The Last Secret by Mary Mcgarry Morris Page A

he wipes his face on his sleeves. “He said it'd probably take a while, but you would.”
    “Oh, really? And how would Clay know?” she says, trying to hide her old irritation with Clay. A hyper child who has grown into a near-manic adolescent, yet he and Drew have always been buddies.
    “He wants it to happen. He hates his father. He thinks Dad's great. He said we'd be stepbrothers.”
    She stops breathing. “What did you say?”
    “Nothing.”
    “That's why, isn't it? You and Clay, you hardly ever—”
    “I don't know.” He shrugs. “We're into different stuff now, that's all.”
    Always the better athlete, Clay makes every team he tries out for. Until now, that never seemed to matter. Drew enjoyed not having to compete and still being able to hang out with the jocks who liked his quirky humor. Always such a good boy. Such a fine young man. Kind and sensitive. She blames herself for his moodiness these last few weeks, his bleak refuge in the den every day, the computer for solace.
    “Your dad and I are trying to get through … to get past this. He's awonderful man. You know that, right?” Her loyalty to Ken is all but destroyed, but the worst thing now is to turn him against his father.
    Drew barely nods. The mask slips back over his face. His mother's son, she thinks. Afraid to ask for help.
    “He is. He really is. And that makes it even more painful,” she tries to explain. “When something like this happens in a family, everyone's affected, not just Dad and me, but you and Chloe. You're going along just fine—or at least you think you are”—here, she regrets her mirthless little laugh—“and then all of a sudden the ground shifts and nothing feels safe anymore.”
    He is chewing his thumbnail. She's lost him. Damn, she should have let him talk. Selfish to go on like this, trying to make herself feel better. “Drew? Is that how it feels?”
    “I guess.”
    “I know. You're sick of this, aren't you?” Leaning, she kisses his damp, bristly cheek. “That's okay. We can talk later.” She starts the car and pulls into the slow-moving traffic. “Just don't keep your feelings all bottled up. Your pain,” she says, straining over the wheel to see around the corner. “And your anger.”
    “That's what Mrs. Gendron said.”
    “What?”
    “That I should talk to Dad, and if I couldn't, then I should feel free to call her.”
    She can barely grip the steering wheel. Uncomfortable as Drew is, the words spill out of him. His first inkling came late last summer. He had slept over at Clay's house, only Clay forgot to tell his mother he was there. Early the next morning, really early, like four thirty or five, he heard his father's voice. Thinking he'd come to pick him up, Drew started down the hallway just as his father and Mrs. Gendron came out of her bedroom together. Mr. Gendron wasn't home; away on a business trip, Drew assumed. Or maybe in rehab, never a secret in the Gendron household. After that, no one ever said anything. But from then on, Mrs. Gendron seemed nervous around him, uneasy, always asking, “What's wrong? What're you thinking about, Drew? You're worriedabout something, aren't you? I can tell.” Pestering him with questions, Drew recalls, as if she wanted it out in the open but needed him to do it.
    “There were a couple other times,” he says, but as much as Nora has wanted details, she doesn't want them from him, her son. “And then this one day I'm in the kitchen waiting for Clay. As usual,” Drew adds, and Nora glances at him. Like his mother, Clay is always late. “Mrs. Gendron was cooking and feeding Lyra, and he still wasn't there, so I said I better go. ‘Wait!’ she goes, and she shuts off the stove, then she sits down with me and Lyra. She said she wanted me to know that sometimes things happen between people that maybe no one wanted to happen, but then when they do, people have to try and help one another. And it was weird, the whole time I'm like, what the hell's