Eventually, Alexander started drinking wine, but he sensed he was drinking too fast, so he stopped.
Soon, Nina and Chloe came over, bringing Will and Fiona along with them. They sensed disaster and wanted to be close to the rest of the family, chosen and not. With mother and daughter standing side by side, it was apparent they were related. Their noses and bright eyes were the same. Their mannerisms were the same.
Nina came over to hug her brother and whisper in his ear. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to figure this out.”
Alexander thanked her and bit his tongue to keep from saying, Sure, but how?
Will and Fiona scampered upstairs to meet their cousins for the first time. Although Gwen, Xander, and Conor were a bit older than them, they could already tell that they’d been incorporated into whatever video game cycle they were into at the moment. Alexander felt a pang of regret that he hadn’t given his children cousins till now.
Did they have other cousins over in Rome?
And then he remembered Jack’s children in Hawaii—the children he’d apparently left behind. For what? Alexander hung his head and wondered if Jack was wherever he was, watching the footage of his eldest brother’s life falling apart. Everyone had always counted on Alexander to be the best, the brightest, and the most reliable. Everyone had been wrong!
“There’s no arguing with a photograph, I guess,” Alexander said to the room.
Janie, Chloe, Nina, and Charlotte looked at him, their eyes filled with pity. He got up, feeling itchy, and walked to the window as the newscaster discussed the fact that he hadn’t often volunteered at his children’s schools, which probably meant he wasn’t a doting father. But Alexander had been flying himself and airline customers around the world for years and years. He hadn’t had time to volunteer at school functions! It was something he regretted! He was going to get better about that! He’d already made this promise to himself and his wife.
What if Janie decided to leave him again after this? Maybe it was too long.
But suddenly, the newscaster on screen stopped talking and pressed her earpiece with the tip of her finger. There was a look of intensity in her eyes, as though whatever she heard changedeverything. Alexander, his sisters, his father’s ex-mistress, and his wife bent forward, waiting for the next bit of news. Was it about how Alexander had accidentally killed a goldfish one time? Was it about how he’d gotten a speeding ticket six months ago? What now?
“I’m terribly sorry for the delay,” the newscaster said, sitting bolt upright. “I’m told we have a call coming in. Someone who wants to talk about Alexander Whitmore. A family member, if I’m not mistaken.” It was clear she thought this was a brilliant scoop, not something the other news channels had. “We’re listening to him now. Hello?” She spoke more loudly to address the caller. “Can you introduce yourself and explain your relationship to Alexander Whitmore?”
A man cleared his throat. Alexander froze with surprise and took a step away from the television, as though it were possessed. It couldn’t be him. It couldn’t.
“My name is Benjamin Whitmore,” the voice said. And sure enough, it could only be him: that gritty voice, that confidence.
Janie, Chloe, Nina, and Charlotte got to their feet and gaped at the TV.
“I’m the father of Alexander Whitmore,” the man continued.
The newscaster had done her homework; she wasn’t having any of that.
“That can’t be true,” she said. “The father of Alexander Whitmore died during the Fourth of July fire of 1998. Alexander set the fire that ultimately led to the…”
But the voice interrupted her. “My name is Benjamin Whitmore. I’m his father. And I know for a fact that Alexander Whitmore didn’t set that fire.”
The newscaster scoffed. “How could you possibly know?”
“Because I set the fire,” Benjamin said. “That’s how.”
He hung up the phone, and the newscaster stared out at her thousands of viewers, speechless and stunned.
Chapter Twenty-Five
August 2025
Los Angeles and Nantucket Island
It was a week after Benjamin Whitmore’s confession that Alexander was called into the airline office back at LAX and asked to renew his contract and return to work. When he’d first received the call, Alexander couldn’t fathom the nerve of his CEO, who’d gone on national television to speak about Alexander as though he were a common criminal who should never have the safety of so many airline guests in his hands. But in the wake of Benjamin Whitmore’s confession, numerous online petitions had been put up, saying that Alexander Whitmore had been framed and calling for his job back. The airline had been put in a difficult position. Alexander decided to go back home and watch them squirm.
There were things to be done out West, as well.
Alexander, Janie, and their kids flew back to LA from Boston airport free of charge—the least they could do, honestly—and returned to the house in Malibu that, once upon a time, Janiehad fled to escape Alexander. Alone in their bedroom, she cuddled him close and said, “I’m sorry that I didn’t believe in you. I’m just as bad as all those people calling for you to lose your job.”
Alexander shook his head, his eyes itchy from exhaustion, and his soul spun like cotton candy. “You left for your own reasons,” he said. “You left because I haven’t been a good husband, and you began to discredit your own memories of me. You left because you had to.”
Janie’s eyes shone with tears. Down the hall, Gwen, Conor, and Xander were talking loudly about a topic that Janie and Alexander had pitched on their trek back west. What did the kids feel about moving to the East Coast for a little while?
