No Home Like Nantucket

by Grace Palmer

  He hadn’t thought there was much solace to be found out here, but the fact of his sleep begged to differ. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes again to take stock of himself and his surroundings.

  Sleep or no, however, any peace he’d found last night was long gone. Now, the only sensation he was aware of was a god-awful hangover. His mouth was bone-dry, his eyes were crusted and throbbing, and his head felt like someone had gone to town on the inside of his skull with a drill bit. Oof, and the nausea! He’d never been one to get seasick, not since he first set foot on a boat. But right now, the rocking was too much to bear. He leaned over the side and hurled his guts up once, twice, three times. When he had nothing left to retch, he leaned back and rinsed his mouth out with the only thing he had available. Unfortunately, that was a warm beer. He almost puked again at the acrid taste, but he managed to hold it back.

  He used the heel of his hand to grind some wakefulness into his eyes, but it didn’t do much good. He just felt terrible, plain and simple. What was he thinking coming out here? He should’ve gone home. At least then he would’ve woken up hungover on his couch instead of eight miles out at sea. He felt like an idiot.

  Pulling himself together, he got the boat in motion and headed back into shore. It took every ounce of willpower to keep his eyes on his destination and his hands on the wheel. Stuff the cat dragged in, death warmed over—he was starting to run out of metaphors to describe how bad he felt each morning.

  His mood was not improved when he got into the marina area and saw some tourist who was bungling the process of putting his own boat in the water. It wasn’t such an uncommon scene. Half the guys who came down here to launch boats had never done it before. High-flying finance types from Connecticut or Jersey or wherever who’d made some money doing Lord knows what and decided to splash it all on a big, expensive toy. Problem was, they didn’t know the first thing about watercraft. More often than not, they made a huge mess of things. It ended up being guys like Brent, who actually knew their way around a boat, who had to pitch in to get things straightened out.

  But Brent didn’t much feel like straightening anything out today. He just wanted to go home and shower, then soak in his own misery for a little while. The salt clung to him like a second skin, and he stunk to high heaven of beer and body odor. He idled for almost fifteen minutes, watching this portly, sunburned man move his truck back and forth, back and forth, with the boat still firmly planted on the trailer. He wasn’t any closer to getting things lined up correctly than he had been when Brent first pulled up.

  “Gonna make up your mind?” Brent called over to the man.

  The guy turned to him. “You talking to me?”

  Brent looked around. “I don’t see anyone else holding everybody up!”

  Brent could see the store tags still on the man’s never-before-worn fishing shirt as he marched around the front of his truck and over to the dock near which Brent had pulled up. “Watch your tone, boy,” he warned.

  Brent didn’t like that at all. “I’m nobody’s boy. And watch my tone? Tell you what—you get out of my way, and you won’t have to worry about my tone at all. Think you can manage that?” He knew he was being rude, but he’d left his cares back at the Garden. Heck, he’d actually left them by Dad’s grave, when he’d snuck over there one night a few days after the funeral. This man needed to move his dang boat and let Brent go back to his miserable little life. Was that so much to ask?

  “You’ve got a smart mouth, son.”

  That did it. Brent liked that even less than the first comment. He threw a quick rope to tether Jenny Lee to the little spit of a dock, then hauled himself up on it and went chest-to-chest with the out-of-towner.

  “I think you’re the one who needs to watch his tone, pal,” Brent snarled.

  He was dimly aware of Roger coming running down the dock steps towards them, but he paid him no mind, because the fat man cursed at Brent and gave him a hard shove. Brent gave back as good as he got, shoving the man to the ground and landing on top of him. They rolled around on the dock, ripping at each other’s shirts, growling, and cursing up a storm. Brent felt Roger’s hands trying to tug him off.

  “Brent! C’mon, man, cut it out! Get off him!”

  Brent had no interest in getting off the guy. In fact, he wanted very much to keep swinging his fists until one of them connected with the man’s wobbly chins. But the presence of a new pair of hands and a new, more authoritative voice was finally enough to wrench him away from the fight.

  “Gosh darn it, Benson!” roared Mike Dunleavy. He was the local sheriff and a longtime friend of Brent’s father. He must’ve been nearby—he liked to stop and chat with Roger over a cup of coffee most mornings—and seen the fight unfolding.

  Together, Officer Mike and Roger got the two men separated. Mike dragged Brent a few yards away and threw him up against a dock piling. Brent was panting, chest heaving. His head was one giant ache, and his throat was rubbed raw from the brawl. He eyed Mike, who was crouched in front of where Brent was sitting.

  “He called me boy, Mike.”

  Mike sighed and took off his sunglasses to rub the bridge of his nose tiredly. “I don’t care what he called you, Brent. You can’t just go swinging on someone like that. Especially not a rich tourist with money to blow. Did you see that guy’s boat? He’s got four 450-hp engines on there that have never so much as tasted saltwater. You think he won’t pay out the nose to get you drawn and quartered on all charges? Like hell he won’t.”

  Brent was still heated, but he had to concede Mike’s point. Mike had always had a way of putting things that got through clear as day to Brent. Even back when he was a little hellion running around Nantucket causing all sorts of minor mischief, Mike had been able to keep Brent mostly in line. And he was as right now as he ever was.

  Brent looked over where Roger was talking to the guy. They were seated on the dock steps, with the man holding an ice pack over his blackening eye and scowling in Brent’s direction.

  “Listen,” Mike said, “Roger and I are gonna talk to him and get everything straightened out. I want you to sit here—don’t move a muscle—and cool your heels while we do that. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Brent mumbled.

  “Didn’t hear you.”

  “I said I got it.”

  “Alrighty, that’s the ticket. Stay put.”

  Half an hour later, Brent was riding shotgun in Sheriff Mike’s patrol car, getting taken home. He hadn’t taken any kind of a serious knock in the fight, but he was sore from the night on the boat and still hungover as all get-out.

  They pulled to a stop at a four-way intersection. Brent could sense Mike looking over at him. “You know, I was real sorry about your pops,” he said.

  Brent sighed. He didn’t have any interest in talking about his dad. But he knew that Mike was just as stubborn as Henry had been, and he was going to say his piece regardless. The least Brent could do was pay him the respect of listening. His dad had raised him well enough to know that that was the right thing to do.

  “Real sorry,” he went on. “He was a good man, and a good friend to me. A good father to you, too. I know it wouldn’t make him happy seeing how you’ve been going lately. Don’t you agree?”

  “S’pose so,” Brent admitted.

  Mike was right, of course, and Brent would be the first person on earth to tell you he was in terrible shape. It just didn’t feel good to hear someone he respected saying those words out loud.

  “I think so too. You’re a good man, just like him. I know you are. Everybody on Nantucket knows you are. Which is why I’m telling you this now, man to man, with all the love I got in my heart for ya: you gotta pull yourself together.”

  Brent looked over. Mike was looking at him, sunglasses pushed up on his head. He had gentle brown eyes, the kind that said, I’ll let you get away with it just this once. Brent felt dangerously close to crying. He wasn’t going to do that, of course—he would never—but still, the urge was t
here. He didn’t trust himself to talk.

  Mike must have sensed that, because he slowly accelerated through the stop sign and kept trundling down the road nice and easy. He kept talking, too. “You and I both know you’ve had some troubles these last few months. I’ve helped you out as much as I can, but there’s a point where you just run out of rope, kid. And once you get there, I’m gonna have to do what I have to do. Do you understand me?”

  Brent nodded. He was no dummy, despite what his recent behavior might indicate.

  “I gotta hear some verbal confirmation from ya, Brent. Let me know you’re listening to me.”

  “I understand,” Brent croaked. His throat was parched.

  “Good,” Mike said, nodding contentedly. “That’s real good.” He cleared his throat. “You’re down this way, correct?” He pointed towards where a fork in the road veered off to the right. Brent followed his finger. That way would take him back to his dark, stale apartment. The only things waiting for him there were beer in the fridge and silence yawning in every room. Suddenly, he felt violently opposed to ever going back there.

  “Think you could take me to the inn instead?” he asked.

  “Sure can. That’ll be this way, then.”

  Yeah, the inn was where he wanted to go. His mom was there. He sure could use a hug.

  23

  Holly

  Holly woke up to an empty house. That alone was enough to freak her out utterly and completely. When was the last time she’d woken up to pure silence? Grady was seven, so at least that many years. But even before then, Pete was a notoriously noisy morning person, forever blending coffee and whistling some radio jingle and emptying the dishwasher in what he thought was a sneaky, ninja-like fashion but actually could probably wake up the neighbors if he really put his mind to it. She’d grown used to it and she loved it in its own bizarre way—another Pete Thing—enough so that waking up and hearing silence so all-consuming that it made her ears ring was unsettling in the extreme.

  Compounding the weirdness of the silence was the guilt that had been steadily consuming her ever since she pulled out of the driveway of their house in Plymouth. All the way from Plymouth to Vermont to drop the kids off at their sleepaway camp, she’d been racked by it. It felt like a physical thing, nestled up in her chest between her love for Pete, her grief for her father’s loss, and her sheer soul-deep exhaustion. She felt guilty for leaving Pete alone, even when she rationalized to herself that now he wouldn’t have to worry about her or the kids, at least for the few weeks of their trial separation. He wouldn’t have to bother taking his shoes off at the door like she always nagged him to do. He’d be able to eat in front of the TV—wasn’t he always talking about how much he missed eating in front of the TV, which Holly refused to allow?—and watch whatever the heck he wanted to watch. Usually a back-to-back-to-back Pete special of Jeopardy!, some boring NBA basketball game, and then whatever late-night black-and-white cowboy flick TMC was showing. He could do all that and more, because, for at least five weeks, he had the house to himself.

  But she knew darn well that it wouldn’t be good. Coming from work to an empty home would be a frying-pan-into-the-fryer situation. Sadness compounding sadness. Pete was—well, mopey was the wrong word, but when he got down, he really burrowed inside of himself. Like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh.

  Groaning, she made herself get up and splash some water on her face. It was surreal to be back in the home where she grew up. 114 Howard Street had changed, but not too much. It still had the same smell that she always associated with it, some combo of flowers and cleaning supplies and, oddly enough, cigar smoke, though as far as she knew, none of her family had ever smoked cigars. It should’ve been comforting, but Holly figured that maybe she just wasn’t ready to be comforted yet.

  Once she’d brushed her teeth, pulled her hair into a bun, and thrown on a blue sundress, she went downstairs and made coffee. Neither of her sisters were awake yet. Holly had arrived at the house last night to a key under the welcome mat and a note on the door from Eliza. It said that she and Sara had gone to the bar with Brent and would be home later. Holly had meant to wait up for them, but she found herself falling asleep on the couch, so she dragged herself up to bed and slept the sleep of the dead. She hadn’t heard Eliza and Sara come home, so she couldn’t even be sure that they were home at all, though it would be strange for either of them to stay out all night.

  She hadn’t told her mother that she was coming home yet. She knew Mae would want to know the reason why, and she wanted to give her that whole story in person. She figured she’d surprise her mom at the inn in a little while. First, she was going to do her best to enjoy the silence.

  With some coffee and a bagel in her system, she was starting to feel a little more alive. All the things she’d spent the last few months telling herself seemed more plausible in the light of day. Pete is going to cut back on his hours at work and rejoin the family. The kids are going to rediscover their respect for me and get back on good behavior. Life is going to be one sunny stroll in the park for the rest of eternity. Believable, semi-believable, and—well, maybe not so much. But fighting the same stresses day in and day out had worn down on her so much. She was surprised that, even without an absent husband to long for and wild children to chase after, she still wasn’t feeling Zen at all. In fact, she was agitated. She tried to blame the coffee—she was never a regular coffee drinker—but she knew that it was a deeper issue.

  “Shake it off, girl,” she mumbled to herself. What she needed was a little adventure. Interact with some people, see some old places, do something to keep her mind off everything she’d left behind in Plymouth. She decided to go for a bike ride downtown and then maybe go sit at the beach and read for a while. She’d had a novel sitting on her nightstand at home for ages that she’d been itching to dive into, and this was the perfect opportunity. Holly put a bathing suit on under her dress, then packed a tote bag with a towel, sunscreen, and her book. With the bag slung over her shoulder, she jammed a sunhat on her head and slipped out of the house before Eliza and Sara woke up.

  The old beach cruisers were in the back shed where they’d always been stowed. Holly plucked hers out of the bunch—it had purple and pink tassels—and tested it out. The tires were a touch on the flat side, but they ought to hold up for the journey. The chains groaned as she put her foot to the pedal, and a shower of rust went poofing up into the air. Slowly but surely, though, the bike got moving and took Holly along with it.

  It was a quiet Saturday morning on Nantucket. The sky was just losing the last of its violet hues, giving way to a clear blue with just a few fat clouds on the horizon, looking like lost sheep. She passed a few folks out on her way downtown and gave them all a friendly wave, but she didn’t stop to talk to anyone.

  Downtown was as cute and intimate as she remembered. She passed the candy store and the pizza spot and the bars. Most of it was closed, since it was still early, but people were just starting to move and groove and get the day going. It was going to be a hot one, that was for sure. The air was already sticky with salty humidity, and Holly felt herself starting to sweat a bit. Maybe she’d take a refreshing dip at the beach to cool off. Pete would hate this, she thought, and then immediately squelched the thought. Pete hated humidity and sweating. He preferred the winter months, which Holly thought was utterly insane. Who liked snow and blistering cold? Pete Goodwin, her crazy husband, that’s who. The word “husband” floating through her head made her shiver. Was he still a husband to her? Of course he was; it wasn’t like they were divorced or anything. Yet. Holly squelched that thought, too.

  She kept going through downtown and came out the other side. There was a hidden beach not too far from here, a little off-the-beaten path that the tourists stuck to. She decided to head for that.

  Fifteen minutes later, she found herself alone on the sand, with the roar of waves filling her ears. She lay on her back for a while, then her side, then her belly, then the other side. It was l
ike she couldn’t get comfortable. She cracked open the book, read a page, lost her spot, started over. Around and around she went in mental circles.

  Just relax.

  I can’t.

  Just try!

  I AM trying!

  And on and on like that, fighting with herself like she was losing her mind. Eventually, she succumbed to what she’d been dying to do since the moment she woke up. She pulled her cell phone out of the tote bag and flipped through her apps to find the one that controlled the security cameras in her Plymouth home. Pete had proudly installed them the year before, though he didn’t have a handy bone in his body. She smiled, remembering how he’d beamed when he insisted she download the app and check out what he’d put together.

  Opening the camera app, she kept her expectations low. Yes, it was a Saturday, but Lord knew Pete had spent plenty of Saturdays at the office since he started working there. It wouldn’t be so strange to look onto an empty house.

  Front yard—empty.

  Back yard—empty.

  Kitchen—empty.

  Dining room—empty …

  Wait. No, it wasn’t. To her surprise, Pete was there. He was seated at the dining room table with the newspaper spread out in front of him and a cup of coffee off to one side. But Holly knew right away that he wasn’t reading it. He had his chin resting on his hands and he was looking off into the distance vacantly. The quality of the footage wasn’t the best, but it was enough to see the sadness in his face.

  Her heart broke a little bit. She loved him; all she wanted was for him to love her and be with her the way she needed him to be. If he couldn’t do that, then she would have to find her own path in this world. The guilt reared its ugly head again. Holly felt a tear sliding down her cheek before she hurriedly closed the app and tossed her phone back in the bag.