Page 53 of Love Conquers All

But Sylvie and Graham had talked about it. If they were going to stay on the island for a while—tending to The House on Nantucket and tending to their love—they needed people. They needed community. They’d agreed that had been one of James and Sarah’s biggest downfalls. When they’d come to Nantucket, Sarah had kept herself isolated, writing in her diary about how unhappy she was without actually getting out there and living.Sylvie didn’t want to be like her mother. And having girlfriends like the Salt Sisters felt nourishing. It felt like swimming in calm waters. It felt like being understood in an entirely different sphere.

When Sylvie reached Hilary’s that evening, she found Rose, Hilary, Tina, Robby, and Stella on the veranda, dressed in silk tank tops, their shoulders tanned and sculpted from yoga and Pilates, sharing orange wine and eating olives and soft cheeses.

“There she is!” Hilary popped up to hug her. “When was the last time we saw you?”

“It’s been a week, at least. Where have you been?” Rose said, pretending to be hurt.

“Oh, she’s been falling in love,” Stella said, her eyes dancing.

“Falling back in love,” Hilary said, her voice lilting. “You need to tell us everything.”

Sylvie sat with a glass of wine and recounted bits and pieces of her beautiful love story. She was careful to keep enough to herself, to keep what was meant to be private in her heart. But she said enough for the girls to squeal and ask more questions and say, “It’s so romantic. I can’t believe it.”

“Are you going to stay in Nantucket?” Tina asked, her eyes widening.

“I was wondering that, too,” Rose said. “You were pretty adamant early on that you wanted to get out of here.”

Sylvie allowed herself a momentary reflection on Manhattan, that city that had etched itself onto her soul over the past twenty-three years.

But she said, “I think Manhattan was done with me. I don’t think I was ready to accept that. Maybe I would have dwelled in that city, all by myself, nursing broken heart after broken heart for a whole lot longer.”

Maybe Mike knew it was done with me, too,she thought. She could only think of him fondly, now—like a man who’d helped her get from one place to the next in her journey.

“But Graham saved you from all that,” Stella said.

“I think you saved yourself,” Hilary said with a crooked smile. “Graham had nothing to do with it.”

“I had to be able to accept what he was offering,” Sylvie said thoughtfully, remembering Graham's look of earnest and open love when they’d gone to Alabama. “I think it took more strength than I realized it would.”

The Salt Sisters nodded in understanding. They told stories of their own lost loves and their fights for acceptance. Sylvie felt protected and warm.

Later, when Sylvie updated the Salt Sisters on her mother’s diaries, they echoed her worry.

But the first thing Rose said was, “You can’t blame yourself for what happened. You can’t blame yourself for the fact that she didn’t get help.”

“It sounds like she was really sick,” Stella said. “She went from fertility issues to her husband having cancer to dealing with his death. She was young.”

“And it was the eighties,” Hilary agreed. “We didn’t know enough about mental health back then.”

They were quiet for a moment, considering how Sarah’s generation had failed her.

“I need to keep reading them,” Sylvie said finally. “But I’m terrified of what else they’ll show me.”

But the Salt Sisters agreed that she could handle it if she really wanted to know.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The day before their planned drive to Washington, DC, Graham and Sylvie entered Sylvie’s childhood home for the first time since their return. James Bruckson had lived alone in the old colonial since Sylvie’s departure. It was where James and Sarah had moved after they’d fled Rhode Island and where they’d brought baby Sylvie home from the hospital. It was filled with even more ghosts than the inn, memories that made Sylvie’s heart ache. But it was also more or less a clean bachelor’s home, with simple furniture, a television, and a bed. Sylvie and Graham made up their minds to sell it as soon as they could.

It was one thing to operate The House on Nantucket. It was another to live in the same rooms where her mother had been depressed and miserable. It was another to sleep in the same room where her parents had, both simmering with anger, neither acting out of love.

They’d decided to stay at Graham’s place for the time being. In autumn, after the chaos of the tourism season was through and they’d taken Next Generation Nantucket Designers off the map, they would start viewing houses. Sylvie imagined abeautiful, quaint place on the water, one not far from Stella and Hilary. Maybe they could afford it in Siasconset.

They’d need more than one bedroom. Sylvie felt sure of it—sure that even if she couldn’t get pregnant naturally, she wanted to adopt children with Graham. She wanted to watch them play in the sand and learn about bugs and reptiles; she wanted to show them the beauty of the world and why they needed to care for it.

She wanted something good to come after her. She knew she had to build it.

The following morning, Sylvie and Graham got up at the crack of dawn and started the trip to Washington, DC. Sylvie’s black silk dress was splayed in its protective bag in the back seat, and Graham’s rented tuxedo hung on the hook. On the radio were songs they’d loved in high school, songs they now sang at the top of their lungs as the sunlight spilled through the car windows.

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