The Neighbor's Secret(15)

Mike was more unnerved than Annie, who by Laurel’s birth, was inured to the fact that some people felt compelled to confess their wackiest truths to pregnant women, like they were all involuntary priests.

But when Laurel came out, all pale milky skin and jet-black hair, the nurse had looked at Mike, her lips pressed into a tight line. She’s lovely, she had finally said in a brisk tone that might as well have been an apology. People are who they are, after all.

Annie had lain on the hospital bed, annoyed less by the stings of the doctor’s stitches and by the fact that her midsection was an accordion squeezing out a tortured “La Vie en Rose” than by the nurse’s disappointment about Laurel’s hair color, which seemed to Annie like disappointment about Laurel.

She almost said something defensive about how perfect Laurel was, but pandering to the foot-in-mouth set wasn’t how she wanted to kick off motherhood.

It only occurred to Annie years later that this entire memory was less about the nurse and more about Annie’s own fears of Mike’s disappointment. Which was silly. He couldn’t have cared less, didn’t even react to the nurse’s comment about Laurel’s hair, was immediately besotted.

But of course he was. Mike was Mike. People are who they are.

Laurel had been born cautious and cerebral, while Hank had been born energetic and confident enough to push boundaries.

Just last week, Annie had come home from her walk to see him in the driveway, stripping a D-cell battery to find out what was inside. Mike’s mom, hearing the story, had reminded Annie that in all of his childhood pictures, Mike was in a cast or on crutches. A bandage and a giant smile.

They’re two peas in a pod, Mike’s mom had said.

Who would Laurel turn out like? Who was her twin pea?

But Annie should stop pegging her children. They were too young for it, and even if their personalities seemed predetermined, things changed.

And kids soaked up that stuff. Parents were flawed human beings, who for a few years there had all the power of gods. How you were treated, experiences, mattered just as much as disposition.

Take Lena Meeker.

Annie found it almost impossible to reconcile Lena now with the woman she’d seen on that summer night fourteen years ago.

Light on her feet, tendrils loose around her face, Lena had been a vision, gliding around the party in that seafoam-green dress with floaty layers. She was here, there. A hand on an arm, her head tossed backward, mouth open in laughter.

And Rachel?

It was almost impossible to assess.

Based on what Annie could glean online, Rachel Meeker was living a full life in Boston. She had a boring corporate job with one of those meaningless-sounding titles—vice president of operations and sales blah blah blah—and a fiancé.

The way Rachel had fled home that summer, though, indicated a disruption in trajectory. She’d still been a kid then, and as far as anyone knew, she’d never returned, not even for summer breaks or Christmas or to show off her new boyfriend. It didn’t seem healthy to Annie, but she liked to think that Rachel had good reasons for staying away—maybe her life on the East Coast was so chock-full of great things that she couldn’t find the time to come back.

Annie wasn’t aware of how hard she’d been pressing the pencil tip to the legal pad until its tip broke off.

The corollary to Mike’s philosophy—people are who they are—was that life wore grooves in people. It changed them.

How very poetic, Annie. How oblique.

Life wore grooves completely glossed over Annie’s part, how she’d watched from the shadows that night, poised to pounce.

Life’s grooves may have eroded the Meeker women’s vibrancy—sure, why not—but you know what had helped things along?

One swift impulsive push from Annie.



If it was murder: What happened between the two of them out there?

An hour before the party, I passed by Lena’s house with the thought of catching her for an early drink, before the crowds. When I arrived, I saw that Annie appeared to have the same idea. She and Lena were outside, sitting next to each other on an outdoor sofa.

I was halfway across the lawn to them when I heard Annie’s sobs, shaky and gasping, as uncontained as a child’s.

Lena looked straight ahead, her back rigid. She wasn’t comforting Annie or yelling at her or, from what I could tell, acknowledging her at all.

Even from several feet away, I could feel that the energy between them was deep and ugly. On the way home, I realized my arms were covered in goose pimples.

At the party, though, Annie and Lena were back to normal, thick as thieves.

So maybe it was nothing.

I can’t exactly ask now.





CHAPTER SEVEN



“The wedding dress is gorgeous,” Lena said.

“It looks okay?” On the video chat, Rachel’s dark eyes were filled with skepticism and hope. “Even from the back?”

“Gorgeous from all angles.”

After a thin smile—I can’t exactly trust you—Rachel ducked her head. “Thank you for buying it.”

“My pleasure.”

Rachel’s wedding dress was a slinky slip of a thing, done in Mikado silk. Its price tag had made even Lena’s eyebrows hike up, but she’d been delighted to pay.

For years, Rachel had treated the money like it was toxic. She’d insisted on living in that tiny apartment, had taken out student loans for business school, and been unnecessarily pious about vacations and restaurants.