Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
March 2025 - Nantucket Island
I t wasn’t for another three hours that they were back at the Sutton Estate and changed into dry clothes. Ryan poured himself a cup of coffee and looked at his wife across the kitchen, where she stood at the counter slicing onions to make homemade hummus for the kids’ after-school snack. Her hair was still a little damp.
She was a mystery to him. Had it always been this way? How many times had they lied to one another during their marriage? Had everything been built on falsehoods?
What about their fourteen years in Chicago? What had Trisha been lying to him about then?
There was so much to talk about. But there wasn’t time till the kids went to bed.
“I can get the kids,” Ryan said. He didn’t want to hang around the house, waiting for Trisha to look at him again.
“Sounds great, honey. Thanks,” Trisha said without turning around.
Ryan got into the car and drove first to the elementary school and then to Nantucket Middle School. As he waited in the pickup line, his head throbbed with the details of the afternoon. The shock of what he’d seen while he’d been driving his mother to Sarah Strong’s, followed by running into Trisha, made him feel as though he was moving through a living nightmare.
Willa was overjoyed to see her father. Buckled up in the front seat, she showed him the crafts she’d made that day and talked about a new friend she’d made at school. More than that, she’d decided to write a letter to her one and only friend out in Chicago, the daughter of Ryan’s ex-colleague, and the thought of her compassion for the world choked Ryan up. Rudy had several things to tell him about his schoolday and new friends, too. And when Gavin got into the car, he joined the festivities, grateful for the youthful energy of his siblings after the hormonal anger of a classic day in middle school.
As he drove, Ryan held the steering wheel with bright white hands and told himself not to cry. Maybe it was all a big misunderstanding.
After the kids scampered inside to say hello to Trisha, Ryan checked his phone to find several messages from his mother. Obviously, she was confused.
MOM: Did Trisha get the birthday present for her friend?
MOM: So funny to run into her like that.
MOM: It’s too bad Sarah Strong wasn’t available. Should we go back next week?
MOM: I hope Quinn calls you back. Let me know when she does.
Ryan took a breath and wrote: So funny to run into Trisha. Yes, I’ll let you know when Quinn calls back. I’ll give Sarah a call tomorrow, too. Even though we failed, it was fun to get off the island together. See you at work tomorrow. Love you.
Ryan gasped for breath, having held it as he’d composed his message.
He couldn’t tell her what he’d seen. He couldn’t tell her what he now suspected.
There were too many coincidences.
That evening, Ryan ate dinner and watched television with his children and helped everyone get ready for bed. Then he went downstairs to find Trisha pretending to be asleep on the sofa. He sat down on the chair nearest her and turned off the television. With his hands on his knees, he spoke very carefully and very slowly. “Why was my grandfather’s red Cadillac parked in front of Sarah Strong’s real estate office?”
Trisha kept her eyes closed, but she put both of her hands on her forehead and groaned. “There’s more than one red Cadillac in the world, Ryan. I’m sure your grandfather’s is long gone. Sold off. Maybe even taken apart, knowing my brothers. They were always eager to destroy beautiful things.”
Ryan’s anger felt like a roiling cloud in his chest. “But why did I see you two blocks away from the car like that? On Martha’s Vineyard?”
Trisha didn’t answer.
“You weren’t buying a present for a friend,” Ryan said. “That was a lie you came up with on the spot.”
Trisha opened her eyes and looked at him. Was she trying to come up with a brand-new lie? Ryan’s tongue felt dry, like a cat’s.
Trisha propped herself up. “What were you doing on Martha’s Vineyard? I thought you were at work.”
“Mom and I had business matters over there.”
Trisha blinked. “I had business matters, too.”
Ryan furrowed his brow, and Trisha imitated his expression back to him.
“What? You know, I’ve always wanted to open my own place,” Trisha said, parroting something she’d said many years ago and never repeated till now. “I always wanted to open a little art shop that sold soup and sandwiches and coffee. Remember?”
Ryan crossed his arms. It still wasn’t adding up. “What does that have to do with Martha’s Vineyard?”
“There are some cute places over there,” she said. “I was scoping them out.”
Ryan didn’t believe her for a second. “Right.”
He swallowed and waited, hoping to smoke her out. But she didn’t say anything else.
Ryan had the sudden and horrific sensation that Trisha was doing something behind his back—something apt to destroy their marriage.
Did it have something to do with his grandfather’s car?
“I never told anyone about the car,” he said.
“Neither did I,” Trisha shot.
“I should have, maybe,” Ryan added. “My grandmother died with very little money. It turned out that she had to sell off almost all the big valuables. The cars. The boats.”
“She died in the lap of luxury,” Trisha said. “She spent everything because she didn’t know how to manage her own money. If she’d had your grandfather’s Cadillac, she would have sold it to buy more jewelry or caviar or whatever.”
Ryan felt it like a slap, although it was true. For all of Dana’s pride, she hadn’t known how to manage Grandpa Jeremy’s funds, and she’d spent and spent—on maids and redecorating and international travel and fine foods.
Maybe she’d said, You can’t take it with you!
She was right, Ryan supposed.
Trisha was on her feet and heading upstairs. “I’m going to sleep in the guest bedroom,” she called behind her. “Good night.”
There was no arguing with her.
But later that week, feeling like a husband searching for proof his wife had a lover, Ryan did something horrible. He snooped through Trisha’s things.
What he discovered floored him.
It was within a notebook where Trisha kept lists of doctor’s appointments for their kids and records of medications and other trivialities and important documents required to build and maintain a life. It was there, among these things, that Ryan found a list of every single one of the clients that he and his mother had lost to Sarah Strong.
Ryan’s hands shook violently as he read the names aloud.
It was clear to him now. Somehow, some way, Trisha had betrayed him. She’d betrayed the Sutton family.
Was she trying to get back at him, at Grandma Dana, at Jackie—so many years after they’d belittled her and destroyed her sense of self?
Was she trying to get back at him for forcing her to leave Chicago?
Ryan took a picture of the list, put it back where he’d found it, and retreated to his bedroom to find his running clothes. He hadn’t gone in months, and the idea of pounding his way across the trails of Nantucket sounded healing. But when he got outside, the winds changed and thrashed against him, and he wound up sitting on the beach, curled up with his head buried in his arms. What was he going to do?