The Art of Keeping Secrets Part 1

The Art OF KEEPING SECRETS.

A CONVERSATION WITH PATTI CALLAHAN HENRY.

Patti Callahan Henry.

To Anna Henry, in celebration of her courage and love of life.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

I am astounded that I'm writing the acknowledgment pages for my fifth novel. Although some names appear in each book, my grat.i.tude to these people continues to increase immeasurably. The relationships that surround and nurture me make it possible for me to continue to write. My heart is full of thanks for the following people:

-To my husband, Patrick T. Henry, who loves me even when I emerge bleary-eyed from my writing office, having forgotten to cook dinner.

-To my children, Meagan, Thomas and Rusk, who open my heart to the beauty of life.

-To my agent, Kimberly Whalen, who was integral in the plotting of and motivation for this novel. I am more grateful for her entry into my life than I can say.

-To my editor, Ellen Edwards, who created a cleaner and more lucid story than I actually wrote. Her patience and eye for detail are unsurpa.s.sed. And many thanks to Becky Vinter for her invaluable a.s.sistance.

-To the extraordinary people at New American Library-especially Kara Welsh and Claire Zion-who work so hard to get my work out to the readers. To the sales force on the road, who make sure the booksellers know about us. To the art department, who labor to find the perfect cover for each novel.

-To all of my family for living with and loving me even when I'm under deadline and forget to call you back; for going to more book events than anyone should ever be forced to attend-George and Bonnie Callahan, Barbi and Dan Burris, Jeannie and Mike Cunnion, Chuck and Gwen Henry, Kirk and Anna Henry, and Mike and Serena Henry. I love you all.

-To Andrew Read, a.s.sociate Professor and Rachel Carson Chair of Marine Conservation Biology at the Duke University Marine Laboratory in Beaufort, North Carolina, who conducts groundbreaking research in the conservation of marine life. For more information go to www.marineconservation.duke.edu. I thank him for allowing me to interrogate him about dolphin and whale research in the Outer Banks. His work, and that of others in his field, will save hundreds of thousands of marine mammals.

-To the booksellers who welcomed me with open arms during book tours. You made every city worth the trip. To the booksellers who spread the news about my novels-I can never find adequate words to thank you. Your love of books is an inspiration.

-To the readers and book clubs who e-mail me, show up at book events, talk about the books and make the extra effort to visit me on the road.

-To my tribe of writing friends, who enrich not only my writing, but also my life. You remind me why I write, and why story is powerful. You hold me up when I'm falling and you make me continue when I want to quit.

-To Anne Rivers Siddons, for her rare and extraordinary gift of storytelling and her generous heart. Unbeknownst to Anne, her stories have carried me through many hard times, and now her words about my writing fill me with humility and grat.i.tude.

-To Marjory Wentworth, South Carolina poet laureate, whose poetry inspires me to become a better writer. I'm honored to have your work in my last novel; I'm honored to call you friend.

-To my dearest friends-you know who you are-who listen to me, hang out with me, buy me wine, watch my kids, send me words of encouragement and make me laugh. I love you deeply.

-In the beginning, there was the Word (John 1:1). My eternal thanks to G.o.d for offering the gift of writing, story and the Word.

To the dolphin alone nature has given that which the best philosophers seek: friendship for no advantage.

-Plutarch.

ONE.

ANNABELLE MURPHY.

The horizon became Annabelle Murphy's touchstone, her confirmation of love and her memorial to joy. When her husband, Knox, had first died, she'd wished she could disappear into that place of marked beauty. Later, she'd believed she could find comfort and meaning where the earth met the sky, where she imagined Knox's plane had vanished.

Knox had been gone for two years now, but as the sailboat sliced through twilight-tinted water, she found herself once again staring into the horizon, his name unspoken on her lips. Blessedly, she was surrounded by the best kind of friends, those she'd loved the longest, with whom she'd shared the most tender moments of loss and joy: Cooper and Christine, who had been married since the year they graduated from college; Mae and Frank, who had been together since he'd moved to Marsh Cove in tenth grade; and Shawn, whose sailboat this was.

There had once been eight of them, but Shawn had lost his wife, Maria, to divorce and Annabelle had lost Knox to death. When the thirty-foot sloop moved through the water, Annabelle felt Knox as surely as if he were poking his head around the mast and asking her if she'd like another gla.s.s of wine. Death had taken the man, but never her love for him.

As the boat reached the mouth of the harbor, Shawn at the wheel hollered across to Cooper, "Why don't you throw out the anchor and we'll hang here until sunset?"

Annabelle stepped back from the railing to allow Cooper to grab the anchor. She reached into the cooler, pulled a beer from the ice and threw it to Shawn. He caught the can and mouthed, Thank you. Annabelle often marveled at the fact that of them all Shawn was the least changed in appearance, yet the most transformed in his approach to life. He had been the wild one, the winner of the most detentions and voted most athletic all four years of high school. Now he worked for an insurance company, although he did keep his sailboat and escaped as often as possible to the water he loved.

Only Shawn's blond curls remained as unruly as his behavior had once been. He'd been Knox's very best friend, but hers first. He'd defended her on the playground, told her lunch was stuck between her teeth; he'd treated her like a regular person even though she was a girl. When Knox had moved to Marsh Cove, he'd stolen Shawn from Annabelle. She'd threatened to beat up Knox under the monkey bars, but Shawn had diplomatically a.s.sured them that they could all be friends, and he'd been right.

This group had remained woven together with the threads of childhood, adolescence, marriage, parenthood, divorce and death. Now they kept the fabric strong with once-a-month dinner parties in one another's homes. When it was Shawn's turn, he always offered a sunset cruise and a cookout at the dock upon return. Annabelle would never let slip that this was her favorite way to get together. She wouldn't want to hurt Mae's or Christine's feelings, as they always made a large production of the parties.

Cooper startled Annabelle as he came up behind her, pressed his hand to her back. "You okay? You look a million miles away."

"I'm great. Look at this night-it's magic."

"Yes," he said, "it is."

Annabelle tore her vision from the horizon to look at Cooper. "I swear, on nights like this, I think he's going to pop up from below deck with a tray of his famous crab cakes and tell us all a very bad joke."

Cooper leaned down and kissed the top of Annabelle's head, and she reached up to grab Cooper's hand.

Mae's laughter rang out, abrupt and crisp; Cooper and Annabelle turned to see her try to drag Frank back as he walked toward the bow and spread his arms. "No way," Mae hollered. "Old man, get away from the front of the boat."

Frank lifted his winegla.s.s. "Who you calling an old man?"

Annabelle jumped back when Frank went up on the bow, handed Mae his winegla.s.s.

"Go ahead," Shawn hollered. "You don't have it in you anymore, do you?"

Annabelle laughed. This was a regular and dogged fight-who would resume the night swims of their youth? Now that they were all in their forties, there was much threatening, but no one had jumped in years.

A Knox-shaped emptiness overcame Annabelle, an intense longing followed by the impulse to be in the water, nearer the horizon. She stepped past Cooper, tapped Frank on the shoulder and motioned for him to move aside. He laughed. "You're kidding, right?"

"Out of my way," she said with a grin. "Girls first." She climbed over the railing to the tip of the boat. She spread her arms wide as she'd done in their younger days, when the eight of them ate, drank and loved one another without the memory of loss. Why had they stopped diving into the water? Why had Knox died? Why had Maria left Shawn? Why did life move on without the permission of those it carried in its current?

Annabelle stood on her tiptoes and felt her pale blue skirt billow upward as she executed a sleek dive, and entered the water with a splash. Silken warmth surrounded her as she closed her eyes and let herself sink. She remained still for a brief moment before opening her eyes under the water, where the setting sun no longer sent light. Pure darkness surrounded her, yet the laughter above reached her ears.

She rose above the surface, smoothed back her hair. Shawn leaned over the railing. "You are insane, Annabelle Murphy."

"You don't have it in you anymore, do you?" She pushed her palm against the sea to send a spray of water toward Shawn. She treaded water in a memory of her stronger swimming days. Her skirt tangled around her legs and she grabbed the anchor line; her white linen shirt clung to her skin and her hair curled around her face.

"Who you talking to?" Shawn laughed, yanked off his shirt and jumped over the railing in his khaki shorts. The water remained dark and warm around Annabelle. Shawn rose beside her as Cooper, too, jumped in, and Frank did a lopsided flip from the bow. In the encroaching night, their laughter traveled across the water, across time and s.p.a.ce, until Annabelle half-believed Knox was with them.

Christine dropped the ladder over the side of the boat, shone a flashlight toward the four of them. "There is absolutely no way I am jumping into that dark water. There is something wrong with all of you. Now get out of there. I'm starving and the crabs are going bad back at the dock."

Mae joined Christine, sat down and dangled her legs over the side. "If I hadn't just paid for these brand-new capris . . ."

Annabelle bunched her skirt into her left hand and swam toward the ladder, inhaled with long, deep breaths and remembered a time, long ago, when she and Knox took his Sunfish out into the bay and accidentally tipped it over. They'd held on to the upside down boat, enjoying the touch of their legs floating in the water below them, brushing up against each other. She doubted she would ever find a moment that didn't bring Knox to mind and heart. Even now she could barely swim five feet without thinking of him. No matter how or where she redirected her attention, Knox was there.

They clambered back aboard, raised anchor and pa.s.sed towels around. They laughed, held up winegla.s.ses and toasted to friendship. Shawn navigated toward the dock as they asked for updates on one another's children and jobs. They teased Mae and Frank about having named their only child Thornton, the most "country club" name possible, and now he was off in Africa doing mission work.

They agreed with Cooper and Christine that having kids in high school involved a constant battle of wills. Shawn stood at the wheel and laughed at their stories without contributing his own, since he'd never had children. His wife had left him in their second year of marriage, and he'd never remarried, despite his best friends' many efforts to set him up. "How's Jake doing at UNC?" he asked Annabelle. "Is he hanging in there?"

She nodded. "He seems to be doing great. I miss him insanely. The house echoes like an empty cave without him and his music. But he calls every day. He doesn't like his roommate, but he has so many friends I don't think it matters. Cla.s.ses are kicking his b.u.t.t. I think he wishes he'd backed off on the advanced courses."

Cooper shuffled his feet. "If he needs . . . anything, you know I can help."

"We all can," Shawn said.

"He's fine," Annabelle said. "Really fine. Keeley is the one who's killing me right now, with her c.o.c.ky att.i.tude and newly acquired driver's license."

"There's no worse combination," Christine agreed. "It's like that 'hunch punch' y'all made in college-remember? You guys threw anything you could think of in a trash can and then added grain alcohol."

A collective groan came from everyone.

Christine laughed. "The same dangerous combination as a sixteen-year-old girl going through adolescence and driving a car. We just pray they don't do anything truly stupid."

Shawn adjusted the direction of the boat. "Wow, you're really making me wish I had teenagers." He smiled, and then hollered at Cooper, "Grab the bowline, will you?"

Once they'd piled out of the boat and settled onto the dock for fresh crab, the familiar motions, words and feelings of friendship surrounded Annabelle. Shawn stepped up behind her. "I'm glad you came. For a while there I thought you'd never come back out on the boat."

"Me, too," Annabelle said, touched Shawn's arm. She spent the rest of the evening grateful for what remained constant: her love for her friends and her children.

Spring had settled quietly into the Lowcountry, bringing soft breezes and a green haze. A shower had pa.s.sed through earlier that morning, but now sunlight sifted between the leaves and fell onto a lawn sparkling with raindrops, onto pavement varnished by rainwater. From the front porch of Annabelle's home-her and Knox's home-on Main Street, Marsh Cove, South Carolina, she could see across the street to the park that bordered Marsh Cove Bay, running wild and full as the tide rushed in.

A large magnolia tree stood in the side yard, its thick roots pushing up the earth in all directions and sprouting offshoots that had long since merged with the original tree. Annabelle suspected that by now the smaller trees actually supported the main, ancient trunk, that without them the entire tree would topple.

Annabelle's son, Jake, who loved myths and legends, had once told her about Tristan and Isolde, ill-fated Irish lovers from whose graves, side by side, there rose two willows that over the years grew together as one. The story made Annabelle think of her own family, her and Knox, their son, Jake, and their daughter, Keeley, all entwined. When the tree expert came and told her that the main tree was being strangled and would need to be cut down, Belle told him to take his chainsaw and his expert advice and climb right back into his dented truck and go home. She knew the magnolia tree and its offshoots would support each other until they all fell together.

Even now, with Knox gone, Annabelle still believed that.

She balanced her laptop on her knees, her feet propped up on the wicker ottoman. She fingered the keys, lifted her face to a shaft of sunlight and closed her eyes, allowing the warmth to wash over her. She needed to find an answer to the bridesmaid question in her advice column, "Southern Belle Says."

Dear Southern Belle,

I have been in thirteen weddings and now I'm getting married. Do I need to ask all thirteen of these girls to be in my wedding? I only want two of them, but don't want to lose friends and make them all mad at me.

Confused in Corinth