Page 32 of The White Oak Lodge

It was a letter from her father to her mother, dated 1997, the year before the White Oak Lodge burned down. Seeing her father’s handwriting again, those big, blocky letters, so masculine and sure, made Nina’s heart ache. It was impossibleto imagine that he’d died the very next year. She picked up the letter. “Can I read this in private? Outside?”

Daniel laughed. “Don’t get any ideas, honey. I have plenty of copies where that came from.”

But Nina would never throw anything like this into the ocean. She would never destroy it. It was sacred.

She was terrified of what it would say.

Chapter Fifteen

Nina

June 2025

With the letter tucked in her purse, Nina stepped into the bright morning sunlight. Tears welled in her eyes. When she stepped off the porch and headed for the beach down the road, she heard the door open behind her and spun back to see Amos, hunched in the doorway, his eyes stirring. But because she could feel Daniel’s shadow just behind Amos, Nina couldn’t say much.

“You’ll be okay?” Amos asked.

“I’ll be back in ten,” Nina promised. “I just can’t read it with anyone else around.”

Reading the letter between her father and mother felt tremendously private. This was ironic, she knew, because so many collectors had read it over the years, and Daniel had apparently owned it since the early days of their dating. She wondered where in the houses and apartments they’d shared he’d kept the letter and marveled that she hadn’t stumbled uponit when she’d decluttered his desk or dusted his office. What would she have done if she had? Would she have ignored it, the way she’d tried to ignore his affair with Angie? Was she really the kind of woman to look the other way when something painful was happening right in front of her?

It was miraculous to learn about yourself. It was miraculous to realize that there was still so much to learn at thirty-eight. It was miraculous to realize you could still change, that to stay alive, you had to change. There was still time.

Nina walked to the beach, sat in the sand, and tried to remember what it had been like to be eleven years old, the daughter of Francesca and Benjamin Whitmore, the kid sister of Alexander, Lorelei, Allegra, Charlotte, and Jack. She’d felt like a little, dreamy alien. The sunshine on her face felt hot, and she cursed herself for not putting sunscreen on first.Stop wasting time, she told herself. She pulled the letter from the envelope and unfolded it. Her ears rang.

June 11, 1997

My darling Francesca,

It’s the third week of your absence, and I’m beginning to wonder if you will ever come home. But I know in so many ways I deserve your departure. It was my lot in life to fall in love with you, and it was my lot in life to stay in love with you despite everything. After all of the betrayals between us, after so many twisted words said, after the horrors of what we’ve wrought—and yes, after the mess of bringing Nina into our lives, I still find my heart returning to you, again and again.

When I picture you in Manhattan, I imagine you’re living the life you always thought you’d have: one of luxury and high-society parties and other fancy Italians and beautiful dresses. I imagine you’re letting other men buy you drinks and take you for walks. I imagine you’re talking to your lawyer onthe phone, asking him about the specifics of divorcing me. I imagine so much, and it haunts me.

I wonder what would happen if I asked you not to? I wonder what would happen if I said, please, my darling, don’t leave me forever. Forgive me, as I have forgiven you in the past. The mess of our romance makes everything that much more textured, doesn’t it? It makes us the king and queen of Nantucket gossip. And I know you have always wanted to be queen.

Your brother is still here. I know you’re tired of this conversation, but I can’t stop myself from thinking he’s here to take and take and take. How much does he know of what the Whitmores stand for? Did you perhaps tell him about it all in the early days of our courtship—when I took you down below and showed you our riches? I was so proud of all that back then. I was proud of the secrets and the ancient betrayals and the generations of Whitmores who thought they were cleverer than anyone else. Perhaps we’ve been lucky, sometimes. But we haven’t been clever. That’s clear.

I can’t help but think that things between us have gotten rockier since Angelo came. Please tell me you see it too.

I don’t want to send your brother back to the madness that awaits him in Italy. But I wonder if there’s a way to reel him in a bit. I wonder if there’s a way to tame whatever terror he’s wreaking on the island. I wonder, I wonder.

My darling, what can I do to bring you back home? So far, I’ve done everything you asked of me, save for one thing. You know that I cannot send Nina away. She is my daughter, and her mother is helpless and penniless and wants nothing to do with her anyway. To be honest, I don’t know where she ended up when she left us, and I don’t care to find out. I know you’ve tried being Nina’s mother; I know you’ve tried your best to love her. But think of how it looks from her perspective.Her “mother” dotes on her five other children and neglects her youngest. The island gossips about that, too.

Nina is a good girl. She’s ten and already a bright force of nature.

Please, forgive her for the act of being born.

Please, forgive me (yet again) for my affair—just as I have forgiven you for yours.

And haven’t I shown tremendous love and affection for your daughter? Haven’t I made her feel as though she’s a proper Whitmore?

I’m rambling, my darling. I see it clearly. But know that I love you with all my heart and soul, in ways that I simply cannot love another. I need you back at the White Oak Lodge. I need you to be my partner in life. I need to see your smile in the morning. I need so much.

Yours forever,

Your husband, Benjamin Whitmore

Nina reread the letter and returned it to its envelope with a shaking hand. She gazed at the horizon for a long time and felt the sun drift higher in the sky. Last night’s raucous antics with Ralph now felt like a million years ago. Her stomach was eating itself, but she couldn’t imagine taking a single bite.