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But if that was the case, why had my stuff been brought to one of the guesthouses? I only let myself think about this for a second before I pushed it away—it was probably just crossed wires, nothing else. I looked up and suddenly understood why Kendrick had offered to drive me.
The driveway was gravel, impossibly long, with enormous palm trees planted on either side of it. It was the kind of driveway I’d only seen in movies—I half expected to see carriages arriving for a ball, or Ethan Hunt’s sports car driving up it. At the end, a very long way off, I could see a set of metal gates—it looked like there was a WS worked into the iron.
“Okay,” I said. Because what else was there to do except start the trek? But now that I was no longer inside a house with Wylie Sanders himself, I figured it would at least be okay to wear his merch. I set the duffel and tent down and dug my sweatshirt out of my canvas bag, looking at it for just a second, thinking how strange it was that I’d now met him. That Wylie was no longer just an image on a sweatshirt or a voice in a song—he was an actual person who’d really tried to make me feel welcome.
I pulled it on—it was a chilly, clear night, the sky an inky dark blue, with a few stars visible. Then I picked up the duffel and tent and walked down the driveway.
I couldn’t help thinking back on how nice everyone had seemed. It was nothing like I’d thought it would be. They’d been bantering and joking together, exes and current partners and kids all sitting around a table as a family. All these siblings and half-siblings, getting along and hanging out. And it was clear they all really liked each other.…
Unbidden, I flashed back to the one and only meal I’d shared with my three half-siblings. How awkward it had been. How my defenses had been up going in, and how it only got worse every time I had to watch Gillian mothering them, laughing with them, helping to cut their food—not doing anything extraordinary, just being a regular mom. How I’d decided after that it was proof that it was better to keep things separated—me and my dad, Gillian and her real family. That trying to do stuff like have dinners was just too complicated.
Katy coughed discreetly. More complicated than five ex-wives and millions of dollars and the world press reporting on it?
Even as I tried to push it away, I thought about how Gillian’s daughter Freya kept requesting to be my friend on Instagram. How I kept ignoring it. And all at once, it didn’t feel like I was taking the high road or staying above it all. It just seemed small. And mean.
I shook my head and made myself keep walking, no sound except my sandals crunching over gravel. My thoughts kept returning to the happy, busy world I’d just left—everyone sitting down to a pasta dinner as a family, preparing to play Fishbowl (whatever that was). Now that I’d experienced it firsthand, it was like I could feel the depth of Russell’s lies. All the people he’d just erased when he told me he was an only child.
I mean, it’s not like you were being honest about Gillian, Katy pointed out. Or Stanwich.
But she wasn’t actively lying, Didi countered. She was just eliding the truth.
I think it’s the same thing, Katy said. And that Darcy shouldn’t be mad at him for something she was doing.
Maybe that’s why she is mad, Didi suggested.
I increased my pace, trying to ignore this. None of it mattered, after all. I wasn’t going to see these people ever again. I was leaving tomorrow. I was off to the barren wasteland that was Connecticut. Even if I could understand a little more where Russell was coming from, what was the point of any of it?
We’d said goodbye. It was over.
What I needed now was to put all of this behind me and think about my next steps. I’d get to the gates, call my Uber. During the ride to the station, I could look up the next bus to LA.…
My phone rang in my bag, breaking the quiet of the night and startling me. It had been off for so much of tonight, it was almost like I’d forgotten that it was on and working now, and people could use it to reach me.
Gillian Beaulieu was the name on my screen. I stared at it for a moment, like this was a mirage that would disappear instantly. My mother’s British husband, Anthony (Ant-ony)’s last name was pronounced Bewley, which was always hard to remember when I saw it written out. Most of the (very few) conversations I’d had with Anthony had revolved around him telling me not to pronounce certain letters in his name.
I stared down at my phone, trying to figure out what was happening. Why was Gillian calling me when it was getting close to two in the morning her time? Why was she calling me at all?
Unless—a cold fear gripped me—what if she wasn’t calling me? What if something had happened?
I stopped walking and slid my finger across the screen, answering the call before it went to voicemail. “Hello?”
“Darcy.” It was Gillian’s voice, and I felt a clear flash of relief shoot through me.
“Hi,” I said. “Um—it’s late there.”
“I know.” Her voice was terse and angry, and my relief was immediately replaced with irritation, like someone had flipped a switch, changed electrical currents. “I’ve received a call from a lawyer in Las Vegas?”
“What?” I dropped my duffel and the tent onto the gravel—they really were heavy. “C.J. called you?” Why was C.J. calling my mother when she’d made me sign a legally binding document that said I wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone? Why would she be expanding the circle of people who knew about this, rather than trying to make it smaller?
“No. Some yawning person named Sarah.” I could hear the anger in my mother’s words, running just underneath them like water. “Waking me up. Waking Anthony up.”
“I’m sorry that she woke up Anthony,” I said, meaning it. After all, he didn’t have anything to do with this. “But why would she call you?”
“I don’t know!” Gillian snapped. “She seemed to think I would know something about what you’ve been up to. And when I asked why she was calling so late, it became clear she thought I was still in England.”
“Oh.” That one actually was on me, but I wasn’t about to apologize for it. This situation was starting to make a little more sense—Sarah must have been trying to do damage control, make sure I hadn’t talked to anyone before I signed the NDA.
“What is this, Darcy? What did you do?”
