Chapter 3
Arietta’s life for the next two weeks went by in the strangest blur.
She spent them mostly in a hospital in Athens, listening to accented English as Greek doctors explained to her the extent of her husband’s brain damage.
Because she knew more about neuroscience than the average person, she felt as though she were living the worst sort of nightmare.
It might have been nice not to know so completely how awful this was.
The stroke had been gargantuan, the sort of thing that scrambles the brain.
The man in the hospital bed before her now was, on paper, Fred Peters, her husband of twenty-five years.
But for all intents and purposes, that Fred Peters was no longer here.
He gazed vacantly through space, took his meals via tubes, and couldn’t stand or move or speak.
Sometimes Arietta thought he could see her.
Often, she told herself he knew she was there.
But a smarter and more intellectual side of her brain told her this was probably not so.
At night, Arietta stayed in a one-bedroom apartment not far from the hospital.
It wasn’t the nicest part of Athens, and in her “free time” (not that she had any), she didn’t do anything relating to the city or the culture.
She didn’t go out to eat or to the beach.
She went from the apartment to the hospital and back again.
Sometimes the nurses brought her Greek snacks and meals: spanakopita and meatballs and fried feta.
Things that she had to choke down. She knew that she’d already lost a bit of weight.
The Greeks, ever hospitable, were worried about her.
She needed to prove to them that she could take care of herself.
She probably needed to prove that to herself, too—and her daughters, who wouldn’t stop calling.
Sometimes she answered. Other times, she couldn’t bring herself to.
Each of them threatened to fly out to Athens, but Arietta begged them not to. She wouldn’t be able to handle their anxious energy, not now when she had so much to figure out.
On the night before the flight back to Boston, a private flight that would allow Arietta and Fred the utmost comforts, Arietta read her messages for the first time in days.
Many of them were from other journalists, checking in on her.
They’d heard about Fred, although Arietta couldn’t remember how they knew.
Maybe she’d told one of them after it had happened, or maybe they’d read it in the papers. How did information spread in 2026?
One of the messages was from Jasper, her old journalist friend.
JASPER: Hey, buddy. I’m thinking about you. I’m still in Europe if you want to get together and talk. Sending my thoughts to Fred, too.
Arietta blinked back tears, then began to compose a text message that she couldn’t send. She had no idea what to say to anyone.
Her editors had written to say they understood, since she couldn’t work on any of the articles she’d pitched for them. She couldn’t work for the foreseeable future. She had no idea how to put her thoughts on a page.
Arietta hired a nurse to help during the flight back to the States.
She spent the entire ten hours of it awake, alternating between watching her husband and staring into space.
Did Fred know they were on a plane right now?
Before the stroke, he’d loved to look out the window.
He’d taken so many photographs from the plane of fields and oceans and clouds.
“It’s a miracle,” he’d always said. “Look, everyone’s asleep! They don’t know what they’re missing!”
The nurse didn’t need to do much. She was there to monitor Fred’s vitals and change his bedpan and make sure he was fed.
Arietta planned to do all this herself once they got back to the United States.
She had a handbook and about a thousand tabs open on her computer.
At forty-nine, she was ready to take care of her stroke-victim husband.
He would have everything he needed from here on out.
Arietta had asked the doctors numerous times, “What caused this? Why did it happen?”
Of course, they hadn’t been able to give her a clear answer.
Fred was only fifty-six. He’d had slightly high blood pressure, as of late, and he’d had a slightly irregular heartbeat a few years ago, but Arietta had thought all that was resolved now or mostly a non-issue.
Maybe he’d eaten a little too much meat, and perhaps he hadn’t exercised as much as he should have, but nobody was perfect.
Why had this happened to Fred? Could he be fixed?
Arietta knew enough about neuroscience to know questions like “Can he be fixed?” were dangerous to ask. But still, she couldn’t help but hope for a miracle. It didn’t hurt to believe.
Arietta and a few nurses from the Boston hospital set up Fred in the guest bedroom at their house.
Arietta set up a television in there, if only because she knew Fred hated to be bored.
He needed stimulation. She put it on one of their many sports channels, then went downstairs and waited for her daughters to arrive.
Shannon was driving in from New Haven, and Isabelle and Felicity were carpooling from their shared apartment.
When the front door opened, bringing her daughters back into the home where she and Fred had raised them, Arietta erupted from the kitchen table, surprised.
She realized she hadn’t bought anything for dinner.
She didn’t have anything for them to drink.
Her daughters were shell-shocked and red-faced, as though they’d spent the past two weeks crying.
Arietta wrapped them in hugs and collapsed with them on the sofa, where they asked her how she was and doted on her.
Shannon, the eldest, ordered pizza and wine, and the food came twenty minutes later, maybe because it was too early for the dinner rush.
Isabella said, “You really need to eat something, Mom.”
Felicity nodded furiously.
Shannon opened the pizza boxes on the coffee table. Her eyes flitted to the hallway, down which their father lay in a bed in a vegetative state. In a vegetative state. This was something Arietta needed to get used to thinking and saying aloud.
“Let’s eat first,” Shannon said firmly. She meant, “Let’s eat before we see him for the first time.”
Arietta took a big bite of cheesy pizza. She was overwhelmed by the grease and fat. Her brain immediately sped up, and she blinked around at her daughters, as though she’d just fully realized they were there. “Oh, my darlings,” she said. “I missed you so.”
After Arietta choked down an entire slice of pizza, she led them down the hall to their father.
She couldn’t bring herself to look at their faces as they sat with him, looking at him and trying to talk with him.
It was awful to hear how happy they were trying to sound and how much they were faking it.
Shannon told him about her recent laboratory experiments, Felicity told him about her dreams of pursuing his work in the financial sector, and Isabelle told him about a painting she was showing in a gallery near the university campus.
Fred didn’t seem to know his daughters were there.
When they couldn’t talk to him a moment more, they got up and followed Arietta back to the living room, where they sat wrapped in blankets.
Arietta didn’t know what to say. On the one hand, she was grateful not to carry this experience alone any longer.
On the other hand, she wished she could have hidden this from her daughters forever.
“I want you to remember how he was.” She sighed.
“We do.” Felicity nodded.
“Maybe he’ll…” Isabelle threw her hands up. “I mean, what are the doctors saying? About recovery? What’s the timeline?”
Arietta didn’t want to tell her youngest the truth. She lowered her gaze, hoping that was answer enough. Then she surprised herself when she said, “We can’t stay in this house.”
“You mean,” Shannon said, “you want to maybe find a place for Dad to live?”
Arietta shot Shannon a dark look. “Your father is staying with me, obviously. I’m going to take care of him.”
“Of course,” Shannon said. “I didn’t understand at first.” She shifted her gaze to Felicity and Isabelle, who seemed confused.
“I want to leave Boston,” Arietta said. “I can’t be in the city a second longer.
I can’t be in this house. It’s too full of…
everything.” And this was true. This was the house where they’d raised their daughters.
That was the kitchen where Arietta had cooked for Fred.
This was the sofa where they’d watched a thousand movies.
That was the doorway where they’d kissed hello and goodbye countless times.
“Where do you want to go?” Shannon asked.
“Nantucket,” Arietta said. “At least for the spring and summer. Maybe autumn, too. That big, old house has plenty of space, and your father was always happiest there.”
Nantucket, the island where Arietta and Fred met and fell in love.
Nantucket, where Arietta would nurse her beloved husband during the final years of his life.
“You’d be all alone on Nantucket,” Shannon said quietly.
“I’m alone here,” Arietta pointed out.
Shannon, Isabelle, and Felicity exchanged panicked looks.
“You have friends here,” Shannon said.
“No. We had friends here,” Arietta said. “But they haven’t been by to see Fred. They’re scared of him. I don’t want him to feel how scared of him they are.”
Arietta knew she was talking nonsense. She knew that Fred couldn’t feel anything.
But she had to believe there was still something going on up there. Otherwise, she might go crazy.
“It’s beautiful there this time of year,” Felicity said finally.
“We can help you pack up your things,” Isabelle offered.
“I’ll hire someone to do that,” Arietta said. “I need you three to focus on your own lives. I need you to concentrate on your college careers and your futures. It’s what your father wants, and it’s what I want. Okay?”
Their three daughters nodded urgently. Shannon looked like she wanted to argue, but she didn’t know how.
It took a little more than a week for Arietta and Fred to move into their Nantucket summer house.
Throughout, a team of nurses and specialists created a perfect hospital-like space for Fred in the downstairs guest bedroom, where Fred had a glorious view of the Nantucket Sound.
Arietta was grateful to have something to pour her energy into.
She needed to prep the Nantucket house for the next few months.
She needed to organize her closet and make the space feel like a home, rather than a place they used for a few weeks each year.
When they were all set up in that gorgeous mansion, Arietta checked on Fred in his room.
She sipped tea and explained to him how gorgeous the May sunshine was on the waves as they rolled toward the house.
“Your mother would be so happy we’re here,” she said to Fred.
She was getting accustomed to talking to him without an answer.
It had already been three weeks. “I don’t know if she’d love the new art I hung in the living room, but that can be my secret,” Arietta said. Fred’s mother had died ten years ago.
Arietta remembered now that Fred’s mother had had high blood pressure, too. It was impossible to escape genetics. They always got you in the end.
That evening, Arietta took herself on a beautiful beach walk.
She was barefoot, loving the warm sand beneath her feet and the dying light across her shoulders.
She wanted to do more research tonight about stroke victims and ways to incorporate them into your daily life.
She still wanted to feel connected to Fred, somehow. She wanted him to feel loved.
When she returned to the house, she spotted something white on the front porch. Thinking it was a flier or a piece of trash that had blown in from the beach, she walked around to fetch it.
But it was a square and perfect envelope. Upon it was written Arietta Peters.
Arietta’s heart stopped.
She leaned down, picked it up, and told herself that there had to be a reasonable explanation. Maybe the letter was from a neighbor, welcoming her back to Nantucket Island. Maybe one of Fred’s old friends had heard about his stroke and wanted to extend their greetings and condolences.
But something told Arietta this was all wrong.
With shaking legs, she went inside, sat at the kitchen table, and opened the envelope. She pulled out a one-page letter on floral stationery. It read:
Dear Mrs. Peters,
It has come to our attention that your husband is not who he seems to be.
Your life together is a lie. If you do not pay us what we demand, all your secrets will spill to the surface, and life as you know it will end.
To keep your secrets at bay—and maintain the status quo of your lies—please send twenty grand by the end of the month.
Details for our bank account can be found below.
Yours forever,
Your Guardian Angels