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Carmella stretched her arms over her head, hovering between dreamland and waking life, and said, “I was reading. I must have fallen asleep.”
Cody went into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee, and Carmella walked back into their bedroom to try to sleep as much as possible. It was a little past nine when she woke, and Georgia needed to be changed and fed. As Carmella performed the tasks easily and happily, she thought of her mother and Oliver in that sea cottage, pretending to be the couple raising little Elsa and Carmella. It was wild to Carmella that wherever this cottage was, she and Elsa had been to it, had sat out on the back porch and felt the breeze through their hair.
Elsa texted a little before noon to see if Carmella had lunch plans. They agreed to meet at a place with to-die-for fish of the day and gorgeous salads on a street lined with historic Victorian homes in Edgartown. Carmella showered and did her makeup for the first time in a few days, then set Georgia up in her carrier and got out the door. At the restaurant, she was a little bit early and sat in the fresh light of the deck with Georgia beside her, protected beneath the umbrella.
“There they are! My favorite girls.” Elsa strode across the deck in a linen jumpsuit, smiling.
Carmella jumped up to hug her sister, complimenting her new perfume as she sat back down.
“You look wonderful. Well-rested, even,” Elsa said.
“Georgia and I have found a pretty good rhythm,” Carmella confessed. “But I know that rhythm can change at any time.”
Carmella and Elsa ordered fish, salads, and lemonade, then caught one another up on the basics of their lives. Apparently, Maggie and Alyssa were still living at the Remington House and were both still pregnant. “Maggie is constantly stress-baking and bringing the baked goods to The Dog-Eared Corner, and Alyssa is constantly eating as many of the baked goods as she can get her hands on.”
“Is Alyssa showing?”
“Not quite,” Elsa said. “I imagine it’ll happen sometime this summer.”
Carmella sipped her lemonade, remembering the real gossip of the week. “We haven’t even talked about Cole and Aria’s big adventure!”
“I know.” Elsa dropped her voice to a whisper. “When he told me that he and Aria were going to sail to Savannah, I nearly dropped the phone.”
“What do you think it means? Do you think they’re together?”
Elsa shrugged. “What do I know? But it’s a long time to be on such a tiny boat with another person. I bet if you and Cody had been on an adventure like that at their age, you would have admitted your true feelings a lot earlier.”
Carmella laughed. “Have you heard from him since they left?”
“He texted that they finally arrived in Savannah,” Elsa explained. “He sent a photograph, too. It looks beautiful down there.”
Carmella took Elsa’s phone and gazed at the photograph of the beautiful and very old city, a place she’d never been, its streets lined with moss-filled trees.
And then, as Carmella passed the phone across the table, she heard herself ask something she thought she never would.
“Do you remember Mom ever talking about someone named Oliver?”
Elsa took her phone and pocketed it, her eyebrows dropping. “Oliver? Oliver, who?”
“Oliver Matthews,” Carmella explained, losing confidence. “He was a therapist here on the island back in the late seventies, I guess. And maybe even later.”
Elsa shook her head.
“What about Dad? He never mentioned anyone by that name?” Carmella pushed it.
“Not that I remember. Why? Where did you hear that name?”
Carmella’s cheeks burned with fear. A very small yet loud part of her yearned to tell Elsa what she’d learned in the diary about this man who’d set their mother’s heart on fire. Yet the rest of her knew how much this news would destroy Elsa’s perfect vision of their parents’ love.
“I could look him up online?” Elsa raised her phone and waved it.
“No. Don’t bother.” Carmella took a fish bite, smiling as though the Oliver Matthews question had been a blip. Then, she asked, “So, what do you think Aria and Cole’s babies are going to look like?” Elsa threw her head back, howling.
They were back on track.
ChapterEleven
The Historic Thomas House was located just three blocks from the Savannah College of Art and Design architecture building, a three-story home that was rumored to be haunted. For years, Aria had walked past with her backpack, engaging with the beauty of the pillars, the big windows, and the burnt-orange bricks, which made the place look like it was out of a fairy tale. When Cole had asked where Aria wanted to stay during their stint in Savannah, she’d said the house’s name almost without thought.
