Page 26 of Sunset on the Solstice

Late on the night of Christmas, Rebecca, Lily, Esme, Valerie, and Bethany sat around the kitchen table at Esme and Victor’s place, talking softly as snow fell over the island. It had been a wonderful day of food, laughter, wine and gift-giving, and now they were squeezing the last beauty from the day before they all went their separate ways.

“You have to give me that recipe, Mom,” Valerie said, yawning as she stretched her arms over her head.

“I’m exhausted, too,” Bethany said, laughing. After all, Valerie and Bethany both had young children. They were doing the “mom” thing in their forties. Rebecca adored them for it. She wasn’t always sure where they found the energy. Rebecca suggested that she make them coffee, but they both insisted they were too tired even for coffee. They began to gather their presents in bags, reaching for their coats.

It was only a few minutes after that—at eleven fifteen—that Lily received a text message and shrieked. “Mom, look at this!” She turned her phone around to show a photograph of Shelby and Jared, Shelby with her hand over Jared’s chest. On her fourth finger, she wore a diamond engagement ring.

Rebecca felt as though the ground was giving out beneath her. “No,” she gasped, reaching for Lily’s phone to get a better look.

Esme wore a stern expression. Valerie and Bethany seemed not to know what to say, their arms laden with gifts, their eyes exhausted.

“Maybe they’ll wait till Shelby’s done at Columbia,” Valerie said gently, setting a box down.

“They have to,” Esme said. “Otherwise, what was all that work for?”

But Rebecca felt sick to her stomach. She knew that Shelby’s love for Jared was bordering on obsession, and now that she’d seen him through so much trauma, they’d want to seal the deal on their love. She put her forehead on the cool of the table and sighed. “I need to stop her,” she said. “He’s wrong for her. He’s so wrong for her! Why can’t she see that?”

Within fifteen minutes, after hurriedly saying goodbye to Valerie and Bethany, Rebecca and Lily had Shelby on the phone. Shelby gushed with happiness and told them the entire story of the engagement, which didn’t sound that amazing, if Rebecca was honest. But she decided that was besides the point.

“We’re going to get married right away and have a party later on,” Shelby said.

Rebecca’s chest heaved. “Honey, why not slow down a little bit? We can have a big wedding here in Nantucket. Maybe not this summer, but the one after that. After you graduate? Doesn’t that sound good?”

“We don’t want to wait that long,” Shelby told her. “We have plans, Mom. So many plans.”

“What kind of plans?” Rebecca searched Lily’s panicked face as they waited, rapt.

“I’ll let you know,” Shelby said dreamily. “I don’t want to taint our dreams by saying them aloud, you know?”

Rebecca cleared her throat. “But you’re going to stay at Columbia, right?”

Shelby was quiet for long enough to let Rebecca know the truth: It was over. Her darling daughter’s education had been destroyed.

“Shelby,” Rebecca tried. “Don’t you think you should…”

“I’m doing what’s best for me,” Shelby said. “Isn’t that what you always said we should do in life? You always said ‘life is short, you have to make yourself happy,’ right?”

Rebecca couldn’t refute that. She was stumped.

It was a miracle in and of itself that, a month later over the phone, Shelby told Rebecca when and where the wedding was going to be. Rebecca hadn’t been sure if she’d really get an invitation. “We want to keep it small,” Shelby said. “I want you, Lily, and Chad there, but nobody else.”

Rebecca agreed, although she hated the idea of Shelby’s grandmother not being invited. Esme would understand, but it would hurt her.

The wedding was to be held on the second Saturday in February. Rebecca, Lily, and Chad dressed for it as though they were getting ready for a funeral, then drove to the ferry, unable to speak. When they reached the courthouse in Boston, they walked up the stone steps on shaking legs. Rebecca squeezed Lily’s hand and said under her breath, “Don’t let me do anything rash.”

“I want you to do something rash,” Lily told her. “I want you to stop this.”

“I don’t know how,” Rebecca offered. She felt pathetic as a mother. She hadn’t been able to protect her daughter.

Inside the courthouse, Shelby wore a simple white dress with a high neckline. Rebecca guessed from the fabric that it was very, very expensive, maybe more than anything Rebecca had ever seen up close. Beside her, Jared was in an expensive-looking tux. Jim and Monica were off to the side, looking pale-faced and reverent. Rebecca itched to pull Monica away and ask what she thought of this union. But she guessed that Monica wasn’t the kind of woman who liked to tell the truth. That, or she’d forgotten how over the years of being a Kissinger.

Shelby said hello to her family, but it was cold and strange, as though they’d only recently met for the first time. As though they were strangers.

“Will you come chat with us for a second?” Rebecca heard herself ask her daughter. She needed to make one final plea, or else she’d curse herself forever.

Shelby followed Rebecca and Lily to the long hallway outside of the room where the ceremony was to take place. They left Chad with the Kissingers, if only because he could always handle himself socially.

“Before you say anything,” Shelby began, raising her bouquet over her shoulder, “I want to say that this is the happiest day of my life. If you try in any way to diminish that, I will find it really difficult to forgive you.” Her eyes flashed.