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Victor ruffled his hair. “Nothing ever does.”
Rebecca scanned the mahogany desk, which held no history of Victor’s time. A photograph of Grandpa Thomas in his war uniform sat in the corner alongside a picture of a dog Rebecca didn’t recognize. She’d been gone so long that Esme could have raised two puppies to old age without Rebecca being any wiser. A calendar of events on the upper-righthand corner listed dentist appointments for both Esme and Larry.
“What’s this?” Rebecca bent to read a piece of paper removed from an envelope. It was official-looking, addressed from the State of Massachusetts to Esme and Larry Gardner.
Rebecca knew better than to read her mother’s mail. But the words: NOTICE OF EVICTION forced her eyes. According to the state, the current tenants of the old colonial building that housed the Sutton Book Club were behind on taxes, rent, and other miscellaneous fees. If the calculations were correct, Esme owed one hundred and eleven thousand dollars plus change.
Rebecca’s jaw dropped. “Dad? Are you seeing this?”
Victor read the letter and tugged on his beard. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Why not?”
“Nantucket always upheld the historical importance of the Sutton Book Club. Your grandfather had a wonderful relationship with the Nantucket Historical Society, who ensured donations were available for the Sutton Book Club and its many neighborhood programs.”
Rebecca shook her head. “So the Sutton Book Club never made its own income?”
“Your grandfather never wanted to ask for money from Nantucketers. He saw the Sutton Book Club as part library and part community center. It was a meeting place. A world of literature and ideas that brought people together. I imagine your mother has kept the same model.”
“But you would think she would eventually find a way to make money with it,” Rebecca reasoned. “I mean, once you’re fifty thousand in the red, wouldn’t you make a change?”
Victor shrugged. “Your mother was always an idealist. Maybe she thought an investor would swoop in and save the day.”
“Why do you think the Nantucket Historical Society stopped supporting the Sutton Book Club?” Rebecca asked.
“I hate to say it follows a pattern, doesn’t it? The rest of the world cares very little for literature these days. I imagine someone else took over the historical society and implanted their own set of rules. Maybe that money went to a new boardwalk or a new ferry boat. Something to keep the tourists happy, rather than the locals.”
Rebecca’s heart fluttered. “It seems so cruel.”
“To us, maybe,” Victor agreed. “But we’re the Suttons. We think the world revolves around your grandfather’s set of books in that beautiful colonial house.”
“Even after so many years away, I was pretty sure everything about the Sutton Book Club would be the same,” Rebecca admitted.
Chapter Eight
Given the lateness of the hour and the ongoing storm, it was ridiculous to do anything but stay the night. Rebecca stretched clean sheets over the guest room bed and shoved pillows into pillowcases, her mind heavy with the news from the letter. Had her mother run away from her problems? Had she gone somewhere to fix it?
Victor wore a pair of pajama pants and a loose T-shirt. His face washed and his teeth scrubbed, he looked sweet and soft and docile, not like the man she’d demonized all these years. Rebecca waved to him as he walked toward the guest room. “The bed is ready for you.”
“Thank you.” Victor’s cheek twitched. For a moment, Rebecca panicked he would say he loved her, something he’d done so easily for the first years of her life.
“Sleep well.” Rebecca hustled past him and rushed upstairs. She entered her childhood bedroom and sat on the bed for a long time, focusing on her breath. When her phone read 12:30 a.m., she undressed and donned one of Fred’s large T-shirts and a pair of shorts, then slipped under the covers. The clean and crisp sheets weren’t a surprise. Esme had always been a wonderful homemaker, the sort who dusted even the corners guests didn’t see. Rebecca had tried and failed to be that sort of mother and wife over the years. Fred had picked up the slack, bless him.
Rebecca slept fitfully. Every gust of wind against the house and every violent creak from a tree limb outside rattled her. Around three thirty, car lights outside convinced her that her mother was finally home, and she stood at the top of the staircase, listening and waiting. When nobody came inside, Rebecca cursed her anxious imagination and returned to bed.
For Rebecca, restless sleep was common. As a chef, anxiety and stress often skyrocketed during busy evenings at Bar Harbor Brasserie and made it difficult for her to calm when she hit the sack. Having teenage children didn’t help. Add Fred’s death, Victor’s spontaneous return, and Esme’s disappearance, and you didn’t have a recipe for an easy sleep. This was nightmare territory.
Rebecca awoke with a start at seven thirty. The storm had passed, and the glittering June sunlight cut through her bedroom curtains. A poster of a Titanic-era Leonardo Dicaprio hanging on her closet door welcomed her to a brand-new day. The ink on the old poster had faded after thirty years and now looked vintage.
Rebecca padded downstairs and checked the garage. Still no Esme. In the kitchen, the coffee pot bubbled, and her father sat with the newspaper splayed in front of him on the kitchen table. The year in that kitchen could have been 1995, except that the paper had been addressed to LARRY GARDNER instead of VICTOR SUTTON.
“What’s the news, Dad?”
“Nantucket High is building a new athletic center,” Victor said. “I wonder if that’s where the money from the Sutton Book Club is going?”
Rebecca took two mugs from the cabinet. One featured the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and the other was covered in music notes. When had Esme gone to Pisa?
“I think we should go next door.” Rebecca watched the last droplets of coffee drip into the pot. “Maybe she told the neighbors where she was off to.”
