Page 157 of Never Forever

“Huh?” I reeled, the truth sending a spasm through my muscles.

“Carrie?”

Madame Za stepped aside and there was my mom, standing in the center of the aisle.

She looked like she always looked. Perfectly dressed. Perfectly coiffed. She was elegant and lovely, but it was obvious she’d been crying.

“Mom!” I cried and rushed forward to hug her. “What happened? Are you okay? Tell me why you left the cruise.”

“Your grandmother snores,” she said, patting my back. “All these years I never shared a room with her and she snores. It’s awful.”

“That’s why you left? Because of snoring?”

“No, I told her she needed to come back.” Patrick Sullivan said, coming up behind her. He wore a puffy vest and a bright orange hunting cap.

“Patrick!” I smiled, but it faded from my face as I looked at him. I looked from him to my mom and back again. “What’s going on?”

“It’s time you knew the truth,” he said ominously.

“Wait. There’s a truth? About you two? Oh my God, did you two have an affair?”

“No,” Mom said.

At the same time Patrick said, “A long time ago.”

I reeled. Literally. I had to put my hand against one of the benches to stay upright.

“Does Matt know?”

“Does Matt know what?” he said, coming up with a smile until he caught sight of my mother, then he grew still. “Dad, what are you doing here?”

“It’s time Carrie knows what happened,” Dad said. “So you two can start fresh.”

“We’re fine, Dad,” Matt said, his words lined with steel. “We’re figuring it out. We’ve put the past behind us.”

Patrick Sullivan looked at me, like he knew something I didn’t know.

“What is happening?” I whispered.

Behind us the band started up. But the crowd was silent when they’d usually be applauding.

“Excuse me,” Weidman said, approaching us. “I’m all for a big family secret reveal, but can it wait? We’ve got a play to put on and you all are making a scene.”

I turned to see a hundred good citizens of Calico Cove staring at us.

Whatever secrets we’d been keeping, or trying to keep – all those people were listening. I smiled, waved and blew a kiss.

Then I dragged this whole mess into the shadows of the parking lot.

Once we were far enough away, I glared at all of them.

“Okay. Someone needs to tell me what’s happening, right now.”

Matt

The weird thingabout this secret was, I didn’t know whose it was anymore. I’d lived with what I’d done and I’d told myself for years it was the right thing.

I only had to see the life and career Carrie had built to know that.

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