It was sunny but cold. Kayla wore jeans, a turtleneck, and a black corduroy jacket. She put on her gloves and began to walk. Painted Rock Road was a dirt road surrounded on both sides by thick trees. It felt eerily familiar. Same setting, different island. Kayla saw other footprints in the dirt. Antoinette’s footprints? Or the footprints of some other woman? Kayla followed the footprints to a clearing, a small yard, a house. The house was long and narrow, a bunch of rooms lined up like boxcars on a train. Cedar shingles, forest green shutters, empty window boxes. A stucco chimney gurgled smoke.
Someone was home, enjoying a fire.
Kayla crunched up the gravel driveway. Fairy tales played through her head: “Hansel and Gretel,” “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” An evil-looking crow cawed from the roof. Kayla knocked on the front door three times. A friendly knock.
No answer.
Kayla knocked again, this time a little more aggressively. She wondered if someone was watching her from behind the curtains.
Still no answer.
Kayla rounded the side of the house with the chimney and stepped into the back yard. She was alarmed to discover the back of the house had huge windows and glass doors. Kayla could see right in- the beautiful cherry cabinets in the kitchen, the bar stools, one with a paperback copy of The Bluest Eye splayed on top. A small Christmas tree glittered with white lights on the kitchen counter. Behind the kitchen was a living room with a huge stone fireplace-and lying on the sofa in front of the fire, Kayla saw Antoinette, fast asleep.
Pregnant.
Kayla gasped. She should leave. Right now, leave. Give the detective his positive ID-Yes, that was Antoinette. Case closed. But Kayla couldn’t help herself. She walked closer to the glass doors; she pressed her face against the glass because she had to be sure.
Antoinette lay on her side, her hands resting on her swollen belly. She wore a pleated white blouse. Antoinette in white-it seemed odd. Her hair was loose, frizzed out on the sofa cushion, her eyes were closed, and her mouth hung open slightly. Kayla stared unabashedly. She remembered the incredible exhaustion of pregnancy, how it had weighed her down. And now here was Antoinette pregnant-tired with Kayla’s grandchild. Kayla reached for the handle of the sliding glass door. It was open. Kayla walked right in and tiptoed over to Antoinette; she stood so close she could hear Antoinette’s breathing. So close she could touch Antoinette’s forehead, which was shiny and dotted with small pimples. After all this time, months of speculation, here she was.You ran away from us, Kayla thought. And in so doing, you ruined everything. But staring at the roundness of Antoinette’s body, Kayla softened. Antoinette had kept the baby, after all.
And then, without warning, Antoinette’s eyes opened, and she looked at Kayla.
Kayla smiled at her. “Hello, old friend.”
A baffled expression crossed Antoinette’s face; her brow wrinkled. “You found me?”
“Apparently so.”
Antoinette blinked, confused. “Apparently so,” she repeated. She put a hand on the sofa beneath her in an attempt to push herself upright.
“Don’t get up,” Kayla said. “I’m not staying.”
“Do you have a gun?” Antoinette asked.
“A gun?”
“Don’t you want to kill me?”
Kayla laughed. “Sort of, yeah. But I don’t want to kill what’s inside you.”
Antoinette relaxed; she rubbed her stomach. “It’s a girl, Kayla.”
Tears sprang to Kayla’s eyes, and she stared into the fire. “A girl, huh?” She began to cry, unsure of how to feel. On the outside, things seemed to have gone back to normal, but inside of Kayla, everything had changed. The things that money couldn’t buy- a happy marriage, good kids, loyal friends-floated in the air around Kayla like snowflakes. At one time, she’d had them all, but now they were gone, and in their place was this news. A baby, after all. A baby girl. Kayla wiped her tears away with the back of her hand and took a deep breath, but when she turned back to Antoinette, she broke down again.
“Why the hell did you… and Val… she didn’t tell me… she accused me…”
“I made Val promise,” Antoinette said. “I swore her to secrecy.”
“But the two of you are supposed to keep secrets with me, not from me.”
“We wanted to protect you.”
“Protect me?”
“Protect Theo,” Antoinette said. “He can’t know about this. It will only set him back, Kayla. He needs to move forward. You know I’m right about that. Please don’t tell him.”
“He’s heartbroken,” Kayla said.
“So am I,” Antoinette said. “At least he has me to blame. I have to blame myself. I do, you know- accept the blame for everything. I will feel guilty for the rest of my life.”
“Good,” Kayla said. If Jacob Anderson had taught her anything, it was that guilt was the worst that life had to deal out. And Antoinette deserved the worst. “You hurt a lot of people. You hurt me.”
“I know, Kayla. I’m sorry.”
Kayla stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jeans. She and Antoinette looked at each other for a long moment-Kayla really looked. Her friend dressed in white for the first time, the frizzy hair, the swollen belly-a woman she’d never understood, but had loved anyway. Kayla wondered what Antoinette saw: A wife? A mother? A friend?
“I have to tell Theo,” Kayla said. “There’s no way I can keep this from him.”
“You can’t tell him,” Antoinette said. “He deserves a second chance-at love, at a family. Once he’s older.”
“Yes, but…”
“Kayla,” Antoinette said. “Twenty years ago we made a promise to keep each other’s secrets safe from the rest of the world. That includes Theo.”
“He’s going to find out sooner or later,” Kayla said.
“Then let it be later. Promise me he won’t hear it from you.”
Kayla nodded and warm tears spilled down her cheeks. “Will you raise her well?” Kayla said. “This little girl of ours?”
“I will,” Antoinette said. “This is my second chance. I waited a long time for this, Kayla.”
“I didn’t know you wanted a second chance,” Kayla said.
“That was my confession,” Antoinette said. “I want a second chance. Please.”
Kayla didn’t know how to respond, and she sensed she never would.
“Merry Christmas,” Kayla said. She walked back to the door and stepped out into the cold, bright day. When she turned around, Antoinette’s eyes had fallen closed once again and Kayla watched her deep breathing resume, her chest rising and falling in a rhythm as perfect and steady as the waves of the ocean.
Kayla walked all the way back to Vineyard Haven; several cars stopped to offer her a ride, but she declined. She was in a trance of sorts. She replayed the conversation over and over and had to quell the desire to return and bombard Antoinette with what remained: her anger, her questions, her remorse. But those things were rapidly losing importance, and in their place, Kayla felt a growing sense of freedom. It was over. Complete. Ending not with a death at all, but with a life. Her granddaughter’s life would be the last Night Swimmers secret, the secret that would bind her to Val and Antoinette even if she never saw them again. The hardest secret to keep.
Forgive me, Theo, Kayla thought. Because I am a mother, too, I understand.
…
As Kayla waited for the ferry to Nantucket, she thought about the little girl who would be entering the world soon, a little girl connected to Kayla’s rife, and to her husband, and to her son, and to her dear friend. This little girl changed things, transformed them. Kayla hoped Antoinette would raise the baby to be strong and wise and yes, sensitive, like her grandmother. Maybe someday Antoinette would tell her the story about Night Swimmers, about three women who shared secrets that they couldn’t share with anyone else. Maybe when this baby grew up, she would have female friends of her own. To be friends with another woman was difficult, Kayla thought, and painful and complicated. But when a friendship between women was good, it had a sacred, shining power. Kayla gathered up memories of this power-and there were many-as she stepped onto the ferry and headed for home.