Page 14 of Saltwater Secrets
After that, Hilary and the entire estate were filled with activity. She called the ambulance and the morgue and sat in the parlor, her heart thudding as she waited. The valet driver remained at a loss and went back outside to finish watering the lawn. “It’s what she hired me to do,” he said. “She likes the garden to look a certain way.”
Hilary wondered how much the valet driver slash gardener knew about Dorothy Wagner and how much she’d known about him before she passed. Had they been friendly? Had they shared intimate conversations? For years, it was likely that the people who worked here were the only people she saw. Did that make them similar to family? Or had they remained employees?
As Hilary waited for the ambulance to arrive, she tried not to think about death, about her parents aging, about all the things she loved about a world that was so impermanent. It reminded her of her time both pre- and post-glaucoma surgery, when she’d been not entirely sure she would wake up. Now, she thought she was going to start sobbing. When she couldn’t take it anymore, she called Marc, who didn’t answer because, as she already knew, he was in a meeting. An important business meeting that now seemed so silly compared to the density of what had just happened.
Hilary didn’t want to call her mother, didn’t want to consider that Estelle might be next. She considered her friends, her other loved ones. And then she remembered her older sister, Sam, who worked as a social worker and knew best how to handle a crisis like this. It was odd to think of Sam first, she knew. Theirs had always been a tenuous relationship, with Sam never believing that she was really accepted into the Coleman family.This was their father’s fault, something they’d all tried to rectify in the years previous. But Hilary knew that you couldn’t wipe away years of pain and neglect in an instant.
Sam answered on the second ring and came over right away. As the ambulance took Dorothy down the driveway and pulled out of sight, Sam sat with Hilary, mixing her a fancy cocktail and listening as Hilary sobbed.
“I know it’s ridiculous,” Hilary said. “This isn’t my grief. I barely knew her.”
“You wanted to know her better,” Sam offered, stitching her eyebrows together. “You were building something together. And this abrupt ending is terrible.”
Hilary sniffed. “It caught me off guard.”
Sam nodded and went on. “But remember, she was an old woman who’d lived quite a life. She’d loved and lost. And Hilary, she locked herself away for twenty-five years!”
“I think she was done with all that,” Hilary offered. A part of her had imagined that, through the redecoration of Dorothy’s place, Hilary herself would draw Dorothy out of her shell and make her see how beautiful life was, how it was worth it to leave your comfort zone.
“I’m worried,” Hilary said, surprising herself. “I’m worried that one day, I’ll lose my will to live, like Dorothy. I’m worried I’ll lose Marc and Aria and lock myself away. Like Dorothy.”
Sam squeezed Hilary’s hands. Hilary knew she wasn’t being rational, that Dorothy’s death had surprised her so much that it led her to face her deepest fears about her future, about aging, about loneliness.
“Let’s go back to the Jessabelle House,” Sam urged, offering a soft smile. “You shouldn’t be alone tonight.”
Back at Sam’s place, the gorgeous home on the bluffs of Siasconset that she’d inherited from their great-aunt Jessabelle, Sam buttered sourdough bread and made them grilled sandwiches with three types of cheese. The sky had become overcast, clouds swirling with rain, and Sam decided on tomato soup as well, which served as a reminder of their favorite comfort meals as kids. Sam fetched Hilary some pajamas, and they sat under the overhang on the lower floor of the house, wrapped in blankets, eating and watching the rain.
It took ages for Hilary to get up the nerve to call Aria and tell her what had happened.
They were still on the covered porch, their plates clean and stacked in the kitchen, their glasses filled with wine. Night had fallen, but the rain continued, patting out a comfortable rhythm on the roof.
Aria had a thousand questions. “What happened?
“Were you there?
“What’s going to happen now?
“Are you all right?
“Are you alone?”
It was clear that Dorothy’s death had made Aria think about Hilary’s death, as well—about a future in which she’d have to learn the worst news about her mother’s fate and deal with it. Hilary didn’t like making her daughter think about that, but such was life.
It sounded like Aria wasn’t alone. When Hilary pressed her, she explained that her friend Gina from college was over. There was a slight twinge to the word “friend,” which made Hilarycurious, but she didn’t feel it was appropriate to ask, not with Gina presumably in the room with Aria.
“But I shouldn’t stay here, right?” Aria asked. “I mean, I’m here doing Dorothy’s interior design work, and Dorothy is gone.”
Hilary took a breath. It was true that it didn’t make sense for Aria to remain in New York. But the ink had dried on the contract Aria had signed for the interior design work, and the first of Dorothy’s payments had been deposited in Aria’s account. It put them in a complicated legal situation. Besides, wouldn’t Dorothy want the Greenwich Village brownstone to be in a better condition prior to its sale?
Who was going to get Dorothy Wagner’s exorbitant wealth, anyway?
“I’m going to call a lawyer tomorrow and see what’s up,” Hilary said.
Aria was quiet. Hilary imagined her in the Greenwich Village brownstone, surrounded by Dorothy’s things from so long ago.
“She was a kind and wonderful woman.” Hilary hoped to lend her daughter a bit of comfort in the face of this strange and unprecedented experience. “She really liked you, Aria. Remember? She wanted you to get out of Nantucket. She wanted you to go to the city and have an adventure.”
Aria made a strange noise in her throat. “Some adventure.”
