The Secret Sister. Brenda Novak

craved consolation.

      “You need her,” he said. “We both do. And that means we’ll always be under her thumb.”

      Although she was secretly frightened that might be true, Maisey scoffed at it. “No. I’ll help you, stand by you. I just need to...to get back on my feet, and she can only hurt my ability to do that.” The thought of walking through those heavy doors, dragging her belongings behind her, almost gave her a panic attack. At least, if she didn’t stay at Coldiron House, she’d retain some autonomy, some independence. She had to protect the little peace of mind she had left.

      He rubbed his gaunt face. “So where will you stay?”

      “I could rent a room from someone in town.” She had enough money for that, didn’t she? Her reserves would last six months or so...

      “Here on Fairham?” Her brother shook his head, adamant. “That would provoke an all-out war.”

      He was right. To maintain some semblance of peace, she couldn’t cross certain lines. She couldn’t embarrass her mother by revealing that there was any strain inside the family. Appearances were everything to Josephine. They were Coldirons, even though their surname was technically Lazarow, and they needed to comport themselves as such.

      How many times had she heard that lecture?

      “What if I got an apartment in Charleston?” she asked, but decided against it almost as soon as the words passed her lips. Charleston would cost too much and, left on her own, she wouldn’t recover. Being sequestered in a cheap, unfamiliar apartment would be worse than living alone in New York with the furniture Jack hadn’t taken.

      “I don’t see...” he started, but she cut him off again.

      “Wait.” The solution had occurred to her, and it was so obvious she couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before. “Why couldn’t I stay in one of the bungalows?”

      “The vacation rentals? They’re on the far side of the island!”

      “So?” Going back and forth to Coldiron House wouldn’t require a ferry, like it would from Charleston. And it was September, when the small influx of vacationers who visited Fairham each summer returned to their regular lives. One of the nine units should be available. “We’re talking ten miles if I take the bike path. I’ll buy a bike and ride over whenever you want me to. Or you can come hang out at my place.”

      Maisey felt that would be even better. Not only would living in Smuggler’s Cove enable her to avoid their mother, it would provide Keith a place to go occasionally, a place where he wouldn’t have to deal with Josephine—meaning he wouldn’t have to resort to drugs as his escape.

      “Most of them haven’t been refurbished since Hurricane Lorna last fall,” he said.

      “I could’ve sworn you told me months ago that Mom was hiring a contractor.” That was well before Keith’s last big blowup with Josephine, when he’d stormed off to “live his own life.” He’d disappeared for several months before ending up on another drug binge, which had culminated in the black moment that had brought him home again—the same black moment that had ultimately brought her home, too.

      “She has hired a contractor,” he said, “but she didn’t get around to it until I got back a couple of weeks ago. Construction’s just begun.”

      Her mother had waited a year to rebuild? “Why’d she wait so long?”

      He took her suitcase, and walked toward the sleek gray Mercedes he’d parked in the lot. It was their mother’s car. He no longer owned anything to speak of. Although he’d turned thirty-six in February, an age by which most people had managed to accumulate a vehicle and some furniture or other personal property, he’d sold everything for drug money. What he hadn’t sold, he’d given away while he was high or destroyed out of anger and frustration.

      “She was in another relationship with some off-islander, so she couldn’t be bothered,” he said in response to her question. “But I’m sure she’ll tell you the delay was all my fault. As you know, I haven’t made things easy on her—or anyone else.”

      Including himself... Keith had caused nothing but heartache. But it disturbed Maisey that her mother always had to assign blame. “The future doesn’t have to be a reflection of the past.” She touched his arm for encouragement. “We’ll get through the coming months together. It’ll be okay now that we have each other.”

      When he didn’t respond, Maisey wished she hadn’t questioned him about the delay in construction, hadn’t made him accept responsibility for it. He needed to look ahead—not behind. “I’m sure the bungalows will be ready by next summer, which means we only missed one tourist season.”

      He was putting her suitcases in the trunk, so she couldn’t read his expression. “That’s the goal,” he said.

      “Have you been out to see them recently?” she asked as they slid into the sun-warmed interior of the Mercedes and buckled their seat belts.

      “Mom’s sent me over once or twice, yeah.”

      “How bad are they?”

      “Pretty bad.”

      She cringed. “Structurally?”

      “Units 1 to 4 need structural repairs.”

      “What about 5 to 9?” They were set back off the beach, in the trees. Maisey assumed the wind hadn’t hit them as hard.

      “They’re sound, but they still need a lot of work.”

      Maisey hated that the bungalows had been damaged. Since the eighties, when her father’d had them built, Smuggler’s Cove had been a magical place for her, a place where she could find him, or some essence of him, even after he was gone. She had so many fond memories of tagging along to the rentals that, when he died, she’d wanted to scatter his ashes there on the beach. But her mother retained control of his remains, like she did everything else. His ashes were kept in a decorative urn on the mantel of the formal living room at Coldiron House. Not for any sentimental reason. But because it allowed Josephine to pretend he was her one great love, since she hadn’t been able to get along with anyone else—not for long, anyway. Every other relationship had fallen apart within two or three years.

      “I don’t mind helping with the cleanup and repairs, maybe doing some painting, that sort of thing.” There was a period when she and Jack, her ex-husband, had watched almost every do-it-yourself show on TV, and used much of what they’d learned to improve their small cabin in the Catskill Mountains. It had been sold, as stipulated by the divorce decree, but she’d always loved it there.

      Keith backed out of the parking space. “I’m not sure the contractor’s going to like having you in the middle of everything.”

      “I’ll stay out of his way.” She tucked her dark hair behind her ears. It was getting too long; she needed to have it trimmed. “Who’d Mom hire? Anyone from around here?”

      “Raphael Something. Can’t remember his last name. I didn’t ask where he was from. I know he’s done other work on the island, though, because I’ve seen his sign—High Tide Construction.”

      Maisey had never met anyone by that name or heard of the company. But then, plenty could’ve changed since she’d been gone. “Can we go to Smuggler’s Cove now, see if it’s even a possibility?”

      He hit the brake, stopping before they could exit the lot. “You’re not thinking of moving in without asking Mom...”

      Knowing that she had a viable alternative—if she did have one—would help her get through that daunting first encounter. “I can’t imagine she’d refuse to let me live in one of Dad’s bungalows. He’d turn over in his grave if she did.” They were something her father had created and paid for with the money he’d brought into the relationship. “Besides, I’m supposed to inherit the development, remember?”