The Secrets We Keep by Stephanie Butland Page A

it, she cannot bear to look at photos of them, smile upon smile upon smile.)
    This morning, still wrung out after the inquest, she cannot face making even a small plan. She thinks she might try going back to bed. It’s still early, not even morning really, light barely beginning.
    She’s just turned away from the garden, taken off her wellies and stepped into the kitchen, about to close the door behind her, when she hears the click of the garden gate, and turns back.
    At first Elizabeth thinks she’s seeing a ghost, or an angel. The figure is beautiful, and she stands just inside the gate, reflecting her own surprise, still as a deer in the dawn.
    And then she recognizes Kate Micklethwaite from the inquest yesterday, from the photographs in the local paper, as the Girl Saved by the Brave Policeman Who Drowned. But up until now she has tried not to look at her too closely, instinctively afraid of what seeing her will do to her heart, in the way she’d once kept her eyes pointing away from her freshly broken arm, knowing that seeing the damage properly would make the pain worse.
    But now she looks.
    Kate has the lightly worn, unconscious loveliness of the young, with no idea yet that she will never be more beautiful than in these few years before age and sun and worry and sleepless nights and hangovers all find places to rest in her body. Elizabeth takes in a pale waterfall of hair, full-moon eyes of ice-blue gray. Kate is crying, grief and fright combining, and the tears magnify her eyes and make them shine, shine.
    In her head she holds freesias tied with a piece of silver ribbon.
    And everything makes horrible, awful sense to Elizabeth. Of course the flowers are a tribute. Of course the girl would bring them here. Of course she’s grieving and confused and needs a way to express how she feels about Michael doing what he did.
    Of course, of course, of course.
    Time stops as they look at each other. Then Pepper barks. There’s an answer from beyond the gate. Kate turns her head, says, “It’s all right, Beatle.” The second hand sweeps, and Elizabeth makes her move. She’s in front of Kate, holding her shoulders, before either of them has fully realized what she’s done.
    â€œThe snowdrops?” she asks.
    Kate nods.
    â€œThe crocuses?”
    Kate nods.
    â€œThe winter pansies?”
    Kate nods. Elizabeth, just a shade shorter than Kate and barefoot on the earth, is looking up into her face, but Kate is looking away, down, to the left, to the flowers still clutched in her hand. Elizabeth shakes her, not hard, to make her look toward her. Kate refuses, eyes determinedly elsewhere. A burst of the sweet scent of the freesias rises in a clear cloud.
    â€œI thought my husband was leaving them for me.” Elizabeth’s tears start. “Isn’t that stupid? I thought he was”—her hands fall, and, freed, Kate’s arms move to wrap her own body, cradling, protecting—“I thought he was coming back and leaving me flowers. I thought he was telling me, Elizabeth, it’s all right.”
    Elizabeth is fighting, fighting for control of her breath, her tears, her words, her hands, which want to take Kate’s face and force her to look at her, as though looking into her eyes will make her understand. “How stupid. How stupid.”
    Kate’s tongue is a lump of dead meat. Her feet are buried in the earth. She can’t move. She can’t speak. The thought of her tributes so misunderstood makes her stomach shake. They were for him, in a place that was a little way into his life, not lost in a mass of flowers piled on his grave.
    Elizabeth says, “He would be glad you are alive. Mike. He would be so glad that you are alive.” What leaves her lips is different from what had left her heart, though, because the “you” comes out hard, an accusation, and she sees Kate flinch.
    â€œIt wasn’t your fault,” she says, aching