Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
T he enormity of sleeping next to someone like that stuck in Graham’s heart all morning. Nothing happened between them, not like that. But it was remarkable to wake up and hear Sylvie’s soft breathing. It was remarkable to have the lilac scent of her in the air above the bed.
I’m not alone, Graham thought. He wanted to cuddle up to her, but he didn’t want her to roll away.
He searched his heart for some sign that Hannah was disappointed in him. But he knew that all Hannah would want for him was joy.
At five, they got up and scrambled to the car to drive the rest of the way to the alligator farm, glancing at one another, happiness in their hearts.
Graham cracked jokes that Sylvie belly laughed at, and Sylvie practiced asking her interview questions, which Graham answered in silly ways, talking about alligators and the swamp in a Southern drawl.
When they reached the alligator farm, the guy who owned it was waiting for them, wearing a pair of overalls and a big hat.
Graham was amazed at the way Sylvie transformed from the beautiful and funny girl, laughing in his front seat, to a prominent journalist, one who took both her career and the alligator farmer seriously.
Graham hung back by the car, saluting them as they walked toward what looked like a pit full of alligators.
When they walked past it, Graham hurried to the fence to peer down at the beasts, many of which were just sleeping, half in and half out of the water.
These were some of the creatures who’d been on the earth the longest, he knew. They were practically dinosaurs.
Graham was fighting for a better earth for them. For the farmer. For the children of humans and alligators and bumblebees and piranhas.
Sylvie was fighting, too.
Graham’s heart thumped. The air was hot, maybe one hundred degrees, and he was already slick with sweat.
Despite the heat, he tried to think about work.
The House on Nantucket was set to reopen just in time for Memorial Day, and since he’d redone the website, they’d gotten twenty-five more guest reservations.
Alongside his work at the inn, he planned to continue to protest Next Generation Nantucket Designers.
Hilary had promised to dig deeper into the people behind their companies.
She had the kind of power that Graham and Sylvie needed to make things happen.
According to Graham’s Boston-based contact, the Next Generation Nantucket Designers planned to break ground on another hotel in just a few weeks.
Graham’s heart skipped a beat. He imagined himself handcuffed, flailing.
He pictured himself trying and failing and trying and failing, on repeat, forever.
He sent a screenshot of the news to Hilary Salt, who wrote back immediately.
HILARY SALT: I just learned something pretty insane.
HILARY SALT: I don’t know if I want to tell Sylvie yet.
GRAHAM: What do you mean?
HILARY SALT: You know this big journalism award she’s receiving? One of the people handing out the award is literally the CFO of Next Generation Nantucket Designers…
Graham’s heart stopped. Pocketing his phone, he gazed across the alligator farm, watching as Sylvie spoke earnestly with the farmer, trying to understand him, trying to get it all right.
Sylvie had told Graham how pleased she was about the award. “Finally,” she’d said, “I feel recognized for all that work. Finally, it’s like my voice really matters.”
She’d said, “I know it sounds silly. But I’ve been so exhausted. There’s never enough money in this. Sometimes it feels like a losing battle, writing and interviewing and trying so hard to make people listen. I wish I had the energy we had as teenagers.”
Now, Graham ached with the realization that the very people wanting to “award” Sylvie were the people they both were fighting against. It was terribly disappointing.
It all felt like a big ruse, as though the Next Generation Nantucket Designers wanted to point to how “good” they were so that they could get away with doing horrible things in secret.
It was all in the name of progress. It was all in the name of looking “good” on social media while making billions behind closed doors.
Graham’s thoughts stirred. Sylvie was up against so much right now. He wasn’t sure if he had it in him to tell her about this new development.
He texted Hilary back.
GRAHAM: I’ll tell Sylvie soon. Keep it to yourself for now, okay? I need to wait for the right moment.
HILARY: You’re good people, Graham. Sylvie’s in good hands.
Sylvie’s interview lasted a full ninety minutes.
While he waited, Graham sat in the shade near the alligator pit, trying and failing to come up with a plan to take on the Next Generation Nantucket Designers.
Sometimes the alligators got up and did their four-legged waddle to a different location in the pit, but they mostly stayed where they were, their eyes alive and alert, but their bodies slack and too big.
Sylvie returned with the alligator farmer in tow, thanking him profusely for meeting with her.
“Graham, you missed out on a real treat,” she said, a performance for the farmer.
“I learned more about the ecosystem of this place than I ever could have fathomed. And I think it was essential to see it for myself.”
The farmer nodded earnestly. “People don’t get our world down here. It’s good that you bring news back up to the folks in the North. Otherwise, people don’t think of us.”
Sylvie turned so that she and Graham were facing the farmer. Her fingers touched Graham’s, and Graham didn’t pull back.
The farmer was still talking about the delicate nature of life in the South and how important it was to protect their way of life. Graham nodded, lacing his fingers through Sylvie’s.
“We’re trying to do that where we’re from, too,” Graham said when the farmer took a breath. “Corporate greed has gotten out of control.”
It took a bit of time to get out of the alligator farm.
The farmer hadn’t met someone as like-minded as Sylvie in quite a while, it seemed, and wanted to pepper her with more facts and questions about the future than Graham felt she was capable of handling.
When they finally said their goodbyes, they got into Graham’s car and sped out of there, away from the murderous reptiles and the man who protected them.
Sylvie laughed. “This is part of the reason I love this job. You meet all kinds of people. You learn to care about so many different facets of the world.”
Graham’s heart swelled with what could only be love for her.
That afternoon, they found the only vegan barbecue place in Birmingham with a 4.
5-star rating and ate in the air-conditioning, which was something they knew wasn’t great for the environment but something they welcomed even still right then.
Within twenty minutes, their fingers were covered in various sauces, and their bellies were full of local craft beer.
A massive television was playing a baseball game, and Graham and Sylvie continued to laugh and tease one another.
Sylvie had one more interview lined up that evening, and they planned to drive back home tomorrow already.
Graham thought he could have traveled all over the world with Sylvie like this.
He could have driven her from one interview to the next.
That night, when they returned to their hotel for a final nightcap and a sleep they’d both earned, Sylvie stopped him in the hallway, pressing her hand on his chest. Graham couldn’t breathe.
Had she discovered the truth about her journalism award?
Was she going to scold him for keeping the truth to himself—for now?
“Can I ask you a question?” she said.
Graham swallowed. “Anything you want.”
Sylvie looked a little unsteady from lack of sleep and heat fatigue. “Why do you think I’m so scared of finding out more about my mother?”
Graham took her hand in his and gazed into her eyes. It was an open, frightened question.
“I mean, I ask everyone anything that comes to mind. I’m a journalist,” Sylvie said. “I’ve just built up this whole narrative in my mind. I’ve thought up thousands of reasons. I’ve even considered that maybe my dad covered up her murder? Ha.”
Graham squeezed her hand. They both knew James Bruckson wasn’t capable of murder. It didn’t even need to be said.
“Let’s go inside,” Graham offered, waving his card.
He led her into the new hotel room. Without speaking about it first, they’d gotten just the one, not even allowing themselves the opportunity to get cold feet. Sylvie sat at the edge of the bed and curled into a ball.
Graham poured them both drinks from the minibar and sat beside her.
He made his voice steady and sure. “After you left, I transformed you in my head into something else. I made you larger than life, like this creature who’d been put on this earth to teach me a lesson and totally break my heart.
But when I saw you at the funeral home that day, that whole idea crashed down immediately.
You’re just a human, like me. You left Nantucket for reasons that broke your heart, too. ”
Sylvie nodded slowly. Her eyes glowed with tears. “I wanted to call you. I had to force myself not to. Because I knew if I heard your voice again, I would completely fall apart.”
Graham rubbed her shoulder. “We make monsters out of our pasts. But maybe it’s all a little more complicated than that. Maybe all of our monsters were just people who tried their best and made a whole lot of mistakes along the way.”
Sylvie’s voice shook. “Like my father.”
“Like your father,” Graham agreed.
Sylvie sipped her drink thoughtfully.
“You need to be prepared for what you find in those pages,” Graham offered. “But you have to remember that those pages don’t change what we have right here. It’s you and me again, Sylvie.”
Sylvie raised her chin and parted her perfect lips.
Graham knew that it was now or never, so he pressed his lips against hers, closing his eyes as a rush of feeling took over him.
Soon, their drinks were tapped on the side table, and their arms were around one another.
They were hungry for one another. They were making up for lost time.