Page 63 of Surfside Sisters

“Maybe not. But I’ve always been myself. Open to you. And I’m willing to tell you about my childhood. But first, I want to hear you talk.”

Gray took his arm from around Keely and turned on his back, arms behind his head, facing the ceiling.

“My mother had three miscarriages after I was born. Second-trimester miscarriages. Very painful physically and emotionally. Traumatic. Her heart was broken.”

“Gray. I’m so sorry. How sad for her. For all of you.”

“I felt like it was my fault. I know now it wasn’t, but when I was little, three and five and seven…I wanted to make it right for her. She wanted another baby so much. She was happy when she was pregnant, and then so sad when she lost the baby. She grieved so much…she lay in her bed and wept all the time. She couldn’t find the energy to cook or do laundry. My father helped her. And he cooked dinner for us, although if Mother came to the table, she couldn’t really eat. He was a good dad. He told me Mother loved me, and Mother loved him, too, but she was going through a grieving process and it would take time. I heard his words, but I felt—unnecessary to my mother. My presence could not bring her joy. I worked hard to get good grades. I learned to play the piano. I was good, I could have entered competitions, but when I did perform at recitals…my mother never came. I wasn’t…relevantto her life. I wasn’t anything that could make her smile.”

“Oh, Gray.” Keely turned over so she could gently touch his shoulder. “That must have been so hard for you.”

“She never really recovered. She and Dad live in Connecticut. He was a general practitioner, an M.D., and he couldn’t fix her. So we both felt like we failed her. I felt guilty when I started dating, I mean guilty for being happy and having fun, when she was still so sad. She would seem normal to you. She cooks dinner for her and Dad now, and she belongs to a book club and she watches television and shops for clothes, and she smiles. I’ve seen her smile. She did see a therapist. She is trying to live her life in a positive way. But…losing those three babies changed her forever.”

Keely waited, wanting to honor his sadness.

“What I’m trying to say is that I find it hard to be close to someone. I have been told by other women…” Gray stopped speaking. He cleared his throat. “I’ve been told by other women that I’m not spontaneous enough. That I’m guarded. Maybe they’re right. Maybe I am guarded.”

“I can understand that.” Keely was touched by his confession. She wanted to kiss him, to heal him.

“Or maybe I just haven’t met the right woman,” Gray continued. “Maybe when I’m with the right woman, I’ll be able to…open up.”

Keely tensed. Here it was again, a kind of challenge, an invitation to some bizarre contest. Could she be the right woman, could she heal him, open him up? Was this a real question for Gray, or was this some kind of game?

“I’m glad you told me about your mother,” Keely said. “It’s all so sad. But she must be proud of you now. A pediatric surgeon—you’ve saved so many lives.”

Gray sniffed. “I don’t need a psychologist to tell me why I became a pediatric surgeon.” After a moment, he said, “I wish so many things in my life were different.”

“I suppose we all have things in our lives we wish we could change.”

“Really?” Gray searched Keely’s face. “What would you want to change? You have everything.”

“Remember, we’re talking about our pasts,” Keely said.

“Then tell me about your past,” Gray responded, and he sounded truly interested, and also maybe a little challenging—can your past be worse than my past?

“I think we have to drink the champagne if I’m going to tell you everything.”

“Ah. I’ll get the bottle and the glasses.”

Keely talked about her life on the island. Her lovely, quiet parents. Her best friend, Isabelle, her first serious boyfriend, Tommy.

And somehow as she spoke, leaning back against the headboard with the sheets pulled up over her breasts, the old emotions perked up like flowers under sunshine.

“Isabelle and I were so close.” Keely held up two fingers pressed together. “I was always jealous of her, and even though I told her, she didn’t reallygetit. We were both going to be writers, novelists, when we grew up, but her family traveled all over the world in the summer, and I had to stay home and work. I knew she was going to have much more interesting subjects to write about.”

“Yet you are the published author,” Gray reminded her.

Keely smiled. “True.”

She told him about Tommy, how she’d refused to go to homecoming with him in high school because she didn’t want Isabelle to be sad. How Isabelle got accepted to a writers’ colony and Keely didn’t.

“I loved her and I envied her at the same time,” Keely said. “Does that sound strange?”

“Research shows that people consider themselves rich if they have more money than their next-door neighbor,” Gray said. “We compare ourselves to those we know.”

Keely laughed. “How did you get to be so wise?” She snuggled against him, yawning. “Gosh, I’m so sleepy.”

“Then we should go to sleep,” Gray said.

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