Page 21 of Against the Current

“If you’ll excuse me,” Trisha said, cutting behind Ryan and disappearing through the crowd. It was almost as though she didn’t know Ryan at all.

Grandma Dana touched Ryan’s elbow gently. “Honey,” she said. “It isn’t too late to get out of that. But time is ticking. A year from now, we can all look back on this as a minor flub. A little error. But if you stay for too long? God forbid, if you have children with her?”

Ryan gaped at his grandmother.Tell her to leave you alone!he begged himself.

“Grandma?” His voice was meek. “Grandma, please leave her alone.”

Right then, he hated himself more than ever.

But he ran after Trisha. All he wanted was to wrap his arms around her and kiss her and ask for her forgiveness. All he wanted was to whisk them back to three years ago when they’d first met on that sailing expedition, and Ryan had seen the true magic of Trisha’s spirit.

Ryan spotted Trisha running out to her car. He bucked out the door and into the sweltering heat, whipping his suit jacket off as he called her name. “Trisha!”

Trisha paused in the mouth of her car door and gaped at him. She looked surprised.

“Wait up!” Ryan sped across the front lawn and through the driveway, where upward of thirty cars were parked. Trisha was all the way in the back as though she’d prepared herself to make a quick exit—out of my life, out of the Sutton family, Ryan thought.

“You don’t have to do this,” Trisha whispered when he got close enough. “You don’t have to be nice to me. We can pretend none of this ever happened.”

Ryan’s heart cracked open. At that moment, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. He realized then that she’d removed her wedding band. Had she done it on her walk from the house to the car? Now, Trisha opened her left fist to show that both the engagement and wedding rings sat on her palm, glinting in the sun. Ryan thought maybe she was about to throw them.

“Trisha,” Ryan begged, “I know, okay? I know I haven’t been a good partner to you. I know it’s been a mess.”

Trisha’s shoulders dropped.

“We need to go on our honeymoon, Trisha. And I’ll make that happen just as soon as all of this is over,” Ryan said. “I’m brokenhearted about the death of my grandfather. I’m not saying or doing the right things.”

“Nobody wants me here,” Trisha whispered.

“I want you here,” Ryan declared. “I’ve always wanted you here.”

“You love your family. You respect your family.”

“You’re my family. I love and respect you,” Ryan said. “My grandma can be—well—old-fashioned. But you’ve always known that about her.” He stepped closer so that his nose was only a few inches from hers, and he could smell the soap they always used, the soap they shared because they didn’t have much money of their own. He took her hands in his and squeezed them lightly. “I want to be married to you. Do you want to be married to me?”

Trisha’s chin quivered. “Yes.”

They held each other’s gazes for a long time. It felt almost like getting married all over again.

Ryan was about to seal the deal with a kiss when Trisha changed everything.

“Ryan?”

“What is it?”

“I’m pregnant.”

Ryan felt his heart explode.

This is my family now. This is the only family I’ll ever need.

Chapter Eight

February 2025 - Nantucket Island

It was no easy feat to move your life across the country. The fact that Ryan and Trisha had now done it twice—from Nantucket to Chicago in 2011 and from Chicago back to Nantucket in 2025—didn’t make it any easier. Now, they had three children instead of none, and one of those children had a severe case of autism that made long car rides difficult. Trisha and Ryan did their best to calm Willa down. They gave her games to play. They asked her brothers to help. They took numerous breaks. But even still, it took them two days longer to reach Nantucket than they’d planned for, as Willa’s panics required them to stay overnight in both Ohio and Pennsylvania, both times in cheap motels, Ryan with the boys in one room and Trisha with Willa in the next. They’d taken both Ryan’s car and Trisha’s, which meant that neither of them had to bear the brunt of Willa’s outbursts the entire time. But it broke Ryan’s heart to be apart from Trisha—and from Willa. At the same time, Trisha could hardly look at him.

Trisha was enraged that they were returning. When he’d told her his plan, she’d said, “We left Nantucket for a reason. Do you really think it will be any different than it was?”

---