Summer Secrets (21 page)

Maureen is my sponsor. She’s one of the all-time great sponsors, at least that’s what I have heard: the kind of sponsor that everyone wants. I knew, as soon as I heard her talk in a meeting, that she’d be perfect for me. I never thought in a million years she would say yes. I was newly sober, struggling, and here was this woman my mother’s age, who had years of recovery and, I’d heard, tons of sponsees. Why would she ever say yes to me?

Walking up to her after the meeting, I felt sick at the prospect of having to ask, but I also knew I had to do it. “Look for someone who has what you want,” they said. And Maureen seemed to radiate serenity, calm, and wisdom. She was everything I aspired to be.

“I was wondering…,” I said, turning beet red, my heart beating faster, “whether you might have any availability to sponsor me.”

She smiled and nodded. “I do have some requirements,” she said. “Working the steps, going to a minimum of three meetings a week, and talking every day, the same time, no matter what. If you can do that, I would be happy to sponsor you.”

I almost cried with relief.

Maureen is a therapist. Talking to her every day is like having my own personal 12-step therapist on call. She has brought such wisdom and support to my life that I wonder how on earth I managed without her. I credit her with the reason why my sobriety has stuck this time. She warned me off the pity pot when I felt sorry for myself, and taught me to live in the moment, to accept my life as it is, not dwell on where I thought it should be.

“I’ve missed your calls, Cat. I’m wondering what’s going on that you’ve been texting rather than calling. We need to speak on a regular basis, you know that. Texting isn’t enough. Is now a good time for you to talk?”

“I’m just on the way to the noon meeting. I’m so sorry, Maureen. I’ve just been crazy busy.” This isn’t quite true. There is a reason I’ve been avoiding calling her, even though I knew it couldn’t go on forever. “I have a few minutes.”

“Good. We need to talk about your amends list.”

“Yes.” It’s why I haven’t called her. Why I have hopefully buried my head in the sand, thinking she might forget; thinking I might forget.

“You know what I’m going to say, Cat. There are two more people left on the list before you can move on to the next step, and we have to talk about how you’re going to do this.”

Of course I knew what she was going to say. I knew she would eventually call me and force my hand. Ellie and Julia are the last two names on my amends list, the two women who are technically my sisters, who have refused to have anything to do with me since I slept with Julia’s boyfriend in a drunken haze.

I did stay in touch with Brooks until he died. I didn’t see him again, but we wrote to each other sporadically. He was a kind man, a good man. And I was able to confide in him in a way I really couldn’t with anyone else. It has always been easier for me to write my feelings rather than express them in person, and I wrote to him about my life. Sometimes about my drinking. He got it. As a drunk himself, he knew that I was powerless over alcohol, that I sometimes, often, behaved in ways that were shocking and shameful. He was disappointed in me, I think, in what happened that night all those years ago, but he didn’t hold it against me. He understood, I think.

But his daughters cut me off. I wrote to them, in the beginning, letters filled with remorse. I have no recollection of sleeping with Julia’s boyfriend. To this day, I have no idea if we had sex. I was on the pill, so pregnancy was not an option, but I honestly don’t know what happened, if anything, only that he kissed me and we woke up naked. I have to presume we did, and that has haunted me to this day.

I thought I had apologized in writing, immediately after the trip, but making amends is more than an apology. It is restitution for the wrongs we have done, and I have always known that I would never be able to make up for this transgression by letter. This needed to be done in person. So I have worked my way through my amends list, leaving these two until last, knowing I am not going to like what I have to do, avoiding the topic with Maureen, avoiding calling her, in fact, because I know she will tell me exactly what she is about to tell me.

“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 yes. He found a house in town ready for us on July sixteenth, for two weeks. Apparently they had a last-minute cancellation, because it is literally impossible to get something decent on the island at this late stage. The magazine will cover the cost of the house, thank God, and it’s in dollars so it’s cheaper for us. All we have to pay for is the airfare. I have a friend at BA who might be able to swing something.”

“Are you serious?” I am unsure whether to be thrilled or terrified.

“Deadly. It’s time for a holiday. Get your suitcase ready, my love, because America is calling, and we’re on our way!”

Twenty-one

Nantucket, 2014

I remember this. The smell of the ocean, the salty wind whipping through my hair, the hazy island in the distance as the slow ferry chugs along from Hyannis.

We ended up flying to Boston, renting a car, and driving up here. There were no direct flights left, and truth be told, it all felt like more of an adventure this way. Annie, standing beside me, her own hair flying around her face, turns to me with a huge grin, then slips an arm around my waist, hugging me close in a rare and treasured moment of daughterly affection. I tilt my head so it is resting on hers, overcome with gratitude for getting my daughter back, for finally being able to be the kind of mother I would like.

“Excited?” I ask, smiling down at her as she nods.

“I can’t believe we’re in America!” she says. “Tell me everything again about Nantucket. Everything!”

“We’ll be there soon,” I say with a laugh. “You’ll see for yourself. Why don’t we go and find Sam? We’re almost there.”

*   *   *

The ferry is busy; the snack bar inside has a long line of people waiting to order fried food to pass the time. We thread through, walking up and down until we see Sam, tucked into a booth with paper trays of fried chicken and french fries in front of him. Sam is just about the most elegant man in the world. Even seeing Sam on a ferry is a little disconcerting, let alone with the kind of food he would never ordinarily touch, for his image is everything.

I had booked a Kia Soul to pick up at the airport in Boston, but Sam refused to be seen in a Kia Soul and talked the woman there into upgrading us into a Mustang for an extra ten dollars a day. And I get it. Sam needs to have a cute little convertible, in the same way he needs to dress the part.

He actually went online and ordered clothes from Vineyard Vines while we were still in London, so he could look like the perfect Nantucket vacationer. He is currently wearing Nantucket red shorts, deck shoes, a Vineyard Vines shirt, and a needlepoint belt. He looks preppier than prep. Even I’m slightly shocked when he opens his mouth and an English accent comes out.

There he is, tapping on his iPhone, his Louis Vuitton travel bag on the seat next to him, reaching out every few seconds for more greasy food as my mouth widens in shock.

We slide onto the benches, Annie reaching automatically for some fries.

“Am I dreaming? Is this my friend Sam McAllister eating unhealthy fried fast food? Did I wake up in an alternate universe?” I actually cannot believe that Sam, who lives on green juices and organic food, the healthiest of healthy, who works out in a gym every single day, who expressed slight panic that he might not be able to find a gym on Nantucket, who was only reassured when I reminded him that he could in fact go for a run instead, is eating this crap.

“I know!” He holds a hand up to silence me. “It’s a vacation, and when we’re on vacation, nothing counts. Isn’t that right, Annie?” Annie, her mouth gleefully full of fries, nods in allegiance. “And when you’re on holiday and the snack bar only has, basically, fried food to offer, what’s a girl supposed to do?”

“Don’t keep them all to yourself,” I say, reaching out for the chicken and shrugging. “As you said, it’s a holiday. Or vacation, actually. Either way, if you can’t beat them…” And I put a salty, crispy, deliciously naughty tender into my mouth.

*   *   *

It is painfully familiar. The boats, the huge, expensive yachts, the people milling around on the harbor. Dogs everywhere I look: black Labs, brown Labs, yellow Labs. People with designer luggage, wheeling it awkwardly across the cobblestones, others making their way to Young’s Bicycle Shop, where they’ll rent scooters to get around the island.

“The Juice Bar!” I shriek excitedly to Annie. “I remember that! They have the best ice cream!”

“Can we stop and get some?” Annie asks, not unreasonably.

“We’ll come back. Let’s get to the house, then we’ll come back into town and wander round.”

*   *   *

I had forgotten just how beautiful it is here, the streets charmingly cobbled, the pretty stores lining Main Street, then, as we drive farther up the street, the grand old trees, the beauty of the terraced houses, close together, a mix of grey weathered shingle and white clapboard, window boxes spilling over with geraniums and impatiens, clouds of blue lobelia.

We turn onto Cliff Road, driving slowly so we can fully appreciate the beauty of the homes, these large and impressive, each one seemingly bigger and more beautiful than the next. High privet hedges giving an illusion of privacy, crushed oyster shells or gravel driveways, hedges of huge hydrangeas flanking the houses.

“My God, this really
is
like Fantasy Island,” breathes Sam, who insists I stop from time to time so he can photograph some particularly beautiful house.

“I can’t believe we’re staying here,” I murmur, knowing from these houses this must be an expensive part of town. We drive past a patch of green. “Lincoln Circle,” says Sam, reading from the map on his phone. “Take the next left. There it is. Oh.” His voice is flat as I pull into the driveway, not of one of the large, beautiful homes but of a modest grey shingle house, with a single-car driveway and a few weeds growing through.