Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
V alerie kept to herself the night Victor returned from Alex’s cabin. She sequestered herself in her childhood bedroom with a manuscript, a story that seemed continually heavy with her memories of Alex and Joel rather than vitriol toward her father. This isn’t what Saul asked for. But I don’t care. She didn’t want to see Victor at all tonight. She didn’t want to hear how it had gone, what Alex had said, or how Victor had reacted. If Alex told Victor about his marriage to Valerie, she assumed she’d hear about it sooner rather than later. Rebecca wouldn’t be able to keep her mouth shut. Esme would cry. Bethany would demand answers. But she breathed easier when nobody approached her or banged on her door with questions. The past will stay in the past.
It was just ten days until the Sutton Book Club fundraiser. Ten days until Valerie could tie up the loose strands of this period on Nantucket, pack up her bags, and flee west once more.
But the following morning and the one after that and the one after that, she fell into an easy rhythm—waking up early, drinking coffee with her sisters and mother, going on a run along the boardwalk or beach, catching up on work for Audrey out West, and finishing up last-minute to-do items for the fundraiser. She pretended Alex didn’t exist.
Audrey was genuinely floored at how easy it was to work with Valerie right now, especially when compared to how it was when she was back in California. Her loving sisters and mother surrounded Valerie. She was eating enough. She wasn’t in the at-times lonely and sinister city.
“What’s gotten into you?” Audrey asked over video chat one afternoon. “You’re, like, happy?”
Valerie stuttered with surprise. Audrey’s eyes were enormous, peering through the screen at a woman she confessed she was “struggling to recognize.”
“What’s your secret?” Audrey asked. “Are you meditating?”
Valerie said, “I don’t have a secret.”
“But you feel different. You must,” Audrey insisted.
So Valerie told her, “It must be this Atlantic air,” and left it at that.
Somehow, Valerie avoided her father. This was made all the easier because Victor stopped coming around as often. One evening, when she asked where he’d been, Esme said, “He’s been distracted with something. He won’t tell me what it is.”
Valerie had a guess about his distraction. The publishing party in California was set for that weekend, where Victor was supposed to announce his memoir. Valerie was supposed to announce hers, too. Saul had sent her ten messages in the past few days, none of which she’d opened. Clearly, he was mystified and angry about her refusal to play along with his game. How could she explain to him how tired she was? How could she describe how done with manipulation she felt?
But it was clear to her that Victor was planning to attend the party. That was where the next era of his career would begin. Would he return to Nantucket afterward? Or would he remain in California to celebrate the upcoming publishing of his memoir and a fresh chapter?
It won’t take long for him to fall easily into the California world of luxury, manipulation, and money. He’ll probably meet his third wife soon. He’ll probably pretend this summer was nothing to him. A blip.
This meant that the Sutton Book Club fundraiser would find Esme, Bethany, and Rebecca up to their ears in another wave of grief. But that solidified it for Valerie. She couldn’t involve herself in Saul’s or Victor’s games.
In fact, she was beginning to wrap her mind around leaving California for good and setting up a new life in Nantucket. Hard to believe it’s come to this. But I just can’t imagine getting on that plane and following Dad back across the continent. I don’t want to be near him, Saul, or anyone like them. Valerie and Alex could go on pretending that they’d never spent time together after the age of ten. They could go on upholding the story they’d decided upon. Maybe they’d pass each other at the grocery store or see one another at the beach. Perhaps Esme would say, “Didn’t you recognize him? That’s Alex Garland!” and Valerie would say, “Who is that again?”
Life was a game. An act.
On the morning of the California publishing party, a crispness to the air meant autumn lurked around the corner. A month from now, Valerie imagined herself sitting on the veranda in her mother’s mustard-yellow sweater as red, orange, and yellow leaves twitched off their limbs.
But if she stayed in Nantucket, she’d have to get her place eventually. Or did she? Maybe she could stay with her sisters, mother, nieces, and nephews through the fall and winter. Perhaps she could find a place for herself in the spring—as the buds burst from spindly twigs and reminded everyone of new birth.
She hadn’t heard from Alex. It was as though their chance encounter outside the wine bar hadn’t happened at all. Valerie was willing to let it be.
No surprise that Saul sent one of his threatening emails that morning. Because Valerie wasn’t on a plane back to San Francisco and had no plans to explain herself, she decided to read the email.
It offered up a surprise.
Dear Valerie,
As you have stopped answering my emails, I can only assume you will not be attending the publishing party this evening. Too bad. Your beauty will be missed.
I am, of course, displeased with your father. He hasn’t sent over the manuscript yet, and I haven’t heard from him in many days.
It doesn’t bode well for our party to have two of our top writers missing—you and your father.
But we will make do without you. We always make money. Mark my words.
Saul
Valerie furrowed her brow with confusion. Where is Dad’s manuscript? Why hasn’t Saul heard from him? Valerie closed her laptop and wandered into the kitchen to find Rebecca, Esme, and Shelby at the counter, making pancakes. Shelby was writing out a shopping list of clothes she wanted to buy for her upcoming first day of school at Nantucket High School. She wanted to make a good impression, which meant keeping up with the local styles. Things were different here than they were in Maine.
“I don’t know when we can go to Boston,” Rebecca told her, pouring batter into a skillet. “We have the fundraising event next week. And it’s supposed to be so nice this weekend. You don’t want to spend all day in a store, do you?”
Shelby’s eyes sparkled with rising tears. Valerie sympathized. The girl had lost her father and her community and her friends this year. She just wanted stylish jeans.
“I can take you the day after the fundraiser,” Valerie said.
Shelby turned and gazed at her with surprise. “Mom said you were probably going home that day?”
Valerie raised her shoulders. She hadn’t yet confessed that she was thinking of sticking around. From the beginning, she’d made it seem like she needed to head home for various events , including the publishing party. But she hadn’t booked a single flight. It was almost as though she’d had this plan written across her soul from the beginning.
“I’m free,” Valerie assured her.
Rebecca turned to give Valerie a confused yet happy smile.
Esme traced Valerie’s hair around her ear. “My girl! How much longer can we expect you here? Oh, but don’t tell me. I want to pretend you’ll never leave.”
Valerie felt the hope and grace in her mother’s face. It beamed off her like the summer sun.
And then she asked, “Dad’s still on the island, isn’t he?” She dropped it like a bomb.
Rebecca’s and Esme’s heads snapped around, and they locked eyes with confusion.
“Is Dad leaving?” Rebecca asked.
“Not that I know of,” Esme stuttered, then grimaced. “What makes you think he’s leaving?”
Valerie’s heartbeat was syncopated. She took a blueberry from a bowl and put it in her mouth, closing her lips around the sweetness. How could she explain what she’d known all along?
Then again, why hadn’t Victor written Saul back?
“You have got to be kidding me,” Esme muttered. She dried her hands and grabbed her phone, presumably to call Victor. But it rang and rang until it went to voicemail. Her face was deathly pale. “Did he say something to you?” she demanded of Val.
“We haven’t spoken all week,” Valerie said. It was true.
Esme’s hands were shaking. Rebecca accidentally burned the first pancake and flipped it into the trash. “He’s probably just away from his phone. You know how bad he is about it.”
“But he’s been so distant lately,” Esme muttered to the ground.
Valerie’s guts twisted into knots. The Victor Sutton she knew wouldn’t have missed the publishing party for all the world. He hadn’t gotten back to Saul for one reason or another. But that would be cleared up soon. They’d be dressed in tuxedos, their arms flung around one another, dollar signs practically glinting in their eyes.
Valerie filled her lungs with air and prepared to tell them what she knew.
But that was when the front door screamed open, and Bethany cried, “Is she here?” Her voice was harsh, thick with anger.
Valerie felt a chill race down her spine. Somehow, she knew Bethany was looking for her. But she didn’t know why.
Bethany flung herself through the foyer and into the kitchen. Her face was blotchy, and she still wore her medical clothes. She flipped her phone around and snapped it in front of Valerie at the kitchen table.
It was an article from the New York Times book section. The title read: Sutton Father and Daughter Set to Publish Competing Tell-All Memoirs. And beneath it was a subheading that read: Saul Isaacson tells all about pitting Valerie and Victor Sutton against one another. “There’s a lot of hatred in that family.”
Valerie’s mouth went numb with horror. Before she could stop them, Esme and Rebecca had the phone and read the headline and the sub-headline aloud. There was a horrible ringing in Valerie’s ears.
“I don’t understand,” Esme stuttered, looking from Bethany to Rebecca and finally down at Valerie. “I don’t understand this.”
“Valerie, you need to explain yourself,” Rebecca ordered. She was ever the eldest. Ever the one who needed control.
Valerie was on her feet, tearing out of the kitchen. Saul’s email pounded: We will make do without you. She remembered the ghostwriter waiting in the wings. Had Amber just written whatever they wanted her to write? Had they violently misjudged Valerie’s story?
Oh, she’d been so foolish to trust yet another man as arrogant and wildly unpredictable as Saul Isaacson.
Valerie cut outside, walked away from the Sutton House, and headed for the Sutton Book Club. She had her phone in one hand and the shoes on her feet, but other than that, she was hopelessly unprepared for anything.
Valerie reached the Sutton Book Club ten minutes later and wandered inside, where one of Esme’s employees greeted her by name and waved her in. Valerie made up a lie and hid herself in her mother’s office, where she burrowed herself in her phone to learn more about Saul’s plan.
It was worse than she’d thought. There were snippets from Valerie’s supposed “novel.” Snippets that a ghostwriter had written.
“Once Joel was gone, it was like our father decided to scrap his first life. That was round one, and it was a failure. It was time to start anew with a second wife and a new city,” the ghostwriter calling herself Valerie had written. “The fact that he’s worming his way back into my mother’s life terrifies me. It’s clear that a manipulative man like him will always get what he wants.”
Sobs escaped Valerie’s throat, and she threw her phone on the couch by the door and watched it bounce to the ground.
I could hire a lawyer. I could get this book scrapped. But some of it’s already out there. There are pre-orders. There’s interest. It’s in the New York Times, for crying out loud.
That reminded Valerie. What had her father said?
Valerie scooped back up her phone and read a few snippets from her father’s manuscript.
“People say it’s wrong to follow your emotions,” Victor had written, “but I’m proof that following your gut is the only thing you can do to keep yourself alive.”
Following your gut , in this case, meant leaving your wife and daughters behind.
Valerie’s cheeks burned with rage. She knew he’d lean fully into self-pity. If he were there in front of her, she would scream and cry and bang her thighs with her fist. But all she could do was sit in a ball on the floor of her mother’s office and wail into her thighs.
Her phone rang and rang with calls from her mother, Rebecca, and Bethany. They didn’t text, presumably because they wanted to rip into her with real words. Sometimes typed language wasn’t enough.
But suddenly, there came loud footsteps through the Sutton Book Club. Valerie straightened up. She would have recognized those footsteps anywhere. She would have known her father’s stride even if it was fifty years from now.
Victor Sutton stood in the doorway of her mother’s office.
He stood ashen and shaking with his phone in his hand.
For a long time, they stared at one another. Valerie couldn’t believe he was here. Her tongue felt limp.
“I thought you were in California?” she blurted. She sounded like an arrogant teenager.
Victor rubbed his forehead, leaned against the wall, and let his legs go limp beneath him. He crumpled all the way to the floor.
“I thought you were supposed to be in California,” he said. But his tone wasn’t sharp. Wasn’t angry. After another pregnant pause, he said, “Saul emailed me this morning to tell me about your book.”
Valerie blinked. “There wouldn’t have been any book if he hadn’t told me about yours first.”
Rebecca tried to call Valerie again, but Valerie let it go to voicemail.
Victor didn’t seem to know what to say. His cheeks were pink.
“I didn’t write it,” Valerie said finally. “I hardly got any words on the page.”
Victor frowned. “But there are quotes. There’s a publishing date.”
“I think they hired a ghostwriter,” Valerie said. “It’s possible I signed a contract without fully reading it.”
It’s possible that I let my anger get the best of me. It was you. And I wanted to destroy you, if you had plans to destroy us.
Victor’s shoulders slumped. “I didn’t write that, either.”
“What?”
“I mean, I never sent any of the manuscript to Saul. I told him I’d have it to him three weeks ago, two weeks ago, Friday morning, and three days ago.” He counted out the days on his fingers. “But I never managed it. It’s a half-written document on my laptop. And to be honest with you?” His eyes sparkled. “It’s total crap. A few chapters are a self-pitying mess. Another chapter is just memories of Joel. Ones I haven’t dared to write down for myself in all the years since we lost him. And another are just memories from this summer. A summer that I now count as one of the best of my life.”
Valerie’s eyes filled with tears. It was too much.
“So you say they hired a ghostwriter for yours? They must have done the same for me,” Victor said. His hands were in fists. “I was so nervous about that article that was meant to ‘ruin’ my reputation. I jumped at the chance, any chance, to repair it. But I signed the contract before I ever met up with my girls again. It was before I ever met my grandchildren or…” He trailed off. “Or held your mother’s hand again.”
Valerie was quiet. What could she do but wait?
“You came to Nantucket knowing about the book,” Victor concluded. He’d figured that much out.
“I was so angry.”
“I would have been, too.”
Valerie breathed. “But you’d already decided not to write it when I arrived?”
“I was on the fence,” Victor said. “But a few things happened the past couple of weeks to change my mind completely. It’s strange. Joel’s best friend Alex had a hand in it.”
Valerie’s lips parted with surprise. This was a portion of the story she couldn’t have envisioned.
“He’s grown into such a good-hearted man,” Victor said, his eyes sparkling. “Quiet and kind and honest. It was hard not to imagine how Joel might have turned out when I was with him. It broke me in half. But it also fixed something.” He shook his head. “I can’t explain it.”
But Valerie knew exactly what he was talking about. She’d gone through something similar when she’d met Alex at that karaoke bar. She’d felt her body rearrange itself to make room for love for the first time since Joel’s death.
Valerie watched as Esme’s name appeared on Victor’s phone screen.
“I have a lot of explaining to do,” Victor said.
“Just be honest with her,” Valerie said.
Victor dropped his head against the wall. “What if she decides she can’t trust me now?” What if it’s over again before it’s really begun?
“It doesn’t matter,” Valerie said. “You can’t start lying to her again. It would sour everything.”
Victor bowed his head. It looked as though he stirred with a mix of resignation and relief.
Before she could stop herself, Valerie clambered to the wall to sit beside her father. Her heart felt pulpy and bruised.
“It’s strange,” Victor said. “In another life, we’d be at that publishing party. We’d be paraded around just the way this article tries to.”
“Daughter versus father,” Valerie said.
“I don’t want that.”
Valerie hiccuped. She wasn’t sure what she wanted. Peace, maybe. Joy. Just like anyone else.
“I know it’s going to take a long time to re-earn your trust,” Victor said. “I’m aware of that. And I’m willing to work. I’ll work every single day for the rest of my life to prove it to you.”
Valerie closed her eyes. For a moment, she felt just as she had before Joel died, when she and Joel had curled up alongside their father and listened to his bedtime stories. His body had vibrated with his voice, so much so that Valerie had stopped focusing on the words and had instead concentrated on the rhythm. It had washed over her.
Joel always fell asleep first. He was the baby of the family.
“I’m going to make a few calls,” Victor said. “I have legal contacts. I think I can make this Saul Isaacson business go away.”
“Oh. Thank goodness.” Valerie could hardly hear herself.
“But I have another idea,” Victor said.
Valerie was quiet.
“What if we actually did write a book?” Victor suggested. “But just one. Just one about Joel. About our family. But what if we did it together in a way that honored our past? One that talked about our experiences with nuance and love?”
Valerie bit her lower lip and marveled at how much older her father looked up close. Time had had its way with both of them. Her heart seized.
“Maybe,” she finally said. “But I don’t want to publish it.”
“We don’t have to publish it,” Victor said. “Let’s just get it down in writing so we can always remember.”
Tears spilled down Valerie’s cheeks. She knew this was a path to healing. A path to see things as they really were. She took her father’s hand and squeezed it and cried louder, harder. She felt renewed.
“We should get home,” Victor said. “We need to explain everything.”
But Valerie knew she couldn’t go home. Not yet.
“Do you mind if I meet you there later?” she whispered.
Victor tilted his head.
“I have someone I need to see,” Valerie said. “It’s the most important meeting of my life.”
Valerie knew there was no arguing with that.