Secrets from a Happy Marriage Read online

The sight of her mother standing there immobilized her.

  Her mother was waxen. Her dark red hair hung limp down past her shoulders. It was more than the typical marks of exhaustion marring her face. It was like a light had been wrenched from her.

  “He’s gone,” she said.

  Emma didn’t have to ask what that meant.

  Her grip was like iron on the letter, even though her hand trembled. Clinging to it like she was afraid she’d lose her hold on it.

  But she knew she already had.

  Because whatever had seemed possible outside her front door was impossible now that she was inside.

  WENDY

  Wendy McDonald finished putting the very last letter into the leather-bound scrapbook and placed it gently on the side table in the lavender sitting room, just next to the table that housed the antique sewing machine.

  Those letters and journal entries from Jenny Hansen, the mail-order bride of Olaf Hansen, the first lightkeeper’s wife, had been donated recently by the local museum.

  Wendy was on a mission to collect more information from each incarnation of the Cape Hope Lighthouse.

  She had recently been promised a batch of letters written by a soldier who’d been stationed here during WWII, offered generously by his family. They were in the process of having copies made so that the family could hang on to the legacy, but the letters would be coming soon and Wendy was pleased at the thought of adding them.

  She was having more trouble finding something personal from the time the inn had been a dorm, but she was confident she could find something. A little piece from that unique time.

  She took the bottle of furniture polish off the coffee table and began to condition the wood pieces in the room.

  This place was her pride and joy. Her salvation.

  Thirty-three years ago she’d found herself single, with two daughters and no idea what she’d wanted from life with her ex gone for good.

  She had been waiting tables, hoarding the small amount of money she’d gotten from her ex, and trying to stretch it all, worrying every night how it could continue. How she was going to find a way to keep a roof over their heads, to make her girls happy.

  She had been frayed down to her soul and the idea of just getting by—after so many years of living a life she hadn’t been happy in—had made her want to walk into the sea and let the water wash over her head.

  Then she’d heard an ad on the radio that had sounded to Wendy like the voice of God.

  The United States Forest Service wanted to turn the Lighthouse at Cape Hope, just outside the town of Sunset Bay, Oregon, into a bed-and-breakfast. And they were running a contest to find an innkeeper.

  Someone who could restore the place and find a way to make it attractive to tourists. Someone who could bring in revenue, both for themself and the department.

  The time was almost up for the contest.

  Wendy wrote a letter with shaking hands and more passion than skill. Then she’d bundled up baby Anna and six-year-old Rachel in their old car, and driven to Sunset Bay all the way from Medford.

  She’d slid the letter under the door with a voiceless prayer. And then she’d spent the last ten dollars in her purse buying ice cream while she sat there with a stomach churning from hunger, and nerves.

  Somehow, she’d won.

  Somehow, they’d seen that a single mother who had two of the most precious incentives a person could ask for would be the one to make this place special.

  And she had.

  They had.

  For six months she’d worked without pay. They’d bought necessities with her settlement, their lodging part and parcel of their role as innkeepers.

  And Wendy had prayed harder than she ever had in her life. Because if they could make the place profitable, she could teach her daughters that you could do anything. That you could heal from any wound.

  When Rick had walked away from her she’d been devastated. And she’d been afraid that having his children meant she would always live with one foot left in that life. They were pieces of him, after all.

  Bit by bit that had changed. As they’d built this property it had bonded her to her girls in a way that went deep. Until they’d been knit together so tightly there was no missing piece between them. Until they were a piece of her, and this place.

  As Wendy moved her rag over the banisters, making them gleam, she remembered the work she’d put in back then. How she’d spent days up on a stepladder restaining the cherry trim on every door and window frame—all hand carved in the 1800s by a German artist.

  With her restoration budget, she’d combed through antiques shops to find furniture that fit the Queen Anne–style of the home. Vanities with intricately carved legs, four-poster beds and claw-foot tubs.

  She’d shown her daughters that they could fashion a life from rubble. That miracles could come in the form of radio ads, as long as you were willing to take the drive, to write the letter and make that miracle happen. That old, rustic wood could shine again, and lace curtains in the window and a coat of fresh paint could make all the difference.

  They had lived in various homes on the property over the years. They’d started in the biggest house, the Captain’s House—which now boasted six guest rooms—until it was restored and ready for guests.

  It was all done now. Beautiful, restored. Like her life.

  She had done right.

  She had been so desperate to do right.

  Both of her daughters had married young, and to very good men.

  Rachel’d had it hard. But Jacob was a wonderful husband and father. They were close, at least, living on the other side of the duplex Wendy herself occupied.

  Then there was Anna.

  Beautiful Anna, with her bright red hair and freckles, who had always been such a bubbly and willful child. And in her she’d seen the potential for the kind of passion that could go wrong.

  Wendy knew it too well.

  Wendy had never been so thankful as when Anna started dating Thomas Martin. He had been bound for such great things, and it had been apparent even then. He led prayer around the flagpole at school, and gave a bible study at his house that was attended by almost all of the kids in their classes.

  It hadn’t been a surprise when he’d become an associate pastor at the largest church in town, and then had become the youngest head pastor to ever hold the position at Sunset Church.

  Then there was Emma. Her granddaughter. She had grown into such a beautiful young woman, and she had brilliant goals and aspirations. Her focus, her determination, gave Wendy the confidence that Emma would never fall into the kind of trap that Wendy herself had as a young girl.

  Falling in love with the wrong man had nearly ruined Wendy’s life.

  But she hadn’t let it. Not in the end.

  And she had done everything in her power to instill the right values in her girls, so that they wouldn’t have to deal with the heartache she’d had to.

  Here, they’d been safe. Here, they’d found refuge.

  Just as she finished with her polishing, there was a knock on her door.

  ANNA

  When Anna walked into her sister’s house and saw her, pale, tearstained and silent, the stark reality was undeniable. Jacob was gone.

  And Anna didn’t have the words.

  But her husband, Thomas, did.

  Because Thomas always had words for other people.

  She was the one that he never had them for.

  But it wasn’t the best time to worry about that. Maybe she was worrying about it because she was in shock. She’d expected the news of Jacob’s passing to come over a late-night phone call.

  She didn’t know why. She had just imagined that it would.

  Instead, it was the middle of the day and she had just taken a pie out of the oven when the phone rang, and it w
as Thomas telling her that he was coming home from the church office. That surprised her in and of itself because he did not call her when he was working. And he didn’t come home early for much of anything.

  She knew that her mother had told Thomas because it was easier for her to break it to him than it was for her to tell Anna. But what her mother didn’t know was that she and Thomas had spent the entire drive from their quiet row house through town and up the winding drive that led to the Lighthouse Inn in silence.

  She couldn’t think of a single thing to say to him. And it wasn’t just grief, though there was plenty of that.

  Jacob was like a brother to them both.

  Rachel and Jacob had been married since Anna was thirteen. She could hardly remember life without him.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, directing the question to Rachel.

  The words turned over in Anna’s head, echoed, because, of course, Rachel wasn’t all right, but it was also the most obvious question to ask, and for some reason Anna hadn’t said it.

  “I don’t know,” Rachel said. “I don’t know if I’m ever going to be all right again.”

  Her sister put her hand on the antique sideboard that sat by the door, as if she was bracing herself on it. And then she took it off as quickly as she placed it there.

  Because Rachel was never still for long.

  “Can I get you coffee? Tea?” She directed the questions at both Anna and Thomas.

  “Yes, thank you,” Thomas said at the same time Anna said, “I’m fine.”

  But Rachel looked relieved at having something to do, and Anna felt that yet again she had profoundly failed at being the one who was more insightful about her own sister.

  Her mother was sitting on the couch, pale and resolved. Anna and Rachel’s mother was always resolved. She was rarely still, though, and seeing her like that reinforced the wrongness of everything.

  Her niece, Emma, was sitting there looking numb. Frozen.

  Emma was a kid who’d had to be too serious, too quickly. Self-sufficient, self-reliant. When Emma was younger, Anna had helped with her often, so that Rachel could be there for Jacob when he had surgeries, and Wendy could be there for Rachel.

  She’d gotten older, though. And she hadn’t needed Anna to watch her anymore.

  But suddenly she felt like Emma might need her now.

  When Rachel returned with the drinks, she handed one to Thomas. “I guess... Maybe I shouldn’t... His body was so broken,” Rachel said, “I guess that it’s silly to grieve when he needed to be free of it.”

  “The Bible says that there’s a time to mourn, Rachel. You don’t have to hold back grief.”

  Thomas went on, his words building on one another, weaving themselves into a sermon, which was easy for him to do.

  He always knew the right thing to say. His voice was calming, comforting.

  But not to her. Not anymore.

  Anna sank down onto the floral couch, next to her niece.

  Emma stretched her lips into a poor imitation of a smile, and Anna tried to return it.

  “My mom won’t let me go upstairs,” she whispered. “She doesn’t want me to see him. Um... His—his body.” The last word broke. And something broke in Anna, too.

  It was almost a relief. To feel broken. To feel pain instead of numbness.

  “She’s trying to protect you,” Anna said.

  “My dad’s dead. I can’t be protected from that.”

  That word slipped like a shard of glass through Anna’s chest and embedded itself in her heart.

  There were just some things in the world you couldn’t be protected from. No matter how hard you tried. You could do all the right things, say all the right things... And still...

  She looked over at Thomas.

  And still...

  “Thank you,” Wendy said, directing her thanks at Thomas. “I don’t know what we would do without you.”

  Those words settled over Anna like concrete. Made her feel like she was weighted down to the spot. But they also triggered something inside her. That pastor’s-wife instinct that she knew so well. That was such a practiced role she could put it on like a coat when she wanted to. That was the Anna that they needed. Not the Anna that was broken up, struggling.

  She’d hidden that Anna for the past two years, and there was a reason for that.

  Purpose turned over inside her and it lit a spark of motion. “I have a pie in the car,” she said. “I’ll bring it in. Of course, Thomas and I will help arrange the funeral and get the word out at church.”

  Rachel looked startled that Anna had spoken. “Thank you,” she said.

  Anna smiled. Serene. Not too big. Not happy. Reassuring. The smile she knew so well. A smile for sad times. One that she’d used so many times before.

  “It’s what we’re here for.”

  But somehow, the words felt wrong, and so did she.

  Because the shape of their family had changed, a great gaping hold left where Jacob had once been.

  And Anna had no idea how they were going to go on.

  2

  This is not the ocean that I know. In California the water sparkles like a jewel in the sun, and here, if there is sun, it is swallowed whole by the mist, the clouds and the relentless gray of the sea. I fear I have made a mistake.

  —FROM THE DIARY OF JENNY HANSEN, JANUARY 15, 1900

  RACHEL

  Rachel had lost track of how many events they’d hosted at the Lighthouse Inn. They always used the kitchen as the staging area, and expanded to the dining room when the event was to be held outside.

  There was a strange sort of sameness in what was happening now. Her mother looking at lists. Her sister putting last-minute touches on baked goods.

  Her daughter, Emma, looking on.

  But this wasn’t a wedding. It wasn’t a bachelorette party, or a birthday party.

  It was a funeral.

  Her husband’s funeral.

  She was staring down at a list of food meant to feed the guests of her husband’s funeral.

  “Do you think this is enough bread?” She looked across the table, laden with baskets of rolls, at her mother.

  “I would think so,” Wendy replied.

  Rachel had stayed up all night baking, because there was nothing else to do. Make bread. Over and over again. Batch upon batch of rolls, each one feeling imperative.

  Keeping busy so much better than trying to sleep.

  “Well, we have to be sure,” Rachel said. “I don’t want anyone to be hungry.”

  Those words gutted her with their absurdity. She didn’t want them to be hungry? They were grieving. A dinner roll wasn’t going to help with that.

  “I don’t think anyone is going to go hungry,” Anna said, her voice soft and reassuring. “Anyway, I’ve baked fifteen pies, and there are some ladies from the church who are going to bring extra food just to be certain.”

  “Okay,” Rachel said, her sister’s reassurance throwing her off-balance.

  She knew that Anna did this. That she handled all kinds of difficult situations, but Rachel had never needed Anna to care for her.

  She was used to being the one doing the caring.

  “You’ve been constantly in our prayers, Rachel.”

  Rachel gawked at her sister. Anna seemed smooth and serene, which was how she had been for the past fourteen years. Ever since marrying Thomas and settling into her role as pastor’s wife. It was like Rachel couldn’t touch her anymore.

  “Thank you,” Rachel said.

  And all she could think of was the great yawning distance between them.

  She baked fifteen pies.

  Yes. She had. But she would have done the same sort of thing for anyone.

  “Thanks, Aunt Anna,” Emma said.

  Her daughter’s sincere thank-y
ou made Rachel feel slightly ashamed that she had reacted so angrily.

  She took a deep breath. “You know we appreciate it. And I appreciate Thomas doing the service.”

  “Of course,” Anna said, her smile the appropriate amount of sympathetic and warm.

  It looked like a mask.

  “All right, we have everything,” Wendy said, looking down at the checklist. She faced her daughters, her expression serious and determined. “We know how to do this. We know how to plan an amazing event. So let’s make this one worthy of Jacob.”

  Rachel set aside her issues with Anna. She focused on the familiar motions that went into preparing for an event. Her daughter, her mother and her sister just being there made her feel less brittle. Made her feel like she might be able to keep going.

  But then, when it was all done, and there was nothing left to prepare, she stood and looked around and realized Jacob was gone. Really gone.

  And all that had been familiar a moment before felt dark and uncertain now.

  She didn’t know how to live in a world without Jacob in it.

  ANNA

  Anna thought that her face might break. She had been smiling for the past two hours. Standing on this damp grass, her shoes sinking into the muck, the mist clinging to her hair and her grief clinging to her body like another skin.

  And over it all, she wore that pastor’s-wife coat.

  It had been the most important thing she’d put on this morning. Not her black shawl and black pants. Not her black boots.

  “They need reassurance,” Thomas had said right before they had walked in. And the way that he looked at her—stone-faced enough that she thought he might finally have noticed the distance between them.

  She couldn’t remember the last time he’d touched her.

  Even when they’d walked into the funeral, they had done so side by side, with a healthy amount of space between them.

  It felt like a metaphor for their marriage.

  For her.

  She’d gotten good at separate.

  A kick sparked in her heart and she tamped it down, because she was here to be the pastor’s wife, not to think about anything else. She was here to support her sister, not to think about her own marriage.