Chapter 13
Over on Nantucket Island, Rebecca was none the wiser about Shelby’s school situation.
It was Christmas, and although she was sad that Shelby wasn’t on the island to celebrate with the entire Sutton family, she knew that Shelby was where she needed to be, just then.
At least, Shelby was where Shelby felt she needed to be.
Shelby was with Jared, her stupid, arrogant, selfish, and injured boyfriend.
This would not be forever, Rebecca told herself.
One day soon, Shelby would figure out just how devastating Jared was for her sense of self.
She would figure out that he was, in every sense, a “dead end,” blocking Shelby from her full potential and inner happiness.
The things Rebecca had heard Jared say to Shelby when he thought nobody could hear him chilled her to the bone. She’d heard them during her trips to the hospital during the weeks after he’d woken up.
Shelby, sit up straight. You look so sloppy when you slouch.
Shelby, come on, don’t eat that. That will make you fat.
Shelby, if you’re going to be my wife, you need to read more Henry James. Seriously, I can’t believe you know so little about Henry James.
Always when he got into his anti-Shelby loops, Rebecca gaped at him, unable to speak. She didn’t know how to stop him. She didn’t know how to stand up for Shelby, when it seemed she’d paired herself up with a monster.
Rebecca didn’t care that maybe his cruelty was a result of the head injury. What mattered now was his cruelty. She didn’t want Shelby to learn to live with it.
Late on the night of Christmas, Rebecca, Lily, Esme, Valerie, and Bethany sat around the kitchen table at Esme and Victor’s place, talking softly as snow fell over the island.
It had been a wonderful day of food, laughter, wine and gift-giving, and now they were squeezing the last beauty from the day before they all went their separate ways.
“You have to give me that recipe, Mom,” Valerie said, yawning as she stretched her arms over her head.
“I’m exhausted, too,” Bethany said, laughing.
After all, Valerie and Bethany both had young children.
They were doing the “mom” thing in their forties.
Rebecca adored them for it. She wasn’t always sure where they found the energy.
Rebecca suggested that she make them coffee, but they both insisted they were too tired even for coffee.
They began to gather their presents in bags, reaching for their coats.
It was only a few minutes after that—at eleven fifteen—that Lily received a text message and shrieked. “Mom, look at this!” She turned her phone around to show a photograph of Shelby and Jared, Shelby with her hand over Jared’s chest. On her fourth finger, she wore a diamond engagement ring.
Rebecca felt as though the ground was giving out beneath her. “No,” she gasped, reaching for Lily’s phone to get a better look.
Esme wore a stern expression. Valerie and Bethany seemed not to know what to say, their arms laden with gifts, their eyes exhausted.
“Maybe they’ll wait till Shelby’s done at Columbia,” Valerie said gently, setting a box down.
“They have to,” Esme said. “Otherwise, what was all that work for?”
But Rebecca felt sick to her stomach. She knew that Shelby’s love for Jared was bordering on obsession, and now that she’d seen him through so much trauma, they’d want to seal the deal on their love.
She put her forehead on the cool of the table and sighed.
“I need to stop her,” she said. “He’s wrong for her.
He’s so wrong for her! Why can’t she see that? ”
Within fifteen minutes, after hurriedly saying goodbye to Valerie and Bethany, Rebecca and Lily had Shelby on the phone. Shelby gushed with happiness and told them the entire story of the engagement, which didn’t sound that amazing, if Rebecca was honest. But she decided that was besides the point.
“We’re going to get married right away and have a party later on,” Shelby said.
Rebecca’s chest heaved. “Honey, why not slow down a little bit? We can have a big wedding here in Nantucket. Maybe not this summer, but the one after that. After you graduate? Doesn’t that sound good?”
“We don’t want to wait that long,” Shelby told her. “We have plans, Mom. So many plans.”
“What kind of plans?” Rebecca searched Lily’s panicked face as they waited, rapt.
“I’ll let you know,” Shelby said dreamily. “I don’t want to taint our dreams by saying them aloud, you know?”
Rebecca cleared her throat. “But you’re going to stay at Columbia, right?”
Shelby was quiet for long enough to let Rebecca know the truth: It was over. Her darling daughter’s education had been destroyed.
“Shelby,” Rebecca tried. “Don’t you think you should…”
“I’m doing what’s best for me,” Shelby said. “Isn’t that what you always said we should do in life? You always said ‘life is short, you have to make yourself happy,’ right?”
Rebecca couldn’t refute that. She was stumped.
It was a miracle in and of itself that, a month later over the phone, Shelby told Rebecca when and where the wedding was going to be. Rebecca hadn’t been sure if she’d really get an invitation. “We want to keep it small,” Shelby said. “I want you, Lily, and Chad there, but nobody else.”
Rebecca agreed, although she hated the idea of Shelby’s grandmother not being invited. Esme would understand, but it would hurt her.
The wedding was to be held on the second Saturday in February.
Rebecca, Lily, and Chad dressed for it as though they were getting ready for a funeral, then drove to the ferry, unable to speak.
When they reached the courthouse in Boston, they walked up the stone steps on shaking legs.
Rebecca squeezed Lily’s hand and said under her breath, “Don’t let me do anything rash. ”
“I want you to do something rash,” Lily told her. “I want you to stop this.”
“I don’t know how,” Rebecca offered. She felt pathetic as a mother. She hadn’t been able to protect her daughter.
Inside the courthouse, Shelby wore a simple white dress with a high neckline.
Rebecca guessed from the fabric that it was very, very expensive, maybe more than anything Rebecca had ever seen up close.
Beside her, Jared was in an expensive-looking tux.
Jim and Monica were off to the side, looking pale-faced and reverent.
Rebecca itched to pull Monica away and ask what she thought of this union.
But she guessed that Monica wasn’t the kind of woman who liked to tell the truth.
That, or she’d forgotten how over the years of being a Kissinger.
Shelby said hello to her family, but it was cold and strange, as though they’d only recently met for the first time. As though they were strangers.
“Will you come chat with us for a second?” Rebecca heard herself ask her daughter. She needed to make one final plea, or else she’d curse herself forever.
Shelby followed Rebecca and Lily to the long hallway outside of the room where the ceremony was to take place. They left Chad with the Kissingers, if only because he could always handle himself socially.
“Before you say anything,” Shelby began, raising her bouquet over her shoulder, “I want to say that this is the happiest day of my life. If you try in any way to diminish that, I will find it really difficult to forgive you.” Her eyes flashed.
Rebecca swallowed the lump in her throat. She turned to look at Lily, who seemed to be drowning in sorrow.
“It’s just so fast,” Lily breathed. “We want to make sure you’re really and truly sure.”
“How many times do I have to tell you?” Shelby demanded. “For the rest of my life, I’m going to feel guilty for breaking things off with him over the summer. It was because of me that he got into that accident. He almost died. Now, I can make it up to him. For the rest of my life.”
Rebecca shivered. She was too terrified to speak.
“And besides,” Shelby continued, smiling wider. “We have to get married, if you know what I mean.”
Rebecca’s heart stopped beating. Lily crossed her arms over her chest.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Lily said, although of course there could only be one reason.
Shelby’s eyes widened. “I’m pregnant,” she said. “We just found out two days ago.”
Lily reached for Rebecca’s hand, squeezing it hard. Rebecca thought she might faint. Oh, how she wished Shelby’s father were here to try to knock some sense into her.
“You don’t have to marry him just because you’re pregnant,” Lily tried. “This isn’t the eighteen hundreds.”
“The baby is a blessing,” Shelby tried to assure them. “I don’t want any other life but this. This is my romance story, Lily. This is what I’m living for.”
It was clear that nothing they could say would change Shelby’s mind.
Just then, Jared poked his head out into the hall to check on them. When he spoke, his tone was flat and cruel. “I don’t think they’ll wait for us all day.”
“Of course!” Shelby rushed off, beckoning for her mother and sister to follow. It was showtime.
During the brief yet harrowing ceremony, Rebecca, Chad, and Lily hovered to the side, feeling cold and strange and unmoored.
When Shelby said, “I do,” Rebecca couldn’t breathe, and when Shelby and Jared kissed for the first time as husband and wife, tears rushed down her cheeks. They were not tears of joy.
After the wedding, they all shared a meal at a fancy restaurant in downtown Boston.
Chad ordered a steak and potatoes and tore in, while Rebecca and Lily could barely touch their duck.
Shelby ate a salad delicately, as though someone had told her that was how she was meant to behave, now that she was a Kissinger.
Rebecca remembered that over the summer, she and Shelby had gone out to get burgers almost weekly, sharing onion rings and fries and never once considering their caloric density.
Health was about balance. Rebecca had always thought that she’d taught her children that. How had Shelby unlearned it so quickly?
“I suppose we should make a toast,” Jim said, halfway through the meal. He raised his glass of wine and regarded Shelby and Jared. “This has all been very fast. But love is love, I suppose. Welcome to the family, Mrs. Kissinger.”
In one fell swoop, Jim had annihilated Shelby’s real name.
It disgusted Rebecca. More than that, it made her feel as though Fred had died all over again.
After their meal, there wasn’t much left to do.
It was snowing again, and Jared wanted to get back to Cambridge as soon as possible, as he had a paper to write.
Shelby wanted to do a few things at home, as well.
By then, Shelby and Jared were sharing an apartment not far from the Harvard campus, where they frequently hosted dinner parties and where Shelby acted the part of a brilliant hostess.
Rebecca ached to ask more questions about Shelby’s time there.
She wanted to know if Shelby missed school, or if she at all communicated with her old professors, or if any of Jared’s Harvard friends recognized Shelby’s intellect.
But these were not questions Rebecca could ask in front of Jared, she knew.
On the drive back to Nantucket, Rebecca couldn’t stop shaking, so much so that Chad suggested he drive the rest of the way. Rebecca got into the back seat and pressed her forehead against the cold glass, listening as Lily and Chad talked about how “weird” the Kissingers were.
“Do you think Shelby knows how weird they are?” Chad asked, his hands at ten-and-two on the wheel.
“I don’t know. Shelby was always so receptive,” Lily said. “But love has blinded her, I guess?”
“It’s scary,” Chad said. “I don’t want to lose my personality over anyone.”
Lily reached over and patted her brother’s shoulder. “I won’t let you.”
Rebecca felt nauseated with her own sorrow.
She felt as though they were driving away from Shelby, away from any concept of helping her.
She felt as though they were trying to make peace with the fact that she wasn't in their lives anymore. Rebecca wasn’t sure how to handle that.
She told herself she’d fight it for as long as she lived.
But what if she didn’t have the strength?