Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Present Day
When Addison returned home with the news that her father had cheated on her mother and been blackmailed to the point of bankruptcy, she sat in the kitchen with a glass of wine and stared at the wall for a full hour.
Her kids were out of the house, at various friends’ places for after-school playdates, her mother was upstairs, knitting to keep from going insane, and her father was in the living room, watching sports recaps and snoring intermittently.
She searched her gut for rage toward him. But all she felt was sorrow.
Hugh had betrayed her mother. He’d betrayed the hotel and the previous generations who’d traveled to Hawaii and built the Golden Sunset Hotel.
But the worst of it, she felt, was that he hadn’t been able to come clean.
He’d cheated, he’d been found out, and he’d let his finances and his precious hotel go, all so that he could be seen as a “good family man” till his dying day.
Was it really better to be perceived as a good family man who’d lost everything?
A good family man who hadn’t been able to provide for his family?
Money was tight for most people these days, she knew. The economy was in chaos. But she guessed that her father had decided to use that as a shield against what he’d done.
Another question rattled her: was it possible that her father was still seeing his mistress? Was that part of the reason that he’d decided to pay up and get “A” off his back? Did he want to hold on to his mistress so desperately that he gave everything else up?
Addison pressed her forehead against the table and bit her tongue to keep from crying.
If only Seth were here. She wondered what he’d tell her.
She knew he’d be angry, so angry, but she guessed that he’d have a little bit of compassion for the sad old man who’d done this to them.
She imagined Seth saying, He destroyed his life.
He has nothing left. I can’t imagine what I’d feel.
Addison groaned. After Seth disappeared, she’d put her trust in her mother and father and into her children. But she knew that she couldn’t trust anyone, not really. Anyone was apt to destroy your sense of safety in the world.
And maybe it was this complete sense of hopelessness that led Addison to pick up the phone and call Charlotte on Nantucket Island.
Addison refilled her glass with wine and slowed her breathing, listening as Charlotte’s phone rang and rang.
She kind of hoped that Charlotte wouldn’t answer.
If she didn’t, Addison wouldn’t call her again, nor would she answer any additional calls.
This was Charlotte’s—and therefore Seth’s—last chance.
But fate was on Seth’s side. Charlotte answered on the fourth ring. “Hello?” She sounded hopeful and surprised. A door slammed somewhere. Addison guessed that Charlotte had taken herself away from other family members, hiding the fact of her “friendship” with Addison.
“Hello?” Charlotte asked again. “Addison? Are you there?”
Addison took a sharp breath. “Yeah. I’m here.”
“It’s good to hear from you. I’d sort of given up on it.”
“I know. Me too.” Addison twirled her hair around and around her finger, till a sting of pain entered her head. “Where are you right now? Are you at the place on Madequecham Beach?”
“We are, yeah,” Charlotte said.
“Must be a cold beach.”
“Freezing,” Charlotte agreed. “We’ve gotten plenty of snow this week. The waves look like frozen slush on some days. Gray and terrifying.”
Addison had never seen the ocean like that, not during the winter, not from here in Hawaii. She closed her eyes and tried to visualize it. “And Seth is there with you?”
“He is,” Charlotte said tentatively.
Addison felt crushed with love and anger. She couldn’t believe he was there, alive and well, not with them, not offering any explanations, not making up for lost time. It was nearly Christmas, for goodness’ sake. Did he even remember his children’s names?
Suddenly, against all her better plans, Addison burst with a single sob.
“Oh, Addison,” Charlotte whispered. “Oh, Addison. I’m so sorry.”
Addison told herself to pull it together. There wasn’t time for sobbing to her sister-in-law, who sat somewhere more than a continent away.
“I don’t understand,” Addison said then. “I don’t understand why he’s there and not here.” She was careful to keep her voice down so as not to wake her father in the next room.
Charlotte took a staggered breath. “It’s difficult to explain.”
“Can’t you give me some kind of hint?” Addison shot back. “Don’t you think I deserve it?”
“I think you deserve to hear everything,” Charlotte said. “But I don’t know if I’m the one who should explain.”
Addison was quiet. She felt weighed down by the world's burden.
“Suffice it to say, when he left, Jack was trying to protect you and the life you had together,” Charlotte said.
“He was chasing our uncle, our mother’s brother, this awful man who wants to destroy our family.
He was in Mexico for a while, trying and failing to corner him.
Pretending to be some kind of secret agent.
He wanted to find a way to come back so that he could live as Seth Green again. ”
“Too little, too late, huh?” Addison said, although with all her heart she wished they could go back in time and live as Seth and Addison Green again. She wished they could work at the Golden Sunset Hotel again.
She couldn’t understand how some uncle played into any of this.
“There’s still so much to explain,” Charlotte said.
“Stories you can’t possibly know. Our mother has cancer, and it’s put a strain on all of us.
Jack’s been taking her to her chemotherapy appointments.
She won’t go with anyone else. She thought he was dead all these years, and now he’s back, willing her to get better.
It’s beautiful, but it’s also so surreal. Am I making sense?”
Addison didn’t know what to say. She could picture her darling Seth with that beautiful Italian woman she’d seen on the news, holding her hand as she went through chemo.
She wondered if Seth had told his mother anything about her and the kids.
Had he told them he’d lied? That he’d planned to continue to lie?
“Is everyone a liar?” Addison asked.
Charlotte was quiet for a moment. Addison knew how reflective and intellectual Charlotte could be, so she didn’t want to give an answer that wasn’t correct.
But Charlotte didn’t answer Addison’s question, maybe because the answer was one that Addison couldn’t accept.
Instead, Charlotte said, “Jack talks about you and the kids all the time. He talks about you with more love than I ever knew he had in him. Back when we were in our twenties, I couldn’t have imagined that he’d ever go on to fall in love and have kids.
I thought our lives were too frantic. I thought too many bad things had happened.
But Jack disproved all my theories about both him and his family. ”
Addison was fully crying now. “I don’t know how to forgive him.”
“I know,” Charlotte said. “He’s weak, too. Terribly weak. Everyone in the Whitmore family is. But I have to believe we’re getting better, little by little.”
Addison didn’t know what to do with “little by little.” She didn’t know what to do with her father, snoring in the living room. She didn’t know what to do with her kids, who would grow up without their father if she didn’t do something about it. Did she have to be the strong one at every turn?
“It’s almost Christmas,” Charlotte said. “We’d love to have you and the kids here on the island with the rest of the family. We’re all here. There are so many of us that I have to take numerous breaks in empty rooms. I’m not used to all this chaos.”
Addison took a breath. Never had her kids known any cousins, uncles, or aunts. The only grandfather and grandmother they’d ever known were Hugh and Beth—and Hugh and Beth weren’t exactly her favorite people right now.
“I want to know your kids, Addison,” Charlotte said. “And I know it would make Jack’s Christmas to see you again. It would fix everything, knowing that you already know who he really is and why he had to hide.”
Addison couldn’t speak. For a little while, she and Charlotte remained on the line, quiet. “I have to think,” Addison said finally. “But I’ll text you if we’re coming.”
“I’ll be waiting for your text,” Charlotte said. “Thank you for calling, Addison.”
“Thank you for listening,” Addison said. She didn’t want to tell Charlotte that just now, Charlotte felt like her only friend in the world.
After the call, guided by a force she couldn’t fully understand, Addison hurried upstairs to pack her and her children’s bags.
It would be freezing in Nantucket, so she knew they’d have to go shopping as soon as they arrived.
But she could pack the basics of toiletries, underwear, and socks.
She threw in books, tablets, and packs of cards, knowing the trip would be long, arduous, and boring, and that they’d want things to do.
When she was finished, she zipped up their bags and searched her phone for the cheapest, most readily available flights to Boston, Massachusetts.
There would be two flights involved: one from Oahu to Los Angeles, and another from LA to Boston.
The trip would last a total of twelve hours, which felt insane but also, weirdly, doable.
She booked their first flight for tomorrow morning at eight. Was she insane? Maybe she was.
The kids came home a little while later.
Addison was busy with dinner, then told them they were allowed to watch television for a half hour in her bedroom upstairs.
When they were gone, she cleaned the kitchen, then entered the living room to find her father awake again.
He’d finished the macaroni and cheese she’d made for everyone, but his bowl remained on the table beside him, becoming sticky and grimy as time passed.
She wondered if he’d ever taken his dirty dishes to the sink.
She wondered if his mistress had also taken his dirty dishes away for him.
“Dad?” Addison said, crossing her arms over her chest.
Her father turned to look at her. He seemed older than he had only a few weeks ago, as though the sale of the Golden Sunset Hotel had ripped him into a new decade.
“Who was blackmailing you?” Addison asked, too frightened to wait another second.
Her father grunted with disbelief. “What are you talking about?” But he kept his voice down, presumably because he didn’t want to alert her mother upstairs.
“You don’t have to lie anymore,” Addison said.
“I know you were having an affair, and I know that someone was blackmailing you about it. I know they took everything from you to the point that you had to sell the hotel. It’s for this reason that you turned into this lump in front of my television, I guess.
” It was harsh, but it came out before she could stop it.
Her father looked as though he’d been smacked. He tried to get to his feet, but he’d been sleeping too long and eaten too much macaroni and cheese, and he couldn’t.
“Don’t,” Addison said. “Don’t try to tell me that it isn’t true, either. I’ve seen the numbers. I’ve seen the emails. I know, Dad. But just tell me. Who was blackmailing you? And how did they find out what was going on?”
Her father gaped at her, then swallowed. He seemed to collapse back into himself, as though he knew he had nowhere else to turn. “You can’t tell your mother,” he said. “You can’t tell her, or else everything I did will be for nothing.”
“I won’t tell her,” Addison said, although she wasn’t sure if she was lying, now, too.
Her father sighed. “It’s true. I had an affair.
But it ended, Addison. Two years ago, it ended.
I was the one who ended it! I don’t know where this guy came from, nor how he figured out what I was up to.
But he came into the hotel in June or so.
He was so strange, so slimy. He was speaking Spanish, maybe, and then he switched to English.
He was asking me really vague, sinister questions.
I can’t remember what they were. It was after that that the emails came in.
I told him to leave me alone at first, but they were never-ending.
I went crazy.” Hugh closed his eyes. His forehead glinted with sweat.
Addison couldn’t understand who this man was, nor why he’d targeted her father. Was it possible that he’d been the person to buy the hotel a few weeks ago? She had to assume so, although it was impossible to know for sure. Maybe her father had an enemy.
“I’m going out of town for a little while,” Addison said.
Her father gave her a glazed-eyed look of confusion. “Why?”
“Because I need to.” Addison didn’t owe him an explanation. “When I’m gone, I want you to tell Mom what’s really going on.”
Her father gaped. “I can’t. I told you. I’ve already given away our life savings. I’ve done everything to keep her. The affair is over!”
But Addison shook her head. “If you don’t tell her, I will.”
She shot through the living room and hurried up the stairs to tell her children that they wouldn’t be spending Christmas in Hawaii, not that year. A part of her wondered if they’d ever spend Christmas in Hawaii again.