Chapter 20
It was around nine thirty at night, and Julien and Hannah were on the back porch of the old Kaiser house yet again, sipping wine and watching the stars twinkle over the water. Incredibly, it was June and months out from the worst days of Hannah’s life back in Miami.
She felt like she’d survived a massive catastrophe. Sometimes she struggled seeing everything that had happened to her, as though that massive catastrophe had been captured in an old photograph that hadn’t come out quite right.
She practiced the story on herself. I was married to a terrible man, but I got through it. My daughter is all right. We’re going to move on.
She inhaled the scents of salty air, of the now familiar Julien beside her in the rocking chair, of the wood they’d sanded on the newly built steps in the hall.
It felt like everything was settling into place, building a foundation for her next years of life.
She loved it. And if she was being honest with herself—which she always wanted to be—she had to admit she was falling for Julien.
He was steady and kind. He made her laugh. She couldn’t believe she’d found him.
She couldn’t believe they’d found one another.
They hadn’t kissed, not yet. But they’d spent hours with one another, both in conversation and in silence, working on the house, eating burgers, drinking wine.
He’d told her about his wife, about the accident that had taken her from him.
And now, as the night grew darker above them, they spoke about their childhoods—about Hannah’s, so far away in the Midwest, and about Julien’s, here in Nantucket.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise that it had been hard.
“Two sisters,” Julien said softly. “My mother struggled to keep track of everything, especially early on. My father was not an easy man to know.”
Hannah felt the distance. She felt the reticence. She waited for him to explain, sensing that this was one of those stories that built up the foundation of Julien’s life. She wanted to know everything.
“It wasn’t completely his fault,” Julien declared, his fingertips drawing lines over the rocking chair’s arm.
“His father was often away at sea, and his family didn’t have much money.
My dad started working from an early age.
We’re talking eleven, twelve. It was a different time.
But everything was on his shoulders. And when his dad was home, he beat him to within an inch of his life.
So, when he grew up, married my mother, and had kids, he didn’t know how to handle his own emotions. He drank, which made everything worse.”
Hannah sensed already where this was going. Her heart thudded for Julien, for a story that he seemed never to tell.
“The first time I remember my dad hurting my mom, I was maybe three or four,” Julien said.
“I was outside on the porch, watching through the screen door. He was angry about something. Maybe he didn’t like dinner?
That was a pretty common theme. And he threw her across the living room, like she was a rag doll.
I couldn’t really understand what I was seeing, but I cried and cried.
He went upstairs, leaving my mother to tend to me and my tears. ”
Julien’s eyes were rimmed with red. Hannah touched his shoulder, her heart swelling.
People like Julien’s father should never have been allowed to marry and have children, not without years of therapy.
But she knew people like Julien’s father had had many, many children.
Millions of children, probably. And those children were dealing with all this trauma.
Julien carried on, talking about the abuse that, eventually, his father had inflicted on Julien and his sisters, Lily and Quinn.
“I tried to fight him a few times. I wanted to protect my mom and my sisters,” Julien explained.
“But he just laughed at me. He gave me a black eye once, and I was too proud to say it was from him, so at school, I told everyone that I’d fallen off a ladder.
I guess nobody believed me. Maybe that was when word really got out that my father was who he was.
Perhaps that was the beginning of the end. ”
Something in his words rattled Hannah. She sat upright in her chair. “Did he get arrested?”
Julien offered her a crooked smile, one that mystified her.
“Something like that, I guess. It was an awful, dark time. It wasn’t so long after that that he died, actually.
The funeral was quite a day for me. I was ten, and I had to wear a suit and try to keep track of my sisters and try to handle my mother, who couldn’t stop crying.
I think she thought it was the end of all things.
She’d married a creep, and that creep had died and left her with three kids to tend to.
I remember her saying to me, ‘Is this the end of my life?’”
Hannah could hardly speak. There was such darkness pouring out of Julien. All she could do was offer empathy, tenderness.
“I’ll never forget the wake,” Julien said. “We were eating sandwiches in the kitchen of Eleanor Pike’s place. And…”
“Eleanor Pike?” Hannah furrowed her brow. For some reason, the name rang a bell.
“You must have met her at Thomas Bard’s wake,” Julien said. “The older woman with the hat? Very tall.”
“And very scary,” Hannah said, nodding. “She held your father’s wake?”
“I think she felt it was her duty. She wanted to watch over my mother,” Julien said.
He seemed to be choosing his words carefully, as though there was an invisible boundary he knew he couldn’t cross.
Hannah didn’t know why she thought that.
But there it was. “Anyway, she told me that I had to take care of my mother now. That it was up to me to hold up my family and, in the process, honor Nantucket’s history and everything that had come before. ”
Hannah gaped at him. “You were ten. Why would she say that?”
Julien brought his shoulders to his ears, as though the idea had never occurred to him.
As though it were common to tell a ten-year-old to take the reins.
But all at once, Julien was on his feet, abandoning the rest of his glass of wine.
“I’d better be on my way,” he said. “I’m needed at the dock bright and early tomorrow. ”
Hannah hated to see him go. She worried she’d said something wrong, that she hadn’t held his story appropriately, that she’d failed him in some way.
She got up and followed him to the foyer, watching with desperation as he zipped his Carhartt.
For some reason, she wanted him to stay.
Perhaps she wanted him to stay the night, although she knew it was too soon.
Maybe it would never happen at all.
Just before she got up the nerve to say something, the door burst open to reveal Minnie.
She was red-cheeked and gasping, as though she’d just finished sobbing.
Hannah knew it had to be Viggo, that already, that islander had broken her darling daughter’s heart.
Anger shot through her. But when she peered behind Minnie to find Viggo and his convertible, there was nothing.
“Is everything all right?” Julien asked Minnie, beating Hannah to the punch.
Minnie flared her nostrils and looked at first Hannah, then Julien. “Everything is fine,” she said, trying to fix her face. But she’d never been a good actress, bless her.
“Did Viggo drive you home?” Hannah asked.
“Yes?” Minnie glared back.
“Did you have a fight?” Hannah asked.
Minnie rolled her eyes. “No! We did not!” She tugged at her hair, then bowed her head and barreled up the newly built stairs. She didn’t comment on how smooth and straight they were now. But Hannah knew better than to expect something like that from a teenager.
When Hannah returned her gaze to Julien, he offered her a soft smile.
“I would like to see you tomorrow,” he said gently. “I always want to see you.”
Hannah’s heart cracked at the edges. “Me too.” She told herself to rise on her tiptoes and kiss him.
She told herself to make the first move.
But before she could, he bent down and kissed her.
Her knees turned to goo, and her heart melted in her chest. And for a few seconds, they remained in a gorgeous and warm embrace.
Hannah couldn’t remember Kendall ever kissing her like this.
She couldn’t remember ever giving in like this.
She couldn’t remember such glorious love.
When their kiss broke, they were too embarrassed to say much of anything. Julien raised his hand and said, “Good night,” then disappeared into the darkness, where he dipped into his pickup and drove away.
Upstairs, Hannah knocked on Minnie’s door and asked if she could come in. But Minnie asked Hannah for privacy, telling her, “I’m just upset, okay? I can’t talk.”
Hannah’s heart couldn’t take the delirious joy from the kiss and the horror of her daughter’s heartbreak.
She sighed inwardly and said, “I’m going to make you some popcorn, okay?
I’ll set it outside your door.” She went downstairs and popped a big bag of it, then came back and delivered it with a bottle of sparkling water and a note on which Hannah had written I love you.
It was all she could do.
An hour or so later, Hannah fell asleep. When she woke up in the morning, she saw that Minnie had, eventually, taken the popcorn and sparkling water. Hannah was pleased about this. An appetite was an important thing in a young woman. It was important for everyone!
Hannah decided to go downstairs and start breakfast. Back in college, back when she’d wanted to be very trim to keep up with the interests of that handsome and manipulative business student, Kendall Moore, Hannah had never eaten breakfast. She’d hardly eaten anything at all.
But—even if Viggo had broken up with Minnie—Hannah didn’t want Minnie to whittle herself down to nothing.
She wanted her to start the day with nutrients.
Maybe they could do something together today. Go for a hike or go to the beach. Maybe, just for today, Hannah would tell Julien she had plans and pour all her energy into time with Minnie.
But midway through chopping an onion for the omelet, Minnie appeared in the kitchen, bug-eyed and nervous. She wore a dress, and her hair was brushed and styled. Hannah was confused. “Sit down and have some breakfast?” she suggested.
“I have to go,” Minnie said. She seemed to be breathing just as desperately as she had been last night.
“You don’t have to go that fast,” Hannah said. “Tell me about last night, at least. And where are you going?”
“It’s Viggo,” Minnie said. “We, um. We have to talk. And then, we’re going to a party?
At a beach.” She stuttered slightly, then added, “I really do feel good about living here, Mom. I’m happy.
I was just a little upset last night. We got into a small fight, and yeah. But I’m clear about everything now.”
Hannah still had her knife poised over the onion. Something about Minnie’s expression didn’t sit right with her. But she couldn’t put her finger on it.
“You know, you can talk to me?” Hannah finally offered.
“I know.” Minnie seemed rushed. Quickly, she came up, hugged Hannah tightly, then fled the kitchen, ducking through the foyer and onto the porch.
Hannah set down her knife and followed her daughter outside. But already, Minnie was gone, lost to a Nantucket teenage society Hannah couldn’t understand.
Right before Hannah turned to go back inside, she saw something sticking out of the old-fashioned mailbox, which was nailed to the wall outside the front door.
Usually, they got mail in the bigger mailbox down by the road.
Curious, she opened it to find an envelope addressed to her.
Something about the handwriting triggered a memory, although Hannah couldn’t place it at first. She opened it to find an invitation.
It’s time we met. 134 Sherburne Way. 8 p.m. tonight. Bring only yourself.
Hannah’s ears rang. A mysterious letter?
A mysterious invitation? She knew it couldn’t be Julien’s handwriting, and she guessed it didn’t belong to his mother, either, as she was living in a retirement facility and losing her memory.
Hannah returned to the kitchen, where she still kept many of the letters Georgia Kaiser had received in a pile off to the side.
She’d been so focused on falling for Julien and building up the house that she’d nearly forgotten about them.
Suddenly frantic, Hannah began going through the letters, trying to find a match. It took her a little more than five minutes, but eventually, she found a letter addressed to Georgia, written in the mid-eighties.
I really think it’s time to do something about Larry Mansfield. We’ve waited too long. Yours, Eleanor Pike.
Hannah could hardly breathe. Mansfield was Julien’s last name.
Was Larry Mansfield Julien’s father? He’d mentioned that the wake was held at Eleanor Pike’s place. He’d mentioned her pointedly, as though he’d wanted Hannah to know her name.
And now, the very next morning, here was Eleanor Pike, reaching out to Hannah. Hannah knew in her heart of hearts that Eleanor Pike was connected to the Legacy Club. Maybe she was the center of it and their leader for the past few decades.
Hannah knew it was dangerous to enter Eleanor’s house without any protection. But she couldn’t bring herself not to go.