by Grace Palmer
“Sara …” Eliza began in a warning tone. She and her sister had touched on the Gavin Issue a few times over the course of the summer, but Sara had been highly reluctant to dive too deeply into it. She just kept saying that it was a mistake, but it was over, and that was that. Eliza wasn’t so sure she agreed, but she respected her sister’s wishes and didn’t press the topic too hard. Still, she could sense that her sister’s heart had taken a beating. She didn’t want her to make the same mistake twice.
“I know, I know,” Sara said. She held up her hands as if to say, Don’t lecture me. “But it’s okay, I promise. Besides, we didn’t do anything. Just got pizza and caught up.”
“And then what?” Eliza always knew when her sister was holding back information.
Sara hid her face in her hands. “And then … he asked to take me out.”
“Like on a date?”
“Exactly like that.”
“And you said …”
“I said yes! What do you want from me? He’s cute and single and a nice guy. Very few qualities in common with Gavin. You’d like him. One date isn’t going to hurt anyway. It’ll be good to have some company. I’ve been living like a cloistered nun for months now. I’m itching to have fun again.”
“If you say so.” Eliza sighed. Like any big sister, she was protective of her younger siblings’ feelings. She remembered Russell from when he and Sara used to date way back when. He had been good to her. She just hoped he hadn’t left that aspect of himself in his past.
“Anyway,” Sara said, changing subjects as the coffee machine beeped to let her know the brew was finished. “Have you talked to Holly?”
“No,” replied Eliza. “I figured we’d just see her in the morning, but it looks like she left already. I’ll text her.” Eliza grabbed her cell phone from where she’d left it charging on the counter the night before and texted Holly to see where she was. The reply back was instant.
Went for a bike ride. At the cove by downtown. Bfast?
“Wanna get breakfast with Holly?” Eliza asked Sara.
“Sounds good to me. I’d do horrible things for some eggs Benny and a Bloody Mary right now. Let me change.”
Eliza and Sara changed into jean shorts and T-shirts and rode their bicycles downtown. It was already scorching hot, but the sea breeze made the ride pleasant. They decided to go to the Boarding House, a casual spot a few blocks in off the water with a nice weekend brunch selection. Holly texted to say she’d meet them there. As they were parking their bikes in the rack outside, Eliza heard someone calling her name.
“Eliza! Eliza Benson!” She turned to see a familiar figure crossing the street towards her with open arms.
Eliza beamed and grabbed her old friend in a tight hug. “Maggie Manning! Oh my God, I haven’t seen you in forever!”
Maggie was a little on the shorter side, with brown curly hair and a dazzlingly white smile. She ran her hand through Eliza’s hair. “Ugh, I missed you. You were always my prettiest friend. You look ah-mazing! It’s so good to see you. What’re you doing back in Nantucket?”
Eliza smiled and gave the concise, rehearsed answer she’d been using whenever anybody asked her that question. “My dad passed away, so I took some time off work to come back and help my mom out.” She saved the rest of her story for another time.
The corners of Maggie’s eyes turned down in sadness. “That’s right, I heard about that. I am so sorry, Eliza. My condolences to you and your family.”
“Thanks, Mags,” she said, hugging her old friend again. She and Maggie had been teammates and best friends throughout high school. College had taken them on separate routes, after which they’d fallen off into the occasional Christmas or New Year’s Eve text exchange back and forth. It seemed like Maggie was back on the island now, though. And … what was that?
“Are you engaged?” Eliza asked, her eyes wide.
Maggie grinned and wiggled the fingers of her left hand next to her face. “Just last month. I’m still getting used to the ring.”
“It’s beautiful,” Sara chimed in. Eliza could swear she heard the faintest note of jealousy in her sister’s voice.
“Thanks so much.”
“Is it the same guy from before?”
“Yes,” Maggie confirmed. “Gary. He’s, like, perfect for me. He cooks, he sings, he’s tall. My dream come true. We’re so happy.”
“I can’t believe it! I’m thrilled for you guys.”
Maggie batted her eyelashes playfully. “Thanks, girl. What about you? Is that a little baby belly I see? Oh my goodness!”
It was Eliza’s turn to demur. She decided to nip the question in the bud. “Yes, but the father and I aren’t together anymore. It’s for the best.”
Maggie straightened up and nodded solemnly. “I understand.” Suddenly, her face lit up with something. “That gives me the best idea, though! What are you doing tonight?”
“Uhh … no plans, I don’t think. Why do you ask?” Eliza asked.
“Perfect! Then you have to come out with me. Gary’s old friend is in town, and we were gonna take him out for drinks. It’ll be so much better if we make it a little blind double date thing, don’t you think?”
“Yes!” Sara chirped. “That sounds perfect for you, doesn’t it, Lizzy?”
Eliza groaned. The last thing in the world she wanted was to get dragged along on a blind date. But Maggie and Sara kept bugging and bugging her until she finally caved. She and Maggie traded cell-phone numbers and set a time to meet at a bar whose name Eliza didn’t recognize.
“I’m so excited!” Maggie squealed before leaving after another hug. “See you tonight!”
Holly rode up right on her bicycle just as Maggie disappeared around the corner. The sisters hugged. Holly looked sad, but Eliza figured they would have time to talk about that subject later, back at the house. Right now, she was starving.
“Guess who’s got a hot date tonight?” Sara teased once the three women had all been seated at a corner booth.
Holly looked at Eliza in bewilderment. “Surely not the Benson golden child?”
“Guilty,” Eliza blushed. “But it’s not really a date. Just hanging out with an old friend and her fiancé’s friend for some drinks.”
“Sounds like a date to me,” Sara mumbled mischievously.
“I’m not the only one out on the town though, am I?” Eliza shot back.
“Maybe Russell and I will see you out then.” She winked.
Holly looked back and forth in confusion. “All right, I’m gonna need both of you to explain what’s going on, ASAP.”
Sara laughed and filled her in on everything. The Benson sisters talked and caught up on their respective lives over Bloody Marys—just orange juice for Eliza—and eggs Benedict. When they’d all eaten their fill, Holly headed for the inn to surprise Mom. Sara tagged along. Eliza wanted to go back to the house and take a nap—she was feeling really worn out by the heat, and her sisters encouraged her to be careful, given her condition. After one last hug, they all pedaled off.
There was someone waiting on the front step at 114 Howard Street when Eliza pulled into the lane on her bike. It was a mail courier in uniform. He was holding a bulky package.
“Are you Eliza Benson?” he called over his shoulder as she walked her bike the rest of the way in and leaned it against a post.
“Yeah, I am,” she said, frowning. “Is that for me?”
“Yup.” He set the package down. “Sign here please.”
Eliza took the pen the man offered and scribbled her signature on his outstretched clipboard. “What is it?”
“No clue. Heavy as heck, though.”
Eliza’s frown deepened. Who in the world was sending her a heavy package? She racked her brain as she unlocked the front door for the messenger and he hefted the package onto the side table in the front room. “Thanks,” she muttered as he left. She peered at the thing. It was huge and lumpy. She set her tote bag down and ripped the wrapping off.
&nb
sp; Underneath was the most massive, extravagant fruit and flower display that Eliza had ever seen in her life. Even after years of working in finance, where the general theme was trying to outdo the person next to you by any means necessary, this floored her.
Sticking out from a gold-leaf-painted stake in the top of the display was a card. She plucked it off and opened it.
Eliza, it read. I miss you. Come home. We can make this work. – Clay.
She let the card flutter to the floor. Her mouth hung open in shock.
But she didn’t have much time to even begin processing everything, because at that moment, her phone rang. She knew with a growing sense of dread who was calling her.
“Hello?” she said numbly as she accepted the call and held it to her ear.
Clay didn’t say anything for a moment. He was breathing on the other end heavily, bordering on creepy. “Eliza?” he said finally. “Eliza, babe, are you there?”
It was her turn to stay quiet for a moment. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to say first. Why now? Why this? Why do anything? Eventually, she settled on, “What do you want from me, Clay?”
He sounded surprised by her question. “I want you to come home, babe. Back where you belong.”
She winced when he called her “babe.” He had never, ever called her pet names before. Not babe, not honey, not darling. Just Eliza. Frankly, the cutesy stuff sounded plodding and weird coming out in his voice. She would’ve preferred his business tone to this smarmy BS.
“I am home,” she replied curtly. “I’m not coming back to New York yet.”
“Did you get the gift I sent?” he asked, ignoring what she’d said.
“You know that I did. Why else would you be calling now?”
“You’re right,” he chuckled. “Well?”
“Well what, Clay?”
“Do you like it?”
“Do I like it? What kind of question is that?” She was honestly taken aback. Was this supposed to make amends? Was this supposed to make up for what he’d done to her, to them, to the life she was supposed to have?
“It was crazy expensive, you know. I didn’t even realize fruit baskets could cost that much. Pretty funny.”
Eliza rolled her eyes and looked at the display. There was no denying that it had certainly cost her ex-fiancé a pretty penny. The whole thing was done up in gold leaf and white roses. The basket looked like it had silver filigree woven into the handle, and the chocolates studded amongst the ripe, sweet fruit were also dipped in gold. It was absurdly over the top. The old Eliza might have found the gesture touching, in a cold sort of way.
New Eliza found it disgusting.
“So this is a money thing.”
“A what?”
She got angrier as she went on. “You can’t buy me back, Clay. Jesus, what is wrong with you? Do you think you can just send me an expensive gift and I’ll come swooning back into your arms? You lied to me. You were using drugs for God knows how long, and—”
“No, no, no,” he said, cutting her off. “I wasn’t, baby, I was just—”
“Do not interrupt me.” She was all cold fury now. This was Finance Eliza. The ice queen who knew how to fight for herself in the cutthroat halls of Goldman Sachs and the streets of Manhattan. This was the Eliza who hit a leadoff double in the bottom of the ninth to ice a conference championship her freshman year of college. This was no-BS Eliza. And she was not about to kowtow to a drug-addicted narcissist like Clay Reeves. “This doesn’t work for me anymore, Clay. It wasn’t working for a long time. And it’s not going to work again. So let me tell you what I’m going to do: I’m going to donate this basket to someone who needs it. I’m going to throw your card in the trash. And I’m going to delete your number. After I do all that, I want you to never call me again. Am I clear?”
There was a long, tense silence.
Then Clay hung up without saying another word.
26
Brent
Brent hated the look of shock on his mom’s face. It was only there for a second before she tucked it away behind a gentle smile—classic Mom—but he caught it, even if he wasn’t sure that Mike did. It broke his heart. He’d disappointed her plenty of times in the last four months. He’d managed to hide some of his more egregious screwups from her, but she was his mom at the end of the day. She knew when her son was hurting. And she’d had loads of evidence if she wanted to look for it. The bruises on his face were pretty dang hard to hide if she chose to swing by his apartment or forcibly drag him to dinner at the inn.
“Morning, ma’am,” Sheriff Mike said to her with a tip of the hat. “Brent asked me to drop him off here. Thought he could use a little motherly love this morning, I imagine.”
“Is everything all right?” Mom asked with a tilt of her head.
“I’ll leave that to Brent, if that’s okay,” Mike demurred. “Time for me to get going now. Hope you both have a wonderful day.” Mike turned to Brent. “Take care of yourself, kiddo.”
Brent nodded and swallowed. He was still hungover, and now he had a raw throat and a knot of sadness in his chest to go on top of that. He didn’t like seeing Mom sad, and she’d spent a lot of the summer being sad, even if she refused to admit it. She thought she was sneaky, keeping all her cards clutched close to the chest. But he knew his mother as well as she knew him. And she was hurting just like he was.
He watched Sheriff Mike amble back down the sidewalk, climb in his patrol car, and cruise away. Only then did Brent look back at his mother. He expected a lecture. It wouldn’t be amiss. Knocking on her door early on a Saturday with a cop in tow? It was a bad look, even for him. Heck, part of him even wanted her to lecture him. Yell at me. Tell me I’m a mess. Tell me to clean my act up or else I’m getting the boot. Since when was he, Brent Benson, such a beaten dog in mind and spirit? He was a proud kid growing up, a fearless daddy’s boy. Now, all the fight had left him, and here he was, moping on his mother’s doorstep, silently begging for her to put him down like he thought he deserved.
“Look at me, Brent Benson,” Mae ordered softly. He could barely bring himself to make eye contact with her. When he did, he didn’t see anger or disappointment in her eyes. He saw the same eyes he’d always seen: brimming with a mother’s love. “Are you okay?”
He wasn’t quite sure where to even start answering that. “I don’t know,” he said honestly after a moment’s thought. “Probably not.”
“Oh, honey,” she murmured. She reached out to touch his face and then thought better of it. His bruises must look real bad if she was that hesitant.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” he whispered.
She tutted. “None of that now. You look starved. Come get some breakfast.” She shepherded him inside with a gentle hand on his back. He winced when she touched him. He wondered if she would notice that.
Inside the inn, she led him to the kitchen table. “Sit,” she said, pointing to a chair. He sat. He still had his head hung low and his eyes rooted on the floor. The hangover was still present, but he ignored it like a check engine light on the dashboard.
Mae had moved into the kitchen and was bustling back and forth, getting who-knows-what going. She came back over a minute later with a tall, cloudy glass. “The patented Mae Benson hangover cure begins with a tall glass of room-temperature water, mixed with Himalayan pink salt, and a fresh-squeezed lemon. Drink.”
Brent took the glass from her and drank. It was acrid going down his throat, but when it got to his belly, it seemed to take a tiny bit of the edge off the nausea.
She returned again from the kitchen a moment later with a steaming mug. “Cup of coffee, as hot as you can stand.” He was about to ask for milk and sugar, but she shook her head and waved an index finger back and forth. “Black. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Oh, and take these.” She fished out a couple aspirin from her apron pocket and put them in Brent’s palm. Her fingers lingered for a moment on his wrist, almost like she was taking his pulse. It was the first human contact that wasn’t a pun
ch to the face he’d had in Lord knows how long. It sent a shiver racing through his soul.
He swallowed the aspirin and darn near burned his tongue on the hot coffee. He’d always liked to let his coffee cool down to something approaching room temp. His sisters thought that was gross as all get-out, but he just figured that he only had one tongue and there wasn’t much use burning the taste buds right off it.
A few minutes later, Mae was setting down a plate of six eggs fried over-hard and a mountainous stack of bacon. “Eat it all,” she told him. “Dry, no ketchup. Sorry, hon. I know you hate that.” Hate that he did indeed, but he was in no position to argue, so he just did as he was told. She sat across the table and watched him as he ate.
By the time he’d finished choking down the eggs and bacon, he was definitely starting to come around. But the guilt and the shame he’d felt when he first woke up at the Garden didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Mom didn’t say much, though he felt her eyes on him, never wavering, never leaving. She’d never had much of a temper, but surely this was a justified occasion to get at least a little bit angry? He hadn’t even told her what had happened yet, though he was sure she could guess just fine. Bruised fingerprints around his throat, a lingering black eye, and the stench of booze radiating off him in waves pretty much told the whole story clear and simple. He just kept his gaze trained on his plate and waited for the yelling to begin.
“You know …” Mom said quietly. Brent flinched in his seat but didn’t look up. “I used to make this concoction for your father when he’d had a few too many. Here, this is next.” She slid a half a grapefruit and a spoon over to him on a small side plate. It wasn’t his favorite by any stretch of the imagination, but he dutifully picked up the utensil and started to pry a section of the fruit loose. “Your dad would wake up moaning and groaning like he’d just lost a prize fight. Lord, he was a whiner when he was sick.” She chuckled under her breath. “But I’ll tell you what—it worked, one hundred percent of the time. You’re my witch doctor, he’d tell me with a grin, sitting at the kitchen table just like you are now. And I’d always laugh and then banish him outside to clean the gutters or something as punishment. He’d moan and groan about that, too.”