“You can’t keep tabs on the Whitmore family,” Jack said.
“No, you cannot. That’s one thing we’ve confirmed over the years,” Charlotte agreed. “Do you feel okay?”
Jack said he did, although he wasn’t sure. It felt as though he hadn’t slept in years.
“It’s a trip to see Nina like that, isn’t it?” Charlotte asked. “You know, she was the first one who came back and found me. She’d put things together about Seth Green and the house on Madequecham Beach. She had this crazy hunch that you were still alive. She’d seen a photograph many years ago. Something that stuck in her mind. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that she’s the smartest of all the Whitmores, especially because she grew up apart from all of us. She had to survive by herself.”
“How will we ever forgive ourselves for that?” Jack asked.
“How can we forgive ourselves for anything?” Charlotte asked, which felt entirely too broad yet cutting.
But before Jack could answer, Nina headed back to announce that their father and mother were on their way to the lodge as well. Jack felt his stomach churn with anxiety. Was he ready for something like that? Oh, but he had to be. He’d come back for a reason, hadn’t he? He didn’t want to be afraid any longer.
Jack entered the White Oak Lodge and walked through the completely refurbished dining area and kitchen, amazed at its grandeur and state-of-the-art appliances. He didn’t dare enter the family side of the place, as he knew the memories would be painful and all-powerful. It was enough to stay on the lodge’s side of things and remain in control.
“Where have you been?” Nina asked, following him, watching his every move.
“Mexico City,” he said. “Before that, I was in Hawaii.”
“Hawaii!” Nina was captivated. She looked at him the way she once had when she was a little kid, when she thought Jack was the most important person in the world.
“I’ve been hiding out,” Jack said, trying to smile in the way he once had—arrogantly, like he knew everything. He wanted to feel like he was joking, although he wasn’t, not really. “Where were you?”
Nina explained that she’d been a professor at Princeton but had left to move here, get answers about the family, and help out at the lodge. “Turns out, this is my biggest anthropology project to date. Figuring out what happened to the Whitmores. It’s been the question on my mind since I was a little girl.”
Charlotte was quiet and watchful, her arms crossed. A truck pulled up outside, and out popped a man in his forties with two kids. Nina perked up and headed back toward the foyer, glancing back to tell Jack, “My kids are here. I never dreamed they’d meet their Uncle Jack!”
Jack’s heart buzzed with adrenaline. It felt insane to hear himself called Jack, Jack, Jack, over and over again, as though that was the name he’d always had. He wondered what he’d been calling himself in his own head all these years. But now, like a ghost, he found himself before Nina’s two kids, Will and Fiona, shaking their hands and then hugging them, marveling that they were around the same age as his own kids—Kennedy, Penelope, and Gavin. How he wished they were here to meet their cousins!
Nina introduced her boyfriend after that, a man Jack knew well. It was Amos, the guy he’d looped into joining Tio Angelo’s drug force all those years ago. Jack remembered that Amos had come from nothing. The thought of Amos being able to provide for his mother and siblings had been more than enough to get him to say yes. Jack felt heavy with guilt, but as he shook Amos’s hand and locked eyes with him, Amos said, “I’m glad you’re here, man. We’ve been worried about you.”
Jack managed to find his voice enough to say, “Amos, I don’t know what to say, man. I’m so sorry. For everything.”
Amos waved his hand. “I know you’ve had a heck of a time of it, like me. Well, I don’t know the specifics. But I can imagine.” He paused. Jack knew he was thinking the same as everyone else who had assumed Jack was dead and gone.
Nina set Will and Fiona up at the dining table with their books and their notepads. They were quiet and watchful, alternating between reading a page and looking curiously at their uncle. Amos went to check something at the lodge, explaining that he had a call with one of the contractors on Monday and needed to decide one way or the other. They’d taken a brief break for Thanksgiving weekend, but they couldn’t lose too much time. As soon as he was gone, Jack gave Nina a look of surprise.
“It just happened,” Nina said, blushing. “I was divorced and alone and staying in a little rental house not far from here. Amos happened to be managing the property. He broke in one night without knowing I was there.” She laughed.
“She tells it like it’s romantic,” Charlotte said. “But it’s terrifying!”
Nina laughed again and squinted at Jack, as though she thought he’d disappear if she didn’t continue to stare at him. “What does it feel like to be back after all these years?”
Jack’s mouth went dry. He scratched the back of his neck and felt visions of that long-ago night flutter through his vision. But before he could answer, he watched as a black car pulled into the driveway. His heart dropped into his stomach. Nina and Charlotte followed his gaze. Together, they watched as Benjamin Whitmore first got out of the driver’s side, only to open the passenger door and help Francesca Accetta out. Seeing his mother and father like that, together—even just in friendship—warmed Jack’s heart. He hurried to the foyer, past the old front counter, which gleamed after a recent shine. He walked outside and stood on the front porch, watching as his regal motherapproached. She stopped short, gazing at him. Benjamin stood beside her, his chin raised. Jack thought back to that long-ago day in Hawaii, when Benjamin had come to warn him about Tio Angelo. After that, Jack had been on a wild goose chase of sorts. He’d been lonelier than he’d been since age seventeen—when he’d had to enter the world by himself and figure out a new name, a new identity, a new story.
Jack stepped off the porch and walked over to his mother. He felt his sisters’ gazes on his back. Francesca had begun to cry quietly. Tears dripped down her cheeks. But all at once, Jack wrapped his arms around her frail frame. She shook gently, whispering in Italian, “My son. My son has returned home.” It was almost too much to bear.
It took Jack ages to convince himself to stop hugging his mother. The comfort and the feeling of “returning home” that she brought to him could not be overstated. When he turned to his father, he saw nothing but compassion and sorrow in his father’s eyes. Benjamin hugged him and muttered in his ear, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Jack imagined the apology was for all of it—for 1998 as well as the events of that very year. Jack was suddenly too exhausted to do anything but hug his father back.
Benjamin clapped Jack’s shoulder. He was crying, too. “We have to celebrate,” he stammered. “Francesca, you’ve brought our son home!”
Things moved swiftly after that. All at once, Benjamin was on the phone with a local restaurant, requesting that mounds of food—chicken and turkey and steak and fish and pasta—be delivered to the White Oak Lodge. Jack, Francesca, Charlotte, and Nina gathered in the kitchen to open a bottle of wine and talk all at once about how Jack had called Charlotte after he’d seen the news segment last night in Mexico City and how he’d taken the first flight he could. Jack felt whiplash. He touched his wedding band, spinning it, knowing that his mother had noticedhe was married. When she touched it with the tip of her finger, he blushed. “And I have kids. I have three kids. I want you to know them, Mama.”
He wasn’t sure how to tell his mother that his kids and wife knew him as “Seth Green,” that it wasn’t possible that he could ever merge the worlds without Addison knowing he’d lied to her for years and years and years. How could they come back from that?
Not long after Benjamin and Francesca’s arrival, Alexander and his family along with Lorelei and Allegra arrived. They swallowed Jack in hugs and wept so powerfully that the sounds echoed through the White Oak Lodge.
“Who knew that finding buried treasure wouldn’t be the biggest thing to impact this family on Thanksgiving weekend?” Alexander joked, brushing a tear from his cheek.