“You know this is the big one. This is the one you have to do in person, and we have to figure out how to do it.”
“How am I supposed to do this in person?” I say, which is what I said last time, although as I say it, I think about Sam asking his travel editor for a holiday destination. What if we asked for Nantucket? What if I wrote a piece about revisiting Nantucket? Maybe we’d get a house, or the flights, for free.
As soon as that thought enters my mind, I realize I always knew this was going to happen. I knew Maureen was going to phone and tell me to do this in person, and I knew, as soon as Sam brought up the idea of a discounted holiday, that this would be where we would end up going.
And suddenly it doesn’t seem quite as overwhelming, quite as terrifying, as it once did. It seems exactly right.
“They’re on Nantucket,” says Maureen. “It’s summer. Surely you could find a way to take Annie to Nantucket this summer. It sounds like the dreamiest place in the world, and you’ve written travel features before. Why not write a travel piece?”
I start to laugh. “Are you actually a witch, or just psychic?”
“A little bit of both,” says Maureen. “And I’m also, as you know, a particularly hard taskmaster when it comes to working the steps. We need to get this done. You need to keep moving. Do you know where they live now? I imagine it won’t be hard to find them.”
Of course I know how to find them. I used to Google them on a regular basis. There were tons of pictures of Ellie, who was as glamorous as ever, who had barely aged since I was there all those years ago. She was always smiling into the camera at fund-raisers on the island, flanked by equally gorgeous women. Her crowd seemed to be city people, out there for the summer, bejeweled, with blown-out blond hair, always at Galley Beach, sunbathing at Cliffside, tea at the Wauwinet.
Julia, on the other hand, is an island girl through and through. There wasn’t much about her, although I think she had a small store selling handmade jewelry and clothes on Straight Wharf. I think back to all those years ago, to how everyone on the island seemed to have around ten jobs, and I know she has to do other things. The season is only summer; everything shuts up at the end. I wonder if she goes out scalloping like she used to, shucking her scallops at Charlie Sayle’s and selling the meat; I remember her talking about bartending at the Anglers’ Club, and wonder if she still does that.
And I wonder if she’s married. With children. I wonder if she ever saw Aidan again, if she found happiness with someone more stable, someone perhaps who didn’t drink, who didn’t fall into bed with her sister.
I have thought, often, about whether or not she would forgive me. It was a very long time ago, and I was a different person, a person so selfish, so wrapped up in herself and her drinking, that I never thought about the impact my behavior made. Maureen describes alcoholics as tornadoes: leaving a path of destruction wherever they land. It even says this in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous: The alcoholic is like a tornado roaring his way through the lives of others. Hearts are broken. Sweet relationships are dead. Affections have been uprooted. Selfish and inconsiderate habits have kept the home in turmoil.
My life back then was in turmoil, but I’m not sure Julia would understand that. I’m not sure I would understand it if it had happened to me, if someone, anyone, had slept with Jason.
They say that when you make amends, you have to detach from the result. This isn’t about gaining her forgiveness but about owning my behavior and doing my best to make restitution. How she deals with it, with seeing me, with hearing me, has to be put in God’s hands.
Even though that’s the thing that terrifies me most.
“Start looking into travel,” advises Maureen. “And call me tomorrow. The usual time.”
* * *
I have just filed the piece on women’s infidelity when Sam’s number flashes up on my screen. I texted him earlier, telling him to think Nantucket, and to see what he could do.
“I spoke to Daniel Emory, our very own travel editor, about Nantucket, and he says