Olivia’s head spun with confusion. She and Chelsea stepped into the foyer, which she remembered from that long-ago day with Tyler. This time, however, the floors had been restored to a beautiful marble shine, and even the walls seemed newly painted. The portrait that had once hung in this foyer was nowhere to be found, but even the staircase looked as though it had been newly built-up to ensure it could carry weight.
The man pressed the door closed and continued to look at them with his own round of confusion. He passed the deed back to Olivia and swiped a hand through his hair, trying to figure out what next to say. “I’d heard she’d passed away, but I didn’t manage to make it out to the funeral,” he said.
“Oh. So I guess you knew her somehow?” Olivia asked.
“Yeah. She hired me about a year ago to start to restore this old mansion. My father was an old friend of hers, I guess, and she had always been kind to me. I needed a gig, and she needed a handyman. In the summertime, I managed to build up enough space for myself to live here full-time, and well. I’ve been here ever since.”
Again, a heavy silence hung between them. For the first time, Olivia allowed herself to fully acknowledge just how handsome this man was, in that kind of rugged, “he’ll take you for all you have and break your heart” way.
“Oh, stupid me. I haven’t introduced myself,” the man said. He stuck out his hand and said, “I’m Anthony. Anthony Paulson.”
Olivia shook his hand, which was remarkably clean for a handyman. “I’m Olivia Hesson. This is my daughter, Chelsea.”
“Pleased to meet you,” the handyman said, although his eyes continued to echo back a level of distrust. “You know, I really wish the old lady would have given me some kind of understanding about what she planned to do with this old place after her death. We worked together on a lot of the restoration — I mean, she told me her vision and I put it in action, but not all of it. There are quite a few months left of work to be done on this old place, and I’m kind of at a loss. She did leave me enough funds for the labor and the materials, thank goodness. I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t. The house has turned into a labor of love for me. I hardly ever leave unless it’s to get supplies for myself.”
Olivia’s confusion around this man continued to mount. What kind of guy just comes out here in the middle of nowhere to build up an old mansion for an old lady and never sees another human soul?
It was really the stuff you only read in novels. The kinds of novels she loved the most.
“It looks like you’ve been really hard at work,” Olivia said finally, looking around the room. “I saw this old foyer about twenty-three years ago, but you’ve restored it beautifully. Even the molding toward the ceiling...”
“That was quite difficult.” Anthony’s eyes brightened the slightest bit. “Actually, do you have time for a tour? I can show you what I’ve done so far and what I plan to do next.”
“Of course!” Chelsea answered quickly. “And let us know where the ghosts are. I’d like to avoid them if I can.”
Anthony chuckled as he stepped through the foyer and then led them through a half-finished living area, complete with a beautiful, fully-restored fireplace. Beyond this, they entered a kitchen, which was operational, but not yet beautiful.
“You’ll have to help me pick out the tiles for this kitchen,” he said somberly. “I saw photos of what it looked like before. Mold got to the tiles, and I had to take out most of them. It was a tragedy.”
Chelsea and Olivia caught one another’s eyes. “I think we’ve seen enough home improvement TV shows to lend a hand,” Olivia said.
“We’ve only seen every show four times,” Chelsea agreed.
“Then I guess I’m chatting to the right ladies,” Anthony grinned.
They continued through the tour. Anthony pointed out various rooms that were absolute off limits at the moment, along with the basement steps, which he called “absolutely treacherous.” Upstairs, he led them toward the large bedroom, the one with the bay window with the perfect view of the Nantucket Sound. It was the room in which Olivia had found Marcia and that mystery man, all those years ago.
“I chose this for my temporary bedroom,” he explained as he opened the door to reveal it. “It’s so large that it feels like an apartment.”
Olivia exhaled with the beauty of the interior. He’d brought in a beautiful, antique four-poster bed, had restored one of the old wardrobes, and had even restored the walls and hung ornate wallpaper, the kind that suited the time period of the furnishings. Olivia stared for a moment at the spot where she’d found her aunt, just to the left of the large window. Her heart ached at the memory. The woman had had such life to her.
“It’s really gorgeous,” Chelsea murmured when Olivia’s words failed her.
“Glad you think so,” Anthony replied. “I didn’t know I would have any kind of audience. But I’m glad I passed the surprise inspection.”
As they returned to the first floor, Anthony explained more of the areas in the house that were “breakable.” “If you walk out too far on the porch that overlooks the water, the floorboards might crumble beneath you,” he told them while pointing at certain things in each room. “That will be a massive project come spring or summer. I’m kind of dreading it, to be honest, although a porch like that is necessary if you want to turn this place into a boutique inn.”
Olivia turned to Anthony with a cocked eyebrow. “A boutique inn? What makes you say that?”
Had he read her mind?
ANTHONY TURNED TO HER. His mouth cracked into a grin. “Didn’t your aunt tell you? That was her whole plan all along. To turn this into one of the most sought after inn’s on Martha’s Vineyard.”
Olivia exchanged a quick glance with Chelsea before saying, “You don’t say.”
“This place is going to be amazing, Mom,” Chelsea squealed with excitement. “It’s so romantic and if you can work the ghost thing into the marketing, all the better. People love that stuff. They come in droves just for the personal experience.”
Olivia and Anthony chuckled as Chelsea did another turn around the foyer. Olivia’s heart bloomed with positivity and light. For the first time in quite a while, she felt excited about the prospect of something and her future. Maybe this could be a project that would bring Olivia and her daughter closer to one another. For the first time, she felt that maybe, there was light at the end of the tunnel.
Chapter Five
The high school chatter blared through the hallways. Olivia sat at her desk, crossed her legs, and clicked through her email. A half-eaten apple sat on a napkin beside her, as she had neglected lunch in order to grade more papers. Life as a teacher was a never-ending slog of grading papers. Every day of her life, her fingers were covered with red pen.
At the top of her email, there was a message from Anthony Paulson. Her heart jumped into her throat. At the end of their meeting, she had given him her business card (admittedly, nothing she’d ever really needed as a teacher, although the school had given them out free to their teachers as a Christmas present two years before). Now, just a few days after her and Chelsea’s visit, he had reached out.
Olivia. Great to meet you the other day. I wanted to send you over pictures of some of the plans I’d drawn up and shown to your Great Aunt Marcia. Maybe you can swing by the place soon and we can discuss the next steps.
Beneath the words, he had attached several photos of his architectural and interior design plans. Olivia tried her best to visualize what he’d written up against what she had seen the other day — the porch that seemed on the verge of crumbling to the mud below, the busted-out windows upstairs, and the walls that were dilapidated with decades of stormy winds.
Before she had a chance to write back, her final period of students began to filter through the door. Several of them greeted her, “Hey, Ms. Hesson,” while others hardly grunted. She reached for Anna Karenina and her notes for the day, even as she heard one of the students groan, “I can’t be
lieve we’re still on this stupid book.”
“Stupid book?” Olivia chuckled as she addressed the class. “This book has affected hundreds of thousands of people across the world. It’s given life and meaning to countless people. Why then, Mr. Henderson, did it skip over you?”
The kid rolled his eyes. “I guess because I’m not a depressed Russian woman.”
“As opposed to the rest of us,” Olivia teased. Her eyebrow was arched and she wore a grin as she locked eyes with him.
The bell rang. Only one seat remained empty. Xavier — the student who’d recently seemed monstrously dark and strange. Nothing had given Olivia any indication that he was absent from school.
“Has anyone seen Xavier today?” she asked the class looking around at all of the students. Most just shrugged their shoulders and shook their heads.
Hannah, an overly-bright blond girl, lifted a hand as she answered, “He was in my history class earlier. Not sure what happened to him.”
“Hmm.” Just as Olivia turned back again toward the door, however, Xavier slunk into the room like a cat. He looked as though he knew he’d done something wrong, but almost like he relished it. His eyes bore through hers. “Good afternoon, Xavier. Thank you for finally joining us.”
Xavier grumbled something that Olivia couldn’t quite hear. She turned toward her computer to mark him “tardy” but soon thought better of it. She wasn’t the kind of teacher to keep tabs on little mistakes like that. People were late to things; stuff happened.
Olivia started the conversation about Tolstoy himself, about the immensity of Anna Karenina, and about Russian literature in general. Only a few students had anything much to say. Olivia blamed the grey weather and the winter doldrums. It was difficult for her to concentrate, too.
Toward the end of the period, Olivia began to ask her students questions over the novel in order to prepare them for the upcoming test. They breezed past them until she fell upon this:
“Why is it, do you think that Anna doesn’t like to read about other people’s lives? Tolstoy writes that she ‘wants too much to live herself.’ Why, here, do you think Tolstoy puts reading and actually living your life in conflict with each other?” she asked.
“Ooph. Tough, Ms. Hesson,” the blond girl, Hannah, breathed.
Olivia crossed her arms over her chest and scanned the quiet classroom. Nobody seemed willing to speak. Toward the very back, Xavier had his face in his hands.
“Xavier?” She cleared her throat. “Why do you think Tolstoy has this conflict between reading and life?”
Xavier grumbled something into his hands.
“I’m sorry?” Olivia said. “You’re going to need to lift your head to answer, Xavier.”
There was a long pause. Olivia furrowed her brow and spoke again. “Xavier? I’ve asked you a question.”
Suddenly, Xavier smacked his palms on the desk. He glared at Olivia with fiery eyes. “Probably because living is futile. Probably because reading is the only thing you can do that doesn’t put you in complete hell. Probably because —”
“Hey. Hey, hey.” Olivia placed her hands out to try to quiet him down.
“What? You want me to be quiet? You want me to keep it all in? Isn’t literature meant to bring out our passion for certain subjects, Ms. Hesson? Well, here it is. My passion.” Xavier’s words were laced heavily with venom.
Olivia allowed silence to fall again. She turned her eyes toward the clock that was hung on the wall and breathed a sigh of relief and as if on cue, the bell rang.
“Okay, guys. Thanks for a good discussion today,” she called to them as they breezed out of the classroom. “Remember, we’re going to move on from the Russians next week. Only a few more days of Tolstoy, and then we’ll be in France. Flaubert, here we come!”
Even she couldn’t fully believe the brightness in her voice. As she hovered over her desk, she watched as Xavier rushed through the classroom and stomped into the hallway. It was clear that there was something terribly wrong with him. She felt it in her bones. Call it teacher’s intuition.
Rattled, Olivia gathered up her things and headed out the school door. It was a beautiful late-January day, and a bright blue sky swelled over the top of their snow-capped town. Olivia walked briskly toward Amelia’s offices. When she appeared in the foyer, she grinned at the secretary and said, “I hope she’s not too busy to see me?”
The secretary tried on a smile but only really scrunched her cheeks. “Amelia’s schedule is booked solid right now, but let me have a look .”
Out of all of her best friends, Amelia was the one who had committed wholly to her career. Never once had she paused to fall in love or have a child or, really, take a little breather. Olivia couldn’t remember the last time Amelia had been on vacation. In her words, Edgartown needed her much more than she needed any kind of vacation. Olivia had to respect that, although, like the others, she worried that Amelia regretted the things she’d missed.
Not that marriage had worked out exactly for Olivia, Jennifer, Mila, or Camilla. That was life, though. You tried things. You did them for a while. You moved on.
“Well, maybe I could just leave her a note to say that I stopped by?” Olivia tried.
But just then, Amelia whipped past the foyer. Her heels clacked beneath her as she carried herself far faster than any forty-year-old woman should have been able to go. Her eyes danced with adrenaline as her mouth formed an O and she said, “Olivia Hesson! To what do I owe the pleasure of this surprise?”
“I told her you were quite busy today,” the secretary began.
“Oh, don’t worry about that.” Amelia wrapped Olivia in a big hug and then guided her back toward her office, which was ornate, the walls made only of deep mahogany, and the rugs thick. A beautiful hundred-year-old painting hung on the wall of the office, featuring a mayor of Edgartown from long-ago. The place was heavy with importance. Always, Olivia was impressed.
“Can I get you something to drink?” Amelia asked. She placed a folder on her desk and grinned broadly. “Tea? Coffee? Unfortunately, I can’t get away with any wine until later tonight. I have a huge block of meetings later.”
“No worries. I’m good,” Olivia replied. “I just wanted to say hi. It feels like I haven’t seen you in ages.”
“I know! I’ve been so busy,” Amelia said. “Although Camilla mentioned something about this weekend? Dinner at her place? I’ve been worried about her. I talked to her on the phone the other night, and she sounded...”
“Empty?” Olivia said. “I’ve felt that way, too.”
“I really thought she and Jonathon would find a way to work through anything,” Amelia said, sadness marring her face.
“Me too.” Olivia chewed nervously at her lower lip. It had always kind of bugged her that Camilla’s separation and Jennifer’s divorce had been met with cries of, Wow! I never thought they’d break up. When she and Tyler had divorced, everyone had kind of suggested that they’d always seen that coming.
Maybe she’d seen it coming, too, and just hadn’t realized it.
“How’s it going at school?” Amelia asked, leaning back in her chair. “You said you were deep in Anna Karenina last we talked about it.”
“Just finished it,” Olivia said.
“I don’t know how you’ve read that book as many times as you have. I love to read, but the thing is so dry to me.”
Olivia laughed. “I think you and my students might have a lot to talk about.” She swallowed the lump in her throat and then continued. “And actually, that’s kind of why I’m here. I have this student that seems particularly troubled lately. I always think about these kids, about their mental health and all you read about regarding teenage depression and what it can lead to.”
Amelia curled her fingers beneath her chin and nodded somberly. “You’re worried about him.”
“Yeah. And I don’t know what to do.”
Amelia considered this. She always had a plan of action and always gave the best advice. A
fter a long pause, she said, “If I was this kid’s parent, then maybe I would want to know what’s going on.”
Olivia nodded. “I kind of thought the same thing. They can look into therapy or something.”
“Yeah. Exactly.” Amelia reached across the table and gripped Olivia’s hand. “You’ve always been so good at spotting these things. No wonder you really are such a good teacher. You care about all of them so much. They’re so lucky to have you.”
IN THE WAKE OF HER conversation with Amelia, Olivia hustled home and looked up Xavier’s parents’ listed phone number. She was given all this information at the start of the year and very rarely had to use it. Her fingers hovered over the phone screen for a long time before she made the call.
After three rings, a woman answered.
“Hello? Is this Monica Collins?”
“It is.”
“My name is Olivia Hesson. I’m Xavier’s English teacher at school.”
“Oh. Hello.” The woman wasn’t entirely friendly. “What can I do for you?”
“I was curious if we might be able to meet briefly to discuss Xavier. He’s a brilliant student; this has nothing to do with his grades.”
Again, there was silence on the other line. Olivia felt like she walked a tightrope.
“Sure. Should I come to school?”
“That would be perfect. What about tomorrow? Around four?”
“Okay.” There was sincere annoyance in the woman’s voice. “See you then.”
Approximately twenty-four hours later, Olivia found herself at her teacher desk, facing Monica and Jeffrey Collins, the parents of Xavier Collins. As they sat there, their faces seemed to harden to stone. Neither of them had smiled since they’d entered the classroom. Olivia felt a little intimidated but held her posture. She hoped she wasn’t giving off a vibe that she didn’t know what she was doing.
“Thank you for coming in,” Olivia said, giving them a small smile. “I just wanted to express my concern over Xavier’s behavior in the last recent weeks.”
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