Page 34 of Saltwater Secrets
It seemed like this was exactly what Renée wanted to hear. She blushed and raised her chin. “He spoke about you, Mr. Coleman. Sometimes he would visit me at boarding school and tell me all about his life here in Nantucket.”
Roland smiled. “We always talked about doing business together. But your father was like a rocket. I took my time with things. I wasn’t as proactive.”
Hilary knew from her mother that this wasn’t entirely true. Roland hadn’t wanted to do business with Philip Wagner because Philip Wagner had been a white-collar criminal, taking advantage of the systems around him, propelling himself into exorbitant wealth.
The night continued. Hilary tried to keep one ear to Renée’s conversations with her father but soon found herself distracted, helping her mother set out the food and asking her nieces and nephews about their careers and their children. Renée’s laugh was overzealous and almost always artificial, but Hilary reasoned that it was better than Renée’s crying.
After dinner, Hilary followed her mother into the kitchen to do the dishes. Sam came along, as did Darcy with her baby. The baby was awake, babbling happily on Darcy’s chest as she put the dishes Hilary had already washed into the various cabinets. A few Colemans came in for fresh bottles of wine or the platter of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. It felt like real summer: a time of freedom and throwing away food rules in pursuit of pleasure.
When it was clear that Renée was too far away from the kitchen to overhear them, Estelle lowered her voice and asked, “How do you think she’s doing?”
“Not great,” Hilary admitted. “It’s like she doesn’t want to face her feelings about her mother at all.”
“Why do you think Dorothy put her up to all these tasks?” Sam asked, sliding a towel across the counter.
“Honestly? I don’t know.” Hilary took a beat. “Why would you?”
Sam and Estelle seemed to consider this.
Estelle took a breath. “I don’t think I’d be able to bear it if one of my daughters hated me. Scratch that, I’d fall apart.”
“I agree with that,” Sam said sadly.
“Same.” Hilary only had one daughter, but Aria was her life.
“Maybe she wanted Renée to understand her, somehow,” Sam piped up. “Perhaps she wanted her to oversee what Dorothy had left behind to get a better sense for her?”
Hilary raised her eyebrows, thinking of the photo album, the envelope filled with pictures of a mysterious and handsome man. Had Dorothy wanted Hilary to pass along these images to Renée? Were they a part of her grand plan?
When Hilary reached for the envelope of photographs, Darcy’s baby began to fuss, so she went upstairs for a feeding. Sam went outside to check on her husband and make sure everyone was well-fed with a drink. This left Estelle and Hilary with the yellowed envelope that Hilary didn’t know what to do with. She wasn’t even sure why she’d brought it over.
“What’s that?” Estelle asked, arching a single brow.
Hilary’s throat swelled. “I don’t really know. Maybe it’s an answer to something. But it’s still more questions about Dorothy’s life.”
Estelle beckoned, and Hilary handed the envelope over and sat at the kitchen table. Her mother remained standing, flipping through the photographs. Her eyes were shadowed and mysterious.
“Do you know him?” Hilary asked, trying to sound innocent.
“I recognize him,” Estelle said. “But I don’t know from where.”
“That’s what I was thinking!” Hilary tapped her fingers across the table. “It’s driving me crazy.” She explained wherethe envelope had been hidden and her speculation that whoever had taken the photographs had been in love with him. “Was it possible that Dorothy had an affair of her own? It appears that the photographs begin in the early eighties. Maybe even the late seventies?”
Estelle nodded and pointed out that one of the pictures had been taken in front of a Manhattan hotel that she knew for a fact hadn’t existed beyond 1980; something to do with a bankruptcy and the owner having to flee the country at the last minute. Estelle’s knowledge of this felt like proof of the longevity of the relationship between the person who’d taken the photographs and the man in them. It was clear that they’d been together for at least twenty years.
“It’s hard for me to put this all together,” Hilary whispered. “I mean, when I met Dorothy, I never imagined all this.”
“It’s like that for all older people, I feel,” Estelle said sadly, gathering up the photographs once more, stacking them tenderly. “They’ve all lived tremendous lives, filled with countless stories. But when younger folks look at them, all they see is adorable, incapable old people.”
Hilary felt a stab of recognition. She didn’t want people to think that way about her one day, but she imagined they would. It was inescapable.
More than that, she really didn’t want people to think that way about her mother and father. But because they were in their late sixties and early seventies, she imagined that many people already thought of them like that.
How awful. How inaccurate!
How terrible that we must grow old, Hilary thought.
The night went on. Hilary returned to the veranda, where she sat and listened to Renée in conversation with Sam, talking about Renée’s memories on Nantucket. It was a surprise to hear her open up like this. Was it because of the wine?
