by Avery James
"She's right here, Mom," Jack said. "Charlotte, come on and meet my mother."
Jack's mother was older than Charlotte had anticipated, but she nearly ran across the room and gave Charlotte a firm hug.
"You can call me Angela. Welcome to the family," she said. She stepped back, held her hands on Charlotte's shoulders and looked her over. "We never thought our Jack-Jack would settle down, but it's not hard to see how he fell for you."
Charlotte blushed. "He got stuck with me at our friend's wedding," she said. She watched Angela walk across the room and take Caroline's wine glass from its hiding place.
"I spent months trying to convince Charlotte to date me after we first met," Jack said. "I wasn't about to give her any other excuse to slip through my fingers."
"Have you made a romantic out of him?" Angela asked.
"As far as I can tell, he always was one," Charlotte said. She turned and kissed Jack on the cheek.
"You're just darling," Angela said. She turned to Jack. "I like her. Charlotte, would you like me to show you where you'll be staying?"
Charlotte watched Jack nod yes. "Of course," she said. "I'd love that."
Angela took Charlotte down a long hallway into the kitchen, where she dumped the glass of wine into the sink. "The master suite is beyond the other side of the living room. You and Jack will be staying in his old room upstairs. Don't worry, we've updated it since he was a boy."
As she followed Angela up a back staircase, Charlotte remembered standing in her bedroom with Jack. Stepping into her room again had been like stepping back in time, and having Jack there had made her feel even stranger.
"Here we are," Angela said. She opened a door, and Charlotte's jaw dropped. Jack's room was enormous, with sweeping views of the ocean from a large, three-windowed dormer that stuck out from the steeply pitched roofline. The bed was on the opposite wall under two windows that gave a view of the beach stretching off into the distance.
"The bathroom for this room is through here," Angela said, indicating a door on the other side of the room, "but all seven are kept clean and stocked with fresh towels, in case you find another you fancy better. There's a walk-in closet through the other door. You should have plenty of storage for the weekend."
"There are seven more rooms like this?" Charlotte asked.
"Four bedrooms, including the master on the first floor, each with an attached bath, face the water. The others face the forest and the marsh, but come on. I'll show you the rest."
Angela led Charlotte through the rest of the house, going room by room and explaining the different stages of renovation the house had gone through over the past several years.
"After Jack's father passed, I thought about renovating the house and giving it to my children, but I don't think I could ever leave. Besides, I don't know if I'll ever be done. An old house like this always has something that needs fixing," Angela said. "Jack thinks I've spent too much money on this house. I probably have, but I'm old and sentimental, so I guess I can give myself a pass."
After Angela finished showing the house, leading Charlotte through the library, a separate study and her craft room, all while going up and down three different staircases, she finally reached a small mudroom at the side of the house and handed Charlotte a heavy, fleece-lined sweatshirt.
"Come walk with me through my gardens," Angela said.
"I can't imagine much is growing at this time of year," Charlotte said.
"The beach is just beyond, and it's beautiful all year. I used to keep a greenhouse going in the winter, but I don't have the energy for that anymore. If Jack had brought you in the fall, I could have brought you to pick beach plums."
"Beach plums?" Charlotte asked as Angela swung the door open. The frigid New England air swirled into the room.
"They grow on bushes along the dunes," Angela said. "Jack used to love to pick them when he was little. They're small, and they're sweet. When they first blossom in spring, it looks like a fresh coat of snow has fallen up and down the beach."
Angela led Charlotte down a narrow path across the lawn. The grass was close-cut but dead, and Charlotte could hear the ocean crashing on the beach somewhere below. As they reached the edge of the yard, the ocean came into view below them. A wide and well-worn path cut back and forth down to the beach. Angela held a handrail on one side of the path as she started to make her way down. The surf broke and crashed against the sand below, foamy and turbulent. It looked like it was trying to reclaim the hillside for its own.
"This view hasn't changed in fifty years," Angela said as she looked out over the water. "I've spent the last few years wondering if that's a comfort or something else entirely. The water beats against the cliffside but hasn't moved more than an inch closer in all the time I've lived here. Sometimes, I wonder why the ocean isn't at my doorstep when I wake in the morning."
"It's beautiful," Charlotte said. "Does it ever get lonely with such a big house and so much land?" Charlotte asked before realizing her comment could be taken the wrong way.
"It didn't used to," Angela said. "There are always people around. Rick the groundskeeper, my personal chef Greta, Amos who runs the staff… and there's a cleaning woman who comes in a few mornings every week. We used to have more — maids and nannies, drivers and assistants. It was all too much. I've scaled back over time. With the kids back today, I gave everyone the day off. Whit brought lobsters from Maine. I figure we can't screw up boiling some water."
"My mother used to say if anyone could burn water, I could," Charlotte said.
"We'll put you on cake duty then," Angela said. "When Jack's father, John, asked me to move out here, I couldn't believe my luck. I thought that this would be the happiest home in the world. We used to bring the children down here to go swimming when they were still little. If you could only have seen how it was then."
The wind swirled off the whitecaps of the rough, black water.
"A summer wedding would be so wonderful, like a fresh start for this place." Angela turned and looked back up toward the house. "I've already started a list of improvements we'll need to make between now and then to accommodate everyone."
"Oh, Jack and I haven't really gone into that level of detail with our plans," Charlotte said.
The Havens had set a date for them that would get Jack the most positive attention, but Charlotte hadn't ever really pictured it. The thought of standing up in front of both sides of the family on the beautiful grounds of the Coburn mansion and was too much. Charlotte tried to imagine how beautiful and perfect it would look, instead of how hollow she would feel as she and Jack lived out their lie.
"That's perfect then," Angela said. "Jack will be so busy on the campaign trail, and I've been trying to find a new hobby for Caroline since her divorce."
"I didn't know she had been married," Charlotte said.
"I don't think she did either. Aside from the wedding, we hardly saw her and her husband together before they split. You and Jack though, you'll last."
"I hope."
"I saw the way he was looking at you when I walked into the room. Jack's brought girlfriends back over the years. Some of the relationships were quite serious, but he never looked at any of them the way I saw him looking at you."
"This view is so beautiful," Charlotte said, hoping to change the subject. She hadn't liked misleading her own parents, and she found she didn't like hearing Angela fall for their ruse as well.
"Just wait until the summer," Angela said. "You'll love it here. I remember the first time I saw this beach. I was in my early twenties, just out of college, walking with my mother-in-law. I'm going to share a piece of advice she gave me before I married Jack's father. She told me John and I were about to do something important. She meant John would be powerful and a wife like me would help his growing prestige.
"It was summer then, with birds flying overhead and the grass in the dunes swaying in the wind, and I was so caught up in the romance of this place that I believed her. So I'm going to tell you this once
, and I'm going to hope you have enough sense to listen. You have a chance to do something important, Charlotte. You have a chance at having love and a family. It's the only important thing there is. Don't waste that opportunity, because if you do, you'll regret it for the rest of your life."
Angela stared out at the waves.
Charlotte agreed that love and a family were important. They were one of the things she wanted most out of life. How was she supposed to respond, knowing that her engagement to Angela's son was born out of a contract instead of love?
"How much has Jack told you about the family?" Angela asked.
"Not much," Charlotte admitted.
"Jack's grandfather had this idea that the whole family would live here someday, generations of Coburns living close together, combining their efforts to make the world a better place. Two of my brothers-in-law have houses up the beach. One of them lives in Manhattan, and the other is out on the West Coast. Their sisters both live in Europe, one in London and the other in Nice. Anyway, you can see one of the rooflines over that dune in the distance. The other house is farther back inland. I'm the only one who lives here year-round anymore."
"It must be nice to have this whole stretch of beach with no one else to share it with," Charlotte said without thinking.
Angela smiled weakly. "It's nice when I can share it with guests," she said. "Just imagine how wonderful this place will be this summer when the two of you get married. Spring here can be hit or miss, but in summer, with that cool ocean breeze, it will be beautiful. A new member of our tribe, what a wonderful birthday present the two of you have given me."
"Of course," Charlotte said. Charlotte had been worried about what a fake marriage would do to her family, but now she wondered if it wouldn't have much more of an impact on Jack's family instead.
"Let's get back to my brood," Angela said. "If I leave them unsupervised too long, they start to turn on each other."
Charlotte wished Angela was joking, but she knew it was the truth. The wind howled up the cliffside, and Charlotte imagined how the it must rattle against the windows of the great big house.
"A summer wedding, it will be just beautiful," Angela said.
Charlotte nodded silently and followed her back up the path. The house loomed, seeming larger than ever before them. Charlotte felt a growing dread that whatever conflict was brewing between Jack and his sister would be just as large.
Chapter 16
Jack saw the look in his sister's eye as soon as he and Charlotte had entered the house. He poured himself a glass of scotch and walked over to the window. His mother was leading his fiancée down the long path to the beach. He wanted to follow them out there and feel the cool ocean mist on his face. Anywhere in the world would have been better than the living room where Jack waited for his siblings to harass him for money.
Caroline and Whit stood next to each other in front of the large stone fireplace that anchored one end of the room. It wasn't long before they moved in, sweet and cheerful, slapping him on the back and pretending like they cared about his engagement. They were up to something, he knew. They were always up to something. For people who were too lazy work for a living, they seemed to have boundless energy when it came to asking for more money.
"What do you guys want?" Jack asked. "Let's get this over before Charlotte and Mom get back from their walk."
"What makes you think we want anything?" Caroline asked.
"The fact that we're standing in the same room is a good start," Jack said. "Maybe you've forgotten every interaction we've had since Dad died, but I haven't."
"God, Jack, get off your high horse. It's not even your damn money," Caroline said. She took a long swig of the wine she had repoured as soon as her last glass had been dumped out.
"That's right. It's not mine, and it's not yours."
"Do you really think Dad would have wanted us to fight over it?"
"Honestly, I don't think he would have given a damn either way."
"I can't believe he left you in charge of anything. He gave you everything, and you're so damn disrespectful of him." Jack placed his glass down on the window sill. "Are you serious? Do you really want to talk about respect? How about respecting your family name instead of treating it like a cash machine? It wasn't Dad's money either. It was Grandpa's. You know that, and you know that he had no interest in letting his grandchildren sit around all day wasting their lives. The trust is set up for perpetuity, not for personal whims. You'd spend the money in a year if you could."
"Who cares?" Caroline asked. "Grandpa's not using it."
"I care," Jack said. "And you should too because it's not our money. It's our family's money. We were given it. We didn't earn it."
"Do you really think Dad would have wanted this? Do you think he'd want the money to drive his kids apart? No, he'd want to make sure his kids were set for life."
Whit nodded in agreement with every word.
"That's what I'm trying to do, Caroline," Jack said. "Look at Uncle George's kids. They blew through their portion of the money in a few years."
"That's different," Caroline said. "Besides, it's not like any of us have kids to pass it on to."
This was too much. Jack's mind went to little Jack. What did Caroline know about kids? She would happily waste all that money on herself, just like the rest of the Coburn family. Jack would never let her do that, not when little Jack deserved it more than any of them.
"I'm getting married in a month, and our family extends beyond just the three of us," Jack said.
"Yeah, Mom really needs the money," Caroline said.
"I'm not talking about Mom. I'm asking the two of you to think of anything beyond yourselves for once."
"That's just like you, Jack. Don't pretend you're the only one who thinks about others. You know how committed to charity I was before you controlled all the money. Philanthropy is all I h—" She caught herself in a moment of weakness and drowned however her sentence would have ended in a sip of wine.
"I don't control any of it," Jack said. "It's invested in a blind trust."
"You're the sole trustee," Whit said. "You know what she means. Caroline has a point. We're not getting any younger, and the money is just sitting there. If we don't put it to use, who will?"
"We all have everything we need. You have houses and boats and cars," Jack said.
"Yeah, and we don't own any of it," Caroline said, "It's almost entirely owned by the trust."
"We didn't earn any of it either," Jack replied.
"Does it really matter?" Whit asked.
"Yes," Jack said. "The money belongs to the family. I've been asked to make sure it lasts for the family."
"Again and again about the family!" Caroline shouted. "You'd think you actually gave a shit about any of us. You hate us. Just admit it. The money is just one part of it."
"I'm done talking about this," Jack said. "It's Mom's birthday. When she and Charlotte get back, can we please just play nice for a while?"
"If Dad were alive…" Caroline said. She sighed and finished her drink. "I can't believe he left you in charge."
"Don't bring Dad into this. He's the reason why we're all so screwed up anyway. Do you think I want this responsibility? Do you think I like the fact that my own family views me as a goddamn ATM? Go ahead, Car, tell me. I've spent my entire life trying to make up for the fact that no one else is willing to do a damn thing to preserve the family name."
"You think because Mom ran you for office you're special?"
Jack sat down and ran his hands through his hair. "I don't think I'm special at all. I'm the only one in this room who doesn't get to do whatever I want. You want more money? Go out and get a job. Do something. Provide something of value to society."
Whit had turned back to the window, looking like he wanted to crawl inside his glass of scotch until the fight was over. "Will you just think about it, Jack?"
"Seriously, Jack, what is your endgame?" Caroline asked. "What do you want? Help us unde
rstand."
"I want to keep our family from falling apart," Jack said.
"You're a few decades late on that one," Caroline replied.
Whit nodded glumly in agreement.
"So what, we're just supposed to cash out?" Jack asked.
"It's a better idea than sitting on a pile of money until we die," Caroline said.
As she spoke, Jack heard the side door to the kitchen open. Charlotte and his mother were back from their walk.
"Can we just drop this for now, for Mom's sake? I don't want to fight in front of Charlotte."
"Afraid your girlfriend will find out we're not the perfect family?" Caroline asked.
Jack laughed. "Trust me when I say I'm not worried about that in the least."
Somewhere at the back of his mind, the faces of Maria and little Jack came to him against his will. Jack wasn't afraid of Charlotte finding out about this corner of the Coburn family. It was the side he was hiding that he was afraid of.
"I don't think anyone's under the impression that this family is functional, never mind perfect, and she's not my girlfriend. She's my fiancée. Soon, she'll be your sister-in-law."
Jack heard the kitchen door open, and he knew Charlotte and his mother would be back in a minute. He looked at his siblings.
"Birthday truce?"
"Sure," Caroline said. The wine bottle glugged loudly as she tipped the rest of it into her glass.
Whit looked out the window.
Jack was anything but sure that things would go well at dinner. He shot a glance at Charlotte as she walked into the room. By her expression, he guessed that his mother had said something inappropriate on the walk. He grabbed his drink and downed it. The liquor stung at the back of his throat as he tried to make a plan for getting through the next few hours without a blowout.
***
Charlotte could tell tensions were running high between Jack and his siblings. As she wondered what to say or do, Jack's mother clapped her hands together and announced, "I don't know who else is hungry, but I'm famished. What do you say we start preparing dinner?"