Chapter 5 - An Unexpected Visitor
A month slipped into November, bringing chilly Atlantic squalls that stripped the salt marshes bare and turned the sea a dark, brooding slate gray. The summer crowds were long gone, leaving the Point wrapped in a peaceful, solitary quiet that I had come to cherish. I spent my mornings restoring Nile’s old teak workbench in the garage, sanding down decades of varnish to expose the honest, warm grain underneath.
On a rainy Thursday afternoon, the sharp rumble of a rental sedan broke the silence of the gravel drive. I looked through the kitchen window, expecting another courier from Arthur's office, but instead, I saw a lone figure step out into the drizzle. It was Blythe.
She wore no designer jewelry, no oversized sunglasses, and no haughty sneer. Dressed in a simple wool coat and worn leather boots, she walked up the porch steps with hesitant, nervous footsteps. She stood before the blue front door, her knuckles raised, hesitating for nearly a minute before tapping softly against the glass.
I wiped my hands on my apron, walked to the foyer, and unlocked the heavy brass deadbolt. I opened the door, keeping the brass security chain loosely hooked. ""Hello, Blythe.""
Her eyes were red-rimmed, and she pulled her coat tighter around her slender frame against the coastal wind. ""Mrs. Vance... Martha. I know I’m the last person you want to see. But I drove two hours from Providence, and I just... I needed to say something to your face. May I talk to you for five minutes? Please.""
I studied her for a moment. In the photographs from the Nantucket wedding, she had looked like an untouchable porcelain mannequin, but standing here on my porch with wet hair sticking to her temples, she was just an exhausted twenty-seven-year-old woman whose life had disintegrated in a public spectacle.
I unhooked the chain and swung the door open. ""Come inside. It’s freezing out there. Wipe your boots on the mat.""
She stepped into the hallway, her eyes immediately drifting to the stone fireplace mantel. There, restored to its rightful place between two brass ship lanterns, was the photograph of Nile, smiling broadly in his flannel shirt aboard his old fishing skiff. Blythe stared at it for a long second, her throat visibly tightening.
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""I didn't move it,"" she whispered, turning to look at me with raw shame in her eyes. ""I swear to you, Martha, I didn't hide your husband’s picture. Cullen told me you had already packed your personal belongings and moved them into storage. He told me the house was an empty estate waiting for us. When I saw the suitcases on the lawn that day, I was so confused... and when Laurelai started yelling, I just went along with it because I was terrified of being humiliated.""
""Sit down, Blythe,"" I said, gesturing to the armchair beside the hearth. ""I’ll make some chamomile tea.""
