Page 15 of Chasing the Horizon

Victor’s heart seized. “I told you. I just need some water.”

The kitchen was a flurry of activity, which made it difficult to reach the glasses and faucet. Victor waited stupidly, feeling his daughter’s eyes on him. He wasn’t going to tell her that that kid back there was his couples therapist. He wasn’t going to tellher that supposedly Hannah was going to “save” his relationship with Esme, the only woman he loved.

“Dad, I wanted to talk about the other night,” Valerie said now, her voice low.

Victor wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take.

“I just really need us to be receptive to one another,” Valerie said. “I really need us to be able to think together and bounce ideas off one another. Otherwise, I don’t see how this is going to work.”

Victor took a breath. Should he tell her he didn’t know how this was going to work, either? Or should he just try—for the first time in his life—to go with the flow?

But that was when Esme entered the kitchen to announce, “Julia’s here with the writer! I think the reading will get started downstairs soon!” She furrowed her brow, looking at Valerie to add, “Can you help me with the microphone, honey? I still can’t figure out where to plug it in.”

Feeling uneven, Victor followed Valerie and Esme into the restaurant to say hello to Julia and the writer giving the reading, a forty-ish guy with horn-rimmed glasses and high-waisted pants. He reminded Victor of numerous patients of his over the years, patients who’d come to him with an array of disorders that Victor and Victor alone had been able to mend.

Victor shook the writer’s hand and introduced himself.

“I’m Marvin,” the writer said. “Marvin Sharp.”

“Marvin’s a sensational new talent at the publishing house,” Julia said.

“On the way over here, Julia was telling me about your new book,” Marvin said to Valerie and Victor, his eyes shifting from daughter to father and back again. “That’s a crazy-sounding project. I can’t imagine my father would ever listen to what I have to say.”

Beside him, Valerie bristled slightly. Victor swallowed.

He knew he needed to listen. He knew he needed to open himself up.

I can’t do it on command! I’m not built like that!

“We’re excited about it,” Valerie said, smiling.

Marvin disappeared with Esme to set up at the mic downstairs, leaving Julia with Victor and Valerie.

“I’m so happy I finally get to talk to you,” Julia said, sipping a glass of white wine that Bethany had just set down in front of her. “When Victor told me about the project, I couldn’t believe it. Obviously, the project was previously associated with a much, much larger publishing house, and it’s rare that we get handed something as enormous as this.”

Victor knew she meant “enormous” because of Victor Sutton’s celebrity name. He also knew that Valerie resented this fact.

“Well, you know that publisher was trying to manipulate Dad and me,” Valerie said. “I’m not so keen on bigger publishers if they act like that.”

“I understand. And I can assure you that we have no interest in doing anything like that. We’re a really small publishing house, originally based in Chicago before my move back to Nantucket in 2022.”

“Just a couple of years before we did,” Valerie said with a soft smile.

“It’s the magic of the island,” Julia said. “It draws you back.”

“I’m so glad for that,” Valerie agreed.

Victor’s heart pumped. He could sense how much Julia liked Valerie and knew that this would mean a publishing contract on his desk before the week was through.

It meant they’d actually have to write the thing.

Downstairs, they sat in metal chairs set up in front of Marvin Sharp’s microphone and drank wine and chatted quietly. Marvin was supposed to start reading any second, but right now, he wasin a heavy conversation with Julia’s mother, Greta Copperfield, who seemingly couldn’t stop peppering the man with questions about his novel. When Victor didn’t know what else to say to Valerie or Julia, he snuck his way to the side table to read the back of Marvin’s book, which described his work as a poetic achievement, a strange and exhilarating work that echoed his childhood back in Ashville, North Carolina.

“Have you read it?”

Victor nearly jumped out of his skin. Standing beside him was Hannah, the therapist, drinking a glass of wine and reading the back of another of Marvin’s books. Had she been up here the whole time? Had Victor missed her?

“No, I haven’t,” Victor said, his voice calm. “You?”

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