Elin Hilderbrand - Summerland

As Al drove through the gathering dark, Lynne sighed.

In response, Al turned up the radio. He listened to the worst music ever made, what Lynne always thought of as A.M. Gold-Tony Orlando and Dawn, Ambrosia, Dr. Hook. Listening to the radio with Al made her feel a hundred years old. And the fact that he turned the music up when he heard her sigh instead of asking her what was on her mind simply infuriated her. She nearly asked Al to pull over right that second so she could get out. He would never do that, of course. She would have to demand that he get out, and then she would have the satisfaction of leaving him behind as she sped off with some decent music playing. Lynyrd Skynyrd or Bruce Springsteen, something she had listened to back in the Mazda RX4 with Beck Paulsen.

But she would never do that, either.

If Lynne Castle could have seen the scene unfurling at the football field-Jordan and Jake approaching the stands and, after an affirmative nod from Zoe, taking seats on the bleachers directly behind her and Hobby and Claire, and the five of them standing as the elementary school music teacher, Mrs. Yurick herself, sang the National Anthem in her warbling soprano, and Zoe reaching back and squeezing the heck out of Jordan’s hand because every atom of her at that moment yearned for her daughter-well, Lynne would have wished only that she were among them. She would have acknowledged the new, startling circumstances of their lives-that Penny was dead, that Hobby was permanently sidelined, that Jordan and Ava had split, that Jake was heartbroken, that Demeter was an alcoholic, that Claire Buckley was pregnant, that Zoe loved Jordan but didn’t know how to make that feel right, that Jordan was determined to find a way to make it feel right, that none of them were quite the people they seemed, or even the people they thought they were-and she would have said, “Okay, fine, I’ll take it all. As long as we’re together.”

Demeter stood waiting at the exit of the facility, which was a hundred and twenty feet and a world away from the entrance she’d walked through a month earlier. She was thirty-one pounds lighter and she was 80 percent clearer in the head, but the remaining 20 percent of her that struggled would, she realized, probably always struggle. She would struggle with her desire for a drink, the slow burn down the throat, the warm ball of honeyfire in her chest, the ensuing release. She would struggle with her weight. She would struggle with what she had said to Penny Alistair on the night of the accident. She would struggle with her relationship with her parents. She would struggle with unrequited love and sought-after friendships that would never come easily.

But, as her therapist here at Vendever, Sebastian, had said, only 20 percent of her was struggling, which was a lot better than most people. Sebastian had said, “You’re a good kid, Demeter. You’re going to be fine.” Sebastian was handsome and funny and immeasurably kind, and Demeter was half in love with him, as were all the other girls at Vendever, and so his words made an impact on her. If Sebastian thought she was a good kid, a kid worth rescuing, if he thought she was going to be fine, then maybe, just maybe, it was true.

Demeter’s mother had sent manila envelopes filled with Demeter’s schoolwork and assigned reading, and with each batch she had enclosed a simple note saying, I love you, Demeter. xo Mom. Demeter had kept these notes in a pile by her bed. She knew they were true, she knew her mother did, in fact, love her very much. Demeter had been a difficult child, and she meant to both change her ways and apologize. Along with her mother’s notes was a letter Demeter had received from Hobby that said a lot of things, and among them these most important lines: You aren’t responsible for Penny’s death any more than I am responsible or Jake is responsible or my mother or Jake’s mother and father or your mother and father are responsible. The only person who was responsible for Penny’s death was the person who was driving the car that night, and that was Penny herself. I don’t know why she did what she did, but when I see her again-oh, and I will see her again-I’m going to ask her why, and then pray for God’s help in understanding.

Demeter decided that she would keep this letter and her mother’s notes for the rest of her life so that when that 20 percent of her was struggling, she could pull them out and read them.

It was dark now, fully dark at seven-thirty, and whereas a part of Demeter knew that ninety miles away on the island where she had been born and raised there were lights burning brightly on a football field, the only lights Demeter cared about now were the headlights of her parents’ car. When, a few seconds later, they pulled up to the Vendever exit, which was also the entrance to the rest of her life, Demeter turned around and said to Sebastian, who was patiently manning the sign-out desk, “They’re here! They’re here! I’m going home.”

The Nantucket Whalers lost their first home game by a score of 35 to 7. It was a whipping the likes of which we hadn’t seen in over a decade, but no one, not a single one of us in the stands that night, cared about the score. We had learned some things over the past few months. We had learned that when we looked upon our children, the young heroes and goddesses of Nantucket Island, all we could do was hope. We knew they would struggle; we knew they would fall prey to the same temptations we did, they would have lonely and sad moments as we did, they would eat too much and drink too much and cheat at golf and slander their neighbors and fail to recycle assiduously and speed on the Milestone Road and do the wrong thing when the right thing was smack in front of their faces, just as we did. But what we could see as the team filed off the field-some of the kids smiling even in defeat, some of the kids hopping in their cleats because they were so eager to play again next week-was that they had survived with their spirits intact.

We saw Claire Buckley’s hand fly to her abdomen, her mouth pursed in an astonished O, and we knew that as she walked away from the field that night, she had felt her baby kick for the first time. Hobson Alistair III.

We would all of us persevere. We would keep going. We would move in the only direction we could move, and that was forward.

I must start by thanking my editor, Reagan Arthur, for consistently encouraging my very best work. She is the Smartest Person in the Universe and always manages to take the rough gems I give her and make them shine. Thank you to the rest of my devoted and brilliant team at Little, Brown, including Michelle Aielli, Michael Pietsch, Amanda Tobier, Heather Fain, Mario Pulice, Terry Adams, Sarah Murphy, Justin Levine-and at Hachette, the gracious and forever fabulous David Young.

I have two amazing agents who not only advocate on my behalf but also serve as valued readers, and who are among my most treasured friends and confidants. They are the Best Agents in the Universe: Michael Carlisle and David Forrer.

And then there are the people who keep the carousel of my life spinning. I know I sound like a broken record, but I could not live and certainly could not write without their continued presence in my every day and, more important, in the every day of my children: Rebecca Bartlett, Richard Congdon, Margie and Chuck Marino, Debbie Bennett, Elizabeth and Beau Almodobar, Wendy Rouillard and Illya Kagan, Anne and Whitney Gifford, Wendy and Randy Hudson, Shelly and Roy Weedon, John and Martha Sargent, Norman and Jennifer Frazee, Evelyn and Matthew MacEachern, Mark and Eithne Yelle, Helaina and Dewey Jones, Lorri and Brian Ryder, Scott and Logan O’Connor, Jill and Paul Surprenant, Jeanne and Richard Diamond, John Bartlett, Holly and Marty McGowan, Jamie Foster, Rocky Fox, West and Manda Riggs, Jay Riggs, Andrew Law and David Rattner, Heidi and Fred Holdgate, Kristen and Dan Holdgate, Sean and Milena Lennon, Stephanie McGrath, and always and forever the rudder on my boat, Heather Osteen Thorpe.

For time and space and love and laughter, I have to thank my own home team: my husband, Chip Cunningham, who has, over the past nineteen years, made all of my dreams come true; my all-star son Maxx Cunningham (who gets his first cameo in one of Mom’s books); my son Dawson “the Dawg” Cunningham, who is coming out on top; and my radiant daughter, Shelby Cunningham.

It may sound strange, but I’d also like to thank the places that inspired me during the writing of this book. Thank you Fremantle and Margaret River, Western Australia. Thank you Smith Court, Beacon Hill, Boston. And thank you Nantucket Island-I love you, of course, the best of all.

ELIN HILDERBRAND: novelist, mother of three, sports enthusiast, avid fan of Bruce Springsteen, Veuve Clicquot, and four-inch heels. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Nantucket Boys & Girls Club and Nantucket Little League and is a founding member of Nantucket BookFest. Her resting pulse is 65.