“I’m half Egyptian,” Meghan said with a giggle. “I can’t believe you guessed. People often ask if I’m Native American—like you.”
Winnie scowled. “But your cheeks perfectly sculpted. They are like an Egyptian goddess, not like the fuller face of the Wampanoag.”
Meghan grinned, perhaps embarrassed. So Annie said, “You never know whom you’ll meet at the Ag Fair. Which is why anyone on the Vineyard in August must go at least once. I think it’s a law.”
“Speaking of the law . . .” Winnie said, “How’s John?”
By then more people had converged around Winnie’s wares, and Annie knew she couldn’t say what she’d like to. So she merely raised her eyebrows, and Winnie nodded as if she understood. Then they hugged good-bye.
Once outside, Meghan stopped, seeming to revel in the clear, fresh air. “This has been so much fun, Annie, but you’ve worn me out. In my wildest dreams, I never thought I’d be here now. Sometimes it’s still hard to believe that I’ve returned to the world.”
“I can’t imagine. But how you’ve managed to put it all behind you is remarkable.”
With a small laugh, Meghan said, “It helps that I don’t remember anything from breakfast the morning of my accident until more than two years later. I know that I’d made French toast; I wanted to celebrate that we were going to make the deadline for our project.” She paused, as if searching for another splinter of her memory. “I also remember I’d decided to wait until after work that night to tell him I was pregnant.”
The sights and sounds around them faded away. It was a moment before Annie could speak.
“Meghan . . .” she said, “I am so sorry . . .”
But Meghan shushed her. “Kevin wanted kids, but I’d kept stalling. I never wanted to be a mother. I loved our business; I kept pushing him to make it bigger. Anyway, I was almost three months along when I fell. I lost the baby.” Surprisingly, tears didn’t come to her eyes—over time, she must have shed them all. Annie knew from experience that that could happen. “Anyway,” Meghan continued, “I never had the courage to ask the doctors if they told Kevin.”
Annie had no words, not one. But she was reminded, once again, of how deeply secrets could not only scar but also change someone’s life . . . forever. She wanted to ask if Donna had known, but perhaps it didn’t matter now.
Waiving further conversation, they made their way to the car, with Annie holding back from crying for her brother, for the happiness he’d missed out on. She could do that later, when she was alone.
For now, the thought of painful secrets made her think of Brian again . . . and the cryptic message he’d left her the night that he’d been killed.
After the funeral, she’d asked his parents if they knew what he had meant. They said no. She asked his sister. She said no, too. Day after day, Annie asked anyone she could think of: his friends; the principal where Brian taught; the old man at the coffee shop where he stopped every morning. It had been less painful to focus on that than on the fact Brian was dead.
But no one claimed to know about a secret. Finally, Annie told a newspaper reporter who was writing an article after the accident; she’d hoped he’d mention it, and that someone, somewhere, might know what it was. But no one came forward. And Annie never got an answer.
Meghan’s secret was far more earth shattering. And so much sadder. And unlike Annie, who’d yammered about Brian’s secret to anyone who’d listen, or pretended to listen, Meghan hadn’t told the one person who had a right to know.
As they walked, their gaits slowed, their legs weighed down by the past. Annie remembered how crushed she’d been when theGlobehadn’t unearthed any clues. Maybe if the internet hadn’t been in its infancy then . . . or if the reporter had done a better job . . .
As she recalled, he had been young, determined, and he’d been...
She stopped. Her whole body stiffened. And suddenly, two of Kevin’s favorite words leaped into her mind:Holy. Crap.
No kidding, Murphy replied.
* * *
Despite that her adrenaline was pumping like a bilge pump on a lobster boat in a stormy sea, once they were in the Jeep and back on State Road, Annie tried to be kind to Meghan. “Are you okay?” she asked. “Do you want to tell me more about it?”
Meghan shook her head. “There’s nothing more to tell. By the time my memory returned, so much time had passed it didn’t seem as if any of it had been real.”
“I am so sorry for . . . well, for everything.” Annie’s eyes bounced from Meghan back to the road, her thoughts unable to stop boomeranging from Brian to Meghan and back again.
“Thank you. That means a lot.”
Pulling out onto Edgartown–West Tisbury Road, Annie stepped on the gas. “I’d like to stop at the library on our way back. But if you want to go straight to the Inn, I’ll understand.” Because it was Saturday, the library closed at five; it was nearly that now.
Meghan smiled and patted Annie’s arm. “It’s fine. And please, you don’t need to treat me like a porcelain doll. I’m okay. Really I am. It was a long time ago.”
“But you never got to talk to Kevin about it.” She knew her brother would have made a great dad; she would not, however, say that, especially since Meghan had said she hadn’t wanted kids. Annie didn’t need to know more details about that; she firmly believed that everyone was entitled to do or think or be whatever worked for them.
“One of the reasons I came here was to tell him.”
