The Secrets Sisters Keep (16 page)

Chapter Thirty

E
llie was so angry that she couldn’t speak.

“Uncle Edward!” Amanda shouted, running toward the boat. “We thought you were dead! There’s a noose in the tree! We thought it was you!”

Ellie watched Edward chuckle and haul himself from the boat and onto the shore, looking the same as he had at breakfast yesterday.

“You missed your party, you silly man!” Amanda continued prattling. “And why are you with them?” She poked a finger in the air toward Ray Williams and his son.

“Don’t blame my captain here!” Edward said, nodding toward the boy. “I asked for his help—he’s our
Times
paperboy, you know. I can be pretty convincing when it comes to doling out good tips!”

Ray stood up. “I found him when I went back to the house. Apparently Kevin brought him to the island yesterday. Today Edward called Kevin on a walkie-talkie, asking to be rescued. He said he’d been found out and he had to get away.”

Of course, Ellie thought, Wes and Amanda’s boys had “found him out.” She wished she’d felt surprised that Wes McCall had lied.

Edward looked at Ellie with hangdog, please-forgive-me eyes. “I wanted you girls to get back together without me being in the way,” he said. “Life is so short! It was time for forgiveness!”

“What about your two hundred guests?” Ellie seethed. “What was the point of inviting all of them?”

His eyes twinkled. They twinkled! He was really enjoying this!

“I thought my guests could be a buffer if the four of you tried to strangle one another. But how was the party? Damn, I hate missing a party! Did the acrobats show up on time?”

If Ellie had been home, she would have retreated to her bedroom and locked the door. Instead, she turned her gaze up to Carleen. “Carleen, I’m sure someone will give you a lift back to the house. If all of you will excuse me, I am going to leave.” With that, she brushed past her uncle, who had started trundling up the hill.

“My dear girl, you came,” she heard Edward say to her red-haired sister. “It’s so nice to see you.”

Ellie didn’t wait to see if he kissed Carleen’s cheek, if he continued to act as if he’d done nothing wrong. She got into the canoe, picked up a paddle, and took a long, long breath.

I will leave this place now,
she promised herself as she calmly began to stroke.
I will leave Edward to his dysfunctional life and his untreated cancer and his questionable lover, and I will start my life again, all by myself.

A
manda watched Edward fuss over her long-lost sister. It was disappointing that Edward was still alive; it was annoying that she would not be able to pin his demise on Carleen. That would have been so sweet.

“You look wonderful,” Edward continued. “Was it a very long ride? Where is Belchertown, anyway?” He was acting as if they had all the time in the world and he hadn’t just played the ultimate mean stunt.

“Uncle Edward,” Amanda interrupted, “I am going to have Ray bring me back. Unless you want to row the boat I borrowed from the Donnellys, I suggest you come with us. Ray can tow the rowboat with the rope you fashioned into that ridiculous noose.”

Edward laughed. “Oh, all right. We’ll come with you. But only if you tell me what the dickens was going on with that helicopter. And if you promise all the guests have finally left. I really had no interest in seeing most of them. They always were bores. I expect that now they’re simply
old
bores.”

“Sort of like you?” Amanda asked.

“Amanda can be so unyielding,” he said to Carleen. “Sometimes she’s quite boring, too.”

“She was worried about you, Uncle Edward. We all were. It wasn’t very amusing, the way you disappeared.”

“Oh, tit. I send you away and you come back like the rest of them.” He put his arm around Carleen and gave her a fatherly hug that made Amanda want to puke, because what right did Carleen have to Edward’s stingy affection?

She supposed, however, she should give credit to her sister for not agreeing with Edward’s comment about her being unyielding.

Then Edward looked around. “Where is Babe? Didn’t she come to find me?”

Amanda stopped short of announcing that Babe had been screwing Ray Williams, or something close to that, and no doubt was freshening up. But that would have been crude, and Amanda wouldn’t lower herself to that, so instead she said, “I’m sure she’s with her
husband,
” loudly enough for Ray to hear. “She’s really
devoted
to him.” She couldn’t see Ray’s reaction.

“Then, let’s get a move on!” Edward said, as if, next to Carleen, Babe was the most important person in the world. He turned back to the boat and asked Ray and the boy to give him a hand with the tent and the rest of his crap.

Yes, Amanda thought again, it was very annoying that Edward wasn’t dead.

T
hey chugged across Lake Kasteel like an overweight barge on the Erie Canal. Carleen wished she’d hitched a ride in the canoe with Ellie: between Amanda, who clearly was angry with Edward, and Ray, who didn’t seem to know quite what to say, and Edward, who could not stop firing questions like a five-year-old child about who had shown up at the party, had they been amused by the games, and had anyone brought him a gift, Carleen was ready to board the next bus home, if she could only find a ride to the station. The last twenty-four hours had been grueling, and they had certainly quashed any smidgen of hope that her sisters would forgive her, that they could reconnect, whether she told them about Mother’s love letters or not.

Ray Williams, she suspected, might be more than glad to accommodate her transportation needs, given the remarks Amanda kept making now about how handsome Babe’s husband was, and how terrific he’d been with her boys.

“So,” Edward continued, “do you think there are any leftovers? I’ve had nothing except rum cake and beans since yesterday morning.”

“Who’s fault is that?” Amanda snarled.

Edward answered with a chuckle, and Carleen turned away, her gaze roaming toward the rowboat that the men, indeed, had attached to the pontoon (thanks to the nasty noose rope) and now bobbed in the tiny wake. She wondered if Amanda and Edward always sniped at each other, and, if so, why Amanda let it continue. Didn’t she realize he was toying with her? Didn’t she realize he was merely doing it because she was such easy bait?

“Carleen,” Edward said, apparently having tired of teasing her sister, “I hope you brought your husband and children. For the family photograph I’m planning tomorrow.”

The invitation had noted to bring something white but had not specified that the whole family would be in the photo. Even if it had, she wouldn’t have brought Brian and the girls. Why would Edward think she would subject her husband and children to . . . them?

“I came alone,” she replied. She didn’t add that she had not intended to stay for the photo, anyway.

“Well, we can have their pictures taken later and Henry can Photoshop them in.” Edward chuckled again, his jolly old self.

Carleen kept her eyes pitched on the rowboat and the water.

Then Ray said, “You’re married, Carleen? You have kids?”

“Yes,” she replied, grateful that Ray’s son then bumped Edward’s dock and the others became more engaged in securing the boat than in listening to details of Carleen’s family life. She decided that when they disembarked, she might as well ask Ray for a ride to the bus station.

The four adults padded toward the boat’s small metal ramp.

Then, Edward moved close to Carleen. He tugged the ribbon on her ponytail, undid the bow, and held it in front of her. “I hope you haven’t worn this to taunt me,” he said quietly. “I’ve often wondered how much you knew.”

Without further comment, Edward returned the ribbon, tottered off the pontoon, and walked up the hill toward the house.

B
abe tucked herself into the shadows of the big oak trees down by the boathouse. She hadn’t wanted to go with Ray to find Uncle Edward—she was too confused in the moment, too unsure what to say, how to act, what to tell and not tell. Her heart was too happy to let reality sneak in. Especially if reality meant they’d found Edward’s remains instead of him.

She sucked in a tiny breath, hoping that was not the case, hoping he had not died before she’d had a chance to see him one last time.

Finally, the pontoon boat thumped against the dock. Babe’s heart skipped a beat when she saw who was at the controls: the boy looked so much like Ray had at that age. In a few years he, too, might steal the heart of a summer girl. Hopefully, their story would be happier.

From her place in the shadows, Babe watched Amanda and Carleen walk off the boat. Then came the white-haired man who looked vaguely like Uncle Edward, though he ambled more slowly and did not seem as tall as the fifty-something-year-old she’d left behind. Her eyes started to mist.

She supposed she should step out of the shadows and welcome him home. But since Ray had kissed her, had
touched
her again, Babe didn’t want to think of anything but him. But
them
.

So she waited until her sisters and her uncle had gone by, until she heard Ray tell his son to wait there, until Ray jumped off the boat and walked up the dock before she moved into view.

“One uncle delivered unscathed, so to speak,” he said.

“I noticed.”

He nodded toward the group ascending the hill. “You don’t want to see him?”

“Not yet.”
Not while I’m still thinking about you. Not while I’m still feeling you pressed against me.

He looked into her eyes. “Babe, I don’t know what to do. This is crazy, you know that?”

“I do.”

“I mean, it’s absolutely nuts. What are we doing?”

“I can’t speak for you, but I’m following my heart.”

He looked at his watch. “We’ve seen each other all of three hours in the last twenty-five years. Why hasn’t my heart stopped hammering?”

“If you’re going into cardiac arrest, I must be, too.”

“Shit.”

“I know.”

He moved his gaze up to the house. “You have a husband up there. A famous, rich, incredibly handsome husband, according to Amanda.”

“She can have him.” There. She’d said it out loud. She didn’t want Wes anymore. Maybe she never had. He’d come into her life when it had been convenient and she’d been lonely, and that’s where it had ended.

And even though they’d never had real sex, Babe had never understood why he’d insisted on separate bedrooms when they were home, why he never tried to satisfy his wife, who had needs in that department. It was as if he wanted no reminders that he couldn’t complete the deed that came with man-and-wife roles.

Still, her issues with Wes weren’t solely about sex.

“I only want you, Ray. That’s never changed.”

“Maybe you only felt that way because you didn’t have me. Maybe because of the baby.”

She flinched a little—it was hard to hear him refer to “
the baby
” and know it had been his. “No. I’ve always loved you. From the first day I saw you.”

“By the water.”

“Yes.”

They stood in silence. He reached down, took her hand, held it to his cheek. “Shit,” he said again, closing his eyes.

“You don’t have to love me if you don’t want to,” Babe said, listening, at last, to her full heart. “But I’m going to tell my husband tonight. He will go back to the coast without me.”

“Whoa,” Ray said. “You’re going to tell him what?”

“That I don’t love him. I never really did.”

Ray hesitated. “And then what, Babe? Are you planning to move here, to Lake Kasteel? Are you planning to live happily ever after out here with a guy who works in his house in a T-shirt and jeans? Who types newsletters for the lake association on his ten-year-old laptop because he doesn’t want the land and the water to go to crap?”

“Yes,” she said. “If he’ll have me.”

He dropped her hand. He stood perfectly still. Then he wrapped his arms tightly around her and said, “I can’t believe you’re finally home.”

Chapter Thirty-one

B
ecause Babe knew that few things were as easy as she might hope they were, she also knew that Ray had to leave, that she had to face her uncle, her sisters, and Wes alone.

She watched Ray get back onto the pontoon, watched the boat glide from the dock. Then she walked up to the house with long, determined strides: her head bent, her fists tight, her eyes riveted to the grass, which had been flattened by party footprints.

Was she being impulsive? Definitely. But she’d always pondered things over and over to exhausting death, so Babe couldn’t be sure what was insane and what was not.

When she reached the top of the hill, she raised her eyes, and there were her relations, aligned like bowling pins. Uncle Edward stood in front.

“Naomi,” he said, “I am so glad you’re here.” His old eyes filled with tears and he opened up his arms. Babe stepped into them as if she were a little girl again receiving Uncle Edward’s hug. She was, indeed, taller than him now, but his hug still seemed as soft and safe as she remembered.

Like him, she cried.

Then she viewed the rest of them: Ellie, Amanda, Carleen. Amanda’s husband was behind the sisters, and Amanda’s boys and her daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend and . . . Wes.

Oh, right. Wes.

“Uncle Edward,” Babe managed to say, “it’s good to see you. I’m so glad you’re okay.”

He grinned and nodded and pulled away, dabbing his eyes, then hers. “Fit as a fiddler on the roof,” he said, dredging up a joke from his Broadway days. “Too bad the photographer won’t be here until tomorrow! This would be a lovely shot right now!”

No!
Babe wanted to scream.
No, no, not with Wes!
But, of course, she couldn’t say it yet, not with everyone standing there.

“Let’s go inside,” Ellie said. “Henry has set up sherry in the drawing room.”

They moved
en masse
into the living room, which Edward always insisted on calling the drawing room because he thought it made the house sound important. He said
drawing room
was the proper term because his bedroom—which, in its day, had been reserved for the king—was directly off the room, just as it had been in sixteenth-century England. When Babe was a little girl, Edward had told her the drawing room was a magical place where people went to draw, so she’d often dragged Mrs. Minerva there with crayons and a big pad from the table in her room. When Babe was eight or nine, Amanda had told her that wasn’t what it meant, that
drawing
room meant it was a place for people to
withdraw
from other things like cocktails or dinner or relatives they didn’t like. She might as well have said there was no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny. In fact, Amanda had told Babe those things, too, long before it had been necessary or even nice.

They filed into the drawing room now, Edward and Babe in the lead. Somewhere between the backyard and there, Wes had materialized on her other side, cupping her elbow, acting like her protector, because he didn’t know the role had been recast.

The small man who Babe guessed was Henry stood next to the sideboard sporting a tiny grin. “It’s nice to see everyone together.”

“It’s nice to be here,” Wes said first, as if he belonged in Edward’s house or perhaps intended to take over.

Edward plucked the first glass for himself. “I understand there was quite an aerial show at the party, my boy,” he said to Babe’s husband. “A bit of publicity?”

Wes removed his sunglasses, an act Babe knew he performed when trying to seem sincere.
An act,
she thought.
His whole life was an act!
Why hadn’t she seen it before now?

“We were harassed at the airport,” Wes said. He said
harassed
with the emphasis on
har-
and not on -
assed
, unlike the way most people in America pronounced it.

Babe took a glass and a hearty swallow.

“Sometimes the paparazzi are so inconvenient,” Wes droned. “I’m sorry if it disrupted anyone.” He turned toward the others, as if in apology.

Babe took another drink and looked around the room at the brocade-covered English sofas and the heavy dark wood chairs with faded burgundy cushions and thick arms. Nothing looked as large as it once had, as exciting, as magical. It merely looked worn out and tired. She decided she would tell Wes her decision after dinner.

“Well, my boy,” Edward guffawed and patted Wes on the back, “of course it disrupted everyone! That was your intent, was it not?” Edward didn’t have to explain how he knew Wes had orchestrated the show. Everyone knew Edward had been a master at manipulating the press. With a contented smile, Edward turned from him to Jonathan. “And how are things in the world of architecture?”

Babe suppressed a laugh; she’d never seen Wes speechless. She meandered toward the far end of the room as if suddenly captivated by the thick-framed portraits of men no one had known but whose coloring and style matched the wainscoting.

A
manda smirked. Even a moron would have picked up on Edward’s mockery of Babe’s once-pretty-boy husband, who, well, look at that, had finally graced them with the removal of his sunglasses. She had to admit, he did have gorgeous eyes. As for the rest, no matter what she wanted Babe or Ray to think, she wished Wes would stay the hell away from her boys. Something about him was too aggressive and too phony. Oh, God, she thought, I hope he’s not a child molester, someone who looks for vulnerable boys and . . . well . . .

Could one tell by scrutinizing?

Her boys didn’t look any different. Chandler sipped sherry as if he were of age, as if he enjoyed it, though Amanda detected a row of sweat beads shining on his upper lip. Chase was drinking ginger ale out of a sherry glass and was preoccupied with a spider that marched along the baseboard.

No, she thought, it didn’t look as if either boy had been molested by the Hollywood-has-been.

Draining her glass, she moved back to Edward’s man, who poured her another although she had not made eye contact. Perhaps in another life he had been not a chorus boy but a valet.

She wondered if Ellie was right, that he had something to hide.

Like the rest of us
.

Sipping again, she strolled to a tall window whose tiny panes were framed by leaded glass. She wondered if Edward would choose this evening—tonight!—after dinner to tell them he was going to divvy up his fortune, or if he would wait until after the picture-taking tomorrow.

Could she hold out until then?

Could she survive one more night pretending everything was fine?

Staring out the window, past the arborvitae and the peonies and the rest of the damn flowers, Amanda wondered why she still clung to the hope that Edward was going to bail her out, when he’d already said he would not.

E
llie watched Uncle Edward, who was deep in conversation with her brother-in-law. Edward didn’t look like a man with cancer who had refused treatment. His cheeks were rosy and his spirits were, well, spirited, and he didn’t look as if he only had a short time—what . . . weeks? months?—to live.

He was exasperating, but that was nothing new. Had he really disappeared in order to get the girls back together without him in the way? Yes, she could believe that, now knowing that he was sick. The staging of the noose, however, had been worthy of reproach, yet, yet . . . for now, Edward was alive, so staying angry at him simply wasn’t possible.

Turning away, Ellie moved to Babe, who was sitting in one of the massive chairs that Edward had refused to let Ellie discard when she’d tried sprucing up the place. She sat down next to Babe and smiled.

“You’ve seen Ray again.”

Babe nodded in reply.

Ellie toyed with her glass. “He never asked about you. I always thought that was so sad. You both had been so young.”

“He never knew about the baby. He thought I didn’t want to see him anymore. Neither of us knew his parents kept us apart.”

“I figured that. Once, I almost brought it up after a lake association meeting. But I decided there was no point in digging up the past. He’d been married and had a son by then. And your life had taken off in such a fabulous direction.”

Babe smiled. “If you’re going to try and talk me out of what I’m going to do, forget it. I appreciate the effort, but my mind’s made up.”

Ellie lifted her eyebrows.

“I’m going to be with Ray, Ellie. I’m going to divorce Wes. He’s fine for Hollywood, but he’s no good in the real world.”

“Oh, honey, are you sure? You have your career; you’ve been in California so many years. You only saw Ray today—”

“I’ve never been more sure of anything.”

Ellie had to give Babe credit for knowing what she wanted, that she did not hem and haw the way Ellie might have done. “Well,” she said, patting her sister’s knee. “I’ll support your decision, no matter what.” She stood again, having remembered that she’d resolved to stop giving advice.

C
arleen declined both sherry and ginger ale, wishing she’d found enough composure to have asked Ray for that ride to the bus station. But even now, she was still trying to regain her bearings after Edward’s remark about the ribbon:
“I hope you haven’t worn this to taunt me
.
I’ve often wondered how much you knew.”

With those few words, he had confirmed the secret. Shouldn’t that be enough? Did her sisters really need to know the rest?

Sometimes Carleen thought the fire had given them a good excuse to strip her from their lives. They’d never liked her: could she blame them? She’d done so little back then that was likable.

No matter what, Carleen knew she had, at least, accomplished a few things this weekend: she’d seen them all and they’d seen her; they’d seen that she had straightened out her life; they knew she had a family, a career, some respect. She supposed that was more than she could have hoped for.

As a bonus, thanks to her, Babe and Ray had met again. It looked as if they were getting more than closure.

She’d also stood up to Amanda and left her bemused (and disappointed?) when she realized Carleen hadn’t hung Edward, after all.

Yes, Carleen had accomplished a few things, though she wasn’t sure if Ellie still thought she’d been trying to steal her jewelry. Leaning against the ornate walnut sideboard, Carleen wondered what purpose it would serve to tell them the rest.

Edward knew that she knew. And that should be enough.