by Nancy Geary
PRAISE FOR
REDEMPTION
“Nancy Geary displays a keen eye and a pitch-perfect voice for the nuances and shadings of her milieu…. Geary understands crime as only a prosecutor can. A remarkable achievement and a wonderful blend of manners and murder.”
—Nelson DeMille
“A suspenseful tale…. Geary is a wonderfully mordant observer of the rich gone awry—her books are funny, sharp, and stylishly written.”
—Sallie Bissell, author of A Darker Justice
“A lyrical novel… gently and perceptively written…. Geary has a refined talent for exposing the dark edges of all too human characters and the ripple of violence in their lives. REDEMPTION will captivate you.”
—Lynn Hightower, author of High Water
PRAISE FOR MISFORTUNE
“Geary keeps the pace racing.”
—People
“Few writers succeed in describing the world of the American aristocracy or how they truly live. But Nancy Geary has authentic voice. She knows this world. What a great first novel!”
—Olivia Goldsmith, author of The First Wives Club
“An irresistible read, both because it takes you behind the hedges of blue bloods in the Hamptons and because it’s a compelling mystery that keeps you guessing whodunit and whydunit until the final page. A stylish and expert debut.”
—Jane Heller, author of Sis Boom Bah
“Riveting… haunting, compelling, and beautifully written….Geary’s astonishing first novel reads like a cross between Scott Turow and Edith Wharton. I couldn’t put it down.”
—Amy Gutman, author of The Anniversary
Also by Nancy Geary:
Misfortune
Regrets Only
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright (c) 2003 by Nancy Whitman Geary
Excerpt from Regrets Only copyright (c) 2004 by Nancy Whitman Geary All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
Warner Books, Inc.
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com
First eBook Edition: November 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-57118-0
For Nick
Contents
PRAISE FOR REDEMPTION
Also by Nancy Geary:
Copyright
Acknowledgments
1: June
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
9: August
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
34: September
A Preview of “REGRETS ONLY”
Saturday, January 10 9:17 p.m.
Acknowledgments
I could not have found the strength to write this book without the constant support and encouragement of Nick Ellison. I cannot imagine a better friend. His sage advice, constant empathy, and first-rate crisis management have guided me safely through various minefields. For his exceptional work as my literary agent, I am in his debt. For his attentive ear when I needed someone to listen, and his kindness and affection to my son, Harry, I am grateful beyond words. I thank everyone at Nicholas Ellison, Inc., for their kindness, professionalism, and hard work on my behalf.
I don’t sit down at my computer without feeling thankful that my work has found a home at Warner Books. I thank Jamie Raab for her patience, her encouragement, and her constructive suggestions. She has made my words and story far better than they would otherwise be. I truly appreciate her brilliant editorial eye, her hard work, and her friendship. I thank Larry Kirshbaum and Maureen Egen for believing in my work. Thanks to Tina Andreadis for her tireless efforts and endless good cheer; Colin Fox and Sharon Krassney for their patience, kindness, and attention to every detail; Sona Vogel for her meticulous copyediting; and Miriam Parker for her enthusiasm and dedication.
I also wish to thank Ulrich Genzler for his support of my work, his advice and encouragement, and for giving life to Frances Pratt in Germany. Many thanks also to Anya Serota for her very thoughtful editorial help on the manuscript for publication in the United Kingdom.
My two sisters help me in more ways than I can enumerate. I cherish their love and their loyalty, and hope they never doubt that they have mine. A day doesn’t pass without Natalie Geary calling to share the details of my life, to lift my spirits, and to remind me that I am not alone. Her insight and suggestions make seemingly insurmountable problems manageable. Her daughters, Isabelle and Lily, are the most wonderful cousins Harry could have. Daphne Geary reminds me that chaos builds character, and that we are happier because our homes are filled with Labrador retrievers and half-chewed furniture. I thank her and her children, Christina, Natalie, and William, for evenings filled with much-needed laughter and shared Matchbox cars.
I have relied a great deal on my friends and I hope they all realize the depth of my appreciation. Thanks to Missy Smith for her constant sense of celebration, her patience, and her trust; Amy Kellogg, Aliki Nichogiannopoulou, Christof Friedrich, Juliana Hallowell, and Mark Phillips for their long-distance inspiration, humor, and love; Wing, Evan, Lucy, and Ella Pepper for opening their hearts and their home to me, and for their enthusiastic support of my work; and Claire and Bart Johnston for their loyalty and their warm welcome to Westchester County.
I thank the Reverend Lynn Harrington for helping me on my own spiritual journey. She infuses the entire parish community of St. John’s Episcopal Church with a sense of compassion and awe. Her ministry, tolerance, guidance, and willingness to embark on discussions of even the most difficult questions have renewed my faith.
I am deeply indebted to Ruby Londono. Her excitement and energy fill our home with happiness. She has treated Harry as her own. Her loving care brings me tremendous security. Also many thanks to Ligia Betancourt for her hard work in keeping our house in order. Mucho Gracias!
During the writing of this book, I have reflected at length on what it means to be a parent. I thank Diana Michener, my mother, for the love that she knows she gives me regardless of where her travels take her. And most of all, I thank Harry. He brightens every minute of my day. His great spirit and laughter, his songs, dances, and stories, and his big hugs are the joys of my life. I feel blessed to be his mother.
June
1
You’re a saint.” Frances Pratt hung up the telephone still hearing Sam Guff’s amused chuckle. She absentmindedly twirled one of her brown curls around her index finger. Sun poured through her office windows onto the plush navy carpet and upholstered armchairs. She debated drawing the blinds but decided instead to enjoy the warmth. Summer was here. Finally.
>
Frances glanced at the cream invitation embossed with black script, the two envelopes, three pieces of tissue paper, and reply card that lay scattered in front of her on the large walnut desk.
Mr. and Mrs. William Waller Lawrence
request the honor of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter,
Hope Alexandra,
to Mr. John James Cabot III
Saturday, the eighteenth of August
Four o’clock
The Church of the Holy Spirit, Manchester-by-the-Sea
She turned over the larger of the two envelopes and examined the calligraphy: Miss Frances Taylor Pratt and Guest, 1382 Plainview Road, Orient, New York. Even her address seemed formal.
Leaning back in her leather chair, she ran her finger over the raised lettering. Manchester. She could envision her aunt and uncle’s sprawling white clapboard house on Smith’s Point, a small peninsula that jutted out into the harbor. The salty air peeled the paint on the dozens of black shutters, and moss grew in the acidic soil between the flagstones of the patio. Although her brief visits to the New England seaside town had become less frequent in recent years, in an odd way it felt like home—a place infused with welcome. The mere sight of the oversize brass door knocker in the shape of a lion’s head gave her a sense of belonging. It was a feeling she missed.
Aunt Adelaide, her father’s only sister, had moved to Manchester with her infant daughter, Penelope, when she married for the second time. They’d moved into Bill Lawrence’s family home and stayed there ever since. “I’ve set down my roots,” she used to say with a polite smile whenever anyone asked how she could have left her birthplace. “And trees don’t do well in Manhattan.” Twenty-nine years later, the rambling house, its rooms full of faded chintz mismatched furniture, was filled with her presence.
Summer “family reunions,” announced as if the weekend promised hordes of distant relatives rather than the small brood of cousins that they were, had begun the year Frances turned nine. They’d offered the best of activities: camping on the private beach, eating Cheerios out of a waxed paper–lined box in the early morning while still in her sleeping bag; scavenger hunts that sent her scrambling across the rocky shore in search of a piece of blue sea glass, a sea star, or a periwinkle shell; fishing expeditions in the canoe, dropping paper clip lines baited with raw bacon overboard in hopes of snagging a flounder; late-night games of charades in the paneled library of the Lawrence home with its sweet smell of bitter orange potpourri. Frances could still recall the taste of her aunt’s angel food cake, the sound of the porch door as it slammed shut, the creak of the floorboards in the upstairs hall that always seemed louder at night when she snuck in past her curfew. These were her happiest childhood memories.
Theodora Pratt, the family matriarch and Frances’s sole living grandparent, had become a permanent fixture in Manchester as well. She’d moved from Ann Arbor, Michigan, after her husband died to the guest cottage at the edge of the property. Frances remembered well the two frenzied days she’d spent listening to her grandmother bark directions as she’d helped to unpack her eclectic possessions. Teddy’s collections of first editions and travel logs filled to overflowing the bookshelves in the sunken sitting room, and her Matelasse bedspreads brightened the two mildewed bedrooms. She remembered the sunny afternoon after they’d hung the last beveled mirror. They’d sat together in the screened-in porch, admiring the view of the harbor.
“I get my independence without any of the troubles of home maintenance,” Teddy had remarked. “And it works for them. They get rent. Not much, but it’ll help with the taxes.” She’d raised her eyebrows and said nothing further. As Frances now reflected, she realized it was the only reference to money she’d ever heard made by any of her Manchester relatives.
It was hard to imagine that nearly five years had passed since that fall weekend. But hardly a Sunday came and went without Frances picking up the telephone to listen to her grandmother’s stories, the words rattling in her two-pack-a-day throat. At eighty-two, Teddy drove to lunch at the Singing Beach Club, played mah-jongg Tuesday afternoons, volunteered at the checkout desk of the local library, and walked her three dogs every day. The sight of her with her silver-handled walking stick and her pack of canines—an Irish terrier, a dachshund, and a one-eyed pit bull she’d adopted from the North Shore Animal Rescue League after reading about its fighting injuries in a local paper—had to be a source of constant amusement to the residents on her route. And she still gossiped. It hadn’t taken her long to know everything about everyone in Manchester-by-the-Sea.
She often spoke of raising her two children alone because their father had spent much of his career in the Far East and she had refused to go. “I know my conduct was viewed as scandalous. My loyalty was questioned because I wouldn’t follow my husband to some tsetse fly–infested country with primitive sewers, but I wasn’t about to have my children educated abroad. Generations before me worked bloody hard to get to this country, and I intended to remain. Dick could do what he liked. He always did anyway,” she said, referring to her late husband. Frances remembered the note of pride in Teddy’s voice as she relayed her decision. An independent woman was a relatively rare commodity “in my day and age,” she liked to say.
Frances thought now of the last time she’d seen any one from the paternal side of her family. She’d been sitting by her father’s bed at New York University Medical Center when Adelaide entered the room unexpectedly, her hazel eyes and high cheekbones partially obscured by the oversize brim of a navy hat. Frances had been startled by her frailty, her tiny waist cinched by a leather belt and thin ankles covered in sheer black stockings. They’d embraced quickly, Adelaide gracing both her cheeks with the faintest of kisses. Then she’d removed her hat, approached her brother, and perched gently on the edge of his bed. Under the fluorescent hospital lights, the crow’s-feet surrounding her eyes and the deep lines in her forehead reflected her fifty-three years.
Adelaide had taken Richard Pratt’s limp hand in her bony fingers. “My dearest, dearest Richard, I’m so sorry this happened to you,” she’d cooed with a particular emphasis on “you.” Frances thought she saw her father’s fingers move in response, a feeble gesture meant to reflect the affection he felt for his younger sister, but she hadn’t been sure. “Tell me,” Adelaide had continued without looking at Frances. “Tell me everything I need to know about what happened.”
Frances hadn’t known how to respond. An intercerebral hemorrhagic stroke on the left side of his brain, a ruptured blood vessel, extensive bleeding in the brain tissue… The doctor’s words had echoed in her mind, but she’d had difficulty repeating them aloud. Instead, she’d stared blankly ahead, wishing her aunt would read her thoughts so that she could avoid articulating the diagnosis that condemned her father.
“Never mind. What happened isn’t important. What will happen now is all that matters. Please forgive me. We must look to the future,” Adelaide had reassured her as she’d moved toward her and gently wiped tears from Frances’s face with a slightly perfumed linen handkerchief. Frances hadn’t even realized she’d been crying, yet she could still remember the faint smell of tuberose, the feel of the cloth on her face. The gesture had seemed maternal, a tenderness that was foreign to Frances. She hadn’t wanted it to end.
Now Hope Alexandra Lawrence, the only child of Bill and Adelaide’s marriage, was getting married.
The telephone interrupted Frances’s reverie, and she reached to pick it up.
“Fanny, it’s me,” Sam said. “Give me the date of that wedding again. I want to be sure we get a ferry reservation.”
Typical Sam, Frances thought. Always efficient. The ferry from Orient Point to New London, Connecticut, the simplest way to get to New England from the easternmost tip of Long Island, was packed during the summer months, and a coveted spot on any weekend between Memorial and Labor Days had to be secured well in advance.
“I’ll deal with it. It’s enough t
hat you’ve agreed to come. Standing around in jacket and tie making small talk on a summer Saturday is not your idea of a great time.”
“I’m honored that you want to take me,” Sam said with his usual humility. “Really I am. I’m hardly the one you should have on your arm for such an occasion.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You should be escorted by some guy who wears Porter’s lotion and suspenders, has two middle names, and is a fourth-generation graduate of Groton. I’m just a potato farmer.” Sam paused. “But I’ll try to brush up on my stock market lingo and pretend I have a portfolio.” He lowered his voice and affected a lockjawed manner of speech. “Yukon Golds are my hot new commodity.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Frances replied. “This is my cousin.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. Your family.”
Frances thought for a moment. She wished his words were true, that she had been part of the Lawrence household instead of just a visiting relative, so distant that she’d needed a guest pass at the Manchester Field and Hunt Club in order to use the swimming pool. As an adolescent, she’d spent many hours fantasizing that there had been a mistake, that she’d actually been Adelaide’s daughter, or that her aunt would adopt her into the intact family. But fate had dealt her a different hand.
“Actually, it’ll just be us. Dad can’t go,” Frances remarked, thinking of her father’s ever worsening condition. Missing his niece’s wedding wouldn’t help his already fragile emotional state. “And Blair’s baby is due the twenty-fifth. I doubt she’ll be able to travel,” she said, referring to her younger sister.
“What about your mother?”
“No,” Frances responded too quickly. Her parents had been divorced for more than thirty years, but that wasn’t the real reason her mother would stay away. She appreciated that Sam didn’t inquire further. He knew her well enough to know that if she wanted to explain, she would without any prompting from him.
