Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
February 2025 - Nantucket Island
I t was like something out of a dream. Seamlessly and joyously, Ryan’s mother and father helped him get the kids to bed, tucking them in and reading Rudy and Willa their bedtime stories (Rudy still enjoyed it, and Willa needed it to calm down at night). After that, they enjoyed a nightcap by the fire, telling old stories and looking at one another with wonder, as though each of them was thinking, I can’t believe this is happening.
Ryan knew Trisha wouldn’t be pleased that his parents were staying over. But what choice did he have? His mother had driven into a ditch. The snow was piling up, and driving through it was no longer safe. And Jackie had offered them free lodging at the Sutton Estate—a literal mansion on a gorgeous island in the Atlantic. He wanted to show how grateful he was. He wanted everything to be all right again.
The following morning, Trisha’s face was drawn. She sat on the edge of the bed with a cup of coffee and looked down at Ryan as Ryan slowly awoke.
“A car took out the mailbox,” she said.
“You already knew that,” Ryan said because he was pretty sure Trisha had still been awake upstairs when Jackie had driven in. She’d gone upstairs the minute Ryan and Josh had gotten home, hiding herself away. Luckily, the kids had been too distracted to notice.
Trisha sipped her coffee. “Is this going to be a regular thing? Them staying over?”
Ryan pulled himself up and rubbed his eyes. He felt accosted.
From downstairs came the sounds of sizzling sausages and clacking pots and pans and their children’s laughter. He wanted to point that out. Listen to how happy the kids are!
“It’s just because of the snow,” he said. “Remember, they gave us this place. Mom’s getting me a job.”
“You shouldn’t have quit your last one without talking to me about it first,” Trisha shot back.
Ryan closed his eyes. An ache rolled through him and planted itself between his temples. They’d been over this a thousand times.
“Chicago is our home,” Trisha reminded him.
“If we still feel that way in a few months, we can go back,” Ryan assured her. “We can save money here. We can work our way out of debt.”
“You want me to go get a server job again?” Trisha asked darkly.
“You can do whatever you want,” Ryan said. “You can stay home if you want. You can take online classes. We’ll have a bit of extra cash.”
Once I start selling houses, we’ll have plenty. We’ll be set.
He’d only ever known his mother’s career to be lucrative.
Ryan put on a pair of sweats and an old university sweatshirt.
“What makes you think you’ll be good at selling real estate?” Trisha asked.
Ryan froze and looked at her. It was the first time she’d ever suggested he wasn’t good at something, and it stung.
Trisha lowered her gaze and let her shoulders slump forward. It was clear she was sorry.
“I should never have come back here,” she muttered. “Not after everything your family put us through.”
Ryan did not remind her of what her family had done. He imagined it was just as painful for her to remember that—maybe even more so.
Downstairs, Ryan ate breakfast with his kids and parents and went outside to check on the snowman. Using supplies from the kitchen, they fixed up his face and even made a small companion snowman beside him, using the gorgeous, blue-skied day for all it was worth. By afternoon, the roads were clear, and they called a tow truck to pull Jackie’s car back onto the road. Before she drove away, she hugged Ryan and said, “Bright and early tomorrow! Nine o’clock sharp!” It was when they planned to have their first meeting as a team.
Trisha remained icy all day and didn’t see his parents at all.
But the following morning, Trisha got into gear and got the kids ready for their first day in Nantucket schools. They were up and out the door by seven fifteen sharp, leaving Ryan to mosey around the enormous mansion, listening to music and getting ready. In the Historic District, where Sutton Real Estate was located in a beautiful old-world building surrounded by oaks, Ryan grabbed a cup of coffee from a swanky place that charged too much. By the time he met his mother, he felt spry and eager to learn everything about real estate.
But the minute he entered Jackie’s office, he felt something off. Jackie wasn’t as lively and soft as she’d been back at the Sutton Estate. Her smiles were sharper; her responses were harsher.
It didn’t take Ryan long to realize something was very wrong.
“Mom?” Ryan hesitated and looked down at his hands. “Is there something you want to tell me about the business?”
Jackie’s eyes quivered. She looked as though she was weighing whether she could lie to him—him, her adult son.
Jackie took a breath. “Okay. Maybe it’s clearer than I realized. The business has fallen on hard times. But…” She clasped her hands. “But that’s why I wanted you here. I know you can help us get back on track. You have magic in you, Ryan. People trust you. People are drawn to you.”
Ryan leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. His stomach felt bubbly and strange. He imagined telling this to Trisha later and promptly decided never to mention it.
“Look,” Jackie said, pulling out a stack of pages upon which were lists of upcoming appointments. “Sutton Real Estate is still relatively well-trusted. When people search for ‘real estate Nantucket,’ we still come up online, most of the time. But that’s where you come in. We need to come up first. Someway or another, numerous clients were stolen from under me. I don’t know how that happened. Social media? TikTok?”
Ryan furrowed his brow. His mother was speaking too quickly for him to make full sense of it. But Trisha was in her sixties. New technology wasn’t her forté. It wasn’t his favorite thing in the world, either. But he could figure it out.
He had to.
“Do you know who took your clients?” Ryan asked, curious if it was one or several real estate companies.
Jackie shook her head and raised her mug of coffee. “But the strange thing was, it all happened at once. It was like the universe conspired against me.”
Ryan’s head thundered.
“I don’t know what to do,” Jackie confessed. “Your father can’t work, as you know. And we’re in our sixties. All we really want to do is travel and read and play with our grandchildren.”
“That’s what you should be doing,” Ryan said softly.
Jackie’s eyes echoed embarrassment. Ryan was suddenly reminded of his grandmother—how, until after her death, she’d maintained their belief in an enormous Sutton fortune that hadn’t existed. He remembered how Grandma Dana had threatened to remove him from the will if he remained married to Trisha. He remembered how, when Trisha found that out, Trisha threatened to leave him.
“I don’t want us to lie to each other anymore,” Ryan said suddenly.
His mother raised her eyes to Ryan and nodded. “No lies.”
Ryan let a beat pass. “When’s the next showing?”
“We have a few for a house in Siasconset later this week. Asking price is three million,” Jackie said. “I need to go out to the house and check on some things.”
Ryan set his jaw. “I’ll stay here and work on social media.”
Jackie showed him where all the passwords and log-ins were located—written in a little notepad. Ryan told her it wasn’t safe to have something like that lying around. Jackie looked at him like he had three heads.
“Let’s have lunch,” Jackie said as she wrapped a scarf around her neck. “It’s your first day.”
Ryan wasn’t in a particularly celebratory mood. “Let’s have a late lunch. I want to set everything up and get some ads running. I want to convince a few thousand people to at least consider buying property in Nantucket by one p.m.”
Jackie laughed nervously, but she looked grateful. “They didn’t appreciate you enough at that last job, did they?”
“I’m just trying to earn my keep,” Ryan tried to joke.
But the minute Jackie left for the empty house in Siasconset, Ryan’s smile fell off his face. He set to work on the difficult maze of social media—a landscape that seemed to perpetually shift.
There was one small ray of sunshine, however. At around noon, Trisha texted.
TRISHA: I like the kids’ teachers. Willa’s class has two other students with autism (including one girl), and it’s clear to me that the staff knows and understands how to help her cope (and even learn, sometimes). Feeling a little bit optimistic. Let me know if you want a coffee before I head back to the GRAND ESTATE. (eye roll emoji)
Ryan stifled a laugh and felt his heart balloon. He called her immediately and asked her to swing by. He had the sensation that maybe everything would be all right after all. Wasn’t everything they did for the kids’ happiness? For the kids’ future? But when he spotted Trisha’s car coming down the street, he noticed she was following Jackie’s car. Apparently, Jackie was finished at the empty house and ready to get back to the office. Trisha noticed it, too, and turned around to go home immediately, avoiding the office altogether. Through the window, Ryan watched her go, wondering if he should run after her. But at the red light, she texted.
TRISHA: I’m in too good of a mood right now to see your mom. I’m sorry.
Ryan’s heart sank into his stomach. But when his mother came into the office with a big smile, Ryan had to pretend everything was all right.
“Show me what you’ve done! Show me all your social media posts!” Jackie cried, reaching into her bag for a Tupperware filled with cookies. “I brought supplies.”
Ryan’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Wow, Mom. You’ve outdone yourself.”
Yet again, he wondered if he’d made an enormous mistake.