Chapter 7
Present Day
After three days with her daughters at the house, Arietta helped them pack their cars and sent them back on their way.
Shannon squeezed her extra hard before she slipped into her car, then rolled down the window and beckoned for Arietta to come closer.
Already, Isabelle and Felicity were out of the driveway and on their way to the ferry. Shannon had something else to say.
“I think you should consider therapy, Mom,” she said firmly. “You know what trauma does to a person. You’ve put all this responsibility on yourself, so you should find a way to talk about it. Please.” Shannon let her eyes drop down to her lap.
Arietta told her daughter she was fine. “I have too much to deal with to go to therapy,” she said firmly.
Shannon sighed. “At least hire a nurse a few days a week. Give yourself a break,” she said. “I love Dad. I miss him. I hate this. But I don’t want to lose you in all this, too.” She grimaced, then started her engine.
“Drive safe, honey,” Arietta said. “I love you.”
An hour after her daughters had gone, Arietta lay on her bed, reading and rereading the blackmail letter.
They’d told her to send twenty grand by the end of May, which was coming up.
What if she continued to ignore the letter?
What if she chalked it up to a bad prank?
She shoved the letter back into her bedside table and heaved out of bed, knowing that a list of tasks awaited her.
She needed to make sure Fred was comfortable.
She needed to make sure his body continued despite leaving his mind far behind.
Two days later, Arietta found herself in the office of Dr. Baxter Wallen, a psychiatrist she’d read about online who specialized in death and grieving.
Dr. Wallen’s secretary had given her an appointment for three thirty, smack-dab in the middle of the prettiest afternoon Arietta had ever seen.
Inside his office, the air-conditioning was on full blast, and she shivered.
“Arietta Peters?” The secretary called her name and led her to an office filled with tones of beige and gray.
Arietta sat on the cushioned chair and crossed her ankles.
This was her first foray into the world of psychiatry.
She hadn’t bothered after her mother’s death, as they’d thought throwing herself deeper into her journalism work was therapy enough.
Dr. Wallen came into the office a few minutes later.
He was in his mid-fifties, maybe, with salt-and-pepper hair and a deep tan, probably from sailing around the island.
He wore a black button-down and had an arrogant air that Arietta pinned on a college experience at one of the Ivy League schools, maybe Harvard or Princeton. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Peters,” he said.
“You can call me Arietta,” she said, hating how meek her voice sounded.
“That’s a pretty name,” he said dismissively. He put his glasses on and sat across from her.
Arietta immediately saw them from above: the therapist and the grieving wife. She felt small and stupid.
To start, Dr. Wallen asked Arietta to share her goals for the session. Arietta laughed nervously, thinking of her husband at home in bed and the nurse she’d left him with, a nurse who was probably on her phone, bored out of her mind, as there was nothing to do.
“My husband suffered a massive stroke while we were on vacation,” Arietta explained.
“He survived, but only barely. His mind is… well, it’s not here.
Not now.” She felt a spasm of panic. She hated having to describe all this to strangers.
“My daughter thought it would be a good idea for me to talk to someone.”
She went on to explain their setup, about how she was Fred’s caregiver and how she’d moved them to Nantucket Island because she thought it would be a nice change of pace.
Dr. Wallen tilted his head. “You’ve decided to care for your husband yourself.”
“Yes. I love him,” Arietta said firmly. “This is what I signed up for.”
“That’s not entirely true, is it?” Dr. Wallen asked. “How old is your husband?”
“Fifty-six.” Arietta felt a prickly sensation on the back of her neck. “But I have to argue with you. I think marriage is exactly that—signing up for caring for someone. Loving them till the end.”
“And you don’t think your husband’s stroke was the end?” Dr. Wallen asked.
Arietta thought she was going to scream.
Although she’d begun to practice saying “vegetative state” in her mind, she didn’t dare say it in front of this doctor.
She had the sense he was making fun of her, or that he thought she was foolish for still caring about Fred.
She looked at the clock and saw there were still forty-five minutes left.
“How do you see your future?” Dr. Wallen asked now.
Arietta gaped at him. “I guess it’ll be like this. Caring for Fred. Living here.” She shrugged.
“That doesn’t sound very good, does it?” Dr. Wallen asked.
Arietta flinched, then reached for her purse. “I’ve just remembered that I have another appointment,” she said.
Dr. Wallen smiled in a way that made her toes curl. “Sit down, Mrs. Peters. Please.”
“I really have to go.”
“I’m trying to understand the situation,” he said. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
Arietta traipsed toward the door and left without saying anything else.
The secretary called her name, but she didn’t pause before she left the building.
Out on the sidewalk, she stomped her feet and felt anger reverberate through her.
She didn’t know why Dr. Wallen had created within her such an awful feeling. But she had no plans to go back.
But Arietta had hired a nurse for Fred for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, giving herself a bit of time.
She decided to use it. She took herself to a little wine bar, where she tried and failed to read a book she’d been meaning to get to.
Mostly, she looked out across the water, trying to focus on her breathing.
She considered calling Shannon and telling her that the therapist she’d seen had been a complete dud, but she didn’t want to worry Shannon even more.
After the wine bar, Arietta walked past a little bookstore in the historic district.
A sign out front advertised a reading from a local author who’d recently published a book called Waves.
Arietta wandered into the crowd out front until she reached the interior, where a tiny woman named Maeve Stephens read from her novel.
Although Arietta had come in during the middle of the reading, she could deduce that the novel was about a woman who’d lost her father to cancer and had taken up sailing, trying to reconnect with him through his favorite pastime.
It was a beautiful story, well-written and emotional. Arietta found herself welling with tears.
When the reading was over, the bookstore staff urged everyone to grab glasses of the free wine at the table and linger to discuss the book and what it meant to them. “Of course, anyone who wants to can buy the book as well!” the bookstore owner announced, smiling.
Arietta got in line to buy the book, then grabbed a glass of the free wine and stood awkwardly in the midst of everyone else.
It seemed that most had come with friends, and they chatted easily, both about the book and about what they’d done so far that day.
Arietta felt like an exposed nerve. When she thought she might go crazy with loneliness, she turned too quickly, spilling red wine all over the dress of a pretty blond woman.
“Oh!” Arietta cried out. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” She was horrified.
The woman laughed and reached for a napkin, which she dabbed at the stain in vain. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Honestly, I spill wine on myself all the time. I’ve had to learn to get over it.”
“Oh, I don’t know what to say,” Arietta said. “I want to buy you a new dress!”
“I’ve gotten really good at laundry,” the woman assured. “No new dress required!”
Arietta hadn’t experienced such generosity from a stranger in a long time. She took a breath, searching her mind for a response. But suddenly and horribly, she burst into tears instead.
The woman with the wine stain looked stricken. “Oh, honey. Let’s go outside, all right?”
The woman took Arietta by the hand and led her onto the sunny porch out front, where they grabbed two seats. Another woman who’d seen everything came with a fresh glass of wine for Arietta, which Arietta gripped, feeling like a fool.
“I’m so sorry,” Arietta blubbered to the woman. “I feel like an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot!” The woman smiled. “Honestly.” And then she asked in a small voice, “Did something happen?”
Arietta let out a laugh. It seemed that everything had happened. Where should she start?
“I just had a terrible appointment with a therapist,” she said. “I walked out on him. I couldn’t take it.”
“Oh. There’s nothing worse than a bad therapist!” the woman said. She lowered her voice. “I can’t imagine going to a male therapist, honestly. I need the empathy of women.”
“Maybe that was my first mistake,” Arietta said.
The woman smiled, then spread her fingers across her chest. “I’m Stella, by the way. Stella Turnbilt. I was born and raised on Nantucket, which is a rare thing.”
There was a moment of silence. Arietta wondered if she needed to tell this woman who she was. She wondered if she owed her anything, now that Stella had saved her.
“I’m Arietta,” she said finally. “I’ve spent many summers on Nantucket, but I think I’m here for the foreseeable future. I needed a break from the city. I needed a break from everything.”
“I can relate to that,” Stella said.
Arietta was still so achingly embarrassed about her outburst and the wine stain drying on Stella’s dress.
“My daughter told me not to come to the island. She said I’d be lonely,” Arietta said, surprising herself. But maybe it was okay to be honest with strangers.
“Are you lonely?” Stella asked.
“A little,” Arietta admitted.
“I know this is a bit forward,” Stella said.
“But a friend of mine is having a get-together tomorrow. It’s our little group called the Salt Sisters.
Our tagline is ‘Sisterhood, with a dash of salt.’” She laughed.
“It’s silly, maybe, but we love it. We need it.
We get together and talk about all the bad things we’ve gone through; we support each other.
Like group therapy, but with wine and good conversation and plenty of laughter, too. Please, say you’ll join.”
Arietta was taken aback. She hadn’t expected an invitation like this. More than that, she wasn’t sure if she could get away from Fred for another night.
“Maybe,” she said finally. “Maybe I can try to make it.”
Stella urged her to think about it. She put Arietta’s number in her phone, then texted her so Arietta would have it, too. “I’ll text you the details,” she said. “But we’d love to have you.”
Not long after that, Arietta finally got up the nerve to walk back to her car and get out of there. When she returned home, she found the nurse in Fred’s room, checking his vitals and singing to herself. The sight of Arietta frightened the nurse, so much so that she jumped.
“I’m sorry,” Arietta said.
The nurse smiled. “No worries, honey. I’m almost done.”
Arietta asked if the nurse could come back tomorrow. She said she couldn’t, but she had another friend she could ask. Arietta thanked her, then paid her and walked her to the door.
“Oh, Mrs. Peters, you have a letter,” the nurse said, bending down to pick it up from the welcome mat.
Arietta nearly collapsed on the spot. She reached out, took the letter, and thanked her, trying not to show how frightened she was. She waved goodbye, then closed the door gently and tore open the letter. She read it.
Mrs. Peters, we must remind you that should you not pay us our requested twenty grand sooner rather than later, your family’s dirty laundry will be everywhere, ruining not only your reputation but also your daughters' and your journalism work.
Please cooperate, and this will all go away. Yours, Your Guardian Angels
Arietta let out an awful scream. She wanted to tear up the letter and throw the pieces away, but something stopped her.
“Twenty grand,” she muttered to herself, feeling out of her mind. “Twenty grand isn’t that much, is it?” Maybe it would get them out of her hair.
Telling herself that she wasn’t stupid, that she was doing what she needed to do to survive, Arietta logged into her banking app and sent twenty grand to her blackmailers.
As soon as the money was sent, she let out a gasp.
And then, she burst into tears so awful and so violent that she nearly fell to the floor.
Afterward, she sat with Fred, her fingers laced in his limp ones, gazing out the window. “What do they know, Fred?” She whispered. “What did you do wrong?”
Of course, she prayed she’d never have to know. That was why she’d sent the money. She wanted to live with Fred for the rest of his life. She wanted to care for him. She wanted to uphold this beautiful love.