Kellen stopped walking. Took Cecilia’s shoulders. Turned her and looked into her eyes. “You’re brilliant. You were accepted to Vanderbilt, no small feat.”
Cecilia couldn’t maintain eye contact. “I’m not a good wife. I don’t always understand what he wants.”
Kellen shook her. “He’s thirty-eight years old. You’re twenty. He should understand you.”
Cecilia wasn’t used to climbing. Her ribs hurt when Kellen shook her, hurt where he had kicked her. “He doesn’t hit me. He, um, disciplines me when I need it.”
“Disciplines you? When do you need it?” Kellen could not have sounded more incredulous.
“I…I didn’t cook his eggs right. So he…he… That night, he had me kneel in the corner, and he cracked all the eggs over my head, the ones in the refrigerator, and opened the window.”
“In winter? That’s sick. That’s criminal.” Kellen couldn’t contain her outrage. “Is that when that sister of his contacted Mama and Papa? After a year of not hearing a word? Said you had pneumonia and weren’t expected to live?”
“I’m lucky he chose me. He’s one of the Lykke family. They’re wealthy, influential.” The wind off the Atlantic blew hard, ruffled Cecilia’s hair, blew her own words back in her face. “They’ve been here since the country was founded.”
“What is all that worth? Nothing! They’re so self-important they won’t let me in the house, and your Gregory can’t bear to look at me.”
“He’s busy.” Feeble excuse. But it was all Cecilia had.
“Busy ignoring the only relative you’ve seen in two years!” Kellen took a breath. “You graduated from high school. You wanted to see the country. You were afraid to fly, so my folks gave you a car and said go for it. What the hell they were thinking, I’ll never know. First place you get to, you stop and get married to some old guy—”
“He’s not old. He’s in the prime of life!”
“That’s what he told you! He married a girl half his age!”
Cecilia looked down at the cracked granite that formed the cliffs. She inched closer to the edge, wanting to see the waves pounding on the rocks below.
Kellen caught her arm. “You’re not committing suicide on my watch.” She looked back at the estate, at the mansion nestled into the cup of the hill and Cecilia’s tiny home on the edge of the cliff. “You’re not even in the main house. You’re living in the…in the maid’s quarters.”
“Honeymoon cottage.”
“Honeymoon-from-hell cottage! One bedroom, one bathroom. Built in the 1950s with all the ugly styling still in place.”
“The house isn’t awful. When the storms blow in, we lose power. But the Lykke mansion is historic. It would be unkind for me to…to impose myself as Gregory’s wife.” With the backs of her hands, Cecilia whisked away bewildered tears.
“Unkind. That’s bullshit. You are his wife. You should be first.” Kellen looked around. “I’m your cousin, and you can’t even invite me in, can you?”
“I…”
“I couldn’t come up until you called and gave me the all clear. You didn’t want me to drive my own car up here. You didn’t want your Gregory to know you had a relative arriving to support you. Did you even tell him I was coming?”
“I did! I told him.” Because she was afraid not to.
“What did he say?”
“He, um, asked if you were coming to take me away.” Cecilia bent her head and stared at her own skinny hands. “I said no.”
A pause, then with impeccable logic, Kellen said, “That’s because I can’t take you away. But I can help you get away.”
“I said no, you weren’t going to take me away,” Cecilia repeated. She had said no, over and over, while he harangued her, accused her, grabbed her wrist and squeezed and twisted. Finally, in a flare of temper, she had shouted, “Yes. Yes! I’m leaving with Kellen!”
Gregory had released her and backed away. In a low voice, he’d said, “If you leave me, I’ll kill you and I’ll kill myself.”
Cecilia hadn’t cared what he threatened. She’d curled protectively around her wrist, wondered if the bones were cracked, realized she would have to wear long sleeves for Kellen’s visit. For all the good that did, as soon as Kellen had stepped out of the cab into Maine’s summer sunshine, she had seen through Cecilia’s poor attempt at concealment. Kellen had slid up the sleeve and looked at the bruises, and right away she had known the truth.
“His sister is a problem, isn’t she?” Kellen asked.
“Erin is older, an important part of the family business.” Honesty caught Cecilia by the throat, and she confessed, “She doesn’t seem to like me much.”
“She sounds as if she loves her brother a little too much.”
Cecilia winced. “She feels as if she needs to protect him. She thinks I…seduced him.”
“What does she think about him hitting you?”
“I don’t know.” That I deserve it.
“They’re all sick. He’s sick.”
“No. Really, Kellen Rae…”
“Honey. Sweetheart. You’re my cousin. When your parents died and my folks brought you home, you were so timid, so sad. I tried to make you strong—”
“You did! You made me so much braver. But I’m not like you. I’m not—”
Kellen’s interruption was brutal and direct. “A lesbian?”
They had never spoken of this before. “No. I’m not a lesbian.”
Kellen looked out to sea, seeking something on the horizon: understanding, solace…something. “I came out of the closet to Mama and Papa. They threw me out of the house, told me I was going to hell unless I repented.”
Cecilia heard a world of pain in Kellen’s voice. Putting her arms around her, she said, “I didn’t want that for you.”
For one moment of weakness, Kellen leaned her head on Cecilia’s shoulder, and they stood together, hugging, cousins and sisters of the heart.
Cecilia had always known Kellen was a lesbian, and she wondered how Aunt Cora Rae and Uncle Earle failed to see the truth. Probably because they didn’t want to know.
“I would have kept quiet,” Kellen said, “but my partner…she deserves to be recognized as part of my family.”
“Is she lovely?”
“She’s a dear. So smart. So kind. You’ll like her. She says we can be married, have children and love them, let them be who they want to be.”
“Is that why you came here now? So we could talk about your love?” Cecilia teared up. “All we’ve done is talk about me.”
Kellen’s smile disappeared. “No. No guilt. I won’t have it. You’re already swimming in guilt. Tell me about last year when you broke your leg.”
Weary and heartsore, tired of confronting the truth and being confronted, Cecilia collapsed onto a rock. “I…I got lonely. Gregory was at the main house. I went in search of him and I…fell down the stairs.”
Kellen sat next to her. “Fell down? I’ll bet he was standing behind you.”
More tears leaked from the corners of Cecilia’s eyes.
Kellen put her arm around Cecilia’s shoulders. “Look at us. Look at you.” She held out her phone, clicked on the camera, took a picture of them in selfie mode. “We look alike, but you were always the beautiful one. Your hair—” she caught the length in her fist “—had that burnished gold look. Now it’s rough, tangled, and the ends are split. You know Mama would be shocked.”
Split ends were the ultimate sin in Aunt Cora Rae’s house.
“Your mom gave you that perfect skin, that natural kiss of terra-cotta to your skin. Now you’re so pale you’re almost a ghost.”
Cecilia looked away, trying to see across the ocean to a different place, a place of comfort and of warmth. “The Lykkes have never had a, um, Western American, um…”
“Western American…? You mean, Native American? Part Cherokee?”
“When I told them, they were shocked.” Cecilia had overheard Erin saying plenty to Gregory about adding a savage to their family tree.
Kellen’s voice rose. “What did they think you were going to do? Scalp them?” When Cecilia didn’t answer, Kellen’s voice gentled. “Your eyes are so big and blue, and your lashes—you always had the most beautiful lashes. And they’re gone! Have you been pulling them out?”
“They fell out when I was sick.”
“You’re too thin, and, Cecilia, you can’t even look at yourself.”