Secrets Whispered from the Sea - Emma St. Clair Page 0,90
closer to the bed.
Thankful for the distraction and comfort of Nana’s words, especially now, I began to read the last few entries. I’d been saving them, savoring them, reading a page or two every night before drifting off to sleep on Nana’s couch.
But twenty minutes later, the journal slipped from my shaking fingers and fell to the floor.
Lucy stirred, and I was too overcome to even apologize for waking her. I stood.
“Are you alright, dear?”
“I’ll be fine,” I lied, striding from the room.
30
Anger and betrayal were like twin poisons, and I drank them down, letting them steep below my skin. My whole world had tilted as I finished reading Nana’s journal. More accurately, it had been tilted all along, but now I knew about it. I knew that I’d been living a lie for years.
A lie that I suspected that other people knew. I needed to hear the truth from their lips, not just Nana’s journal. So many pieces that were falling into place, breadcrumbs that had been dropped over the course of my life. Little hints, even over the past few weeks.
The entry in Nana’s journal hadn’t given many details.
#435 – When you suspect someone of having an affair, they probably are.
When I read that one, I assumed at first that it was my Grandpa who had the affair, and my heart lurched a little. Then I kept reading.
#436 – If you encourage your children to marry someone practical not someone they love, chances are that they’ll look for love somewhere else.
#437 – You can’t hold yourself responsible for your children’s mistakes. But you probably can’t stop yourself from feeling responsible.
#438 – Even huge mistakes can produce the sweetest blessings.
I might not have fully connected the dots if Nana hadn’t taped my birth announcement into those very pages. It was a photograph so familiar that I’d stopped really looking at it. Mom and Dad kept it on the mantel. Ann was smiling, maybe bigger than I’d ever seen her smile, with little blonde pigtails and a smocked dress. I was screaming and red-faced in a white dress that hung down past my feet. A thatch of bright red hair was corralled into a white bow. That was probably why I was screaming—I never did like bows.
While Lucy had snored softly, I read and re-read that page, trying to tell myself that it didn’t mean what I thought it meant. That Dad hadn’t been Mom’s practical choice. That she hadn’t had an affair and gotten pregnant … with me.
Little breadcrumbs grew in my mind, actions and words that lead me on a path to the truth. Ann’s remark about us not sharing enough DNA. The way Dad always favored her and kept me at arm’s length. A comment Mom made that stuck with me once, about how I was a reminder of everything she had to sacrifice, of what she gave up.
I’d been only seven at the time. The words stayed with me, as those kinds of words often do. Only, back then, I didn’t know what sacrifice she meant. I had some idea that I made her life harder, and that my presence somehow stole away her freedom, her choices.
What she really meant was that I reminded her of the man she gave up. My father.
I glanced into the waiting room, where Vivi and Sylvia were still asleep. Did they know? I hated the idea. It was hard enough knowing that Nana kept this from me. But she told them everything.
Ann stood near the coffee station, stirring powdered creamer into her cup as I made my way over. It was late now, the hospital more subdued than it had been, the lights dimmed and hallways quiet. She glanced up and gave me a tired smile.
“What’s that?” she asked, nodding down to the journal I clutched to my chest.
“Nana’s journal.”
When she began walking back toward the waiting area, I fell into step beside her. Could she not sense the tension coiling between us, my barely restrained anger? Ann took the seat next to Vivi and Sylvia, who were still sleeping, leaning on one another. I managed to keep everything in check until Ann spoke.
“Any juicy secrets?” she asked, giving me a smile like that was the silliest thing she’d ever heard, that Nana would have had any secrets to keep. As if she didn’t already know.
“Funny you should say that.”
Ann’s brows went up and she leaned forward. “Really? Nana had skeletons in the closet?”