All night, Addison had twisted through nightmares, discovering horrible things about her husband and what had happened to him. Now, she wasn’t sure if she thought he was dead, or a criminal, or both.
Again, as Addison swam in fear at the hotel’s front desk, Charlotte texted and called. When Addison couldn’t take it anymore, she answered, blurting, “I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know, especially if it’s bad. Please, let me live in peace.”
Charlotte’s voice was sweet and soft, coming at Addison from the opposite side of what felt like the world. “I understand that,” she said. “I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through these past few months.”
Addison sniffed and rubbed her forehead. She willed herself to hang up on Charlotte, but found that she couldn’t. “He’s dead, isn’t he?” she whispered.
“No,” Charlotte said. She sounded clear. “Actually, he’s on a plane to Boston right now. He should be here sometime today. I don’t know what to think about it. The rest of the family doesn’t know yet. But, well. I felt that you deserved to know he’s safe. He’s okay.”
Addison clapped her hand over her mouth. She realized that Francesca’s plea had worked, that Jack was headed to Nantucket to rejoin his family. In one fell swoop, everything about the Whitmore dynamic had changed. They could come out into the open again. They could acknowledge the past and stop running.
“He doesn’t think you know about him,” Charlotte affirmed gently. “I don’t think he knows what to do about it.”
Addison squeezed her eyes shut. She was still so angry with Seth, with Jack, for not cluing her in to any of this, for marrying her without telling her where he came from and who he was.
“Are you still there?” Charlotte asked.
“I’m here,” Addison said. “I keep telling myself to give up on this. My mother wants me to get divorced. But I’ve already gotten divorced!” She bit her lip, feeling childish. “What I mean is, I love Seth. Jack. Whatever. I love him so much. I love our children, and I love our life. But I feel resentful because I gotinto this marriage thinking we were on one road, but we’re on another. And I don’t know if I want to be on that road.”
Charlotte seemed to understand perfectly. “On July 4th, 1998, everything about my life fell apart,” she said. “I’ve been juggling a new reality, trying to make sense of my old one. We all have been. The fact is, you’re a part of that narrative now, too, whether you want to be or not. The question is, do you want to stay in that narrative? Do you want to be with Jack?”
Addison couldn’t breathe. Before she could answer Charlotte properly, her children propelled back into the hotel lobby, bringing with them waves of sand that she would have to vacuum up later. Their smiles were infectious, even as they apologized.
“I can keep you updated,” Charlotte said.
“My husband abandoned us,” Addison whispered back, not loud enough for her children to hear. “That’s the only reality I really understand. Do you know what I mean?”
Before Charlotte could answer, Addison hung up the phone and turned it off. More guests came into the hotel to ask her for restaurant recommendations, where to go hiking, and which birds were twittering in the trees outside. She told herself that this was fine, that this was the life she’d chosen, that she couldn’t very well travel across the continent to ask her husband why he’d spent the entirety of their marriage lying to her. She didn’t have it in her.
Chapter Seven
Jack’s plane landed at one thirty Eastern Standard Time. Out the windows was a strange mix of snow, rain, and a mist that made Jack think of the old fairy tales his mother told them before bed. A shiver went down his spine. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been cold. Around him, other passengers were putting on their coats and wrapping scarves around their necks. All he had were the clothes in the backpack he’d shoved in there when he’d left his family to chase his uncle. He’d have to do something about that.
Once inside the Boston airport, Jack walked slowly, feeling like a man in a dream. There were numerous clothing shops, places that reminded him of his East Coast youth. He tried on a few jackets and coats, barely glancing in the mirror and going by feel instead. Everything felt overwhelmingly thick, as though he were wrapping himself in marshmallow fluff.
Around him, everyone’s accents made him want to laugh and cry at the same time. Bostonians, New Englanders, they all sounded so funny and charming in his ears. They sounded like his father, Benjamin, from whom he hadn’t heard since he’d left his repair shop in Hawaii. How was it that Benjamin had ended up on Nantucket? Charlotte mentioned that Benjamin wastaking the fall for the fire so Alexander wouldn’t get arrested. Apparently, Tio Angelo had also been busy blackmailing Alexander numerous times over the years. Benjamin had decided that his love for his son outweighed his freedom. He’d returned to Nantucket and faced his past. Now, Jack had to face them all.
Jack bought a coat, gloves, a hat, and a scarf, then headed to the rental car company nearest baggage claim and got the cheapest one available. When he handed over his license—his Seth Green license, of course—he realized that it was nearly expired. Addison was usually the one who reminded him to do things like that, to organize the little details in his life. He felt crushed with love for her.
The rental car was a cream-colored Chevy with a stick shift. Jack hadn’t driven stick in years, but it came back to him easily and took his mind off his troubles, albeit briefly. As he drove away from the airport, headed for Hyannis and the ferry that would take him to the island, he thought back to the long-ago days when he’d first learned how to drive stick. His father had thought he’d been teaching Jack, but the truth was that Tio Angelo had already taught Jack how to drive, long before it was legal to learn. Tio Angelo had needed him to deliver various “products” around the island. His uncle needed Jack to be everywhere he needed Jack to be, whenever that was. Shame made his cheeks burn. He didn’t like to think about how susceptible his uncle had been. He didn’t like to think about how eager he’d been to make money as a teenager, at any cost.
Jack parked the car in the belly of the ferry, then went up to the mid-deck to grab a cup of coffee and watch the island come closer and closer. Around him, people were talking about their Thanksgiving dinners, who had won the football games the day before, and how Christmas would be here before we knew it.Jack looked at everyone, wondering if he’d met any of them in some other era of his life, but he didn’t recognize anyone.
When he drove off the ferry, he half-expected his entire family to be waiting for him in the parking lot. He imagined them all as they’d been in the nineties, his mother so beautiful and still young, his father still strong and arrogant and sure of himself, Nina still eleven years old and following him around like a little pet. But it had begun to snow, and anyone in the parking lot now scampered to their cars and fled to the warmth of their homes.
Jack remembered the route to Madequecham Beach like the back of his hand. It took fifteen minutes to drive there from the ferry, and throughout, his heart banged hard in his chest. He wondered what Charlotte would say when she saw him. He remembered what she’d said just last night—that she hoped he wasn’t abandoning anyone as he returned to them. She knew what kind of man he was.
He remembered, now, why he’d bought the house in Madequecham Beach in the first place. He’d been obsessed with his anger toward his uncle, obsessed with revenge. In his twenties, he’d known that Tio Angelo maintained druggy connections in Nantucket, that he continued to sell right under the noses of the Nantucket police. With the name Seth Green, Jack had purchased the house, eager to keep an eye on things and wait for Tio Angelo to make a mistake and reveal himself. But life had had other plans for Jack.
Jack pulled into the driveway in front of the house on Madequecham, cut the engine, and got out. Before he reached the porch, the front door burst open to reveal his older sister, his marvelous Charlotte. She stood there, coatless, in a pair of jeans and a sweater. Her dark hair swept back behind her like a flag in the wind. She looked at him as though she couldn’t believe he’dreally made it. Jack staggered up the steps and wrapped his arms around his sister. He felt old and young at once.
Charlotte ushered him inside, where she poured them coffee. She was quiet, as though she didn’t know what to say. Jack didn’t either. He took off his shoes and sat on the sofa. He was wrapped in a blanket because he couldn’t stop shivering. The ocean looked the same as it always had in winter: frigid and terrifying and apt to swallow you. Charlotte remained standing, her hands around her mug of coffee, her eyes alight.
“You look like yourself,” she said quietly.
Jack laughed, in spite of everything. “I look old.” He didn’t add: I look like I’ve been holed up in an anonymous hotel in Mexico for the better part of the year, chasing our uncle.
“I don’t want to think what that makes me,” Charlotte said.