Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
G raham returned to The House on Nantucket in a panicked state.
His mother's words were ominous, drawing him back through time.
When he burst through the front door to find Sylvie curled up in a ball on the sofa, his worst fears were confirmed.
Sylvie raised her head to look up at him, her eyes two soft glows in the dark.
Graham was wet from the rain. He removed his shoes and dropped to his knees next to the sofa.
He wanted to cover her tear-streaked face with kisses.
“Graham,” Sylvie whispered, reaching for his cheek. “Graham, I thought you were with your mother.”
“We’re going to eat later,” Graham said. “We couldn’t do it without you.”
Sylvie closed her eyes. A look of pain came over her face. Graham slid up onto the sofa and pulled her head onto his lap.
He knew it was coming before she said it.
“I read my mother’s diaries,” she whispered. “Not all of them, but enough of them to know.”
Graham took a breath. “What do you know?”
Sylvie wet her lips. “She was a very unhappy woman. Her first love died, and I think she made my father pay for it. She never wanted to come to Nantucket. I don’t even know if she wanted me.”
Graham didn’t know what to say. It felt as though he and Sylvie were encountering the inky darkness of the past together. But what did knowing about the past change about the here and now?
Sylvie propped herself up on her elbow and blinked wearily.
“It’s the strangest thing. I’ve never felt so sorry for my father before.
Reading between the lines, I think he really was in love with her.
He really wanted to make a life with her work.
But she just hammered him with insults and anger over and over again.
She couldn’t crawl out of her depression. Maybe she didn’t even want to.”
Graham swept his fingers through Sylvie’s hair. Thunder boiled in the sky.
“I’m too scared to keep reading,” Sylvie admitted.
Sylvie’s phone buzzed. Sylvie picked it up and showed it to Graham.
“It’s from Hilary. She’s worried that I’m not back yet.
But I don’t know that I want to face her tonight.
I don’t want to have to explain myself. You know?
” She rubbed off her tears with the edge of her sleeve.
“I can’t imagine talking to anyone but you about this. ”
Graham felt tenderhearted. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
He thought, She has to grieve both parents now. She has to grieve a life and love she was never allowed to have.
Graham went to the kitchen to fetch a bottle of red. Sylvie made a little fire in the fireplace and made a little bed on the sofa. Graham wrote to his mother to say they wouldn’t make it for dinner and ordered a massive pizza instead.
VALERIE: I love you both. I’m glad you have each other.
“It’s strange to break a story this big,” Sylvie said, sipping her wine and gazing into the spitting flames. “It’s strange to think the only person this story affects is me.”
The pizza came. Graham got up to pay the delivery driver extra and grabbed plates, napkins, and forks.
They didn’t use any of it and instead ate with their hands.
Sylvie continued to fill him in on what she’d read of her mother’s life.
It didn’t take long for Graham to understand that she hadn’t read all the way to the end. She didn’t know how her mother died.
Had her mother written about it? Had her mother hinted at what was coming?
When they finished with the pizza and the leftovers were stored in the inn fridge, they fell into a comfortable and sturdy silence, their hands laced and Sylvie’s head on Graham’s chest. The rain continued outside. Graham guessed that it would never stop.
He knew he needed to come clean to Sylvie about the journalism award.
He knew he couldn’t enter into this relationship with anything but honesty.
He didn’t want to break her heart.
“I have to tell you something,” he said.
“Oh no,” Sylvie breathed.
Graham half chuckled. “It’s not about me. It’s not about you either. It’s more about how unethical the world is. It’s about how little we can trust the people on it.”
Sylvie groaned. “I’m listening.”
“You know the president of the Journalistic Integrity Agency?” Graham began.
“Yes?”
“He’s the chief financial officer of Next Generation Nantucket Designers,” Graham said.
Sylvie sat bolt upright and glared at him. “You’re kidding.”
Graham shook his head. Sylvie was on her feet, her eyes boiling. She paced in front of the fire with her hands behind her back.
“I can’t believe I fell for this,” she said. “I can’t believe I thought they were actually rewarding me. They’re just trying to distract us from what’s really going on!”
Graham grimaced. “I hate it. You deserve the world, Sylvie. You deserve every award.”
Sylvie waved her hand. “It doesn’t matter. None of us deserve anything. We’re here to fight for what’s right, Graham. We’re here to build a more sustainable future!”
Graham loved it when she got so heated. He felt like they were teenagers again, pointing all their anger and attention at a single evil entity.
It was hard to believe that Sylvie Bruckson was the daughter of Sarah and James Bruckson. It was hard to believe she’d come from such darkness and pain.
Sylvie Bruckson embodied optimism. She embodied the power to fight.
Sylvie took Graham’s hand and squeezed it. “We have to hatch a plan.”
Graham raised his shoulders. “I don’t understand.”
“There will be at least a hundred journalists there on the night of the gala,” she said. “We’ll have so many eyes on us.”
Graham finally understood. They were taking their environmental fight to a larger audience. If they played their cards right, they could get everything out in the open—and stop Next Generation Nantucket Designers in their tracks.
Sylvie lowered her voice. “You need to tell me everything sinister you know about that company. Knowledge is the ultimate weapon.”
Graham smiled. He loved this woman.
He couldn’t believe he had her back.