Chapter 25
Although everyone was anxious for it to happen, Jack didn’t ask Rachelle to marry him for another year.
During that strange and exhilarating year, Rachelle worked tirelessly at the restaurant.
She poured her life and her creativity and her heart into each menu alteration, each celebrity party she hosted, and each interview with the various culinary magazine journalists who came by to taste what she’d made and see who she was.
Throughout that time, miraculously, she and Jack found a way to really get to know one another and really, truly fall in love. Good things took time, she knew.
Rachelle fell in love with him in a way she hadn’t with Riccardo.
Essentially, she felt that she’d fallen in love with Riccardo because she’d lived so far from home.
She hadn’t had anyone else and had needed to cling to him as a life raft.
But she fell in love with Jack simply because her soul wanted to.
Jack fit perfectly into her life with the rest of the Colemans.
More than that, because of his work, he got along so well with Derek that they often spent time together without Sam and Rachelle around.
Often, they invited Darcy’s husband, Steven, creating their own group.
Rachelle, her mother, and her sister found this adorable.
The summer that Rachelle was thirty-two, Jack dragged her away from the restaurant for a sailing expedition around the island.
He packed a picnic of champagne, strawberries, sandwiches with brie and ham and comté, and little donuts with powdered sugar.
Rachelle helped him maneuver the boat to a beautiful area near Madequecham Beach, where they dropped the anchor and cozied up to eat, drink, and sun themselves.
Here, so far from the chaos of the restaurant, Rachelle felt a peace she hadn’t known in many years.
“Here’s to Rachelle, one of the thirty-five under thirty-five chefs to watch!” Jack said, raising his glass of champagne.
Rachelle had just heard that she’d received the honor that Diana March had gotten before her—many years ago, when Diana had been at the beginning of her career.
Now, a year into owning her own restaurant, Rachelle still felt at the dawn of her culinary pursuits.
She and Darcy had discussed plenty of options going forward.
They’d touted the idea of opening another restaurant on Martha’s Vineyard, or elsewhere in New England.
They wondered what it would be like to own Jessabelle restaurants across the United States—restaurants that would feature their photographs on the walls. Sisters Darcy and Rachelle. Renowned.
But all of that would come later, Rachelle knew.
“You’re a force of nature,” Jack told her now, reaching for a velvet box he’d hidden in the picnic basket.
“I know you’ve been asked this before. I know I’m not the only man in the world who wants to marry you.
But Rachelle, I’ll do my very best to love you and make a home with you.
I love you so completely. Will you marry me? ”
Rachelle said she would. “Of course.” She watched as he slid the smallish diamond ring onto her finger. She didn’t think once of Riccardo’s fiancée, of the bigger ring she was probably wearing. Rachelle wasn’t one for big displays of affection. They always felt so false, so performative.
When they got back to the mainland, Rachelle insisted on going to see Darcy and Sam first to share the news.
The screams that broke out from The Jessabelle House that day ricocheted across the water.
Darcy was overjoyed and sobbing so much that both of her children panicked, unsure of what was wrong.
Gavin, now eight, eventually poured Darcy a glass of water and insisted that she drink it to calm down.
This made Sam, Rachelle, and Darcy gasp with laughter.
“What a kind and considerate kid,” Rachelle said when Gavin disappeared to do his own thing outside.
“How did I get so lucky?” Darcy asked.
Rachelle knew that the emotion behind all this had to do with the fact that she’d come back. Nobody had actually thought Rachelle would return to Nantucket. The fact that she’d not only come back but built a life with them again was something Darcy couldn’t get over.
Sometimes Rachelle woke up, sweating and panicked, thinking she was still back in Italy, still engaged to Riccardo, and preparing to live a life without her family. But always, Jack talked her down, reminding her where she was and what was happening.
The wedding would be in the autumn, after the summer season stalled and everyone could breathe a little. They discussed waiting till next spring but decided—why wait?
The lead-up to the wedding couldn’t have been more different from the lead-up to her wedding with Riccardo.
Together with her grandmother, mother, and sister, Rachelle selected an understated but sophisticated wedding dress, a vintage one that had been originally worn in the seventies but had been updated slightly to suit a modern bride.
This made it unique, at least in Rachelle’s eyes.
With Rachelle’s wedding dress picked out, the other women in the family were left to find their perfect outfits.
Rachelle neglected the restaurant—albeit only a little—to go to New York to shop with Estelle, Sam, Darcy, Hilary, and Aria.
They rented gorgeous suites at Estelle’s favorite hotel and got pink cocktails and pretended they were the women from Sex and the City.
Rachelle realized later that this was her version of a bachelorette party.
It wasn’t like she wanted to celebrate her wedding with anyone else.
The Saturday in October when Rachelle married Jack was stormy and terribly romantic.
Purple clouds churned on the horizon, and red and orange leaves snapped moodily on the trees that lined the road up to The Jessabelle House.
Rachelle was in the living room with her sister, her cousin Aria, her mother, her aunt, and her grandmother, preparing to head to the grand White Oak Lodge hotel, where the wedding was to take place later that day.
Their dresses were all piled up, wrapped in plastic, and their makeup bags and hair accessories were packed away, ready to go.
Sam insisted that everyone eat a slice of toast before they left, as, she said, “Brides always forget to eat! Eat up, everyone!”
Rachelle laughed and hugged her mother close. She always thought of everything.
Once at the hotel, the makeup artists and hairdressers arrived, and time sped past. The Coleman women made sure to laugh, gossip, and celebrate, between panicky conversations about lip color and whether eyeliner was in or not.
Throughout, Rachelle reminded herself to count her blessings. Time was of the essence, after all.
A half hour before the service, there was a knock on the door.
Sam went to answer it, then called, “Mom! It’s for you.
” Estelle sped off and disappeared through the door, leaving Sam to return and say, laughing, “It was Albert, of course.” They giggled happily.
Ever since Albert had come to Nantucket more than a year ago, he’d hardly left.
Estelle and Albert were falling into a beautiful and warm and comfortable love, one that didn’t negate Estelle’s past with Roland, but one that celebrated everything Estelle and Albert had ever been and could become.
Rachelle hoped she’d be brave enough to always say yes to life, like her grandmother.
Just as she’d dreamed of, Rachelle had her mother walk her down the aisle to marry the love of her life.
“Canon in D” brought Sam and Rachelle closer and closer to Jack, and to Darcy, who waited to take her bouquet.
Before she pledged her life to Jack, Rachelle hugged her mother and closed her eyes to experience a rush of emotion.
She pictured herself at countless stages of life at once: swimming as a kid in the Nantucket Sound, learning to cook her first complicated dish, whispering countless secrets to Darcy, taking the gig in Rome, flying to and from Rome, trying and failing to make a life there.
When she opened her eyes again, she found herself here, on a beautiful autumn afternoon, with everyone she loved waiting for her.
Jack reached out a hand, and she took it, stepping toward their future. It was time to leap.