Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Present Day
Addison was at the front desk of the Golden Sunset Hotel on the day after Thanksgiving, staring out at the ocean with her shoulders slumped.
On the beach, her children ran rampant, charging up and down so that the sand whipped out behind their feet.
Each of them seemed to have Seth’s face, Jack’s face.
Each of them seemed to laugh in a way that reminded her of him.
Last night, Charlotte had texted Addison.
Charlotte: Call me. We need to talk.
Terrified, Addison had avoided the message, unable to face whatever it was Charlotte knew, especially now that Francesca Whitmore had asked Jack to come home on the news. What was this “Whitmore treasure”? Why should Addison care?
All night, Addison had twisted through nightmares, discovering horrible things about her husband and what had happened to him. Now, she wasn’t sure if she thought he was dead, or a criminal, or both.
Again, as Addison swam in fear at the hotel’s front desk, Charlotte texted and called. When Addison couldn’t take it anymore, she answered, blurting, “I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know, especially if it’s bad. Please, let me live in peace.”
Charlotte’s voice was sweet and soft, coming at Addison from the opposite side of what felt like the world. “I understand that,” she said. “I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through these past few months.”
Addison sniffed and rubbed her forehead. She willed herself to hang up on Charlotte, but found that she couldn’t. “He’s dead, isn’t he?” she whispered.
“No,” Charlotte said. She sounded clear. “Actually, he’s on a plane to Boston right now. He should be here sometime today. I don’t know what to think about it. The rest of the family doesn’t know yet. But, well. I felt that you deserved to know he’s safe. He’s okay.”
Addison clapped her hand over her mouth.
She realized that Francesca’s plea had worked, that Jack was headed to Nantucket to rejoin his family.
In one fell swoop, everything about the Whitmore dynamic had changed.
They could come out into the open again.
They could acknowledge the past and stop running.
“He doesn’t think you know about him,” Charlotte affirmed gently. “I don’t think he knows what to do about it.”
Addison squeezed her eyes shut. She was still so angry with Seth, with Jack, for not cluing her in to any of this, for marrying her without telling her where he came from and who he was.
“Are you still there?” Charlotte asked.
“I’m here,” Addison said. “I keep telling myself to give up on this. My mother wants me to get divorced. But I’ve already gotten divorced!
” She bit her lip, feeling childish. “What I mean is, I love Seth. Jack. Whatever. I love him so much. I love our children, and I love our life. But I feel resentful because I got into this marriage thinking we were on one road, but we’re on another.
And I don’t know if I want to be on that road. ”
Charlotte seemed to understand perfectly.
“On July 4th, 1998, everything about my life fell apart,” she said.
“I’ve been juggling a new reality, trying to make sense of my old one.
We all have been. The fact is, you’re a part of that narrative now, too, whether you want to be or not.
The question is, do you want to stay in that narrative? Do you want to be with Jack?”
Addison couldn’t breathe. Before she could answer Charlotte properly, her children propelled back into the hotel lobby, bringing with them waves of sand that she would have to vacuum up later. Their smiles were infectious, even as they apologized.
“I can keep you updated,” Charlotte said.
“My husband abandoned us,” Addison whispered back, not loud enough for her children to hear. “That’s the only reality I really understand. Do you know what I mean?”
Before Charlotte could answer, Addison hung up the phone and turned it off.
More guests came into the hotel to ask her for restaurant recommendations, where to go hiking, and which birds were twittering in the trees outside.
She told herself that this was fine, that this was the life she’d chosen, that she couldn’t very well travel across the continent to ask her husband why he’d spent the entirety of their marriage lying to her. She didn’t have it in her.