The Stillwater Girls(30)

When Brant came out of his meeting, he wasted no time asking for my number and securing a date for Friday night at some cozy, off-the-radar hot spot in the East Village. All I remember is wanting to say no and to seem aloof and uninterested, but my heart was galloping so fast I couldn’t think straight so Marin answered for me.

I didn’t know it then, but he would propose to me right there, in that East Village bar, exactly one year later. A year after that, he would marry me at my parents’ estate in Nantucket, swearing his undying love to me in front of 624 guests, refusing to let his new bride out of his sight for a single second the entirety of the evening. And when the night was over, he slipped my heels off my tired feet and carried me to a waiting car that whisked us off to a waterfront hotel room, where we somehow found the energy to make love not once but twice and then again the next morning, before our flight left for the first leg of our European honeymoon.

We were happy then. I refuse to believe we weren’t.

Flipping through our photos, I linger on each and every one until the nostalgia hits me with a burst of both blissful longing and undeniable sadness, and then I move to the next. Our smiles were giant, our eyes sparkly and full of life. Napping under the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Sleeping in an Irish castle. Cliff jumping in Finland. Our honeymoon, in all its magical bliss, is all there, fully documented. When I get to the end of the album, I find copies of the vows we’d written to each other.

Pulling his from the protective sleeve, I reread the words, his neat, tight handwriting with exaggerated loops filling the space of a five-by-eight slip of linen heirloom paper.

Nicolette,

I never believed in love at first sight, and I never thought I was the marrying type . . . but then I met you, and everything I thought I knew about myself changed. Just like that. Let me first say, shamelessly and unapologetically, that it was your beauty that caught my attention at first. But by the end of our first date, I knew you were so much more than your sapphire starlight eyes and your contagious laugh and your grace and intelligence.

I couldn’t get enough of you. I don’t know that forever would ever be long enough together, but there’s only one way to find out . . .

I carried your ring around in my pocket for months before I had the nerve to ask you to marry me. While I was certain you’d say yes because by then we were in the throes of something so perfect and so right, part of me was terrified you’d say no and that I’d have to live my life without you—which at the time seemed like a death sentence.

But one night we walked past a Cartier window and you stopped by the rings, pausing for just a second when you thought I wasn’t looking, and I knew.

I knew you’d say yes.

So I asked the next month. And you said yes. And now here we are.

So, Nic, because you’ve made my dreams come true, the least I can do is promise the same to you.

From this day on, you have me. You have my love. My support. My honesty. My trust. You have everything you could ever need from me and more. All you have to do is say the word, and it’s yours.

Your happiness is my happiness, now and forever.

That is my vow to you, my darling.

I return the vows to the back pocket of the album and close the binding. Taking another sip of wine, I stare ahead at the crackling fireplace across from me, thinking of how he used to call me his “darling” and wondering when it was that he stopped.

I can’t remember.

What else have I forgotten?





CHAPTER 21

WREN

My feet burn with every step, my ankles growing weak and threatening to roll as we navigate through towering pines. My knees are skinned from falling over broken tree branches halfway through our journey, but we stopped only long enough for me to catch my breath. The trickle of moonlight through the treetops barely lights our way. For all I know, we’re running in circles, but hours ago, I drew an imaginary line between the moon and myself, and that’s the direction I’m taking us.

“Wren.” Sage calls my name, her voice breathy and barely there. “Wren, I need to stop.”

Slowing down, I reach back, wrapping my fingers around her bony wrist. “We can’t.”

We stop, we die.

I have no idea when the stranger will wake, but I imagine when he does, he’ll waste no time trying to track us down, and our footsteps will point him in a general direction.

We left him for dead. If he meant it when he said he didn’t want to kill us before . . . I imagine this will change his mind.

“Wren, please . . .” My sister’s plea is followed with a soft whimper, and she yanks her hand from my grasp.

Left with no choice but to stop, I turn to her, watching as she lowers herself to the cold, hard earth.

“I’m so tired,” she says, her lip quivering as dead leaves crunch and rustle beneath her. “I’m cold. And I’m hungry. And . . . I’m scared.”

Lowering myself, I place my hands on her fragile shoulders. I’m all those things, too, but I can’t let her know. One of us has to be strong.

“I miss Mama.” She buries her head in her hands before wiping glistening tears on the backs of her hands.

Throwing my arms around her, I pull her in, taking in the wild beat of her terrified little heart and the tiny shudders that follow each jagged breath.

Leaving our home for the first time is nothing short of terrifying, but we can’t succumb to that if we want to live . . . if we want to get away from that man . . . and find Mama.