Page 129 of Our Little Secret

While Neal unpacked the car, she put things away. “What time is Marilee getting in?” he asked, setting one of the two coolers they’d brought from Seattle on the counter that separated the kitchen from the living area.

They’d been over this before, but Neal had been distracted lately, a new, “big” case that required him to work late nights and some weekends. “Later,” she reminded him. Marilee, now a student at St. Bernadette’s, a private school in San Diego, was flying into Portland and had assured her parents that she had a ride to the island.

“We could’ve picked her up at the airport.”

“I know. Or she could have flown to Seattle and come down here with us, except you had us leave before the crack of dawn.”

“We beat the traffic, didn’t we?” he asked. “And made the first ferry.”

She couldn’t argue. They’d left at four a.m., pushed the speed limit in their Honda CR-V, the replacement for the Explorer, which hadn’t been totaled but never drove quite the same after the accident with Gustafson. The insurance company had handled the claims and, fortunately, Brooke had never heard from him again.

Now, it was still morning and Neal was grousing about their daughter living apart from them, a source of their continued discontent.

“Flying up here on her own was the way Marilee wanted it,” Brooke reminded him. “Her choice.”

“I know, but I don’t like it.”

“Me neither.”

“Maybe sending her away was a mistake,” Neal grumbled.

“We did not send her away. Moving out was Marilee’s choice.”

“And she’s too damned young to make those choices.”

Amen, Brooke thought,but here we are.

Neal headed back to the car for another load.

Allowing Marilee to go to school in Southern California had been a tough decision, one she’d begged for.

After the whole Nick Paszek debacle, Marilee’s pregnancy scare, and grades that had tumbled, their daughter had gotten into vaping, alcohol, and marijuana. Marilee had declared she wanted to move out. Of course she wanted to live with Nick. Even though she was fifteen.

“That’s ridiculous!” Neal had told their girl, Brooke standing at his side.

Nick’s parents too were horrified and both families had ended up blaming the other. “She’s going to get pregnant for real,” Brooke had told her husband.

“Jesus. She’s just a kid.”

“I know, but she thinks she’s in love.” They shared a glance, each remembering their own circumstances.

“You were older,” Neal said to the nonverbal argument.

“So were you.”

“Then what do you want to do?” Neal had said, and for the first time in their marriage he seemed to be at a loss, unable to plot a course of action.

“Boarding school.” Her answer was automatic. One she’d heard about growing up. “St. Bernadette’s. It’s far. Outskirts of San Diego. Where my grandmother went.”

“I don’t know,” he’d said, but Marilee had overheard the conversation from the stairs and burst into tears. Only after Nick had broken up with her the next week had she agreed. In fact, she was eager, then, to leave Allsworth High School, Seattle, and her parents. She had embraced the idea of moving as far away as possible. Southern California had seemed ideal.

At least that was what Marilee had claimed.

In reality, things hadn’t gone that smoothly.

But after the first two weeks of tears during FaceTime, Marilee seemed to be thriving. In their phone and video calls Marilee had evolved from angry defiance to sad-eyed loneliness, then, more recently, newfound confidence. She’d made friends, loved the weather, and complained about the teachers but had regained her interest in school.

She had opted not to come home for Thanksgiving but had reluctantly acquiesced for Christmas break. Neal was the one to suggest they spend the vacation here on the island, and the idea was that the cabin was a neutral zone, where they’d all gotten along, and not the war zone that their Seattle home had become.