Page 72 of Our Last Vineyard Summer

Betsy felt the hairs on her arm stand up as she thought of another possibility—that there could have been other women, other affairs.

Louisa emerged from the shower with her hair wrapped in a towel and sat at the corner of the scratchy bedspread in her pajamas. They watched a rerun ofThe Price Is Righton the television without sound.

A row of grocery products were rolled onto the stage, the contestants asked to predict the price of each item. When the first contestant was called on, Betsy said, “I’m sorry, Louisa. I had no idea that you’d been saddled with that knowledge all this time. Why didn’t you tell me or Aggie?”

Louisa shook her hair out of the towel, brushing it straight. “I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want anyone to know.” Louisa began to cry, and Betsy rolled on her side to face her. She continued. “But what was the point of torturing myself when Mom knew all along? I had no idea she knew. It’s shocking that she kept so much of it to herself and stayed with him. I still don’t understand why she did.”

“Because it would have crushed her if we thought of her as a woman who chose to stand by her cheating husband. It doesn’t compute with who she is.” Their eyes struck like a match, a knowingness in the explanation. “With Dad’s little mistake hidden over on Nantucket, maybe she just pretended it never happened.” Betsy pulled at the loosethreads in the bedspread. She knew something about what a woman would do to keep a secret. “Anyway, I owe you an apology.”

“You don’t need to apologize.”

But she did. Louisa had always seemed so perfect, neatly sewn up. She thought her mother and father were, too, and that was why Betsy’s failures had always felt so big. None of them was perfect though—far from it—and it was loosening something inside her. A sense that she could fail and still be worth loving. A sense that she could be honest in this scrappy little room.

“Mom and Dad were always fawning over every little thing you did, and I was so envious that I never stopped to consider whether you were happy or okay. That wasn’t fair.”

Louisa’s Harvard Law T-shirt had faded, the heather-gray fabric soft and worn-in. “Oh, Betsy. I am nowhere near perfect. There are things in my past that I’m so ashamed of that I cannot say them out loud.”

“That’s why I’m apologizing. Because I never took the time to get to know you. It’s as though you froze in time in our teenage years, and we’ve been playing out the same storylines ever since.” Betsy sat up, tucked her legs under her. “But I do want to know you better. I do want to be closer to you.”

Betsy felt like a grown-up saying that. For years, she’d resented her sister and how close she was to their mother. Now their intimacy seemed like a lifeline for Louisa. The day she’d walked in on her father with another woman was the day she’d lost him, and in keeping the secret, she’d allowed Betsy to have him for the next decade.

Louisa smiled. “Being home these last few weeks has drawn us closer, don’t you think? Being in this nightmare with the house, with Dad, it’s the beginning of something new.”

“I hope so.” Betsy bit the inside of her cheek. She took a deep breath; what she wanted to say next would be particularly hard to admit. For years, it was the only power she’d had over her sister. “You know how you always used to say that I was Dad’s favorite?”

Louisa picked at a scab from a mosquito bite on her arm. “YouwereDad’s favorite.”

It was a falsehood that would be painful to dispense, but she needed to, for her sister’s sake. “I was only his favorite because you pushed him away. I was his second choice, and I’m not saying that to make you feel better. I mean, I am, but I’m also saying it because it always bothered me. You were Mom’s favorite, and deep down, I knew you were Dad’s, too, and that left me feeling so alone. I think it’s why I was always so angry at you.”

Louisa reached across the blank space between them, what had minutes ago felt like an ocean. She took Betsy’s hand with care. “Betsy, we don’t love people the same way every single day, and maybe that’s the part no one told you. There are moments when I feel so connected to Mom, and some days I’d rather jump off a building than be in the same room with her. There were times when I couldn’t get enough of you, and times when I avoided you. But I do love you. I love you so much that I felt incredibly empty inside when you pushed me away last year, like I was walking around without an arm or something. A sister’s love is an enduring one. Even if we have a bad year, I’ll never give up on you.”

Betsy felt a single tear slip into her mouth. “But I annoy you. I annoy you and you hate me, and I’m so lame.”

It was the first time that they’d laughed since they got off the ferry this morning, and Louisa seemed genuinely happy to be having the conversation. “I annoy you too. I drive you crazy.”

Betsy nodded, then nodded again. “You really do drive me crazy.”

Maybe Betsy would begin the work of getting closer to Louisa right now, just by sitting beside her and listening, sharing the complications they’d been sheltering in their hearts.

A buoy bell chimed out in the harbor, and Betsy grew homesick for the house on Martha’s Vineyard. They’d only been gone a day. How would they leave for a lifetime? Betsy wiped her nose with the back of her wrist. She grew serious then.

Gazing straight into her sister’s light blue eyes, she said, “I’m pregnant.”

Betsy waited for her sister to release her hand. To scoff. To scold her for being such an utter disaster. Instead, Louisa squeezed her hand harder back and grinned. “I know. Aggie and I both know. I’ve been listening to you eat crackers in bed! We’ve just been waiting for you to tell us.”

Before night fell, they began discussing a general plan for what they might do about the Nantucket house. Both sisters put on their pajamas early, the need to relax from the day’s events feeling paramount. There was a small round table in one corner of the room, and Betsy sat in one of the chairs, her knees pulled up to her chest.

“If Melody lived there for the last fifteen or so years, how can we just kick her off the property?” Nothing about this conversation felt good to Betsy, and still, there was no skirting the issue. There was a woman living in the house that they wanted to sell.

Louisa bit her cuticles. “It does feel a bit heartless. And yet… Daddy presented the house in the letter as an investment you should know about, which feels like he intended to reclaim it at a certain point. Melody might have conveniently left those details out.”

They hadn’t pressed Melody on the conditions of their agreement. “What if she paid us rent? Would it be enough to float the loans on the Vineyard house?”

Louisa jotted down the numbers, doing quick long division. “Unfortunately, no.”

“Well, maybe there’s a way we can sell the house but not leave her high and dry. Maybe she wants to buy the house from us.”

Louisa drew spirals on the notepad, starting big and getting smaller and smaller. “Doubtful, but I suppose we need to talk to Melody again. Then again, do we? It’s our house, Betsy. It doesn’t matter what she thinks—she’s not our problem. The house is in Dad’s name. It’s ours.”

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