The Identicals(87)

“I talked to Tabitha,” Ainsley says. “My mother, I mean.”

“Okay…”

“She found out about the party. She says we’re sullying the ERF brand. Making it less distinctive or distinguished or whatever.”

Harper scoffs. “Of course she said that. She must not care about actual money.”

“But that’s not what I’m worried about,” Ainsley says.

“What are you worried about?”

“She asked who we hired to work in the boutique, and I told her it was Caylee, and she hung up on me.”

“She’ll get over it,” Harper says. “Caylee is a stellar employee. Tabitha is just bitter.”

“But what if she comes back here and fires Caylee?” Ainsley says. “What if she shows up and undoes all the changes we’ve made?”

Harper stands up to give Ainsley a hug. “You don’t have to worry about this. This is old, old stuff between me and your mom coming to the surface. We disagree on… well, just about everything. I don’t want you getting caught in the middle.”

“I just want things to stay like they are right now,” Ainsley says. “If Tabitha… if my mother comes home, everything will go back to the way it was. But I think maybe she’s too busy renovating Gramps’s house to come back here.”

“We’re tearing Gramps’s house down,” Harper says.

“No,” Ainsley says. “Mama is renovating it, she said. I guess she found some kind of special wood under the carpet.”

“What?” Harper says. Her voice is suddenly loud and sharp, and Ainsley takes a step backwards. She congratulates herself for somehow managing to make things worse. “Does she not understand I need money? I can’t wait six months or a year to see the sale proceeds! I can’t spend a hundred and fifty thousand dollars on a chair rail and Berber rugs and a clawfoot tub and whatever else she thinks that house needs. I need money! I need security! I need a nest egg!” Harper grabs her phone. “I’m putting an end to this.”

No! Ainsley thinks.

Harper goes down to her bedroom. Ainsley hears her shout, “Tabitha, what have you done? We agreed to tear the house down! Put the land on the market! And sell it!”

Ainsley collapses on the sofa and holds her head in her hands. She had thought the experiment of her mother and aunt switching places was working.

“You don’t know what the Vineyard Haven real estate market is like!” Harper screams. “It could be a year—or longer—until we see any money.” She pauses, and Ainsley assumes her mother is talking. “It’s not tit for tat! I threw that party because I was trying to help the store! I was trying to improve sales and make some money to pay the rent—and I did! You’re renovating Billy’s house because… because you want a vanity project! I should file a cease-and-desist order! Well, fine, maybe I will! We’ll see how little you care when the sheriff comes to visit!”

Ainsley groans. The experiment is not working.



The following afternoon when Ainsley enters the carriage house, she hears Fish barking, and she knows there’s trouble.

Her mother is here, she thinks, and her stomach drops to her feet. The FJ40 wasn’t in the driveway, but that doesn’t mean anything. It’s high summer; maybe she couldn’t get it across on the ferry. Maybe it’s parked over in front of Seamless. Ainsley didn’t think to look.

Ainsley takes the stairs two at a time and finds Aunt Harper kneeling on the living-room floor, her phone in one hand, her eyes squeezed shut, her mouth open but no sound coming out.

“Aunt Harper!” Ainsley says. “What is it? What happened?” She immediately thinks this is her mother’s fault. Or her grandmother’s. Maybe they’re the ones who have called the sheriff or filed legal action.

Her aunt rocks back on her heels and lets out a strangled cry.

Ainsley instinctively knows that something big has happened, something bigger than a disagreement about store policy or Vineyard real estate.

Someone is dead. But who? Who?



It takes a few minutes for Ainsley to get Harper calmed down enough to piece together the story. It’s not her mother, and it’s not Eleanor. It’s a friend of Aunt Harper’s, a close friend, a boyfriend, maybe. A man named Brendan. He killed himself, overdosed intentionally on pills.

Ainsley’s stomach sours. Suicide combines the awful shock of an unexpected death with something even more sinister. To kill yourself means to experience the ultimate blackness; it means inhabiting a room with no air, no light, no hope. It terrifies Ainsley.

“His mother told me he wasn’t doing well,” Harper says through her tears. “But I didn’t go back. I thought if I went back, I would make things worse. And look—I’ve made things worse. He’s gone, and it’s my fault.”

“No,” Ainsley says. She doesn’t know anything about this person Brendan or his relationship with her aunt, but calling his suicide her fault feels wrong. Her aunt is a loving soul, kind all the way to her core. She has confessed to Ainsley that she has made a bunch of poor choices in her life. She didn’t make the most of her potential; she got mixed up with some bad people, and she knowingly betrayed some good people. She hasn’t gone into much detail about any of this, nor has she explained why Tabitha hates her so much. She has been too busy tending to Ainsley and the store and Ramsay and Caylee and Meghan and Fish. But now Harper is the one who needs tending to. “No, not your fault. Don’t say that again.” Ainsley tries to think what Harper needs most right that second: ice water, arms around her, then action, a plan. They will go to the Vineyard: Harper, Ainsley, and Fish. Ainsley will book the ferry. She will ask Meghan to cover their shifts at work. She will help Harper get back home.