“You and Mom were such good parents,” Margot said. “You gave us a lot of great memories.”
Doug didn’t respond to this. When Margot looked over, she saw him gazing out the window.
“Kevin is probably right,” Margot said. “The only memories I’m giving my kids are ones of me arriving home late from work and calling up samosas from Mumbai Palace.”
Margot could hear her father breathing. He said, “Your mother always worried that you were too hard on yourself. The curse of the firstborn.”
“Sometimes I’m glad she can’t see the ways that I’ve failed.”
“Oh, Margot, you haven’t failed.”
“I’m divorced.”
“So what,” Doug said. “Didn’t work out, nobody’s fault.”
“Carson is in danger of repeating the fourth grade,” Margot said. “Drum Jr. is twelve years old and afraid of the dark. Ellie is a hoarder.”
Doug laughed, and even Margot cracked a smile. But she hadn’t wanted her father alone so she could bemoan the missteps of her own life.
“So what’s going on with you?” she asked. “That text you sent me was pretty startling.”
Doug leaned his head back against the seat and let out a sigh. “Long story,” he said.
“We’ve got a few minutes,” Margot said. It was easy to break the law in the XJ, so she made a point to slow down. “I figured out that Pauline took the Notebook.”
“She didn’t take it,” Doug said. “At least she says she didn’t. Jenna left it on the table at Locanda Verde and Pauline picked it up, then she just forgot to return it.”
“Oh,” Margot said. Was she a horrible person for feeling skeptical about that story?
“I’ve decided to believe her,” Doug said. “It’s easier.”
“Right,” Margot said. “Did you ask if she read any of it?”
“She read it,” Doug said. “She claimed it was making her crazy, not knowing what was in it.”
“Wait,” Margot said. “Did she read the last page?”
“I don’t know,” Doug said. “I would assume so?”
Margot said, “Have you read the last page?”
“No,” Doug said.
“Well, you should,” Margot said. “Make a point of it. Today, when you get home from golf, ask Jenna.”
“I don’t know about that, honey,” Doug said.
Margot said, “I can’t believe Pauline read it. I’m sure you were pissed.”
“I was pissed,” Doug said. “If Jenna had wanted her to read it, she would have offered.”
“So you were pissed enough to tell Pauline not to come?”
“I didn’t want her to come,” Doug said.
“Oh.”
“But as you may have noticed, she came anyway.”
“Yes, I did notice that.”
“She thought I was just angry. She thought I would change my mind back.”
“Weren’t you just angry?” Margot said. “Didn’t you change your mind back?”
“No,” Doug said. “I didn’t want her to come-for a whole host of reasons, really-but she insisted, and I wasn’t brave enough to press the issue.”
“Oh,” Margot said.
“It’s Jenna’s weekend,” Doug said.
“Right, I know. But what…? What are the host of reasons? What are you not saying?”
“I don’t love Pauline,” Doug said. “When we get back to Connecticut, I’m going to ask her for a divorce.”
Margot gasped. “You’re not!”
“I am.”
Margot clenched the leather band that swaddled the steering wheel. Her father was sixty-four years old. She had thought him too old for this kind of upheaval. When she thought about Doug’s life, she imagined him retiring from the firm and doing a little pro bono work on the side. She imagined him golfing, she imagined him and Pauline eating at the country club and the two of them taking a vacation to Maui each February. But he might live another thirty years. Thirty years was a long time to be saddled with a woman he didn’t love.
“Wow,” Margot said.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say anything.”
“Of course not,” Margot said. “What will you do? Where will you live?”
“Oh, maybe in the city,” Doug said. “I’ve been toying with getting a suite at the Waldorf like Arthur Tonelli. Or maybe I’ll live on the Upper West Side near Edge. I could walk to work, subscribe to the philharmonic, spend more time with you and the kids.”
The thought of her father as a sixty-four-year-old single man alarmed Margot. The thought of her father and Edge living in the same neighborhood and going out to bars, or even to the philharmonic, together made her tongue swell to twice its normal size. She couldn’t speak. And, thankfully, she didn’t have to-because here they were at the Sankaty Head Golf Club.
Margot pulled up in front of the clubhouse. Her father’s family had belonged to Sankaty since its founding in 1923, but nowadays her father was the only one who played. Nick hated golf, and Kevin didn’t have time. Stuart played golf-the membership might pass on to Stuart and Jenna, and the children they would someday have.
“Just think,” Doug said. “Once I’m single, I can come to Nantucket for the whole summer. I can play golf every day.”
“Just think!” Margot said. She tried to smile as he unloaded his clubs from the trunk.
Once he was single.
Doug waved to Margot, and she thought, Yes, now she was supposed to drive away, burdened by an impossible secret. She put down the passenger side window. “Am I coming back to get you?” she asked.
“Pauline will come,” he said.
“Oh,” Margot said. “Okay. Does she know how to get here?”
“No,” he said. “But she’ll use the GPS.”
Margot nodded and watched her father head up the stairs into the clubhouse. She sat for a long moment after he was gone, thinking, Okay, wow, who knew. Wow.
She had an overwhelming desire to text Edge. It was a good thing her phone was dead.
There was a tap on the driver’s side window, and Margot jumped, inadvertently hitting the horn. Standing next to the Jaguar in a pair of stone white pants and a navy golf shirt and that damn white visor was Griff.
Margot thought, This just isn’t happening.
She had half a mind to drive away without a word, but she didn’t have it in her to be rude. Unprofessional and unprincipled-yes. But not rude.
He said, “I thought it was you, but then I asked myself, ‘What are the chances?’ Three times in twenty-four hours?”
“Hi,” Margot said.
“I think we both know what this means,” Griff said.
Margot thought, It means I’m destined to be haunted by my worst mistake.
Griff said, “It means you’re stalking me.”
Margot smiled. The guy was charming, there was no denying that.
She said, “I was dropping my father off.”
Griff said, “I just finished my first round. We teed off at six this morning, and I think I was still drunk.”
“Nice,” Margot said.
“I stayed at the Box until close,” Griff said. “Drowning my sorrows after you rejected me.”
“I didn’t reject you,” Margot said. Then she realized she needed to be careful about her wording. “I was just tired, and the thing with my phone bummed me out. I needed to get out of there.”
“You can make it up to me now,” Griff said. “Come on.”
“Come on where?” Margot asked.
“Have a drink with me at the bar,” he said.
“It’s ten thirty,” Margot said. “In the morning.”
“So?” he said. “You’re on vacation, right? This is your sister’s wedding weekend, right? You can’t tell me there isn’t a part of you that’s dying for a drink. You can’t tell me you wouldn’t love an opportunity to vent your frustration with your family to a friendly acquaintance.”