Chapter 22
The night of the Fourth of July, Shannon was at home alone with her father.
She’d wheeled Fred onto the veranda so that together, they could watch the fireworks exploding over the water.
She watched the reflections of the colors in Fred’s eyes and wondered if any part of him recognized the beauty before him.
She wondered if any part of his heart recognized the pain he’d left behind.
Since going to the police station with her mother, Shannon had continued her research regarding her father’s affair.
She’d read countless emails. She’d called into restaurants where he’d dined around Yale and asked if they had any footage from their dining rooms. The restaurants told her that sharing such footage was against their policy, and it seemed that wherever her father had corresponded with his affair partner, it hadn’t been via his cell phone or via his email address.
He hadn’t taken a single photograph of her, at least not on the cell phone they had in Nantucket.
Sometimes she wondered if her father had had an affair at all. None of the typical proof was to be found.
But why had he been to Yale so often? And what did the so-called blackmailers think they knew about him? What were they so sure about when everything about Fred’s life was now unclear?
Shannon checked her phone for the thousandth time that night.
The fireworks had been going on for more than an hour, and she was beginning to feel cold out there, exposed next to the water.
She decided to wheel her father back into his room, where she went through the arduous tasks of caring for him: washing him and dressing him and making sure he was comfortable in bed.
Throughout, there was a running voice in the back of her mind, telling her, You shouldn’t have to do this for your father.
Not at the age of twenty-four. But if Shannon didn’t do it tonight, who would?
When she was finished, Shannon returned to the veranda in a big Yale sweatshirt.
Her mother was out with Jasper, and she had no idea when she planned to return home.
Arietta thought it was good that her mother was getting out there.
Soon, it would be three months since Fred’s stroke—three months of caretaking, three months of questions and fears.
There was no use waiting around here at the house with Fred all the time. It was better for Arietta to live.
Not for the first time, Shannon tried to guess what she might have done in her mother’s position.
What if she’d fallen in love with and married and had children with someone who’d had a stroke?
Shannon found it difficult to say aloud and had avoided it thus far.
But it was really as though Fred Peters was dead.
Suddenly, Shannon’s phone rang. Assuming it was her mother, maybe needing a ride from wherever she was, Shannon reached for it, then nearly dropped it when she read the name: RUSSELL.
She hadn’t heard from Russell once since she’d come to Nantucket. She wondered if it was possibly a mistake. A butt dial, maybe. But she kept staring at the name, waiting for him to hang up. When he didn’t, she answered it and held the phone next to her ear.
“Shannon?” Russell’s voice sent a shiver down her spine.
“Hey.” Shannon stood, then sat back down again. The fireworks above her were finally fizzling out.
“Are you in Nantucket?” Russell asked.
“Yes,” Shannon said. “Can you hear the fireworks?”
Russell laughed gently. “I can hear them. How are they?”
“They were pretty spectacular,” Shannon said. “They always go all out. You know how these Nantucketers are. They can’t resist a big show.”
Shannon could hear Russell’s smile in his voice. “Who can blame them?” He paused before going on. “Um. I’m sorry to call like this. It’s just, wow, yeah. I’ve missed you, I guess.”
Shannon closed her eyes tightly. “I’ve missed you a lot.”
She couldn’t believe how open she was with him, now. She supposed it had something to do with being by the ocean; she could unfurl her feelings without second thought.
“You know who called me?” Shannon went on, her voice breaking.
“I think I can guess,” Russell said. “Was it Mimi?”
“Yep.” Shannon smiled wider, willing herself to be happy for him. “How’s that going?”
“What do you mean?” Russell asked.
“I mean, you’re back together now. Right?”
“No way.” Russell laughed. “I mean, we got together and talked about our relationship. In the past tense, that is. She apologized a lot. I told her she needed to stop saying sorry; it was getting to be too much. I told her that people grow apart; it’s normal. Especially in college.”
Shannon hadn’t realized she’d stopped breathing. “Oh. Wow,” she said. “That sounds heavy.”
“I was nervous about it, but it was healing, sort of,” Russell said. “I can’t believe you thought we got back together. Why did you think I would do that?”
Shannon gazed into the darkness over the water. The fireworks were now over, leaving gray smoke. She imagined that everywhere, all over the island, all over the country, was celebrating, except for her.
She didn’t know what to say, so she kept quiet.
“Listen,” Russell said. “I need to see you.”
Shannon was caught off guard.
“I think we should talk in person,” Russell said. “About a lot of things. But also, I found something. Something I need to give you.”
“What is it?”
“I can bring it tomorrow,” Russell said. “But I’d rather not describe it over the phone. It’s delicate.”
Shannon was tired of secrets. She was tired of mysteries. But she decided to give Russell the benefit of the doubt. “I’ll be here,” she said. “Come whenever you can.”
The following afternoon, Shannon, Arietta, and Fred were on the veranda.
Arietta and Shannon were playing Scrabble, their eyes protected with sunglasses, their lemonades recently refilled.
Shannon had told Arietta that she had a friend coming to visit, but she hadn’t gone into specifics.
She guessed Arietta knew who it was. Shannon had revealed much more about Russell than she’d planned the last time the Salt Sisters had stopped by.
There was a glow about her mother now, as though whatever had happened with Jasper had reignited her soul. Shannon didn’t dare ask. She understood that some things were better left unsaid. It was better not to spoil them with conversation. It was better not to pick them apart.
She also knew that Arietta wouldn’t spill the beans when Fred was around.
When they heard the car in the driveway, Shannon shivered with fear.
“Why don’t you bring him in? Introduce him to us?” Arietta suggested.
But Shannon shook her head. She needed to figure out what he’d brought her first. Her mind had been a mess of curiosity. Was it a book that reminded him of her? Something she’d left at his house that he wanted to return?
Also, she needed to see the look in his eyes and deduce if he was in love with her.
Shannon hurried out front, where she found Russell getting out of his car. The sight of him after so many weeks made her stop in the walkway in front of the house. Her pulse was fast and erratic. His hair had grown a little bit, which suited him. It made him look artistic and free.
“Hi,” Russell said. And suddenly, the spell burst between them. Shannon rushed over to him and hugged him—the way she always had when they’d been friends and friends only.
“It’s so good to see you,” she breathed into his ear.
Russell held her a little longer than he had when they were friends and friends only, though.
Shannon suggested they drive to her favorite private beach, the same one where, once upon a time, her mother had been a lifeguard who’d fallen in love with her father.
They didn’t talk on the drive, maybe because there was too much at stake.
Once there, they walked through the sand, Russell with a backpack on his shoulders and Shannon with her towel in her arms. It was slightly overcast, and this particular beach had fallen out of favor with most of the Nantucket elite, which meant they had the beach entirely to themselves.
There wasn’t even a lifeguard in the lifeguard chair, which gave everything a ghostly feel.
Shannon tried to imagine her mother in that lifeguard chair, age nineteen, watching out for a beach teeming with beautiful Nantucketers. Her mother had been gorgeous enough to rip a handsome Nantucketer—her father—out of the orbit of his wealthy world.
It must have been a magical summer.
Shannon and Russell spread out their towels, then sat in silence and watched the water for a while.
Shannon’s skin felt like it was on fire.
She yearned to reach over and touch Russell’s hand.
She realized that she’d been yearning to touch him for weeks, that her dreams had been busy with thoughts of him.
But in her waking life, as she’d taken care of her father and tended to her mother and tried to figure out the drama with the blackmailers, she hadn’t allowed herself to engage with her own emotions.
She wondered what would happen if she kissed him now. She wondered if Russell would push her away. She wondered if he’d say it was a mistake.
“I do, you know,” Russell said finally, his eyes flitting to her. “I do have feelings for you.”
Shannon’s heart flipped over. She wondered if she was dreaming. “I have feelings for you, too.”
“Maybe I always did,” Russell continued. “I was committed to my relationship with Mimi. Of course I was. But lately, I’ve been wondering if it was the right relationship for me.”
“Me too,” Shannon said. “I wonder, sometimes, if I got into the first relationship that was presented to me rather than dating around and seeing who I really liked. Cole liked me first, so I fell in love with Cole.” She shrugged.
Russell nodded. “It’s strange how life goes. There are so many decisions we’re supposed to make when we’re too young to make them.”