Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
It was five days before Christmas. Jack took Francesca to her chemotherapy treatment, during which they spoke about Christmases past, Christmases they remembered at the White Oak Lodge, and Christmases they remembered in Italy.
They filled in the blanks on one another’s memories, laughing often, until Francesca became too tired and reticent.
When Jack drove her back to the vacation house, Lorelei and Allegra greeted them tenderly and helped their mother to the downstairs bedroom.
She’d moved there so she didn’t have to go up and down the stairs.
When Francesca was asleep, Allegra and Lorelei asked Jack how it had gone, their eyes hollow.
He said, “It was the same. But she’s getting tired. ”
“Her mood is slightly different,” Allegra agreed. “But I hope Christmas perks her up a little bit.”
Jack knew that Allegra and Lorelei were excited to welcome their families to Nantucket for the first time, and that they planned to pick them up at the Boston airport tomorrow afternoon.
Jack was happy for them and thrilled to meet their children, his nieces and nephews.
But knowing they were coming filled him with an awful ache.
He wished Addison and the kids were coming.
He wished he could find a way to explain himself. He wished he weren’t so weak.
As Jack sipped a cup of coffee and watched the snow with his sisters, he received a call from his father.
This was a surprise. Since Jack’s return, Jack and Benjamin hadn’t been alone together at all, and Jack had almost assumed that Jack brought back bad memories for Benjamin, memories of being on the road and being alone and chasing Tio Angelo.
Jack answered, steeling himself. “Hey, Dad.”
“Hi.” Benjamin’s voice was strained. “I wondered if you’d help me run an errand today.”
“Sure thing,” Jack said without hesitation.
Benjamin said he’d swing by the vacation house and pick Jack up. Jack put on his coat, hat, and gloves, and stepped into the soft snow, hustling to leap into his father’s truck. His father had the radio on, playing Pink Floyd, songs Benjamin and Jack had bonded over back in the nineties.
“How is she today?” Benjamin asked.
“She’s tired,” Jack offered. “But she’s getting through it.” He didn’t tell his father that she’d nearly cried on the way home, thinking about the hair she was about to lose. It hadn’t begun yet, but it was bound to, soon.
Jack wondered if Benjamin and Francesca had spent any one-on-one time together, if they were still circling one another and trying to figure one another out. He supposed it wasn’t really his business, either. He had his own romantic fish to fry.
Benjamin pulled into the Nantucket Christmas tree farm, the same site where they’d purchased their family and lodge trees over the years.
This close to Christmas, the only person around was Nick Lamper, the guy who now owned the place after his father’s passing.
Benjamin and Jack got out, shook Nick’s hand, and said they used to buy trees from his father.
Nick laughed. “That goes for about everyone around here.”
Benjamin explained to Jack that he wanted to buy three Christmas trees: one for the dining hall of the lodge, where they planned to have their Christmas dinner as a family; one for the living room of the lodge, where they planned to open presents; and another for the vacation home where Francesca was living with Allegra and Lorelei, because he wanted Francesca to wake up every morning and think of magic.
“What about decorations?” Jack asked, thinking of naked and spindly trees and how sad they always looked.
“We’ll take care of that,” Benjamin said. “Charlotte’s got a few in boxes that she’ll offer up, she said, and Nina has her kids making some with papier-maché and craft paper. I'd better recruit Alexander’s family, as well.”
“Allegra’s and Lorelei’s kids will be here tomorrow,” Jack said. “They can help.”
Benjamin smiled, his beard filled with melting snow. “I can’t believe we’ll all be together again,” he said. Jack thought he was going to cry.
Together, they selected three Christmas trees, cut them down, and piled them in the back of Benjamin’s truck.
They paid Nick what he was owed, then drove back to the White Oak Lodge to drop off the first two trees.
Amos, Nina, Will, and Fiona were there, decorating the interior with paper snowflakes and old photographs of the Whitmores.
Jack couldn’t believe some of the pictures.
He couldn’t fathom where Nina had found them.
“I stole some of them from Aunt Genevieve,” Nina explained. “And some of them were in the public records downtown.”
The photographs featured the Whitmore family during multiple stages of the late eighties and early nineties, when they’d all been home and young enough to cause a ruckus.
In one of the photos, Jack wore a sweater he remembered had itched him so much that he’d always taken it off and gotten in trouble with his mother.
Will and Fiona were especially fascinated by the photographs, which showed their mother as a little girl, so much younger than their aunts and uncles. It boggled their minds.
After they set up the trees in the dining and living rooms, Benjamin stepped out onto the back porch.
Jack watched him through the window, wondering what was on his father’s mind.
Their afternoon at the Christmas tree farm had been beautiful, if secretive.
There was still so much they needed to say to one another.
Jack grabbed his coat and followed him, closing the door tightly behind him.
Just before it clipped shut, he heard Fiona and Will singing a Christmas song.
“Hey,” Jack said.
Benjamin raised his eyebrows. “Hey there. You good?” His tone was too formal.
Jack stood beside his father, watching the waves roll toward the frigid beach. “Are you good?”
Benjamin laughed gently. “I’m terrified, Jack.”
Jack understood what his father meant. Now that he had his family back, what would happen to take them all away again? Would Francesca recover from cancer? Would they all remain on the island forever? There was so much that it was impossible to know.
Jack thought back to that day in Hawaii, six months ago. He remembered his father, standing against that turquoise water, warning him about Tio Angelo.
Jack said, “You know that I chased him, don’t you?”
Benjamin seemed unable to look at him.
“He sent me a threatening letter,” Jack said, “and I couldn’t take it.
I tracked him all the way to Mexico City and got closer to him than I ever thought possible.
He made a few mistakes because a few people he trusted began to trust me, too.
But I must have messed up somewhere. He set up a time for us to meet, and then he ripped the carpet out from under me, so to speak.
All my routes to Angelo closed down like that.
” He snapped his fingers. “But I still feel this awful rage in my stomach. I need him to own up to what he did and how he continues to threaten this family. I need him to pay for burning the lodge and tearing our family apart.” Jack couldn’t believe how quickly he was speaking.
It poured out of him. “I know I had my part in what happened. I know that I was helping him. But I was young. I was younger than I understood. And now, I want him to go to prison for what he did. I want him to pay.”
Benjamin was quiet for a long time. Jack hated how his own voice continued to ring in his ears.
“I’ve thought the same as you over the years, son,” Benjamin said.
“I’ve wanted revenge. I’ve wanted Angelo to rot in prison.
Don’t think I haven’t. But I’ve thought about it over and over again.
I’ve wondered if wanting revenge is the same as clinging to the past and not allowing yourself to look forward. ”
Jack gaped at him. He forgot to breathe.
Benjamin touched Jack’s shoulder. “I want us to move into the future as a family. I want us to be brave enough to take the next steps together. And I don’t want Angelo’s ghost, so to speak, to continue to haunt us, not now that we’re back together.”