Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Nantucket Island
Hours after Alexander texted Janie to say he was on the island and wanted to see her, she miraculously texted him back.
JANIE: Hey. How did you know I was here?
Alexander’s heart pounded. It was clear she thought it was fishy. Maybe Alexander shouldn’t have worded his initial text like that. But his emotions were all over the place. He didn’t know which way was up.
He decided to explain himself.
ALEXANDER: You were on White Oak Lodge property and met someone? That man is my sister Nina’s new boyfriend. He’s working on the new construction.
It took Janie a little while to answer back. When she did, there was an air of relief in her words.
JANIE: Okay. I was worried you were having me followed.
Alexander snorted, then remembered that he’d literally sent a private detective out there to find his siblings, his father, and Tio Angelo. He wasn’t off the hook.
ALEXANDER: I wasn’t. But I really want to see you. Can we talk?
ALEXANDER: I know things haven’t been easy for us the past few years.
ALEXANDER: I know I haven’t been the best husband. I haven’t been around.
JANIE: Don’t. Not over text.
JANIE: Let’s meet for dinner. Tomorrow.
Alexander couldn’t believe it. He stood, sat back down, and stood again.
He felt youthful and spry as he wandered down Madequecham Beach, thinking about seeing his wife again.
It was hard to believe it had been so long since they’d slept in bed together, so long since they’d casually held hands with each other, so long since their love had been unquestioned, like the weather, like the moon.
Now, they were back on the island where everything had begun.
Alexander traipsed back to “Seth Green’s house,” where Charlotte and Nina were chopping vegetables for salads and drinking white wine. Alexander couldn’t stop smiling.
“What’s up?” Nina put down her knife.
“Janie’s agreed to go to dinner with me,” he announced.
Nina and Charlotte’s faces echoed his relief.
“That’s amazing,” Nina said. “I’ve missed her so much. I thought of her as one of my big sisters, sort of. I mean, she was around all the time back then.”
“Me too,” Charlotte agreed. “In retrospect, it’s sort of crazy how easily Mom let her into the family. Francesca can be cruel when she wants to be.”
“But that’s a testament to how great Janie is,” Nina said.
Alexander picked up a knife and a cutting board, sliced a green pepper, and thought back to the past few years of his marriage.
He considered confessing to his sisters that he’d done everything in his power to travel more, fly more, and get away from his kids and wife more.
He couldn’t fathom why any longer. Had he hated himself? Had he been so professionally driven?
He regretted it. But he certainly wasn’t the first man who’d given everything to his work, only to realize that he’d missed out on the important stuff. It was the central theme of so many works of fiction. It was the central theme of the past decade of his life.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. Nina wiped her wet hands on a towel and hurried to answer it, calling back to say, “It’s both of them!”
Charlotte’s smile widened. She abandoned her vegetable chopping and reached for three additional glasses of wine: one for Nina’s boyfriend Amos, one for Charlotte’s boyfriend Vincent, and another for Alexander.
When Vincent, the chef, entered the kitchen to kiss Charlotte hello, Alexander pretended to be busy for a second, assessing an onion, before glancing over and seeing the familiar face.
It was bizarre. Vincent was older, as they all were, but Alexander remembered something youthful and charming about his eyes from those long-ago days at the White Oak Lodge.
Charlotte had explained to Alexander that she’d left Vincent behind when she, Francesca, Allegra, and Lorelei had moved to Italy.
But they’d rekindled their past romance and found new life together.
Alexander shook first Vincent’s hand, then Amos’s.
Amos was more mystified by the gesture. Amos had, after all, been helping Tio Angelo and Jack circulate drugs through the Nantucket High School.
He’d had a hand in the broiling that had ultimately led to the destruction of the Lodge.
But that Amos had been a broke kid, willing to do anything to help his family out.
This Amos wore a big smile, had shaggy hair and puppy dog eyes, and looked at little Nina as though she lit up his universe.
After what Nina had told Alexander about her first husband, Alexander had to be grateful that she’d found someone who actually cared about her.
“I’d remember you anywhere,” Vincent said to Alexander. “You were the solemn, powerful older brother.”
“We all lived in fear of you,” Amos agreed.
Alexander’s cheeks reddened with surprise. “I never meant to be like that.”
“You couldn’t help it! We knew you had all that power up at the Lodge.
” Amos laughed good-naturedly. He took over where Nina left off with the vegetables, telling her to sit down and rest. Nina did, sipping her wine and watching the rest of them.
Charlotte put on a playlist and bopped around the kitchen, crunching on one of the peppers that Alexander had chopped.
“That, and your uncle told me to steer clear of you,” Amos added, furrowing his brow. It was as though he’d just remembered it.
Alexander sat on a stool and swirled his wine. “I’m not surprised about that. He knew I was watching him. I wanted to shut down his whole operation, but I failed at every turn.”
Amos sighed. “I think he had people in the police force he was working with anyway. There’s a reason he, Benjamin, and Jack were able to disappear like that.”
“Maybe Dad caught him and threatened him,” Charlotte suggested, “and Tio Angelo explained that he had a deal with the cops that made everything safe for the Lodge?”
“But then why were the cops fishing around during the months before the fire?” Nina asked.
“I’m sure they had to keep up appearances,” Amos said. “People were talking. I remember because they were always talking right behind my back.” His face turned stony.
Alexander’s chest suddenly felt hollow. It occurred to him that, although he was now safe on Nantucket—safe with Charlotte and Nina—and that his relationship with his mother was somewhat mended, so many questions were still left unanswered.
Where was Jack? They were living in a house that belonged to him, for crying out loud.
It felt strange to use his plates and bowls, walk on his veranda, stomp the sand from their feet onto his welcome mat, and still know that he wasn’t going to darken the doorway any time soon.
Plus, there was the issue of Jack’s relatively new disappearance from Hawaii.
His wife said that he’d been seen in conversation with an older man.
Was that Tio Angelo? Were Jack and Tio Angelo still up to no good?
If so, how had Charlotte lived and built such a profound relationship with Jack during their twenties? Which version of Jack was the “real” version?
Somehow, the five of them managed to halt all historical topics for the night and focus on a task that excited them all, save for Alexander: the reopening of the White Oak Lodge.
Amos outlined his conversations with various contractors and showed off artificially created images of what a ballroom might look like if they wanted to build on it, and what the dining room would look like if they wanted to update everything completely.
He showed artificial photographs of interior suites, gorgeous beds, and glowing windows, depicting completely updated grounds—fresh tennis courts, improved stables, and so on.
This project will take a great deal of time, Alexander thought.
But Amos speculated that they’d reopen by the following season. 2026.
It felt impossible.
“I don’t know what to say,” Alexander offered, looking again at the artificial photograph of a suite, imagining himself and Janie staying there, with their children down the hall. The idea of it almost overwhelmed him, and he handed Amos’s phone back across the table.
“Vincent said he’ll consider being our chef,” Charlotte said, reaching for Vincent’s knee under the table.
Vincent grinned. “The idea of being the top chef at the iconic White Oak Lodge is thrilling, to say the least.”
“And the reopening will bring in tons of press,” Nina said. “We’ll have everyone picking around at our past, demanding answers for what happened. It’ll bring in loads of guests, obviously. Everyone loves a dramatic story. But we’ll need to figure out a way to spin it.”
Charlotte grinned. “You’re so smart, Nina.”
Nina laughed.
“She has a Ph.D., for crying out loud,” Amos boasted, gazing at Nina adoringly.
Suddenly, everyone turned their heads to look at Alexander, as though they needed final approval from him, the eldest Whitmore, the “heir to the throne,” so to speak.
After a long time, he sputtered, “It sounds wonderful. Let me know how I can help.”
But did he mean it?
The following early evening, Alexander showered, put on a pair of slacks and a dark blue button-down, and drove the rental out to Vincent’s restaurant to meet his wife for dinner.
Vincent had ensured they were given the very best table on the veranda, with what he said was the best view of the sunset on all the islands.
Alexander had wanted to pick Janie up from her guesthouse, but she’d insisted they meet there.
Probably, she wanted to make sure she had a quick escape.
Alexander was the enemy.
Alexander entered the swanky restaurant and greeted the hostess, who showed him to a table in the far back corner of the veranda.
A few eyes flickered toward him as he walked, and he wondered if they recognized him as a Whitmore.
He knew he looked like Benjamin, like his grandfather.
People had even said he looked like Ronald, Benjamin’s brother, who drowned in that awful accident.
None of the tables nearby had been taken yet, and Alexander secretly hoped nobody would fill them so that he and Janie could hash out what they needed to say without prying ears.
A server came up, and Alexander ordered himself a glass of dry red wine because he wanted to do something with his hands.
As he waited for Janie, he remembered a scene from January of this year, when Janie asked him for a divorce.
He’d just returned from three weeks of flying all over South America, and he’d missed everything: Gwen’s music recital, Xander’s basketball games, and Conor’s speech competitions.
It was like he was a character in the wrong book.
Janie had said, “If you don’t want to be part of this family, if you don’t want to be a part of any family, you need to go. ” It had broken him apart.
“Don’t you see,” he’d wanted to say, “there’s a hole in my chest that I can’t recover from.
” He wondered if it was leftover from his father’s disappearance.
He asked if it was because he was so worried that whoever had been threatening him years ago would pick back up again. Lo and behold, they had.
Janie appeared before him in a soft buttercream sundress, her hair spilling down her shoulders.
She was tanner than she’d been back in California, more muscular around the shoulders, and the sight of her made Alexander jump to his feet to say hello.
All he wanted was to wrap his arms around her and apologize. Was it too soon?
“Janie,” he said, because he didn’t know what else to do. “You made it.”
Janie tucked her hair behind her ear and sat down. “This is quite a restaurant.”
Alexander flinched. “You don’t like it? Charlotte’s boyfriend is the chef and owner—he recommended it. But we can leave if you want to.”
Janie raised her eyebrows. “Charlotte’s boyfriend. Wow.” She wet her lips. “It’s hard to believe you’re with them again. I thought you were done with all of them.”
Alexander’s mind thrashed. “They tracked me down.” It was sort of true, although the opposite was truer. “Well, it’s complicated.”
“It always is with the Whitmores.” Janie offered a sad smile.
The server came, and Janie ordered a cocktail and an hors d’oeuvres that Alexander had already guessed she would like. She set the menu aside. It seemed they would talk first, see how it went, and then order more food.
“I’m so sorry, Janie,” Alexander breathed.
Janie looked taken aback, as though she’d prepared for a fight first.
“I’m sorry that I’ve been so incommunicative,” Alexander said.
“I’m sorry I’ve worked myself to death and taken myself far away from our family.
I’m sorry that, when the rumors started circling about what really happened that night all those years ago, you could do nothing but believe them. I recognize that that’s my fault.”
Janie was listening intently, her eyes smoldering.
Janie’s voice cracked. “You always do this.”
Alexander was taken aback. “What do you mean?”
“You always make me fall back in love with you. Just like that.” She snapped her fingers, as though it were really that simple.
“But we are in love, Janie,” Alexander whispered. “That’s why it feels that way.”
Janie closed her eyes. “Maybe I don’t want to be anymore. Perhaps it would be easier if we called it off.”
Alexander’s chest heaved, but he told himself to remain calm. “I don’t want to. I want to work at this. I’ll do anything.”
Janie remained quiet for a moment. The server arrived with her cocktail and hors d’oeuvres, which she placed in the middle of the table, gesturing for Alexander to have whatever he wanted.
But now that Alexander’s future hung in the balance between them, he wasn’t sure he’d ever be hungry again. He flared his nostrils.
“The thing is,” Janie said, “I can’t understand why you won’t tell me what happened that night. What did you see? Why are they trying to get to you? What do they know that you don’t want to say?”
Alexander’s eyes filled with tears. He glanced to either side to see that the tables were empty. No one could eavesdrop on them. They were safe. But could he bring Janie in on this? Did he even have a choice?