Page 48 of Vineyard Winds

“Listen, Gail,” Rina began, trying not to sound accusatory. “I know about your dad.”

Gail closed her eyes. A seagull squawked overhead.

“Does Mom know?”

“She does,” Rina said.

Gail covered her eyes with her palms and shook. It was as though all the stress of the previous few weeks fell upon her shoulder at once. Rina stepped toward her, weighing up whether or not she wanted a hug. Sometimes, in moments of such intense grief, touch was too intense.

“How did you find out about Caitlin?” Rina asked.

“I had a hunch about Dad over the summer,” Gail said into her hands. “I was studying him like a book character, you know? He’d changed so much about himself. He’d dyed his hair. He dressed nicer. He whistled all the time. And, of course, he was hardly home.”

“Did you tell anyone your suspicions?”

“I asked Abby what she thought,” Gail said. “But she was so nervous about going to college. She couldn’t see anything else but that. So, I decided to bide my time. To wait and see. And of course, college turned into this wild storm of newness. Abby and I were fighting for the first time ever.”

“About Nathan?”

“Not just about Nathan,” Gail went on. “About how messy the dorm room was. About what we were going to have for dinner. About what we wanted to watch on TV. It was crazy. Every time I looked at her, I saw my own face—but that face was fighting with me.”

Rina clutched her elbows. “Did you think about asking to change rooms?”

“Abby would have never gone for it,” Gail said. “And by the time I thought of it, I’d already met Nathan. I stayed at his place all the time.” She let her hands drop. “Around Thanksgiving was when my suspicions for Dad grew even bigger. I talked to Nathan about it. About how done with my family I felt. And he suggested we leave as soon as 2024 began. It sounded so romantic to me.” Gail’s eyes glinted with the light off the Pacific. “We’d always talked about California. I barely knew anything about it. But our plan was to just head west and see what happened.”

Rina had given her the name she’d needed: Santa Monica. And she’d leaped for it.

“You learned something else on New Year’s Eve? Something that confirmed your suspicions?”

Gail nodded and kicked the sand. “I heard Dad on the phone. Mom and Abby were at the grocery store, and I think he thought I’d gone with them. Or he just didn’t care anymore. He was talking to someone named Caitlin. He used the words ‘divorce’ and ‘baby,’ and I put two and two together.” Gail scrunched her nose. “I saw red after that. And when Abby told me I was crazy, I went completely insane. I barely remember anything the week after that. Next thing I knew, I was getting into Nathan’s car, and we were on the road. I didn’t want anything to do with that life anymore. Gosh. I feel so dumb.”

Rina let Gail’s words hang in the air between them. It was hard to reckon with your own madness. Especially when you were only eighteen years old.

“Did Nathan hurt you?” Rina asked quietly. “On the drive? Did he pressure you in any way?”

Gail’s eyes widened. “No,” she said. “But I started having doubts not long after the trip began. I just didn’t know how to turn back. I didn’t know how to tell my mom I’d made a mistake.”

Gail began to cry. Fat tears shimmered down her freckled cheeks, and her nostrils glistened. She needed a tissue. She needed her mother.

“Does she hate me?” Gail whispered.

Rina closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around this young, foolish girl—a girl who’d learned far too much in the span of two weeks. A girl who just wanted to go home.

“Your mother could never hate you,” she whispered. “She just wants you to come home.”

And although Rina ached with the memory of what Penny had done, she felt closer to understanding her than ever. Penny had run too far and too fast. She’d gotten to the edge of a brand-new life and been unable to see her old one. The Penny Rina had once known was no more. And Rina had to mourn the old one—and start over with the new.

ChapterTwenty-Three

The phone call from Steve came just minutes after Claire re-entered her home for the first time as a separated wife. She opened the closets, the door of Russel’s office, the fridge, and the spare bedroom, lost in years of memories, tumbling through images she couldn’t return to. They’d brought their babies home here. They’d made love here. They’d built a life here.

“Hello?” Claire’s voice was high-pitched.

“We found her.” Steve sounded on the verge of tears.

Claire fell down on the kitchen tile. Her head spun. “You found her,” she repeated as though daring him to take it back.

“She’s here in California,” Steve said. “We flew out this morning. I didn’t want to tell you until we knew for sure. But I’m looking at her right now. She and Rina are talking on the beach.”

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