Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Nina
June 2025
W ith the letter tucked in her purse, Nina stepped into the bright morning sunlight. Tears welled in her eyes. When she stepped off the porch and headed for the beach down the road, she heard the door open behind her and spun back to see Amos, hunched in the doorway, his eyes stirring. But because she could feel Daniel’s shadow just behind Amos, Nina couldn’t say much.
“You’ll be okay?” Amos asked.
“I’ll be back in ten,” Nina promised. “I just can’t read it with anyone else around.”
Reading the letter between her father and mother felt tremendously private. This was ironic, she knew, because so many collectors had read it over the years, and Daniel had apparently owned it since the early days of their dating. She wondered where in the houses and apartments they’d shared he’d kept the letter and marveled that she hadn’t stumbled upon it when she’d decluttered his desk or dusted his office. What would she have done if she had? Would she have ignored it, the way she’d tried to ignore his affair with Angie? Was she really the kind of woman to look the other way when something painful was happening right in front of her?
It was miraculous to learn about yourself. It was miraculous to realize that there was still so much to learn at thirty-eight. It was miraculous to realize you could still change, that to stay alive, you had to change. There was still time.
Nina walked to the beach, sat in the sand, and tried to remember what it had been like to be eleven years old, the daughter of Francesca and Benjamin Whitmore, the kid sister of Alexander, Lorelei, Allegra, Charlotte, and Jack. She’d felt like a little, dreamy alien. The sunshine on her face felt hot, and she cursed herself for not putting sunscreen on first. Stop wasting time , she told herself. She pulled the letter from the envelope and unfolded it. Her ears rang.
June 11, 1997
My darling Francesca,
It’s the third week of your absence, and I’m beginning to wonder if you will ever come home. But I know in so many ways I deserve your departure. It was my lot in life to fall in love with you, and it was my lot in life to stay in love with you despite everything. After all of the betrayals between us, after so many twisted words said, after the horrors of what we’ve wrought—and yes, after the mess of bringing Nina into our lives, I still find my heart returning to you, again and again.
When I picture you in Manhattan, I imagine you’re living the life you always thought you’d have: one of luxury and high-society parties and other fancy Italians and beautiful dresses. I imagine you’re letting other men buy you drinks and take you for walks. I imagine you’re talking to your lawyer on the phone, asking him about the specifics of divorcing me. I imagine so much, and it haunts me.
I wonder what would happen if I asked you not to? I wonder what would happen if I said, please, my darling, don’t leave me forever. Forgive me, as I have forgiven you in the past. The mess of our romance makes everything that much more textured, doesn’t it? It makes us the king and queen of Nantucket gossip. And I know you have always wanted to be queen.
Your brother is still here. I know you’re tired of this conversation, but I can’t stop myself from thinking he’s here to take and take and take. How much does he know of what the Whitmores stand for? Did you perhaps tell him about it all in the early days of our courtship—when I took you down below and showed you our riches? I was so proud of all that back then. I was proud of the secrets and the ancient betrayals and the generations of Whitmores who thought they were cleverer than anyone else. Perhaps we’ve been lucky, sometimes. But we haven’t been clever. That’s clear.
I can’t help but think that things between us have gotten rockier since Angelo came. Please tell me you see it too.
I don’t want to send your brother back to the madness that awaits him in Italy. But I wonder if there’s a way to reel him in a bit. I wonder if there’s a way to tame whatever terror he’s wreaking on the island. I wonder, I wonder.
My darling, what can I do to bring you back home? So far, I’ve done everything you asked of me, save for one thing. You know that I cannot send Nina away. She is my daughter, and her mother is helpless and penniless and wants nothing to do with her anyway. To be honest, I don’t know where she ended up when she left us, and I don’t care to find out. I know you’ve tried being Nina’s mother; I know you’ve tried your best to love her. But think of how it looks from her perspective. Her “mother” dotes on her five other children and neglects her youngest. The island gossips about that, too.
Nina is a good girl. She’s ten and already a bright force of nature.
Please, forgive her for the act of being born.
Please, forgive me (yet again) for my affair—just as I have forgiven you for yours.
And haven’t I shown tremendous love and affection for your daughter? Haven’t I made her feel as though she’s a proper Whitmore?
I’m rambling, my darling. I see it clearly. But know that I love you with all my heart and soul, in ways that I simply cannot love another. I need you back at the White Oak Lodge. I need you to be my partner in life. I need to see your smile in the morning. I need so much.
Yours forever,
Your husband, Benjamin Whitmore
Nina reread the letter and returned it to its envelope with a shaking hand. She gazed at the horizon for a long time and felt the sun drift higher in the sky. Last night’s raucous antics with Ralph now felt like a million years ago. Her stomach was eating itself, but she couldn’t imagine taking a single bite.
Over and over again, it echoed in her mind: I am not Francesca’s daughter .
It felt like a puzzle piece clicking into place. It felt like a resounding answer to the forever question of why her mother seemed not to like her. When she combed through her memories, she saw hundreds of eye rolls from Francesca, annoyed asides, and questions about why Nina was getting underfoot, why she was there at all. Nina had always thought Francesca was just tired of mothering. But the truth was far more sinister.
Whoever Nina’s birth mother was, she apparently wanted nothing to do with her.
Nina felt her heart breaking over and over again.
It was why it had been so easy for Francesca to let Nina go after the fire. It was why Nina had been raised in Michigan by her great-aunt Genevieve. It was why she’d been ostracized.
But I’m a real Whitmore! I’m my father’s daughter!
It left her reeling.
But the worst of it was that her husband, Daniel, had had this letter since they’d begun dating at Princeton. He’d carried knowledge about Francesca and Nina’s real relationship, and he’d kept it close to his heart until he could use it to manipulate her. It was the cruelest thing anyone had ever done to her. On the verge of a panic attack, she tried to steady her breathing and removed her shoes and socks to put her feet in the sea. The chilly water slowed her mind and forced her to think.
Daniel was sure there was something—riches or treasure—under the White Oak Lodge, or that there had been something there at the time the letter was written. It was why he’d come back and let her read the letter in the first place. He wanted her to help him get to the bottom of it. Why hadn’t he shown her the letter back in 2012? The only answer Nina could come up with was that he was afraid I’d leave him. Now, he thinks I’m too broken down to leave. He thinks I want him back so desperately, now that he “left” me for a younger woman.
Daniel was wrong. It wasn’t the first time.
Nina got up and walked barefoot through the sand. In the distance was a beautiful woman of about forty who walked hand in hand with a little girl with black hair, a little girl who looked so much like Nina that it yanked Nina back through time. She’d always thought she’d inherited her black hair from her mother. But now she knew she’d inherited nothing from her. Someone else had carried Nina in her womb. Someone else had delivered her into this life.
Who could it have been? A guest at the White Oak Lodge? A member of staff?
Did all of her siblings know? Had Jack known before the fire?
With a jolt, Nina remembered her initial plans. She’d wanted to drive out to Madequecham Beach and knock on the door of so-called Seth Green’s little house. She’d dreamed of staring her brother in the face and saying, Why are you on the run? Had she been delusional?
Suddenly, Nina was standing by the road. She barely remembered the entire walk. Abstractly, she thought of her children, watching television in her cabin bed. She remembered her horrible husband, who’d told her to come back soon. She remembered the kindness and warmth in Amos’s eyes. Cars whizzed past, and their drivers flinched when looking at her.
She knew she didn’t look normal. She wondered if she ever had.
“Nina?”
A voice made her whirl around. Amos stood behind her with a big black dog on a leash. The dog panted with a pink tongue lolling out of his mouth. Nina fought to keep from falling to her knees.
“Amos,” she whispered, then hurried over to throw her arms around him. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know any of this. I didn’t know.”
Amos’s hug was firm and powerful and sure. Nina felt protected. The horrible voice in the back of her mind quieted down. When she finally pulled back, she raised her chin to look at him and said, “There was so much I didn’t know. How could I go around believing so many lies? How could I live like that?”
What Amos said would stick with her forever. “People tell themselves all kinds of lies. It’s living in the truth that’s harder.”
Nina steeled herself. “I want to live in the truth. Even if it hurts.”