Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
T he Celebration of Life for Dorothy Wagner was to be held at the end of August at the Lavender Hotel on Nantucket Island.
Aria and Logan drove up from Manhattan, hands linked, swapping playlists as they talked about everything and anything.
When they parked at Hyannis Port, waiting for the ferry to board, they realized that the trees nearest them had already begun to take on hues of orange, yellow, and red.
Autumn was coming fast, slashing the air with chill.
Aria dug a sweater out of her backpack, and Logan put on a beanie.
They looked at one another, at autumnal versions of the selves they’d met a couple of months ago, laughed, and kissed.
What was this romance? How long would it last?
What if it never ended? Was that an even scarier thought?
When the ferry ramped on the island, Logan and Aria drove immediately to the Coleman House, where Estelle was already cooking up a storm: crab legs and tuna tartar and stuffed mushrooms and all kinds of pies.
She wore a frilly apron, and sweat lined her curls.
Despite her exhaustion, she drew Aria, then Logan into hugs and ordered them to take fresh drinks out onto the veranda and socialize.
“Aye aye, captain,” Logan said.
Estelle cackled and swatted them with a kitchen towel.
Out on the veranda, Aria found her parents, their fingers laced together. Renée was opposite them, her hands folded on her lap, her outfit all black and demure. Her face was more peaceful than Aria had ever seen it.
Tomorrow was the day they’d say goodbye to Dorothy Wagner.
It had been Renée’s decision, a result of her reading of the journals and discovering the reality of her mother’s life.
Thus far, she hadn’t told Hilary or Aria anything she’d read, hadn’t divulged any of her mother’s secrets.
Aria wasn’t sure if they would ever know everything. And maybe that would be okay.
That evening, Estelle fed them and poured their wine and begged them for details about the city.
After a discussion with the lawyer overseeing Dorothy Wagner’s estate, Renée had named herself a producer of Logan’s animated film, sending him monthly funds that would ultimately help him to finish editing it and apply for film festivals around the globe.
With their Coleman family connections, they were looking for other producers with film connections and had even reached out to Henry Crawford, the Copperfields’ grandson, with the hope that he could bring Logan into the deeper world of Los Angeles filmmaking.
“But it’s a brilliant start,” Logan said, smiling at Renée and then Aria. “I still think of that day at the bagel place as the best of my life. I met both of you that day!”
Renée threw her head back, laughing happily. “I certainly wasn’t at my best.”
Aria squeezed Logan’s hand, remembering how lost she’d been that day. “Neither was I.”
Since more information had come out about William France and his connection to the Wagner family, Logan hadn’t worn the shirt he’d borrowed from the brownstone that day.
But it remained hanging in his tiny apartment, as though it were waiting for something.
Aria loved to touch the fabric and imagine the love that had transpired between Dorothy and William. She liked to imagine that it lived on.
The following afternoon at three, Aria and Logan drove to the Lavender Hotel and entered the ceremonial room, a room reserved for receptions and birthday parties and, now, parties that celebrated a woman who’d lived and loved.
The invitation had asked guests not to wear black, because Dorothy Wagner wouldn’t have wanted them to mourn.
Aria had opted for a soft blue dress, and Logan wore a gray button-down and a pair of slacks.
When they entered, they faced a five-foot-tall portrait of Dorothy, age forty or forty-five.
Aria remembered that her mother had found it somewhere in the Wagner Estate, hidden away so that Dorothy didn’t have to see it so often.
“Goodness, she was beautiful,” Aria breathed, thinking about the immensity of life and all the love it offered her.
The room was already half full with Colemans and other islanders who’d come both to pay their respects and share their memories of Dorothy Wagner.
“I truly wish she’d been around more often later in life,” a woman said to another. “She was always such a riot.”
“She was a devil at cards,” the other said. “She always took me for everything I was worth!”
“I didn’t even know she’d come back to the island till about ten years ago,” another offered. “I saw her far down the beach, in front of her place. Walking. Pacing, more like. I wanted to approach her. But when she saw me, she gave a half wave and went back inside, like she was scared of me.”
Aria’s heart panged.
Just in time, Hilary and Marc appeared, wrapping Aria in a hug and shaking Logan’s hand.
“Where’s Renée?” Aria asked.
“She’s preparing,” Hilary said. “She wrote a speech.”
Aria filled her lungs. Was Renée going to share what she’d learned about her mother? Was she going to set the record straight?
At the other side of the room was a long table filled with photographs of Dorothy through the years.
Aria and Logan walked over to take in the story of Dorothy’s life and soon realized that not a single photograph featured Philip Wagner.
There were photos of Dorothy as a child, Dorothy with the siblings who’d already passed away, Dorothy with her parents, and Dorothy on her wedding day in the early sixties.
There was Dorothy, modeling for the cover of Seventeen magazine, something that Aria had only just learned about through Hilary.
And then there was Dorothy as a mother, Dorothy holding her babies, Dorothy teaching Rachel and Renée to walk and ride their bikes and swim.
It was obvious that the person who’d photographed most of them hadn’t been Philip Wagner, if only because it was clear to most everyone that Philip Wagner hadn’t been a true fixture in Dorothy’s life.
Later, at the far right of the table were photographs of Dorothy in her fifties and sixties.
But she wasn’t alone in them. Beside her in nearly every one was William France, dressed to the nines, holding her hand or kissing her on the cheek.
They were taken all over Manhattan, Europe, South America, and Asia.
It was clear that the couple was totally, enormously in love, making a mockery of the years they’d had to spend apart.
Tragedy had befallen nearly every era of their lives. But they’d been allowed to live—just a few years—together.
Aria’s eyes filled with tears.
“That’s him,” Logan breathed, pointing at William’s photograph. “They’re incredible together.”
“They really are,” Aria said.
“Aria!” A voice rang out to her right, and Aria turned to find Renée, smiling serenely and coming toward her.
Behind her was a woman with gray-and-black hair and a dark red dress, a woman who looked slightly out of place, a woman who wanted to link herself with Renée and not talk to anyone else, it seemed like.
But Renée said, “Aria, I want you to meet someone!”
Aria smiled uncertainly.
“Aria, this is Violet France,” Renée said. “William France’s eldest daughter. She lives in New York, like you.”
Aria was mystified. It was true that now, when the woman smiled, her smile evoked that fabulous man in the photographs, as well as Rachel, in those long-ago photographs of a summer’s day. Aria’s heart throbbed.
“It’s wonderful to meet you,” Aria said, taking Violet’s hand.
“You as well,” Violet said. Her eyes were wet. “You’ll have to meet my siblings. They’re here, too. Somewhere.” She made a show of looking through the crowd.
Renée sniffed. “I read the journals, you know. All of them. Cover to cover. And then I read them again. Finally, I understood my mother. Finally, everything clicked into place. I reached out to Violet right away. At first, she didn’t want to talk to me, did you, Violet? You’d been through too much.”
Violet’s eyes were shadowed. She clasped her hands together. “My mother and father’s divorce broke us in half. But Renée was very persuasive. We finally met up.”
Renée explained what she’d learned in the diary entries.
When William and Dorothy met one another (through Philip, of course), Dorothy tried to get out of her engagement to Philip.
But Philip had a vision for his future, an idea that Dorothy was the woman who would complete that picture.
When she tried to break up with him, he told her he was going to do something drastic.
“She didn’t say what it was in the journal entry,” Renée said.
“But my father could be dramatic. I’m sure she felt too guilty.
I’m sure she tried to put her love for William away. ”
“And I’m sure that broke my father’s heart,” Violet said. “Of course, he didn’t leave any letters like your mother left you.”
Renée nodded. Gratefulness poured out of her.
She kept going.
“My mother was wise. She knew that my father was having affair after affair, that he didn’t love her.
She tried to push away her love for William, but it didn’t always work.
Sometimes, they met up, telling one another they wished it could be different.
But in the late seventies, my father found out about them.
I think they were spotted by a colleague who told on William.
William’s marriage fell apart, and Philip destroyed his career.
My mother felt awful about it. But when she wanted to leave my father, he still refused.
He threatened her. She decided to throw herself completely into being a mother, into loving Rachel and me.
But it didn’t last.” Renée sighed deeply.
Violet’s voice shook. “My siblings and I didn’t know about Rachel.
That’s what changed everything for us.” She touched the edge of a photograph on the table, one featuring Rachel.
Tears sprang to her eyes. “She looks just like Daddy. She looks just like us. It broke us in half, knowing we’d had this sister who’d died in this tragic way.
” She looked at Renée with love in her eyes.
It was clear that they’d adopted Renée, that they’d decided they were family in a strange and roundabout way.
Someone came by to tell Renée it was nearly time for her speech. Aria felt the moment drifting away, and she reached out to touch Renée’s sleeve, to remind her of something.
“But what happened to them? What happened to William?” she asked, breathless. Why did Dorothy lock herself away? Why did she stop living—so long before she actually passed?
“William died,” Renée said softly. “He got cancer. Mom held his hand every day in the hospital and cared for him at the brownstone until he passed. When he was gone, she returned to Nantucket to hide herself away.” Renée’s face broke open.
“I worry she was waiting for me.” She turned to look at her mother’s portrait, her hand pressed against her heart.
“But I’m here, Momma. I love you. I’ll love you forever.
And I’ll tell your story for as long as I’m alive. ”
Time went on after that, as Aria knew it would.
When the brownstone was finished, Renée asked if Aria and Logan wanted to move into it—for a rent that felt almost criminally low—and Logan and Aria leaped at the chance to build a life together in the city.
Logan’s animated film got picked up at three film festivals for early 2026, and Aria secured two interior design projects in Manhattan, both of which her mother would help out with when she came to the city next.
Renée never saw Jefferson Everett again.
She remained in the Wagner Estate, helping Hilary out with the redesign and deciding what was next.
Maybe she would date again. Perhaps she still had a “William-and-Dorothy-worthy love” in her.
But she wasn’t in any hurry to leap into another romance.
“I’m learning about myself right now,” she told both Aria and Hilary during one of Aria’s trips home. “It’s about time, right?”
Toward the end of autumn, Renée buried Dorothy’s ashes under a gravestone next to William France’s in Manhattan.
It meant that Aria and Hilary had to go visit her when Hilary came to town next.
They sat in the autumn chill as red and brown leaves circled the air around them, sipping hot coffee and talking to her.
How Aria wished they could have spent more time with her.
How she wished she could have thanked her for “launching” her life into another realm.
“What a wise woman,” Hilary said, touching the top of the stone and tracing her name.
“I think the beauty of Dorothy was that she never thought she was wise,” Aria said. “She made mistakes. She fell for the wrong person. She was entirely herself.”
Hilary nodded, holding the silence. Overhead, blackbirds twittered, preparing to fly south for the winter. There was a harshness to the air that spoke of incoming snowstorms and cozy evenings at home. Aria was ready for all of it: more life, as much of it as she could take.