Chapter 17
Minnie and Viggo were on Viggo’s sailboat, about a quarter of a mile from the harbor.
Viggo was sketching, his head burrowed as he stroked the paper lovingly with his pencil.
Minnie had said she wanted to read, or sketch, or maybe write some poetry.
But all she could do was gaze across the waves, her heart pounding with fear and recognition.
Yesterday had changed the course of her life forever.
And she couldn’t yet tell a soul—not even Viggo.
It had begun at the burger restaurant just yesterday, after the last day of school.
Suddenly paranoid, she’d thought someone was stalking them, so Viggo had snuck out and taken a secretive photo on his phone of the guy in a baseball hat, hiding behind the van.
When Viggo had shown her the photograph, all the blood had drained from her face.
But to Viggo, she’d shaken her head with wonder.
“Never seen him before in my life,” she’d lied.
When she’d glanced back at the van, he’d been gone.
“Let’s go to the movies,” she’d said, so they’d run off to the outdoor cinema, where they’d kissed and eaten popcorn, and she’d tried her best to pretend that what she’d seen wasn’t what she’d seen.
“If I see that guy again, I’ll go after him,” Viggo had promised.
She’d laughed. “I’m sure it was all a misunderstanding.”
Viggo had given her a curious look, as though he’d wanted to ask her why she’d changed her tune so quickly. But she hadn’t given him anything else.
Last night, when Viggo had dropped her off at home, she’d said hello to her mother, gone upstairs, and tossed and turned all night.
She’d hardly slept a wink. And now, back on Viggo’s boat, she struggled to maintain her smiles, the kisses he expected, and the joy they’d built.
She had no idea what to make of it, but one thing was clear—her father was on the island, and he was spying on her.
Viggo looked up from his sketch and smiled. “What’s on your mind?”
“I’m just happy,” Minnie lied. She considered asking Viggo to run away with her, to escape her mother and whatever her father wanted, to build a new life elsewhere.
They were sixteen going on thirty, it felt like.
They could figure it out. But despite her love for Viggo, she couldn’t shake the feeling that her father had come here for a reason. Maybe he needed her help.
Her heart swelled with love for her father, and how she’d missed him.
Throughout her childhood and into adulthood, Kendall had always been clear with her. Minnie is the smartest and most capable girl in the world. He’d always told her how much smarter she was than her mother. He’d always told her that success was hers if she was brave enough to take it.
“People don’t hand you what you want in this life,” he’d told her. “You have to go out and take it.”
When Kendall had disappeared without a trace more than two months ago, Minnie had plunged into a pit of despair.
A part of her had begun to suspect her mother was right, that her father was a criminal and that he’d gone into hiding for that reason.
But now he was here, in Nantucket, watching and waiting for her? What did that mean?
“Actually,” Minnie said to Viggo now, as the sailboat shifted beneath them, “I’m starting to feel a little sick.”
Viggo set aside his sketchbook and stood immediately. “Can I get you something? Medicine? Ginger ale?”
“I think I want to go home,” Minnie said tenderly. His face broke with sorrow, so she got up and covered him with kisses. She couldn’t lose him. “We can hang out tomorrow, if you want to. Or the next day.”
But she knew that Viggo had become addicted to her in the way that teenagers so often did with one another. She kissed him long and hard until he finally said, “All right, all right. I’ll take you home. I need to do some stuff for my mom anyway.”
As they sailed back to the harbor, Minnie ached with the feeling that she was betraying herself.
Viggo wanted to love her. He wanted to build a life with her.
Was her worry about her father going to jeopardize that?
Oh, but she needed to figure this out, or else she was going to go absolutely nuts.
When they reached the dock, she helped Viggo tie up the boat, then walked to his convertible, where they kissed a bit more before heading to Minnie’s place.
Minnie told Viggo that she’d see him soon, and he told her to feel better.
Minnie watched him drive away, feeling the distance between them like a knife in her stomach.
She couldn’t lose Viggo so soon after she’d lost Gavin! The world was too cruel.
Inside, she found her mother and a man she’d never seen before, scouting around the kitchen and measuring walls.
Minnie guessed he was a contractor, there to fix up a house that seemed less filled with “character” and more filled with “mold and heartbreak” every single day.
Hannah looked at her daughter with surprise, then said, “You’re home earlier than I thought you would be! ” But she didn’t seem sad about it.
Minnie wondered if her mother could see the fact of Kendall, written on her face. Hannah’s history as a journalist tended not to work in Minnie’s favor. She seemed always to know what was going on and what Minnie was hiding.
But something about the strange man in the house was distracting her mother, Minnie realized. The air was different, and there was a franticness to Hannah’s movements.
Was this what her mother looked like when she was flirting with someone?
“I didn’t feel well,” Minnie said simply. “I asked him to bring me home.”
“Oh, honey. Can I make you some soup?”
“I’ll be fine,” Minnie said. She eyed the man, who raised a thick, calloused hand.
“This is Julien,” Hannah said. “He’s going to help us fix up the house.” She stuttered briefly, then added, “Although he really doesn’t have to.”
Julien smiled at Hannah, his face a mix of confusion and adoration. “It’s my pleasure, really. I’ve always loved this old place.”
Minnie nodded at Julien, who nodded back.
“Good to meet you,” Julien said finally. It was clear that he didn’t know how to handle a dynamic like this any more than she did.
With nothing else to say, she escaped upstairs, where she burrowed beneath the comforter and tried and failed to call her father three times. Where was he? Why was he in Nantucket? How had he found them?
It wasn’t till the next afternoon that Minnie got any sort of answer.
Sitting in the convertible, waiting for Viggo outside the gas station, she spotted a man in a baseball hat, moving swiftly across the parking lot.
When Viggo’s back was to them, the man who could only be her father, Kendall, threw a wad of paper into the convertible, so that it landed on Minnie’s lap.
Minnie was too frozen with surprise to do anything.
She gaped at Kendall as he disappeared around the side of the gas station.
Then, before Viggo left the gas station, she flattened out the note to read in her father’s handwriting: Waterstone Hotel @ 8 p.m. tomorrow, Room 344, don’t be late.
She shivered, then balled the note into a fist and threw it into the nearest trash can, right before Viggo came out into the parking lot with two sodas and a bag of chips.
Minnie had the feeling that she was hiding something enormous.
But she knew better than to share this news with Viggo, who couldn’t possibly understand who her father was and all Minnie had lost when Kendall had been forced away.
Maybe, after Minnie spoke with her father, she could convince Kendall to start a new life in Nantucket.
She could continue dating Viggo, and her father could rebuild his business from this very island.
She could spend half her time with her father and half her time with her mother, like the kids she knew back in Miami whose parents were divorced.
She reasoned that if her parents didn’t have to stay married, they could finally be honest with one another.
They could stop trying to ruin each other’s lives.
Maybe she could be the catalyst for all that joy. Maybe she was brave enough to make it happen.
“What are you smiling about?” Viggo asked, driving them out of the parking lot and toward the beach where they’d decided to snack on chips and cheese and sip beer.
“I’m excited about summer,” Minnie said, her chest expanding. “That’s all.”