Page 49 of Saltwater Secrets
Aria shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t touch it.”
“And my mother left this?” she asked.
“I assume so,” Aria said. “I don’t understand it at all.”
Renée flared her nostrils and looked down at the journals. It was clear that the tremendous answers to her life’s questions lay in those entries, in those letters from her mother. Fear etched itself across her face. Hilary fought her urge to throw her arms around the older woman and tell her they would get through this together. This wasn’t Hilary or Aria’s battle. It was Renée’s.
But they were here, if she needed them.
Before Hilary had the chance to say so, Aria piped up.
“It’s been a privilege to design your home,” she said of the brownstone. “It’s been the best project I’ve ever worked on in my life. But I know it’s brought with it many painful memories for you. I hope you know that I’m here for you, in whatever capacity you need.”
Hilary’s heart swelled. Her daughter was the kind of person to offer that softness, that empathy. Her daughter was the kind of person to lend an ear.
She wondered if Dorothy had ever felt that way about Renée and Rachel, before everything had fallen apart.
A moment later, the shoebox fell to the ground. Renée had thrown herself over the coffee table to draw Aria in a hug. She let out three bubbly sobs, then withdrew, wiping her cheeks with her hands. Before long, she gathered the journals and the shoebox and retired upstairs, presumably to dive into what her mother had left behind for her.
Aria and Hilary were quiet for a long time, watching as the sun made its slow sherbet descent toward the Nantucket horizon. Before the end of the year, the brownstone would be finished, and by the end of next summer, maybe, the Wagner Estate would be completed as well. Before long, Hilary and Aria would move on to future projects, future stories. But something about this particular job was pivotal. It was the first after Hilary’s marriage to Marc, the first after Aria’s first monstrousbreakup. It had taught them more about life and perseverance than either of them had reckoned for.
It had also, maybe, drawn them apart. Physically. For a time.
Aria confessed this was true. “I want to live in both places. I don’t want to cut Logan’s and my relationship off at the knees.” She couldn’t look at Hilary, maybe because she knew this news would hurt her.
Hilary searched her heart for a pang of sorrow and found it, of course. Every mother wanted to see her daughter every day. Every mother wanted to know the intricate details of her daughter’s heart and mind.
“I think it’s good to have offices in both locations,” Hilary said with a soft smile, surprising herself. She thought of Marc, who’d told her he would have to go to California at least once a month for the rest of the year. Why shouldn’t she go to Manhattan every month as well? Why shouldn’t she take on the whole world if it were available to her?
Love didn’t need to be limiting. It should open your perspectives. It should link you up with every possibility. Aria and Thaddeus’s love hadn’t been strong enough for that kind of thing. But a mother and daughter’s love? That was without boundaries. It extended beyond life and death.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Celebration of Life for Dorothy Wagner was to be held at the end of August at the Lavender Hotel on Nantucket Island. Aria and Logan drove up from Manhattan, hands linked, swapping playlists as they talked about everything and anything. When they parked at Hyannis Port, waiting for the ferry to board, they realized that the trees nearest them had already begun to take on hues of orange, yellow, and red. Autumn was coming fast, slashing the air with chill. Aria dug a sweater out of her backpack, and Logan put on a beanie. They looked at one another, at autumnal versions of the selves they’d met a couple of months ago, laughed, and kissed.
What was this romance? How long would it last?
What if it never ended? Was that an even scarier thought?
When the ferry ramped on the island, Logan and Aria drove immediately to the Coleman House, where Estelle was already cooking up a storm: crab legs and tuna tartar and stuffed mushrooms and all kinds of pies. She wore a frilly apron, and sweat lined her curls. Despite her exhaustion, she drew Aria, then Logan into hugs and ordered them to take fresh drinks out onto the veranda and socialize.
“Aye aye, captain,” Logan said.
Estelle cackled and swatted them with a kitchen towel.
Out on the veranda, Aria found her parents, their fingers laced together. Renée was opposite them, her hands folded on her lap, her outfit all black and demure. Her face was more peaceful than Aria had ever seen it.
Tomorrow was the day they’d say goodbye to Dorothy Wagner. It had been Renée’s decision, a result of her reading of the journals and discovering the reality of her mother’s life. Thus far, she hadn’t told Hilary or Aria anything she’d read, hadn’t divulged any of her mother’s secrets. Aria wasn’t sure if they would ever know everything. And maybe that would be okay.
That evening, Estelle fed them and poured their wine and begged them for details about the city. After a discussion with the lawyer overseeing Dorothy Wagner’s estate, Renée had named herself a producer of Logan’s animated film, sending him monthly funds that would ultimately help him to finish editing it and apply for film festivals around the globe. With their Coleman family connections, they were looking for other producers with film connections and had even reached out to Henry Crawford, the Copperfields’ grandson, with the hope that he could bring Logan into the deeper world of Los Angeles filmmaking.
“But it’s a brilliant start,” Logan said, smiling at Renée and then Aria. “I still think of that day at the bagel place as the best of my life. I met both of you that day!”
Renée threw her head back, laughing happily. “I certainly wasn’t at my best.”
Aria squeezed Logan’s hand, remembering how lost she’d been that day. “Neither was I.”
Since more information had come out about William France and his connection to the Wagner family, Logan hadn’t worn the shirt he’d borrowed from the brownstone that day. But it remained hanging in his tiny apartment, as though it werewaiting for something. Aria loved to touch the fabric and imagine the love that had transpired between Dorothy and William. She liked to imagine that it lived on.
