Page 22 of Return to Whitmore (The Whitmore #2)

The Madequecham Beach house wasn’t made for such an enormous crowd, but Charlotte didn’t want to let anyone go home, certainly not Will and Fiona, as they were fast asleep and needed rest. Addison retired to her bedroom, and Charlotte told Nina she could share a bed with her if she wanted to.

Nina said, “I’m so beat that I’ll fall asleep immediately.

” As soon as she tucked herself in, she was out like a light.

Charlotte, however, was too invested in a future documentary, at once terrified of it and excited by the prospect of it, imagining shots and potential interviews until she got up and went to the kitchen and began to write herself notes. She didn’t want to leave any idea out.

It was the story of her lifetime, the story she was born to follow.

Nina, being an anthropologist, would be a brilliant help.

It was wonderful that she wanted to move her children to Nantucket, both to be near Charlotte and their shared past. Charlotte resolved to let them live here at Madequecham Beach, for now.

She’d get them out of the rental house near the White Oak Lodge so she could help Nina raise them and drive them to their various soccer practices or ballet performances or whatever it was they did in their free time.

Maybe one day, Nina would want to move in with Amos.

But Charlotte would be there till then and beyond.

Maybe she was getting ahead of herself.

It was nearly two o’clock in the morning before Charlotte considered going to bed.

She closed her notebook and brushed her teeth, trying to calm her mind.

When she finally turned toward the hall, however, her phone buzzed in her hand.

She glanced down to see the caller and nearly dropped it to the ground when she saw MOM.

Charlotte’s heartbeat rocketed. She rerouted to the kitchen and stood and stared at the phone until it stopped buzzing.

It was nearly eight in the morning in Italy.

Was it possible that her mother had accidentally called her?

She waited, biting her tongue, until her phone rang again.

It felt like a nightmare. But it also excited Charlotte.

It almost felt as though Francesca could sense that Charlotte was “up to no good,” eager to dig deeper into the Whitmore family secrets and expose everything.

It was only when you cleared the past of secrets that you could learn and grow beyond them , Charlotte thought.

Finally, Charlotte answered her mother’s call—in English, just to frustrate her. It was like old times. “Mom, hello. Good morning.”

Francesca didn’t bother with English at all. “Darling, where have you been? It’s been too long since you called me.”

Charlotte couldn’t remember the last time they’d had a conversation.

In fact, Charlotte had been too embarrassed to tell her mother about her failed documentaries and diminishing bank account, and Francesca had seemed uncertain as well, unwilling to talk about whatever was going on in her “real” life.

Charlotte was pretty sure Francesca still lived at the villa next door to her very old grandparents, maybe with Jefferson Albright and maybe without.

“How are you, Mom?” Charlotte asked, switching to Italian. She was rusty.

“Well, now that you ask, I have to say that I’m rather terrible,” Francesca said.

Charlotte rolled her eyes and sat down at the kitchen table. If she was going to have Francesca in her documentary, she knew she’d have to put up with far more of this. “What happened?”

“Before you say anything about me being an old and wacky woman, I need to say that I didn’t think anything of the man at first,” Francesca said, as though they were already in the middle of a conversation rather than at the start of one.

“What man?”

“He came over because he said he was a gardener,” Francesca said.

“I needed a bit of help with the garden. It’s so big, as you may remember, although you haven’t been here in ages.

Anyway, I thought he was fully capable of helping out and hired him.

It wasn’t till the fourth or fifth day that he began digging around, asking questions.

He asked the maid first, asked her how long she’d been working for me. ”

Charlotte’s heartbeat quickened.

“Finally, he started asking me! Question after question! I think he thought he was flattering me, but I caught on,” Francesca said.

“What did he ask you? What did you tell him?” Charlotte asked.

“About what happened! About Nantucket! About my son! Who I lost!” Francesca cried, sounding passionate and angry. “And of course about my husband. Your father.”

Not my father , Charlotte thought, but didn’t say.

“What did you tell him?” Charlotte asked.

“I told him what I would tell anyone else. I haven’t heard from any of them because they’re very much dead,” Francesca said, her voice breaking.

“I want this man out of my life. I want these people to stop sniffing around. I’ve been through enough as it is.

Do whatever you need to do, Charlotte. Get these people away from me. ”

Charlotte couldn’t speak. For some reason, she felt plagued with a suspicion that her mother wasn’t telling the truth about something. But Charlotte couldn’t fathom what.

Before Charlotte could ask another question, Francesca hung up on her. When Charlotte tried to call her back, Francesca didn’t answer. Charlotte’s heart leaped.

She wondered if—for the first time in years—she had to return to Italy, if only to see who was sniffing around.

It reminded her of the past, of what had happened to her.

For the rest of the night, her chest was heavy.

She didn’t go to bed because she was too frightened that she’d toss and turn and wake Nina up.

When Nina did get up, blinking through the bright light of the morning in the kitchen, Charlotte was wide awake at the kitchen table, her finger hovering over the “BUY NOW” button on a flight website.

It was certainly nothing she should spend right now, nothing that made logical sense, given her monetary situation.

But it felt like the first step of creating that documentary. It felt like fate.

When she described what had happened to Nina, when she hinted that she didn’t have quite enough cash, Nina tightened her jaw and said, “I’ll buy the tickets. The kids are going back to camp in two days. We can leave on Wednesday.” She took a breath. “If that’s what you want.”

Charlotte’s chest heaved. What she wanted felt different from what she needed.

“Let’s go,” she said. With that, it was final.