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Chapter 17
“Darian should never know. How can I face my sister, knowing this?” Linda said. “No. They can’t know. I still can’t believe this of you, Jane. You hiding this from us … all this time.”
“What good would it have done if you knew? Would you have encouraged me to marry him instead, knowing that Avery expected his …” The words died on her lips. They had lived in her head for so long, but they died when she had tried to utter them again. “Could you have faced your sister then?” Her voice rose. “Do you think she or Avery would have reacted any differently? They wouldn’t have accepted him being with me while fathering her child. They would have used the pregnancy to pressure and threaten Finn if I had stayed with him. I still hope Avery is not planning anything now. The result would have been the same. Only you would have felt sorry for me and differently about Finn and Avery, and everything, and still gone through with this. It was enough that I knew. I couldn’t be with him either way.”
“You could have trusted us enough to confide in us, Annie. I can’t even imagine what you must have felt at that wedding. And how brave you were all these years,” Bert said.
Anne sat next to the round kitchen table in the house that she had grown up in. Her left arm was thrown over the chair’s back, and her right elbow rested on the oak tabletop. Linda and Bert both stood, leaning their backs against the old marble counter, facing her. Despite the concern and love she knew they had for her, she felt alone. Only Finn’s shirt on her skin made her feel less so.
“What about Tom?” Linda asked.
“What about him? He had nothing to do with it. I met him much later. It ran its course, and it ended.” It wasn’t one hundred percent true. She felt like the world’s biggest liar. Even when she told the truth, she still lied. But she didn’t want them to feel sorry for her or judge her, or Finn, more than they already did. “Finn and Avery have been divorced for three years now. We realized we still love each other. It has nothing to do with anyone else.”
“Couldn’t you find another nice young man to fall for, except for your cousin’s ex-husband?” Linda asked, almost pleading with her to relent.
“Mom!”
“Linda, we don’t choose who to fall for,” Bert said, palming his wife’s shoulder.
“I know. I’m not really mad at you, Annie. I’m just … I’m just worried what it might do to our family. What it might do to you. Avery is not—”
“Not the easiest person? Not the most understanding of others? Not one to not make things less difficult than they are? Not the kind who will ever accept anyone touching what she thinks of as hers? Even if it’s just her own brother’s wife coming to work at her school? Not to mention her cousin and her ex-husband?” Bert said. He looked at Anne when he’d said it, his smile indicating that they were in this together.
Linda came over and sat next to her, hanging her head and staring at the floor. She suddenly raised her head and looked at her daughter. “The birthday cards.”
Anne’s heart ceased to beat.
Linda turned her gaze toward her husband. “Every year, I sent her those birthday cards. I always assumed they were from old friends here. They only said ‘Jane’ on the outside, and I didn’t know what was inside.” She looked at Anne again. “Who were they from?”
Better be out with it in all its ugliness. “Finn.”
“Oh, Janey,” Linda said, shaking her head from side to side. “Had I known …”
Anne looked at her father. Bert’s height and width filled the kitchen. The ironed shirt her mother had him wear for the lunch that never happened stretched across his abdomen, showing the undershirt he had on. He pressed his lips together, but she didn’t see disappointment or disapproval on his face. She saw pain and compassion. Good thing they didn’t remember that her birthday was also Finn and Avery’s wedding anniversary.
Bert reached out his hand to her. She took it, and her father pulled up and hugged her.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” she whispered, tears clogging her throat. “Nothing happened while he was married.”
“I know. We’re here for you, Jane,” he said. He then freed one hand and pulled his wife up and added her to the hug.
She left their house soon after, intending to take the beach route home and leave her car where she had parked it. Before she walked out, her father approached her at the door. In the large T-shirt that he had worn after getting rid of the dress shirt, he looked cozy. Anne felt like hiding from the world behind him.
“I just realized,” he said. “Avery had a miscarriage a week after the wedding. But even then he couldn’t be free. And you would never have taken him from her when she was so down. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you, knowing this, Anne. How much it hurts me to know what you both must have gone through. Whatever your mother thinks or feels, Darian is not my twin, and I’ve always thought she enabled Avery’s entitlement. I’m with you, and you can come to me with anything and everything.”
“Oh, Dad.” She threw herself into his hug. Only then did she burst down crying. Her father held her until everything she was holding inside came pouring out.
“I wanted to tell you, to consult with you on how to break it, and now it’s … the worst possible way,” she said, wiping her fingers under her nose.
“Knowing everyone, I don’t think I would have had good advice for you, Annie. To be honest, I don’t think there was a good way to do this. Now we just have to make sure that everyone remains reasonable. Although, I’m not so sure they all can be.”
She nodded. He echoed her own thoughts.
“You’re my little girl, no matter how tall or old you are,” he said with a smile that was meant to cheer her up.
“I love you, Dad.”
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