Persuaded (3 page)

Derick
couldn’t argue with his sister, but he couldn’t imagine caring that much for
someone and having them taken away in such an agonizing manner, either.
“Hopefully the change of scenery will be good for him.”

“That’s
what we’re thinking,” Sophie answered, setting a plate in front of Derick.
“Just promise me that if you catch him gazing morosely at the ocean, you’ll
intervene.”

“Whatever
you say,” Derick grinned.

“Good
boy,” Sophie answered, winking at her brother and filling him with a sensation
he had all but forgotten—belonging.

FOUR

OLD
LYME

“So, you are
come at last! I began to think I should never see you.”

—Mary Musgrove,
Persuasion

Hanna
stepped off the airport shuttle, grateful to the driver for unloading her
suitcases. After handing him a few dollar bills and thanking him, she moved up
onto the curb and took her phone from the messenger bag at her hip. The address
Mary had texted confused her, as it didn’t have a number or even a street name.
It simply read, Uppercross House, Old Lyme Beach. A worn-looking street sign
directed Hanna half a mile farther down to the beach. Hoping that she wouldn’t
have to trek through the sand with her luggage, Hanna began ambling down the
cracked sidewalk. She took care not to trip on any of the large chunks of
concrete that were lying in wait to snag careless walkers.

The
street was dotted with weekend bargain hunters, lined with shops that had a
definite old-town feel to them. Hanna smiled to herself, already half in love
with the town of Old Lyme. Something about it made her want to stroll. She
would have loved to pop into a couple of the boutiques, but she had already
notified Mary of her landing which meant that in Mary’s eyes, Hanna was already
late.

Past
the shops, a row of lush green trees stood guard next to tall, wrought-iron
gate with a small guard station. A sign posted on the front read:

Old
Lyme Beach

a
private community

Hanna
approached, told the guard who she was, and waited while he rang the house for
approval, then let her through. Behind the trees, small vacation homes were
squashed together, divided by immaculately trimmed hedges on either side. Each
home bore a plaque over the front door with its name. After passing several
dwellings, Hanna arrived at Uppercross House. It was a nondescript structure
with white siding, a dark wooden door, and blue shutters framing the windows.
Butterflies with wings full of anticipation tumbled around in Hanna’s stomach
as she let herself in through the gate and stepped onto the sidewalk. She had
rung the bell only once when the door was thrown wide open by her blond,
brown-eyed nephew CJ (Charles Jr.), who was six-going-on-sixteen. It had been a
year since Hanna spent any time with her sister’s family—Walter, the baby, had
only just turned one when she’d last seen them.

“Banana!”
CJ shouted as he barreled out the door and crashed into his aunt. Hanna patted him
on the back, unable to really embrace him since he was squeezing the
circulation out of her legs. Hearing the name he had called her as a baby
warmed her heart. He hadn’t been able to say Hanna, but banana was a familiar
enough word. She was glad the endearment stuck.

“Hey,
CJ. You got big!”

“Yup.”

“You’re,
what, five now?”

Hanna
grinned at the reaction she had anticipated—CJ pulling away with a horrified
grimace. “I’m SIX!”

“Oh,
sorry—
six
. I guess I’m getting senile in my old age.”

“Yeah,
I heard about that old-timer’s disease.” CJ shrugged. “Mom says grandma
Musgrove has it.”

Hanna
snorted into her hand.

“MAAH-AAHM,
BANANA’S HERE!” CJ bellowed as he sprinted through the entry, disappearing from
view.

Hanna
felt the beginnings of a headache. She had forgotten how loud her nephews could
be—she definitely should have thought ahead and premedicated. Closing the heavy
door, Hanna took in her surroundings as she moved into the house. Everything
she saw spoke of finery, from the polished hardwood floors to the vaulted
ceilings to the grand staircase that twisted its way to the upper level. Just
inside the foyer was a large room that housed two sofas, a massive glass coffee
table, and an ornate mirror that hung over a fireplace. To Hanna, it felt more
like a museum than a house.

I hope
the couches are Scotch-guarded
, Hanna worried, thinking of
her rambunctious nephews and their talent for trashing upholstery.

A
moment later, Mary appeared through a room off to the right of the staircase,
with Walter balanced on her hip. She wore a yellow sundress and had cut her
dark hair short since Hanna had last seen her. The first thing Hanna noticed
about her baby sister was that she looked exhausted and drawn—as if the demands
of her life had stretched her almost to a breaking point.

When
Hanna and Mary’s mother had passed away, it became glaringly obvious that their
father only tolerated his children for his wife’s benefit. As time wore on,
Mary emerged as the favorite of the two, and after years of feeling like an
unwelcome guest in her own home, Hanna made up her mind to move away. She
applied to the school nearest Maude, Harbor Community College. On her
eighteenth birthday, Hanna packed her Ford Aspire to capacity and drove away
without looking back. She had felt a tiny bit guilty leaving Mary behind, but
not for the reasons one might think.

Newborn
twins are hardly ever the same size; one gets all the “cream” so to speak while
the other gets just enough to scrape by. Though the girls had been born a few
years apart, the case was similar with them. Mary had grown fat from the
disabling attention of their father, while Hanna’s meager diet had been one of
steady neglect. The result was one daughter with a crippling sense of
dependency on others, and one daughter with an unhealthy sense of duty toward
the entire world.

“I
thought you’d never get here!” Mary breathed, embracing Hanna briefly before
handing Walter off to her.

Walter
had nearly doubled in size in the last year, but his hair was still much
lighter than CJ’s, spun gold and baby fine. His eyes were a bright hazel, his
cheeks were pink, and he was delightfully plumpy. Hanna half expected him to
squawk at being thrown into a near stranger’s arms, but he simply snuggled into
her shoulder. The sensation it brought Hanna was an odd mixture of empty and
full—something akin to yearning.

Mary
made a sympathetic face. “He’s so tired,” she crooned, smoothing Walter’s hair.
“Let’s go put him down for his nap and I’ll show you to your room.”

Hanna
nodded, moseying up the stairs behind Mary and feeling light on her feet. Her
summer vacation had officially begun, and she couldn’t imagine a better start.

The
first set of double doors at the top of the staircase was the master suite,
which Mary promised to come back to. The first door on the left was Hanna’s
room, then the bathroom, CJ’s room, and a set of double doors at the end of the
hall.

“Technically
it’s a bonus room,” Mary explained as they went in, “but the boys don’t do so
well in the same room, so we keep Walter in here.”

When Walter
saw his crib, he dived out of his aunt’s arms. She barely caught him, laughing
as he plopped onto the mattress and stuffed his binky into his mouth.

Mary
made a noise of disgust. “We’re never going to get rid of that thing.”

“What,
the binky?” Hanna asked.

“EE-EE!”
Walter repeated around the pacifier.

Hanna
couldn’t help smiling as she covered her nephew with his blanket. “He’s still a
baby, Mare.”

Mary
waved a hand, closing the double doors behind Hanna. “I’m not going to worry about
it until we get home.”

Faint
shadows ringed Mary’s brown eyes—eyes just like CJ’s. Of course Hanna knew that
the childbearing years took a toll on the human body, and Mary had always been
prone to illness—some imagined, some real. If you combined a hypochondriac with
a drama queen and a poorly functioning immune system, you got Mary. But as
Hanna studied her sister, she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was something
more.

Hanna
started when she realized that Mary was talking to her. She hoped she hadn’t
missed anything vital.

“. . .
there’s a maid’s room on the main floor but we put Ella in there. She insisted
on having her own bathroom, and since it’s the Musgroves’ house, we couldn’t
say no.” Pushing into the room meant for Hanna, Mary continued, “I told Charles
I’d much rather have you up here anyway, to help with the boys . . .”

Maude’s
warning sounded in Hanna’s ears like an echo:
I only hope it doesn’t end in
you as a round-the-clock nanny to those ghastly nephews of yours . . .

She
muffled the thought and looked around her room. It was sparsely furnished, with
a double-sized bed, a nightstand, and a modest flat-screen television atop the
dresser at the foot of the bed. Sun poured in from the windows, highlighting
the cream-colored carpet and white wood furnishings.

“Mary,
it’s perfect!” Hanna declared, dropping her bags and pulling her sister in for
a hug.

Mary
held on for just a nanosecond longer than she usually would have. “I’m so glad
you’re here, Hanna.”

“Me
too, sis.” Hanna tossed her duffel onto the bed and unzipped it. “Where is
everyone else?”

“At
the beach,” Mary replied darkly. “They’re outside all day. Ella’s going to get
skin cancer. She spends most of her time laying out and never puts sunscreen
on.”

Mary
paced to the window and threw open the curtains. Hanna followed, her breath
hitching in her chest at the view. Frothy gray-blue waves rolled over into
themselves, crumbling onto the creamy sand. Charles and CJ were playing in the
shallow water, and Ella, Charles’ younger sister, lay on a towel in a neon
green bikini, baking herself in the sun. Either she was naturally tan, or she
had already invested a sizable amount of time outside since arriving. It was
probably both.

“. . .
Charles is always out too, bodysurfing or fishing, or who knows what, you’d
think he was allergic to something inside the house . . .”

Hanna
didn’t think it was the best time to dash downstairs and plunge into the ocean
with wild abandon like she wanted. Instead she said, “Why don’t we go take a
walk on the beach, Mare?”

Mary
sniffed. “I suppose I feel up to it now that you’re here—if Ella doesn’t mind
me leaving the baby monitor with her. I’ll just get my hat and then we’ll go?”

“Sounds
great.”

While
Mary readied herself, Hanna quickly unpacked her things and stowed them in the
dresser. Changing from her traveling clothes of sweats and a T-shirt, Hanna
donned a gauzy, cream-colored V neck beach dress that came just below the knee.
As anxious as Hanna was to get out in the sun, she was also realistic. She
never tanned, always burned, and sometimes freckled. She’d never been keen on
slathering thick, greasy lotion on her face, so she opted for a floppy beach
hat instead. After slipping on her flip-flops, Hanna made her way down to the
master suite. She tapped softly on Mary’s door, going inside when Mary
beckoned.

The
master bedroom was an oasis unto itself, complete with a massive bed,
his-and-hers walk-in closets, and more square footage than any bedroom had a
right to own. The open concept of the entry was reflected here as well, the
bedroom emptying into a lavish bathroom with a jetted spa tub and a shower
spacious enough to hose down an elephant. A fireplace divided the bedroom from
the bathroom.

Hanna
whistled. “Wow, this place is a dump, Mare.”

Mary
grimaced at her sister. “It’s not really my style—too grandiose. But since the
Musgroves weren’t going to use the house this summer, we thought we’d keep it
from going to waste.”

“Why
didn’t the Musgroves come this year?”

“Honestly,
I think they weren’t thrilled about the idea of being cooped up with the kids.”

Hanna
wasn’t entirely sure that the Musgroves’ aversion to the beach house had much
to do with the kids. More likely it had to do with their daughter-in-law, but
she kept the thought to herself. “Well, it was generous of them to let you guys
use the place.”

“Oh,
please. They have more than enough money, Hanna. It was the least they could
do, anyway, since Charles’ dad is always pulling him away from the family to go
deep-sea fishing or scuba diving or hunting—you’d think they were bachelors,
the pair of them.”

Hanna
thought quickly as she followed Mary down the stairs, contriving a way to
change the topic. “It must be so relaxing, having all this family time
together. And Ella to help out with the kids too.”

“Ha!
What family time? It’s usually Walter and me inside all day while the other
three are doing whatever they want outdoors.”

“You
could join them outside. It can’t be good for you to be stuck in the house all
day, Mary.”