The Language of Secrets Read Online Free Page A

long as I’m around, you’re working with a net. No shame in that. The only thing a man has to be ashamed of is not doing what it takes to keep his family safe and happy. Nothing comes before that, nothing. So whatever you’re trying to hide with all the smoke and mirrors about sisters who don’t know who you are and headstones that say you’ve been dead for thirty years, forget about it. Shut it down. It’s history. And nobody in California gives a shit about history.”
    Justin knew it was true. He was in a place that didn’t care about things that were dead and buried. But he sensed that what had been unearthed by his return to California wasn’t dead, and that it wouldn’t allow itself to stay buried.

Caroline

822 LIMA STREET, FALL 1971
*
    The screen door banged open and Caroline came running out of the house. “That was a married people’s kiss!” She was barefoot, dressed in a T-shirt and shorts.
    Robert was halfway across the wide porch and heading toward the steps. He wore a three-piece suit and had a garment bag in one hand and his briefcase in the other. “What?” He stopped and turned to look at her.
    “It was an eleven years in, romance at room temperature kind of thing. I’ve had mosquito bites take longer.” She went to him, pressed her lips against his, then slowly pulled away. His mouth tasted like coffee and toothpaste. “I hate it that we kiss like married people.” The October morning sun was warm on her body and a flutter of desire was making Caroline want to pull Robert back into the house.
    “But we are married people. I like being married people.” His kiss was quick, companionable. “The kitchen faucet’s leaking,” he said. “I’ll take care of it when I get back.”
    The flutter of desire faded, and Caroline turned her attentionto cleaning up the drifts of sand that Lissa and Julie had brought back from the park across the street. They had used it to make a beach for their Barbie dolls.
    Robert was at the curb now, tossing his things into the trunk of the car. He waved to her. “I’ll call you from Fresno. Love you!”
    She returned a perfunctory wave. Irritation and disappointment were already filling the space desire had so unexpectedly opened and then abandoned. She moved the sole of her foot across the little beach her girls had made. Lissa and Julie were three and four, just a year apart, and when Caroline had been their age, she had loved playing in the sand. She’d gone to the beach every day. To a real ocean beach. A fabulous postcard coastline that glittered like a jewel, its air sharp with the smell of sea salt and warm tar and eucalyptus. The beach in Santa Barbara.
    Santa Barbara was where Caroline had met Robert. She’d been just seventeen, excited about her first day at college, and she had run into the path of an oncoming bicycle, Robert and Barton’s.
    Robert, a blond fraternity boy in surfer trunks and flip-flops, was steering; Barton was perched on the handlebars. Both of them fell as Robert swerved to avoid hitting Caroline. When they got to their feet, Robert was smiling. Barton was serious and self-conscious; blushing to the roots of his coppery hair; seeming too tall as he scrambled to pick up the books Caroline had dropped. When he handed them to her, he gave a quick bow of his head—shy and reverential—the gentle gesture of a gentle soul.
    It was Robert and Caroline who had become a couple. But it was Barton who had been the one to hold and console Caroline each time she and Robert swore they were breaking up. And it had been Barton to whom she had gone when she failed chemistry and when one of her roommates had died in a skiing accident andwhen, after weeks of waiting, Caroline’s period had failed to arrive and she’d begun to be sick to her stomach every morning.
    It was Barton that Caroline was thinking about now as she was sweeping the last of the sand from the front porch. A station wagon was passing the house; the female driver was