Page 50 of Saltwater Secrets
The following afternoon at three, Aria and Logan drove to the Lavender Hotel and entered the ceremonial room, a room reserved for receptions and birthday parties and, now, parties that celebrated a woman who’d lived and loved. The invitation had asked guests not to wear black, because Dorothy Wagner wouldn’t have wanted them to mourn. Aria had opted for a soft blue dress, and Logan wore a gray button-down and a pair of slacks. When they entered, they faced a five-foot-tall portrait of Dorothy, age forty or forty-five. Aria remembered that her mother had found it somewhere in the Wagner Estate, hidden away so that Dorothy didn’t have to see it so often.
“Goodness, she was beautiful,” Aria breathed, thinking about the immensity of life and all the love it offered her.
The room was already half full with Colemans and other islanders who’d come both to pay their respects and share their memories of Dorothy Wagner.
“I truly wish she’d been around more often later in life,” a woman said to another. “She was always such a riot.”
“She was a devil at cards,” the other said. “She always took me for everything I was worth!”
“I didn’t even know she’d come back to the island till about ten years ago,” another offered. “I saw her far down the beach, in front of her place. Walking. Pacing, more like. I wanted to approach her. But when she saw me, she gave a half wave and went back inside, like she was scared of me.”
Aria’s heart panged.
Just in time, Hilary and Marc appeared, wrapping Aria in a hug and shaking Logan’s hand.
“Where’s Renée?” Aria asked.
“She’s preparing,” Hilary said. “She wrote a speech.”
Aria filled her lungs. Was Renée going to share what she’d learned about her mother? Was she going to set the record straight?
At the other side of the room was a long table filled with photographs of Dorothy through the years. Aria and Logan walked over to take in the story of Dorothy’s life and soon realized that not a single photograph featured Philip Wagner. There were photos of Dorothy as a child, Dorothy with the siblings who’d already passed away, Dorothy with her parents, and Dorothy on her wedding day in the early sixties. There was Dorothy, modeling for the cover ofSeventeenmagazine, something that Aria had only just learned about through Hilary. And then there was Dorothy as a mother, Dorothy holding her babies, Dorothy teaching Rachel and Renée to walk and ride their bikes and swim. It was obvious that the person who’d photographed most of them hadn’t been Philip Wagner, if only because it was clear to most everyone that Philip Wagner hadn’t been a true fixture in Dorothy’s life.
Later, at the far right of the table were photographs of Dorothy in her fifties and sixties. But she wasn’t alone in them. Beside her in nearly every one was William France, dressed to the nines, holding her hand or kissing her on the cheek. They were taken all over Manhattan, Europe, South America, and Asia. It was clear that the couple was totally, enormously in love, making a mockery of the years they’d had to spend apart.
Tragedy had befallen nearly every era of their lives. But they’d been allowed to live—just a few years—together.
Aria’s eyes filled with tears.
“That’s him,” Logan breathed, pointing at William’s photograph. “They’re incredible together.”
“They really are,” Aria said.
“Aria!” A voice rang out to her right, and Aria turned to find Renée, smiling serenely and coming toward her. Behind her was a woman with gray-and-black hair and a dark red dress, a woman who looked slightly out of place, a woman who wanted to link herself with Renée and not talk to anyone else, it seemed like.
But Renée said, “Aria, I want you to meet someone!”
Aria smiled uncertainly.
“Aria, this is Violet France,” Renée said. “William France’s eldest daughter. She lives in New York, like you.”
Aria was mystified. It was true that now, when the woman smiled, her smile evoked that fabulous man in the photographs, as well as Rachel, in those long-ago photographs of a summer’s day. Aria’s heart throbbed.
“It’s wonderful to meet you,” Aria said, taking Violet’s hand.
“You as well,” Violet said. Her eyes were wet. “You’ll have to meet my siblings. They’re here, too. Somewhere.” She made a show of looking through the crowd.
Renée sniffed. “I read the journals, you know. All of them. Cover to cover. And then I read them again. Finally, I understood my mother. Finally, everything clicked into place. I reached out to Violet right away. At first, she didn’t want to talk to me, did you, Violet? You’d been through too much.”
Violet’s eyes were shadowed. She clasped her hands together. “My mother and father’s divorce broke us in half. But Renée was very persuasive. We finally met up.”
Renée explained what she’d learned in the diary entries. When William and Dorothy met one another (through Philip, of course), Dorothy tried to get out of her engagement to Philip. But Philip had a vision for his future, an idea that Dorothy wasthe woman who would complete that picture. When she tried to break up with him, he told her he was going to do something drastic. “She didn’t say what it was in the journal entry,” Renée said. “But my father could be dramatic. I’m sure she felt too guilty. I’m sure she tried to put her love for William away.”
“And I’m sure that broke my father’s heart,” Violet said. “Of course, he didn’t leave any letters like your mother left you.”
Renée nodded. Gratefulness poured out of her.
She kept going.
