How long would it take, and would Patty let her off work that long? Sam hadn’t had a vacation or sick day in—well, she couldn’t even remember. They’d just lost an office building to Murphy’s Maids the week before, so the schedule was lighter, and Gina had been asking for extra hours.
Still, the thought of going back to the island made Sam’s soul shrivel like a sun-scorched bloom. There was a reason she hadn’t gone back. A reason she’d left in the first place, and nothing had changed.
Except that going back was now worth a million dollars.
Sam lifted her eyes from the letter and found Caden’s class across the gym at the foam pit. Caden sprang forward into a round-off and two back handsprings, then finished with a backflip into the foam squares. The spotter never touched her. It was her first unassisted backflip. When she came out of the pit, she looked toward the balcony to see if Sam had caught the moment. Before she could give her daughter a thumbs-up, Caden looked away. When she walked by Bridget and her new cronies, they turned, an obvious snub.
Sam wanted to thump them all. They were doing it because of her, and the guilt that descended on her was as heavy as a lead blanket.
Could a million dollars buy her and Caden a new life? Sam was suddenly sure it could. And she was equally sure she could face any demon from her past for the chance to make it happen.
T
his isn’t happening.
All Sam’s bravado from two weeks before sank like a boulder in the Atlantic as she clutched the ferry’s railing, watching Nantucket Harbor creep closer. Dozens of boats dotted the water, their empty masts poking the sky like skinny white fingers. Beyond them, gray-washed stores and cottages lined the piers and step-stoned up the hillside.
Caden leaned against the rail, the wind tugging at her hair. On her other side, a man pointed his digital camera toward the high tower of the First Congregational Church and snapped the picture.
With every inch of the ferry’s progress, fear clawed up Sam’s throat. She kept her eyes trained to the east side of the ferry, not ready to see what lay to the west. How would she face the Reeds? A heavy cloud rolled over the sun, casting a shadow over the town and turning the water black.
“It looks small,” Caden said.
It was the first thing she’d said since they boarded the ferry. But the silence beat all the complaining she’d done before that.
Why dowe have to go? I’ll get behind the other girls at the gym. I don’t want toleave my friends. Why can’t we go someplace exciting? My life is so boring!
If she only knew that Nantucket was the last place Sam wanted to go. If Caden knew about the money the sale of the house would bring, she might have worried less, but Sam wasn’t ready to handle requests for designer jeans and salon haircuts.
“It is small.” Her gaze scrolled past the marina and yacht club, but an overwhelming curiosity drew it back. People mingled on the multitiered decks, sipping drinks, and a couple played on the tennis courts, slamming the ball back and forth in low drives that scarcely cleared the net. Sam had taught tennis there three years straight, but thinking of the club always dredged up that last unfortunate summer.
Her eyes landed on the lighthouse that squatted on the boulders at Brant Point. “See the lighthouse? Its original structure was built in 1746 and was the second lighthouse built in America. It’s called Brant Point Light.” She rattled off the tidbit like an old-timer.
Sam was rewarded with silence.
The ferry began docking, and she hated the way her hands trembled. She wanted to stay on board and sail back to the mainland. The urge to escape Nantucket was still rooted as deeply as the thick oak that grew outside her Boston apartment window, and the urge to stay away was just as strong.
Moments later, they debarked and lugged their suitcases down the cement dock and across the busy cobblestone street. When she spotted a taxi, she lengthened her steps, urging Caden along. As the driver loaded their suitcases, Sam gave him the address, then slid into the car.
Caden glanced out the window. “Are those summer people?” she asked, referring to the clusters of pedestrians crossing streets and disappearing into bustling shops.
“Mainly they’re tourists. The summer people come in July.”
“At least there are stores. What’s with all the bikes?”
“One of the perks of a small island. Bikes are the main mode of transportation.”
Caden was silent as they drove through town. Only when they eased onto quieter streets did she speak again. “Can I meet Landon? Does he know you’re here?”
Caden’s hope caught Sam off guard. She had been telling “Landon stories” to Caden since her daughter was old enough to talk. Lately, though, Caden wasn’t interested in anything she had to say. “I don’t think so,” she said, choosing to let Caden interpret the answer however she wanted. Only Miss Biddle and Judge Winslow knew Sam was coming. Besides, she wasn’t even sure Landon returned to Nantucket after college, though he’d talked of nothing else those last years together.
When the driver turned onto her old street, she squeezed the edge of the seat with cold fingers. “It’s down just a ways on the right,” she told the driver.
“The ocean is in the backyard?” Caden stared through her window, a new light flickering in her face.
“Yep.” Caden’s curiosity encouraged Sam, and she wondered if leaving the city was just the prescription for her daughter.
“It’s two drives down. Right there, the one with the rose trellis.” Only eleven years had passed since Sam last saw the house, but she hardly recognized it. The shaker shingles were weathered to ash gray, and the white paint that trimmed out the windows and porch was faded and peeling.
The cabby turned into the gravel drive and pulled to a stop. Caden was out and standing in the overgrown yard before Sam touched her own door.
Sam finally emerged and took in the house while the driver set the luggage at her feet. The window boxes stood empty, the hedges were overgrown, and only weeds sprouted from the flower beds lining the front of the house. She could still see her mom bending over the orange lilies, pinching faded blooms from the plant. She could see her on her knees, pulling up weeds and throwing them in the gray five-gallon paint bucket.
Sam’s racing heart flopped. It was going to take every moment of her vacation to get the place in shape for the market. If the inside was as neglected as the outside, she wasn’t sure a month was enough time.
Caden had grabbed her suitcase and pulled it close to the sidewalk.
After Sam paid the driver, she picked up her own bag. She hadn’t given a thought to how she’d get in. Maybe Emmett still kept a key under the flowerpot on the back porch.
“Around back.” Sam circled wide around the building, staring in morbid fascination like a driver passing an auto accident. There it was—the place she’d wanted to leave. The place she never wanted to return to. She reminded herself that she’d run from people, not the building. Emmett couldn’t hurt her anymore; he was gone. It struck her as ironic that the man who’d never provided for her was now, in his death, providing her with a windfall.
She’d just have to wade through hell and back to get it.
The enclosed back porch was smaller than she remembered. They entered through the screen door, the squawk tugging her back to her childhood. The flowerpot was still there, empty except for a few inches of dry dirt. She pulled a key from underneath.
“Voilà,” Sam said with more optimism than she felt.
She unlocked the door and shoved it open. A whiff of smoke and stale air greeted her.
“Ewww.” Caden wrinkled her pert little nose.
Sam set their bags off to the side.
“He didn’t, like, die here, did he?”
The ghost of his presence felt so real it was as if he hadn’t died at all. Sam listened for the sound of his feet thumping across the floor. She shook away the sensation.
“The house has been closed up awhile. We’ll open the windows and get some fresh air in.”
Caden was already in the living room, only a few steps away. Sam looked at the old porcelain sink where she’d learned to wash dishes, and wash them right. In the strainer beside it, two plates leaned at a cockeyed angle, and a few pieces of silverware poked upward. A shirt hung haphazardly over a kitchen chair. She wanted to remove it between two pinched fingers and toss it in the garbage. But Emmett’s things were everywhere.
“Was this your room?”
Sam followed the sound of Caden’s voice. The double bed had been stripped down to the faded floral mattress, and a layer of dust shrouded the bare furniture like a flannel sheet. Other than that, it looked the same. She didn’t know if she could bring herself to sleep here.
She opened the window, fighting the stubborn sash. Fresh, salty air wafted in, billowing the gauzy curtains.
“Is this where I’m sleeping?”
Sam glanced around, taking in the gaping closet door, the dresser that had Scott Burnwell’s initials carved into the side, the photo of her mom hanging on the wall.
“Sure,” she said.
Sam left and went to air out the kitchen. Next, she entered Emmett’s room, striding toward the window. On an inhale, her nostrils filled with the smell of him. Gasoline and Old Spice and Winstons all blended together in a stench that turned her stomach. She flung up the pane and left, shutting the door behind her.
What she’d give to be staying in a hotel! Such a luxury on the island would cost a fortune she didn’t have. At least, not yet.
“I’m going outside.” Caden whizzed past her and out the back, the porch’s screen door slapping against the wooden frame. This was a different world for Caden, and Sam could tell, despite her daughter’s feigned disinterest, that she was taken with it.
Sam looked around the house and tried to see it with a fresh, unjaded perspective. The wood-plank floor, dotted with rugs, and the painted white furniture had a certain charm that her apartment lacked. For the first time, she saw it was really a quaint little cottage, a place Caden might see as homey and cute. She hadn’t expected that. She’d thought Caden would feel the same way about it that she did.
But her daughter couldn’t know what it had been like to grow up here. Even now the walls seemed to press in from every side, and the air seemed too heavy to breathe. How would Sam endure weeks of sorting through the memories she’d spent her life trying to forget?
“H
ow much chocolate did you give her, Mrs. Maley?” Landon Reed put his stethoscope in place and timed the beats.
“It was a piece of chocolate cake, not even pure chocolate. I didn’t think it would hurt her.” Mrs. Maley drew her fingers through her Lhasa apso’s thick white fur.
Landon set down his stethoscope and palpated the dog’s bloated belly. When Mrs. Maley brought her dog in last fall with chocolate poisoning, he explained that chocolate was toxic to dogs, but even so, she brought Fanny in again on a frigid February evening after having rewarded the dog with Hershey’s squares. “
She just looked at me withthose pleading eyes, and I couldn’t say no. I didn’t give her much.”
Now, seeing the dog in misery again, he wanted to shake the woman. “What kind of chocolate was used in the cake?”
“It was the baking kind, you know, the kind that comes in foil-wrapped squares.” She brushed long strands away from Fanny’s face. “She’ll be all right, won’t she?”
Landon ignored the question while he finished the exam. The dog would be okay, he guessed. She had an increased heart rate and had vomited, according to Mrs. Maley, but he saw no signs of hyperactivity or muscular twitching.
He rubbed Fanny’s belly. “Baking chocolate is the most toxic of all chocolates. One ounce of it will poison a ten-pound dog, and Fanny is barely over that weight.”
Mrs. Maley fingered the salt-and-pepper hair at her nape. “I didn’t know.”
“I’ll have Nancy get you an information sheet, but I’d like to keep Fanny overnight just to be safe. I know you love her and don’t mean to harm her, but you can’t give in to her begging. Once dogs have chocolate, they crave it. It’s up to you to be strong for her sake.”
Mrs. Maley stared at her pet. “I understand. But you think she’ll be all right?”
“I believe so. But I’d rather be on the safe side.”
“Oh yes, of course.” Mrs. Maley caressed Fanny with long, slow strokes.
“I’ll send Nancy in with some paperwork and that info sheet.”
“Thank you so much, Dr. Reed.”
He nodded and left the exam room. The waiting area was empty, and Nancy had locked the front doors and straightened all the magazines. After he asked Nancy to finish up with Mrs. Maley, he gave Dr. Schmidt instructions regarding Fanny’s care, then went to his office to shed his lab coat and retrieve his keys. He hoped Mrs. Maley could show some restraint where Fanny was concerned. Otherwise, she’d bring the dog in sometime and wouldn’t be taking her back home.
When Landon exited the clinic, his black Labrador bolted across the small fenced-in yard. Max gave a short bark and sidled up against Landon’s leg.
Landon scratched behind Max’s ear. “Hey, buddy. You ready to go home?”
Max’s tail thumped against Landon’s thigh, then the dog trotted beside him, matching his stride. Landon opened the Jeep door, and Max hopped into the back, plopping down on the seat, ears perked and tongue hanging between his sagging flews.
Landon left the parking lot and turned onto the cobblestone street. He braked in front of the Even Keel Café, allowing a group of tourists to cross the road, before continuing out of town and toward the house.
He turned onto his street, wishing he had something to do. It was unlike him to feel antsy, but then, lately he hadn’t been himself. The routines he normally found comfort in were beginning to bore him, and the stillness of his house stirred a restlessness he didn’t understand.
The feeling had worsened since he ended things with Jennifer, but he knew it wasn’t from missing her. As beautiful as she was, inside and out, he hadn’t connected with her the way he longed to. She deserved better, but telling her had been hard.