Chapter 15
It was Nathan’s idea to build the bonfire on the beach.
Using wood from the pile in one of the garages, they built a roaring fire right on the sand, around which Candice, Nathan, Sarah, and Peter sat, sticks extended as they roasted marshmallows and made s’mores.
Above them, stars twinkled, blessing their little family.
Nathan was especially exuberant. “Look at us,” he said, looking from the Harbor House back to their family. “It’s perfect out here, isn’t it? If only we could be on the Vineyard all the time.”
“Uncle Henry is contesting the will,” Peter announced, as though he understood what that meant. “Maybe if we win, we can spend more time out here.”
“I’ll have to talk to your uncle about that,” Nathan said. “It would be a shame to lose this place.”
Sarah nodded and smiled, then launched into an analysis about a book that Nathan had apparently lent her before her trip to the Vineyard.
It sounded like Sarah had been waiting anxiously for her dad’s arrival so they could talk about it.
Candice felt stupid that she’d never even heard of the book before.
She felt sheepish. Slowly, she put together a s’more for herself, watching as the hot marshmallow melted the chocolate.
She licked the tips of her fingers and was surprised to find that Stella and Sally McGee’s music remained in her head.
She was beginning to memorize the lyrics.
Some of the lines were especially poetic and heart-wrenching.
It made her wonder if Candice herself had become a writer because her mother was a writer first?
She hadn’t known this side of her mother. But how could she have?
She was pulled out of her reverie by the sounds of her children’s voices.
“Please, Mom? Can we?” Peter asked.
“It would be so fun,” Sarah added.
Candice blinked over the fire at them, confused. Her mouth was filled with melted marshmallow.
“They want to take me sailing tomorrow,” Nathan said. “But apparently you’re the only one who really knows how!” He smiled at her, then reached over to stroke her shoulder.
It was an act of tenderness that made her feel cold, if only because it reminded her of how little he’d acted so tenderly the past six months. “Sailing it is,” she said. “We’ll make a day of it.”
That night, the four of them stayed up late.
Sarah and Peter couldn’t get enough of the fire, of the stars, of the ocean, of their father.
They told stories and laughed. Sometimes, Candice was able to join them, but more often, she felt like an outsider.
When they finally put out the fire and went into the house, she listened from the bathroom, her toothbrush hanging out of her mouth, as her children and husband said they loved one another.
She padded down the hall to the bedroom, where Nathan was already in his boxers, reading in bed.
He hadn’t gotten under the covers, maybe because it was too warm.
Candice felt a strange resentment at having to share the blankets at all. Over the past few weeks, she’d grown accustomed to sleeping alone.
She told herself not to overthink that, either.
Candice sat down on her side of the bed and smiled at him. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said.
“Me too. It’s fantastic.” Nathan leaned over and gave her a chaste kiss on the lips, then returned to his book, flipping the page.
Candice grabbed her own book, and she settled in beside him.
But she was unable to concentrate. By the time he was asleep, his light snores rising, her thoughts were twisting out of control. She had to get out of bed.
Downstairs in the study, Candice put her mother’s record on the player and listened to it in its entirety, hoping for clues. When they didn’t come, she sat with her notebook and made a list of reasons her mother might not have talked about her country-western past. None of them made any sense.
It was then that she remembered Frank’s mother had said someone else owned the Harbor House.
It didn’t make sense. As far as she’d always known, Stella’s family had owned the Harbor House for generations.
But just to make sure, she did some light googling.
She found exactly no information. Nothing. Maybe Frank’s mother had been confused.
The following day, Nathan made everyone the most enormous and delicious and cheesiest breakfast of their lives.
Omelets, breakfast sandwiches, bacon, sausages, and pancakes lined every skillet, every pan.
The scents were sensational, pulling Lindsey and Henry from their bedrooms. Sarah put music on her Bluetooth speaker, and everyone ate their breakfasts on the veranda, pouring coffee and watching the light brighten.
“You’re a good addition to the Harbor House!” Lindsey said to Nathan, beaming at him.
“It’s a shame we haven’t hung around each other much over the years,” Henry agreed, reaching for another slice of bacon. “I did read your book, though. Human Agenda.”
Candice’s heart rattled.
“I did, too,” Lindsey said. “That was wild stuff.” Her eyes flickered to Candice.
And now, because Lindsey hadn’t brought this up before, Candice understood that Lindsey assumed Nathan had cheated on her, and that was probably why she was trying to push Candice to flirt with Frank.
She pitied her, just like everyone else. She assumed the worst.
“Thanks for reading,” Nathan said brightly. “What did you think?”
Henry had a lot to say, as it turned out. The breakfast table transformed into a literature analysis session, one that sent Candice back to the kitchen, where she scrubbed and scrubbed till every last surface, skillet, and plate was clean.
She could not listen to any more conversation about that book.
A little more than an hour later, Nathan, Candice, Peter, and Sarah were on the sailboat, playing Happy Family again.
They laughed and sang songs. They whipped around the island.
Eventually, Candice dropped the anchor, and they went for a swim, with Nathan coming closer and closer to Candice, almost uncomfortably close, till he kissed her.
“You look so beautiful,” he said.
Candice couldn’t remember the last time he’d said something like that. She gave him a look of confusion, and he swam off again, headed over to Sarah and Peter to ask them for a race.
That night, Candice returned to her mother’s study while Nathan and the kids were asleep.
Again, she played the record. But this time, rather than making silly lists, she started writing.
She imagined the protagonist of this book as a teenage girl named Stella McGee who lived in Nashville, Tennessee, wrote songs, attended dances, and spoke in a slow, Southern drawl.
In the story, Stella and her sister, Sally, lived in a beautiful house with their mother and father, both of whom played the banjo and piano and liked to make up songs with their daughters.
It was a silly story, maybe. But writing it down allowed Candice to get more creative about her mother’s past. In real life, Stella had never mentioned her parents, besides telling Candice and her siblings that they’d died before she’d had children of her own.
Candice especially liked imagining who the little sister, Sally McGee, was.
She liked to imagine that she was funny and charming, that she got into all kinds of trouble, that Stella always had to get her out of a jam.
Candice finished her writing experiment at around two in the morning, then reread it and laughed to herself.
It was nonsense. She’d never been to Tennessee, and she had no idea what it was like, outside of what she’d read in books or seen in movies.
She wondered if she’d need to go out there eventually, if only to see what her mother had once known.
Maybe her mother had left her secrets behind there.
Over the next few days, Candice and her family performed all the rituals of Vineyard vacations.
They swam, they barbecued, they went fishing, and they sailed.
They played cards, sometimes recruiting Lindsey and Henry, and went strolling through Oak Bluffs and Edgartown, if only to people-watch, get the lay of the land, and discover more incredible food.
Candice still felt a great distance between herself and Nathan.
They’d only kissed a handful of times, and they very rarely touched.
She still slept in the same bed as him, but only when she was done in her mother’s study every night. By then, he’d been asleep for hours.
She couldn’t figure out what she wanted from him. Maybe honesty would have been enough, but he didn’t seem capable of that.
After Nathan had been on the Vineyard for five days, Lindsey bought materials to make cocktails and mocktails and invited everyone to the veranda to watch the sunset.
Lindsey had told everyone to dress accordingly—in fancier clothing, apparently—and everyone except Candice complied.
Candice wore overalls and a tank top, while Henry wore a linen suit, Nathan wore a button-down, and Sarah wore a dress.
Even Peter wore clean clothes and brushed his hair.
Lindsey gave her a look of disapproval but didn’t say anything.
“Tell me, Nathan,” Henry said as he settled in at the table. “What are you writing these days?”
This was Nathan’s favorite topic of conversation, obviously.
He tore into it with zeal, describing to Henry what made him tick, what he was curious about, and how he was following the line of the story.
“I can feel the story getting away from me while I’m here, though,” Nathan said somberly.
“It’s part of the reason I have to go back to the city soon. ”
Sarah grimaced.
Peter offered, “I have to go soon, too. Can’t have vacation forever.”
“You sound like you’re a hundred years old,” Sarah said.
“Have you tried writing here?” Lindsey asked. “I always thought it would be an amazing space for an art retreat.”
“I can’t really focus,” Nathan admitted. “I need full quiet. I need my own books, my own space.”
Candice wondered what else he needed. His mistress?
Their apartment to himself so that he could have his mistress over?
Probably, if Peter and Sarah wanted to go back with Nathan, Nathan would be disappointed.
But they’d be out of the house so much that he could probably conduct his affair in secret.
If he has an affair at all, she thought. She genuinely didn’t know.
“How about you, Candice?” Lindsey asked suddenly. “I noticed you’ve been getting up most nights to hang in the study.”
Candice felt called out. But for the first time in years, it felt like she was able to say, “Yeah. I’ve been writing a little bit.”
Nathan looked terribly jealous. His cheeks were red.
“How wonderful,” Lindsey said. “Do you have anything to show us?”
Candice shook her head. “I think the story takes place in Tennessee. Maybe late seventies.”
“Intriguing,” Nathan said. “Why there?”
Lindsey raised her eyebrows with surprise. It was now obvious to Lindsey that Candice hadn’t shared anything of what she’d learned about Stella and Sally McGee with her husband. The chasm between them was growing vaster by the day.
“It’s just an experiment,” Candice said.
Lindsey and Henry exchanged glances. Candice smiled. It was her turn to have a secret. It was her turn to work on a novel, or the beginnings of an idea for a novel, or whatever this was. It was her turn to make space for herself and her heart and her creativity.
After cocktails, Lindsey went out to meet friends (including Frank, Candice assumed), and Henry went to his room to make some business calls.
His career was still a mystery to Candice.
Sarah and Peter went to their rooms, as well, leaving Candice and Nathan on the veranda table, nursing the last of their drinks.
Nathan was scrolling on his phone, and Candice was watching the last sliver of light fall into the ocean.
As she sat, she found herself thinking about the nature of honesty.
She wondered if her mother had considered that never telling her children about her past had been, in fact, a form of lying.
She wondered if her father had kept her mother’s secrets, or if he’d been in the dark just as much as their children.
Maybe these were questions she needed to answer if she was really going to write a book about her mother and her long-lost aunt.
But maybe she needed to get beyond the dishonesty in her own marriage if she was ever going to be honest with herself. Being honest with herself was the only way she could really write again. Wasn’t that what she’d told her students over and over?
“Nathan,” she said, raising her chin. “Why won’t you be honest with me about your affair?”