Chapter 11

July 2023

For the next week, life in the Hamptons falls into a routine.

I rise early and train with the team, working through the aches and pains that are accumulating in my body. Cindy and I have developed a rivalry. Little Killer, I call her in my mind, because if she could kill me with her eyes each time I get a shot past her, she would. But already my steps are faster, my mind more focused. Some of the muscle tone has returned to my arms, and my skin isn't so pale, my face less drawn. Sometimes she wins and sometimes I do, and Matt looks on approvingly, so we both must be doing something right.

Training ends at ten. After a shower and a stretch, I clean out another room of the house, then fill up my car with things to take to Goodwill, the dump, my sister's. I'm working the perimeters of the house—guest rooms, the formal parlor. Rooms that don't contain hard memories or secrets, working up the courage to get to the difficult parts.

Sometimes, Charlotte helps me, spending an hour or two sorting through generations of knickknacks and the glass figurines in the dining room cupboards. Sometimes, my father stands in the doorway, peering at me over the edge of his reading glasses without comment. One disastrous day, Sophie brings the boys. They have a glorious hour going through our leftover toys that I'd pulled out of the attic, and then they thunder away, leaving a worse mess in their wake. William retires to his room with a massive headache, and for once I can't blame him.

But mostly I'm on my own. Alone with the memories—and the mementos I find despite myself. A picture drawn in kindergarten that my mother pressed between the leaves of a book. Her copy of The Amber Spyglass, filled with her highlights and notes like she was studying it to write an essay on its Christian symbolism. Old letters, old photos, a life that was never sorted through when she died because we were too young, and my father never bothered.

I try to get William to engage with what furniture he wants to bring to his new house, wherever that will be. I print up listings, but he just takes them without looking. I don't know how we're ever going to get him to commit to a new place, but Charlotte tells me she's handling it, and so I decide to leave it alone. If he's still here when Fred's moving trucks arrive, that will be his problem, not mine.

At night, I sweat in my room and turn over the mistakes in my life. My tennis career, Fred, Wes. I haven't heard from him since that first text, though I check each day. I'm surprised at the silence but grateful for it too. I don't know what I want to say to Wes yet, and anytime I think about it, the rage boils up to the surface. I hate its bitter taste.

I push him away and switch to trying to decide what I'm going to do in the fall, if I love teaching enough to continue when I have the financial independence to stop. I don't arrive at any answers, and finally I sleep.

After a particularly hot night on the crest of July, I go on a fruitless search to the Home Depot for an air conditioner, where I run into Colin's sister, Lucy. We chat casually, and I wait for her to bring up Fred. When she doesn't, I find myself saying that I might need her services for an estate sale. She's more than happy to run it once we get the personal items out of the way, and this seems like the perfect solution to at least one of my problems.

I return to the house and work till four, then take a shower to clean off the dust that covers me like a film. Afterward, I change into a veranda-appropriate outfit and join the daily shifting crowd for cocktails.

Today my father's lawyer, Barry, is here, along with his daughter, Ann, the woman whose mention made Charlotte blush. I stand on the edge of the crowd and watch my sister as she flits from one person to the next, making sure their drinks are fresh. She's taken extra care with her appearance, wearing a peach dress that makes her skin look rosy. Her hair is glossy and just blown out, her makeup flawless.

She has a date, I think, or she's on one. The object of this grooming is thirty, Asian, petite, and very pretty. She's wearing a black linen pantsuit cinched at the waist by a large leather belt with an intricate design on it, and high, high heels that bring her up to Charlotte's height. She's elegant, the swift movements of a dancer evident in the way she holds her cocktail glass.

"This is Ann Clay," Charlotte says proudly as she makes the introduction. I smile at Ann and wonder if this is how my sister is finally coming out to me. Not in some private confessional, but here, on the veranda, without any pretense or air about it after years of saying nothing. Good for you, I want to say, but instead, I hold out my hand to Ann.

"Nice to meet you." Her handshake is firm, and I like her already. "I hear we have you to thank for all this." I gesture to the property.

"I was only doing my job."

"Don't be silly, Ann," Charlotte says. "Did you know she got Fred to up his initial offer by nearly fifty percent? And she negotiated the closing to the end of the summer. He wanted immediate possession."

I kick myself for the thousandth time that I didn't press Fred for more details when he drove me home a week ago. I see him most mornings at the club, watching the tennis from his window or eating his breakfast on the porch. We don't speak, rarely make eye contact, and he's often on his laptop or his phone. But there he is, without fail.

It has to mean something because he could avoid me easily if he wanted to. I haven't worked up the courage yet to ask him what.

"Well, thank you for talking him out of that. Cleaning out this place is a major task."

"Charlotte has been telling me."

"Has she?"

Charlotte shows zero traces of guilt. "Olivia's been such a help. Giving up her whole summer to come here to do this. I'd be lost without her."

"I'm not sure I'm staying the whole summer."

"Because of your husband?" Ann says. "Or should I say ex?"

"Charlotte tell you about that?"

"Yes—sorry. Is it a secret?"

"No … I … it's fine." I take a sip of my drink, letting a beat go by to collect myself. "I have to find somewhere to live when I go back to the city. I can't leave that till the last minute."

"Me too," Charlotte says. "It's such a chore."

"Are you staying out here?" I almost want to laugh. It's taken this conversation with Ann to attack the big subjects in our lives. But Charlotte and I have never been as close as we appear when there's a stranger with us.

"I'm not sure." Charlotte gives Ann a shy look. "But I need to make up my mind soon."

"Do you live out here full-time, Ann?"

She sips at her lemon drop martini. "I split my time between here and the city. Dad's here all year-round, but we have a small office in Manhattan, which I manage."

"I don't think I could work with Father," Charlotte says.

"Well, he's never had a job, so that makes it easy."

Charlotte's mouth turns down. She's never had a job either, though she likes to pretend otherwise. There have been charity boards and fundraisers and a gig volunteering at an art gallery, but that was years ago.

"You're a teacher?" Ann asks.

"That's right."

"Do you love it?"

"Some days. It's nice being around motivated kids, and they are, for the most part."

"Charlotte said you were a tennis player?"

"I was."

"Why not coach?"

"I was burnt out when I stopped playing. Coaching is a seven-days-a-week gig. It didn't appeal."

"I'm surprised you needed a job," Ann says. "Don't tour players make lots of money?"

This isn't the first time I've been asked this question. "If your last name is Williams. But I was never in their league. I tooled around in the low two hundreds for most of my career, which was enough to cover my expenses, but didn't leave much of a nest egg."

"That's surprising."

"Is every lawyer rich?"

"Nope."

"It's the same in tennis." I take a sip of my drink, hoping to change the subject. "Did Fred say what he wanted to do with the place?"

"He swore it wasn't to cut it up for development if that's what you're worried about. But you know he's being swarmed with offers right now."

"You didn't tell me that," Charlotte says.

"I thought you said you didn't care if they took this place down to the ground?"

Charlotte's eyes go wide. "Shh, not so loud. Father might hear you."

I laugh. "Don't worry, Ann. I've heard her say that very thing to him directly."

She'd said it when we'd sat William down five years ago to convince him to sell. The debts were mounting, and the bank was making threatening noises. Most of the capital was gone, sunk into paying taxes and upkeep. Aunt Tracy pushed gently, trying to get him to see reason. He didn't like it, and in the end he'd tried to make it about preserving the house for our memories of our mother. That's when Charlotte announced that she didn't care if the house burned to the ground. She didn't want to be ruined.

He'd agreed to a compromise—letting most of the staff go, selling off a smaller piece of land next door—and it had been enough to keep the wolves at bay for a few years. We all knew it was postponing the inevitable, but we'd taken our victory and gone on with our lives.

"How did he take that?" Ann asks.

"He didn't like it one bit," Charlotte says. "But it did get him to see reason, for a while."

"I'll never understand this very male attachment to land. It must be buried deep in their DNA. ‘I own this. Mine.'" Ann grunts deeply, and we laugh.

"Well, now Fred can lord over all of it," I say. "I hope he gets what he was looking for."

"I don't think that's what he wants to do," Ann says.

"No offense, but you don't know him." I take a ragged breath. "Nice meeting you."

"You too."

I take a few steps away from them and stop to regulate my breathing, but it's no use. Even though I haven't had to talk to Fred except for the short ride from Sophie's, his presence hangs over everything. Each room I clean out is a room he'll occupy; each memory I unlock is one he'll replace.

I can't take it anymore. I need to speed up this process and get the hell out of here.

I walk back to the house, wiping my tears away. I want to be alone, but there's someone standing in the French doors that I can't ignore.

Ash.