Chapter 19
Present Day
It was the day after Hilary had read the article in People magazine. She was out on the Tigerlily with all nine of the other Salt Sisters, wearing a black bikini and sipping a glass of sparkling water with lemon. It was an impossibly beautiful day, but she felt at a great distance from it, as though she couldn’t fully feel the sun on her face or the water dripping down her legs as she dried. The Salt Sisters’ laughter echoed overhead, bouncing off the nearby cliff. Quiet and contemplative, Hilary rolled through her feelings about this incredible miracle: Ingrid had stood up for her. Ingrid, the daughter she’d thought never wanted to know her at all. Ingrid, the little girl who’d hated her so much she’d asked her to stop trying to see her.
And then, she remembered something else. That night at Rodrick’s, he’d said, “We need to talk about her.” Hilary had known he meant Ingrid; it was the reason she’d run as quickly away from him as she could, as though he planned to hurt her. But she hadn’t known why he’d brought her up. She hadn’t even known that Rodrick and Ingrid were estranged.
She brought this up with Stella now. “I always thought they were thick as thieves,” Hilary explained nervously. “She rejected her mother and put her entire faith in her father.”
Because she paid attention to the tabloids, Stella had an immediate answer.
“She resented him for making her do a series of films she didn’t want to do,” she explained. “She did an interview ten years ago or so about it. She said that her agent—”
“Janice?”
“Yeah. Maybe. She said that Janice and her father had too much control over her career, and she wanted to step away from both of them and make her own choices. That’s when her films got really exciting.” Stella’s blond hair flew wildly around her, and Hilary was reminded of a wheat field on a windy day.
Hilary’s heart thudded. “I never saw any of her films after Curious Agent.”
Rose perked up on the opposite side of the boat. “Really? None of them?”
“It hurt too much.”
Katrina nodded furiously. “That makes sense.”
The other Salt Sisters echoed this sentiment.
“Maybe it’s finally time,” Hilary said, furrowing her brow. Curiosity was getting the better of her. She knew that the world regarded Ingrid Salt as a singular talent—the sort that came around only every other generation, maybe. Now, the mother of Ingrid Salt needed to know just how good she was.
She braced herself for forthcoming pain, then laughed at herself. All she’d done her entire life was brace herself from pain. That hadn’t stopped it from hurting.
After sunset, Hilary drove home with the Porsche top down, made herself a big bowl of popcorn, and set herself up in front of the big screen. She’d decided on A Walk Through Time, the second film Ingrid had won an Oscar for. It was said her performance was incendiary. An article in The New Yorker explained that other actresses now copied Ingrid Salt’s mannerisms, hoping to become as good as she was. But Hilary knew it was futile. Ingrid had inherited Isabella’s genes. They were timeless and resistant to imitation.
Throughout the film, Hilary was frozen with fear. She hardly touched her popcorn.
Ingrid Salt was sensational. She mapped out the intricacies of a woman on the brink of a nervous breakdown in a way that echoed Isabella’s very real nervous breakdown. There were echoes, too, of Hilary’s own near-breakdown when she’d fought tooth and nail for custody over Ingrid—and failed. Hilary wondered if Ingrid had taken inspiration from that era. A blush crawled up her neck. She couldn’t look away.
It was the first time Hilary had seen her daughter walking and talking as an adult woman. It felt like time travel.
The last time Hilary had seen her, Ingrid had been seventeen years old and hot off the press tour for a teenage drama that seemed, to Hilary, inappropriate for a girl her age. Hilary had struggled to keep that opinion to herself. When she’d finally expressed her concerns, Ingrid’s eye rolls had been sensational.
By that time, Rodrick had twisted Ingrid’s image of Hilary so remarkably that Hilary knew her days with Ingrid were numbered. Even the way Ingrid looked at her in that hotel restaurant in Manhattan made Hilary feel as though she had three heads. Hilary ordered a burger; Ingrid drank a smoothie. Ingrid’s stomach rumbled, but Hilary knew not to push her to eat anything more. Ingrid was apt to send her away at a moment’s notice. She looked miserable and stick thin. At the time, Ingrid was dating a teen heart-throb pop star who was rumored to be cheating on her. Hilary longed to give her advice about that, too. But she was terrified of saying so. Although Hilary remembered what it had been like to be a teenager, she had no idea what it was like to be scrutinized so completely under the public eye. Once, she’d read an article that hyper-fixated on Ingrid’s body—and spent the entire day in bed, sobbing. Her baby! Her perfect child! The world was destroying her.
So in that hotel restaurant, they talked about easy things. About Ingrid’s wardrobe for the recent film. About Isabella Helin films. They talked about a vacation they’d taken when Ingrid was a girl before she’d gone to the boarding school. Before Isabella had died. Before Rodrick had cheated.
Briefly, Hilary told Ingrid about her best friends, the Salt Sisters. And Ingrid said, “I’m glad you have friends, Mom.” It was a moment of compassion that nearly killed her.
When Ingrid turned eighteen, Hilary sent her beautiful gifts. A silk dress. Very expensive boots. Flight vouchers to come to Nantucket to visit whenever she wanted. It wasn’t that Ingrid Salt wanted for anything. It was just that Hilary, being her mother, still wanted to provide.
But after Ingrid turned eighteen, she stopped taking Hilary’s calls for good. Hilary never learned why. But it was a bit like being raked over hot coals or thrown out of an airplane without a parachute. It was the very worst breakup of Hilary’s life even though she’d hardly had a relationship with her daughter in the first place. But this was Ingrid’s choice. She had to respect it.
Hilary had spent the past thirteen years pretending she didn’t have a daughter. The Salt Sisters had followed suit, never reminding her of her gorgeous, world-famous daughter until now.
After watching A Walk Through Time, Hilary found another of Ingrid’s films and watched that, too. She stayed up till dawn, inching through Ingrid’s filmography. She wouldn’t be done for days. She entered a sort of psychosis as she worked through Ingrid’s life, googling articles from various eras of Ingrid’s life to get a sense of who she was dating, where she’d been living, and what her hair and makeup had looked like. Unlike most other actresses in her generation, Ingrid hadn’t yet opted for plastic surgery. Many people on the internet called her “brave” for that. Ingrid didn’t understand. Ingrid Salt was perfect already. Why overdo it?
When Hilary finished Ingrid’s adult filmography, she rewatched Curious Agent. There on screen, her darling daughter pranced across the fake suburbs of Ohio. Hilary had selected every outfit she’d worn, even the bright yellow rainboots that splashed through fake puddles. Ingrid had loved them so much that they’d taken them home, where she’d worn right through them and wept when they had to throw them out.
Hilary met back up with the Salt Sisters for a barbecue and explained what she’d done.
“Every single Ingrid Salt film?” Katrina asked, her eyes wide.
“I didn’t do a whole lot else,” Hilary admitted.
There was a moment of silence. Even Robby recognized the seriousness of the situation. She was the newest Salt Sister, but she was now tuned in to Hilary’s needs.
Not since the early days of the Salt Sisters had Hilary felt so protected, so safe, so heard.
“You need to reach out to her,” Robby said, breaking the silence. “That People article was like an olive branch. Ingrid wants to talk to you.”
Hilary raised her shoulders. “She spent her whole life trying to get away from me.”
“She regrets it,” Stella said.
Hilary wasn’t so sure. She was burdened with memories. Her head echoed with Ingrid’s teenage angst. “Mom, lighten up. Mom, I’m not hungry. Mom, I have to be in Italy tomorrow. I can’t go out with you. Mom, you have to understand. I’m stressed! Mom, leave me alone!”
“She was just a girl,” Stella repeated softly, touching Hilary’s hand.
“Our children have infinite chances to come back,” Robby said. “I can’t think of anything my kids could do that I wouldn’t forgive.”
Hilary’s heart pounded with recognition. She knew the Salt Sisters were right.
That evening, Hilary visited Ingrid’s agent’s website and found her email address. The agent’s name was Bonnie, and she had a better smile than Janice had—a welcoming one that didn’t immediately say, “I’m going to steal your daughter away from you.”
A quick Google search told Hilary that Janice had gone on to work with three child stars after Ingrid. She’d probably helped to ruin their lives, too.
Hilary wrote to Bonnie, asking for Ingrid’s contact information. She watched herself type: “I’m her mother. We lost touch.” When she felt a wave of patheticness rise up, she pushed it back. This was the only way.
If Ingrid contacted her, great. If she didn’t, fine. She would carry on.
She tried to shove it into the back of her mind. She tried to remember the warmth of the Nantucket summer, the gorgeous breeze, the bright blanket of stars.
A few days later, Hilary was at Stella’s place, helping her look through a humane society website. Stella was pretty sure she was ready for a new dog. She called this “window shopping,” and she’d been doing it for the better part of that week, daydreaming about her new hairy friend. She had a healthy glow already, presumably from imagining this new kind of love. Hilary had said, “Stella, you’re a dog person! You’ve always been a dog person! Make yourself happy!”
Hilary’s phone rang. She flinched, then read the name, “Marty Zhang.”
“Who is it?” Stella asked.
“It’s the director of that film.” Hilary frowned, stood, and answered. “Hey! Marty! How are you?” Her voice sounded falsely happy, and she knew it was because she’d learned Marty was good friends with her daughter. Anything she said could get back to Ingrid.
“Hey, Hilary,” Marty said. “I have good news! We have new funding for the film. A different source entirely. We’re going to set back up next week. I know it’s short notice, but what do you say? Can you come back?”
Hilary was flustered. “What? Of course!”
“Great. We’ve already put so much work into it. I can’t wait to finish it out.”
Hilary let her phone fall to her side and blinked at Stella, who had abandoned the image of a Goldendoodle to stare back. “What was that about?”
“The film,” Hilary explained, her heart thudding. “It’s back on.”
“Rodrick had a change of heart?”
“No,” Hilary said. “Something tells me I’ll never see Rodrick again.”
Just saying that aloud felt like a soft breeze across her face. It felt like freedom.