Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
T wo days after Renée’s “return” to the estate on Nantucket Island, Marc and Hilary invited her to a Coleman family party.
Hilary expected Renée to say no. After all, Renée didn’t seem like the family type.
But Renée thought about it, twirling her glossy hair around a finger, then said, “Why not?” She’d heard of Roland and Grant Coleman and understood them to be successful businessmen, ones her father had trusted and befriended.
Hilary reasoned that Renée wanted to get in touch with her father in some small way. He’d been gone from her life for so long that he was probably more like a myth.
The day of the party, Hilary spent hours in the library, packing up books so she could remove the old shelves and get started on the redesign.
From downstairs came the sounds of the crew, who’d begun to paint the living room and kitchen.
They played Bruce Springsteen and gossiped and laughed in a way that brought the estate to life.
Hilary wished that Dorothy could have been here for this step, wished she could have laughed along with the crew members and stepped further into “real” life.
But as it was, Renée was here instead, and Renée wasn’t much for strangers. The fact that she’d opened up to Marc was surprising enough.
Hilary worked methodically, making piles of books that were too moldy to keep alongside the books that couldn’t be thrown away. There were plenty that she’d been itching to read, and she wondered if she could take them home. Would anyone notice?
It was late that afternoon that Hilary discovered the envelope of photographs.
The envelope itself was pressed between two massive science textbooks, biology and geology.
It was yellowed and dusty and looked like it hadn’t been opened in many years.
When she noticed the gloss of the photos inside, Hilary’s heart began to pound.
Would there be more photos of Rachel? Of the Wagners’ life pre-Rachel’s death?
But when she opened the envelope, she discovered twenty-plus photographs that featured a man she’d never seen before.
The photos were on the vintage side, ranging from anywhere between thirty to fifty years old, and the man featured in them followed those years, accordingly, starting in his mid-forties and aging up to his late fifties or early sixties.
Throughout those decades, he was athletic and well-dressed, with a charmingly crooked smile and suits that made him look like he’d stepped out from the pages of GQ magazine.
Most of the photographs found him in Manhattan, lounging in Central Park or drinking wine on a rooftop.
Some of the pictures had been taken in Rome, Paris, Copenhagen, and even Tokyo.
And some of them had been taken right here in Nantucket on a sailboat, on the veranda of this very estate.
He’d lived quite a life, whoever he was. Hilary wondered if he was still alive.
Something in her gut told her that he was not.
Hilary set the photographs side by side on a table she hadn’t gotten rid of yet, unable to breathe.
She searched for clues within the photographs, wondering who this was and why the envelope had been hidden away.
She wondered if she could use a reverse-image-search engine online and discover his identity that way.
Something about the man seemed familiar to Hilary, as though she’d seen him before. But she couldn’t say where that might have been.
But before she could make up her mind about what to do next, she heard Renée’s boots in the hallway and scurried to hide the photographs away.
She wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t want Renée to know about the mysterious man, not until Hilary understood who he was herself.
She didn’t want to taint Renée’s opinion of her mother all the more, if that was even possible.
Bringing up Dorothy at all generally seemed like a no-go, as though Renée wanted to pretend that Dorothy had never existed.
As far as Hilary knew, Dorothy had been cremated, and they were waiting on Renée to put together funeral arrangements.
What if she never bothered? Hilary hated to think of this.
She felt that Dorothy deserved a beautiful send-off, that the friends and loved ones who remained should come together and speak of her.
Every person deserved that after they were gone.
Around seven that evening, Marc drove to the estate and picked both Renée and Hilary up for the Coleman family party.
Renée was wearing all black, her hair like silk down her back.
Hilary insisted that she sit up front in Marc’s convertible, and she buckled herself into the back seat and listened as Renée told Marc what she’d been up to that day and how she was finding Nantucket, so many years after her last visit.
The time to herself allowed Hilary to consider the photographs. Who was that man? It occurred to her now that the man had been in love with whoever had taken his picture. In each of them, his eyes glowed in the way Hilary knew well because it was the way Marc looked at her.
A chasm opened up in her chest.
When they reached the Coleman House, Estelle opened the door to welcome Renée with a warm hug, one that obviously surprised Renée.
She wasn’t accustomed to love from a mother.
“It’s so wonderful to meet you, honey,” Estelle said, drawing Renée into the house.
“I’m terribly sorry for your loss. But we’re so glad to have you here. ”
Marc and Hilary exchanged a glance that meant here goes nothing .
They sat on the back porch with glasses of wine and a gorgeous view. Most of the Colemans were in attendance, at least all the ones currently on the island. Renée looked at them with a mix of interest and distrust, shaking their hands as they approached.
Estelle took the lead on introductions. “This is my daughter, Sam. She’s in social work, and her daughter lives in Rome, of all places,” she said.
“And this is my son, Charlie. My eldest. He’s got quite a business going here on the island.
” Estelle refilled Renée’s glass of wine and chatted happily, easily in a way that suggested she’d had countless parties just like this.
She knew how to engage with every guest.
When Hilary’s father Roland and Uncle Grant arrived a bit later, they had Grandpa Chuck with them.
Sitting beside Renée, Hilary felt Renée inhale sharply.
She knew it was because of her father, a man who’d known and respected Philip Wagner.
After a brief hesitation, as though she were trying to be brave, Renée got to her feet and strode over to Roland.
Roland shook her hand solemnly, then said, “You look like him, you know. It’s something in your eyes. They’re so intelligent, like his were.”
It seemed like this was exactly what Renée wanted to hear. She blushed and raised her chin. “He spoke about you, Mr. Coleman. Sometimes he would visit me at boarding school and tell me all about his life here in Nantucket.”
Roland smiled. “We always talked about doing business together. But your father was like a rocket. I took my time with things. I wasn’t as proactive.”
Hilary knew from her mother that this wasn’t entirely true. Roland hadn’t wanted to do business with Philip Wagner because Philip Wagner had been a white-collar criminal, taking advantage of the systems around him, propelling himself into exorbitant wealth.
The night continued. Hilary tried to keep one ear to Renée’s conversations with her father but soon found herself distracted, helping her mother set out the food and asking her nieces and nephews about their careers and their children.
Renée’s laugh was overzealous and almost always artificial, but Hilary reasoned that it was better than Renée’s crying.
After dinner, Hilary followed her mother into the kitchen to do the dishes.
Sam came along, as did Darcy with her baby.
The baby was awake, babbling happily on Darcy’s chest as she put the dishes Hilary had already washed into the various cabinets.
A few Colemans came in for fresh bottles of wine or the platter of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.
It felt like real summer: a time of freedom and throwing away food rules in pursuit of pleasure.
When it was clear that Renée was too far away from the kitchen to overhear them, Estelle lowered her voice and asked, “How do you think she’s doing?”
“Not great,” Hilary admitted. “It’s like she doesn’t want to face her feelings about her mother at all.”
“Why do you think Dorothy put her up to all these tasks?” Sam asked, sliding a towel across the counter.
“Honestly? I don’t know.” Hilary took a beat. “Why would you?”
Sam and Estelle seemed to consider this.
Estelle took a breath. “I don’t think I’d be able to bear it if one of my daughters hated me. Scratch that, I’d fall apart.”
“I agree with that,” Sam said sadly.
“Same.” Hilary only had one daughter, but Aria was her life.
“Maybe she wanted Renée to understand her, somehow,” Sam piped up. “Perhaps she wanted her to oversee what Dorothy had left behind to get a better sense for her?”
Hilary raised her eyebrows, thinking of the photo album, the envelope filled with pictures of a mysterious and handsome man. Had Dorothy wanted Hilary to pass along these images to Renée? Were they a part of her grand plan?
When Hilary reached for the envelope of photographs, Darcy’s baby began to fuss, so she went upstairs for a feeding.
Sam went outside to check on her husband and make sure everyone was well-fed with a drink.
This left Estelle and Hilary with the yellowed envelope that Hilary didn’t know what to do with.
She wasn’t even sure why she’d brought it over.
“What’s that?” Estelle asked, arching a single brow.
Hilary’s throat swelled. “I don’t really know. Maybe it’s an answer to something. But it’s still more questions about Dorothy’s life.”