Hill’s garden or raiding Mrs. Maxwell’s strawberry patch. This was something different. What we’d seen felt like a weight crushing me. Deep down I knew we should tell, but if we told, everything would change. We’d left our childhood back at that window and there was no going back to get it.

“I won’t tell. I’ll protect you. We’re sisters. Sisters always stick together. I made a promise.”

Of course most people who made a promise like that, I thought, didn’t have a sister like mine.

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

Lauren

Premonition: a feeling that something is going to happen, often something unpleasant

YOU COULDN’T REALLY blame the party for what happened, although later Lauren wished she hadn’t organized such an elaborate affair. If she hadn’t been so wrapped up in the small details, she might have noticed something was wrong. Or would she? To notice something was wrong you had to be looking, and she hadn’t been looking. She’d been focused on the moment and the excitement of the big day.

And the day started early.

Waking before the alarm, she rolled over in the bed and kissed Ed. “Happy birthday.”

Should she say the word forty? How did he feel about it? How did she feel about it?

She still had five years to go before she hit that number which seemed far enough away not to be worth worrying about. And forty wasn’t old, was it?

Maybe not, but when she’d taken delivery of the birthday cake the day before and looked at the forty candles waiting to be added, she’d thought, We’re going to need a bigger cake.

Ed was still dozing so Lauren lay for a moment, cocooned by the peaceful calm of their bedroom. This had been the first room she’d decorated when they’d moved in. She’d designed it as a sanctuary, a peaceful haven of white with accents of gray and silver. In summer the room was flooded with sunlight and she slept with the window open so she could hear the birds. Now, in January and with London in the grip of a cold snap, the windows were firmly closed. Their house, in an exclusive and sought-after crescent in fashionable Notting Hill, backed on to private gardens. Every morning for the past week the trees had been coated with frost. The cold air slapped you in the face the moment you opened the door, as if daring people to leave the comfort of their homes.

Lauren, who had been raised on Martha’s Vineyard, a small island off the coast of Massachusetts, wasn’t afraid of bad weather.

She peeled back the covers and ran her fingers through his hair. “Not a single gray hair. If it’s any consolation, you don’t look a day over sixty.” There was no reaction and she leaned forward and kissed him again. “I’m kidding. You don’t even look forty.” Except lately, at certain times of the day and when the sun was bright and harsh. Then he looked every day of forty. Working too hard? Ed had always worked long hours, but recently he’d been coming home later and later and seemed unusually tired. She’d subtly planted the idea that he might visit the doctor, but he’d ignored all hints. It was easier to persuade a toddler to eat broccoli than to get Ed to the doctor.

Her phone told her it was past six o’clock, and he showed no sign of moving.

Lauren gave him a gentle nudge. Her day was planned to the minute, and it all kicked off at precisely six fifteen.

She heard the sound of clomping on the stairs. “Mack’s awake. How can one teenager sound like a herd of elephants?”

She wondered if Mack was coming upstairs to the bedroom, but then the sound of footsteps faded and she heard the kitchen door slam.

Why wasn’t Mack at least putting her head round the door to wish her father happy birthday?

Anxiety gnawed at the edges of her happiness. It wasn’t that long ago that Mack would have come charging into the bedroom proudly carrying the birthday card she’d made herself. She would have leaped into the middle of the bed and the three of them would have snuggled together. Even when she’d hit the teenage years, Mack had been easygoing.

All that had changed a month before. Overnight she’d transformed into a sullen, moody caricature of a teenager and Lauren couldn’t put her finger on why.

The Christmas holidays had been stressful. Ed, who rarely took time off, had reacted badly to the tension and Lauren had taken on the role of peacekeeper. As a result, she’d spent most of the festive period with tight knots in her stomach.

“Do you think it’s a phase, or is this it?”

Ed stirred. “Is this what?”

The way she’s going to be for the rest of her life.

She didn’t voice her thoughts.

Today was Ed’s birthday, and she had a party to run.

Thinking of everything she had to do to make it perfect made her fidget.

This being Friday, she was meeting her friends Ruth and Helen at ten o’clock in their favorite coffee shop, which happened to be exactly thirty-five steps from the hairdresser where Lauren had an appointment exactly forty-five minutes later. By eleven thirty she’d be at the florist and after a fifteen-minute walk home—ticking the boxes for both steps and sunshine—the rest of the day was devoted to making final preparations for the party.

“Ed—” She nudged him again. “Wake up, honey. I need to give you your gift before I head downstairs. I have the whole day planned out to the minute.”

Ed finally opened his eyes. “When have you ever not had the whole day planned out to the minute? If I ever invent an organization app, I’m calling it The Lauren.”

Was that a criticism?

“It’s important to take control, otherwise time drifts.”

Lauren had other reasons for keeping control on life, but she and Ed never talked about that. Sometimes she wondered if he remembered. Time had a way of fading events until they were distant and indistinct. It was like hanging a painting in sunlight. Lines blurred and colors lost some of their sharpness.

Occasionally her mind drifted there, but mostly she managed to keep herself in the present.

Hoping to stir him into action, she threw back the covers and stood up. Usually she started with a few yoga stretches, but today she was distracted by the thought of Mack downstairs in the kitchen.

Why was she up so early?

Perhaps she was making a surprise birthday breakfast for Ed.

Or maybe that was wishful thinking.

Lauren walked to the window and glanced into the street.

With luck today would be one of those perfect sunny winter days, but this being London it was unlikely. As long as their guests didn’t have to battle snow, she wasn’t going to complain. England, she’d discovered years before, didn’t cope well with snow. Ten large flakes were all that was required to send the country into a screaming panic.

Ed finally heaved himself out of bed, too.

Lauren turned and studied his hunched form. “Are you okay?”

He turned his head to look at her, distracted. “What?”

“You look tired.”

“I am tired. I could lie in bed for a month and not move.”

She decided the time for subtlety had passed. “You should see a doctor.” Why was it men needed to be told that?

“For being tired? The advice will be ‘Go to bed earlier.’ I can’t afford the time to hear him state the obvious.”

“Her.”

“Excuse me?”

“Our doctor is a woman,” Lauren said. “Eleanor Baxter. If you won’t see her, at least slow down a little. Leave the office earlier.”

“Slow down? Lauren, do you have any fucking idea what my job is like?” He closed his eyes and ran his hand across his jaw. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t mean—forgive me. I’m not feeling great.”

“It’s fine.” But it wasn’t fine, was it? Ed never swore, at least not in her presence. He was always polite and courteous—to friends, to the teachers at their daughter’s school, even to the mailman if they happened to bump into each other. It was his even temper and unshakable calm that had drawn her to him. He was dependable. With Ed she’d never felt swept away or out of control. She’d never had to worry that her heart might fracture or her breathing might stop altogether. If there had ever been a part of her that craved something different, it was now a mere speck in her past, barely visible to the naked eye. “I know you’re busy, but it’s not like you to be this tense.”

Ed was a whiz kid financier who had made a fortune with a big hedge fund in the city before leaving to manage his own portfolio. James, an old college friend who rented office space with him, said Ed was a financial genius. Lauren had no reason to doubt it.

This house, Mackenzie’s school, their perfect life—all of it was paid for by Ed’s brutally long hours in the office.

Once, she’d had ambitions, too, but that had been before she’d had sex on a beach and found herself pregnant. Not that she undervalued her contribution to the family. Being a stay-at-home mom had been her choice and from the moment Mack was born, Lauren had loved being a mother. She considered herself Ed’s equal in every way and knew her role was every bit as important as Ed’s. She was the Yorkshire pudding to his roast beef, to use a British analogy, which she always tried to do in order to ingratiate herself with her fearsome mother-in-law, who, even after sixteen years, remained appalled that her precious only son had married an American.

Ed was still sitting on the bed, staring at the floor, and Lauren reached into the drawer by the bed and pulled out the box she’d wrapped carefully.

“Happy birthday.” She handed him the gift and felt a thrill of anticipation. “I wanted to give it to you now because later on it’s going to be crazy here with a houseful of people all wanting a piece of you.”

Ed opened the package and stared at the contents. “You bought me a rain forest?”

“Not a whole rain forest. A patch of rain forest. I know how committed you are to environmental issues. You cycle everywhere, you’re always talking about saving the planet. I thought—”

“It’s a scam, Lauren.” He sounded tired. “I can’t believe you spent money on that. You do realize you’ve probably financed the cocaine industry?”

“It’s not a scam. I’m not stupid.” And he knew it. He knew she’d graduated top of her year at school and had a place at an Ivy League college before her world had crashed down. Ed had been the one to encourage her to pick up the threads of her dream once Mack had started senior school. She’d been studying for an interior design qualification and was finally poised to embark on her own career. When she’d passed her exams, they’d celebrated with champagne. “I researched it carefully. We can visit whenever we like.”

“Right. Because flying to Brazil is great for the planet.” He tossed the box on the bed and she felt her throat thicken.

“I was trying to give you something original and thoughtful.”

“It was thoughtful.” He rubbed his fingers across his chest. “It’s not you, it’s me. Ignore me. I need to start the day again.”

He heaved himself off the bed, walked into the bathroom and closed the door.

Moments later she heard the hiss of water.

She stood there, flummoxed.

This wasn’t about a patch of rain forest. Was he on the verge of a midlife crisis? Was he about to start wearing skinny jeans and have an affair with someone barely older than Mackenzie?

Making an effort not to overthink and overreact, she went in search of her daughter.

She found her in the kitchen, hunched over her phone at the kitchen island. A pair of oversize pink headphones covered her ears.

Mack hated pink. The headphones had been an attempt to fit in with a group at school who teased her for not being girly enough. Mack called them “the princesses,” and they’d made her life a misery.

If Mack heard her mother come into the room, she gave no sign of it.

There was no tray laid for breakfast. No sign of any birthday treat.

Nothing except a single overflowing bowl of breakfast cereal that Mack dug in to.

Lauren tried to work out what she could say without causing an explosion. “Hi, honey. You haven’t forgotten Dad’s birthday?”

Mack looked up from her phone and removed her headphones in an exaggerated gesture.

“What?”

“Dad’s birthday. Today.”

“Yeah?”

“Aren’t you going to wish him happy birthday?”

“Does he want to be reminded? Forty is pretty old. Not quite a senior citizen but that landmark is definitely on the horizon.” Mack took another spoonful of cereal. “I figured he might rather ignore it. And it’s six fifteen. I’m not a morning person. I guess I could have made him tea, but he hates my tea. He always moans that it’s too weak.” She put the headphones back on her ears and went back to Snapchat. Dressed in an oversize T-shirt, she looked younger than sixteen. Her hair was the same sunny blond as Lauren’s, but Mack allowed hers to flop forward in an attempt to hide the stubborn spots that clustered on her forehead. Her braces had come off a few months earlier but she still smiled with her lips pressed together because she’d forgotten she no longer needed to be self-conscious.

It was only when Mack picked up her empty bowl to put it in the dishwasher that Lauren noticed the two pink streaks in her hair.

“What have you done to your hair?”

“I woke up with it this way. Weird, huh? Fairies or gremlins.”

“Mack—”

Her daughter sighed. “I dyed it. And before you flip out, everyone is doing it. All the other mothers were fine about it. Abigail’s mom helped her do hers.”

This was her cue to be like “all the other mothers.” It was a pass or fail test, and Lauren knew she was going to fail. “Why didn’t you discuss it with me?”

“Because you’re such a control freak you would have said no.”

“You have beautiful hair. Is this about trying to fit in?”

“I don’t care about fitting in.”

They both knew it was a lie.

Lauren picked her words carefully. “Honey, I know it’s hard when you’re teased, but it happens to a lot of people and—”

“That does not help, by the way. It makes no difference to me how many other people have been through it.” Nonchalance barely masked the pain and Lauren felt the pain as if it were her own.

“Your individuality is the thing that makes you special. And you need to remember that most people are thinking about themselves, not anyone else.” She decided that this wasn’t the time to raise the school issue again. “I know you’re upset. Has something else happened?”

“You mean apart from the fact that my mother is always on my case?”

“I’m trying to be supportive. We’ve always been able to talk about anything and everything.”

Mack scooped up her phone. “Yeah, right. Anything and everything. No secrets in this house.”

Her tone made Lauren feel uneasy.

“Mack—”

“I need to get ready for school. My mother had a place at an Ivy League college, so nothing short of Oxford or Cambridge is going to be good enough for me. Education is everything, right?”

It was too early in the morning to deal with teenage attitude. Lauren opened her mouth to remind her to wish her father a happy birthday, but Mack was gone.

Another slammed door. Her world seemed full of them.

No secrets in this house.

Feeling a burn of stress behind her rib cage, she took herself downstairs to the basement gym they’d installed and tried to run off her anxiety on the treadmill. She flicked on CNN, giving herself a taste of home.

Storms in Alabama. An alligator thirty feet long in Florida. A shooting in Brooklyn.

A wave of homesickness almost knocked her flat. She yearned for morning runs on South Beach, the smell of the sea, the taste of seafood caught fresh that morning, the sight of the sun setting near her sister’s house in Menemsha.

Twenty minutes later Ed appeared. He was dressed in cycling gear and had his phone in his hand.

Lauren breathed a sigh of relief. This was routine. Ed cycled to the office and changed once he got there, and it seemed that today was no different except that he was running later than usual.

“Have a great day, birthday boy.” When he didn’t answer, she muted CNN and slowed the treadmill until it stopped. “You seem really distracted today. Does it bother you being forty?”

“What?” He glanced up from his emails.

“Forty.” Maybe she’d treated the whole thing too lightly. She needed to make sure he knew he was still handsome and desirable. More sex wouldn’t hurt. Sometimes the days slipped past and she’d realize it had been a week. Sometimes longer. The truth was sex between them had always been comfortable rather than urgent.

Was that normal? She had no idea because it wasn’t a topic she’d dream of discussing with friends.

Maybe he was having an affair?

Even though she’d stopped the treadmill, her heart rate continued to accelerate. No. Ed wasn’t like that. They didn’t lie to each other. That was what they’d agreed that first night they’d met. Lauren trusted Ed implicitly.

And they were happy. Happy couples didn’t have affairs.

“Are you worrying about Mack? I know she’s been difficult lately.”

She decided not to mention the pink hair. Let him notice it for himself later.

“All teenagers are difficult. I remember your mother saying your sister was a nightmare.”

Lauren realized she’d forgotten to call her sister the day before. Preparations for Ed’s birthday had eclipsed everything.

“All my mother wanted to do was paint, and she was irritated by anything that disturbed that.” Still, when Lauren thought back to some of the things she’d done with Jenna, it terrified her.

They were lucky to have come through childhood unscathed. Or mostly unscathed.

“She’s growing up.” Ed was calm. “She doesn’t have to tell us every little thing. She’s pushing for independence, and we’ve always encouraged that. And as for being difficult, it’s nature’s way of making sure teenagers want to leave home and that parents are ready to push them out of the door.”

“She’s sixteen, Ed. It’s years until she leaves home. And you know what the school told us. Mack is skipping homework and failing English. She’s always been a straight-A student. English is her best subject.”

Ed frowned. “Physics is her best subject. Last year she wanted to do aeronautical engineering.”

“That was before those girls started teasing her for being like a boy. Remember that horrible Facebook page they set up? Mack-the-man.” She’d been so upset she’d wanted to charge into school and chop off their damn princess hair with rusty scissors. It had taken a lot of maneuvering to have the page taken down and Mack had been left wounded. “She is smart. She could do what she likes, providing she works hard, but that’s the point. She isn’t. If she carries on like this, she’s going to fail her exams.” Unless there was an exam in sarcasm. Mack would ace that.

“There’s more to life than being a straight-A student, Lauren.”

“I know. But I also know how competitive the world is now. If you mess up your exams then you don’t get into a good college, and without a good college you don’t stand a chance of getting a good internship because there are literally thousands of people applying for every position. Sue Miller’s eldest graduated last summer and since then she has put in one hundred and fifty applications and hasn’t had a single interview. One hundred and fifty.”

“Calm down. Mack is going to be fine, Lauren.”

She was irritated that he didn’t even glance up from his phone.

“But what if she isn’t? The school told us she’s not speaking up in class.” And since when had her daughter not spoken up in class? Mack had been speaking up ever since she’d learned how to put two words together. “And then there was that incident a month ago—”

He glanced up. “That was a one-off.”

“She was drunk, Ed! Our daughter was drunk and Tanya’s mother had to drive her home.” And Mack had refused to offer any explanation. She’d shut them out. That had disturbed Lauren more than anything. Was that when Mack had changed?

“Teenagers experiment. Tanya’s mother should have kept a closer eye on the vodka bottle.”

“It wasn’t a one-off. What about the time she took money from my purse? Our child stole, Ed.” What if Mack was experimenting with drugs? The more she thought about the list of possible horrors, the more surprising it seemed that today’s teenagers ever made it to adulthood. “I think she’s keeping something from us.” She recognized the signs, and it made her uneasy. A secret, she knew, could eat away at you slowly. It created a barrier between you and the people you loved.