Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
T he day before their planned drive to Washington, DC, Graham and Sylvie entered Sylvie’s childhood home for the first time since their return.
James Bruckson had lived alone in the old colonial since Sylvie’s departure.
It was where James and Sarah had moved after they’d fled Rhode Island and where they’d brought baby Sylvie home from the hospital.
It was filled with even more ghosts than the inn, memories that made Sylvie’s heart ache.
But it was also more or less a clean bachelor’s home, with simple furniture, a television, and a bed.
Sylvie and Graham made up their minds to sell it as soon as they could.
It was one thing to operate The House on Nantucket. It was another to live in the same rooms where her mother had been depressed and miserable. It was another to sleep in the same room where her parents had, both simmering with anger, neither acting out of love.
They’d decided to stay at Graham’s place for the time being.
In autumn, after the chaos of the tourism season was through and they’d taken Next Generation Nantucket Designers off the map, they would start viewing houses.
Sylvie imagined a beautiful, quaint place on the water, one not far from Stella and Hilary.
Maybe they could afford it in Siasconset.
They’d need more than one bedroom. Sylvie felt sure of it—sure that even if she couldn’t get pregnant naturally, she wanted to adopt children with Graham.
She wanted to watch them play in the sand and learn about bugs and reptiles; she wanted to show them the beauty of the world and why they needed to care for it.
She wanted something good to come after her. She knew she had to build it.
The following morning, Sylvie and Graham got up at the crack of dawn and started the trip to Washington, DC.
Sylvie’s black silk dress was splayed in its protective bag in the back seat, and Graham’s rented tuxedo hung on the hook.
On the radio were songs they’d loved in high school, songs they now sang at the top of their lungs as the sunlight spilled through the car windows.
Sylvie got nonstop messages from the Salt Sisters wishing her good luck.
And then she got even more fuel for the fight.
HILARY: I just learned something about Ralph Finster.
Back in 1991, he was CEO of a company responsible for fifteen (!) oil spills off the coast of Seattle.
More than one hundred thousand animals died, and maybe thirty people were diagnosed with cancer.
He left the company and paid a ton of fees out of court.
But he’s been trying to escape this narrative ever since.
HILARY: I think it’s part of the reason he started the Journalistic Integrity Agency. Journalists aren’t willing to dig up dirt on him. He’s the person who gives power to what they do.
SYLVIE: Hilary, this is gold. Thank you.
HILARY: Happy to help. I hate that these billionaires aren’t so far away from some of my circles of friends. It isn’t so hard to dig up dirt on them, though.
SYLVIE: 3
Sylvie explained to Graham what Hilary had told her. Graham smacked the steering wheel with excitement. “We’re going to bury this guy.”
The drive from Hyannis Port to Washington, DC, took nearly nine hours.
When they reached the hotel, they were exhausted and starving, hardly able to string a few words together without laughing at how silly they sounded.
They checked into the hotel, hung their fancy clothes on the rack, and went downstairs to grab dinner and a nightcap.
Graham had a vegetarian burger, while Sylvie opted for a tofu salad.
They chased their meals with white wine and took the elevator back to their room, arms wrapped around one another.
But that night, Sylvie couldn’t sleep. Graham was tender-looking and so sweet, one arm slung over her.
Softly, she crept out of bed and tiptoed to the next room, where she unzipped her bag to find her mother’s final diary.
She’d popped it into her things, daring herself to be brave enough to read it when she was far from The House on Nantucket, far from the place of her mother’s sour memories.
In Washington, DC, she was anonymous. And tomorrow night, she had to be braver than she’d ever been.
Now was the time to discover her mother’s end.
It didn’t take long for Sylvie to realize just how heavy her mother’s depression had gotten.
November 23, 1990
I wish someone would tell me what is wrong with me.
I wish someone would explain why I can’t sit with my daughter after school and feel genuine love for her. I wish someone would help me sort through the chaos of my mind.
I wish Wally were here.
I wish James would stop asking me what’s going on.
I wish, I wish.
January 1, 1991
I have a fantasy of going swimming and never coming back to shore.
January 3, 1991
I called a therapist. Maybe it’s the only way forward.
But when the therapist asked why I wanted to meet and what I wanted to work on, I lied and said I wanted to work on making goals for the future.
What is “the future”? I wanted to ask the therapist that.
But I’m frightened of everyone knowing how dark my thoughts have gotten.
I don’t want them to take my daughter away from me.
January 4, 1991
I’ve begun to hear Wally’s voice in my head.
Sylvie snapped the diary closed. Tears filled her eyes. My mother was so sick, she thought, her stomach churning. She needed help, but she didn’t know how to ask for it.
Sylvie was sitting in half darkness, willing herself to keep reading the diary. Outside, it was a hot night in late May, sticky in the way only Washington, DC, could be, and she could feel how hard the air conditioner was working.
Was her mother schizophrenic? She wished she could ask her father. She wished she could sit with James Bruckson and take his hand and say, Tell me. What was it like to live like that?
It was then she remembered her father’s lawyer, Timothy Everett. He’d said he was a dear friend of her father. He’d said they were close.
Did that mean he knew something?
It was after one in the morning, so Sylvie decided to write him an email rather than call. She wasn’t sure how to say it aloud, anyway.
Dear Mr. Everett,
I hope this email finds you well. I recognize that it’s highly unusual to say what I’m about to say and ask of you what I’m about to ask, but I see no way forward without it.
I need to understand my father. I need to know who he was, how he thought of my mother and me, and how his final years were. I need to fill in the gaps of his life in order to fill in the gaps of mine.
Could you help me?
Sylvie Bruckson