Page 60 of Our Last Vineyard Summer

But it had been Charlie’s fault. He’d carried on a relationship with her best friend. He’d had a child with her in the same year that she and Charlie had Betsy. Two girls, the same age, the same father, living on two different New England summer islands. The cruelest thought entered her mind, a bedrock of jealousy loosening itself from deep down inside: Guilt is what drove him to spend so much extra time with Betsy over the years. When he looked at her, he must have seen his mistake. He must have always tried to make up for it.

Virgie had to remind herself to breathe. “I might have thought Charlie capable of something like this, but you? You came to my house for dinner on Sundays. The two of you sat at my dining room table together. The blind trust I put in you. In both of you.”

Melody kept saying the same thing: “I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.”

The words slipped through the air. Virgie wasn’t even listening anymore. “I knew you were desperate for a husband. But I never thought you’d try to steal mine.”

Virgie heard the woman blubbering behind her. “Please, Virgie. You need to know that I tried to protect you. I’ve prayed every night that you and I never had to have this conversation.”

Virgie and the children were back in the car then, driving the wide-open roads of this island that was shaped like a splatter of ink ona page. Virgie kept turning down the wrong streets, driving sandy dirt roads that dead-ended at the ocean. The kids were hyper in the back seat, begging for ice cream. A whiff of perfume on Charlie’s collar, a matchbook from a hotel in his jacket pocket. But it had been okay, hadn’t it? She knew two other Senate wives who had suffered similarly, and during one luncheon where they’d had more than one mimosa, they’d admitted that they thought it was normal.That men just needed that…Virgie blocked any indiscretions out of her mind. True Charlie. That was her husband, and he would stand by her until the end of time. She would stand by him.

But the myth of Charlie Whiting was a story that could no longer be told.

Virgie saw a pay phone in front of a store selling postcards. She dialed the operator and called Charlie’s office collect, his secretary accepting the charges. “Charlie is at lunch and will be back in about fifty minutes,” she said. “Do you want me to have him call you?”

A passing car blasted the song “Ticket to Ride” by the Beatles, the sound overtaking her ears. Virgie slammed down the earpiece. His grin when he laughed. His navy suits. A whiskey on the rocks, and a waitress who giggled after writing down his order.

Virgie found a park bench near a small pebbly beach at the edge of town. There was a woman sitting on the seawall with a small toy poodle. Virgie dangled her legs over the side, the wet nose of the dog rubbing against her fingertips. A shudder carried through her, her eyes growing wet.

“Are you okay, miss?” The woman handed her a tissue, waiting for Virgie to take it.

“My husband has a secret second family.”

What did it matter if she told a stranger? What did it matter if she outed True Charlie?

She took off down the street in a daze. Had two minutes passed, or two hours? A church made of cedar shingles. A statue of St. Maryout front. Mary, who was God’s mother, not his equal, but his birther. Opening the mahogany doors, its panels made of stained glass crosses, Virgie found the confessional at the back of the pews.

Perhaps there was no one as true as she’d thought Charlie. She stepped inside the small dark confessional, closing the black silk curtain and thinking it sounded like the one on her shower. She waited for the voice of the priest to emerge.

“I welcome you, my child.”

Her voice sounded so quiet she could barely hear herself, but she didn’t know how to yell without yelling so loud that her voice cracked the statues. “Forgive me, Father, but my husband has sinned. He has done something unforgivable, and I don’t think I can recover from it.”

The face of the girl in the strawberry bathing suit. Her eyes like Charlie’s, her skinny legs like Betsy’s.

The shadowy voice sounded like God itself. “Forgiveness comes to anyone who seeks it, and he deserves to earn back your forgiveness. Everyone we love deserves forgiveness.”

It was nonsense. A priest was just another man in a special suit. Virgie ripped open the curtain, her voice clear. She banged on the confessional. “That’s bullshit. Don’t try to protect him.”

In the bright sun, Virgie tripped on a cobblestone. There was the bookshop, a hardware store. She circled the Athenaeum. The gift shop with the postcards. She called Charlie’s office collect once more, his secretary answering again, and when she said he still hadn’t returned from lunch, Virgie yelled: “Tell him to go to hell.”

When she came across the statue of St. Mary once more, she collapsed on the church steps. The sun was low in the sky. She needed to get the children off Nantucket, but first, she would need to stop crying.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURBetsy

1978

Betsy opened all the windows in the living room to encourage the soft summer breeze inside. The three sisters were reading on the couch, with Aggie’s children long asleep upstairs. Each sister would glance up every so often at their mother, who was showing unrelenting stamina withThe Awakening. They needed to tell Aggie about the letter.

“I can’t wait to discuss this with you girls.” Their mother was wearing her cutoff denim shorts, her wavy hair pulled into a loose bun. “Water is such a symbol for Edna. It’s like the more she swims, the more she realizes how boxed in she feels.”

“Well, she’s free in the water,” Betsy said. She was nearly done with the book too. “Then she feels the vise tighten once more because she’s a mother, a wife. Identities that make her feel conflicted.”

“But she loves her children. Sometimes she seems uncertain why she made these choices, like someone forced her hand.”

They all wanted to force their mother to go to bed so they could talk about this mysterious plot of land on Nantucket. Finally, around ten, their mother dog-eared the novel, announced she was exhausted, and climbed up the crooked steps. Now they were huddled together at the far end of the sofa, whispering. Louisa had a lined notebook onher lap. “So, Mr. Edwin called from the bank today and said we’ve been approved for a loan for $15,000. It’s something, and I will sign for it, but it’s certainly not enough to save the house.”

“He did tell Louisa that he would call the mortgage company though and ask for an extension on our foreclosure date.” Betsy broke in, trying to get to the point. She smiled. “Because there’s been a development, Ag, something with potential.”

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