20. Meredith
MEREDITH
The money is still sitting on the kitchen table. Next to my father’s letter.
Sixty thousand dollars in old banknotes.
Weather-warped but still crisp where it matters.
I keep waiting for it to disappear if I blink too long, as if it were just a dream that I pushed the shucking station off the loose kitchen tiles.
Or perhaps I hallucinated the hole beneath them and the canvas bag buried below.
But it’s real.
I spent the night waiting for Richard to return to the beach house, but neither he nor Sophie came back from the hospital.
At some point early in the morning, I fell asleep on the couch, finally giving in to exhaustion and a bit of hysteria about being right. Aiden Holloway did leave money for us, off the record. The Shack wasn’t the complete failure the tax reports made it out to be.
It’s a relief. It should be a relief.
I press my fingers to the two now-empty shoeboxes I found in the bag, as if touching them can help me understand anything.
But there’s no understanding to be found.
If Aiden had this money all along, why hadn’t he used it to pay his taxes?
Was he truly so stubborn and determined to help me through school that he still thought the best option was to get on that boat that day?
It’s painful questions like these that make me count it again. Because it should be a relief that I found it, only now, I have even more questions.
Sixty thousand dollars. Exactly.
That’s a lot of money. Even with my scholarship, that kind of money would have made a huge difference fifteen years ago.
When I was waiting tables at night, so eager to fall into the arms of the first man who offered me some sense of financial security.
But as much as it stings to think about, that’s not the problem here.
The problem with sixty thousand dollars is that it only covers about half the discrepancy.
Which leaves me with even more questions. Where is the rest? Did I miss something? But the most pressing is, what do I do now?
I glance at the letter again. The envelope is hanging on by a thread, the number of times I’ve now removed it and reread it.
But just because the past is becoming more complicated by the second, it doesn’t mean the present needs to be. Richard might have power of attorney, but I have sixty thousand dollars in cash. Sophie needs to go back to L.A., and June needs to follow her heart, but I have nothing left to lose.
And maybe I don’t need to drag them down with me if this all goes wrong.
Maybe I owe it to myself to see this through.
I can’t leave Nantucket now. Because now, all I know is this—I want to save the Shack.
Not for business, not for show. For him.
For the good parts of him that I need to choose to believe in, despite the secrets.
For the man who wore ridiculous headbands and laughed the loudest and talked about his daughters like we hung the moon.
For my mom, who deserves to be surrounded by her family for more than one last summer.
All I have is this money, this hope, and the truth I choose to believe.
I can still make this right.
I scoop the money into the boxes, throw them and the letter back into the bag, and grab the keys to the old Jeep off the counter.
The shoeboxes bang against my side as I half-run down the hospital corridors, ignoring the annoyed staff in my way. It feels like years instead of hours since I was last here. The antiseptic stench threatens to block my sense of smell when I finally turn the corner to my mother’s room.
I find myself freezing in the doorway.
I hadn’t seen her yesterday. The doctors said she was sleeping, and they only allow two visitors to a bed anyway.
In the chaos, I hadn’t let myself think about what she might look like.
She’s curled up asleep on the cot with IV lines in her arms, looking so tiny beneath the stiff sheets that it nearly breaks my heart.
So far removed from the woman who once boasted about racing the Bluebird to the Cape and back in under six hours.
I have to swallow the guilt from the day she took me and June out sailing. There have been so many small moments, ever since I arrived, that felt off about Mom. It was my fault I didn’t push, even though it’s so clear now that something was wrong.
Next to her, Sophie slumps in a chair, her legs tucked beneath her like a kid. She’s wearing the same clothes as last night. Her phone is dead on the tray beside her, her eyes red-rimmed, vacant, and puffy.
She sees me but doesn’t bother sitting up. “She hasn’t woken up yet.”
“At all?”
Sophie merely shakes her head.
I find myself drifting forward, eager to touch my mom to confirm she’s still there. That she’s real. Her blond hair is tied back messily, and I do my best to brush it away from her eyes. She barely stirs at all.
“Doctors say they’ll probably discharge her when she wakes up. Antibiotics should be doing their job.”
My mouth suddenly feels very dry. “That’s good.”
“You just missed Richard.”
I deflate. “He left?”
There’s a beat of silence, and I drag my eyes away from my slumbering mother to catch Sophie scrutinizing me through her heavy lids.
“You’re going to stop him.” She says it with no emotion. No endorsement, no surprise, but also no anger. It’s as if the night by my mother’s side has drained all her warmth. Or maybe she’s just finally too tired to maintain that sunny fa?ade again.
“I am,” I say quietly. “I found it. The money that was missing—well, at least some of it. Sixty grand. It was buried under the shucking station.”
Sophie stares at me like I’m speaking another language. “You found sixty grand.”
“Dad was always saying his greatest treasure was buried out in Wauwinet.” I smile bleakly. “Only everyone knew that. He told me once he had to move it somewhere I’d never think to look.”
“Under the shucking station,” Sophie finishes for me. Then her shoulders cave in, and she lets out a bleat of laughter. “Is everyone in this family crazy?”
I look down at myself, at the clothes I’ve been wearing for days, and the dirty bag on my shoulder. The person who left Boston all those weeks ago wouldn’t have been caught dead like this. “Yeah, probably. I guess that’s why I’m going to stop Richard.”
“Mer…” Sophie bites her bottom lip. “I just don’t want you to be disappointed if this doesn’t work.”
And there it is, that warm feeling that grows in my chest when I think of her concern. The echoes of the woman I’ve started to get to know again this summer. It gives me hope that maybe, when this is all over, we might be able to save something from the wreckage that is our relationship.
I reach over to take her hand in mine. “I don’t know what Dad was thinking about any of this.
Or if sixty grand is even enough. But it’s something.
It proves the Shack was still making money.
Or that he at least thought it was worth saving.
But I have to try. I can’t believe Dad would want it to end like this, and I don’t think that Mom—” My voice breaks a little, and I have to look away.
“She would only agree to this if it were a last resort.”
Sophie lets out a tired, slow breath. “Meredith…”
“I understand what you said yesterday about not wanting to do this anymore. If that’s still how you feel, I get it. I really do. But I’m not asking you to come with me. I just thought…if there’s even a chance you want to help save it, you should read this first.”
I pull the letter out of the bag and place it gently on the side table next to her dead phone.
“It’s a letter Dad left for me. June and I have already read it, but you deserve to know the truth.” I squeeze her hand once more before pulling back. “I’m sorry we kept it from you.”
Her eyebrows lift slightly, but she doesn’t reach for it. She simply looks down at that familiar handwriting with an unreadable expression. Her hand absentmindedly clenches around the space where my fingers just were.
“He’s meeting them at the Eastport Inn.” Her voice comes out half-choked. “Private breakfast room. Probably already started.”
“Are you okay?—”
“Fine,” she cuts in, still not looking away from the letter. “But you should get going before you miss your opportunity.”
I tighten my grip on the strap of my bag and turn toward the door. “Tell Mom I love her, okay?”
Sophie doesn’t answer, but I hear her pick up the letter as I slip into the hallway.
And I run.
The private breakfast room is in the back of the Eastport Inn. I spot the door easily despite the unhelpful directions of the woman at the front desk.
I push it wide open, without hesitation.
Three men immediately look up from where they’re sitting around a long table, laden with steaming coffee and silver trays of croissants.
Richard closes his eyes once, slow and pained. “Oh God.”
He looks as well as a man who spent the night in a hospital room can look.
His jacket conceals an undoubtedly rumpled shirt, and he had enough foresight to splash some water through his graying hair.
But despite his efforts, the two men across from him sit in stark contrast—tailored jackets, golf tans, and too-perfect teeth.
Predictably, they look at me with as much interest as one might regard the filth on their shoe.
“I need five minutes,” I say, breathless and pointedly ignoring them in favor of directing my pleas at Richard. “Just five.”
The developer on the left raises his brows. “And you are…?”
“She’s nobody,” Richard says, rising to intercept me. “Excuse me, gentlemen.”
“I’m Eleanor Grant’s daughter,” I say quickly, pushing past him. “And I own a share of the Shack.”
“Which is being sold,” Richard says, trying to guide me back toward the hallway. “This is a private meeting.”
“Not until you see this.” I haul the bag onto the table and pull out the shoe boxes.
The sight of sixty thousand dollars in crumpled twenties and hundreds spilling onto linen and silverware has the intended impact. Everyone holds their breath. One of the developers lets out a low whistle.