No Forever Like Nantucket

by Grace Palmer

  She took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

  Immediately, Oliver jumped up from the couch, Summer in his arms. “Finally. Where were you?”

  “Sorry, I just—”

  “She won’t do her treatments,” Oliver said, not even bothering to hear whatever excuse Eliza was going to come up with. “As soon as I put the mouthpiece on her, she freaked out.”

  Oliver had taken charge of doing Summer’s nebulizer treatments from the get-go. With Eliza, Summer would squirm and try to push the mouthpiece away. But with Oliver, she’d lie still and look up at him, watching as he talked or sang to her.

  Oliver had a theory that it had something to do with the deep timbre in his voice. That the deeper tone was more soothing.

  Eliza’s theory was less forgiving. Summer likes you best. She’d rather be held by you. Rather be cared for by you.

  “Do you want me to try?” Eliza asked.

  Oliver’s shoulders sagged with relief. “Yes, please. I can’t do this anymore. It’s been twenty minutes of fighting.”

  Oliver practically rolled Summer into Eliza’s arms and shoved the breathing device into her hands. “Good luck. I need a minute.”

  He walked through the kitchen and out the back door onto the patio. Before the door shut, Eliza saw him run both hands through his elbows, his elbows wide.

  Since when did he “need a minute” to gather himself? Oliver was the most laidback person Eliza knew. But he was clearly spiraling down with her.

  That was her fault, too. All her fault. Their conversation this morning had upset him, and now whatever magic touch he had with Summer was gone. She’d never finish her treatments. Her lungs would never get better. They’d be in and out of the ER for the rest of her life, paying out the nose for breathing treatments she hated doing.

  Eliza took a deep breath. Her lungs were squeezed tight. Unyielding. But she forced them open, wishing she had a breathing treatment of her own. Then she sat down on the couch with Summer.

  The infant was still crying, but softer now. More of a whine than a real cry. Just the leftover shaking and sniffling of a good wail. “It’s okay,” Eliza crooned, mustering as much comfort into her words as she could. “Just a few minutes of this and then you’re done, okay, baby?”

  She mumbled affirmations and encouragement to Summer as she got the treatment set up. And remarkably, when Eliza pressed the mouthpiece over her daughter’s mouth and nose, she didn’t push it away.

  Summer took one deep breath. And then another. Eliza breathed with her. In and out. Almost as if she could breathe for the infant. Coaching her through the normal bodily task that had been giving Eliza so much trouble recently.

  Summer was doing it. Eliza had solved a problem. She’d made something better.

  As she watched her daughter’s chest rise and fall in slow, easy movements, all Eliza could think about was when things would start going wrong again.

  She’d gotten lucky, but she knew it wouldn’t last. It never did.

  All she could think about was the bottle under her passenger seat. How badly she needed something to quiet the thoughts in her head. Thoughts that were louder than any baby’s cries.

  Out of sight, but not quite so out of mind, it seemed.

  And then something else occurred to her. Summer had a treatment that made her feel better, right? So what was the problem with Eliza finding her own medicine? The prescription Dr. Silver and Dr. Geiger had recommended was supposed to do that—make Eliza feel better?

  But wine o’clock did the job just fine. Eliza had found her own treatment. Something she didn’t need a prescription for.

  That was a good thing, right?

  21

  Mae

  Early Evening—The Sweet Island Inn

  Mae fully intended to call a lawyer. It couldn’t possibly make the situation any worse now, could it? It was just that she got busy. Making breakfast, washing dishes, changing linens, rolling towels. The life of an inn owner was a busy one, and Mae had guests to attend to. The Sweet Island Hotel may not be open yet, but every room in the Inn was booked. Not a single vacancy.

  As she hustled around the house, Mae tried not to think about how much longer she might have these tasks to attend to. She tried not to imagine when the familiar sound of squeaky floorboards upstairs might disappear. Tried not to think about how many more times she’d walk past the coffee bar in the lobby, the smell of freshly ground coffee beans practically ingrained in the wood, and wipe up a bit of spilled creamer.

  Really, it was those thoughts that had kept Mae too busy to pick up the phone and make a call.

  Also, there was this: what if the lawyer couldn’t help? What if this was hopeless? It wouldn’t change the situation, but it would make Mae feel worse. And she felt bad enough as it was.

  Dropping her dusting rag on the front desk, Mae leaned back, hand pressed flat against the smooth wood and tipped her head back. It was a perspective she didn’t admire often enough. The white crown molding. The curve of the staircase as it wrapped up to the second-floor landing. The finish on the railing wearing away from the press of so many different hands as people climbed up to their rooms.

  Even after several years of running the inn, there were things Mae hadn’t done yet. Experiences she hadn’t enjoyed. Moments she hadn’t cherished. There was so much more she wanted to do and it didn’t feel right that she might have to say goodbye because someone was stealing it all away from her.

  Technically, Boston Investment Group weren’t stealing anything. Aside from the name. They’d simply outplayed Mae. But that was capitalism, wasn’t it? A dog-eat-dog world. And it sure felt like Mae had some teeth marks on her.

  She was still standing at the desk, looking around the entryway, when the sound of footsteps on the stairs pulled her from her thoughts. Before she could stand up or make any move to greet whoever was returning to the inn, the door flung open. The knob bounced off the rubber protective pad Mae had affixed to the wall to protect the paint.

  Sara stood in the doorway in a rumpled black skirt and blouse. Her shoulders heaved and her face was red, like she’d been crying.

  “Sara, hon?”

  Mae wanted to rush her daughter, run her hands over her face and check her for injuries. But Sara had always been the most volatile of her children. Where it was easy for Mae to relate to Holly, to support Eliza, or to laugh with Brent, Sara remained a mystery to Mae. A puzzle with missing pieces and no picture on the box for guidance.

  Sara turned and closed the door, pushing it shut with both hands. She hesitated there, her back to her mom, shoulders still heaving. When she turned around a moment later, sure enough—there were tears on her face.

  Mae’s instincts demanded she go to her daughter. “Sara,” she said again softly, crossing the lobby and wrapping Sara in a hug. “What is it, honey? I thought you were in Boston.”

  Sara hadn’t told Mae about the offer on Little Bull. It had been Brent who’d relayed the information. Apparently, he’d heard it from Joey. It was a roundabout game of telephone, but Mae was used to it. Sara would come to Mae in her own time. As she always did.

  “I was,” Sara said, swiping quickly at her eyes. She sniffled and shook her head. Clearly, she didn’t want to be crying but she couldn’t help it. Which made Mae even more nervous. “I just got back. I walked off the private plane ten minutes ago.”

  “A private plane?” Mae lifted her eyebrows.

  Sara rolled her eyes. “A private plane. A private car. Free drinks. They really buttered me up. And I fell for it.”

  Mae frowned. “Fell for what?”

  “His trick.”

  Almost instantly, Sara’s tears dried. One second, her eyes were glassy. The next, they were black. Hard as marbles. She clenched her fists at her side. “Gavin.”

  There were still bits of the Gavin story Mae felt like she was missing. But she knew the big things: Gavin was Sara’s ex-boss, a certified jerk, and he had a vendetta against Sara.

/>   Again, Brent had been the one to tell Mae about how Gavin had shown up to Little Bull on opening night with a food critic in tow. When Mae read the “critic’s” review of Little Bull online the next day, she’d immediately emailed the editor. For a week straight, she emailed that editor about the injustice of the review. About the prejudice behind it. She demanded he issue a retraction. Eventually, Mae’s emails started bouncing back to her. She suspected she’d been blocked.

  So if this Gavin character had anything to do with the acquisition of Little Bull, Mae knew it wasn’t good.

  “Come on,” she said, wrapping an arm around Sara’s shoulders. “Come into the kitchen. Tell me what’s going on.”

  Mae led her youngest daughter across the lobby and down the short hall to the kitchen. Without asking, she made her a cup of chamomile tea and set it down on the island in front of her.

  Sara took a sip of the scalding liquid, wincing at the pain, and then wrapped her hands around the warm mug. “I didn’t ask enough questions. I got so wrapped up in being wanted, in being somebody, that I didn’t ask which somebody was behind the offer for Little Bull.”

  “And it’s Gavin?” Mae asked.

  Sara nodded. “He’s one of the partners. He belongs to this whaddayacallit, this investment group, and per the contract I signed, he’s now going to be in charge of me for at least a year.”

  “Oh, honey.” Mae laid her hand over Sara’s and squeezed. She didn’t know what else to do. “I’m so sorry.”

  Sara took a deep breath and then pulled her hand away, running it through her hair. There was a kink in the back where Mae could see it had been up in a ponytail at some point. Now, it fell around her shoulders. Sara always took her hair down when she was feeling stressed. When Mae pictured every fight they’d ever had, all she could see was Sara’s blonde hair frazzled like a halo around her face.

  She snorted and shook her head. “I even thought, as I signed the documents, how ominous their name sounded. I made a joke in my head that B.I.G. was the kind of acronym that the bad guys in a cheesy alien movie would have. And then I signed it anyway. Fool me once, right?”

  “You can’t blame yourself for that,” Mae said. “People think all kinds of things that—”

  She stopped short. B.I.G.?

  “What was the name of the investment group?” she asked, changing course entirely. “The full name.”

  Sara’s brow furrowed. “Boston something. Boston… Investment Group, I think.”

  Mae’s heart squeezed. Then, like a kink in a hose coming undone, the stifled blood pulsed through her furiously. She stood up and paced away from Sara, too angry to verbalize anything just yet.

  Maybe she couldn’t quite blame Boston Investment Group for what might be happening to her inn, but Mae could blame them for this.

  If they came after her, that was one thing.

  But her family? Her daughter? That was something entirely different.

  Suddenly, Mae had all the time in the world to call a lawyer.

  In fact, there was no time like the present.

  As Sara hit Pete’s contact picture, she shook her head. “I should have called you the second Joey mentioned the hotel down the street. He did the inspection, and I thought it was weird a hotel was opening up right by here, but—”

  “You had a lot going on,” Mae said, trying to ease Sara’s guilt. “And this isn’t about me, anyway. This is about you.”

  “Me and you,” Sara whispered. The phone was ringing now. “It’s about both of us. And if I’d called you, maybe I wouldn’t have signed that contract.”

  Before Mae could say anything else, Pete answered. Mae could hear her grandkids, Grady and Alice, yelling and laughing in the background. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Pete,” Mae said.

  There was a long pause before Pete responded. “I’m sorry, is that Mae? I thought this was Sara.”

  “It is Sara,” Sara said. “Well, it’s both of us. I’m with Mom. We’re calling because we have a favor to ask.”

  “Okay, that makes more sense. I thought two days with my extended family was making me lose my mind.” He chuckled. “Holly told you I’m in Boston, right? I’m not at home.”

  “Yeah, we’re sorry to bother you on vacation,” Mae said.

  “Not a vacation,” Pete clarified, his tone serious. “Believe me. I can’t wait to be back.”

  “Maybe the high school reunion would have been a better choice, after all?” Sara asked, smirking slightly.

  Pete hummed, uncertain. “Holly might not be having the best time either, actually, so I’m not sure. But you didn’t hear that from me.”

  Mae made a mental note to talk with Holly soon. She’d assumed her kids were doing great, so she hadn’t wanted to bring them down with her news about the hotel. But maybe they were overdue for a round table of sorts. A family debrief to catch everyone up.

  “What can I help you with?” Pete asked.

  “Well, I think I’ve kind of stepped in it, and Mom is in a legal gray area,” Sara said. “There’s a hotel opening up down the street that is stealing the name of her inn, and the same company financing the hotel just bought out Little Bull from me.”

  Pete gasped. “You sold the restaurant? When? You never mentioned anything to me.”

  “I know. I should have. It all just… happened sort of fast.”

  “Well, that’s great,” he said, the word tapering to nothing. “Isn’t it? Or no…?”

  Sara groaned and closed her eyes, still having trouble with the reality of her situation. Mae stepped in for her. “Gavin Crawford is behind the acquisition. Sara’s old boss from New York.”

  “The jerk who tried to get you to sleep with him for a good review?”

  Mae bit back a gasp of her own and turned to Sara, eyes wide. Sara’s face flushed, but she bit her lip and answered. “The very same.”

  Pete whistled. “That’s not good.”

  “I know, Pete. That’s why I’m calling,” Sara bit out.

  “Sorry, sorry. I’m processing.” The voices in the background of the call grew more distant. Mae assumed Pete was finding a quieter place to think. “You signed the contract, Sara?”

  “Yes. Just a few hours ago.”

  Sara’s voice was softer than Mae could ever remember hearing it. Her outspoken, opinionated daughter had been made meek. They had to undo this.

  “Dang.” Pete sighed. “I wish you’d called me earlier.”

  Sara dropped her face into her hands, scrubbing her palms over her cheeks. “Me, too.”

  “I’m obviously away from the office, but I can give Billy a call and have him look into things for you. He’ll treat you all as family, just like I would.”

  Mae sat up, buoyed by hope for the first time in two days. “So you think Billy can help?”

  There was an ominously long pause. “He’ll do his best.”

  Mae and Sara looked at each other. Already, Mae could feel the wind in her sails disappearing. The crease between Sara’s brows told Mae her daughter felt the same way.

  “What does that mean?” Sara asked. “I want to know what you think. Just your gut feeling.”

  “It’s hard to say with things like this. Gut feelings aren’t always right. Situations can change. There are so many determining factors and—”

  “Pete,” Sara pleaded. “Please.”

  Pete let out a long breath. Mae had known her son-in-law long enough to be able to imagine the way he was probably running his hand over the back of his neck, his teeth digging into his bottom lip.

  This wasn’t going to be the news they hoped for.

  “My gut feeling is that you signed the contract, Sara. Getting out of it will probably be incredibly expensive or impossible. Especially if Gavin is involved. He clearly isn’t looking out for your best interest.”

  Sara sagged against the island, and Mae pressed a hand to her shoulder blade, trying to steady her.

  She blinked and cleared her throat. “And what about
Mom?”

  “I’m not sure there’s anything that can be done to stop them from using the name. We can look into it, and we will,” Pete asserted. “But whether that will change anything… The chance is slim.”

  The line fell into silence. Mae and Sara didn’t move. Mae didn’t even feel like she was breathing. She’d convinced herself that talking to a lawyer couldn’t make the situation any worse. But those dark clouds hanging over her head? Mae could feel the pressure changing, sense the storm circling closer and closer.

  “I’m still going to give Billy a call right now,” Pete said, trying to infuse hope into his voice. “He will look into this immediately, okay?”

  Sara took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay. Thanks, Pete.”

  “I’m sorry, you two. I hope I’m wrong, for what it’s worth.”

  “Me, too,” Sara said. “No offense, but I hope you’re the dumbest lawyer in the world right now.”

  Pete chuckled and Sara smiled. But there was no joy in it. They were masks covering disappointment and grief and betrayal.

  Mae put on a mask of her own and gave Sara a tight-lipped smile. A single tear slipped down her face—like the first raindrop falling from all those dark clouds above.

  22

  Holly

  Evening – Nantucket High School

  The Nantucket High School gymnasium had been transformed into a swanky cocktail lounge. The floors were still marked up with colored lines for the basketball courts, the goals for which were folded into the ceiling. But gauzy white curtains covered the walls, disguising the stage and the door to the kitchens. Twinkling lights draped from the edges of the room to a single point in the center, where a disco ball hung.

  “It looks like prom in here,” Diana said.

  Holly couldn’t tell if it was meant to be a compliment or not, but she had to agree. Their prom theme had been “Big City Lights,” which had mostly involved cardboard cutouts of building silhouettes and too many string lights to count.