Page 66 of Our Last Vineyard Summer

All three of them remained glued to their seats in the idling truck, while Peanut Butter panted out the window. Betsy debated getting out at all. Having a person here, even if it was her father’s property, was complicated.

“Let’s go to the records office.” Louisa’s voice had an edge to it. “There must be some mistake. Maybe Dad wrote twelve, but it’s eight or ten.”

James turned off the radio, then the ignition. He didn’t say anything, turning in his seat to see what Betsy would say, the springs under his seat squeaking.

Betsy was usually the one who gave in the easiest, the one who chickened out on a dare, but this time, with James watching her and with her eldest sister ready to flee, she decided to be brave. “Well, we came all this way.”

“I’d rather return with the deed in hand. Then we have a case.” Louisa always relied on logic when she was most uncertain. Betsy agreed, but the car was in the driveway. They needed to see if anyone was home.

“You made poor James drive us here, and I’m not turning back until we see if this is Dad’s house.” Betsy caressed Peanut Butter’s snout for courage, told James she’d be right back, then pushed open her car door and marched up the brick path. She raised her fist to rap on the door and paused, sensing that Louisa hadn’t followed. Closing her eyes, Betsy willed her sister to come. One, two. She was truly afraid.

Betsy tipped her head to the shingled colonial, a momentary sense of satisfaction crossing over her. Something about the house, the handsome molding over the front door, the brass knocker in the shape of a sailboat, felt familiar. She heard footsteps approaching.

Please, please, please, Betsy thought.Please let this house be ours.

A memory of her mother in high heels standing at this front door. A pale blue suit. Her hair pinned in a French twist. She and James poking at each other on the grass; Betsy doing a handstand. Her mother shushing them.

She turned back to glance at James in the car. He was gazing up at the house, squinting. There was a knowingness when he and Betsy locked eyes.

“Louisa, I think I’ve been here with…”

But Betsy didn’t have time to say more.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXVirgie

1965

You’ve been sleeping since yesterday.” Pamela sat on the edge of the bed in Virgie’s Martha’s Vineyard bedroom, holding a cool compress to her head like Virgie was sick with fever. She sat up in her blue bouclé jacket; why hadn’t she changed out of her stiff skirt suit? She felt okay, no aches or sore throat. Then the reality came to her. Melody’s face, the girl with the strawberry bathing suit, the house on Nantucket—why did Charlie have anything to do with a house on Nantucket?—and Virgie felt the weight of an iron anchor press against her chest.

“When you didn’t get out of bed this morning,” Pamela said, a kerchief tied around her head like she’d been doing housework, “Betsy came to get me.”

Virgie couldn’t remember getting home from Nantucket, parking the car, climbing into her bed. It scared her. “Has Charlie phoned?”

“Twice,” she said. “I told him you weren’t feeling well, and Louisa would call him tonight with an update.”

The ugly details of what she’d discovered on Nantucket wasn’t something she could share with her daughters. As angry as she was with Charlie, she wouldn’t take him away from her girls. Virgie turned on the shower, letting the bathroom grow cloudy with steam. Latheringher hair, her mind went to the reporter who stopped her last week. The photo he’d snapped. If the news of this other woman made its way into the world, the morality police would close in. There was only so much decency you could expect from a newspaper, even theSun, who would call it something obnoxious like “Mr. Whiting’s Love Nest.”

The humiliation she would suffer as his wife, forced to smile despite the gossip rags, holding his hand at a campaign rally. Unless she refused.

Unless she filed for divorce. She certainly had the grounds.

With her damp hair brushed straight, Virgie padded down the crooked stairs. Pamela was in the kitchen preparing a fresh bouquet of hydrangeas and daylilies. It was two p.m. and sailing let out at three. Then the girls would waltz in with smiles and happy stories. Virgie needed to pull herself together. There was a bologna sandwich waiting on a plate, and Pamela fetched her a glass of ice water. Virgie stood at the window and nibbled the sandwich, staring out at the weeping willow. Pamela appeared next to her.

“Thank you for being here,” Virgie said, forcing herself to eat and drink despite the bowling ball spinning in her stomach.

“You don’t have to tell me what’s wrong, Virgie. By the look of you, I know it’s bad. But you asked me what would make me happy recently, and I think I know what it is.” She wrapped her fingers around the back of the chair. “It’s faith. I need to have more faith in what’s possible and what seems impossible too.”

“Faith and trust and pixie dust.” Virgie smiled weakly.

She was repeating the quote fromPeter Panthat she’d said to her girls often when they were younger. The words had rung true all these years because it had made her think that everyone needed to believe in the unknown. It always made her think of Charlie too. His faith that he could be elected, that his background as an orphan would be his greatest strength. Everywhere he went, a little pixie dust followed. To her, Charlie was magic.

“Maybe some pixie dust, sure.” Pamela smiled wanly, then she pulled Kate Chopin’sThe Awakeningout of her apron. “I finished it.” A few pages were dog-eared. “It’s such a sad story, and some of the racy scenes made me blush, but I think I see why you like it.”

It touched Virgie that Pamela had read it; she didn’t think she’d bother. “I just wanted you to know that a woman is not alone in her feelings. Anyone can feel empty inside, even the women you met here who seemed to have everything with their baubles and beautiful houses.”

Pamela adjusted the folds of her skirt. “I think I can stop drinking, and I think you can get over whatever happened in Nantucket.”

Virgie fell silent. She imagined going to a divorce attorney. Carrying a stack of papers over for Charlie to sign, his grimace when he realized what she was asking for. A darker thought emerged too. Charlie in their bedroom with the shades drawn, the depths to which she’d seen him despair when he’d fallen into his nervous condition. It had happened only once, but the doctors had said extreme stress may cause it to resurface. As much as Virgie hated him right now, as much as he’d hurt her, she knew what a divorce would do to him. For once, it had nothing to do with the campaign. He would be losing the only family he ever had.

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