How To Keep A Secret: A fantastic and brilliant feel-good summer read that you won’t want to end!. Sarah Morgan
to build his home on what was arguably the best plot of land in the whole of Martha’s Vineyard. When her mother’s parents had died in an accident, leaving Nancy an orphan at the age of eight, she’d continued to live in the house with her grandmother.
Money had been tight and they’d rented out rooms to cover their costs.
The house was considered historic, and occasionally Nancy would give a private tour to students or history buffs, and talk about the Vineyard’s place in the whaling industry. Jenna’s father had been heard to say on many an occasion, usually when huddled in his coat in front of a blazing log fire, that because a person was interested in history didn’t mean they wanted to experience it firsthand. The antiquated heating system of The Captain’s House counted as history as far as Tom was concerned. In the middle of winter there had been many nights when Jenna had crawled into bed with her sister for warmth.
Two years previously the heating and wiring had been replaced as part of an upgrade and modernization.
Jenna had wondered at the time why her mother had waited until after her father had died to do it.
The door was open and Jenna walked through the entryway with its wood paneling and wide-planked floor. There were bookshelves stuffed with books, and more books piled next to them on the floor. Every surface was covered in the possessions and purchases of previous generations.
Her mother was a hoarder. Jenna had never seen her throw a single thing away.
There were items in the house that had belonged to her great-grandmother and were never used. Some of those things were ugly, but still Nancy wouldn’t hear of disposing of them.
She considered herself the custodian of the family’s heritage.
Jenna knew that an entire bedroom upstairs was filled with her father’s things. Trophies he’d won playing golf, his model boat collection, his clothes. Did her mother ever go in there? Did she cry over his things?
She found Nancy in the kitchen, opening mail. “Hi, Mom. I made cakes for your book group. Cute, don’t you think?” She removed the lid with a flourish.
“So pretty! Thank you.” Nancy took the tin from her and placed it on the table next to the papers. “How was your day?”
For a wild moment Jenna contemplated telling her the truth.
Not pregnant. Feel crap about it. Any chance of a hug?
She couldn’t remember when her mother had last hugged her.
“My day was fine.” Holding her feelings inside, she walked to the window and stared out across the lawn to the sea. “It’s cold out today. Windy.” Were they really reduced to talking about the weather?
“How’s Greg?”
“He’s great.” She turned. Was it her imagination or was her mother looking older? The lines around her eyes were more pronounced and her hair seemed to have lost its shine.
Jenna had seen photos of her mother as a young woman. Her features were too bold to qualify as pretty, but she’d been striking and had her own individual style. That style seemed to have deserted her years before. Gone were the colorful outfits that had raised eyebrows on the few occasions she’d picked Jenna up from school. These days she dressed mostly in black and navy, as if life had drained the brightness from her.
Nancy signed a letter and slipped it into an envelope. “He’s a special man. It’s good to see you settled and happy, Jenna.”
The comment struck her as odd. It bordered on the personal, and personal was a land her mother rarely visited.
She almost asked if something was wrong, but decided there was no point, so instead they had a neutral conversation about a plan to build affordable housing and the challenges of maintaining the rural character of the island while managing the increase in summer visitors.
“The school is at capacity. We can’t take any more kids without compromising educational standards.” Jenna sat down at the table. It had belonged to her great-grandmother and there were scars and gouges in the wood to prove it. Somewhere underneath Jenna knew she would find her name scratched into the wood.
“Any funny classroom stories for me? I could use some light entertainment.”
Jenna often regaled her with stories, although she’d learned to talk about her day without mentioning anything personal about the kids.
Most of the parents would have been horrified to learn how much their six-year-olds could divulge to their first-grade teacher.
She told her mother about the school trip they had planned to the nature reserve, and about the lesson she’d taught on states of matter where the children had made ice cream in the classroom. The idea had been to demonstrate that a liquid could become a solid, but two of the children had managed to cover themselves in cream.
“And Lily Baker made me a gorgeous card.” She pulled it out of her bag and passed it across the table. “Don’t shake it. It’s heavy on the glitter.”
“She’s back at school?” Her mother slipped her glasses back on so she could look at the card. “I saw her when she was in hospital. Took her a copy of Paint with Nancy and some pencils.”
Back in the day when her mother had been something of a global name in the art world and there had been much demand for her work, someone had suggested producing upmarket educational material—In other words a coloring book, Jenna had said to Lauren—designed to encourage budding artists. The idea was that children would feel they had been given the opportunity to paint with Nancy.
The project had never taken off and boxes of the coloring books had gathered dust in one of the unused rooms in The Captain’s House.
“How did you know Lily was in hospital?”
“Her grandmother is in my book group.”
“Of course. Yes, Lily had a few days in hospital with a fever. Fully recovered, thank goodness.”
They talked for a while and then Jenna went to use the bathroom, but on the way something caught her eye.
“Hey, Mom.” She paused and called out to her mother. “What happened to the painting on this wall?” It was a beautiful seascape, painted by her mother early in her career and one of the few that had never been offered for sale. Her mother’s career as an artist could be divided into two distinct phases. Her earlier work was light and bright and her later work was stormy and dark. Lauren called it her depressing phase. The missing painting was one of her early works, painted before her mother had hit the big time. Jenna loved the wild swirls of blues and greens.
Surely her mother hadn’t sold it?
Her mother emerged from the kitchen. “I—” She stared at the faded space on the wall as if she’d forgotten about it. “I took it down. I thought I might…redecorate.”
“Do you want help? I could come over on the weekend.”
Her mother didn’t hide her alarm. “I don’t think so. I still remember the mess you made of the rug when you decided to paint Lauren’s room bright blue. I came back from a day at the studio and spent the next two days painting my own house instead of a canvas.”
Jenna remembered that incident, too.
Lauren had redecorated her bedroom at least once every three months. Any money she had, she’d spent on interior design magazines. She’d study them, and then use the ideas she liked best, enlisting Jenna to help transform her room to match her latest vision. They’d dragged furniture from one side of the room to another, painted walls and changed fabrics.
On one occasion Jenna, as dreamy as she was clumsy, had tripped over a tin of blue paint and sent it flowing over the floor.
With her usual artistic flourish, their mother had turned the streaked floor into a smooth surface of ocean blue. Then she’d diluted the color for the walls until the room looked like an aquarium