Her father grunted with disbelief. “What are you talking about?” But he kept his voice down, presumably because he didn’t want to alert her mother upstairs.
“You don’t have to lie anymore,” Addison said. “I know you were having an affair, and I know that someone was blackmailing you about it. I know they took everything from you to the point that you had to sell the hotel. It’s for this reason that you turned into this lump in front of my television, I guess.” It was harsh, but it came out before she could stop it.
Her father looked as though he’d been smacked. He tried to get to his feet, but he’d been sleeping too long and eaten too much macaroni and cheese, and he couldn’t.
“Don’t,” Addison said. “Don’t try to tell me that it isn’t true, either. I’ve seen the numbers. I’ve seen the emails. I know, Dad. But just tell me. Who was blackmailing you? And how did they find out what was going on?”
Her father gaped at her, then swallowed. He seemed to collapse back into himself, as though he knew he had nowhere else to turn. “You can’t tell your mother,” he said. “You can’t tell her, or else everything I did will be for nothing.”
“I won’t tell her,” Addison said, although she wasn’t sure if she was lying, now, too.
Her father sighed. “It’s true. I had an affair. But it ended, Addison. Two years ago, it ended. I was the one who ended it! I don’t know where this guy came from, nor how he figured outwhat I was up to. But he came into the hotel in June or so. He was so strange, so slimy. He was speaking Spanish, maybe, and then he switched to English. He was asking me really vague, sinister questions. I can’t remember what they were. It was after that that the emails came in. I told him to leave me alone at first, but they were never-ending. I went crazy.” Hugh closed his eyes. His forehead glinted with sweat.
Addison couldn’t understand who this man was, nor why he’d targeted her father. Was it possible that he’d been the person to buy the hotel a few weeks ago? She had to assume so, although it was impossible to know for sure. Maybe her father had an enemy.
“I’m going out of town for a little while,” Addison said.
Her father gave her a glazed-eyed look of confusion. “Why?”
“Because I need to.” Addison didn’t owe him an explanation. “When I’m gone, I want you to tell Mom what’s really going on.”
Her father gaped. “I can’t. I told you. I’ve already given away our life savings. I’ve done everything to keep her. The affair is over!”
But Addison shook her head. “If you don’t tell her, I will.”
She shot through the living room and hurried up the stairs to tell her children that they wouldn’t be spending Christmas in Hawaii, not that year. A part of her wondered if they’d ever spend Christmas in Hawaii again.
Chapter Seventeen
It was five days before Christmas. Jack took Francesca to her chemotherapy treatment, during which they spoke about Christmases past, Christmases they remembered at the White Oak Lodge, and Christmases they remembered in Italy. They filled in the blanks on one another’s memories, laughing often, until Francesca became too tired and reticent. When Jack drove her back to the vacation house, Lorelei and Allegra greeted them tenderly and helped their mother to the downstairs bedroom. She’d moved there so she didn’t have to go up and down the stairs. When Francesca was asleep, Allegra and Lorelei asked Jack how it had gone, their eyes hollow. He said, “It was the same. But she’s getting tired.”
“Her mood is slightly different,” Allegra agreed. “But I hope Christmas perks her up a little bit.”
Jack knew that Allegra and Lorelei were excited to welcome their families to Nantucket for the first time, and that they planned to pick them up at the Boston airport tomorrow afternoon. Jack was happy for them and thrilled to meet their children, his nieces and nephews. But knowing they were coming filled him with an awful ache. He wished Addison andthe kids were coming. He wished he could find a way to explain himself. He wished he weren’t so weak.
As Jack sipped a cup of coffee and watched the snow with his sisters, he received a call from his father. This was a surprise. Since Jack’s return, Jack and Benjamin hadn’t been alone together at all, and Jack had almost assumed that Jack brought back bad memories for Benjamin, memories of being on the road and being alone and chasing Tio Angelo.
Jack answered, steeling himself. “Hey, Dad.”
“Hi.” Benjamin’s voice was strained. “I wondered if you’d help me run an errand today.”
“Sure thing,” Jack said without hesitation.
Benjamin said he’d swing by the vacation house and pick Jack up. Jack put on his coat, hat, and gloves, and stepped into the soft snow, hustling to leap into his father’s truck. His father had the radio on, playing Pink Floyd, songs Benjamin and Jack had bonded over back in the nineties.
“How is she today?” Benjamin asked.
“She’s tired,” Jack offered. “But she’s getting through it.” He didn’t tell his father that she’d nearly cried on the way home, thinking about the hair she was about to lose. It hadn’t begun yet, but it was bound to, soon.
Jack wondered if Benjamin and Francesca had spent any one-on-one time together, if they were still circling one another and trying to figure one another out. He supposed it wasn’t really his business, either. He had his own romantic fish to fry.
Benjamin pulled into the Nantucket Christmas tree farm, the same site where they’d purchased their family and lodge trees over the years. This close to Christmas, the only person around was Nick Lamper, the guy who now owned the place after his father’s passing. Benjamin and Jack got out, shook Nick’s hand, and said they used to buy trees from his father. Nick laughed. “That goes for about everyone around here.”
Benjamin explained to Jack that he wanted to buy three Christmas trees: one for the dining hall of the lodge, where they planned to have their Christmas dinner as a family; one for the living room of the lodge, where they planned to open presents; and another for the vacation home where Francesca was living with Allegra and Lorelei, because he wanted Francesca to wake up every morning and think of magic.
“What about decorations?” Jack asked, thinking of naked and spindly trees and how sad they always looked.
“We’ll take care of that,” Benjamin said. “Charlotte’s got a few in boxes that she’ll offer up, she said, and Nina has her kids making some with papier-mâché and craft paper. I'd better recruit Alexander’s family, as well.”