Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
T he last room of the brownstone that Aria needed to tend to was the upstairs bedroom, the one that Renée had claimed during her brief but fiery stay.
Wearing a paint-splattered tank top and baggy pants, Aria bent to touch the wooden floorboards, which she’d decided to fix up and shine herself.
The floorboards were from another time, another era of Manhattan construction, and she’d decided they were too historical to toss.
They brought personality to the old place—a bedroom that would soon feature the sleeping forms of one or two wealthy Manhattan individuals, whoever would lease the place from Renée when the design was over.
It was a pity that the beautiful brownstone had been empty all this time. It deserved fresh stories. It was time for another era.
Aria worked all morning and into the late afternoon, sanding the floor and listening to podcasts about everything from celebrity gossip to true crime on cruise ships.
She felt completely in tune with herself, her designer instincts, and the brownstone.
Outside, clouds brewed over the massive buildings, storm clouds billowing. Rain splattered against the glass.
Logan sent her a little cartoon he’d drawn featuring himself, Aria, and a massive storm over Manhattan. It looked like he’d drawn it quickly, but it was still wonderful.
LOGAN: I hope you’re undercover! We’ve got a storm coming in fast!
Aria laughed and rolled onto her back.
ARIA: Here she blows!
But when she shifted, the floorboards beneath her cracked and shifted more than they should have. Aria froze. Something was amiss.
Outside, thunder rumbled through the sky, adding drama to it all.
She got off the floor and put her foot on the floorboards in question.
They wiggled wildly, proof that they weren’t fully attached to their neighbors.
Previously, these floorboards had been under the bed and out of sight, which was probably why Renée hadn’t noticed them.
Aria’s spine tingled. She got to her knees, took a breath, and pried the first floorboard out.
The edges stuck and were dusty, but in the end, the board finally gave way.
Beneath it, she could see half of a stack of yellowed books.
The other floorboard came up even faster, and she stacked it on the other, breathing heavily.
On the other side of the books was an old shoebox.
She had the sensation that she’d just uncovered treasure.
Tentatively, Aria pulled the books and the shoebox out onto the flooring she hadn’t gotten to yet.
She opened the first book and realized it was a journal, filled with ornate handwriting that spoke of decades of perfecting a penmanship style.
Inside the front cover of each book was the name: Dorothy Wagner over the top the relevant year.
The earliest was from 1998, and they ended in 2001.
It hit Aria hard. These were the years Dorothy had lived in the brownstone, the years before she’d gone back to Nantucket and hidden herself away.
Were these the secrets that Dorothy had wanted Aria and Hilary to discover?
No, Aria realized. They were the secrets Dorothy wanted passed along to Renée.
Before Aria read a sentence of Dorothy’s memories, she opened the shoebox to discover stacks and stacks of hundred-dollar bills.
Her blood pressure skyrocketed. She’d read once that some wealthy people liked to hide their money, that they didn’t always trust the banks, the very systems that had made them mega-rich to begin with.
She wondered if this was Dorothy’s “safety” fund.
But why had she left it in Manhattan when she’d gone away?
Aria carried the journals and the shoebox downstairs.
Outside, the rain shattered against the panes, and lightning crackled across the sky.
She felt hyperaware of everything around her, as though someone was going to leap out from the shadows and accuse her of stealing.
She had no intention of doing so. But she couldn’t help but wonder what Dorothy’s last years in Manhattan were like?
She knew she needed to call her mother right away and tell her what she’d found. She knew the right thing to do was to turn these journals over to Renée immediately and be happy with offering her daughter a bit of closure and understanding.
But Aria couldn’t help but open the first page from 1998 and, standing up at the brand-new kitchen counter, read.
What she couldn’t believe was that every single entry was written to Renée.
Every single entry was a love letter to her daughter.
August 12, 1998
My darling Renée,
I’ve heard you loud and clear: you never want to speak to me again, nor see me. I have to respect your wishes. I know you’re grieving, that your heart is broken after the death of your father, and I know you blame me for what’s happened. You should blame me—but not for your father’s death.
I have so many things I regret.
As you may know, I left Nantucket last week to tend to things in Manhattan.
I stayed in a hotel for several nights but couldn’t bear the sorry stares from the staff and ended up taking a cab here, to the brownstone your father bought in the late seventies.
Its decor is in dire need of an update, but it’s in a wonderful and artistic location, with all of bustling New York City just out the door.
It’s the complete opposite of Nantucket, exactly what I need after the life I’ve lived so far.
It’s ironic, isn’t it, that I should seek solace here, in the very home your father bought to house his mistresses, his second lives.
But I suppose you should know: I was always so thrilled when he was gone, when he let me have my girls (you and Rachel) all to myself.
He always brought such a sour taste to the air.
He always made me second-guess myself, always made you and Rachel stutter and act fearful. I hated him then.
A part of me will always hate him.
I suppose a part of me will always love him, too.
I know you want to know about the circumstances surrounding your father’s death. I will write them to get them out of the way.
The short of it is: we went sailing, he grew very drunk, and he started yelling at me about William France, his ex-best friend and the man I’ve loved since I knew what love is.
I haven’t seen William in many years, not since the early eighties.
Your father should have known that, but it’s not like he was paying attention to what I did or where I went.
The waves were rough, and your father went overboard.
I tried to reach him, but he slipped out of my grasp.
A storm began to rage. I cried your father’s name over and over again.
I’ve never felt lonelier in all my life as I did that day, searching the water for your father, until I realized I had to get back to shore for my own safety.
I was so distraught that I didn’t think for a second that the tabloids might run with the idea that I’d killed your father. Imagine thinking I would have killed the great and powerful Philip Wagner, just because he didn’t know how to love me!
He was there when Rachel died. As far as I’m concerned, he could have saved her. He didn’t. And I didn’t kill him then, did I? He survived for sixteen years after that, in fact.
I’ve grown weary and tired, and I think I had better rest. The brownstone smells of your father’s cigars and old Chinese food. Someone ought to open a window. I suppose that someone is me.
Your Mother
Her hands shook as she closed the journal, stood, and walked to the front window.
For the first time, she could feel Dorothy here at the brownstone, her heart breaking with loneliness, the memories of her life playing out behind her eyes.
It was a surprise to hear that Dorothy stopped seeing William in the early eighties, maybe around the time of Rachel’s death.
Perhaps it had been too painful for her to see the true father of the daughter who’d died.
Maybe it had been too painful for William as well.
But, Aria decided, it wasn’t such a surprise that Dorothy had addressed all of her journal entries to her daughter.
Renée had wanted no more contact, which had probably killed Dorothy’s spirit.
She’d wanted to feel that Renée was still with her.
She’d wanted to draw her closer, or at least imagine she was.
It was clear that she’d assumed, one day, Renée would read the entries.
One day, she would understand. But why hadn’t Dorothy sent the journals to Renée in the first place? Had she forgotten about them?
Aria itched to pick up the journals and continue reading. But before she could, her mother called to check on Aria’s progress that week. Aria spilled the beans about the journals. “Every year she was here, I think. From 1998 to 2001. I can’t believe it.”
“Diaries!” Hilary whispered. “I was looking everywhere for diaries! And they were in Manhattan all this time!”
Aria’s heartbeat quickened. “I read the first entry,” she confessed, her cheeks hot. “I know I shouldn’t have.”
“It’s tricky. We’re in too deep,” Hilary said softly, without judgment. “Can you come back to the island this weekend? I want to give them to Renée as soon as possible. And I want to see you!”
Aria hadn’t been back to Nantucket since the Fourth of July, and she ached to leap in the Sound, to let the waves roll her back to shore.
She ached to eat lobster rolls and drink a crisp glass of wine with her grandmother.
She promised she wouldn’t read any more of Renée’s mother’s secrets.
She promised she’d get to the island as soon as she could.
But that evening before she ran back to Logan’s place for dinner, Aria couldn’t help but flutter the pages of Dorothy’s diary, searching for various keywords.
She wasn’t snooping, exactly; she wasn’t giving herself the full picture.
But what she saw confirmed her suspicions: William France had come back into Dorothy’s life, and right here in this brownstone, they’d had a passionate and wonderful love, a free love without judgment, a love that tried to mend the wounds from the past.
Dorothy wrote:
William and I will never get over the loss of our darling daughter, Rachel.
We will never get over the fact that we weren’t able to live our lives together, in love.
But we’re not dead yet. We’re in our fifties, and our hearts are open to the incredible changes available to us, now that we’re here in the city, now that we’re alone.
I hope you’ll meet with us someday, Renée. I hope you’ll find in William the kindness your father was never able to show you. I hope you can think of him like a father.
With Love, Always, Your Mother
Aria closed the journal again with a slam, surprising herself.
Okay, okay. She’d let herself read too much.
But it was with a brighter sense of the universe that she returned to Logan’s, thinking of Dorothy and William and their second chance in the Big Apple.
She was again reminded of Dorothy, sending Aria to Manhattan to heal.
It was where Dorothy herself had found her footing again.
She’d wanted to give Aria the hope she’d found for herself.
Aria stopped at a local grocery store to buy a bottle of rosé and different types of cheese, a comte and a Camembert.
As she paid and returned to the whirling city outside, it suddenly struck her that in fact Dorothy’s second chance with William hadn’t lasted very long, that after 2001, Dorothy had returned to Nantucket Island and boarded herself up.
Aria lost her footing and nearly fell off the sidewalk.
She took a breath, steadying herself with a stop sign pole.
She realized that she was too frightened to learn why Dorothy had returned to Nantucket.
She wanted to think of Dorothy and William as happy and in love and finally able to proclaim that love to the world.
She wanted to think of them as just as happy as she currently was, with Logan by her side.
But she felt the darkness that lurked just beyond the final diary. She didn’t dare read that far.