Chapter 4
It was autumn on Nantucket Island. Lindsey adored the colder temperatures, the changing leaves, and the fog over the water.
She adored the way the tourists fled, leaving the boardwalk like a ghost town and all the restaurants and bars filled only with other Nantucketers, people she either already knew and loved or had yet to know and love.
As the cozier season welcomed her, drawing her into warm sweaters and flannel sheets, she felt further and further from the past she’d run from. This was a good thing.
But one day in late October, Lindsey went for a run and returned to the Harbor House to find a large box on the porch.
Her first instinct was that it was supplies for the Harbor House, maybe bedsheets or more kitchen utensils, things that Gwen and Candice seemed to be ordering for their springtime opening constantly.
Lindsey prepared to drag the box inside and carry it into where Gwen and Candice were looking over spreadsheets and other money-related things.
But then, she realized that the box was addressed to Lindsey Vanberg. It was for her.
Lindsey’s palms were sweaty from the run.
She wiped them on her shorts and examined the box more closely.
It didn’t take long to realize it was from her.
Although there was no return address, Lindsey recognized it after a moment—she'd seen it on a few notes and cards over the years.
It was Piper's. Shock went through her. She needed to get the box off the porch as soon as possible.
She wanted to hide it—not only from herself, but from Candice, who would certainly have many questions.
Lindsey couldn’t believe she’d do this. How dare she?
But she shoved thoughts of that aside, opened the door, and half dragged, half carried the box into the foyer.
From here, she could hear Candice and Gwen talking in the next room.
She needed to hurry. But she was exhausted from the run and from the emotion coursing through her, and by the time she got to her room, she was in tears.
She shoved the box into the back of the closet and lay on the floor for a long time, allowing herself to cry.
“Okay,” she whispered to herself, her breath coming in spurts. “It’s okay. You’re in Nantucket. The pain is over. You’re through.”
Of course, she knew better than to believe that fully.
Lindsey had had beautiful plans for today.
She’d wanted to help Candice and Gwen. She’d wanted to meet friends in town and try out a new restaurant.
But now, she felt blown over. Rather than shower, rather than grab a snack or take care of herself, she looked at her phone for hours, reading through celebrity gossip and recipes she’d never try, trying to calm herself down.
The biggest news story of the moment was, of course, one that she was very invested in.
Namely, toward the end of summer, after that horrible video had surfaced on a film set in Tokyo, Lindsey’s beloved Taylor Charron had been kicked off the B-movie she’d been starring in.
The headlines read: “The Starlette’s Days are Through!
” and “This Diva Has Been Shown the Door,” which were all ridiculous and undercut the true wonder of her previous celebrity.
Also, Lindsey noted, everyone was fascinated with Taylor’s demise, without noting to themselves that the reason they were obsessed with her demise was that she was still far, far more famous than they ever would be.
Nobody knew what to do with their love for Taylor Charron. This was why they had to ridicule her.
The film had replaced her almost immediately with Taylor’s costar from her sitcom days, which couldn’t have felt very good for Taylor.
It was the biggest disgrace of all. But that wasn’t all.
After Taylor lost the film, the story was that she tried to go to Paris to join her husband, Jason Clapton.
She’d gone to Paris without telling him and shown up at his hotel unannounced.
Apparently, Jason and his new girlfriend came back not long after she arrived, blindsiding her.
Rather than yell at them, she got out as soon as she could.
She left her suitcase at the hotel and went into the Paris night, where she drank too many glasses of wine at a swanky wine bar and made a fool of herself, asking everyone why Jason would sleep with someone else.
“Why would he abandon me like that? Why would he make a fool of me like that?” she asked numerous wealthy and famous people, including a few actors who were also drinking at that wine bar.
In essence, it was she who made a fool of herself—not Jason, although Lindsey was still on Taylor’s side.
Eventually, after asking one too many famous people about her plight, Taylor was asked to leave.
Now, about two months after that, there were numerous speculations about where in the world Taylor Charron had wound up.
Apparently, Jason had filed for divorce not long after the Paris incident, but it was said that Taylor was dealing with the divorce from abroad.
Lindsey closed her eyes and tried to imagine where she was.
Where would Lindsey go if she had a broken heart and all the money in the world?
She pictured a tropical beach. She pictured somewhere where nobody knew her name.
But thinking of Taylor Charron and her awful heartache only brought Lindsey back to her own, which devastated her.
She had to get out of her room. She had to get out of her own head.
She took a long, hot shower, put her hair in a big towel, went to the kitchen, and poured herself a big glass of wine.
By then, it was nine fifteen at night, and she’d worked herself into a tizzy.
How dare she send that box all the way to Nantucket? How dare she disrupt Lindsey’s life? Shaking, Lindsey tried to leave the kitchen, but she ran headfirst into Candice, who wanted to tell her all about the amazing work she and Gwen had done today. Lindsey could hardly hear her.
“Are you all right, Sis?” Candice asked when it was maybe clear that Lindsey wasn’t paying attention.
“I’m fine. Just exhausted. I ran seven miles today. Heading up to bed,” Lindsey said, before shuffling away and calling out behind her. “Love you! Good night!”
But upstairs, Lindsey was nowhere near tired.
She paced the floor in front of the closet, where she’d hidden the box.
She needed to open it. She also was too frightened ever to open it.
Maybe she needed someone to take it away from here and hide it until Lindsey was ready to deal with it. Maybe she never would be.
This couldn’t be happening. She’d come to Nantucket and stayed in Nantucket specifically to keep something like this from happening. But her past had followed her here.
It felt cruel.
Before she knew what she was doing, before she’d fully thought it through, she dialed her number. It rang and rang, across the East Coast and all the way south, across the water, across the islands, across time. Just when Lindsey was sure she wouldn’t answer, she heard her little venomous voice.
“Lindsey?”
Lindsey’s free hand formed a fist. She couldn’t believe she’d had the nerve to answer the phone! After all she’d done! Then again, Lindsey had been the one to call her. So she supposed she couldn’t be too angry.
Lindsey sat at the edge of her bed and tried to picture her. Was she at the shop, sun-tanned after a full day at the beach? Did she know how cold Lindsey was here in Nantucket, her stomach boiling with red wine, her eyes blurry with rage?
“How could you send it?” Lindsey demanded, unsure exactly what she meant.
“You got the box?” the woman on the other line asked. “Oh, good. I was worried. It took so long to ship, and…”
“I can’t understand how you could send it,” Lindsey said.
On the other line, the woman took a staggered breath. “We couldn’t keep them. And we thought…”
“You had no right to send this without asking me,” Lindsey said.
“Yes. I know. Lindsey, I really do want to talk about all of this.”
“So talk,” Lindsey barked.
“You’re not being fair,” the woman whispered.
“Me? Not fair?” Lindsey could hardly believe her ears. She was on her feet again, pacing. The towel had fallen from her hair.
“Lindsey, maybe if you could call when you’re a little less…”
“Less what?”
“When you’ve calmed down a little,” she said.
“I’m calm. I’m ready,” Lindsey said.
On the other line, she was quiet, so much so that Lindsey could hear the ocean.
It wasn’t the ocean beside the Harbor House.
These two oceans were different beasts with different languages.
She loved them both dearly. Oh, but she ached to see that particular ocean, that stretch of turquoise, how it lit up beneath the sun.
“Please, Lindsey. Listen to…” the woman pleaded with her.
But Lindsey couldn’t take it anymore. She hung up and threw her phone onto the mattress, bursting into tears. She felt like a toddler, unable to control herself.
She fell to the floor, reaching for her glass of wine and staring into the space before her. “Please,” she muttered to herself. “Please, leave me alone.” But she didn’t know exactly what she meant.
It wasn’t like she could leave herself alone, was it?
Lindsey remembered when she’d first left the East Coast. She’d been a kid, basically, just eighteen years old, when she’d met Christopher, her beloved Chris.
Her ticket out of here. He’d been a few years older than her, a sailor who made money however he could whenever he could—sometimes as a line cook, other times as a tour guide, other times teaching scuba diving.
Although she’d grown up on the coast, Lindsey had never learned to scuba dive, and the idea of being underwater for so long mystified her.
He told her that he’d teach her everything she needed to know, if only she came with him.
“Where are you going?” she’d asked. Lindsey couldn’t imagine leaving her mother and siblings behind, although her mother was distant and her sister was in college.
“Costa Rica,” Christopher told her. He said the name of the place as though it were a bit of magic.
At the time, Lindsey had hardly been able to picture such a fantastical place.
Costa Rica. The white sandy beaches and turquoise waters and fluttering palm trees.
Lindsey didn’t bother packing for college.
She didn’t bother telling her mother that she had no plans for college, in fact.
Instead, she packed up two backpacks, threw them in the back of Christopher’s car, and decided to call her mother later and tell her what she’d done.
Better yet, she could tell her mother around Christmastime, when it was already clear that Lindsey had lost her chance at a college degree.
The trip from Nantucket Island to Costa Rica took nearly a week.
Christopher had wanted to sail, but, as he didn’t have a boat of his own, they took his clunker car and swapped driving.
It was late summer of 2001, and September 11th was just around the corner, but Christopher and Lindsey were none the wiser about how different the world would soon become.
They often slept at divey motels, not bothering to think about bugs or anything that might make their trip more dangerous or more uncomfortable.
They were very lucky to have made it to Costa Rica in one piece.
By then, Lindsey was sure that she’d found the love of her life.
There hadn’t been a single quiet moment between them.
They’d always had something to say. She thought that they’d never run out.
When Stella Vanberg eventually figured out that Lindsey was, in fact, in Costa Rica and not at Massachusetts State University, where Stella had paid for a semester of tuition, Stella went hunting for Lindsey.
This era went down in Vanberg family history, as Stella grew blind with anger and a desire to understand.
But Lindsey hadn’t told Henry or Candice where she was, so Stella was required to go all-out on her quest. She threw money at private investigators.
She called the police station and demanded that they call Lindsey a missing person.
As there was more than enough evidence pointing to Lindsey as a runaway of sorts, they always refused.
Now that Lindsey understood that her own story echoed her mother’s, in that she’d run away from home to seek something else, she thought she understood what her mother’s thought process might have been back then.
She imagined Stella, out of her mind with grief and confusion, demanding, didn’t I give my children everything?
Didn’t I build a world for them that was far and away better than the one I ever had?
Of course, Lindsey hadn’t been running away from Stella Vanberg and the Harbor House. Rather, she’d been running toward adventure, toward Christopher, toward the open road.
When her mother’s private investigator tracked Lindsey down, she and Christopher were living in a wooden house with two rooms and a wraparound porch that was crooked on one end.
By then, Christopher had already started the scuba diving instructor shop, and Lindsey had secured her diving license but not yet her instructor’s license.
She was giddy, sun-tanned, and happy, inviting the private investigator in for dinner and a beer.
The investigator was hilarious, Lindsey remembered.
He was in his late thirties, with fuzzy red hair and big glasses.
He looked too conspicuous to sneak around for a living.
Sitting cross-legged on a pillow on the front porch, a beer in hand, he told them that her mother had hired him, that he’d been all over the East Coast looking for them.
“To be honest, I figured out where you were about two weeks ago, but I wanted to milk Stella Vanberg for a bit more of her cash,” he bragged.
Lindsey, being young and naive, laughed and said she’d call her mother right away and explain everything.
She didn’t call her for another few days, or maybe a week.
By then, the private investigator had bought a house in Costa Rica.
As far as Lindsey knew, he still lived there.
He’d infiltrated the community. He belonged more than she did, now.