Chapter 3 #2
On the morning of their departure, Hannah watched as Minnie dragged her three suitcases to the minivan Hannah had purchased secondhand last week, thinking it best to trade in her more expensive vehicle for something more affordable and less of a gas-guzzler.
It was not yet seven, but Hannah had been awake since five, panicking and drinking too much coffee.
Impossibly, it was the middle of April and a little less than a month since the article had been published.
Minnie hadn’t gone back to school once, and although Hannah had officially told the state that she was homeschooling her, Minnie hadn’t let Hannah close enough to deal with any math problems or agree to read a book.
As far as Hannah knew, Minnie had been watching television and scrolling the internet since Gavin had broken up with her, all of her friends had abandoned her, and her father had disappeared without a trace.
Try as she might, Hannah couldn’t help but shed a few tears as they left Miami.
Although she wasn’t from that hot Florida city, she’d lived there since her early twenties, and so much of her career had been built here.
She considered asking Minnie what she was thinking.
But she was too afraid to get screamed at, so she kept her mouth shut.
Minnie had her headphones on, ignoring her mother, her head tucked away in a hood. Hannah bit her lip to keep from crying.
It was clear that Minnie wasn’t going to help her on the route to Nantucket.
So Hannah did what she’d done as a younger woman: she followed the signs, kept tabs on traffic, and headed north.
She was on her own. She flicked through radio stations, listened to podcasts, and tried to avoid the dark pit in the back of her mind that told her she was awful, that she’d destroyed her life.
Sometimes, unbidden, her mind provided an image of Kendall on a beach somewhere, drinking a cocktail, with a very hot young woman on his arm. It felt impossible that Hannah had ever fallen in love with him, let alone built a life with him.
She’d always been told that she had good instincts when it came to journalism. But it was clear that those same instincts didn’t prompt action when it came to things like falling in love or becoming a mother. Please, forgive me, she wanted to say to Minnie a thousand times a day.
Incredibly, Hannah kept to her driving schedule.
They reached their hotels every evening at around six thirty.
They hopped out, grabbed their backpacks, checked in, then ordered room service and watched a film on the large TV in front of their bed.
They were cozy, intimate hours with Minnie, Hannah knew.
She was grateful for them. But Minnie still hardly spoke to her.
Despite all that, Hannah still let Minnie pick the films they watched—mostly rom-coms that spoke to Minnie’s deep and unending heartbreak about losing Gavin.
In each film, Hannah wanted to point out that the heroine always met the love of her life after the “awful” one dumped her.
But she didn’t want to call Gavin “awful” so soon after Minnie had lost him.
Once, she allowed herself to think that Kendall was the “awful” one that Hannah had lost, right before meeting the actual love of her life.
But one look in the mirror made her laugh at that.
She was puffy-eyed, always sleep-deprived, and she’d sold most of her nicer clothes for cash. Who would fall in love with her now?
When they reached Hyannis Port at five thirty on the third day of driving, it was a blustery fifty-two degrees. “In Miami, this would be winter,” Minnie grumbled, wrapping up in another layer as Hannah drove their car onto the ferry.
Hannah felt a strange jolt of fear. For some reason, she’d thought going north and getting out of the Florida humidity and stickiness would be a good thing; that it would feel refreshing.
But now, she pictured herself and Minnie just as they’d been in Florida, in separate rooms down the hall from one another, but shivering.
Hannah squeezed the steering wheel harder.
The first time they saw Nantucket Island from the middle deck of the ferry was under the cover of darkness.
Lights speckled along the edge of the thirty-mile-wide island.
As it was still before tourist season, only a few islanders were on the ferry itself.
Most of them wore thick coats and rain jackets and hats, showing Hannah just how awfully she’d prepared for the move.
She hoped there would be somewhere to shop tomorrow, somewhere where she and Minnie could have a shopping montage that suited one of Minnie’s rom-com films. She imagined them trying on puffy jackets and flipping their hair.
“It’s cold,” Minnie repeated, looking at Hannah as though she’d been the very one to bring the cold rain.
“It’ll warm up,” Hannah said as they headed back to the car after the announcement. “Summers on Nantucket are legendary. You’ll see.” She said it as though she’d experienced one herself.
The drive from the ferry to the new beach house, where Hannah had decided they would live together in the wake of “what she’d done,” was only fifteen minutes.
The real estate agent had explained that she’d left the keys under the welcome mat, which felt overly informal but just fine with Hannah.
Small places like this had their own sets of rules.
But after they pulled into the driveway, Hannah and Minnie sat in silence for a full minute, looking up at their new place.
It was more ragged than it had looked on the internet, its shutters mangled from the winds, and a few windows boarded over.
Hannah remembered that Natalie had called it a fixer-upper. It was so much more—and less—than that.
Minnie looked on the verge of tears.
“It’s romantic,” Hannah said, attempting to convince both herself and her daughter. “I mean, look at it! It’s got so much to it. Character!”
“It’s filled with ghosts,” Minnie shot back.
Hannah thought this was an apt description, but she didn’t want to agree.
“Come on.” She got out, whipped her hood over her head, and hurried to the welcome mat, which she flipped up to find the key.
Wonderful. At least that had worked! She used it to open the front door, willing herself to feel a moment of euphoria, of completion.
Upon entering, a mildew smell was in the air—and a dripping sound.
Hannah beckoned for Minnie to join her. In the car, Minnie rolled her eyes, then got up, trudging up the walkway and entering the house.
By then, Hannah was already in the kitchen, assessing the cabinets and the stove.
Some of the bulbs in the house worked, and some didn’t.
But the stove worked, as did the fridge.
Everything was clean. Still, she couldn’t find the source of the dripping sound—but maybe it was outside?
She heard Minnie let out an awful whimper. Hannah yearned to run into the foyer and wrap her daughter in a hug. But she knew Minnie wouldn’t allow it, that she’d reject her mother.
“Mom,” Minnie called. There was urgency in her voice. “Mom, there’s water on the floor.”
Hannah took off, racing to where Minnie had walked down the hall, toward the bathroom. There, water dripped nonstop from the upper floor, indicating a roof leak and likely far more water on the second floor. Hannah inhaled sharply to mask her inward groan.
Minnie gave Hannah a look that said she blamed her for everything and that she would never forgive her. Hannah shivered. Who had taught Minnie to look at her like that? Of course, it had been Kendall—the man who’d hated Hannah the most.
“It’s a fixer-upper!” Hannah reminded Minnie. “It was built more than a hundred years ago. It has so much history!”
Minnie continued to blink at her. Hannah wondered if she’d ever speak to her again.