Chapter 6
Chapter Six
January 2025 - Nantucket Island
F inancial planner Sandy Tomkins came highly recommended, but that didn’t mean Jackie would trust her right away. Jackie had already been burned, given a wide range of horrific financial and business advice that had plunged Sutton Real Estate into debt. As she added a final coat of lipstick and assessed herself in the mirror, she saw her mother’s formidable demeanor play out across her face and thought, Good. Let me be Dana Sutton for a little while. Let the world fear me.
Josh waited for Jackie in the living room, his hands clasped on his lap and the television off. He looked pale. Did he think they were going to get bad news? Or was he frightened of how Jackie would react to said potential news?
Don’t fear me, my love , Jackie did not say. Who knew what it was like to be married to Jackie? She certainly didn’t envy Josh sometimes.
“You ready?” Jackie forced a smile.
“Let’s get this show on the road!” Josh sounded far happier than she wanted him to. It was all an act.
Josh drove them to the Historic District of Nantucket and parked near the diner that still sold two-dollar milkshakes despite everything else skyrocketing in price. From there, they walked two blocks to the financial planner’s office and sat in the foyer until they were called. From the plush mustard-yellow chair, Jackie could see her reflection in the mirror on the wall and make out the top collar of her expensive suit—a suit she’d bought during more lucrative times. The real estate business was funny like that. You had to dress to impress; you had to dress to look successful, even if you weren’t. People could smell desperation on you, and you had to do everything in your power to distract them.
Sandy called them into her office. Jackie and Josh sat down with perfect postures and perfect smiles, greeting this stranger, a woman who was relatively new to Nantucket, having just moved here last summer to “tend to her clients’ finances and settle in paradise.”
“It really has been a game changer,” Sandy said. “I’m happier than I’ve ever been!”
This happiness was not something Jackie could relate to. “That’s great to hear. We love our little island.”
“As you should.” Sandy folded her hands.
This woman had already taken a fine-tooth comb to Jackie and Josh’s finances. She’d already assessed Sutton Real Estate’s books. She’d already peered into Jackie’s financial soul.
It felt invasive. But it was her specialty.
Jackie didn’t want to waste any time with pleasantries. “Okay. Give it to me straight. What can I do today to get my business back in the black? How can I retire in five years or less?” Jackie hated how stiff her tone was. But this was serious. It was life and death.
Sandy seemed to appreciate Jackie’s inability to do much small talk.
“Right. Let’s get started,” Sandy said, flicking a remote control to pull up a series of slides on the wall directly behind and to the left of her. The first showed a graph of the dramatic dip in income due to Jackie having lost numerous high-rolling clients a few years back. “I imagine this graph is difficult to look at,” Sandy said.
“I know it like the back of my hand at this point,” Jackie admitted.
Sandy nodded. “I wanted to ask you about what happened after that. The investments you made. What led you there?”
Jackie grimaced and glanced at Josh. “My business adviser at that time gave me some bad advice. He’s since been fired. But we were already behind, and that put us further back. That’s why I came to you.”
“Maybe you should tell me your adviser’s name,” Sandy said, furrowing her brow.
“I don’t want to ruin his career.”
“But I’d like to warn people away from him if I can,” Sandy said. “I don’t want what he did to you to happen to anyone else.”
There was compassion in Sandy’s eyes. There was also fire and anger. It was clear Sandy would never lead Jackie astray like Vinny Randall had.
Jackie said, “His name is Vinny Randall. I think he left the island.”
“Vinny Randall. It doesn’t ring a bell.” Sandy wrote the name on a pad of paper and set it to the side. “But let’s not dwell on him.” She focused her gaze on Jackie’s with such intensity that Jackie had to fight not to look away. “I’ve discovered a path forward for you. A way for you to retire in three or four years.”
“Anything,” Jackie said, her heart ballooning. Sandy’s the best!
“You need to focus your efforts on selling the Sutton Estate,” Sandy said.
Immediately, Jackie’s smile faded. “That’s impossible.”
“Hear me out,” Sandy continued, raising a finger. “I understand that the Sutton Estate has been in your family for generations. I also understand that it’s been empty since your mother died. Correct?”
“She died rather recently,” Jackie offered, although now it occurred to her that it had been five years. “We’re still figuring out what to do with everything inside the estate. My brother just came back to Nantucket after many years away, and well, it’s all confusing. Families. You know how it is.”
“Of course.” Sandy was looking at Jackie as though she were a difficult but solvable puzzle. “It’s true that at the end of your mother’s life, you learned how little money your family really had. Correct?”
Jackie felt it like a smack. She reminded herself that Sandy was just here to provide and collect information. Nothing about the conversation was personal.
“My mother always kept her and my father’s finances a secret from the rest of us,” Jackie agreed. “And her lifestyle never changed over the years, not even when my father died.”
“Meaning?” Sandy asked.
“She still had several maids, gardeners, and helpers,” Josh interjected, speaking for the first time in a while. “She still wore the very best clothes. She still took trips to Paris.”
Sandy nodded. “She was secretive.”
“She was proud,” Jackie corrected, although it amounted to the same thing.
Sandy leaned back and tapped her pen on her notepad. “What are your reasons for keeping the Sutton Estate?”
Jackie puffed out her cheeks. Reasons? She could list a thousand. She’d been raised there. Her father and mother had both died there. Her great-great-grandfather had built it. It was located on a stretch of gorgeous property on a beach she personally viewed to be the very best in the world. Once, as a girl, she’d seen a family of dolphins swimming nearby, and she’d believed, foolishly and girlishly, that the dolphins were related to the Suttons and coming to say hello.
“It’s been in my family for generations,” Jackie said, betraying how upset she felt.
“But does anyone really want to live there anymore?” Sandy asked. “Is it just going to remain there, unused? If so, you need to ask yourself what it’s worth to you. I see this as an easy path toward retirement. I see it as the only way to get yourself out of these rather dramatic debts. Otherwise, unless a huge windfall comes in soon, you’ll be working fifty- to sixty-hour weeks until you’re seventy years old.”
Jackie closed her eyes, imagining the next thousand-plus viewings she’d have to do and the fake conversations she’d have to have with potential buyers. She couldn’t do it for another seven years. It might kill her.
“Why don’t you think it over?” Sandy suggested. “We can meet again next week to discuss other options.”
“Why can’t we discuss other options right now?” Jackie asked.
Josh looked at her, suddenly panicked, as though she were acting like a child.
Before Sandy could answer, Jackie shook her head and laughed. “I apologize. I’m just nervous. I’ll think about it.” She stuck out her hand to shake Sandy’s, wondering where this woman got the gall to suggest such a heinous thing. “See you next week.”
On the walk back to Josh’s car, Jackie racked up all the reasons Sandy was a horrible financial planner, squeezing Josh’s hand so hard that Josh finally winced and shook hers off.
“I’m going to look for another one,” Jackie said. “We’re going to get another opinion.”
Josh got his keys from his pocket and looked down at them, sparkling on his palm. Jackie understood his expression; it was one of hesitance and fear.
He wants me to think it over.
Jackie closed her eyes. “Just say it. You think she’s right.”
Josh unlocked the car and got into the driver’s seat. Jackie followed him and watched his capable hands as he backed them out of the lot and got on the road.
“Jackie, you’ve been miserable for the past few years,” Josh said finally. “With my injuries, I can’t do much in the way of income. You know that.”
“And I said it’s fine.”
“It isn’t fine. It hasn’t been fine. And I think we need to do everything in our power to make it fine.”
Suddenly, Jackie was stricken with fear. Is he going to leave me?
Because Josh knew her better than anyone, he sighed into a jolt of laughter. “You don’t need to worry about me, honey. I’m going to love you till long after I’m gone. I’m going to love you till the sun dies. But we need to figure out our future. I want long days of sitting in a hot tub and watching the sunlight on the ocean. I want you to be there, too.”
Jackie hung her head and listened to the pounding of her heart.
When they neared their home, Jackie said, “I’m going to take a drive.”
“I can keep driving,” Josh suggested. “Let me help you talk through this.”
But Jackie needed a few hours alone. She needed to go to the Sutton Estate. She needed to face her ghosts.
Rather than drive for hours and hours, Jackie drove immediately to the big mansion she’d been raised in, strode up the walkway, and unlocked the door. Because she and her siblings paid for a cleaner to come twice a month, the place was spick-and-span and museum-like (not unlike it had been when Dana Sutton was still alive). A part of Jackie wanted to call out, “Mom? Dad?” But she swallowed that part down. She removed her shoes and padded through the house as memories flooded her. She could remember her own childhood alongside Ryan’s and Robin’s childhoods. She could picture Ryan taking some of his first steps in the living room. She could picture Robin opening her Christmas presents and laughing.
Jackie checked the cupboards for snacks or coffee and eventually procured a tea bag. She sat with a mug of tea and put her head in her hands.
It all felt like too much.
But more than that—what was really bothering her today—was what she’d seen on her caller ID when she’d woken up this morning.
Someone had called her last night. By then, she’d been upstairs, winding down, washing her face, and stretching. By then, she’d been unraveling the devastations of her life and trying to find clarity.
Ryan had reached out.
She knew it was Ryan because it was a Chicago number. After that, she’d traced the number to a social media account with Ryan’s name on it.
Ryan needed her after so many years.
Why hadn’t she told Josh about it? Why hadn’t she called Ryan back immediately? Panic, she supposed. More than that, Jackie was afraid that Ryan was having second thoughts. Maybe he no longer wanted to talk to her. Perhaps he’d decided that their mother-son relationship was as dead as a doornail.
Then again, maybe he still wanted her to call back. Perhaps he was panicking because she hadn’t yet. Maybe he was alone in a hospital, and she was the only one he wanted by his side. Maybe. Maybe.
Suddenly, Jackie had her phone to her ear, and it was ringing.
It was only eleven thirty in the morning on a workday. He was probably at work. He probably wouldn’t answer.
But then he did.
“Mom?” Ryan’s voice rang out, and it was the most beautiful thing Jackie had heard in years.
Tears sprang to her eyes. “Ryan?”
“Mom,” Ryan repeated as though he couldn’t believe it.
Jackie couldn’t, either. Here she sat, at the end of her rope, with very little money to her name. Here she sat in her childhood kitchen, speaking to a son she hadn’t seen in fourteen years. Where had the time gone? Why had she let it slip away?
“Mom,” Ryan said, his voice unsteady. “We need to talk.”
“Yes,” Jackie whispered. “We really do.”