Finished: The Husband's Secret (Moriarty) Well...the secret was not at all what I thought it would be! :-) The book was a good page-turner because of it! The story of three Australian women whose lives coincide at a crucial moment for each of them on Good Friday in 2012. Cecelia is the mother of three young daughters, married to the handsome, successful John Paul. She is the ultimate organized mother...president of their equivalent of the PTA and a Tupperware saleswoman to boot. She's planning a huge pirate party for her 6 year old daughter, Polly's, birthday. Rachel is a grandmother to 2 year old Jacob by her son Rob and his wife Lauren. She gets the disturbing news that they plan to whisk her beloved grandson away and move to New York for two years. That's not even the tip of her emotional iceberg, though. Back in 1984 her 17 year old daughter, Janie, had been strangled to death by an unknown murderer. Rachel has lived with the nightmare all these years and because of it, pretty much closed off her emotions towards Rob, who was 15 at the time. A couple of years after Janie's death, Rachel's husband died of a heart attack. Rachel is the school secretary at the same school that Cecelia's daughter's attend. Also...the good-looking, single P.E. teacher, Connor Whitby, is a thorn in Rachel's emotions. It just so happens that he was the last person to see Janie alive all those years ago because he was Janie's age and was her secret suitor. Rachel is convinced that Connor killed Janie but there was no evidence to back that up so he was never charged. Parents and children alike at the school all love Connor. The third woman is Tess. Tess is a 30-something mother of 6 year old Liam. We first meet her when her husband of 10 years and her cousin and best friend since birth, Felicia, are telling her that they've fallen in love. Tess can't believe what she's hearing and she takes Liam and decides to go home and visit her mother for awhile in, you guessed it, the same town that Cecelia and Rachel live in. Tess and her mother go straight away the next day to register Liam in the same school that Cecelia's daughters attend. While meeting the principal, Connor Whitby strolls in and recognizes Tess! It seems that years ago when Tess was about 19, her first love was the 10 years older Connor Whitby! She doesn't even recognize him, but he does her because he's been in love with her ever since.

So, now to the secret. While going through some boxes in her attic, Cecelia comes across a letter written to her by John Paul that says for her to open it only in the event of his death. Cecelia struggles with respecting his wishes, especially since he's out of town on business and curiosity is getting the better of her. When he calls that night she tells him she found the letter. After an awkward silence, he begs her not to read it because he says it was just a mushy letter he wrote after their first daughter was born and then he lost it before he could tear it up. He had never intended for her to see it. He begs her not to read it, so she files it away with their wills in the study filing cabinet. The next thing she knows, as she arrives home from giving a Tupperware party that evening, John Paul is climbing out of a cab having come home days early. His adoring daughters are thrilled to see him and he them. Meanwhile, Tess meets Connor for an innocent cup of coffee but they end up having hot sex on his apartment floor! He tells her he's never really gotten over her. She's beginning to think that since her husband is obviously moving on, that it's not so bad having someone who is completely desiring her. Of course....young Liam, while adjusting to the new school and already invited to Polly's pirate party, still longs for his daddy. He's even savvy enough to insist his mommy and Auntie Felicia make up so things can go back to how they were. And then there's Rachel, who finds an old VCR tape with Janie on it that she's never seen! In it Janie is interviewing Connor for a school project and they appear happy, but then things turn serious was Connor asks Janie for real if she will be his girlfriend. She laughs at him and he gets mad and shuts the camera off. This convinces Rachel more than ever that Connor is guilty of Janie's murder. The police don't give it much credence though, and Rachel is crushed. Rachel also feels extreme guilt because on the day that Janie was murdered, Rachel was seven minutes late picking Janie up at the corner where she was supposed to meet her and take her to a doctor's appointment. Janie had not been feeling well, having shortness of breath and a racing heart a few times. What Rachel doesn't realize is that Janie totally forgot about the doctor's appointment anyway, having gone over to Connor's.

Back to Cecelia and John Paul and the secret. At this point, I'm thinking for sure he's got another family somewhere. After they go to bed that night, Cecelia wakes up in the middle of the night to find John Paul out of the bed and she can hear his footsteps up above in the attic, where she told him she'd put the letter back. What the heck, she thinks. He must want that letter back so badly...what could be in it? While John Paul rustles around upstairs, Cecelia goes to the study file cabinets and takes the letter out to read. John Paul comes down the stairs just as Cecelia has finished reading the letter and oh my God...he didn't have another family....HE killed Janie!!! He was also a teenager all those years ago and he and Janie had secretly seen each other a few times because she wasn't allowed to date. They'd met at a couple of movies and at the park. They'd never even kissed yet, but John Paul was head over heels in love with Janie. On Good Friday of 1984, Janie had called John Paul to meet her at the park to tell him she was breaking up with him because she'd fallen in love with Connor! In a burst of anger, John Paul strangled Janie. Realizing what he was doing, he'd quit pretty quickly, but not in time. Janie had perished. John Paul was never suspected and went on to college. He'd lived all those years with incredible guilt, though, even trying to take his own life his first year of college. A few years later, he met Cecelia and they married and had their first daughter. That's when John Paul realized the magnitude of what he'd done...he'd taken away Rachel and Ed Crowley's daughter. He couldn't imagine anything happening to his little baby. He wrote the letter in case anything ever happened to him. He wanted Cecelia to let Rachel know what had happened all those years ago. He claims he would never have let anyone else take the blame...he would have turned himself in then.

Anyway, needless to say, Cecelia is floored. She's shocked. She doesn't know what to do. She alternates between calling the police and wondering what her own daughters would do without their father. She procrastinates for a couple of days and the result is more devastation. As Good Friday arrives, bringing the anniversary of Janie's death, the stories all converge. First, Connor calls Tess to see if she'd like to bring Liam over to the school park for some amazing kite flying. She accepts, but before they can get out the door, Felicia arrives!! She tells Tess that she's going away for a long time....the minute that Tess walked out the door and took Liam, Will was beside himself and realized what he'd done and lost. Will would be over soon and begging for their life back together. Reeling, Tess calls Connor to tell him that her husband is in town and she won't be able to make it. He understands and says goodbye, letting her know that she's broken his heart a second time. (She was the one who left him all those years ago after they dated.) Connor is left standing at the park with his huge kite in hand. At Cecelia's house on Good Friday she's so preoccupied that she's :::gasp::: forgotten to buy butter for her traditional hot cross buns. Cecelia and John Paul keep a united front with the girls and Cecelia says, let's ride our bikes to the school park for some family time and on the way home we'll stop at the one open store to get butter to bring home. So, off they go. And Rachel...well she's gone early in the morning to the other park...the one where Janie lost her life. She goes every year on the anniversary of her death. She's driving home by the school park, despondent and so upset that the police aren't going to pursue Connor Whitby and her little grandson is moving away. Suddenly, Rachel sees Connor Whitby hanging up his phone and looking bummed. He's about to cross the street in front of her and she jams on the accelerator deliberately! At that same instant, though, six year old Polly, riding her bike between Cecelia and John Paul has seen the beloved Mr.Whitby and calls out for him! He doesn't hear her so she shoots off down the hill towards him. Tragically, Rachel misses Connor but hits little Polly. :-( :-( You think, wow, the karma has come back to John Paul in a big way. The police let Rachel off the hook, saying it was obviously an accident. She still goes to the hospital to see if Polly has survived. Polly has indeed survived, but she's going to lose her right arm. Beautiful, vivacious little Polly will lose her arm. Rachel sees the devastated Cecelia and apologizes profusely. She confesses to Cecelia that it wasn't an accident...she was trying to run down the man who killed her daughter, Connor Whitby. Cecelia nearly passes out. She sits down and makes her own confession to Rachel...it wasn't Connor that killed her daughter but her own husband, John Paul! She explains that she'd just discovered the information a few days before but they are both hit with the realization that if Cecelia had said something sooner that Polly wouldn't be in the situation she was in. Interestingly, Rachel decides that she's taken enough from the family with Polly's accident, and that she doesn't want to take their father from the girls, so she does not turn him in. Cecelia and John Paul will be left to put the pieces together for Polly's life. Also interestingly, Rachel for the first time picks up the phone and is warm to her daughter-in-law and expresses actually needing them for once. Can she spend the night? Rob and Lauren jump at that chance and it looks like those familial bonds will be strengthened. In the meantime, Tess and Will talk all night and Will explains that he's not just coming back for Liam. He was at a very low point in his life when he thought he fell for Felicia and he didn't know what he was thinking but he still loves Tess and will she please give him another chance. Will and Felicia had never even slept together, which Tess already knew. She agrees to give their marriage a go until Christmas and if he's still got feelings for Felicia, then they will re-address it then. And...as a little wrap up in the epilogue, we find out that Tess has become pregnant but will not know if the baby is Connor's or Will's! And, Felicia meets a man in Paris and falls and love and marries, so Tess and Will stay together after all. And, we also find out that the reason Janie succumbed so quickly to the strangling was that she had Marfan syndrome and suffered an aortic aneurysm. As a matter of fact, if she'd made her doctor appointment that fateful day, she would have been put in the hospital immediately for an operation to repair it. So, when John Paul had stopped himself, most healthy girls would have lived to run away...but not poor Janie. Interesting...and a quite good page-turner. I think I might read more by Liane Moriarty! :-)