Chapter 16
The Seaside Inn in Yarmouth sat directly across the street from Seagull Beach.
After lunch on the waterfront in Hyannis, Paul and Hope checked into their room.
She was hit immediately by a bout of nerves that had her hands shaking as she unpacked.
It had been years since she’d shared a hotel room—or a bed—with a man, and she hoped she remembered how to behave.
“What do you feel like doing?” he asked.
Hope knew a moment of pure relief that, despite the days of buildup, he wasn’t expecting to fall into bed the second they were alone. “Do you want to take a walk on the beach?”
“Sounds good to me.”
They left the room for the short walk to the beach, where they kicked off their shoes and left them by the stairs.
Paul reached for her hand, which was all it took to get her heart beating faster.
It had been so long since she’d known the affection of a man, and before Paul, she’d been certain that this kind of excitement and anticipation was all in the past for her.
Carl hadn’t liked to hold hands. He’d thought it was foolish.
Only now did Hope realize how much she loved to hold hands—with the right man.
“It’s beautiful here,” Paul said. “Almost as beautiful as Gansett.”
“I’ve always loved this beach. We came every summer for a week with our grandparents, and we had the same room every year. It became almost a joke that we ate at the same place the first night, the same place the second night… We looked forward to that all year.”
“Where’s your sister now?”
“She lives in Oregon with her husband and kids.”
“Are you guys close?”
“We talk every week and text back and forth about the kids. I haven’t seen her in a couple of years, though. Ethan and I stayed with them for a short time after Carl was arrested. I had to get out of town, and she offered. The other side of the country looked really good to me right then.”
“I imagine it did. What’s her name?”
“Camille.”
“How many kids does she have?”
“Three boys—Sam, Michael and Josh. They’re a little older than Ethan.”
“Is she older than you?”
“Younger, actually. By a year.”
“How about your folks? Are they still alive?”
“Yeah. They live in New Hampshire where we grew up.”
“I had no idea you were from New Hampshire. What part?”
“North Conway.”
“I love it there. I’ve spent a lot of weekends skiing at Cranmore.”
“Me, too. I wonder if we were ever there at the same time?”
He smiled down at her and then dropped her hand so he could put his arm around her.
She liked that even better than the handholding.
“Were your parents supportive when everything happened with Carl?”
“They tried to be, but they were so disgusted with him, and it was hard for me to have to listen to my dad’s tirades when I had my own tirades going on inside.
The sad part was that he and my dad were close until then.
He used to call Carl the son he never had.
He was so, so disappointed. Naturally, he aired that out with me. ”
“Which made a bad situation worse for you.”
“It really did. I felt like I’d disappointed him by marrying the wrong guy or something.”
“But you know it was no reflection on you, right?”
“For the most part. I still sometimes think that maybe if I’d done something differently or been a better wife—”
“No.” Paul stopped walking and turned to face her, keeping his hand on her shoulder. “It had nothing at all to do with you. There was something wrong with him if he thought it was okay to have sex with children.”
“Maybe if I’d had more sex with him, he wouldn’t have done what he did with children.”
“Hope, come on. You don’t really believe that. This was all on him.”
“In my heart of hearts, I know that. But sometimes I wonder if I could’ve prevented it somehow.”
“You couldn’t have. It’s not the same, but I had a similar thing happen when I was in college.
One of my best friends raped a girl at a fraternity party.
I remember being so shocked that he’d been accused of such a thing.
I felt like I knew him as well as I knew myself.
I defended him—even to the police. I said, ‘No way, no way. That’s not how he rolls.
’ And then the DNA confirmed that it was him.
I can vividly recall how incredibly shocking it was to realize I didn’t know him at all. ”
“I know that feeling.”
With his arm back around her shoulders, they started walking again.
“The worst part is that I was at that party and never saw anything amiss. I liked to party with the best of them, but I never blacked out or passed out or anything like that. I paid attention, kept an eye out for my friends. In a way, I felt responsible for what’d happened right under my nose.
Took a long time for me to understand there was nothing I could’ve done to prevent or stop something I didn’t know was happening. ”
“I still wrestle with that one. You feel clueless and na?ve and stupid. Everyone assumed I’d known, even my own family, when no one was more shocked than I was to find out what he’d been doing.”
“Your family thought you knew about it and didn’t say anything? Your friends thought that?”
“They never came right out and said as much, but I got the ‘how could you not know?’ vibe from a lot of people, including my parents and sister. Carl and I were like a lot of busy parents—we went to work, we took care of Ethan, we tried to squeeze in some family time and occasionally some couple time. Where, in the midst of that busy schedule, did he have time for sex with minors? That’s the part I still can’t reconcile. ”
“He must’ve told a lot of lies.”
“Lies that I believed because I had no reason not to.”
“You trusted him. You loved him. Why would you ever think he was capable of something like this if there was never anything to indicate he had such a thing in him?”
“I wouldn’t, I guess. After it all went down, I spent many a sleepless night going over every detail—every text message, every phone call, every night together.
He never slipped up. Or if he did, I missed it.
I wasn’t the kind of wife who felt the need to look at his text messages when he was in the shower.
I had friends who did stuff like that, but I never did. ”
“You respected his privacy—and you trusted him. That’s the way it should be.”
“I’ve had a hard time talking about this stuff with my closest friends, but for some reason, it’s easy with you.”
“I’m glad you told me about it, and I’m sorry it happened to you. You deserve way better than you got from him.”
“Yes, I do.”
“How much longer will he be in jail?”
“Another couple of years, but it could be less. Naturally, he’s been an exemplary prisoner, so he’s apt to get out early for good behavior.”
“Oh, the irony.”
They reached the end of the beach and turned to head back.
“And then there’re the lawsuits,” she said.
“What lawsuits?”
“The ones filed by the families of the girls he slept with.”
“Are you tied up in that, too?”
“Thankfully, no, but I had to start from scratch financially after we divorced because our assets were frozen and our house was taken by the bank. They even came after my ten-year-old car because we owned it outright. Lucky Carl was in jail when phase two of the nightmare kicked in.”
“Jesus, Hope. I hope someone kicks the shit out of him in jail. That’ll be the least of what he deserves.”
“That’s not likely to happen. He’s in a minimum-security facility with a lot of white-collar criminals.”
“How in the hell did that happen?”
“He used most of our savings to get himself a really, really good lawyer.”
“Is it okay to say I hate him?”
She laughed. “It’s absolutely fine.”
“How much does Ethan know?”
“Very high-level stuff. Daddy got in trouble and had to go to jail. He asks sometimes if he’ll get to see him after, but I dodge those questions. I have sole custody, and if I have my way, he’ll never see Carl again.”
“What if he wants to see him?”
“I’m hoping by the time it actually happens, Ethan will have moved on and won’t ask. I don’t know. I guess I’ll deal with that when it happens, but I hope it’s a long way off.”
“I hope so, too.” He squeezed her shoulder in a show of support that she greatly appreciated. “I have to tell you what Ethan and I talked about on the way to the bus the last couple of days.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Yesterday he asked if I like his mom, and I said yes, I like her very much. Today he was concerned about something happening to you, the way it did to Jackson and Kyle’s mom.
I assured him that you’re perfectly healthy and he didn’t need to worry.
He asked me to promise him that I’d take good care of you while we are away. ”
“Oh God, the poor kid. I hate to think of him worrying about stuff like that.”
“It’s natural that what happened to Jackson and Kyle’s mom would worry him. I remember meeting Joe Cantrell when he first moved to the island after his dad died and asking my mom if that was going to happen to my dad, too.”
“Thank you for reassuring him.”
“I care for him just as much as I care for you, which is a whole lot.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and none of this will have happened. It’ll turn out to be nothing more than a lovely dream.”
“I feel the same way. I’m almost ashamed to admit that I’ve been envious of Alex because he found someone who made him so happy, not that he doesn’t deserve it. But I kept wondering if I was ever going to get my turn. And then you kissed me.”
“Ugh,” she said, sputtering with laughter. “Don’t remind me of that. I’m still mortified.”
Once again, he stopped walking, but this time, he drew her in close to him, gazing down at her with a tender, amused expression on his face. “Why are you mortified?”
“Because I kissed my boss! My nursing school professors would freak out if they knew that.”
“You kissed me. I wasn’t your boss in that moment. And I’m not your boss now.” Caressing the faint bruise on her cheek, he said, “Does it hurt?”
She shook her head. “Not so much.”