Mila returned to the front seat of the cop car. She was beginning to feel whiplash — both from the accident and from the wild turn of events from the previous hour. She clicked the seatbelt into place and watched as Liam stepped back in. He was slower, now. There wasn’t as much of a rush.
“I’ll take you back, and then I’ll arrange for some of my colleagues to help me look,” he said, mostly to himself. “We’ll get this guy. Boston already knows about it. Can’t believe he thought he could just hide out here on the Vineyard.”
Mila wanted to point out that probably, it had been a pretty intelligent place to hide out. Beautiful sports cars like that were a dime a dozen around Martha’s Vineyard in the summertime; nobody batted an eye.
As they drove back toward Witchwood Lane, Liam asked her a few more questions about Graham. Mila had begun to fall down from cloud nine and see through the cracks. He had hardly told her anything personal, really; he’d mostly just told her stories from his adventures across the world. Probably, some of those stories had been a complete lie.
“To be honest, a first date isn’t a great indication of anyone’s personality,” Mila returned with a sigh.
“I gave up on all that a long time ago,” Liam said. “I hated the game of it all.”
Mila laughed. “One of my best friends set it up. They’re bound and determined to get me into a happy and healthy relationship.”
“Well, they’re not doing a very good job of it,” Liam said. “They set you up with a criminal.”
“At least I can hold it against them for the rest of time,” Mila said.
When Liam parked the cop car outside, he paused and listened for a moment. He then nodded and said, “Sounds like your kids have kept it down tonight. Lucky for them.”
“I’m sure I’ll see you the next time they get rowdy,” Mila said. She then gave him a soft smile as she pressed open the passenger door. “Sorry about everything tonight.”
“Doesn’t seem like you have anything to apologize for. Just bad luck.”
“I’ve had a lot of that lately. That’s for sure,” Mila affirmed. “Well, anyway. Good night, Liam. And thanks for the ride. Let me know when you find the guy. I’d love to know what he’s really up to.”
“I’ll fill you in when I know more,” Liam said. He held her gaze for a long time as she ducked out. When she clicked the door back closed, she lifted a hand to wave. She then turned and sauntered the rest of the way inside her house.
When she reached the foyer, Isabelle leaped out from the kitchen. She wore an oversized t-shirt and a pair of shorts, and she’d donned her glasses for the night. Zane hustled up behind her and nibbled on a chip. They looked at her, and then they looked past her and spotted the cop car as it eased away from the house.
“What the heck happened to you?” Isabelle asked as her eyes widened.
Mila buzzed her lips. “You’ll never believe it.”
Chapter Seven
“You have got to be kidding me.” Isabelle sat up front in Mila’s car with her eyes glued to her mother’s face. In the back, Zane burrowed himself into his phone. Mila paused at the red light nearest her parents’ house as her heart thudded quickly in her stomach. Dread was the name of the game—dread and embarrassment at what had happened the night before. She’d finally gotten around to explaining the details to Isabelle and Zane (only one of whom listened) and now, Isabelle looked at her like she was nuts.
“But don’t worry honey,” Mila said with a funny smile. “I think he liked the outfit you picked out. Even criminals can have good taste. And really, you should have seen the Jag. It was pretty stellar. Can’t believe I got to ride in it.”
Isabelle puffed out her cheeks. Mila eased the car into her parents’ driveway and then turned off the engine. Her mother and father had planned a family dinner, an event she had dreaded the previous week. She’d thought long and hard throughout the day about a potential plan of escape, but nothing had come to mind.
Isabelle, Zane, and Mila crowded around the back trunk. Mila placed three bottles of wine in Zane’s arms, then passed a large salad bowl off to Isabelle. This left the platter of cookies. Mila eased the trunk closed and followed her children with the tray in hand. By the time she reached the top of the porch, her mother had the door wide open. Her screeching, “Well, what do we have here?” greeting made Mila’s ears ring.
Her mother dotted a kiss on Isabelle’s cheek, then patted Zane on the back as he breezed past. Diana’s eyes found Mila’s immediately after that. Mila tried and failed to give her a smile.
“Hello there,” Diana said. Her voice was flat and cold. “You’re a bit late. Jessie’s family has been here for about twenty minutes.”
“I didn’t realize we were on a schedule,” Mila replied.
“You know how your father likes to know when to light the grill and everything,” Diana pointed out as she brought the door closed behind them. “He’s already started on the first round of burgers.”
“Then I guess we’re right on time then.”
Mila longed to ask her mother to lighten up on her, just for once. She longed to tell her about the traumatic night she’d had and that all she wanted was to curl up with a glass of wine and sit with her children and forget the world for a moment. But no: she’d walked into the lion’s den of previous trauma. Her belly told her the immensity of the mistake. But there was no going back.
Mila joined the others out on the back porch, which overlooked Katama Bay. Her older brother, Jessie, sat off to the left. He was a doctor, just like their parents, and everything he did, wore and said seemed to sizzle with this sense of intelligence and wealth. He wore a cream-colored polo shirt and a pair of expensive jeans, and he hardly lifted his eyes to look at Mila. She was reminded all over again of when she’d made the varsity cheerleading squad, right when he had been accepted to Yale University. It wasn’t like anybody would congratulate her on her “silly” achievement after that.
That had always been their dynamic, though. Jessie succeeded at everything; he followed the path of their parents, married an appropriate woman, had beautiful and intelligent children. His children were twelve and fifteen and Mila did love them to bits. But they weren’t like Isabelle and Zane. For example, it wasn’t likely they would ever throw a party that got the cops called on them.
Jessie’s wife, Natalie, sat alongside him, and the kids sat on either side of the both of them. They were a magazine-perfect family. And when Mila turned to catch sight of her mother again, she saw what she’d always saw there: her mother and father adored Jessie’s family much, much more than they adored hers. Mila’s family was second-tier, forever. It had always been this way, even back when Peter had been around. They’d hated that Mila had married a man twenty years her senior. They had hated that she hadn’t “met her potential,” whatever that meant to them. They felt she was some kind of stain on their family name. And they weren’t so good at hiding it.
Mila’s father, Jamie, stood over the grill. He drew himself around the slightest bit to say hello, then returned his attention to the sizzling meat. Mila poured herself a hefty glass of pinot and sat next to Aria, who was twelve, the top of her class, and a killer gymnast. Mila at least loved the gymnastics thing.
“Tell me. What kinds of tumbles have you learned lately?” she asked.
But Aria gave her a half-snide smile. “I mean, we’re a bit more advanced than the cheerleaders,” she said. “It’s not for some boy’s team. We’re real athletes.”
Mila’s eyebrows popped high on her forehead. She couldn’t believe how snarky this girl was. “Cheerleaders are real athletes, too, you know.”
Aria gave her a doubtful look as Diana sat across from them.
“You should have seen Aria at her competition the other night,” Diana said. “She got — what was it? Two blue ribbons?”
“Three,” Aria corrected.
“Oh, our grandkids are so special. Brody’s work teaching swim lessons and art lessons is so hono
rable, also. Brody, I forget, did you decide whether or not you’d do football this autumn?”
“I want to focus on school,” Brody affirmed. “Just a couple more years to really make an impression on Yale.”
“That’s right,” Jamie said from the grill. “Another Yale graduate in the family! Can you imagine?”
Natalie had met Jessie at Yale. She was a ritzy Boston-type, and she hadn’t worked a single day since she’d given birth to Brody. Often, Mila wanted to ask her what she did with her time. Mila’s schedule was always packed with work, children, grocery shopping, exercise, wine, trash TV, and her best friends. She felt the days pass by like flowing water. But as far as she could tell, Natalie just sat around in that big house of theirs. Her skin was porcelain white, as though she never went outside, either.
“Well,” Mila began. “Isabelle and Zane are both headed off to prestigious universities. In about a month!”
“Oh yes, of course.” Diana sounded doubtful. She returned her attention to Aria, who looked like a bored and glum little girl. “Aria, what’s next for you, then? Are you thinking about Yale?”
Mila’s nostrils flared. Zane reached out and grabbed a chip from a bag and chewed at the edge. Isabelle grabbed her phone and began to scan through a social media platform. Mila wondered to herself why she’d forced this night on her little family. It was always the same. They were always second place.
The burgers were served. Zane took a huge bite and smeared ketchup across his lower lip. Diana made a joke that he had to take a class about “refinement at the table” at Boston College. Isabelle joined in on that joke and said, “You should see him eat an ice cream cone. It’s still like he’s seven years old.”
Diana chuckled slightly but didn’t seem to think the joke was entirely funny. Isabelle’s eyes found Mila’s. She could see the hurt in her daughter's eyes.
When the conversation waned the slightest bit, Diana pegged Mila as the next topic.
“Mila! Tell us. How’s it going out there as a single woman on the town?”
Mila arched an eyebrow. Her parents very rarely brought up her dating life. When they did, they normally had the tact not to bring it up around her children. Peter had only passed two years ago. Mila could practically still imagine him there at the table with all of them; his soul had always put her at ease.
But Diana maintained her eye contact, as though this would force Mila to answer. Isabelle kicked her mother under the table. Too much time had passed.
“Um. I’m pretty busy with the salon,” Mila replied. She set down the second half of her burger and tapped at her lips with her napkin. Her parents exchanged glances as though this had been a part of their plan — to make her feel as uncomfortable as possible.
“I thought we could maybe set you up with your father’s friend from Yale’s son,” Diana tried. “You remember Gulliver, don’t you? From our Christmas parties?”
Mila couldn’t have forgotten Gulliver, not in a million years. He was absolutely abhorrent. He’d left his wife and child for a young French model several years before and then had left that French model for a Spanish model.
“On what planet would that ever work out, Mom?” Mila asked.
Jessie actually snorted. Mila tilted her head toward him and said, “See? Jessie even thinks it’s ridiculous.”
“Jessie, you know that Gulliver is an upstanding man,” Diana said sternly.
It was one of the first times Mila had seen her mother speak negatively toward her brother in years.
But Jessie just shrugged and placed a chip on his tongue. “He’s kind of a sleaze, Mom.”
“I don’t believe that for a second,” Diana said.
“He’s kind of into younger women,” Jessie told his mother point-blank.
“Well, I don’t think it would hurt Mila or Gulliver to date someone their own age,” Diana reasoned.
Mila’s jaw dropped and Isabelle placed her burger on her plate. Silence blanketed the table as Isabelle, Mila, and Zane glared at Diana. After a long pause, Isabelle yanked her chair back so that it screeched against the hardwood. She bucked toward the door between the porch and the main house as she grumbled. “I don’t understand why the heck she thinks that’s okay—”
Diana furrowed her brow as the door smashed closed between Isabelle and the rest of the family.
“Is there something wrong with Isabelle?” she asked Zane.
Zane rolled his eyes. Mila sensed that he had quite a few things to say to his grandmother and none of them were nice. Mila thanked God he held them in. She was so grateful for that; they didn’t need any more bad blood between them. Still, Mila’s heart ached for her children’s sake.
Aria interjected, then. “How old was Uncle Peter when you married him?”
Mila’s heart sank the slightest bit. She stabbed her spoon through the bottom of her baked beans. “He was forty-two. I was twenty-two. But it didn’t matter to us. We always said we were soul mates.”
Zane’s smile was sad but pure. Again, she was struck by how much he looked like his father as a teenager.
Aria made a doubtful sound in her throat. “Didn’t you want to meet someone your own age?” It was obvious that Aria had had it ground into her: good people met other good people in college and then married them. She would do it, just as her parents had before her.
“I didn’t go to college,” Mila told her.
“Even though she had every opportunity,” Diana told her granddaughter.
Zane grunted at his grandmother’s words, then shot up from his chair and followed Isabelle inside. Again, Diana looked at Mila, aghast.
“What’s gotten into your twins?”
Mila placed her spoon back on her plate. She, too, stood up. “I’ll go check on them. Maybe they’re just sick to their stomachs. I know I am.”
She followed after the children and ultimately found them in the kitchen, speaking in low voices. Since they’d been children, they had seemed to have a unique way of conversing with one another. Peter and Mila had joked that they’d had an entirely different language, all their own.
“Hey.” Mila paused in the doorway and tried to give her kids a sad smile. They didn’t match it.
“We want to go home,” Isabelle said. She crossed her arms over her chest, in resolute.
“We don’t like the way they treat you,” Zane continued.
Mila gave a slight shrug. “It’s our family.”
“Family shouldn’t make family feel like this,” Isabelle countered.
“Family shouldn’t pick you apart like vultures,” Zane added.
Mila rinsed off her plate and placed it in the dishwasher. She studied the water just outside the window; it caught the last light of another beautiful summer day. There was something sorrowful about it. It seemed to tell her a story of long-ago days, when she had been a teenager in this very house and her parents had drilled into her the importance of going to school, of making something of herself.
When Michelle had died, Mila had thrown up her hands in alarm and said, “I don’t know what I want. How can anyone know what they want? We’re all going to die!” And her parents had said she was being melodramatic. Probably, she’d just needed therapy. Gosh, they’d all really needed therapy.
“Okay. Let’s get out of here,” Mila said with a sigh. “But if Mom tears me apart, I’m blaming it on you two.”
On the way to the car, Zane admitted he was still hungry. Isabelle begged to grab ice cream on the way home and watch chick flicks. Zane said he was fine with the chick flicks as long as nobody told anyone he’d watched them. Mila grinned inwardly as she snaked through the Edgartown roads, back toward Witchwood Lane. When her phone pinged, it held a single message from her mother.
MOM: Where did you go? We’re about to serve the pie.
Chapter Eight
Mila awoke just past six-thirty to a stream of text messages in the group chat — all from Olivia.
OLIVIA: I need streamers. And balloons. What bag
did we put those in, Camilla? Do you remember?
OLIVIA: A couple already canceled from Boston. I can’t have an empty room on opening night. That would be an awful jinx on us?
OLIVIA: I almost just fainted. Anthony says he’s going to carry me out of here and close up The Hesson House before we even begin.
OLIVIA: I’m... panicking.
Mila seemed to be the first of the other girls awake. She read over the anxiety-riddled text messages and then penned her own.
MILA: Whatever you need us to do, we’ll do it. It’s going to be a beautiful opening weekend. Any hitch that comes into play will only add to the story.
OLIVIA: Thanks, hun. You always know what to say to calm me down. I hope you’re right.
OLIVIA: But when can you be here?
Mila laughed inwardly and stepped from her bed. Hurriedly, she brewed a pot of coffee and scrubbed herself in the shower. Once out, she brushed her hair, dried it, and styled it, then stood in a robe and sipped coffee for a full five minutes as her thoughts caught up to the rest of her day. Throughout, she received occasional messages from Sasha at the salon. Mila had taken the day off — she normally didn’t work Saturdays and Sundays anyway, but that meant she received her workers’ frantic messages about the mishaps at the salon all throughout her time off. Usually, those frantic messages were immediately followed up with texts like, “Oh sorry, we found it,” or, “Actually, never mind. We got it.”
Isabelle appeared in the kitchen in an oversized t-shirt. She grinned sleepily and poured herself a big helping of coffee.
“I guess I can’t convince you to come help out at The Hesson House today?”
Isabelle scrunched her nose. “Ugh. What kind of things do you have to do?”
“Whatever our drill sergeant Olivia says, I guess.”
“I mean, I can make it to the party tonight,” Isabelle teased. “But otherwise, I have a few things I have to do this morning.”
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