Page 3 of Footprints in the Sand (Coleman #13)

Chapter Three

R achelle’s idea had sounded outlandish at first. Downright insane, actually.

It had happened on the afternoon of the Coleman family barbecue, the same afternoon during which Eva had discovered the truth about Finn’s bad investments and her, apparently, terrible relationship.

Eva arrived at the ferry to meet Aunt Oriana, Uncle Reese, her cousins, plus her brother, mother, and father and had immediately stamped down her feelings surrounding Finn, pretending to be fine.

She didn’t want to deal with her mother’s questions or Aunt Oriana’s judgments, didn’t want to explain and explain again and again why she’d wanted to merge bank accounts with Finn in the first place.

She knew what they’d say. He didn’t ask you to marry him yet!

He didn’t deserve to merge his account with yours!

She couldn’t tell them it was a modern world anymore. Apparently, in Finn’s mind, it wasn’t so modern. He felt as a man it was his right to dip into Eva’s hard-earned money and do whatever he wanted with it. How fun!

On the ferry over to Nantucket Island, Eva and Theo hung over the railing and watched the water.

Theo was going through yet another breakup, but he seemed okay about it and excited even about another summer of being single and seeing what happened.

Theo was twenty-six years old and a guy, so getting married wasn’t important to him.

He still had aspirations of moving abroad or going to New York City for a while.

To Theo, he was still young and had his entire life ahead of him.

To Eva, she was old and washed up. How depressing.

“You good?” Theo asked as the ferry skidded to a halt at the Nantucket docks.

“What? Yeah, I’m fine,” Eva lied, gathering up the bags of wine and snacks she’d bought for the barbecue. She wanted to jump into the water and swim away.

The Coleman family party was held at The Jessabelle House, a gorgeous spot on the Siasconset bluffs that had once belonged to Grandpa Chuck’s first wife’s sister, Jessabelle.

After her death, Jessabelle had gifted the house to her great-niece, Samantha, a social worker who worked primarily with people with an addiction, helping them to get back on their feet.

Eva adored Samantha, her half aunt, or whatever she was, and always felt welcome at her house.

Rachelle, the chef, was Samantha’s youngest daughter.

She was seated as the guest of honor on the veranda, surrounded by family members who were eager to hear her stories of Rome.

To Eva, who’d gone to Italy with Finn two years ago, Rachelle looked every bit like the Italian women she’d met during her trip: beautiful and olive-skinned and rich with promise.

Rachelle got up to hug Eva hello and told her to grab a seat near her.

“I want to hear what’s been going on!” Rachelle begged.

“It’s been ages since I was here, and I feel like I’ve missed so many stories. ”

“We already asked her if Finn asked her to marry him,” Aunt Oriana piped in, annoyingly. “She won’t talk about it.”

Rachelle wrinkled her nose for a split second. “I’m sure there’s so much more to talk about than silly old love.”

Eva suddenly adored Rachelle more than any of the other Colemans and wanted to throw her arms around her and sob.

Instead, she poured herself a glass of wine and sat down, listening as Rachelle spoke about the restaurant, about dancing all night in Italian discos, and about the heat in the city and how she was fighting it, often, at the shore.

The other guests at the party were people Eva had learned to adore through the two years since the Coleman families had come together.

Her grandfather was there, of course, eagerly asking Rachelle as many questions as he could, sipping iced tea and eating Samantha’s cookies till someone cut him off.

Roland and Grant, her grandfather’s sons, were both there, hanging out off to the side so they could talk about everything from stocks to sports.

Plus, there were all of Grant’s and Roland’s children and their children and their children, so the entirety of the veranda was packed, as was the yard and the bluffs below.

The laughter of the Coleman families echoed along the bluffs.

Often during that afternoon, Eva had to tell herself to pull it together.

As the sun began to drop over the Nantucket Sound like a glinting red coin, several of the Martha’s Vineyard-based Colemans began to gather their things and hit the road.

The final ferry left at eleven, but they didn’t like to push it that long.

Eva’s mother and father and Oriana’s family gathered up their things and began to hug everyone goodbye, but Eva stayed right where she was, as though she were glued to her seat.

Theo hovered between them, giving her a quizzical look.

How could she describe what she was feeling? She couldn’t possibly go home to Finn. She couldn’t possibly go home and face what he’d done.

Maybe she could spontaneously move to Nantucket Island and never tell anyone in her family what had gone wrong? Then again, she didn’t have a bank account beyond the one Finn had stolen from. Oh, she felt foolish! She couldn’t take it!

She managed to hold it together enough to tell her mom she would catch the later ferry.

Meghan furrowed her brow. “Honey, you know it’s risky. What if you miss it?”

“I want to stay, too,” Theo said, sticking up for his sister. “It’s a good party, and it isn’t even dark yet.”

“Yeah, maybe the twenty-somethings want to hang out a little while,” Samantha piped in. “There’s no reason they can’t hang out on the veranda and crash on the living room floor. I don’t mind at all!”

Rachelle beamed at Eva and Theo. “You want to make a night of it?”

“We’d love it!” Eva cried a little too enthusiastically.

Her cousin Ava poured Eva another glass of wine, and they laughed at how similar their names were. “They couldn’t have known!” they said of their parents, who’d been living separate lives.

“It means we’re more related than everyone else,” Ava suggested with a wink.

“That’s right,” Eva said.

Theo grabbed a beer and suggested they head toward the beach for a little while to put their feet in the sand.

The heat of the day was dying out, but they still glistened with leftover sweat.

Everyone thought it was a great idea, especially because the private beach out here was a mile away from the nearest house.

Darcy left her baby with Samantha and grabbed a speaker from the house. “We’ll need some tunes!”

Eva smiled, knowing that Darcy was probably excited about this extra time. She was usually busy with her baby, tending to every conceivable need and never to her own.

As they walked along the sand, Darcy strung her arm through Eva’s and asked, “What’s been going on, Eva? I haven’t seen you in ages!”

And for some reason, out here as the evening sky faded to a violet color and her cousins’ voices celebrated life and everything in it, Eva couldn’t take it anymore. She burst into tears.

Before she could stop herself, Eva let out the whole story or everything she knew thus far. Theo looked at her in abject horror, but the others in their family listened intently and didn’t give away what they were feeling, at least not too much.

But at the end of the story, Theo said, “I’m going to kill him.”

“Theo,” their cousin Alex said with a sigh, “don’t joke about murder.”

Theo flared his nostrils. “I just can’t believe Finn would do this. Finn’s, like, a part of the family. We’ve celebrated Christmas with him every year since, what?”

It had been eight years of Christmases, eight years of Thanksgivings, eight years of thinking she knew someone down to his bones. Eva had been so wrong about it.

The cousins sat on the beach in a circle. Nobody knew what to say. Darcy put on soft electro music that didn’t feel too harsh. Eva was grateful that her tears had dried out, but she wished she hadn’t made such a scene.

“I’m so embarrassed,” she said to the sand.

Rachelle shook her head. “He’s the one who needs to be embarrassed, not you. He broke your trust. He broke everything.”

Darcy nodded furiously. “Do you want to see him again?”

Eva hadn’t gotten that far in her own thought process. She wasn’t sure how to digest it. “I guess there are things we need to talk about.”

“I’m just worried he’ll force you to rationalize what he did,” Rachelle said. “But there’s no making sense of it. He stole from you. It’s the worst thing a partner can do.”

“It’s like cheating,” Theo muttered. “Is it worse than cheating?”

The cousins shrugged. Eva thought she was going to start crying again. She bit her thumb and imagined what Finn was doing back at home. Maybe he’d already found a way to make all their money back? Perhaps he’d figured out it was a fluke?

Don’t give him an ounce of credit. He’ll only disappoint you , she thought.

“I don’t know what to do,” she admitted. “I feel so lost.”

“Let me think. Let me think.” Rachelle scrunched her face and stared at the horizon.

Eva couldn’t fathom what Rachelle could do for her and her dying relationship. Rachelle lived in another country, for goodness’ sake.

“You don’t want to stick around here this summer, I guess?” Rachelle asked.

“Um? I don’t know.” Eva forced herself to imagine a summer in Martha’s Vineyard, a summer of sorting through her belongings and making sense of her relationship, a summer of confronting terrifying conversations with Finn, her mother, her father, and Aunt Oriana.

A summer of reckoning with the fact that she wasn’t married, divorced, in a relationship, pregnant, or anything else she associated with “being an adult.” She was just Eva.

She was going to be on her own.

“I have this sort of crazy idea,” Rachelle said. “I don’t know if it will work. But do you want to hear it?”

“I don’t have anything to lose,” Eva said.

Rachelle explained that just last week, she’d met a fifty-something Greek islander named Dimitra who was struggling after the death of her husband, Kostos. “She’s an artist, but she’s emotionally stuck, living in a village where she was born and raised.”

“I relate to that,” Eva said.

“Right?” Rachelle’s eyes were glowing. “What if the two of you swapped houses for the summer? What if you swapped lives?”

Eva’s ears rang with surprise. “Um? This isn’t The Holiday .”

Her cousins chuckled in recognition. Everyone in the Coleman family loved that movie.

“Listen, it’s just an idea,” Rachelle said. “But I think she’d go for it. She needs a fresh start. I think you both do.”

“Where would Finn go?” Theo asked.

“It’s only my name on the lease,” Eva admitted, remembering how they’d always meant to change that but had never gotten around to it. “I can kick him out whenever I want.”

Rachelle was on her feet. “I want to call her,” she said. “Can I call her?”

Eva rolled her eyes. “Knock yourself out.”

She didn’t think Dimitra would go for it. She couldn’t fathom who in their right mind would ever leave a Greek island and come over here. She couldn’t fathom who would ever want her life.