Page 1 of Return to Whitmore
Chapter One
July 1998
Great-aunt Genevieve came to Nantucket a day or two after the fire. Watching from the window of the Historic District bed-and-breakfast, Charlotte clenched her hands into fists as, down below, Great-aunt Genevieve wrapped Nina in a hug and bent to whisper in her ear. What was she saying? After the chaos of the past several days, after the deaths of her father, brother, and uncle in the fire that had destroyed their home, Charlotte’s imagination failed her. The world seemed needlessly cruel.
But that morning, their mother Francesca had forbidden the Whitmore sisters from leaving the bed-and-breakfast, providing no explanation for their entrapment beyond an Italian version of I said what I said. Francesca certainly hadn’t mentioned that their great-aunt, their father’s aunt, was coming. Why, then, was Nina outside with her?
Nina was not fit to be out of bed as it was. Immediately after the police station, they’d brought Nina to the bed-and-breakfast and let her sleep. Charlotte had been sure she’d remain in beduntil she was fully recovered, until she was ready to seek comfort in her older sisters. After all, she’d been inside the White Oak Lodge when it had caught fire. But it was suddenly clear that, in spying on Nina and Great-aunt Genevieve, Charlotte saw something she wasn’t meant to.
I have to save Nina, Charlotte thought. At first, she couldn’t figure out what she needed to save her from. But it was no secret their mother had never been one for Nina’s best interests. Together with her siblings, Charlotte had tried and often failed to pick up the slack, caring for Nina when they could. But Nina was so much younger than all of them. She was often caught underfoot.
Great-aunt Genevieve took Nina’s hand and turned as though to guide her away. Before Charlotte could stop herself, she whipped to the staircase and hurried down, only to nearly run headfirst into her formidable mother, who stood in sturdy silence in the foyer. She was a gorgeous and stony guard.
The look on Francesca’s face forced Charlotte to a halt.
Raising an Italian eyebrow and speaking exclusively Italian, a language she’d ensured most of her children knew by heart, she said, “Where do you think you’re going, mi amore?”
“Nina’s outside,” Charlotte said, fumbling over her words and daring to speak English instead. “She’s with Great-aunt Genevieve.”
“I know that,” her mother said, still maintaining Italian and giving Charlotte a look that meant she needed to switch too.
She didn’t. “But you said—”
“I know what I said,” her mother finished.
Charlotte swallowed and crossed her arms over her chest. At nineteen, she knew she was the spitting image of her mother at her age, a mother who, as a child, had summered with her famous director father at the White Oak Lodge, where she’d met and fallen in love with Benjamin Whitmore. When shewas Charlotte’s age, she’d immigrated to the United States and married Benjamin before going on to have four of the five official Whitmore children. Nina was Benjamin’s only, the result of an affair, an outlier. It was an open secret, something everyone carried with them. The only person none the wiser was Nina herself.
It was then it clicked for Charlotte. “You’re going to send her away, aren’t you?”
Francesca sucked in her cheeks. Although ordinarily slender and angular like an Italian model, Francesca now looked gaunt and strained, as though she hadn’t slept a wink since the fire.
“I don’t see how she can possibly come with us when we go to Italy,” Francesca said in Italian. “You must speak our language, my sweet. We’re starting a new life away from all this.”
Charlotte’s throat was tight, and she bit her tongue to keep from sobbing. Francesca had mentioned the idea of going to Italy—but she hadn’t said when that might be happening. Charlotte had considered it something she’d handle when the time came, if it ever did.
“Nina thinks you’re her mother,” she whispered, again in English, if only to make her mother angry. “She knows we’re her sisters. We’re the only family she’s ever known. It’s evil to send her away. It’s evil not to take her with us.”
Her mother turned away from her, as though she’d grown bored of her outburst.
Charlotte filled her lungs with air and considered, not for the first time, staying in Nantucket without her sisters, without her mother, without her entire family. She’d been born and raised here. After high school graduation, she’d begun a prosperous career alongside her parents at the White Oak Lodge, falling in line with what she’d assumed all Whitmores did when they came of age: throw themselves into the luxury resort that had been inthe family since 1862. She’d assumed she’d work there the rest of her life.
She also had a boyfriend here. Vincent, whom she hadn’t seen since the night of the fire. Her heart banged with regret.
“Go back upstairs, Charlotte, if you know what’s good for you,” Francesca said in a low, steely voice.
Although technically she was old enough to make her own decisions, Charlotte wasn’t one to disobey her mother, especially not so soon after this tremendous family tragedy. Her legs shook with nervous defiance. “She’s a little kid, Mom.”
“She’s the daughter of the woman who tried to ruin this family,” Francesca said. “But more than that, she’s not an Italian citizen. She can’t come along.”
Charlotte hadn’t known that Francesca had secured Italian citizenship for all of her legal children, save for Nina. But because Nina hadn’t come from her womb, it made perfect sense that she hadn’t.
Suddenly from upstairs came the sound of the blaring phone. Anxiety shot through Charlotte as she craned to listen. Her older sister Allegra answered and called Charlotte’s name. “It’s for you.”
Charlotte gazed out the window at her little sister. “You’re going to let her go to the funerals, aren’t you? Before she goes?” she asked her mother.
“Charlotte!” Allegra’s voice was haughty with annoyance.
“Mom?” Charlotte pressed it.
