by Nancy Thayer
Pat said calmly, “I’ve got most of it picked up. I need to run the vacuum quickly. Porter, perhaps you could help bring in some of the champagne and set it in the ice buckets?”
“Good idea,” said Porter and went back to the kitchen.
Jilly and Porter worked efficiently, setting the champagne in the two silver ice buckets on the dining room table. Jilly set out champagne flutes and returned to the kitchen to make pink lemonade in a pretty pitcher for the children and for anyone who didn’t drink alcohol. Pat made a quick pass over the living room rug with the vacuum and was returning it to the kitchen closet when the first guest knocked on the front door.
Jilly took a deep breath. She always enjoyed this special moment before a party began, when everything was in place, shining and complete. This occasion was different, she realized. This occasion marked a passage in her life. Her second daughter was now married. Jilly had made a good—and she had an intuition, a long-lasting—friend in Pat. She, Jilly, who had always been the one to help, organize, and criticize her daughters, had somehow become a woman who needed help with organizing and who had to face up to the criticism of one daughter, if not both, simply because she had acquired a cat.
She liked the cat. George liked the cat. A great rush of affection swept through her for her husband because he had championed Rex, and she realized that maybe this was a watershed moment for George, too. Not because of his daughter’s wedding, but because he had done something challenging enough to cause him to wipe out.
“Mom,” said Lauren, approaching her and giving her a little shake. “Why are you just standing here? People are coming in.”
“I need to put the cake in the center of the table,” Jilly murmured, reentering the present.
“Porter and I will do that for you. You go greet your guests.”
“All right, dear.” Jilly was happy to take orders as well as give them. Always before, when she gave a party, she was so busy refilling people’s glasses or bringing out more hors d’oeuvres that she really didn’t have a chance to enjoy herself. Today she decided to let Lauren and Porter take responsibility. Why not? They were both capable, not to mention bossy.
She walked forward to meet Nicole and Sebastian, Madeleine and Lloyd, Steven and David, Diane, Susan, and Laura and their husbands, and Father Sloan, with a smile.
EPILOGUE
Two days after Christmas, Jilly made her last airport run, driving Pat to her plane to Boston and on to Miami. George, his wrist and ankle much recovered, came along using his cane, to see Archie’s mother off. They checked her luggage, got a boarding pass, and waited in line with Pat for her flight to be called. Outside clouds gathered, sprinkling new snowflakes down.
“You promise you’ll look for a spot on your calendar when you can come visit me this winter?” Pat asked. “I have a guest bedroom. My condo’s on the edge of a golf course.”
“I think sometime in February or March would be heavenly,” Jilly told her.
“Maybe you and I can race golf carts,” George told Pat with a grin.
“Don’t even joke,” Jilly told him.
The flight was announced. Jilly hugged Pat, surprised and pleased that they both had tears in their eyes. “We’ll email often,” she promised.
Pat nodded, hugged George, walked through the gentle snow to the plane, and then she was gone.
“The house is going to seem so empty,” Jilly told George as they drove home.
The newlyweds had left after Christmas dinner on the twenty-sixth, promising to send iPhone pictures. Lauren and her tribe had left that morning, leaving behind several large boxes of gifts for the Gordons to send to their house in Boston. The Gordons were invited to a New Year’s Eve dinner party and to a New Year’s Day brunch, but until then, nothing social was on their calendar.
“Yes, it will be empty,” George agreed, adding, “and thank heavens, it will be quiet.”
Jilly pulled the car into the garage and helped George out. “I do have a few new books I’ve been longing to curl up with,” she said.
“Yeah, me, too. I’ve got the new Jonathan Kellerman. I’m going to make a fire, pour myself a drink, and read.”
“I’ll read, too. Although I suppose I should think about dinner …”
“Don’t worry about dinner. We have leftovers. A dressing sandwich and a piece of pumpkin pie with ice cream is what I plan.”
“Hardly healthy,” Jilly remarked as they hung up their coats.
“Hey,” George said. “Every now and then we deserve to go wild.”
“You know, George, that’s an excellent idea.”
The house was still. The rooms seemed enormous. Jilly hadn’t dusted for days and bits of ribbon and wrapping paper littered the rooms. But there was always tomorrow. Today she was going to do exactly what she wanted.
She made herself a hot drink and set it on the end table between a sofa and the fire George was building. She kicked off her shoes, lay down on the sofa, and pulled up a Christmas quilt she’d bought at the craft fair. She put on her glasses and picked up her book.
Across from her, George settled into his favorite chair and began to read.
Small rustling noises came down the hall, stopped, and continued. A moment later, Rex jumped up on Jilly’s lap, turned around three times, and curled up in a ball. He wrapped his tail around his nose and purred. His light body was warm against hers.
Outside the window, snowflakes drifted dreamily down. Jilly opened her book and picked up her drink, a fat mug of hot cocoa topped with whipped cream and a confetti-like sprinkling of crushed candy canes.
To Deborah and Mark Beale
With love & more memories to come
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
You know I had to write about a cat after writing about a dog in last year’s A Nantucket Christmas. Just recently, I met an equestrian on the ferry who said, “Okay, what about horses?” Hmmm …
So thank you to my readers and friends for their responses and suggestions. And great thanks to my brilliant editor, Linda Marrow, and the wonderful Gina Centrello, Libby McGuire, and Dana Isaacson. Thanks to Anne Speyer, Kim Hovey, Mark LaFlaur, Penelope Haynes, Alison Masciovecchio, Katie McNally, and Quinne Rogers.
Continued gratitude to the Jane Rotrosen Agency, especially my agent, Meg Ruley, and to Christina Hogrebe.
Special thanks to Andrew McKenna-Foster and Peter Boyce for information on how ice forms in the harbor.
Finally, thanks to Blackie and Fluffy, Agadore and Aarka, Dolly and Lily, Molly, Mia, Rosebud, and Regina. Most of all, thanks to Rex and his best friend—and my best friend—Charley.
BY NANCY THAYER
An Island Christmas
Nantucket Sisters
A Nantucket Christmas
Island Girls
Summer Breeze
Heat Wave
Beachcombers
Summer House
Moon Shell Beach
The Hot Flash Club Chills Out
Hot Flash Holidays
The Hot Flash Club Strikes Again
The Hot Flash Club
Custody
Between Husbands and Friends
An Act of Love
Family Secrets
Belonging
Everlasting
My Dearest Friend
Spirit Lost
Morning
Nell
Bodies and Souls
Three Women at the Water’s Edge
Stepping
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nancy Thayer is the New York Times bestselling author of Nantucket Sisters, A Nantucket Christmas, Island Girls, Summer Breeze, Heatwave, Beachcombers, Summer House, Moon Shell Beach, and The Hot Flash Club. She lives in Nantucket.
nancythayer.com
Facebook.com/NancyThayerAuthor
on Archive.