Chapter Six Olivia
Olivia usually sprinted for the final quarter mile of her shorter runs, but today she slowed to a walk as she emerged from the woods and turned onto the path that led into town.
She could normally power through a hangover, but her brain felt heavier than her limbs.
Nothing threw Olivia off-kilter like plans falling apart.
She’d spent so long imagining this perfect weekend: Lulu, blissful and beaming, surrounded by loved ones, secure in the knowledge that her younger daughter was happy and settled.
Olivia, cradled in Andrew’s arms on the dance floor, feeling almost like a bride herself: Beautiful. Loved. Chosen.
How had everything gone pear-shaped so quickly, with Andrew producing a date seemingly out of thin air, and Marigold flying back to New York the day of her rehearsal dinner.
Olivia wasn’t sure which of these scenarios seemed stranger.
At least the second conundrum was something she could investigate—she’d already asked her paralegal to look into the logistics.
But she couldn’t exactly text Andrew and ask, Did I really just imagine our chemistry the other night?
What the hell did you mean when you said “maybe we can pick up where we left off in Maine”?
Instead of heading back to the inn, she made her way onto the small public beach down the hill, one of the only sandy stretches on the otherwise rocky island.
Olivia’s family usually avoided it—they came to Maine to escape the crowds—but Olivia often stopped here to stretch after a run.
She liked watching fearless little kids play in the frigid surf—tiny, hearty New Englanders who didn’t care that the water was rarely warmer than fifty-eight degrees.
Olivia placed her heel on a bench, pulled out her phone, then let out a small gasp that had nothing to do with her protesting hamstring.
Correct, her paralegal, Carly, had texted. You do not need a birth certificate to get married in the state of Maine.
Olivia knew something about the situation smelled fishy. Either wedding planning had broken Marigold’s brain, or she was hiding something.
Of course, erratic behavior was part of her sister’s brand—whether that meant wandering around the Met barefoot because her painful shoes “distracted her from the art,” trying to liberate a sad-looking snake from a pet store, or jumping into a hotel pool while wearing a borrowed designer gown.
Actions that would signal mental instability in everyone but pretty, rich white women. But this was something else.
Did Marigold have cold feet? The idea of settling down with one person, forever, would be daunting to anyone, but especially to someone like Marigold. Committing to a nail polish shade could be overwhelming for her. Was she really ready to commit to one person for the rest of her life?
But running off like this—this wasn’t just nerves. Something was wrong.
Olivia pictured what came next: the worried whispers spreading through the guests.
Jonathan retreating into his cool, detached doctor persona—the mode he always adopted in a crisis—but unable to disguise the panic in his eyes.
And Lulu, who’d been looking forward to the magical weekend that might now end in heartbreak instead.
If Marigold wanted to call off the wedding, that was one thing. (Well, not ideal, but better than making a mistake.) But Olivia couldn’t just let her sister disappear like this. She had to find her. Help her. Fix this—somehow.
Olivia clicked on her favorites and called Marigold. Naturally, it went to voicemail. She couldn’t remember the last time her sister had actually picked up. Call me, Olivia texted, then followed that up with, Whatever’s going on, I can help you.
The next time she looked at her phone, Marigold’s status had been set to “do not disturb.”
“Oh, for the love of god,” Olivia grumbled. Why couldn’t she be the one getting married? Why couldn’t she be the one whose wedding gave their mother the gift of one perfect weekend? One last chance to be surrounded by friends and family before…
You don’t need your birth certificate!! Olivia’s fingers pounded on the screen, leaving sweaty smudges behind.
Then she pressed “notify anyway.” Fine. If Marigold was ignoring her, then Olivia would just need to outsmart her.
Even if she was running away, she’d likely still be headed for the airport.
Marigold didn’t like to drive, and it was nearly impossible to book a same-day rental car during the high season.
So all Olivia needed to do was intercept Marigold before she got into a taxi on the mainland.
With a weary sigh, she shoved her phone into her pocket and broke into a run.
If she went straight to her family’s boat, she should be able to catch up with the ferry.
She sped up, ignoring the protest from the muscles she’d already exhausted earlier that morning, and headed to the nearby marina, where she’d left the boat yesterday after dropping some of the guests at the inn.
She ran down the pier, her sneakers slapping against the wooden boards in a rhythm she knew well from the countless miles she’d clocked jogging around the island.
She skirted around a group of cotton-candy-eating tweens, squeaked to a stop at the end of the pier, and began to untie the knot securing the boat to the mooring.
“Where’s the fire?”
She whipped around to Jonathan’s best man, Zack, smiling at her from a weathered gray bench, a dog-eared paperback copy of The House of Mirth open in his lap.
Olivia groaned. She really didn’t have time for this right now.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, unwrapping the damp, prickly rope and then hopping into the boat before it could drift too far from the dock.
“As you were.” She pulled her keys from the pocket of her jogging shorts, found the spare boat key, and started the motor.
“Everything okay?” Zack asked, rising from the bench.
“Fine! You can go back to pretending to read your book now.”
He didn’t take the bait. “Where are you going?”
“I need to run an errand. Time sensitive. I’ll see you later.”
He tucked the book under his arm. “I’ll come with you. I like boats.”
“Sorry, next time. Gotta go,” Olivia said. Even if she didn’t find Zack insufferable, she couldn’t risk anyone else learning that Marigold had gone AWOL.
“Oh, come on. Let me come. It’s the least you can do, given how much time I’m devoting to the longest wedding in history.”
“Um, I didn’t ask you to be the best man. And anyway, I’m sure you’ll use this whole weekend as clickbait for your little blog. I can see the headline now: ‘Why Rich People Are Even Worse Than You Think.’ ”
“I don’t have any time for the blog these days,” Zack said with the trademark grin that made Olivia like him less each time she met him. “I’m working on a book. But don’t worry—I won’t use any of your real names in my chapter on conspicuous consumption and liberal hypocrisy.”
Olivia snorted. “You didn’t seem that bothered when you helped yourself to two hundred dollars’ worth of seafood last night.”
“Better than letting it go to waste. Now come on, let me come with you. It’ll be faster. I can drop you off so you don’t have to worry about docking.”
Olivia thought for a moment. If she didn’t beat the ferry to the mainland, then she might have to make a run for it to reach Marigold before she got into a taxi. Every second would count.
“Fine,” she said with a sigh. “Come on.”
Despite the fact that the boat had already drifted a few feet from the pier, Zack managed to hop in with impressive ease.
“Hold on,” she said, putting the boat into gear. She turned sharply away from the dock and then accelerated as quickly as she dared. Unlike Marigold, Olivia couldn’t afford to have a reckless driving ticket on her record.
Zack settled into the seat next to her. “Don’t you have one of those floaty key chain things?” he asked, gesturing at the ignition. “What if it falls in the water?”
“We have one for the main set of keys. Marigold lost those last week. This is just the backup key, for emergencies.
“And what’s the ‘emergency’?”
“Just some wedding stuff.”
“So you’re not sneaking off to see a client or something?”
Actually, that wasn’t a terrible cover story.
Perhaps she should let Zack believe she was frantic about work rather than intercepting a runaway bride.
As they passed the buoys that marked the no-wake zone, Olivia pulled back on the gearshift and the boat leaped forward.
Despite everything, she smiled—the rush never got old.
“Something I promised my mother I’d handle.” It was true, in a sense. Olivia was the only person besides Bill who knew the truth—a secret she’d never wanted to carry to begin with, but that she now would fight to protect, no matter the cost.
It had been a sunny day six months ago, at her parents’ apartment in the city.
“No,” Olivia said emphatically. “Absolutely not.”
Lulu and Bill exchanged I told you so looks, although Olivia wasn’t sure who was blaming whom.
They were perched on the uncomfortable kitchen stools the interior designer had bought when they’d redone their penthouse a few years earlier.
Everyone hated them, but there was an unspoken rule against complaining, though Olivia was unsure whether this was to protect the reputation of the designer or Bill’s ego since he’d been the one who’d insisted on redecorating in the first place.
That seemed to be their family’s modus operandi these days—unspoken rules, unarticulated feelings.
Sometimes Olivia found herself thinking wistfully about the old days, back in their one-bedroom apartment, where there was no space for secrets.
Where she could glean her mother’s mood from the way Lulu closed the front door, whether she hung up her coat on the hook or tossed it over the back of the couch.
But now Lulu and Bill were trying to change the rules. They wanted to bring Olivia into their inner circle for the express purpose of excluding Marigold.
“We’ll tell her after the wedding,” Lulu said. “We don’t want to ruin this special time.”
“Don’t you think she’ll notice that you’re not going to chemo?” Olivia asked.
Lulu cocked her head and gave Olivia a knowing smile.
They were all deeply familiar with Marigold’s ability to ignore anything she didn’t want to deal with, from a pile of dirty clothes on her bedroom floor to the sudden cessation in her mother’s bimonthly trips to Sloan Kettering and the days of illness that always followed.
“Fine,” Olivia conceded. “Maybe she won’t notice right away. But she’ll never forgive you when she finds out. She deserves to know the truth.”
“She’s not as strong as you are, Olly-pop,” Bill said, using his special nickname for Olivia.
But what if I’m not stronger than her? Olivia thought.
What if I’ve only been pretending because I didn’t have any other choice?
What else could Olivia have done—not taken care of her little sister?
Not acted like everything was going to be okay when she was as scared as Marigold was?
Just because Olivia had been forced to grow up quickly didn’t mean that she had superhuman powers.
It didn’t mean that this news wasn’t going to eat away at her heart bit by bit.
“Are you sure?” Olivia asked, unable to keep her voice from breaking. “What about that trial Jonathan mentioned? The one in Sweden?”
Lulu smiled sadly. “I’m not eligible for that now that it’s spread to my brain. It’s time to stop fighting and just enjoy the time I have left.”
Olivia had spent the past five years preparing herself for this moment. She’d imagined this conversation countless times so she’d be ready. Pre-grieving, her therapist had called it. But Dr. Hardy had been right—you couldn’t train your body to withstand pain like this.
“It’s okay, hon,” Lulu said, reaching across the cold marble counter to squeeze Olivia’s arm. “I’m fine, I promise. I’ve had enough adventures and seen enough beauty to fill ten lifetimes. This is a small price to pay for all the miracles I’ve experienced. Miracles like you and Marigold.”
Bill passed Olivia a tissue. She hadn’t realized she was crying.
“How long?” Olivia asked quietly.
“They don’t know. It could be a year. It could be less. But without all the chemo, I’m going to have a wonderful summer. I’ll be able to enjoy the wedding. And we’ll tell Marigold as soon as she gets back from her honeymoon—I promise.”
“She’ll never forgive me,” Olivia said, more to herself than to Lulu and Bill.
“Yes, she will,” Bill said firmly. “We’ll make it clear that this was all our idea, and that we made you promise to stay quiet. This isn’t on you.”
Olivia turned to Lulu. “But what if she doesn’t forgive you?”
“It’s a risk I’m willing to take. She deserves the chance to be a happy, carefree bride.”
There it was—the heart of the matter. They’d tie themselves in knots to protect Marigold and leave Olivia to carry the burden. It was habit at this point. She’d never said anything, never complained, so of course they’d assume she could handle it.
“I’m sorry, Livy,” Lulu said, as if reading her mind. “I know it’s not fair. But you’re different people. I knew you’d want to know, hard as it is.”
“No, you’re right,” Olivia said, meaning it. “I do want to know.” She could handle the slow-growing rot festering in her stomach.
All that mattered was making this the best summer of her mother’s unfairly abridged life, whatever it took.