Nantucket Nights

The novel opens in December on Nantucket Island, where Kayla Montero, a mother of four, is Christmas shopping. Her life appears to have returned to normal, but her friend Antoinette Riley has been missing for three months, having disappeared while swimming off the coast of Great Point during Labor Day weekend. When Kayla finds a message from local policeman Paul Henry saying he has news, she is too afraid to call back. The narrative flashes back to the Friday of Labor Day weekend.

On that Friday, Kayla prepares for Night Swimmers, an annual tradition she shares with her two closest friends: Valerie Gluckstern, an island attorney, and Antoinette, a reclusive former dancer. The tradition began 20 years earlier when the three were summer roommates. During a heat wave, Antoinette drove them to the remote beach at Great Point in the middle of the night and, floating in the dark water, confessed the story of her past: her marriage, her husband's infidelity, a baby girl she gave up for adoption, and a suicide attempt. They vowed to return every year to swim nude, drink champagne, and share secrets they pledged to keep safe.

Two decades later, their lives have diverged. Val has spent the summer having a secret affair. Kayla's husband, Raoul Montero, owns a construction company and has landed the biggest project in Nantucket's history: a ten-million-dollar home for Pierre and Elisabeth Ting. The job has kept him away constantly, straining the family. Their eldest son, Theo, 18, has been exhibiting increasingly hostile behavior, swearing at Kayla, vanishing without explanation, and destroying her garden. The cause of his rage is a mystery.

That afternoon, Kayla visits Raoul's job site and meets Jacob Anderson, a charming young carpenter whose flirtatious manner stirs old insecurities about Raoul's fidelity. Later, Antoinette calls with startling news: her long-lost daughter, Lindsey, has tracked her down through an adoption agency and is arriving the next day. That evening, the 20th Night Swimmers begins at midnight. Val reveals her secret lover is Jacob. Antoinette announces her daughter's arrival. Kayla shares her concern about Theo's behavior, and when she mentions his name, Val and Antoinette exchange a meaningful look she cannot interpret.

After taking Ativan, an anti-anxiety sedative, with champagne, Kayla falls asleep briefly. She wakes to hear Antoinette say she has a confession. Emotional and intoxicated, Kayla blurts out an accusation: She asks if Antoinette is having an affair with Raoul. Antoinette stares at her, rises, extends her arms, and pirouettes into the water. She swims straight out and does not resurface.

Kayla and Val search frantically. Kayla drives to a nearby gatehouse to call for help but calls home three times before calling 911, losing crucial minutes. Emergency responders converge but cannot locate Antoinette. After nearly four hours, officials suggest she may not be in the water at all. The group drives to Antoinette's cottage and finds it ransacked. Outside, Raoul smooths the dirt in the driveway with his boot, an act the police later view as destroying potential evidence such as footprints and tire tracks. In the bathroom, Kayla secretly pockets a positive pregnancy test: Antoinette is pregnant.

The next morning, Kayla meets Lindsey Allerton, Antoinette's daughter, at the airport. At Great Point, where divers are dragging the ocean floor, Kayla spots Theo's Jeep and finds him on the bumper, sobbing. He confesses that he loves Antoinette and they are going to have a baby. Kayla realizes the affair was between her 18-year-old son and her best friend, not between Raoul and Antoinette.

Theo's perspective reveals the relationship's history. At 13, he glimpsed Antoinette sleeping nude when she babysat his family, sparking a lasting fantasy. At 18, after a chance encounter, she seduced him. When Raoul discovered the affair, he ordered Theo to stop but could not bring himself to tell Kayla. Antoinette became pregnant and announced she would get an abortion, citing Kayla's inevitable reaction as one reason. Devastated, Theo channeled his anguish into hostility toward his mother. On Labor Day Friday, after Antoinette left for Night Swimmers, he ransacked her cottage in a rage and then hacked apart the walls of the Ting house with a hatchet.

The full scope of deception emerges. Raoul, Val, and Jacob all knew about Theo and Antoinette and kept it from Kayla. At the police station, Val deliberately steers suspicion toward Kayla, giving police Kayla's Ativan and suggesting Kayla drugged Antoinette's champagne. Detective Dean Simpson confronts Kayla with the delayed 911 call, the champagne glasses she threw into the water, and the pregnancy test she removed from a crime scene. When Kayla confronts Val, Val justifies the betrayal by arguing that Kayla, as a housewife, can weather the accusations more easily than an attorney could.

That night, consumed by rage over the betrayals, Kayla sleeps with Jacob on the beach. She regrets it immediately. When Raoul learns the truth, he demands a confession. She admits everything, and he tells her he needs time apart. At the police station, Theo confesses to the vandalism. When the detective mocks Theo's distress, Raoul punches him and is arrested. Pierre Ting fires Raoul from the project.

The family unravels. Kayla departs for six weeks alone in Puerto Rico, swimming at night and confronting her failures as a mother, wife, and friend. Theo moves to Boston to live with Raoul's mother, Sabrina Montero, an eccentric woman who believes in séances. During one, Sabrina tells Theo that both Antoinette and the baby are alive. Weeks later, Theo encounters Lindsey on a Boston street. She is now a student at Emerson College. Initially hostile, she eventually agrees to coffee. When Theo shows her the only known photograph of Antoinette, Lindsey is moved to tears by the resemblance. Before leaving, she kisses Theo lightly on the lips.

Kayla returns to Nantucket in November, and by Thanksgiving the family appears outwardly normal. In December, she finally visits Paul Henry, who reveals that Antoinette is alive and living on Martha's Vineyard, a neighboring island. A missing-persons investigation traced money transfers to an address between the towns of Chilmark and Aquinnah. Kayla realizes Val must have arranged the finances.

The next day, Kayla takes the ferry without telling Raoul and finds a remote house where Antoinette is asleep on a sofa, visibly pregnant. When Antoinette wakes, she asks if Kayla has come to kill her. She reveals the baby is a girl and tells Kayla this pregnancy is her second chance at motherhood, the confession she was trying to make at Night Swimmers before she disappeared. She begs Kayla not to tell Theo, arguing he needs to move forward. Kayla agrees, recognizing the secret as the final Night Swimmers pact, one that binds her to Val and Antoinette even if she never sees them again. She wishes Antoinette Merry Christmas and walks out.

Kayla walks back to the ferry terminal, declining rides from passing cars. She reflects that the ordeal has ended not with a death but with a life: her granddaughter's. Friendship between women is difficult and painful, but when it is good, it possesses a sacred, shining power. Kayla gathers up memories of that power as she steps onto the ferry and heads for home.