The Art of Keeping Secrets Read Free

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 assured 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 wineglass. “Who you calling an old man?”
    Annabelle jumped back when Frank went up on the bow, handed Mae his wineglass.
    “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 space, until Annabelle half-believed Knox was with