PROLOGUE
Lillie
Six months ago, if you had asked me what I thought I’d be doing today, the answer would not have been transporting a drugged skunk to the house where my soon-to-be ex-husband lived with his much-younger fiancée.
Yet here I was.
And today, for the first time in a long time, I felt happy as I bounced down the dirt road in my father’s pickup truck, my cute little cargo snug and snoring in the back atop a pile of blankets, sleeping the sleep of Benadryl.
If you live in the wilds of Cape Cod, as I do, you know about skunks. They’re everywhere—on the beaches, on the pond shores, in the woods, especially at dusk, or waddling past the house in the middle of the night, heavy with funk. When we were little, my older sister, Hannah, and I would lie still in our room and catch a whiff of that smell and instantly start giggling into our pillows, trying not to laugh and startle it. Back before Hannah left, that is. From time to time, my dad, who had also grown up here, would have to trap one if it made its home under our shed, before it had babies. We always used the catch-and-release traps. And since I was his shadow, I learned to do the same.
This morning, my mission clear, I walked from my house, which is tucked into a hill overlooking Herring Pond, one of the chain of glacier-formed kettle ponds on the ocean side of Wellfleet. I went down the steep, winding path of stone stairs we’d put in fifteen years ago, down the little path past the dock we’d rebuilt when we first moved in, and over to the sandy shore, accessible only to those who knew where to find it.
There was the trap, and there was my sweet little skunk, sound asleep, its little sides rising and falling, a slight snore escaping its pointy little snout. Adorable. Flower, I’d call her. I felt a little guilty for what I was about to subject it to. It wouldn’t get hurt. Brad was so not the type to do anything other than jump on a chair and scream. I couldn’t see Melissa bashing in a skunk’s head and possibly getting her perfect clothes messy.
The daughter . . . she might like the chaos. She was practically a teenager, after all. And my sources told me she also hated Brad, and possibly Melissa.
Today, Bradley Thayer Fairchild, my husband of nineteen and a half years, was at my sister’s office, making wedding plans with his child bride, sixteen years younger than he is. My sister, Hannah, is a wedding planner. The bride, or that slut, as I call her, was closer in age to our son than to Brad. Harassment was warranted.
The court views divorce as the dissolution of a business arrangement. It is a bloodless legal process that refuses to consider fairness, or hurt, or responsibility. It ignores the blazing trash fire of your life, in other words, and doesn’t want to hear about what’s fair or just.
Enter the skunk.
Brad and Melissa deserved some chaos after ripping up my life, my son’s life, our family and our future. I pictured them coming home to their perfect, vast, expensive house and discovering this cute little critter in their all-white home. The screams!
Flower would stamp her tiny front feet, then turn, twitch her tail upward, and spray, which, in this fantasy, would go directly onto one of their perfect white sofas, into the beautiful Persian carpets. Every rainy day, the smell would haunt them, no matter how hard they cleaned, or rather, how much they paid someone to clean. Even Melissa’s $500 Jo Malone luxury candles wouldn’t cover skunk, and with every whiff, they’d think of yours truly. Because who else would do something like this? They could call the cops, but I had babysat half the force and gone to school with the other half. Plus, I was leaving no clues.
It felt good to smile.
I wasn’t always a half-crazy harpy bent on revenge. A few months ago, I was just probably the nicest, most normal person you could find. A certified nurse-midwife, delivering babies, soothing worried moms-to-be, taking blood pressure and teaching childbirth classes. I was the adoring mother of a wonderful young man, the loving wife to Bradley T. Fairchild, PhD, and the devoted daughter-in-law to his parents.
Now, our son had just left for his freshman year of college (in Montana, the wretch), and Brad had dumped me for a thirty-year-old widow who loved money, herself and middle-aged men, and I was transporting a skunk to their six-thousand-square-foot architectural monstrosity on the other side of Wellfleet.
You’d have thought that at least they wouldn’t settle in my hometown. You would have been wrong.
Melissa. The name was a hissed curse in my mouth.
My sister had informed me that today was the first and lengthiest wedding consultation. Hannah, who owes me several decades of sisterly favors, is the most sought-after wedding planner on the Cape and islands. She was also my spy.
How would I get in the house with my furry black-and-white friend, you ask? Melissa’s house—Stella Maris, because of course it had a name—had both a hidden key and a code that might not have been changed since I showed Melissa the house last January. My in-laws were the Fairchilds of Fairchild Properties, and they’d been in Bali last winter. Vanessa had called—could I be an angel and show a house for them? Of course I could! Anything to help Vanessa, my beloved mother-in-law, more like a mom than my own mother. Seven months later, the new owner of that house would be marrying my husband. They’d gotten engaged three weeks after Brad moved out, which was also the day our son had left for the University of Montana.
You can’t make this stuff up, right?
When Brad and I had gotten married twenty years ago, I was just about to graduate from Emmanuel College, and he was finishing his PhD at Boston University. We met on Boston Common when he ran past, sweaty, blond and gorgeous, and told me my ice cream cone looked amazing. (It was.) Eight months later, I found out I was pregnant—miraculous, given my medical history—and Brad and I were married in a hasty but tasteful wedding at the Hampshire House, tab picked up by my in-laws, who were utterly delighted that I was expecting.
This wedding—of my forty-six-year-old husband and his barely-thirty-year-old bride—was another animal. The kind my sister specialized in—archways made of orchids, bands flown in from Austin, dinners that cost $500 a plate, wine shipped in from vineyards and, if rumor was true, Bruno Mars dropping in for a quick solo.
Let’s say it stung. Let’s say it ripped my broken heart out of my chest and ground it on the sharpest shells and let the seagulls pick at it. Maybe I should’ve caught two skunks. Or a wolf. A great white shark. Then again, there was Melissa’s kid to consider. Wouldn’t want her to be eaten. I’m not a monster.
Obviously, though, I stalked Melissa on social media. She was filthy rich and loved showing the world how the one percent lived. There was nothing she enjoyed more than photo shoots starring herself, occasionally her kid, but also the apartment she had lived in with Husband #1 in New York City. The vacations they’d taken—Thailand, London, Madrid, Kenya. Over the past six months, her feed had been filled with shots of the mansion on the water here on the Cape. Melissa just adored furnishing with the work of local artists. She posted a walk-through tour, like she was Oprah. The BMW she’d just bought herself, played down in a humblebrag. Felt so strange, buying a $90K car, but want the highest safety rating for my Ophelia! Tried to make up for the guilt by giving money to the local food pantry. #RandomActsOfKindness #BMW #Tweens #CapeCod #SmallTownLife #SafestCar #Donate #EndHunger
And now, she was thrilled to be working with Hannah Chapman Events to design her dream wedding! Would we like to see her vision board? Well, here it was!
So.
Divorce is especially painful when you didn’t know your marriage was floundering. Splitting up is one thing, right? You grow apart, you’re perpetually dissatisfied with each other, you agree that you’d both be happier unmarried. Happened all the time.
That was not the case with Brad and me. A couple of days before Brad told me he’d found love elsewhere, we’d had sex. Really good sex—the kind you could have when your only child was out of the house. Five days later, I was informed that he needed to infuse joy into his life, which meant dumping me.
During the four months since I found out Brad was leaving me for someone else, I swear I’d been running a fever. I hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since May 12, which wasn’t helping my “woman on the verge” feeling.
But right now, I didn’t care. I was just so dang proud of catching a skunk.
I turned off Route 6 and took a right to go into Wellfleet proper. On Main Street, I slowed down, waving to Bertie, who owned the general store, and Sarah, who owned the package store. At the Congregational church, I saw Reverend White, who lifted his hand at me as he crossed the street. I flipped him off and he nodded kindly. The good reverend, who had baptized me, was performing Bralissa’s wedding. Word had it she’d just donated ten grand to fix the church’s bell tower.
Beth, who had been my friend since kindergarten, was catering the wedding. She and her siblings owned the Wellfleet Ice House, the best restaurant in town, possibly on all of the Cape. She told me she’d do her best to spit in Brad’s food. Again . . . a spy for me. And we Cape Codders accepted the dynamic—outsiders pumping money into the local economy was just how it was.
I drove slowly, fearful of jostling Flower. Past the shops and restaurants, which would all profit off of Melissa’s money, no doubt; past the beautiful memorial garden where she’d probably already donated money; past Preservation Hall, the fish market, the library. There was the tiny bookstore, Open Book, possibly the only business in town that wouldn’t benefit from Melissa’s money, since I’d bet my right thumb Melissa was not a reader.
The roads became curvy and confusing, but I knew my way. Of course I did. I knew every street, dirt road and path from here to Provincetown. I had ridden my bike on every road in Wellfleet, from Route 6 to the secret dirt roads on Lieutenant Island. When Dylan was a baby, I’d take him for car rides late at night when he couldn’t settle down. So of course I knew about the little road to nowhere that was adjacent to Melissa’s house. Their alarm system didn’t have cameras (yet, though this might change their minds on that issue). It was just the type that notified the police that someone was trying to get in. Someone who didn’t know the alarm code, that was.
The truck bounced over a bump, and I glanced in the rearview to see that my skunk was still covered. She was.
I thought back again to that call last January, the coldest, quietest, grayest time of year on Cape Cod. Vanessa, my then-beloved mother-in-law, had said, “Darling, I hate to ask since it’s such short notice, but we’re obviously in Bali, and Norma”—their Realtor in the Cape office of Fairchild Properties—“is having her knee replaced. Would you mind showing a house or two? We have a new client who seems promising.”
“I’d be happy to,” I said. Not for the first time, I wondered why they never asked Brad. Both of us had flexible hours—Brad was a therapist in solo practice—but only I got the tap. Probably because I was better with people. It was fine. I didn’t mind. “How’s Bali?”
“Oh, darling, it’s paradise! I wish you and Brad had come with us!”
“Well, another time, maybe,” I said. “Once Dylan’s in college, we’ll have more time.” A lump had risen in my throat at the idea that my son would be leaving.
“Of course. Well, next year, we’ll have to go somewhere special. Our treat! Hopefully, it’ll help with the . . . well, the loneliness. I know what it’s like to have only one child, after all. It’s awful when they first leave. But you do get used to it, and if you’re lucky, he marries a wonderful girl and you become closer than ever.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I said, because she loved when I called her that (and because I got to secretly stick it to my own mother, who had the same maternal instincts as a lizard that eats her own eggs). “It’s so nice of you, and we would love it,” I said, smiling. Many times in the past, we’d gone on vacation with my in-laws, with our son, to places we would never have been able to afford on our own.
I had obediently called the client. “Hi, I’m Liliana Silva with Fairchild Properties. I understand you’re looking for a place up here?”
“Oh, yes! Thank you so much for calling me back.” She had a nice, low-pitched voice, and though her area code was 212, she didn’t have a New York accent.
“Are you familiar with the area?” I asked.
“A little bit,” she said. “We rented a house up there last summer in Truro, but Wellfleet seems a little more . . . civilized.”
I laughed. “It’s true.” Wellfleet had a bustling Main Street, a wonderful old movie theater, restaurants that were open year-round. Truro was wilder and had less to offer tourists.
“It seems like a good place to raise a child,” Melissa said.
“It is,” I said. “Our school system is fantastic. How old is your child?”
“She’s twelve,” Melissa said.
“Such a fun age. My son is eighteen. I’d be happy to show you around. Have you looked online at any particular listings?”
“A little bit. I haven’t seen anything perfect just yet.”
“Tell me what you’re looking for.”
There was a silence. “Something . . . open. Lots of light. Maybe a water view?”
That would cost millions. No wonder my in-laws wanted someone to talk to her. “And your price range . . . ?”
“Well . . . to be honest, if it’s the right house, I don’t have one. I’ve been blessed with financial security.”
That must be nice, I thought. “We have some lovely properties. Describe your dream house, and let me see what we can do.”
I could hear the smile in her voice as she answered. “Oh, gosh. Well, big enough, because I like to entertain. Lots of windows, somewhere quiet and safe. It’s time to get out of the city. We need a change, and a small town just sounds so lovely right now.”
“And your partner?” I asked. “Any preferences on their part?”
“Sadly, I’m a widow,” she said.
“Oh, no. I’m so sorry.” Raising a twelve-year-old alone . . . gosh.
“Thank you,” she said. “That’s very kind.” There was a pause. “Another reason for a change.”
“You won’t regret it,” I said. “I’m a fifth-generation Cape Codder, and I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. What’s your daughter’s name?”
“Ophelia.”
I winced. Who names their kid after the doomed innocent who commits suicide in Hamlet? Rich people, that’s who. “Such a pretty name.”
“Thank you!” There was genuine warmth in her voice. “What’s your son’s name?”
“Dylan,” I said, as ever feeling a rush of pride and love (and panic, because he was a senior in high school and life as I knew it was ending).
“And he’s been happy on the Cape? With school and, um . . . opportunities?”
I understood the code. Are you hicks? Because I’m from New York. “Very happy. The kids from Nauset High get into the full range of schools, from Harvard and Stanford to the Air Force Academy.” It was true. Our school system rocked.
“Wonderful! I plan to come up this weekend. Would that be okay?”
“That would be perfect.” Wanda, my boss and friend, would be on call at the hospital. “It’s pretty quiet up here, and there’s nothing like the winter beach. It’s so pure and majestic. Can I take you to lunch first?”
“Thank you, Liliana!” she said. “That’s so kind of you!”
“Call me Lillie,” I told her. “And it’s my pleasure.”
Thus began my doom.
She came up, without her child, who was with a friend that weekend, and we met at the Ice House, Beth’s restaurant, which was one of the few places open year-round. Melissa Finch was very pretty, much younger than I had expected. “I can’t believe you have a twelve-year-old!” I exclaimed. “You don’t look a day past twenty-five!”
She smiled. “Actually, Ophelia isn’t my biological daughter. She came from a troubled background, and Dennis—my late husband—well, we just couldn’t say no.”
“How lucky for you and her both.”
Melissa had been born in the Midwest, went to school in Connecticut and landed in New York City. “I was planning on going to medical school,” she said, “but Ophelia came into our lives and I needed to devote all my time to her.” The answer sounded as if she’d given it a hundred times.
“There’s nothing like being a stay-at-home mother,” I said, though I’d worked part-time all through Dylan’s childhood. But Brad had juggled his schedule, and it was only on the rare occasion that we’d ever needed someone other than ourselves to take care of him.
“But now you work in real estate?” she asked.
“Actually, I’m a certified nurse-midwife,” I said. “My in-laws are the Fairchilds in Fairchild Properties.”
“Does your husband work in the business?”
“No, he’s a therapist. But sometimes I show houses or stage them. Family, you know.”
“Of course. Now that Ophelia is a little older, I’m thinking about doing something myself.” She sipped her seltzer water. “I’ve even considered becoming a therapist, but I’m also looking into becoming a yoga teacher. Kind of the same thing, right?”
“Mm.” I admit that I had to smother a snort. I mean, sure, everyone loved yoga. I took yoga classes with Beth. My mother’s wife and Hannah did yoga together twice a week. My father, a crusty scallop fisherman, had to do yoga when he hurt his back last year. The Cape was glutted with yoga studios and yoga on the beach and yoga at dawn and yoga at sunset. Sure, it was wonderful. That being said, if I’d told Brad he and yoga teachers were kind of the same thing, he’d be furious and insulted. He took that PhD of his very seriously.
“Brad has a doctorate in psychology,” I said. “I’m sure he’d love to talk to you.” Insert the sound of my heavy sigh in hindsight.
But in that moment, I thought she was lovely. Her beauty was breathtaking—she wasn’t just pretty, she was perfect, and it all looked natural. Her hair was long and blond, and her eyes were a pale, pure green. Beautiful, subtle makeup of the kind I could never pull off with my chubby cheeks (and lack of patience). Expensive, tasteful jewelry, a cashmere dress in ivory with a funky belt and high leather boots. I wasn’t sure I’d ever been this close to a person who was so beautiful, so . . . smooth. Her voice, her manners, the way she talked and listened . . . she was the epitome of grace and class, old money and education, and I wanted her to like me.
We talked about the pros and cons of having an only child, the beauty of the Cape light, the natural glory of the sea and shore. Then I paid the check on the Fairchild credit card with a 30 percent tip for Jake, Beth’s nephew, who’d waited on us.
I showed her two pretty good houses first, as was the Fairchild strategy . . . two almost-great places, then the big kablammy. We started with a lovely place on Lieutenant Island, which was stunning, but subject to accessibility . . . the bridge was underwater twice a day.
“Some folks don’t mind,” I said. “The views are incredible, but you would need a vehicle that can handle the tides. Sometimes, it’s too high even for a truck, so maybe with an adolescent, it’s not the best choice.”
She agreed. The next one was an architectural tree house of sorts, one of a kind, weird and beautiful, listed at $2.3 million. But it “only” had three bedrooms, a too-small kitchen and just a glimpse of the bay.
Ah, rich people. That being said, the sunsets on the bay were incredible, and if she could afford it, why not? It was nice to picture her daughter running around at low tide, throwing a stick to a dog, maybe.
The final house was a modern monstrosity of glass and cedar on Griffins Island Road with an unfettered view of Cape Cod Bay and the sky. The driveway was marked by two stone pillars and an engraved granite slab that proclaimed the house’s name: Stella Maris, star of the sea.
As we pulled into the crushed-shell driveway, the sun was setting, and God had graced us with a gorgeous winter sunset of violent red, pink and purple. As soon as I saw Melissa’s face, I knew it was the place for her. Sure, it was over the top, and to me, a bit grotesque. I preferred cozy to . . . vast.
Stella Maris had a two-story, vaulted living room with a massive stone fireplace. A library had French doors to a private deck and custom-made shelves with a ladder and under-shelf lighting. There was a huge chef’s kitchen with dozens of drawers and cupboards, three sinks, a six-burner Wolf stove, wine fridge, vodka freezer, marble island with six stools and butler’s pantry with two more sinks and another dishwasher. There were five bedrooms, each with their own full bathroom and private deck, each with views of the water and surrounding pine wilderness. The dining room would seat twenty easily, with another smaller screened-in dining room for nice weather. The basement sported a home theater and bar with an area for games.
The lawn was landscaped with pine trees and hydrangeas, a rose bower and half a dozen mature, flowering trees that would, I told Melissa, be stunning in just a few more months. There was an infinity pool in dark granite, a hot tub, a cabana, an outdoor shower and a subtly placed building covered in ivy that housed the sauna, a meditation room and a changing room. Just outside that was an exterior plunge pool of icy salt water. The vast lawn stretched right down to four stairs that led straight into the bay.
“At high tide, you can take a kayak or sailboat right off here,” I said. “At low tide, you and Ophelia can go dig your own clams.”
Melissa Spencer Finch paid a hundred thousand dollars above the hefty asking price, “just in case someone else falls in love with it.” She paid in full, in cash. Within three weeks, she and Ophelia had moved—I saw the trucks as they passed Wellfleet OB/GYN. Since my in-laws were still abroad, I called Melissa for the official welcome, recommended some local vendors for handyman work, decorating and housekeeping, and invited her to dinner with Brad and me at the Mews, one of Provincetown’s best restaurants.
The evening of that dinner, I felt proud of Brad and me as a couple. Me, the local, an earthy midwife who loved to garden and knew everyone, proud daughter of a Portuguese fisherman; Brad, the more erudite, preppy PhD from Beacon Hill. He studied the wine list as if it were a lost gospel and ordered a bottle of ridiculously expensive wine (since his parents’ company would be paying) and listened to Melissa and me chat.
Was there a local florist open year-round? According to her, a house without fresh flowers wasn’t a home, something I agreed with (though the flowers in my house were from my own garden). Did I know of any French tutors, since she wanted Ophelia to continue her lessons and become fluent? My mother’s wife was from France, and I’d put them in touch. Did I know any wine vendors to help her stock her wine cellar? I did—Beth was a second-level sommelier. Were there any parenting groups, because she didn’t know a soul other than Brad and me? I told her I’d call some people I knew who had kids Ophelia’s age.
“You’re so wonderful, Lillie,” she said, her green eyes so pretty and clear. “It was my lucky day when I met you. I just know we’ll be friends.”
In the space of a few weeks, she and Brad were sleeping together, he decided he no longer loved me and that it was imperative for him to discover joy.
I think you can see why I kidnapped the skunk.
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