Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
A lex was alone on the back porch of his cabin, rewatching the footage he’d taken that morning of Rowan’s confession. Alex hadn’t slept, and his brain throbbed, and his molars ached. But still, he couldn’t sleep. He needed time to think.
Rowan had manipulated Alex’s ex-benefactor and convinced him to give the rest of the film’s funding to him instead. Rowan’s entire career had been built from the bones of Alex’s. In the film, Rowan goaded him to share the video of his confession. To tell the world of his betrayal. Such was his confidence. People like Rowan don’t fail. People like Victor don’t fail. They just get up and take advantage of everyone, over and over again. And people like me fall through the cracks.
Alex stopped the film and filled his lungs with air. Across the water was a sailboat sweeping across the waves. He could just barely make out three people aboard, young men trying to cling to every last scrap of summer before it drifted into autumn.
Alex remembered leaving California as though it were a memory of somebody else’s dream. He remembered the flight, sun-drenched in a sterling-blue sky, shaking as he came down from a drug high that had terrified him. Three or so hours into the flight, he realized what he’d done. I left Valerie. I left California. Everything is over. But he couldn’t turn back now. He knew, in disappearing, that he’d damaged Valerie irrevocably. She wanted to be safe. She wanted to live a life free of torment and fear. And that meant taking himself out of it.
Alex’s parents came to pick him up in Boston and take him back to Nantucket Island. He hadn’t seen them since before he married Valerie. They knew, in theory, that he’d been addicted to drugs and gone through recovery, but they didn’t really want to hear about it, so he kept his mouth shut and decided to save those conversations for his sponsor. When his father mentioned they wanted a night employee for the front desk of The Rooster, Alex leaped at the chance. At that desk, he’d finished his final edits on Blue Days and put the video on YouTube to die. Hardly anybody ever saw it after that. But at least it existed.
Meanwhile, Rowan Collins’s career had skyrocketed.
It was no small victory that Alex had remained sober ever since his return East. He met with other locals who struggled. He journaled regularly and kept tabs on his emotional state.
The film was dead. The baby was dead. I just couldn’t take it anymore.
He hated how weak he’d been. But he couldn’t reach back and change the past, no matter how much he wanted to.
From out front came the sound of tires over gravel. Someone was here. Alex got up, entered the cabin, and peered out the back window to see Victor Sutton in the driveway. Alex’s heart nearly stopped with alarm. What does he want with me?
He shuddered with the realization. He saw the newspaper article. He knows who I am now.
Did Valerie tell him about the marriage?
Alex set his jaw and opened the door before Victor had a chance to knock. Victor Sutton stopped short in the middle of the pathway between the driveway and the door. Although it was only four in the afternoon, he gripped a six-pack of beer. Sunlight swept through the trees above, casting a green glaze over his wrinkled face.
“Alex,” Victor said. “Alex Garland. Why are you hiding yourself away?”
Alex sighed and beckoned for Victor to enter. He was too exhausted to put up a fight. Victor entered the kitchen, and Alex watched him glance at the tiny kitchenette attached to the quaint living room, beyond which was his small, shadowed bedroom. It wasn’t a lot. Victor is accustomed to having more than he needs.
“It’s a lot like mine.” Victor’s words surprised him.
Alex tilted his head. “I thought you were staying with Esme and the girls.”
“I stay over from time to time. But I don’t want to force myself,” Victor said.
Alex blinked, remembering what Rowan had said about Victor putting himself out there and fixing his image. “Plus, you don’t want them to know what you’re up to. You want to hide.”
Victor furrowed his brow but didn’t look away.
“You’re writing a book,” Alex finished. “You’re trying to fix your image. I can’t imagine your ex-wife would be pleased to be featured in a tell-all meant to boost your career.”
Victor set the six-pack of beer on the counter and rubbed the back of his head. He was clearly surprised at the level of vitriol in Alex’s voice, but Alex didn’t care. He tilted his head to guide Victor out to the back porch, where they sat side by side in rocking chairs. The beers were forgotten. Alex wanted his mind to be crystal clear.
Victor was quiet for a long time. Alex wondered if he thought about Joel. What would Joel have been like at forty? Why did some people live and some people die? There were no answers to questions like this.
“Rowan told you I was writing a book,” Victor said finally.
Alex nodded.
Victor palmed the back of his neck. “He couldn’t have told you how slow going it is.”
Alex turned to look at Victor. Color drained from his cheeks.
“Rowan approached me about the documentary, not the other way around,” Victor said. “The way he described it made me think— hey. Maybe I can acknowledge my mistakes through the lens of somebody else’s life. Maybe a filmmaker like Rowan can add context to all the terrible things I’ve done. Maybe other people have made mistakes, too. But what I learned quickly with Rowan is what a fraud he is.”
Alex’s throat was tight. He struggled to swallow it away.
“It’s true that I’m supposed to be writing a book,” Victor said. “But I signed the contract before I went to Maine to track Rebecca down and bring her back here. I signed it before I ever saw Esme again.” He closed his eyes.
Overhead, three sparrows fluttered through the trees and made the leaves shake.
“You should see the mess of that book, Alex. It’s the musings of a madman. Perhaps that’s what I am.” Victor laughed. “My publisher demands that I send what I have as soon as possible. I’ve gotten some very threatening emails. Emails that make me realize how predatory the publishing industry can be! I’m a quasi-powerful man! And the things my publisher says casually to me blow me away. But I digress.” He wet his lips. “I’ve lost everything I’ve built. Sometimes I think the book is the only way to fully claim my story.”
Victor sniffed. “You’re a forty-year-old man. I can’t imagine you’ve avoided hardships in your life.”
Alex rubbed his temple and met Victor’s gaze. I’m a recovered drug addict, a failed filmmaker, a failed husband, and a failed father. I live alone in a cabin in the middle of nothing. I work nights at my parents’ inn.
Did Victor deserve his honesty? Did anyone?
“The fact that Esme and the girls have taken you back is an enormous blessing,” Alex said finally.
“I thank my lucky stars every day.” Victor raised his hands.
“If you’re really serious about rebuilding your life,” Alex said, “then you can’t write that book. You can’t use your family to benefit your career. You fell hard. But it’s just like you used to tell me after baseball practice. I have to dust myself off. I have to try again.”
Victor’s eyes were illuminated with memory. For a moment, it felt as though Alex were eight, and Victor was in his thirties, and he was drilling Alex and Joel on baseball tactics. “If you have a guy on second, a guy on third, and three outs, where do you hit the ball?” At that age, Joel and Alex had very little control over where the baseball flew. But Victor had wanted to give them a path forward. You have to have a plan.
“You were always at my house,” Victor said, rubbing his cheek. “Always running around with my son. Basically, a fifth kid to feed.”
Tears stung Alex’s eyes, and he blinked them away.
“We hardly saw you around after he died,” Victor said.
Alex’s voice felt clumsy. “I missed coming over.” It sounded so silly when compared to the truth of it. I lost my best friend. I lost my second family.
Victor leaned his head against the back of the rocking chair. Alex imagined that if Joel hadn’t died, Victor would have taken them fishing, sailing, and hiking. Alex’s father was too busy with the inn, but Victor Sutton would have had time. He’d have taught them how to properly filet a fish. He’d have regaled them with stories from his youth.
“I think about Joel every day,” Alex said. And then he repeated what he and Valerie had affirmed to one another. “Sometimes I think that I need to live well for him. I need to live a beautiful life because he wasn’t allowed to.” He took a deep breath. “But other times, I think I’m too much of a coward to live a good life.”
It was Victor’s turn to cry. He blushed and turned around so Alex couldn’t see him wipe his cheeks. Alex’s chest thrummed.
“I’m sorry,” Victor said, trying and failing to laugh at himself. “It’s just that I used to tell myself that, too. That I needed to live a perfect life because Joel couldn’t. But there’s no answer to perfection, is there? Because I’ve been looking. And I wound up right where I started.”
Alex laughed gently and let his head drop forward. He was surprised at how open Victor was. This is the man Valerie demonized for years. This is the man who destroyed his family. But it was also a man willing to admit his mistakes.
“Promise me you won’t publish that book,” Alex said, thinking of Valerie. Thinking of Esme. Thinking of all the Suttons around a Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter dinner table. He wanted that for them. Maybe Valerie will find the strength to see me again.
But then he remembered I was the one who left. Just like Victor had.
“I won’t publish that book,” Victor said. His voice was loud and firm. He sounded like a patriarch again. He sounds like someone you can trust.
Victor and Alex sat quietly on the back porch of Alex’s cabin for the next twenty minutes, watching the wind shift through the trees and a loon drop onto the water. It was a time of honesty. And for the first time in a long time, Alex didn’t feel the urge to reach through the shadows of the past and force himself to experience pain.
Not long after, Victor admitted he wanted to return to “his girls.” He felt the tug of their love. Esme would have dinner ready soon.
“Don’t mess this up,” Alex urged him when he walked him to the door.
Victor clapped his hand on Alex’s shoulder, just as he had after baseball games. “I promise that I won’t,” he said. “You should come to the fundraiser we’re having at the Sutton Book Club next week. We’re trying to raise enough money to keep the place alive. Valerie’s in town to plan the event. I guess you remember her? You were closer to her in age. We always said she was Joel’s twin.” He cleared his throat. “Esme says she’s done a masterful job planning the thing. She says she’s planned everything. Celebrity weddings. Elaborate corporate Christmas parties.” Victor’s eyes shone. “Valerie’s the daughter who won’t forgive me. I guess that stands to reason since she loved Joel the most. She was the youngest. She can’t get over it. And why would she?”
Alex’s heart cracked. “Maybe she just needs more time.”
“I’m sure she’ll head back to California after the fundraiser’s over,” Victor said. He wiped his brow with the flat of his hand. “They don’t tell you how little time you have to make sense of your life.”
“They really should,” Alex agreed.
Victor said a final goodbye before he left. Alex stood in the middle of the kitchen with his heart in his throat, watching Victor back out of the driveway. He had the strangest suspicion that everything that had happened in his life was supposed to happen, if only so he could be here with Victor this afternoon. All the moving parts had come together to help Alex, Victor, and Valerie heal on Nantucket.
Maybe Alex and Valerie would have to heal separately. But it was okay with him as long as they were safe, happy, and healthy. It had to be.