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She felt hot all of a sudden, and then cold.
Nancy curled her fingers over the back of the nearest chair to steady herself. “What exactly did you see?”
Please don’t let Lauren give her the details.
“Far too much,” Lauren said. “It put us off sex for a while, didn’t it, Jenna?”
“This isn’t about us.” Jenna felt as if she was choking. “It’s about Mom. I can’t bear to think you were going through that and you never told us. Did you confide in Alice? Does she know?”
Her mother didn’t look at her. “I—I didn’t talk about it with anyone.”
She hadn’t even told her closest friend?
“Who did you talk to? Who was there for you?”
“No one. It was humiliating enough without confessing it to everyone, although I’m sure some of the Vineyarders knew. The ones he slept with for a start.”
“Who?”
Her mother shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now. But the fact that you saw him—” Her voice was threaded with anger. “If he wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him. The philandering waster—” She broke off and breathed deeply. “How old were you?”
“Eleven,” Lauren said. “So I guess Jenna was eight. It was the year Meredith Painter caught her dad having sex with the woman who ran the sailing club. She told her mother and the marriage fell apart. Meredith was distraught. Her father blamed her for breaking up the family and the whole thing was terrible. She told us again and again that she wished she’d never said anything. We didn’t want it to happen to us. We thought we were protecting you.”
Little white lies, Jenna thought. So many little white lies.
“Eight and eleven.” Nancy closed her eyes, as if she didn’t like the vision she was seeing. “Babies. My poor girls.”
Jenna couldn’t remember a time when her mother had spoken in that tone, or used words like that. She wasn’t sure how to react.
She’d expected to be blamed for leaving the house and going to the Sail Loft, but her mother didn’t seem to be thinking about that.
“How many affairs did he have, Mom?”
Nancy looked tired. “I don’t know. There are some things you are better off not knowing. I knew about three of them. One of them turned up here one day looking for him. At the beginning I tried hard to fix things. I was desperate not to lose him.”
“Because of us?”
“Not only because of that. I loved him, too. Desperately. Tom had this gift of drawing people to him. The same qualities that dazzled you, dazzled me. It makes me feel ashamed when I think back to the things I tolerated. The humiliations I endured.”
“I don’t know how you stood it.” Jenna tried to imagine how she’d feel if Greg had one affair, let alone several. “I would have kicked him out.”
“I hope you would. I tried to do that once, and he told me that if I did that you girls would resent me forever for breaking up the home. I knew he was right.” She paused. “Tom was the ‘fun’ parent. Your father had so much charisma he could make the simplest moment seem magical. You three were a unit, and I wasn’t part of it. But I could at least make sure you were well provided for.”
Jenna was horrified. “Why did you think earning the money was your role?”
“I was good at it. Not so good at being a mother.” Nancy spoke quietly. “I enjoyed being with the two of you, but Tom would always interrupt with an idea that was more fun, more inventive, more crazy, and off you’d all go, the three of you together. It knocked my confidence. That happens when you’re not good at something.”
Jenna felt as if her heart was being crushed. “Mom—”
“It was my fault. I let Tom make me feel inadequate—and he was good at it. It was as if he was always saying, ‘Look how much better at this I am than you.’ It was obvious how much you enjoyed being with him, and instead of finding ways we could have our own type of fun together, I retreated and let him get on with it.” Nancy blinked and Jenna realized her mother was struggling not to cry.
Never in her life had she seen her mother shed tears and seeing it now tore through the flimsy barriers she’d put between them.
Jenna sprang out of the chair so quickly it crashed to the floor. Crossing the room in three strides, she then wrapped her arms round her mother. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She thought about all the times they’d played with their father. She’d assumed her mother disapproved and had no wish to join in. It hadn’t ever occurred to her that Nancy hadn’t joined in because she didn’t know how. Nor had it occurred to her that her father was being manipulative. Using his children to hurt his wife.
She half expected her mother to push her away and when Nancy clung tightly Jenna couldn’t hold back her own tears.
How could she have been so blind?
