Page 19 of Love Conquers All

Graham’s eyes flickered with intrigue.

Hilary’s perfect lips parted. “Wait a minute. Is that how you two know each other?”

Sylvie stewed in shame and fear.

“I mean, your environmentalism,” Hilary said. “Have you worked together in the past? You’re sort of a match made in heaven, right? Graham’s always handcuffing himself to bulldozers, and Sylvie’s always writing about the terrors of tourism and dying ecosystems.”

Sylvie’s tongue felt glued to the bottom of her mouth.

Graham said, “We’ve worked together in the past, yeah. Actually, we staged our first protest together.”

Hilary clasped her hands together. “You’re kidding.”

“We were fifteen,” Sylvie hurried to say. It wasn’t a big deal.

Hilary’s smile was enormous. “You started fighting right here. And now you’re both back. I suppose you want to take on that big corporation? That one building all those atrocious luxury hotels? What are they called again, Graham? I saw somewhere that you had already handcuffed yourself to one of their bulldozers. What was it? Two days ago?”

Graham’s cheeks were now cherry red. Sylvie turned to look at him with surprise.

“They’re called the Next Generation Nantucket Designers,” Graham said. “What an arrogant name.”

“Awful,” Hilary agreed. “And Sylvie, are you writing a piece about them?”

With a jolt, Sylvie realized that the corporation Graham was fighting and the one that would receive money from the sale of her father’s inn was the same. Next Generation Nantucket Designers. Ugh. They really did sound like the worst people on the planet.

But Sylvie had moved on to other fights. She’d told herself she wouldn’t spend more than a few days on Nantucket.

She had a life elsewhere, didn’t she?

“Listen,” Hilary said when Sylvie seemed too mystified to answer, “I know today is tricky. I’ll stop pestering you about this.But I’d love to have you both over for dinner soon. Graham, I still owe you for your work back in the day. And Sylvie, I’d love to talk to you more about your journalistic endeavors.”

“I’d like that,” Graham said.

And because Sylvie found it difficult to say goodbye to Graham so soon after seeing him again, she agreed to dinner in two days.

It was just a couple more days on the island. Maybe it would give her time to regroup, understand what she wanted from her time on Nantucket—and figure out how to encounter the drama of her father’s will.

Suddenly, the doors to the funeral home opened. Four sturdy-looking men Sylvie didn’t recognize carried a casket down the front steps and put it in the back of a hearse. The casket carrying my father to his final resting place. Graham’s hand found the small of her back.

“Do you want to go?” he asked.

Sylvie’s throat was tight. The cemetery was the last place she wanted to be. But she felt her head drop forward into a nod.

“I’ll be here when you get back,” Hilary assured them.

Graham and Sylvie stepped into the spitting rain and soon found Valerie’s car humming at the curb, waiting for them. Although Graham offered Sylvie the passenger seat, she preferred the back. She wanted to sit silently, listening to the easy rhythm of Valerie and Graham’s conversations, pretending it was twenty-three years ago. Pretending she’d never left.

Chapter Nine

Graham didn’t know how to leave Sylvie’s side. Throughout the ceremony at the cemetery, a burial of rain and sleet and chill, Graham fought the urge to take her hand.We don’t know each other anymore,he reminded himself over and over again. She wouldn’t like it.

And then, remember how it destroyed him when she left?

When the burial was over, Sylvie remained by her mother’s grave for a long time. SARAH BRUCKSON in big block letters. She’d died when Sylvie was seven—which was old enough to remember, and therefore, more of a tragedy because it had told her of everything she’d been missing out on later. Graham hung back, waiting for her, his curls drizzling with rain. Valerie warmed the car behind them, waiting like the dutiful mother she was. When Sylvie turned back, Graham was struck with the feeling that she looked no different than she had at seventeen. He also couldn’t understand why she—with all her beauty, smarts, and success in her profession—wasn’t married or at least with someone. He was sure she’d had boyfriends since they were seventeen. He was sure people had fallen madly in love with her.

Back at Hannigan’s, James’s party was in full swing. Graham led his mother and Sylvie to a corner table and grabbed drinksand appetizers for them both, keeping one eye on them as he meandered through the crowd. It looked as though Sylvie and his mother had slipped back into the beautiful relationship they’d once had. Valerie had been like a stand-in mother for Sylvie, worrying about her endlessly when she ran away. Valerie had cried and said, “I love that girl like a daughter. Doesn’t she know that?” But Graham had been too brokenhearted to understand his mother’s grief that she’d stayed up nights waiting for her to come back.

James Bruckson had given the bartenders a playlist that contained five hours of music. On it were greatest hits from the sixties, seventies, and eighties, plus plenty of jazz, which he’d loved. Graham sat with his mother and ex-girlfriend, watching the crowd. Hilary Salt was seated with a bunch of women in their forties and fifties, women who looked sun-kissed and glossy. Once, Hilary gave him a little wave. What were the chances that she was here in Nantucket at the same time as him? Graham couldn’t believe his luck. Maybe Hilary would help him fight the Next Generation Nantucket Designers. Perhaps she’d be instrumental in maintaining the delicate ecosystem of the island.

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