The Neighbor's Secret by L. Alison Heller

Author:L. Alison Heller [Heller, L. Alison]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Flatiron Books

CHAPTER NINETEEN

It was Christmas Eve and the Perley house was filled with garlands and tea lights and poinsettias and presents and Mike’s family, who had arrived from California a few days before.

They’d managed to find a spot for everyone to sleep: Mike’s sisters and a brother-in-law were in the unfinished basement, on the Gallegos’s air mattresses, and Hank and Laurel were with their cousins, in a pile of sleeping bags on the floor of the den. Annie and Mike had given his parents the master bedroom and themselves the kids’ room, where they were both trying to change into pajamas in the narrow space between bunk bed and desk without colliding.

“How on earth do Hank and Laurel peacefully coexist in this room?” Mike said.

Annie could hear her father-in-law’s snores through the wall like a buzz saw. She knew their house was too small, but whenever Mike pointed it out, she got an uncomfortable guilty feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I would’ve given anything to be close to my brothers, or have a giant cousin sleepover every Christmas Eve.”

Her childhood Christmases had felt quiet and empty. Holidays like the Perleys’—with traditional recipes and group karaoke and gingerbread houses and skating—were so much more fun for a kid.

According to the therapist Mike had dragged Annie to after Laurel was born, Annie’s lonely childhood explained a lot of her bad decisions later in life. She had been an obvious accident, born twelve years after her next-younger brother, and when Annie was four years old, it was decided she should move to her grandmother’s silent two-bedroom apartment from August through June—ostensibly for the superior school district. But even as a small child, Annie had felt her parents’ relief each August when she’d left.

Once, Annie had been recounting this feeling to her therapist, and the woman had shrugged in a way that communicated impatience.

“What do you think your baby is about?” The therapist had undereye creases as deep as canyons and a rough accent from somewhere on the East Coast.

Annie didn’t understand the question. Were people ever about anything? Weren’t they just people?

“The pregnancy wasn’t planned,” the therapist said. “You were young and unmarried. You had other choices, but you didn’t even deliberate. Why?”

Annie looked down at her still bulging lap. “Love?” she said.

The therapist snorted.

“What?” Annie had wiped her wet cheeks with the back of her wrist.

“It’s okay to want to be the parent you wished you had, Annie. There are worse child-rearing techniques.”

Sometimes when Annie took stock of what Hank and Laurel had—big family, loyal neighborhood friends, packed schedules—she understood that the secret of life was seeing your children take for granted what you had once ached for.

Laurel was surrounded by security and love, and Annie was certain that this would be enough to keep her anchored. It had to be.

“Oh,” Mike said. He reached into his pants pocket. “My mom gave me the necklace for Laurel. I promised my parents that we wouldn’t put it under the tree, though.

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