SPOILERS!!!
The story of these two women is fascinating. The novel alternates between present and past.
Meredith’s reminiscences start with her relationship with Toby. Since she and Connie were best friends, Toby was also a constant presence in her life. Then when she was around fifteen or sixteen, things change at a party, and she felt attracted to him. They walked home together, and they kissed for the first time, which, when she told Connie, her friend didn’t like and stopped talking to her for a week. Meredith and Toby became inseparable, and Meredith’s parents welcomed him. Yet, a couple of years later Toby changed and before going Meredith was due to go to college, he just left her.
Toby’s break-up hurt her too much, and that summer she cried countless time. At university she met Freddie, whose sophistication she liked, and it was when her dad died of an aneurysm that Freddie became interested in her, and their romance started. In hindsight Meredith realises that her relationship with Freddie wasn’t as healthy as it should have been. She dropped from the diving team because Freddie didn’t want her to be better at something than him, and she was a bit obsessed with him. A counsellor even told them that they should spend some time apart as they were having an obsessive relationship, but they wouldn’t hear of it. I think that Meredith was traumatised when Toby left, so this fear of being abandoned again was transferred to her relationship with Freddy.
As for Connie’s past, she went through several boyfriends, and then after dating Wolf for six months, she got pregnant. She was only twenty-two, and she was ready to have an abortion. Yet, Wolf wanted the baby, and since she was completely in love with him, she was afraid of losing him, so she had the baby and they got married. She had a difficult labour, and as a consequence, she couldn’t have more children after Ashlyn’s birth.
Connie has always found the relationship with her daughter difficult as she favoured her father. Yet, she was proud of her achievements and when she went to university and became a doctor. Connie has always considered herself a liberal, but when Ashlyn announced that she was spending the weekend at home with a friend and Connie realised that her daughter was a lesbian, she felt disappointed. Connie tried to pretend she was fine, and on the whole, she was, but she wanted grandchildren and a white wedding for her only daughter.
Then Wolf got sick and refused to have treatment. Ashlyn was too angry with her mother because she hand’t tried harder to convince him that he needed to go into treatment. Connie tried to reason with Ashlyn, but she felt that her daughter blamed her for her father’s death. Then the day of the funeral when they returned home, she went to find Ahslyn, who she had seen disappear upstairs with Bridge, her girlfriend, and when she found them kissing, she was emotional and reacted by crying and telling them to stop. That is the reason why her daughter hasn’t talked to her in two years and a half. Connie thinks that even though she wasn’t indifferent to the thought of her daughter being a lesbian, she knows that she would have reacted the same if she had caught her with a man. The circumstances were what made her react that way. I think that Ashlyn his being too hard with her mother, and being this inflexible and unforgiving shows that Ashlyn is not the lovely soul her mother is. I can’t say I like her.
At present one of the things that alter these two women’s lives is the vandalism that they are victims of. After the photograph and the graffiti, Connie’s wheels are also slashed. Thanks to this vandalism, Connie meets Dan, who she finds very attractive from the first. Dan also likes Connie, and he invites her to dinner. Yet, Connie feels unable to go on a date on her own, so she drags Meredith along. The two women go out with Dan twice, and on the second occasion for some reason Connie drinks too much, and she ends up unconscious so Meredith has to put her to bed. I was afraid that Dan would shift his feelings for Meredith, and at some point there is a hint that he might have pursued her, but thankfully, that wasn’t the case.
Dan doesn’t call Connie in weeks, so she decides to take the plunge and force an encounter in the store. At first, Dan is cagey, but then Connie convince him to go for a walk. They stroll around the beach, and Dan tells her about his wife and her disease. Like Connie, he felt that his three children loved their mother better, and when Nicole got sick, she was prescribed marijuana for the pain. The problem came when she allowed their son Joe to smoke marijuana as well. Dan tried to stop her, but there was no way she could do something. Then when Nicole died, and things got worse with Joe. He still smoked marijuana, and then one day he stole Dan’s truck and moved to California. Dan has only heard from him once, but he hopes he knows that if he decides to return, Dan will be there.
It is during this walk when Connie tells him about her own story about Ashlyn and Wolf. After that they have lunch together and have a lovely afternoon, and when Dan leaves her back home, he tells her that he wants to take her to dinner and then spend the night with her, and Connie accepts. When Connie steps into the house, she realises that Meredith is angry, and Meredith tells her that she has been worried because it has been hours she has been gone. I have the impression that Meredith is showing the same reactions that when she was with Freddie. Now Connie is the only person she has, so she is afraid to be abandoned, and maybe that is why she is reacting this way.
What Meredith doesn’t know because Connie has decided not to tell her is that Toby has announced that he is coming to Nantucket, so both Meredith and Toby are going to have a surprise. Connie is going to be the butt of her brother and friend’s anger.
Meredith is still a recluse. WE still don’t know who left the photograph or vandalised the house and the car, but since then nothing has happened. Yet, when she accompanied Connie to the beauty salon, unfortunately, she ran into a former friend, who Freddie had swindled. The woman didn’t mince words and hurled her hostility and hatred towards Meredith. In the exchange Meredith learnt that one of the men that Freddie conned out of his money killed himself, so she realises that it is not just a question of money, it is so much more.
Meredith tries to be in contact with her lawyers, who are doing their best to clear her name. Now Meredith has remembered the name of a Swiss banker that Freddie rented his flat from, and maybe it is in the bank where the man worked that the money is. I think there are still so many things to find out: the identity of the person on Nantucket who vandalised Connie’s property; where the money is and whether Leo was involved in the scheme; and I am also curious about Samantha, their decorator. Meredith remembers one occasion on which she entered the room where Freddie and Samantha were; he had his hand on the small of her back, but he removed it instantly as soon as Meredith walked in. I have the feeling that Samantha is involved, and I am pretty sure that she and Freddie were having an affair. I don’t think Freddie was faithful to Meredith, and we know from Connie that he made a pass at her years ago.
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