It was then that she remembered Frank’s mother had said someone else owned the Harbor House. It didn’t make sense. As far as she’d always known, Stella’s family had owned the Harbor House for generations. But just to make sure, she did some light googling. She found exactly no information. Nothing. Maybe Frank’s mother had been confused.
The following day, Nathan made everyone the most enormous and delicious and cheesiest breakfast of their lives. Omelets, breakfast sandwiches, bacon, sausages, and pancakes lined every skillet, every pan. The scents were sensational, pulling Lindsey and Henry from their bedrooms. Sarah put music on her Bluetooth speaker, and everyone ate their breakfasts on the veranda, pouring coffee and watching the light brighten.
“You’re a good addition to the Harbor House!” Lindsey said to Nathan, beaming at him.
“It’s a shame we haven’t hung around each other much over the years,” Henry agreed, reaching for another slice of bacon. “I did read your book, though.Human Agenda.”
Candice’s heart rattled.
“I did, too,” Lindsey said. “That was wild stuff.” Her eyes flickered to Candice. And now, because Lindsey hadn’t brought this up before, Candice understood that Lindsey assumed Nathan had cheated on her, and that was probably why she was trying to push Candice to flirt with Frank. She pitied her, just like everyone else. She assumed the worst.
“Thanks for reading,” Nathan said brightly. “What did you think?”
Henry had a lot to say, as it turned out. The breakfast table transformed into a literature analysis session, one that sent Candice back to the kitchen, where she scrubbed and scrubbed till every last surface, skillet, and plate was clean.
She could not listen to any more conversation about that book.
A little more than an hour later, Nathan, Candice, Peter, and Sarah were on the sailboat, playing Happy Family again. They laughed and sang songs. They whipped around the island. Eventually, Candice dropped the anchor, and they went for a swim, with Nathan coming closer and closer to Candice, almost uncomfortably close, till he kissed her.
“You look so beautiful,” he said.
Candice couldn’t remember the last time he’d said something like that. She gave him a look of confusion, and he swam off again, headed over to Sarah and Peter to ask them for a race.
That night,Candice returned to her mother’s study while Nathan and the kids were asleep. Again, she played the record. But this time, rather than making silly lists, she started writing. She imagined the protagonist of this book as a teenage girl named Stella McGee who lived in Nashville, Tennessee, wrote songs, attended dances, and spoke in a slow, Southern drawl. In the story, Stella and her sister, Sally, lived in a beautiful house with their mother and father, both of whom played the banjo and piano and liked to make up songs with their daughters.
It was a silly story, maybe. But writing it down allowed Candice to get more creative about her mother’s past. In real life, Stella had never mentioned her parents, besides telling Candice and her siblings that they’d died before she’d had children of her own. Candice especially liked imagining who the little sister, Sally McGee, was. She liked to imagine that she was funny and charming, that she got into all kinds of trouble, that Stella always had to get her out of a jam.
Candice finished her writing experiment at around two in the morning, then reread it and laughed to herself. It was nonsense. She’d never been to Tennessee, and she had no idea what it was like, outside of what she’d read in books or seen in movies. She wondered if she’d need to go out there eventually, if only to see what her mother had once known. Maybe her mother had left her secrets behind there.
Over the next few days, Candice and her family performed all the rituals of Vineyard vacations. They swam, they barbecued, they went fishing, and they sailed. They played cards, sometimes recruiting Lindsey and Henry, and went strolling through Oak Bluffs and Edgartown, if only to people-watch, get the lay of the land, and discover more incredible food. Candice still felt a great distance between herself and Nathan. They’d only kissed a handful of times, and they very rarely touched. She still sleptin the same bed as him, but only when she was done in her mother’s study every night. By then, he’d been asleep for hours.
She couldn’t figure out what she wanted from him. Maybe honesty would have been enough, but he didn’t seem capable of that.
After Nathan had been on the Vineyard for five days, Lindsey bought materials to make cocktails and mocktails and invited everyone to the veranda to watch the sunset. Lindsey had told everyone to dress accordingly—in fancier clothing, apparently—and everyone except Candice complied. Candice wore overalls and a tank top, while Henry wore a linen suit, Nathan wore a button-down, and Sarah wore a dress. Even Peter wore clean clothes and brushed his hair. Lindsey gave her a look of disapproval but didn’t say anything.
“Tell me, Nathan,” Henry said as he settled in at the table. “What are you writing these days?”
This was Nathan’s favorite topic of conversation, obviously. He tore into it with zeal, describing to Henry what made him tick, what he was curious about, and how he was following the line of the story. “I can feel the story getting away from me while I’m here, though,” Nathan said somberly. “It’s part of the reason I have to go back to the city soon.”
Sarah grimaced.
Peter offered, “I have to go soon, too. Can’t have vacation forever.”
“You sound like you’re a hundred years old,” Sarah said.
“Have you tried writing here?” Lindsey asked. “I always thought it would be an amazing space for an art retreat.”
“I can’t really focus,” Nathan admitted. “I need full quiet. I need my own books, my own space.”
Candice wondered what else he needed. His mistress? Their apartment to himself so that he could have his mistress over? Probably, if Peter and Sarah wanted to go back with Nathan,Nathan would be disappointed. But they’d be out of the house so much that he could probably conduct his affair in secret.If he has an affair at all, she thought. She genuinely didn’t know.
“How about you, Candice?” Lindsey asked suddenly. “I noticed you’ve been getting up most nights to hang in the study.”
Candice felt called out. But for the first time in years, it felt like she was able to say, “Yeah. I’ve been writing a little bit.”
Nathan looked terribly jealous. His cheeks were red.
“How wonderful,” Lindsey said. “Do you have anything to show us?”
