Page 54 of Love Conquers All

Sylvie got nonstop messages from the Salt Sisters wishing her good luck.

And then she got even more fuel for the fight.

HILARY: I just learned something about Ralph Finster. Back in 1991, he was CEO of a company responsible for fifteen (!) oil spills off the coast of Seattle. More than one hundred thousand animals died, and maybe thirty people were diagnosed with cancer. He left the company and paid a ton of fees out of court. But he’s been trying to escape this narrative ever since.

HILARY: I think it’s part of the reason he started the Journalistic Integrity Agency. Journalists aren’t willing to dig up dirt on him. He’s the person who gives power to what they do.

SYLVIE: Hilary, this is gold. Thank you.

HILARY: Happy to help. I hate that these billionaires aren’t so far away from some of my circles of friends. It isn’t so hard to dig up dirt on them, though.

SYLVIE: <3

Sylvie explained to Graham what Hilary had told her. Graham smacked the steering wheel with excitement. “We’re going to bury this guy.”

The drive from Hyannis Port to Washington, DC, took nearly nine hours. When they reached the hotel, they were exhausted and starving, hardly able to string a few words together without laughing at how silly they sounded. They checked into the hotel, hung their fancy clothes on the rack, and went downstairs to grab dinner and a nightcap. Graham had a vegetarian burger, while Sylvie opted for a tofu salad. They chased their meals with white wine and took the elevator back to their room, arms wrapped around one another.

But that night, Sylvie couldn’t sleep. Graham was tender-looking and so sweet, one arm slung over her. Softly, she crept out of bed and tiptoed to the next room, where she unzipped her bag to find her mother’s final diary. She’d popped it into her things, daring herself to be brave enough to read it when shewas far from The House on Nantucket, far from the place of her mother’s sour memories.

In Washington, DC, she was anonymous. And tomorrow night, she had to be braver than she’d ever been.

Now was the time to discover her mother’s end.

It didn’t take long for Sylvie to realize just how heavy her mother’s depression had gotten.

November 23, 1990

I wish someone would tell me what is wrong with me.

I wish someone would explain why I can’t sit with my daughter after school and feel genuine love for her. I wish someone would help me sort through the chaos of my mind.

I wish Wally were here.

I wish James would stop asking me what’s going on.

I wish, I wish.

January 1, 1991

I have a fantasy of going swimming and never coming back to shore.

January 3, 1991

I called a therapist. Maybe it’s the only way forward. But when the therapist asked why I wanted to meet and what I wanted to work on, I lied and said I wanted to work on making goals for the future. What is “the future”? I wanted to ask the therapist that. But I’m frightened of everyone knowing how dark my thoughts have gotten. I don’t want them to take my daughter away from me.

January 4, 1991

I’ve begun to hear Wally’s voice in my head.

Sylvie snapped the diary closed. Tears filled her eyes.My mother was so sick,she thought, her stomach churning. She needed help, but she didn’t know how to ask for it.

Sylvie was sitting in half darkness, willing herself to keep reading the diary. Outside, it was a hot night in late May, sticky in the way only Washington, DC, could be, and she could feel how hard the air conditioner was working.

Was her mother schizophrenic? She wished she could ask her father. She wished she could sit with James Bruckson and take his hand and say,Tell me. What was it like to live like that?

It was then she remembered her father’s lawyer, Timothy Everett. He’d said he was a dear friend of her father. He’d said they were close.

Did that mean he knew something?

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