Chapter 15
At nine thirty on a sticky-hot evening in July, Rebecca’s mother appeared in the doorway of the restaurant kitchen, hands on her hips and magic in her eyes. “Leave those dishes for the dishwashers, honey,” she said. “Come on. We just opened a bottle of white.”
Rebecca was unstable on her feet. After a six-hour rush, she’d worked herself to the bone. Now, feeling a little guilty about leaving the rest of the staff for cleanup but eager to sit, she followed her mother out to the porch of the Sutton Book Club, where her two sisters waited, smiling.
“You outdid yourself today, Sis,” Bethany said, squeezing her shoulder. “What was in that sauce?”
“I’ll never tell,” she said, laughing. She collapsed in the chair between her sisters and reached for her glass.
“Weren’t you just talking about retiring last week?” Valerie teased her.
“I don’t know how she’ll ever manage to retire,” Esme said. “She’s getting better year after year.”
“Ha. I don’t know about that.” Rebecca smiled to herself and gazed out along the gorgeous street, where tourists and locals milled about, eating ice cream cones and discussing their days at sea.
There was a peace that came from being downtown late at night, a feeling that the entire island was interconnected and there for one another, a feeling that everyone was eager to stay up all night long, telling stories and secrets.
Just then, Hilary Salt and her longtime best friend Stella appeared at the bottom of the steps. They’d clearly just had dinner and maybe a glass of wine, and they were smiley and thrilled to see the Suttons.
“Join us!” Esme said, getting up to make space at the table.
Rebecca had always liked Hilary Salt. Hilary was the daughter of a famous Swedish actress and the mother of another famous American actress, and probably because of all that movie money coming in, she lived in one of the more iconic mansions on Nantucket.
There, she ran a little club she called the Salt Sisters, a gathering of women who’d encountered tremendous pockets of grief in their lifetimes.
Rebecca had been invited along several times.
Her breakup with her daughter and the loss of her husband were not secrets on this island.
Hilary Salt and her Salt Sisters were receptive to that.
But Rebecca was often too busy at the restaurant to make time to see them.
“How has your summer been, ladies?” Esme asked, reaching for a fresh bottle of wine from the cooler to fix their glasses.
“Another gorgeous summer on Nantucket,” Hilary said, shaking her head. “Sometimes it’s hard to believe how lucky we are!”
Stella nodded and spoke about a golden retriever puppy she’d recently adopted. All the Suttons bent down to see the photographs. They agreed that he was the cutest puppy they’d ever seen.
“I know you have to say that,” Stella said, pocketing her phone, “but he’s brought a whole lot of joy to my life.”
“A new era,” Valerie said. “We all need that.”
Rebecca’s heart surged. For some reason, she was thinking about Shelby, about the new era that she and Jared had created for themselves in Montana. Why did they have to go so far away? Why did Jared have to be so needlessly cruel? Why had her daughter needed a new era away from Rebecca?
At the table, the conversation turned to other things, allowing Rebecca a long time to stew and sip her wine.
Suddenly, she felt someone’s hand on her knee and nearly jumped out of her skin. It was her mother, leaning toward her, checking in. “You all right, honey?” Esme asked.
“Of course!” Rebecca straightened her spine and returned to their conversation, trying to pretend that she’d never drifted. But Hilary Salt gave her a look that told her she knew exactly where her head had gone, and why.
“Your son’s getting married this summer,” Stella said to Rebecca.
“He is. We’re so lucky,” Rebecca said. “Jenny is a wonderful girl. It’s so hard to know what will happen, but we think and hope they’ll be really happy together.”
“Chad’s one of the good ones,” Hilary agreed.
Rebecca knew that many of the Salt Sisters had initially been married to men who’d cheated or wronged them in some way.
They’d used up all their money or left them in terrible lurches.
They’d dug their wives into holes out of which they’d had to crawl themselves.
But no, Chad wasn’t like that. He was a responsible, hard-working, loving young man.
Like his father before him. Like his stepfather before him.
Suddenly, Esme picked up her phone and yelped.
“What is it, Mom?” Valerie was stricken.
Esme had her hand over her mouth. Whatever was on her screen captivated her.
“You’re freaking us out, Mom,” Bethany said, her nostrils flared.
Esme’s eyes snapped up, and she put the phone face-down on the table. “The Sutton Book Club just got an email,” she explained.
“A business thing?” Bethany asked.
Esme took a deep breath, then pulled her eyes back to Rebecca. “Yeah. We’ll talk about it in a bit, though. I don’t want to break up the party.”
Hilary seemed to sense that this meant “family-only.” She brushed her thighs with the palms of her hands and said, “We’d better get going, actually. Thanks again for the glass of wine! Always a pleasure to see the Suttons. And you know, you’re always welcome at our little get-togethers.”
Hilary gave Rebecca an especially pointed look as Rebecca, her sisters, and her mother wished Hilary and Stella well.
When Hilary and Stella had turned the corner and left the Sutton women alone at the dark table, around which, now, fireflies and tealights emitted the only light, Rebecca turned to her mother. She demanded, “Was that really just a work email?”
Esme nodded to the right. “No.”
It was clear from her pale and furtive expression that Esme was frightened. Rebecca’s pulse quickened. Maybe someone was threatening the Sutton Book Club again? It seemed like they were always fighting against people who wanted to tear it down to make way for some terrible shopping mall or hotel.
Slowly, Esme picked up the phone and handed it to Rebecca. “It’s best if you read it yourself.”
Rebecca reached for he reading glasses—a relatively new need in her life—and propped them on her nose. She read:
Dear Sutton Family,
You do not know me, and I do not know you. This email feels like a shot in the dark, but I figured that I had to try something, even if my worries are unfounded.
My name is Vivian Lynch. I live in Livingston, Montana, down the stream from a growing family called the Kissingers.
I imagine this is ringing a bell for you.
If I’m reading your “about” page on the Sutton Book Club website correctly, Shelby is Esme’s granddaughter and Chef Rebecca’s daughter.
The only reason I found the site is that Shelby slipped up and told me a little about herself.
I never would have imagined her doing that. She’s usually quite cagey.
I first came into contact with Shelby and her three children in May.
I was new here in the mountains, and I saw them playing in the stream.
I was thrilled to have new neighbors, especially cute kids and a nice-looking mom, so I crossed the stream to say hello.
I knew at once that this was the wrong thing to do.
Shelby did NOT want me to be over there.
Out of politeness, she gave me something to eat, then seemed to stare at me, wanting me to leave, until I did.
But something I noticed that first day was the bruise all over her wrist.
After that, I went on high alert. In town, I asked around who lived in that house and what kind of husband Shelby was married to, and I soon learned that Jared Kissinger is one of the top businessmen in the area.
Everyone—and I mean everyone from the guy who cleans the bathrooms at the bar to the guy who sells bus tickets to the woman who makes fresh pastries in town—dislikes him.
Everyone wanted to tell me a story about how he had wronged them, or belittled them, or made them feel as though they no longer belonged in a town they’d grown up in.
Obviously, this got me thinking. I didn’t want to immediately assume that the bruises on Shelby’s wrist came from her husband. But if he’s really such a piece of work, I was beginning to believe that his anger and volatility extended to domestic violence, as well.
Here in my cabin, all alone by the stream, I could not sleep.
Almost every day, I walked past that area in the stream, praying that Shelby and the kids would come out and play again.
But I thought maybe I’d spooked her. I was too scared to go up to the house and ring the doorbell.
I knew that Jared was suspicious of strangers in town, and I didn’t want to get Shelby in trouble.
Lucky for me, I finally saw Shelby again at the stream.
This was two days ago. This time, I realized that she’s pregnant—which adds even more urgency to my mission, I think.
And this time, as I already mentioned, she slipped up and told me about the Sutton Book Club.
To me, it seemed like a cry for help. She wanted me to know about her past and her family—a family that I hope still loves her a great deal—if only to help her out of there.
Am I insane to think that? I don’t know. But I don’t like the idea of Shelby raising her four children with that man down the stream. I don’t like the idea of any woman being trapped with a man so domineering and disliked by an entire population of good mountain people.
I don’t know where we go from here. Maybe you’ve been through all this before and are too tired of fighting. But if for some reason you want to fight to get Shelby back, my proximity to her house could be a Godsend.
My number is listed below. Give me a call or write me back if you want to. I’m retired and single with nothing to do but worry. I’ll be available, no matter what.
Yours, Vivian Lynch
Rebecca’s stomach heaved. Already, she was on her feet, trying to find the door.
She needed water. She needed a bathroom.
She needed to press her face into a pillow and scream.
Once inside, she felt her mother’s hand on her back, helping to guide her to the kitchen.
Vivian and Bethany were behind her, and they made themselves into a little silent and doomed train, all the way to the sink, where they filled their glasses and blinked at one another.
“I can’t believe it,” Rebecca breathed. “He’s…” She could hardly say it: that Jared was hurting her baby. That there were bruises on her beautiful body. That, even though she was pregnant yet again with his child, he’d decided to abuse her.
She was sick and sweaty and shaking. Bethany took her hand and guided her to a chair at the kitchen table, into which she fell. Bethany and Valerie looked at one another as though searching for answers.
“It looks to me like we’re going to Montana,” Esme said, a snarl in her voice. “We’re getting Shelby back, and we’re not taking no for an answer.”
Rebecca put her hand over her mouth. She wasn’t sure how to face this.
Over and over, she was reminded of when she’d gone to Montana, supposedly to “get Shelby back,” only to be asked to leave.
She remembered how meek and frightened Shelby had looked, a new mother with a screaming, tired, hungry baby, a new wife with a screaming, tired, hungry husband.
She’d been twenty-two at the time and far too young.
“I should have protected her,” Rebecca whispered now, thinking of not only that day in Montana but of all the days before that, of Shelby’s wedding day, of the day Shelby had brought Jared home for dinner and he’d diminished the qualifications of female writers.
“She didn’t want to be protected,” Valerie whispered. “She fell in love with him, and she thought love was enough.”
“But who told her love was enough?” Rebecca asked, her voice shaking.
“Fred and I had a wonderful marriage. We talked about everything. Did we fight? Of course we did, sometimes. But I always thought that we gave our kids a good idea of what to expect in a healthy partnership. I always thought we taught them what love is.”
“It’s easy to get twisted up in ideas of love,” Valerie said.
“I’ve seen it a lot in the wedding business.
I can’t tell you how often I’ve seen relationships fall apart a few weeks before they were supposed to walk down the aisle, all because the woman realized there wasn’t respect in her relationship.
It’s always like she wakes up from some wedding fantasy and realizes that the man in front of her doesn’t actually like her.
” Valerie took a sharp breath. “But it doesn’t always happen before the wedding.
Sometimes it happens after. Years after. ”
“Do you always know it’s coming?” Bethany asked.
Valerie closed her eyes. “I usually know.”
Esme squeezed Rebecca’s hand. “You can protect your children. You can give them all the information you have. You can try and try and try. But they’re still going to make their own mistakes, honey. That’s the nature of all of it.”
Rebecca didn’t know what to say. When she closed her eyes, all she could see was Shelby and her three—three! —children next to a glittering mountain stream. With a fourth baby on the way, Shelby was going to need more help than ever.
“I need to get home,” Rebecca said suddenly, yanking herself up so that her chair rattled onto the ground behind her. “I need to look at flights. I need to go.”