The Art of Keeping Secrets Read Free Page A

them.
    Christine dropped the ladder over the side of the boat, shone a flashlight toward the four of them. “There is absolutely no way I am jumping into that dark water. There is something wrong with all of you. Now get out of there. I’m starving and the crabs are going bad back at the dock.”
    Mae joined Christine, sat down and dangled her legs over the side. “If I hadn’t just paid for these brand-new capris . . .”
    Annabelle bunched her skirt into her left hand and swam toward the ladder, inhaled with long, deep breaths and remembered a time, long ago, when she and Knox took his Sunfish out into the bay and accidentally tipped it over. They’d held on to the upside down boat, enjoying the touch of their legs floating in the water below them, brushing up against each other. She doubted she would ever find a moment that didn’t bring Knox to mind and heart. Even now she could barely swim five feet without thinking of him. No matter how or where she redirected her attention, Knox was there.
    They clambered back aboard, raised anchor and passed towels around. They laughed, held up wineglasses and toasted to friendship. Shawn navigated toward the dock as they asked for updates on one another’s children and jobs. They teased Mae and Frank about having named their only child Thornton, the most “country club” name possible, and now he was off in Africa doing mission work.
    They agreed with Cooper and Christine that having kids in high school involved a constant battle of wills. Shawn stood at the wheel and laughed at their stories without contributing his own, since he’d never had children. His wife had left him in their second year of marriage, and he’d never remarried, despite his best friends’ many efforts to set him up. “How’s Jake doing at UNC?” he asked Annabelle. “Is he hanging in there?”
    She nodded. “He seems to be doing great. I miss him insanely. The house echoes like an empty cave without him and his music. But he calls every day. He doesn’t like his roommate, but he has so many friends I don’t think it matters. Classes are kicking his butt. I think he wishes he’d backed off on the advanced courses.”
    Cooper shuffled his feet. “If he needs . . . anything, you know I can help.”
    “We all can,” Shawn said.
    “He’s fine,” Annabelle said. “Really fine. Keeley is the one who’s killing me right now, with her cocky attitude and newly acquired driver’s license.”
    “There’s no worse combination,” Christine agreed. “It’s like that ‘hunch punch’ y’all made in college—remember? You guys threw anything you could think of in a trash can and then added grain alcohol.”
    A collective groan came from everyone.
    Christine laughed. “The same dangerous combination as a sixteen-year-old girl going through adolescence and driving a car. We just pray they don’t do anything truly stupid.”
    Shawn adjusted the direction of the boat. “Wow, you’re really making me wish I had teenagers.” He smiled, and then hollered at Cooper, “Grab the bowline, will you?”
    Once they’d piled out of the boat and settled onto the dock for fresh crab, the familiar motions, words and feelings of friendship surrounded Annabelle. Shawn stepped up behind her. “I’m glad you came. For a while there I thought you’d never come back out on the boat.”
    “Me, too,” Annabelle said, touched Shawn’s arm. She spent the rest of the evening grateful for what remained constant: her love for her friends and her children.
     
Spring had settled quietly into the Lowcountry, bringing soft breezes and a green haze. A shower had passed through earlier that morning, but now sunlight sifted between the leaves and fell onto a lawn sparkling with raindrops, onto pavement varnished by rainwater. From the front porch of Annabelle’s home—her and Knox’s home—on Main Street, Marsh Cove, South Carolina, she could see across the street to the park that bordered Marsh Cove Bay,