The Art of Keeping Secrets Part 30

"Love isn't something you can make happen at will, or because it's convenient."

"Why didn't he tell us?"

"He made a promise to help her, protect her . . . or at least that's my best guess. If he told anyone, he risked jeopardizing her safety. He didn't antic.i.p.ate that the secret would one day bring all this pain to us. He thought he was doing something . . . good."

"He was." Keeley rubbed her face. "He was doing something good, wasn't he?"

"Yes." Annabelle nodded. "But it sure didn't look like it for a while, did it?"

"Guess we can't always judge things by how they look."

"Guess not." Annabelle laughed, smoothed her daughter's hair.

"But on his last trip to help her, she didn't even need it."

"He didn't know that."

Keeley stood. "I hate this."

Annabelle stood to face her daughter. "I do, too."

"I'm going to Laura's house. She's having a few people over tonight. Can I have the car?"

"You have two more days until you get the car keys back."

Keeley exhaled through pursed lips. "I'll walk."

Annabelle went into the kitchen, grabbed the car keys off the hook on the wall and threw them to her daughter. "Be careful."

Keeley brightened. "Always," she said.

Annabelle stood alone in the kitchen and tried to remember where she had been on the exact date of the hurricane-sometime between September twenty-first and twenty-second. She'd been at Aunt Barbara's with the knowledge of a child growing inside her. Knox had been helping a stranded, abused and pregnant woman in his family's barn. It didn't seem possible that these two events could have happened simultaneously, that those two moments had existed within the same universe and then branched off into separate lives in which Knox Murphy played a central role in both.

Annabelle went to her desk, flicked the computer on, and typed in bold letters at the top of the page: TO BELIEVE. Then she began to write of the need to believe when doubt seemed larger and more powerful.

When she was done, she leaned back in her chair and stared at her first article for Mrs. Thurgood's living section. Then she e-mailed it for her boss to see first thing in the morning. She walked down the hall and pa.s.sed the jar of sh.e.l.ls; she plucked one out, took it to place on her bedside table.

Liddy Parker might have had a talent for creating beautiful canvases and for keeping elaborate secrets, but those were not the most important forms of art. Believing when all the facts seemed to point to disbelief, keeping the faith when the circ.u.mstances fostered doubt-those were the true art forms.

Annabelle woke the next morning and knew that it was more than a new day; it was the start of a new life. Keeley and Jake were asleep in their beds; Sofie was in a hotel across town that Annabelle had arranged for her. And Annabelle didn't need to know what would happen next. She just needed to kiss her children and take another step forward. After a jog on the beach, a shower and a strong cup of coffee, she responded to Mrs. Thurgood's earlier "Come now" barked into her phone machine, headed to the Marsh Cove Gazette offices.

The room full of reporters buzzed as though mosquitoes had been released inside the building. There was a developing story about a car accident downtown involving the mayor and an open bottle of bourbon. Annabelle laughed as she wove her way among the desks. Her and Knox's story was old news. No one cared now how it had ended, how Knox Murphy had protected and cared for a woman he had found in a hurricane.

Annabelle knocked on Mrs. Thurgood's door, then entered in response to a raspy "Come in."

Mrs. Thurgood motioned to the chair in front of her desk. "Sit," she said.

Annabelle remained standing. "No, thank you. You called, asked to see me."

Mrs. Thurgood laughed. "I just wanted to talk to you about the piece you sent."

Annabelle nodded. "Go ahead."

"It is the best piece of work you've ever done for the paper. You know I don't particularly like to give compliments-it breeds laziness. But this is good, quite good. I want you to start that new column we discussed and address your observations about life from the perspective of the Southern Belle."

Annabelle sat down. "I can't write what I was writing for the Southern Belle column. I can't give you that good-girl Belle anymore. I wish I could, but I see things a little differently now. I'm not sure that perfect advice is always the best advice. For me, things aren't as black-and-white, or as neat, as they used to be."

Mrs. Thurgood stood up. "That is exactly what I want to hear. We will now have a brand-new column from the new and improved Southern Belle. It will be fresh, it will be original and it will be witty and sharp and funny."

"Whoa." Annabelle held up her hand. "I don't know if I can be all those things."

"You, my dear, already are." Mrs. Thurgood winked. "Now get out and do your job. I have an up-to-the-minute scandal to report today."

Annabelle laughed, stood up. "Yes, ma'am," she said, and walked out of the offices with her next article already brewing in the back of her mind: Belle Wakes Up.

Annabelle pulled her car in front of the art studio, shoved a quarter in the meter and entered the room as the bell over the door announced her arrival. Kristi hollered from the back room, "I'll be right with you."

"Okay," Annabelle replied. To avoid Ariadne's painting on the far-right wall, Annabelle walked to the shelves of pottery and picked up a mug with a palm tree etched into the side. Mumbled voices came from the back room. Her head snapped up; she heard her son's voice.

"Jake?" Annabelle called out as she headed toward the back.

He poked his head around the corner. "Hey, Mom. Come in here."

It took several seconds for Annabelle to register the scene before her: Sofie holding up a painting of a starfish, Jake's hand on her back, Kristi with a magnifying gla.s.s raised to the left corner.

"What are you doing?" Annabelle asked.

Jake took his hand off Sofie's back. "Sofie is selling this painting to Kristi. Her mother started it, but Sofie finished it. Isn't it beautiful?"

Annabelle forced herself to look at the painting. "Yes, it is." She turned to Sofie. "Why are you selling it?"

"This"-Sofie pointed to the art-"was my mother's life. This painting and all the secrets that were part of it were hers, not mine. I don't want them."

"Kristi," Annabelle said, "you should call Michael Harley. He'll want this piece. I know he will. Or he'll at least want to see it."

Jake squinted at his mother. "Who's Michael Harley?"

Sofie answered, "The art historian who came to Newboro."

"Oh," Jake said. "Mom? What are you doing here anyway?"

"I actually came to ask Kristi if she'd take the canvas I had in my house . . . on commission."

Kristi looked around the room. "Shawn already dropped it off. He said you'd probably come here about it."

Annabelle laughed. "He knows me a bit too well, doesn't he?"

Sofie walked toward Annabelle, stood in front of her and then hugged her. Annabelle took a moment to overcome her surprise, and then she reached her arms around this lost child and returned the hug. When she glanced over her shoulder, she swore there were tears in her son's eyes.

When, later, they all paused outside the art studio, Jake pulled his mother aside. "Can Sofie stay with us until she figures out what she's gonna do?"

She shook her head. "No, but I'm sure we can find her a place to stay. Mae has the apartment over her barn, or-"

"Hey, that's a great idea." Jake grabbed the cell phone from his back pocket. "Thanks, Mom," he called over his shoulder as he returned to Sofie's side, and they moved down the sidewalk together.

Now Annabelle could stop thinking about Liddy Parker's life and concentrate on her own. Tonight she could return to the friends she had avoided.

Annabelle stood outside Cooper and Christine's house, thought of that bottle of Tickle Pink she'd shared with Shawn, of the ties that had bound them together through so many wonderful, troubled and imperfect times. She entered the house without knocking. Cooper, Christine, Mae, Frank and Shawn stood in the living room holding winegla.s.ses and talking. They all turned as she came in.

"Annabelle." Shawn said her name with a smile, took the dish of peach cobbler from her hands.

Christine came over, pecked her cheek. "What a fantastic surprise. I thought you'd given up on us."

"Never," Annabelle said. "You don't ever give up on best friends, do you?"

In minutes the dance of their friendships resumed with a only few missteps. Frank told very bad jokes; Shawn imitated the mayor being arrested; Christine bustled around the house, and Cooper cornered Annabelle in the hallway. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yes, I am now," she said.

"We've really missed you."

"I've missed y'all, too," she said. "I found out why . . . or at least part of why Knox was on that plane with Liddy Parker. I'll tell everyone over dinner."

Cooper smiled, kissed her cheek. "You are amazing."

"Aw, shucks," she said. "You've just had one too many martinis."

Cooper threw his head back and laughed so loud that Shawn came into the hallway. "What's up?"

Cooper slapped Shawn's back. "What would we ever do without Belle?"

Shawn looked at Annabelle, then quickly averted his gaze. "I don't know, Cooper, but if you figure it out, let me know."

Cooper didn't answer since he'd already moved down the hall to holler for everyone to come to the table, dinner was served.

When the night had wound down, when the wine bottles were empty and the peach cobbler gone, Annabelle told her best friends the story of Knox and Liddy and Sofie. Afterward, silence filled the room until Mae spoke.

"How could we have never known any of this?"

Christine looked at Cooper. "Did you know?"

"No," he said, touched his wife's arm. "Obviously no one did."

Christine gestured toward Annabelle. "You okay about all this?"

Annabelle nodded. "Yes."

"You don't care that he kept this secret from you all during your marriage?" Christine asked.

Mae spoke in Annabelle's silence. "Whether we know everything about the people we love or not, we know we love them," Mae said and kissed her husband.

Cooper lifted his winegla.s.s as if to make a toast, then set it down. "You know, we all need to keep pieces of ourselves that are ours alone."

The table fell silent. Annabelle imagined each person thinking of the one or many secrets they kept to themselves, things they didn't share even with those they loved most. How hard it must have been for Shawn to share one of the secrets he'd carried for years; in her heart she reached out toward him across the table. She caught his eye and smiled at him; he gave her a nod and half-smile in return.

Annabelle was ready to go home. "Thanks for a great night, Cooper and Christine. I'll get my dish tomorrow. I'm more tired than I realized. The party is at my house next time." They all agreed, and she offered hugs to her friends before she walked out the front door.

Shawn met her outside. "Hey, I know you walked here. Come on, I'll give you a ride."

"Thanks," she said. "I'm so tired all of a sudden."

He opened the pa.s.senger door. She climbed in, looked at him. "How's the new business going?"

He slid behind the wheel, started the car. "Good. It should be off the ground by next month."

"Great." Annabelle leaned back on the seat, and they drove in companionable silence until he parked across the street from her house. She looked over at him. "Thanks, Shawn. No need to walk me in."

He nodded. "I'll wait until you're safely inside."

She left the car, then leaned into the window, stared at him for a moment. "We're okay, aren't we? You mean so much to me. . . ."

He opened the driver's-side door and got out; she stood and looked at him over the top of the car while he spoke. "I can't change the way I feel, but neither can you. We're fine. Always have been. Always will be."

Annabelle nodded. "Good night, dear friend."