Nantucket Nights (32 page)

“Okay,” Eddie said. He shifted his car into gear. “We’ll give it a whirl.”

They drove out of Vineyard Haven and hopped on the state road. “I’m headed up-island,” Eddie said into
his radio. “Don’t know when I’ll be back.” Kayla looked out the window at the acres of open land, farm land, pine forest. It was turning out to be a nice day; the sun came out for brief periods before disappearing behind white puffy clouds.

After a while, they passed a hand-painted sign that said
CHILMARK CHOCOLATES.

“So we’re in Chilmark, then?” Kayla asked.

“Yep,” Eddie said.

“We should start looking for signs,” Kayla said.

“If there’s a sign for this Painted Rock Road, I’ve never seen it before.”

“Oh,” Kayla said.

Eddie picked up his radio. “Hey, anybody out there ever heard of Painted Rock Road?”

Static.

“Hey, Norm, you out there? Carrie, doll?”

A woman’s voice. “I’m here, Eddie. Can’t help ya.”

More static.

Kayla watched mailboxes sail by. Eddie was driving pretty fast. “Maybe we should slow down,” she said. “So we can look?”

A man’s voice broke the static. “Painted Rock’s off the left hand side of State, Eddie. Two turns before the Kaiser place.”

“You’re kidding,” Eddie said. “There’s no houses down that turn, though, Norm. There’s no sign.”

“Nope, no sign. Just a rock there at the turn with blue paint. You’ve probably never seen it,” Norm said. “And there is one house back there, Eddie. I know because I dropped off the woman who lives there a week or so ago.”

The woman who lives there.

Eddie nuzzled his radio. “Thanks for the tip, Norm.” He looked back at Kayla and shrugged. “Learn something new, et cetera, et cetera.”

Kayla was suddenly too petrified to speak.

With this information from Norm, Eddie found the road almost instantly.

“No shit,” he said. “A rock with blue paint. There it is.”

Kayla fumbled through her purse for money. “You can just leave me off here,” she said. “I’ll walk to the house. Truth is, I’d like to smoke a cigarette before I get there.”

Eddie pulled over to the side of the road just past the blue rock. “No problem,” he said. “Fifteen bucks.”

Kayla gave him a twenty and told him to keep the change. He smiled. “Have a nice visit with your friend,” he said. “And Merry Christmas.”

It was sunny but cold. Kayla wore jeans, a turtleneck, and a black corduroy jacket. She put on her gloves and began to walk. Painted Rock Road was a dirt road surrounded on both sides by thick trees. It felt eerily familiar. Same setting, different island. Kayla saw other footprints in the dirt. Antoinette’s footprints? Or the footprints of some other woman? Kayla followed the footprints to a clearing, a small yard, a house. The house was long and narrow, a bunch of rooms lined up like boxcars on a train. Cedar shingles, forest green shutters, empty window boxes. A stucco chimney gurgled smoke.

Someone was home, enjoying a fire.

Kayla crunched up the gravel driveway. Fairy tales played through her head: “Hansel and Gretel,” “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” An evil-looking crow cawed from the roof. Kayla knocked on the front door three times. A friendly knock.

No answer.

Kayla knocked again, this time a little more aggressively. She wondered if someone was watching her from behind the curtains.

Still no answer.

Kayla rounded the side of the house with the chimney and stepped into the back yard. She was alarmed to discover the back of the house had huge windows and glass doors. Kayla could see right in— the beautiful cherry cabinets in the kitchen, the bar stools, one with a paperback copy of
The Bluest Eye
splayed on top. A small Christmas tree glittered with white lights on the kitchen counter. Behind the kitchen was a living room with a huge stone fireplace—and lying on the sofa in front of the fire, Kayla saw Antoinette, fast asleep.

Pregnant.

Kayla gasped. She should leave. Right now, leave. Give the detective
his positive ID—
Yes, that was Antoinette. Case closed.
But Kayla couldn’t help herself. She walked closer to the glass doors; she pressed her face against the glass because she had to be sure.

Antoinette lay on her side, her hands resting on her swollen belly. She wore a pleated white blouse. Antoinette in white—it seemed odd. Her hair was loose, frizzed out on the sofa cushion, her eyes were closed, and her mouth hung open slightly. Kayla stared unabashedly. She remembered the incredible exhaustion of pregnancy, how it had weighed her down. And now here was Antoinette pregnant-tired with Kayla’s grandchild. Kayla reached for the handle of the sliding glass door. It was open. Kayla walked right in and tiptoed over to Antoinette; she stood so close she could hear Antoinette’s breathing. So close she could touch Antoinette’s forehead, which was shiny and dotted with small pimples. After all this time, months of speculation, here she was.
You ran away from us,
Kayla thought.
And in so doing, you ruined everything.
But staring at the roundness of Antoinette’s body, Kayla softened. Antoinette had kept the baby, after all.

And then, without warning, Antoinette’s eyes opened, and she looked at Kayla.

Kayla smiled at her. “Hello, old friend.”

A baffled expression crossed Antoinette’s face; her brow wrinkled. “You found me?”

“Apparently so.”

Antoinette blinked, confused. “Apparently so,” she repeated. She put a hand on the sofa beneath her in an attempt to push herself upright.

“Don’t get up,” Kayla said. “I’m not staying.”

“Do you have a gun?” Antoinette asked.

“A gun?”

“Don’t you want to kill me?”

Kayla laughed. “Sort of, yeah. But I don’t want to kill what’s inside you.”

Antoinette relaxed; she rubbed her stomach. “It’s a girl, Kayla.”

Tears sprang to Kayla’s eyes, and she stared into the fire. “A girl, huh?” She began to cry, unsure of how to feel. On the outside, things seemed to have gone back to normal, but inside of Kayla, everything had changed. The things that money couldn’t buy— a happy marriage, good kids, loyal friends—floated in the air around Kayla like snowflakes. At one time, she’d had them all, but now they were gone, and in their place was this news. A baby, after all. A baby girl. Kayla wiped her tears away with the back of her hand and took a deep breath, but when she turned back to Antoinette, she broke down again.

“Why the hell did you … and Val… she didn’t tell me … she
accused
me …”

“I made Val promise,” Antoinette said. “I swore her to secrecy.”

“But the two of you are supposed to keep secrets with me, not from me.”

“We wanted to protect you.”

“Protect me?”

“Protect Theo,” Antoinette said. “He can’t know about this. It will only set
him back, Kayla. He needs to move forward. You know I’m right about that. Please don’t tell him.”

“He’s heartbroken,” Kayla said.

“So am I,” Antoinette said. “At least he has me to blame. I have to blame myself. I do, you know— accept the blame for everything. I will feel guilty for the rest of my life.”

“Good,” Kayla said. If Jacob Anderson had taught her anything, it was that guilt was the worst that life had to deal out. And Antoinette deserved the worst. “You hurt a lot of people. You hurt me.”

“I know, Kayla. I’m sorry.”

Kayla stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jeans. She and Antoinette looked at each other for a long moment—Kayla really looked. Her friend dressed in white for the first time, the frizzy hair, the swollen belly—a woman she’d never understood, but had loved anyway. Kayla wondered what Antoinette saw: A wife? A mother? A friend?

“I have to tell Theo,” Kayla said. “There’s no way I can keep this from him.”

“You can’t tell him,” Antoinette said. “He deserves a second chance—at love, at a family. Once he’s older.”

“Yes, but…”

“Kayla,” Antoinette said. “Twenty years ago we made a promise to keep each other’s secrets safe from the rest of the world. That includes Theo.”

“He’s going to find out sooner or later,” Kayla said.

“Then let it be later. Promise me he won’t hear it from you.”

Kayla nodded and warm tears spilled down her cheeks. “Will you raise her well?” Kayla said. “This little girl of ours?”

“I will,” Antoinette said. “This is my second chance. I waited a long time for this, Kayla.”

“I didn’t know you wanted a second chance,” Kayla said.

“That was my confession,” Antoinette said. “I want a second chance. Please.”

Kayla didn’t know how to respond, and she sensed she never would.

“Merry Christmas,” Kayla said. She walked back to the door and stepped out into the cold, bright day. When she turned around, Antoinette’s eyes had fallen closed once again and Kayla watched her deep breathing resume, her chest rising and falling in a rhythm as perfect and steady as the waves of the ocean.

Kayla walked all the way back to Vineyard Haven; several cars stopped to offer her a ride, but she declined. She was in a trance of sorts. She replayed the conversation over and over and had to quell the desire to return and bombard Antoinette with what remained: her anger, her questions, her remorse. But those things were rapidly losing importance, and in their place, Kayla felt a growing sense of freedom. It was over. Complete. Ending not with a death at all, but with a life. Her granddaughter’s life would be the last Night Swimmers secret, the secret that would bind her to Val and Antoinette even if she never saw them again. The hardest secret to keep.

Forgive me, Theo,
Kayla thought.
Because I am a mother, too, I understand.

…

As Kayla waited for the ferry to Nantucket, she thought about the little girl who would be entering the world soon, a little girl connected to Kayla’s rife, and to her husband, and to her son, and to her dear friend. This little girl changed things, transformed them. Kayla hoped Antoinette would raise the baby to be strong and wise and yes, sensitive, like her grandmother. Maybe someday Antoinette would tell her the story about Night Swimmers, about three women who shared secrets that they couldn’t share with anyone else. Maybe when this baby grew up, she would have female friends of her own. To be friends with another woman was difficult, Kayla thought, and painful and complicated. But when a friendship between women was good, it had a sacred, shining power. Kayla gathered up memories of
this power—and there were many—as she stepped onto the ferry and headed for home.

Acknowledgments

My deep and unending gratitude to:

My agent, Michael Carlisle, who is a safe place for me in the chaotic world of New York publishing, and Jennifer Weis, my editor at St. Martin’s Press, who knows commercial fiction like nobody else.

Jeff Allen, of the Nantucket Fire Department, for his detailed descriptions of open water rescue.

The women in my rife who have taught me about friendship. (You know who you are.)

Clarissa Porter, for reminding me that I had a literary mind even when I was up to my elbows in baby food, and Mimi Beman, of Mitchell’s Book Comer, for her enthusiastic support of my work.

Heather Osteen Thorpe, always my first reader.

My mother, Sally Hilderbrand, few my roots and my wings.

Most of all, thank you to the men in my life, or should I say, the men who are my life: my husband, Chip Cunningham, and our shining star, Maxwell.

Read on for an excerpt from

Elin Hilderbrand’s next book

Summer People

Now available in paperback from St. Martin’s Press!

Chapter 1

Driving off the ferry, they looked like any other family coming to spend the summer on Nantucket—or almost. The car was a 1998 Range Rover in flat forest green, its rear section packed to within inches of the roof with Pierre Deux weekend duffels, boxes of kitchen equipment, four shopping bags from Zabar’s, and a plastic trash bag of linens. (The summer house, Horizon, had its own linens, of course, but Beth remembered those sheets and towels from her childhood—the towels, for example, were chocolate brown and patterned with leaves. Threadbare. Beth wanted plush towels; she took comfort now wherever she could find it.)

Three out of the four passengers in the car were related, as any one of the people milling around Steamship Wharf could tell. Beth, the mother, was forty-four years old and at the end of pretty with blond hair pulled back in a clip, a light tan already (from running in Central Park in the mornings), and green eyes flecked with yellow, which made one drink of a meadow. White linen blouse, wrinkled now. A diamond ring, too big to be overlooked. One of Beth’s seventeen-year-old twins, her daughter, Winnie, slumped in the front seat, and the other twin, her son, Garrett, sat in back. That there was no father in the car was hardly unusual—lots of women Beth knew took their kids away for the summer while their husbands toiled on Wall Street or in law firms. So it wasn’t Arch’s absence that set their family apart from the others on this clear, hot day. Rather it was the dark-skinned boy, also seventeen, who shared the backseat with Garrett: Marcus Tyler, living proof of their larger, sadder story.

Beth lifted her ass off the driver’s seat. She’d driven the whole way, even though the twins had their learner’s permits and might have helped. She’d been awake since five o’clock that morning, and after four hours on the highway and two on the ferry, her mind stalled in inconvenient places, like a car dying in a busy intersection. In her side-view mirror, Beth checked on the two mountain bikes hanging off the back of the car. (It had always been Arch’s job to secure them, and this year she did it herself. Miraculously, they were both intact.) When she brought her attention forward again—she couldn’t
wait
to get off this boat!—her gaze stuck on her diamond ring, perched as it was on top of the steering wheel. TMs wasn’t the ring that Arch had given her twenty years ago when he proposed, but a really extravagant ring that he presented to her last summer. He called it the “We Made It” ring, because they
had
made it, financially, at least. They had enough money that a not-insignificant amount could be wasted on this diamond ring. “Wasted” was Beth’s word; she was the frugal one, always worrying that they had two kids headed for college, and what if the car got stolen, what if there were a fire? What if there were some kind of accident?