No Home Like Nantucket

by Grace Palmer

  She looked up at Gavin’s pointer finger, held in front of her face in a “Wait one sec” sign. Then she looked over to Melissa. It was obvious to Sara that Melissa was heartbroken. She wondered what the woman was going to choose.

  It seemed pretty clear that there were two possible paths leading out of this point in time. Melissa could either elect to believe Sara that Gavin had been the one to kiss her, or she could choose to believe that Sara was a homewrecker and an employee who had brazenly crossed a very clear line.

  Sara was not surprised when Melissa’s eyes slid from Gavin to Sara herself, and the woman’s face hardened. “You should go,” she hissed. “Now.”

  Sara left. She called her mom on the way out.

  10

  Brent

  Brent was dead asleep when his phone started to buzz. His couch had been every bit as comfortable as he’d anticipated, the Red Sox playing a close one against the A’s, and a much-deserved nap welcomed him with open arms.

  But the sleep hadn’t been as comforting as he wanted. That dead shark flopped around everywhere he looked in his dreams. Blood on the deck of the boat, scales flying, saltwater stinging his eyes.

  Waking up with a start, Brent fumbled for his vibrating phone. He knocked it to the floor, then accidentally swept it under the couch. He groaned, got on all fours, and finally retrieved it. “Hello?” he answered wearily as he knuckled the sleep from his eyes.

  “Brent, it’s Roger.”

  “Roger?” That was unusual. Why would Roger be calling him? Brent checked his watch. It was 4:45. His sister Holly and her family were coming to Nantucket for the weekend. Their ferry was due in at 5:05, and then he was due at his parents’ house in forty-five minutes to eat dinner with everybody.

  “Yeah. Listen, buddy, you need to get down here right away.” Roger sounded weirdly panicked. But leaving the warmth of his couch a single moment earlier than he had to was not in Brent’s itinerary.

  “Why? Jenny Lee okay?” He’d left his boat in her trailer at the marina just like he always did. He ran through the mental checklist in his head. He was pretty confident that he’d done everything right to make sure she was secure. That boat had cost him a pretty penny, and Brent was always conscientious about taking good care of his things. As far as he knew, she was in fine shape. A little rain wasn’t gonna change that.

  “Yeah, yeah, boat’s fine, pal. Just come down.”

  “What’s the rush, Rog? I got the ball game on, my couch is good, and if my boat’s fine …”

  “I’d rather not say on the phone, but you should just—”

  “Gotta do better than that, my man.” Brent laughed. “Is Marshall messing with me?” Marshall Cook, Brent’s best friend, was a notorious prankster. He could already picture Marshall laughing his tail off at the thought of Brent hauling his butt down to the marina and getting nothing but soaking wet for his troubles. Brent always joked that Marshall was thirty going on thirteen.

  “No, no, nothing like that.”

  “Then what?”

  “It’s …”

  Brent started to get a bad feeling. Something wasn’t right. Roger had served in the Navy, stationed in the Philippines, and then he’d worked commercial fishing vessels off the Cape for a long time. He wasn’t easily rattled. But something right now had him shook. Brent could hear the fear in his voice.

  “What is it, Roger?” he asked softly.

  Roger sighed and hesitated. The phone crackled. Storm must be messing with the cell towers, Brent thought.

  “It’s your dad.”

  The scene at the marina was chaotic. Darkness overhead. Rain pouring. Red and blue lights flashing everywhere. Two Coast Guard boats and a Sea Tow were docked up front, and a handful of uniformed personnel were running back and forth between them.

  Tied up behind the Sea Tow was Pour Decisions.

  The boat looked horrendous. Sea salt dripped from every crack and crevice. Seaweed hung over the railings and from the seats. The vessel was sitting low in the water, and crooked, like it had had too much to drink and was forced to lean up against the dock for balance.

  “No, no, no,” Brent mumbled numbly. He left the keys in his truck and went sprinting towards the marina door. Halfway there, he saw a Coast Guard member and changed course. The rain was torrential now. Thunder boomed overhead like a massive gong. It was as dark as midnight outside.

  Brent seized the man by the shoulders. “Where is he? Where is he?”

  The Coast Guard looked surprised.

  “Where’s my dad?”

  Recognition struck him like a bolt of lightning. The man stammered. “I, uh … He—”

  “Where’s my dad?!” Brent roared. His hands were like vise grips on the man’s shoulders. The whole world had narrowed down to just this man’s face, and the knowledge that Brent knew lay in his head. This man knew what had happened to Brent’s father, and if he wouldn’t tell him voluntarily, then Brent would shake the truth out of him, no matter how long it took or how violent he had to get.

  “There was an accident,” the man in uniform said finally. “The boat capsized. The passenger was, uh …”

  No. No. No.

  The man’s mouth kept moving, but Brent didn’t hear the rest. He didn’t need to. He’d been on the water long enough to know what all the signs pointed to.

  He was dimly aware of Roger and Marshall running up and pulling him away, guiding him to a bench under the awning of the marina and sitting him down.

  But none of it felt real.

  It didn’t feel real when the ambulance pulled up.

  It didn’t feel real when the Coast Guard servicemen emerged from their craft with the black body bag.

  It didn’t feel real.

  It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be.

  11

  Mae

  Mae had just finished tossing the chilled salad with her favorite raspberry vinaigrette. Louis Coltrane was playing on the stereo, the storm outside basked everything in the soft blanket of pitter-pattering rain, and her daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren would be arriving at the ferry station in just a few minutes. She couldn’t wait to see them.

  The only blight on her mood was the fact that Henry hadn’t come home or called yet. He was mostly pretty good about staying in touch—although, if he got to drinking beers at the bar after bringing the boat in, it wasn’t unheard of for him to be a few hours late. She knew he was just as excited as she was to see Holly and the gang, and he wouldn’t dare be late this time around, or else he’d risk Mae’s spatula-wielding wrath. But she found herself getting irritated anyway.

  She tucked the salad into the bottom shelf of the refrigerator and went over to the pantry. Digging through decades’ worth of accumulated knick-knacks—she had enough Tupperware to store food for an army—she found what she was looking for: a wine bucket. She filled that with ice from the beat-down spare fridge they kept in the garage, then grabbed the bottle of Holly’s favorite white wine she’d picked up from Stop & Shop and set it in there to cool down.

  She’d just finished setting that on the counter when her phone started ringing. She’d left it on the side table in the living room. Wiping her hands on her apron, she strolled in to answer. She was sure it was going to be Henry, but to her surprise, Sara’s name lit up the screen. She wrinkled her brow. This was unusual. Sara always called Henry’s phone. She and her father had been close since the day she was born. Mae had had a harder time forming a close relationship with her youngest daughter. Thankfully, as Sara had aged and mellowed out some, things had gotten much better, but there was no hiding the fact that the first few decades of her life had been tough. She was a feisty baby who grew into a feisty toddler.

  Mae could vividly recall Sara’s screaming fits over bedtimes, timeouts, and various toys. Those things had changed in turn, too, until it was mother versus daughter in knock ’em down, drag ’em out arguments over whether Sara could take the car out for the night, or sleep over at a frie
nd’s house, and on and on like that. It just seemed like Sara zigged whenever Mae zagged. Mae was a patient person by nature, but Sara had a way of pushing her buttons repeatedly. She could hear Henry’s voice even now, urging her to be calm, not to worry. “She’ll grow,” he would say. “And she’ll realize how much you do for her. She’ll see how much you love her. Don’t worry, my little hummingbird. It’ll all be A-okay.” Then he’d tweak her nose and she’d smile despite her tears.

  Yes, Sara was a tough girl, that was for sure. But Mae was beyond proud of the woman she’d become. She had taken a hard route off the island; culinary school was no joke. Nor was scrapping for jobs in the fine dining establishments of the Big Apple. Every time Mae would worry about Sara, though, Henry would tell her to remember how stubborn her daughter was. How darn tough she could be when she had her mind set on something. If Mae closed her eyes, it was easy to picture a young Sara, aged four or five, maybe, arm-wrestling Henry with full dedication to the cause. She had her tongue stuck out between her teeth and her brow furrowed in intense concentration. It was cute then. Now, it made Mae chuckle. She pitied any poor man who decided to underestimate Sara. And every time Sara called home—always Henry’s phone, though, to talk to her daddy first—Mae would hear her daughter’s voice, so fiery and fierce and stubborn as all get-out, and she would remember what Henry said: “It’ll all be A-okay.”

  But for the first time in a long time, when Mae answered the phone, Sara didn’t sound A-okay. She didn’t sound okay at all.

  “Hi, Mom,” she mumbled.

  “Sara, sweetie? What’s wrong? You don’t sound like yourself.”

  “It’s a long story.” The line buzzed and crackled for a moment. Mae could hear her daughter breathing, or maybe sighing was a better word. She sounded like the world was weighing heavily on her.

  Mae picked her words carefully. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  Sara sighed again and said nothing.

  “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, honey,” Mae added. “But you know that you can tell me anything at any time, right?” Her stomach was up in knots. Something was wrong with her little girl, but Mae knew that she would have to wait. She couldn’t pry anything out of Sara before she was ready. Patience was key.

  “I know, Mom,” she said. “I … I just want to come home.”

  Mae nodded, even though Sara couldn’t hear her. “Then you come home, baby. You’ll always have a place to stay here. You know that.”

  “Yeah. I think I’m gonna. Can you tell Dad to pick me up from the first ferry tomorrow?”

  “Of course, Sara. We’ll be there.”

  “Thanks, Mom. I’ll see you tomorrow. And Mom?”

  Mae had been about to hang up, but she stopped. “Yes, sweetie?”

  “I love you.”

  Mae was taken aback. Yes, their relationship had improved by leaps and bounds ever since Sara took off for culinary school at CIA, but their “I love yous” were still far and few in between. She decided to treasure this one, rather than look too deeply into it.

  “I love you too, Sara.” The line went dead.

  Mae set the phone down and paused for a moment. What could possibly have upset her headstrong daughter so much that she was fleeing back to Nantucket? It didn’t sound good, that was for certain. But part of Mae couldn’t help but be pleased, too. With Brent already on the island, Holly and the grandkids coming to visit for the weekend, and Sara making an unexpected trip home, she’d have most of her family back under one roof. It was a happy thought. She considered calling Eliza to see if she’d be able to make a last-minute escape from the city, but then thought better of it. Eliza was devoted to her work, and Mae didn’t want to guilt-trip her daughter into making the trek.

  No, this should be a happy moment. The kids were coming home. Food was ready for dinner. The storm outside seemed to be wearing itself out at long last and the prospect of a warm, sunny, happy weekend loomed on the horizon. Mae smiled.

  If only Henry would call. The lack of communication was starting to irk her now. She’d have to give him a spatula swat when he got home.

  She heard a knock at the door and forced herself to smile. “That must be Henry,” she said to herself. About time, too! He was forever testing her patience, only to surprise her with something sweet. She felt bad about her irritation. Shouldn’t she to give him the benefit of the doubt this evening? Why, just last week, on their anniversary, he’d dressed up in his wedding tux and knocked on the door. When she opened it, he’d sung her a song in a cheesy baritone—“The Way You Look Tonight” by Frank Sinatra; the same one they’d had their first dance to—given her a bouquet of roses, then swept her upstairs to canoodle the afternoon away. He’d said he was “courting her again,” and then he’d kissed her neck in the spot that tickled and they’d laughed and laughed and laughed.

  She fingered the wedding band on her left hand. Forty-one years of wearing it. Forty-one years of being Mrs. Henry Benson. Goodness, the man knew how to make her smile—and also how to tick her off when he wanted to. Now that he was home, she would give him a good needle or two, enough to make him grovel just a tiny little bit—what, did cell phones stop working all of a sudden? Couldn’t remember to call?—and then she’d forgive him and banish him upstairs to handle the few chores that remained until he worked himself back into her good graces.

  So when she went to the front door and pulled it open with a flourish, she wasn’t ready for what stood on the other side.

  Brent stood on the doorstep. He was soaked through to the bone and shivering from head to toe. The rain must be colder than she’d realized.

  “Brent, honey, what on earth are you doing?”

  It was only then that she looked up at his face and saw that his eyes were rimmed with red. His bottom lip was trembling and mixed in with the rain were tears. She hadn’t seen Brent cry since he was seven years old and broke his ankle falling from the tree at Danny Carson’s house. He was her tough boy, her go-getter, her soldier. He didn’t cry.

  “Brent, honey,” she said again, ushering him inside hurriedly. “What happened?”

  He wrung his hands in front of him. His lips moved like he was trying to talk, but no sound came out. He swallowed, wiped his face, and tried again. This time, his voice came out in a hollow croak.

  “Dad’s gone.”

  12

  Holly

  Holly was sick and tired of being tired and sick.

  It had been one thing after another for weeks on end. First, Grady had developed a nauseating habit of sneezing directly into her face whenever the urge struck him. Say what you will about seven-year-old boys and their stereotypes, but it was unquestionably true that Grady seemed determined to make her life as gross as possible. He was a good kid, and she loved him with every fiber of her being, but that didn’t mean she didn’t sometimes want to lock him in a closet for a few hours.

  Alice, her youngest, was an angel sent from the heavens above if ever there was one. But she’d taken to fighting her mother on small things, too. Getting dressed for school had become an ordeal to top all others. No outfit was satisfying to her daughter’s budding fashion sense, but she refused to take the initiative and do things herself. She just turned up her nose and said, “Meh,” to every combo Holly put together.

  Then, a quick succession of homemaker mishaps conspired to take Holly’s stress levels into new and uncharted territory. Unbeknownst to her, a raccoon had gotten stuck and died in the chimney, and it had taken Holly ages to find the source of the ungodly stench. The memories of getting the creature out of there were not anything she was interested in re-exploring anytime soon. Shortly thereafter, the oven decided it’d had enough and joined the afterlife. The part needed to bring it back to this realm was on six-week back order, so she’d been finagling dinners via a combination of creative microwaving and “screw it, we’re ordering pizza.”

  She was already at wit’s end when she got hit by yet another triple whammy. A brok
en window from Grady learning how not to throw a football, a screaming temper tantrum when Alice tried to do her own hair and cut lopsided bangs into her blonde locks, and the return of Holly’s stress-induced eczema. It all came hurtling into her life like bang-bang-bang.

  So she had ended up waking up early to dress Alice, staying up late to scrub the stank of dying raccoon out of her living room furniture, and not sleeping at night because she couldn’t stop scratching at her hands and sniffling because of a runny nose that just would. Not. Quit.

  Sick and tired of being tired and sick, indeed.

  And then there was Pete.

  What could one even say about Pete? The obvious, she supposed. You could say that he was handsome, and you’d be mostly right. He was tall enough, and muscular enough, and kind enough to qualify. He had a nice smile and soft hands and he was a very good kisser, when he worked up the spirit.

  But something just was off lately. He’d been working a lot, and by a lot, Holly meant a lot. She had known he was going into it that corporate law was a tough job if ever there was one. And, as the new guy at the firm, Pete got the crappy end of the stick more often than not. Not that thirty-three was that young, but Pete had gotten a little bit of a late jump on his law career, and he was already an old soul as it was, so to see him lumped in with all the twenty-four and twenty-five-year-olds in the firm’s associate class was a little blow to his and Holly’s egos—not that she’d ever admit that to him.

  She was proud of her husband, of course. It had taken a massive stroke of willpower for him to wrench his life on track. He wasn’t an especially bad student at Nantucket High School, but neither was he a particularly good one. Utterly forgettable, unless you happened to be young Holly Benson, a late bloomer in her sophomore year, walking past big bad senior Pete and his friends playing hacky-sack in the school hallway after lunch, in which case you didn’t forget him at all. As a matter of fact, you fell so hard for him that you literally fell, and he came over to help you pick up your spilled lunch and mop the blood from your busted lip. You were so embarrassed that you wished you could die or disappear or just compress yourself into a tiny little mote of dust and float away on the wind. But Pete—well, Pete never got too embarrassed about anything at all, and he really truly didn’t think any less of you for tripping—everybody trips sometimes, that’s just how life goes, doesn’t it?—so he didn’t think you needed to be blushing quite so much, but he did think it was awfully cute, and he’d seen you around school before, and did you maybe want to go see a movie or something sometime?