Page 55 of Against the Current

Ryan’s emotions were all over the place. He didn’t know what to say.

“I’ll let you know what comes of my conversation with Trisha,” he offered finally.

Jackie squeezed his hand.

He expected her to say,We’ll help you through the divorce.It’s time for her to go. It’s past time.

But instead, Jackie winced and said, “Maybe we have it all wrong. Make sure to hear her side before you make any rash decisions. Promise me that. Okay?”

Surprised, Ryan cocked his head.

“What’s that look for?” Jackie asked.

Ryan shook his head. “I expected you to say something else.”

Jackie removed her car keys from her purse and smiled. “People change, Ryan. Even little old me.”

Ryan watched his mother back carefully out of the driveway and head back toward the house in which she’d raised him and his sister. When she disappeared around the corner, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and texted his wife.

RYAN: I love you, Trisha.

RYAN: When you get home, I need to talk to you. Just us. Please.

Chapter Twenty

March 2025 - Nantucket Island

That night, it was up to Ryan to make dinner, get the kids to do their homework, clean the kitchen, make sure the kids didn’t watch too much television, and send them to bed at a reasonable hour. By nine thirty, he was at the kitchen table with a bottle of beer, watching the moonlight spill onto the Nantucket Sound, his heart fluttering with worry. Where was Trisha? Why wasn’t she home?

His mind couldn’t stop playing out horrific scenarios. Maybe Trisha had gotten into a car accident. Perhaps she’d taken a ferry to see her family in Martha’s Vineyard and the ferry had sunk. Maybe she’d taken one look at her family on Martha’s Vineyard and decided never to return to him and the kids. He drank that beer and then another as his stomach grew increasingly achy.

And then—at eleven thirty that night—headlights swept over the driveway, and Trisha drove her secondhand Chevy into the garage.

Ryan got up on shaking legs and tried to make his way to the door to greet her. But he collapsed. He didn’t know what Trisha was going to say when she saw him. He prepared his heart for the worst.

Trisha entered the kitchen, her lips parted with shock, her hair shaking loosely, her lipstick smudged.

“You’re still up,” she said. “Ryan? Are you all right?”

Suddenly, Trisha’s arms were around him. His nostrils filled with the scent of her soap and her perfume and her sweat, and he stood and held her, shaking with sorrow. This was his wife! He still loved her! No matter what she’d done!

He shouldn’t have dragged them back to Nantucket. He should have stood up to his grandmother and the rest of the Suttons better.

Maybe he shouldn’t have ever fallen in love with her! It had trapped her in a vicious cycle.

Perhaps it was all his fault.

Trisha raised her chin and held his face with her hands. “Ryan? I need to tell you something.”

Ryan bit his tongue to keep from crying. He couldn’t speak.

“I had a hunch that my cousin was trying to hurt your mother’s real estate business,” Trisha said. “I did some digging, and I basically confirmed it. She has a contact here in Nantucket, somebody your mother is friends with. Your mother’s so-called friend gets information about contracts and sales and passes all that on to my cousin Sarah Strong. Sarah then swoops in and gets your clients over to Martha’s Vineyard with promises of better deals. It sounds ridiculous. But I overheard you and your mother talking about it, and I recognized some of the names you said. They were the same names I’d read on a list in Sarah’s office.”

Ryan’s ears were ringing. Was this really happening?

“I don’t understand,” Ryan breathed. He held both of Trisha’s hands and pressed them against his chest. “Your cousin?”

Trisha grimaced. Releasing Ryan’s hands, she turned to the fridge to remove a beer for herself, then sat across from him to drink it. Her cheeks were red, and her eyes were alert.

---