Sailing Lessons

by Hannah McKinnon

  The night she’d crept into the guest room at Wren’s, she’d stood at the foot of his bed. In the dark, he was familiar. The outline of his height and breadth matched the one in her memory. But the face on the pillow was drawn, not fleshed out with health or youth as she had recalled. The vulnerability she saw changed what she had planned to say, and she sat on the edge of his bed and touched his arm.

  Caleb had awakened with a start. “Lucy?” he asked.

  “No, Dad. It’s me.”

  “Oh, Wren.” He’d sat up gingerly, rubbing his eyes. “Is everything all right?”

  “It’s Shannon.”

  Caleb sat, and she wondered if he was upset. Or confused. But she heard him exhale in the darkness.

  “You’re here.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry it took me so long.”

  • • •

  The days they had were not the stuff of movie endings. She had taken her time to come to him, and she took her time to get closer. If you could call it that. But they talked. In Wren’s kitchen, with the everyday chaos of kids and pots and pans on the stove and phones ringing, the awkward spaces were filled. Leaving them room to talk about the real things. His regrets. His struggles with sobriety. Her own.

  Shannon couldn’t say she accepted his apology. But what she did accept was his coming home. She accepted the gesture of it, as well as the physicality. He was her flesh and blood. Her children should know him if only for a short while. It was all they had.

  Caleb’s death did not hit her as it did her sisters, at least not in the same way. For years he had been dead to her. His absence had created resentment—a sentiment that did not hurt him, but simmered in her, preventing her from enjoying all she had and built. In the end, his death breathed life into her father. No longer was he the enemy, the one who left. The one who saddled her with adult responsibilities, with grief. Rather, she could remember him now as showing George how to tie a lanyard. Talking to her about her photographs, the ones in the folder she finally sat down and opened after he showed up at her door one afternoon carrying a tattered leather portfolio of his own. Sitting on their back deck looking at images of Africa, of lighthouses, of her children’s faces. He was more alive to her in death than he was in life.

  As she stepped into the incoming tide, Shannon braced herself. The water was not as cold as the air. Instead, it felt like tub water that had cooled a little, still warm, still womblike. She rolled her pants up over her ankles and took another step in. But it didn’t matter; the waves were strong and high, and even at the water’s edge the ripples found her. They washed over her toes, splashed up over the cuffs of her pants, soaked her shins. Shannon looked at the horizon. She tipped her head back and laughed.

  Forty-Six

  Wren

  There are two of them out on the water. The little girl has her hair pulled back in a ponytail, and it whips out behind her like a flag. The wind is strong today, and they change course as they hug the shore, tacking and jibing. The little girl’s hand is on the wooden rudder, her father’s hand over her own. She is still learning, but he wants her to feel like she is in charge.

  She had not known what it would mean to have her father back for the summer, a summer that proved to teem with firsts and lasts. The Fisherman’s Daughter had endured its first season, and well. At first, she’d been so strung out, spread so thin with her father’s visit and his impending decline of health. The secret he’d asked her to keep, until the others could not help but see and he was forced to share. She worried about Lucy, about what it would mean to gain and lose a grandparent, both in rapid succession. She worried for Piper, whose skin had always been so papery, her vulnerability just under its surface. And for Shannon, who could not and would not feel anything that came her way. Until the feeling came for her. And for their mother, a woman who’d spent her early life loving a man who could not be a parent nor a spouse, but whose heart was still good. Whose love he framed through a lens and developed in a darkroom, if he could seem to capture it in real life. But they had managed, somehow, to let him in and see him through, and let him go again.

  Alice kept calling, giving her updates and assuring them that this is what he wanted. When she called one last time, she told Wren that his passing was quick, his mind sharp as a tack to the end. He’d passed with photographs hanging on his wall that Shannon had sent him. With his daughters’ names on his lips. The cancer took him, but it did not take his senses. Wren wept on the phone, wondering at how pain could travel the lines and distance straight to her heart from a place she’d never been.

  Afterward, as she took Lucy to school and went to the shop each day, she struggled in the quietude. The tourists had left, taking with them the foot traffic, the bustle, and some of the color. It left empty spaces, not only on sidewalks and in restaurants and all across Chatham’s beaches but also in her mind. Spaces where she contemplated father-daughter relationships. And what they meant: not to her, but to a little girl. She realized it was not her say or her choice. She’d made mistakes about both of those things. In the end, it was about Lucy. Even if it meant opening herself up to uncertainty. By sharing Lucy and letting some of her go, she was giving something to her daughter.

  She knew it was a risk. She knew also that he would be confused, and angry. And that he might never trust her again. But she picked up the phone anyway. She owed it to both of them.

  The conditions for sailing are near perfect, and as Caleb would say, the light is just right. They’ve been out on the bay for a while now. As the Beetle Cat turns toward shore, Wren shouts. She lifts a hand and waves. James and Lucy wave back. It’s time to come in for lunch.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This is my fourth novel with EBB, and with each new book I not only get to work with the talented team at Simon and Schuster and with MacKenzie Fraser Bub Literary Agency, but I also get to meet and live alongside a new family through the pages. The Bailey women are women of strength and fortitude, who endure not only because they have to, but because they can.

  In that vein, I’m grateful for my EBB family, most especially to my editor, Emily Bestler, for her continued expertise and encouragement. I am so fortunate to be a part of your amazing team, and I’m proud of the work we’ve produced together. Gratitude to my agent, MacKenzie, whose eye and ear remain my navigational instruments for every book and every page. You remain a cherished partner in this literary journey.

  Thanks to Ariele Fredman and Rachel Brenner, publicists extraordinaire, who help ferry my books out into the world and get me out there, too. You continue to yield your wands! To Albert Tang, whose covers radiate warmth and heart, and who works so hard to get it right every time. Thank you to the copyediting team who remain my valued safety net. Especially to my dear friend, Amy Caruluzzi, copyeditor and early reader extraordinaire.

  Writing is a solitary career, and to this day I remain surprised by the sharp change of gears when I leave my desk and dog and get to dress up, hit the road, and launch a new book. Tremendous gratitude to Elissa Englund and Annie Philbrick of Bank Square Books in Mystic, CT, and Savoy of Westerly, RI, “locally owned and fiercely independent.” You ladies know how to launch a book! I’m so thankful to all the indie bookstore owners who invite me and my books through their doors each summer. Thanks also to the many reviewers and bloggers who generously invest so much of themselves into promoting books and connecting readers to authors, especially Jenny O’Regan and Suzanne Leopold. All of you are like book fairy godmothers!

  I’m so grateful for the hospitality and generosity of the Chatham Bars Inn Resort and Spa. They graciously hosted me for a portion of the research and writing of this novel, and I cannot recommend a better spot for Chatham Harbor views. A must-visit for cocktails on the Beach House Grill deck after a day at the shore.

  Thanks must be given to the picturesque Cape Cod town of Chatham, a slice of Americana seaside heaven. Many of the shops and venues named in these pages are real brick-and-mortar spots, all places I’
ve visited since my own childhood summers in Chatham and all dear to my heart. I consider myself fortunate to bring my own children to this special place every summer to make new memories. Visit Where the Sidewalk Ends for a summer read and stop in at the Squire for the fish and chips. Monomoy Coffee Shop made many iced mocha lattes that fueled the early pages of this book! The Fisherman’s Daughter in this book in an imaginary boutique, but there is a real Fisherman’s Daughter right on Main Street that inspired Wren’s business venture, and it is just as divine.

  Finally, thank you to my family and friends. To those who share my books with their own family and friends, and who listen, read, and show up to my events. Who show up, period. To JB, who remains “one of the good ones.” Thank you to my McKinney lunch girls, my CC crew, my hometown crowd. I could not and likely would not do this without you. Big love to my parents and brothers, for their continued encouragement and support, and who have been known to drop everything to walk a dog, pick up a child, or tend a chicken. Most of all, to Grace and Finley, my little compasses. You remain my reasons for everything.

  Sailing Lessons

  Hannah McKinnon

  READING GROUP GUIDE

  This reading group guide for Sailing Lessons includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

  INTRODUCTION

  Wrenn Bailey has lived all her life on Cape Cod with her mother, Lindy, older sister, Shannon, and younger sister, Piper. Growing up, life was dictated by the seasons with sleepy gray winters where only the locals stayed on, followed by the sharp influx and colorful bustle of summer tourists who swept up the elbow of the Cape and infiltrated their small paradise.

  But it wasn’t just the tourists who interrupted Wrenn’s formative years; her father—brilliant but troubled photographer Caleb—has long made a habit of drifting in and out of his girls’ lives. Until the one summer he left the Cape and did not return again.

  Now, almost twenty years later, Caleb has come back one last time, suffering from pancreatic cancer and seeking absolution. Wrenn and her sisters each respond differently to their father’s return, determined to find closure. But that means returning to the past and revisiting old wounds—wounds that cause the tightknit Bailey women to confront their own wishes and wants, and admit to their own wrongdoings over the years. In a place that brings both great comfort and great pain, the Bailey sisters experience a summer on the Cape that promises not only hard endings, but, perhaps, hopeful new beginnings.

  TOPICS & QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

  1. The book opens with the story of the Baileys’ boat capsizing when the sisters were very young. What did you think about the Baileys in these opening pages? In what ways do their personalities and relationships stay the same as they grow up, and in what ways do they change?

  2. Sailing Lessons uses five different viewpoints to tell the story of the Bailey family. What do you think the novel would have been like if Hannah McKinnon had told it from the point of view of just one or two of the Baileys? Why do you think she chose not to use Lindy as a narrator? What is the effect of not hearing her narrative voice?

  3. While each of the Bailey daughters is very different, they all share elements of their parents, Lindy, Caleb, and Hank. What family traits do they share and what trait is unique to each daughter?

  4. Although there are characters with overt, diagnosed addictions in Sailing Lessons, there are also less obvious addictions that members of the Bailey family struggle with throughout the novel. What types of addictions do you see in the lives of these characters? Is there resolution and healing?

  5. Compare and contrast the four Bailey women’s romantic relationships. In what ways are their relationships influenced by Caleb’s absence from their lives?

  6. After Shannon’s arrest, she remembers a nightmare she had as a child and her father’s comforting words. How do you interpret this memory? What does it symbolize for Shannon?

  7. Before the family scatters Caleb’s ashes, Wren says a few words: “I like to think that when he finally came home to us, he gave each of us a piece of ourselves back.” Discuss what piece of each of the Bailey women was restored by Caleb’s return.

  8. Which character’s journey did you identify with the most? Did any of the characters frustrate you? Confuse you?

  9. Cape Cod plays an important role in the novel; it’s not just the setting, it’s also a major influence on the lives of the characters. How does Hannah emphasize the importance of Cape Cod in the book? Pick a favorite passage describing the Cape and analyze the different ways the various characters think of their home. What does the passage reveal about the character?

  10. Lindy, Wren, Shannon, and Piper all react to Caleb’s return in very different ways. Identify how each copes with their reunion, and the advantages and disadvantages of approaching it this way.

  11. Caleb thinks that Shannon “inherited both the best and the worst from her father.” Do you agree? Do you think that could be said of all his daughters, or is this statement unique to Shannon?

  12. What do you imagine or hope would happen for the Baileys after the book ends? What do you think their futures hold?

  13. As much as this is a story about fathers and daughters, Hannah also delves into the relationship between mothers and daughters. What insights into the mother-daughter bond did you gain from reading Sailing Lessons?

  ENHANCE YOUR BOOK CLUB

  1. Take a relaxing group trip to your local beachy spot, whether it be ocean, lake, or poolside, and enjoy being outside together, like the Baileys do.

  2. In addition to its natural beauty, Cape Cod has a rich maritime history. Research one of the Cape’s many charming towns and present its highlights to your book group.

  3. All of Hannah’s novels feature families in beautiful waterfront locations. Read The Lake Season, Mystic Summer, and The Summer House and compare and contrast the families in each book.

  Don't miss any of Hannah McKinnon's charming novels!

  Iris Standish returns home for her sister's summer wedding at their beloved family lake home in Hannah McKinnon's "must-read" (Cosmopolitan) women's fiction debut.

  The Lake Season

  * * *

  A chance run-in with a college boyfriend puts a young woman’s picture-perfect life in perspective in this warm-hearted and lyrical novel.

  Mystic Summer

  * * *

  Cherished memories and long-kept secrets come to light when the Merrill family reunites at their beloved Rhode Island beach house.

  The Summer House

  * * *

  ORDER YOUR COPIES TODAY!

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  HANNAH McKINNON is the author of The Summer House, The Lake Season, and Mystic Summer. She graduated from Connecticut College and the University of South Australia. She lives in Fairfield County, Connecticut, with her family, a flock of chickens, and two rescue dogs.

  MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT

  SimonandSchuster.com

  Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Hannah-Mckinnon

  Facebook.com/EmilyBestler @EmilyBestler

  OTHER BOOKS BY HANNAH MCKINNON

  The Lake Season

  Mystic Summer

  The Summer House

  FOR YOUNG ADULTS (AS HANNAH ROBERTS MCKINNON)

  Franny Parker

  The Properties of Water

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by Hannah Roberts McKinnon

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

  First Emily Bestler Books/Atria Paperback edition June 2018

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