Page 15 of Return to Whitmore
Charlotte thanked him for showing her the ropes of filmmaking, but he reminded her that she had an inner knack for it anyway. “I only pointed out what you already knew,” he said, winking.
A taxi came for Charlotte while her mother was horseback riding with Jefferson and her sisters were upstairs, preparing for their first university classes. It was late August and nearly time for school. Charlotte pressed a kiss to her palm and blew it to the upper floors, hoping her sisters felt her love for them. It had been a complicated time, and they hadn’t always gotten along. But Charlotte certainly couldn’t have survived the previous year without them.
On the plane to Boston, Charlotte tried to write a list of things she wanted within her newfound documentary project—one that doubled down on her previous mission to “understand her mother” and extended to “understanding the Whitmores and what it means that I’m not one.” But Charlotte struggled to make the list very long. On it was: 1. Figure out why Mom cheated with Jefferson Albright. 2. Figure out if there was foul play when the Lodge burned down. But that was where she finished.
She fell asleep and woke up back on American soil.
Of course, Charlotte had considered Vincent. Since she’d decided to return to Nantucket to dig around, she’d dreamed of him almost every night. In some of the dreams, he met her at the Nantucket harbor, eager to ask her to marry him and settle down. In others, he was a criminal, running from the cops, and it was up to her to hide him. Charlotte knew he’d probably gotten a girlfriend since last summer and that she couldn’t control his right to live. But she hoped that whoever he’d found wasn’t as “special” as she was, and the minute he saw her again, he’d leave his new girl and begin again with her.
Charlotte reached Nantucket two days after her departure from Italy and got a room at a little bed-and-breakfast not far from the Sutton Book Club. On an evening stroll, she spotted Esme Sutton on the front porch, sweeping with a long broom and whistling to herself. Everywhere Charlotte looked, she sawsimilarly quaint Nantucket scenes: couples eating ice cream, children playing on swing sets, teenagers eating burgers and milkshakes, and sailors bringing their vessels in for the night. Her heart panged. It wasn’t so long ago that she and her family had been an integral part of these scenes. Never could she have imagined that she’d feel like an outsider.
That first night, she kept to herself. She put a hat on and hid her face when she saw anyone who might recognize her. She slept fitfully, still jet-lagged, and woke up late, feeling dreadful. How long was she going to wait before contacting Vincent? Two days? Three? She checked her reflection in the mirror and was petrified to think she looked old! But she was only twenty.
Maybe it was all in her head.
When Charlotte finally got the nerve to go back to the White Oak Lodge, she brought her camera with her and set up her equipment out front. She wanted to get plenty of shots of the burned-out place, which had been covered in parts with massive protective tarps. It felt incredible that it was still standing, although, even beneath the tarps, she could make out charred bits. She bit her tongue to keep from crying.
It was then she saw him—one of the older employees of the White Oak Lodge, Denny, ducking through the grounds and disappearing behind the old horse barn. Leaving her camera behind, Charlotte broke into a run and found Denny tending to two brown and glossy mares, who, incredibly, still lived in the barn. Charlotte watched, breathless, as Denny fed them and petted them, then turned back to find her. His eyes widened with surprise.
“Miss Charlotte,” he said, “what on earth are you doing here?”
Denny had worked for the Lodge since he was a teenager, long before Charlotte was born. It meant that he knew muchmore about the goings-on of the Lodge and the Whitmores than Charlotte did.
Was it possible he knew about Jefferson Albright?
“Denny,” Charlotte said, stepping into the shadows of the barn. “It’s good to see you.”
Denny let out a boisterous laugh. “My gosh. I haven’t heard a thing from a Whitmore in well over a year.” He paused. “Are you here with your mother?”
Charlotte shook her head.
“I didn’t think so.” He scratched his head. “Are you hungry?”
In fact, Charlotte was. She’d been neglecting her physical needs in honor of her emotional ones, and she wasn’t sure how much longer that could last. After he badgered her a bit more, she agreed to pack up her camera and head over to his little house down the beach. It was there he lived with his wife and their daughter, a ten-year-old named Alicia. Charlotte had no idea he was married and didn’t know anything else, really, about his life, and for this she felt ashamed. Like the other Whitmores, she’d always been tied up in the affairs of the White Oak Lodge and hadn’t allowed time to get to know the non-Whitmores around her.
Not that I’m a Whitmore, she reminded herself, filled with shame.
They sat at the kitchen table with glasses of lemonade. Charlotte reminded herself that if she was going to be a good documentarian, she had to learn to be a good interviewer. She asked his permission to set up the camera and then returned to the table. Denny laughed nervously and looked directly at the camera.
“It’s best if we pretend the camera isn’t here,” she told him.
“Oh!” Denny furrowed his brow and turned his attention to her.
“Can you tell me what’s been happening at the Lodge since last summer?” she asked.
“Nothing, really,” Denny answered. “After it burned, I kept waiting to hear from someone about what was next for the property. It isn’t so damaged that it couldn’t be restored. Like I said, I kept going to the grounds to feed the horses and take care of the garden. For the first few months, I was still getting paid by the Whitmores, but that’s gone now. I have another job.”
Charlotte’s heart was tender toward him. “It’s kind of you to take care of the horses. Have you considered selling them?”
“I’ve raised them from fouls,” Denny said, smiling to himself. “I feel like they’re my children, in a sense.” He cleared his throat. “I sold the rest of them, though. I still have the money in my account. Haven’t spent a lick of it. I know that money belongs to the Whitmores.”
Charlotte fought the urge to tell him that she needed that money. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “You should keep it and spend it on whatever you need.”
Denny breathed easier. It seemed this had been weighing heavily on his mind.
Charlotte asked him several more questions about the previous year, including his suspicions about why the Lodge had burned in the first place.
“There are plenty of rumors,” he said, sounding nervous again. “But I like to take everything at face value. It was a Fourth of July fireworks accident. A tragedy, but something that happens all the time.”
