Chapter 17
When Shannon woke up the following morning, she found her mother and father on the veranda. Arietta drank coffee while doing a crossword, and Fred—as usual, now—gazed at the water in a way that made Shannon question if he could feel or see or understand anything.
“Morning, Mom and Dad,” Shannon said, bending down to kiss them both on the cheek.
“Morning, honey. How did you sleep?” Arietta asked dreamily.
“Not bad,” Shannon lied. Of course, she’d hardly slept a wink.
Last night, when her mother had returned from dinner with Jasper and drinks with “the girls,” as she called them, Shannon had desperately wanted to pry the information out of her mother about the blackmail letter and how much cash Arietta had already sent the blackmailers.
But Arietta had seemed happier than she had since before Fred’s stroke, and Shannon hadn’t wanted to drag her down into these depths.
Maybe soon, Shannon would find a way to ask her mother about the blackmail.
Maybe soon, she’d find a way to call Russell and apologize for running away from him after the kiss.
It hadn’t been logical or kind. But Russell hadn’t contacted her since she’d gotten to the island, and she had too much on her mind to deal with everything at once.
Rather than hang around the house all day, Shannon decided to head to a beach she’d loved as a girl. She wanted to read and collect her thoughts. Arietta told her, “Enjoy yourself, sweetie. You deserve it after a difficult semester.”
Shannon thanked her, put on her swimsuit, and got out of there.
It was only when she made it to the beach five minutes faster than she should have that she realized she’d been speeding the entire way.
She thanked her lucky stars the police hadn’t caught her.
She didn’t want to bother her mother for the money to pay for the ticket.
At the beach, Shannon spread out a blanket and lay beneath the sun.
She did a brief meditation exercise, as she’d read that clearing the mind and controlling it were beneficial for brain health.
She’d read enough about all the awful things that could happen to the brain that she tried to strengthen it, to train it to avoid disease.
But she found that she couldn’t clear her mind completely.
When she rolled over, her phone buzzed with a call.
She assumed it was her mother or maybe Russell. But the name read: MIMI.
Shannon was surprised. At first, she wondered if Mimi had somehow learned about Shannon and Russell’s kiss. Maybe she was calling to yell at her.
“Mimi?” Shannon answered, furrowing her brow. She was too curious not to answer.
“Shannon, hey. Long time no see,” Mimi said.
“Yeah. Um. How are you?”
Mimi groaned. “I guess you heard that Russell and I broke up?”
I’ve heard everything about your breakup, Shannon didn’t say.
“Yeah, I heard. Are you doing okay?”
Mimi groaned. “Honestly? I don’t know. It’s weird. I thought breaking up with Russell was the answer to all my problems. But I think I made a mistake.”
Shannon remained quiet. She and Mimi had never been close. Why was Mimi calling her to talk about Russell?
“I heard you and Cole broke up, too,” Mimi continued.
“He’s dating someone else,” Shannon said.
“Ugh, that’s awful,” Mimi said. “I mean, I was sort of seeing someone, too. I didn’t cheat on Russell, but yeah. I met someone, and I broke up with Russell, and I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
Shannon wanted to know why this was her problem.
“Have you seen him? Russell?” Mimi asked.
“A bit,” Shannon lied.
“I keep trying to call him, but I think he blocked me or something.”
“I think he’s trying to move on,” Shannon said.
Mimi groaned louder this time. “I don’t want him to get over me.”
Shannon was quiet. She remembered the feeling of Russell’s lips on hers; she remembered the urgent need that had pulsated between them. She’d run away from him. Maybe, now, Russell was primed and ready to take Mimi back. Perhaps Russell would never talk to Shannon again.
Shannon’s heart felt heavy. “You should go to his place,” she said, hating herself.
“You really think he’ll talk to me?” Mimi asked.
“I think he’ll have to if you show up,” Shannon said.
Mimi was quiet. “You know, I always thought he had a crush on you.”
Shannon’s stomach twisted into knots. “Guess you were wrong about that.”
“I don’t think I was wrong,” Mimi said. “But people have crushes all the time, right? They don’t always mean anything.”
“Yeah. I guess so,” Shannon said. “Mimi, I gotta go. Talk to you soon.” She hung up and sprawled on the sand, staring at the blue sky above. She’d never felt more alone.
That night, Shannon cooked dinner for her mother. She thought maybe the chicken tacos, guacamole, and chips would butter her mother up and help her talk more about the blackmail and whatever it was that Shannon’s father had done. What are you protecting Dad from? Shannon wanted to ask.
Instead, Arietta wanted to talk about Shannon’s Alzheimer’s research and find ways to incorporate it into the new article she was writing.
Shannon found that this was a wonderful middle ground for both of them.
For more than two hours, Shannon spoke about her research while her mother furiously typed notes, their half-eaten tacos forgotten.
Arietta sighed and closed her laptop. “Where did you come from?” she asked. “You’re a genius.”
Shannon rolled her eyes. “I’ve studied for thousands of hours. I better know some of that stuff.”
Arietta continued to smile. And then, her phone buzzed between them, showing the name JASPER HARRIS on the screen.
“Answer it!” Shannon urged.
Arietta seemed suddenly tentative. “I can’t see him every night,” she said. But she picked it up and answered it, her voice shaking and girlish. “Hi!”
Shannon couldn’t quite make out what Jasper said. But from the sound of her mother’s responses, he was inviting her out to a party.
“I don’t know,” Arietta said, her cheeks burning with what Shannon guessed was embarrassment. Her eyes flitted over Shannon. “I’m spending time with my daughter.”
“Mom, you should go!” Shannon urged.
Arietta rolled her eyes.
“Really, Mom,” Shannon pestered her. “Go on. Don’t say no.”
Reluctantly, Arietta said she would “stop by” the party before coming back home. She got off the phone and made up a big story about Jasper, about how needy he was. “He said he won’t know that many people at the party and wants someone to talk to.”
“Of course he wants that,” Shannon said.
Arietta grimaced. “You’ll be okay here on your own?”
“Of course!”
“It’s a bit backward, isn’t it? You’re twenty-four. You should be going out with men. You should be going to parties,” Arietta said. “I’m married. I should be home with your father.”
“You’ve been here almost every other night,” Shannon said. “Let me help.”
Finally, Arietta went upstairs to get ready for the party, leaving Shannon on the veranda, sipping her wine and considering the night ahead. With her mother gone, Shannon could go into her father’s study and do what she should have done yesterday: dig around.
At eight thirty, Arietta left for her party, leaving Shannon with the same list of instructions about what to do to take care of her father. As soon as Arietta drove her car out of the driveway and disappeared around the corner, Shannon shot up the stairs and entered her father’s study.
Nobody had been in the study since before Fred’s stroke.
Arietta had been doing all the house cleaning herself (which was a rare thing on Nantucket Island), but she hadn’t bothered with the dusting or vacuuming in here, so a thin layer of dust stretched across the desk.
Feeling jittery, Shannon sat in front of her father’s desktop computer and searched through the drawers.
What was she looking for? In the olden days, people kept journals.
They wrote down both the good and the bad things they’d been up to.
This had made it easier to pin the blame on people.
But she guessed whatever her father had been up to wasn’t in a journal anywhere. Her father had never been the most introspective of men. He hadn’t read a book in the past ten years, at least.
She needed to get into his computer.
Frantically, Shannon began to dig through the bottoms of the drawers.
She guessed that her father was the sort of guy—a Gen X slash Boomer—who’d written all his passwords down.
That list had to be somewhere. Unless, of course, Arietta had been in charge of writing down the passwords?
But if she’d had his passwords all that time, then he couldn’t have hidden whatever he was hiding.
What on earth was her father hiding?
Shannon collapsed back in the chair and swiveled back and forth, staring at the screen.
By now, the computer was on, and she’d made her way to the login for his email, which was probably connected to his calendar and maybe a notes system.
If only she could get in. Feeling lost, she decided to try random passwords.
She focused on his favorite daughter—Felicity—and typed her birthday, her name, her first name, her middle name, and on and on.
She tried Isabelle next, but that was no dice.
She tried Arietta, herself, and Shannon, but none worked.
Obviously, Fred hadn’t cared enough about his family to make them his passwords.
Eventually, Shannon went downstairs to check on the man in question.
The television in his room was on because Arietta liked to give him something to do while they were out of his room.
His eyes were open, but it was clear nobody was home.
Shannon sat beside him and squinted at him.
“I need to get into your email,” she said softly. “How do I do that?”
At that moment, it smacked her over the head: his phone. But had Arietta brought his phone to Nantucket? It was probably in a drawer somewhere in Boston.
“I want you to know,” Shannon said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I love you. I will always love you. But if you’ve done something to mess up Mom’s life down the line; if you’ve ruined our world for our own selfish gain during your life, I will never forgive you.”