That night, Jo tossed and turned in Nessa’s guest room. She couldn’t stop thinking about what Harriett had said. At two in the morning, she texted Art and discovered he couldn’t sleep, either. He called from the lake house, and over the next three hours, Jo told him everything. She didn’t gloss over details or embellish ugly truths. Art stopped her here and there to ask questions, but when Jo was done, he sat quietly on the other end of the line. She could feel the pain in his silence, and she hated herself for hurting him.
“I’m so sorry, Art,” she said through tears. “It’s my fault that man broke into our house. I tried to do the right thing, but I put our family in danger. I’ll never forgive myself for what happened to Lucy.”
“Listen to me. You did not send that man after our eleven-year-old daughter, and I refuse to let you take responsibility for the actions of a psychopath like Spencer Harding,” Art said, putting his foot down. “What I still don’t understand, Jo, is why you didn’t tell me any of this earlier. Were you worried I’d do something to mess things up?”
“No!” she cried, horrified by his interpretation. “I was just hell-bent on doing what I needed to do, and I was worried you’d try to stop me.”
He cleared his throat. “What exactly are you trying to do?” he asked.
“Make the world a better place for girls like Lucy,” she told him. “But my efforts backfired. Now I have to deal with Spencer Harding or our family will never be safe again.”
“Why would I stand in your way?” Art asked.
“To protect me,” Jo said.
“You don’t need protection. You think I don’t know that? This newfound strength of yours—it isn’t so new. You’ve always been strong, Jo. That’s one of the things I admire most about you. But you have an Achilles’ heel. You get frustrated and impatient when things don’t get done the way you would do them. Then you take on the burdens all by yourself. And you’ll just keep on taking them, one after another, until they finally crush you.”
As much as she would have loved to argue, she couldn’t ignore the truth in his words.
“What should I do?”
“Tell me everything from now on, and let me help you,” he told her. “And let me do it my way. As strong as you are, we’re stronger together. You may be the concrete, but I’m the rebar.”
He’d tossed out the last sentence as a joke, but it lingered in Jo’s mind until the sun came up. During the years she’d worked in Manhattan, Art had gotten up early each morning to make her coffee. And he’d greeted her with a drink every night when she got home. They may have been small things, but Jo could have listed a thousand such gestures. Maybe Art hadn’t found success the way she had. Maybe he hadn’t mastered the arts of housecleaning or lawn care. But throughout their marriage, he had given Jo the support she’d needed to grow. She knew that as strong as she was, she would have crumbled without him. If Jo was going to survive, she needed him back.
At seven in the morning, clutching steaming mugs of coffee, Jo and Nessa piled into the car. Before heading to the marina, they stopped by Jo’s house to pick up the scuba gear. As Nessa pulled into the drive, Jo looked up at the dark upstairs windows facing the street. Two belonged to the room Lucy had slept in since she was a baby. Jo bit her lip hard to hold back the tears.
“You sure you’re up for this?” Nessa asked. “We can find another diver.”
“And tell them what?” Jo responded.
“I don’t know. We’d come up with something.”
“No,” Jo said. “I finally know why I was chosen for all this. I know what I’m supposed to do.”
“What’s that?” Nessa asked.
“Whatever the fuck it takes.”
Jo Sets a Bridge Ablaze
Three months after she was fired, Jo found herself standing in her bra in a bank bathroom, one pit of her blouse stretched over the nozzle of the hand drier. The wave of heat that had overwhelmed her in the waiting area had finally receded, leaving salty, lavender-scented tidal pools beneath her arms.
The beautifully bound copy of her business plan was perched precariously on the edge of the sink. Her phone lit up with the silent alarm she’d set. Only one pit was partially dry, but it was time to reclaim her seat in the waiting area. She slipped the blouse on, grimacing when the remaining wet patch clung to the skin beneath her left arm. Over the blouse went her best black jacket. She smoothed her wavy red hair, applied a layer of her lucky lipstick, and half-heartedly applauded herself for rolling with the punches.
She was about to take a seat on the waiting area couch when Jeremy Aversano emerged from one of the glass offices and made a beeline for her, one arm outstretched.
“How about that! I thought I recognized the name on my calendar! Lucy Levison’s mom, am I right?”
Jo struggled to keep the smile on her face. Her photo graced several of the documents she’d sent in advance of the meeting. If the loan officer had bothered to read them, he wouldn’t be surprised to see her. When Jo was doing her research, she’d immediately pegged Aversano as the father of one of Lucy’s least favorite classmates. But she’d been more interested in the bank’s lending history than the loan officer’s procreative feats.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m Lucy’s mom. Among other things.”
“Come on back! Must be something in the water these days,” he said, glancing over his shoulder as he led her toward his office. “We’ve had a lot of grade-school moms in here lately. Once the kids start growing up, the ladies of Mattauk transform into entrepreneurs. And my wife’s no exception. She’s dying to set up a kids’ cooking academy here in town.”
Jo’s heart sank a bit more. If he thought Jo was a stay-at-home mom, he definitely hadn’t bothered to read her CV. She wanted to ask him if this was going to be a waste of her time. But she didn’t. “I think a cooking academy is a wonderful idea,” she said instead. “I’m always looking for after-school and holiday activities for Lucy. And she would love something like that.”
“Well, I’ve told my wife to put together a business plan,” he said with an indulgent chuckle. “We’ll see what she manages to come up with.”
Jo’s smile froze in place. She’d met Aversano’s wife at PTA meetings, and the woman had always struck Jo as rather intelligent. Was there something about her that Jo hadn’t noticed—some mental infirmity that wasn’t immediately obvious?