Page 38 of Love Conquers All

The man at the Nantucket Historical Society took a breath. “It’s strange.”

“What’s strange?” Sylvie demanded.

“I can’t remember seeing anything like this before. But it doesn’t say how she died.”

Sylvie’s breathing was all over the place. She found herself on her feet.

She asked him if there was some mistake. But there was no mistake.

Sarah Bruckson had died on October 7th, 1991. But according to public records, nobody knew why.

But James Bruckson knew,Sylvie thought. He’d decided to keep the facts of his wife’s death till he went to his own grave. It was enough to make Sylvie sick to her stomach. But she thanked the researcher, then lay back on her brand-new secondhand mattress, her hands in fists, feeling the world spin around her.She felt her father had wronged not only her but also her mother. And she felt that—in life—it was up to Sylvie to honor her mother’s memory, to fight the good fight for the earth and all the people in it, if only to prove to her mother that bringing Sylvie into this world had been worth it.

Chapter Seventeen

Present Day

Sylvie couldn’t remember whose idea it had been for Graham to come with her to Alabama. One minute, the plan was for him to stay at The House on Nantucket and prepare the inn for the season, and the next, they were throwing their bags into the trunk of his electric car and making their way to the ferry. With Graham at the wheel, Sylvie felt taken care of.At least I have this,she thought. She was terrified.

Graham parked the car in the belly of the ferry and looked at her. The air was filled with tension. Why did his hair have to look quite this good? Why did he have to be so handsome?

“Do you want a cup of coffee?” Graham asked.

Sylvie nodded and followed him upstairs to the little on-board café, where they sat with lattes and tried not to look at one another too closely. When Graham glanced at his phone, Sylvie took the opportunity to do the same and found several messages from the Salt Sisters—all of whom knew the gravity of her trip to Alabama and how nervous she was.

HILARY: How is it?

SYLVIE: I saw you twenty minutes ago!

HILARY: I know! But have you and Graham told one another everything on your mind yet? It feels like there’s so much unspoken tension…

ROSE: Girl, grab him and tell him you’ve missed him all these years!

SYLVIE: It isn’t that simple. And he’s sweet for coming on this work trip with me.

HILARY: Did you forget? You’ve been teammates since the beginning. He wants to help you!

SYLVIE: I don’t know.

On Hilary’s veranda last night, Sylvie had told the Salt Sisters that Graham was going to come with her to Alabama, but she hadn’t fully told them why. The why felt too enormous to speak aloud.

But it had to do with her mother’s journals.

All of those journals remained in the attic of The House on Nantucket. She couldn’t find the strength to open them. They’d shaken her to her core.

“You’re doing the right thing,” Graham said now, his eyes lifted toward hers.

Sylvie’s lips parted. She knew he wanted to say something kind, but she didn’t really know what he meant.I’m not doing anything right,she wanted to say.

She’d wanted to know what was on her mother’s mind all her life. She’d wanted to know who she was. And now, faced with that opportunity, she was too frightened. She was running headfirst toward Alabama and an alligator farmer.

But she had Graham by her side.

After they drove off the ferry at Hyannis Port, the silence felt thunderous. Sylvie turned on the radio, searching for a station that might drown out her anxiety. When she flicked past a song Graham had loved when they were sixteen, Graham protested. “Come on,” he said. “Do you still know all the words?”

Sylvie knew all the words, of course. It was “Smooth” by Santana, featuring Rob Thomas, and it had been on the radio approximately ten times an hour from the years 2000 to 2004, it felt like. Graham began to sing, and Sylvie found herself joining him, time-traveling through music. Tears spiked in her eyes. If the radio station played exclusively songs from their past all the way to Alabama, she might have a heart attack.

After “Smooth,” the radio station cut to a commercial break. Sylvie breathed a sigh of relief.

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