by Grace Palmer
“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.”
Brent couldn’t help but laugh. Just the tiniest, feeblest laugh, but it was more than he’d managed in months. He still hadn’t really said much of anything since Mike dropped him off on the inn’s doorstep.
“He would hate to see you like this, you know,” she said.
Mike had told him the same thing. Both were right. Brent could tell she was shifting gears a little bit. The air in the room got a little denser, a little tighter, a little more sorrowful. Or maybe that was just the constriction in his throat at the thought of his dad seeing him looking like such a pitiful wreck.
“I know,” he choked out.
“He’d hate it a lot. You were his boy, his youngest. He loved you more than life itself. Would’ve given you the world, if he could. Tried to, actually, if I remember correctly.”
Brent laughed again at that, just a little bit more. “I know,” he mumbled again through a mouthful of grapefruit.
Mom reached across the table and grabbed Brent’s hands. “I need you to look at me when I tell you this, baby. Can I ask you that much?”
It felt like the hardest thing in the world to lift his head up and look at his mother. It felt like he was dragging his skull through quicksand or gravity had tripled when he wasn’t paying attention. But he made the effort, until his eyes met his mother’s. She was smiling sadly at him. Her eyes were full of concern and love.
“What I want to say is this: your dad loved you. And what happened to him was not your fault. He was stubborn as a mule and there wasn’t a thing in the world you could’ve done to stop him. So it’s not your fault. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you, Mom.” Tears were running down his face. He forced himself to keep looking into his mother’s face, even when he wanted so badly to tear his gaze away and go bury himself in darkness and booze until his chest stopped aching so much.
“So I need you to pick your head up for me. And for him. And for yourself.”
“I know, Mom.” He sounded like a broken record, but he couldn’t say much more because the tears kept coming and coming and coming. It was like the rain on the night of the accident all over again, when it just would not stop pouring down. Brent felt as dark as those clouds had been.
Mae squeezed his hand with all her might as Brent gave into the tears. When he stopped fighting, the dam broke open and he started sobbing audibly. He put his forehead down on the table and wept. Big, choking sobs tore through him. He’d only cried once, in the hospital waiting room, since his dad had passed. Nothing since then. This was four months of tragedy coming out all at once. It hurt on its way out, but in the wake of the tears—when they finally began to slow some indefinite amount of time later—he felt lighter. Clearer. Mom kept stroking the back of his head until they eventually ceased altogether.
He looked up at her. “I’m sorry, Mom. For everything. I’m sorry I missed the funeral. I’m sorry I’ve been such a mess.”
She shook her head and cut him off. “That’s the one thing I’m not going to abide by, Brent. No apologizing. No moping. We’re a forward-looking family. Always have been, always will be.”
He nodded slowly. The tears were drying on his face, though an errant sob still rippled through him every minute or so. “Okay. I can do that.”
“Good. Now, down to business.”
Brent tilted his head. “Business?”
“Business,” she affirmed. “I’ve spoken with Aunt Toni, and we’re hiring you to do a renovation on the detached guesthouse in the backyard. You’ll be responsible for demo’ing what’s already there, and revamping everything to bring the quarters up to spec for future guests to stay in. I’ll have Eliza set you up with a budget for the project, but you’ll be responsible for procuring the parts and doing all the labor yourself.”
“You want me to work for you?” he asked idiotically.
Mae smiled. “I do. But we’re gonna have some ground rules. Ready?”
Brent hesitated, then nodded. “Uh, okay. Ground rules. Got it.”
“No drinking. No fighting. No trouble. You start work at nine in the morning and you end work no earlier than five in the evening. And you go clean out that foul apartment of yours—today.”
No drinking. No fighting. Those two things had been the bulk of Brent’s days for a lot of days. The thought of the vacuum that would be left behind in their absence filled him with fear. There were a lot of hours in the day to think about what had happened and what he had become. Without alcohol to quiet those thoughts … well, who knew what would happen?
But maybe it was time to stop running from his demons. He’d spent a whole summer doing it. The real question wasn’t what would happen if he stopped. It was, what would happen if he kept it up? He’d be dead in a ditch somewhere before Christmas. That was no way to go. That was no way to honor his father’s legacy.
He had to give this a shot.
“Do we have a deal?” Mae asked.
He stood up. “Yes, Mrs. Benson,” he said with a sheepish grin. “We have a deal.” He stood up and stuck out his hand for her to shake. She laughed and shook it, then walked around the table to pull him into a hug.
“I love you, son,” she whispered into his ear. He felt the tears on her cheek brush off on his neck.
“I love you too. And Mom?” He pulled away from the hug but held her at arm’s distance. “Thank you.”
27
Holly
After breakfast downtown with her sisters, Holly and Sara had gone to the Sweet Island Inn so Holly could surprise their mother. Mae had been happy to see Holly and embraced her warmly, but she’d also been super busy dealing with the kinds of problems that only someone responsible for a house full of needy strangers can have. So, after a couple minutes of chitchat, the women had decided to come back later, after Mae’s day had calmed down somewhat.
Back home, Eliza had gone down to take a long nap, saying the heat was getting to her once again. But Holly hadn’t been able to sit still. She’d tried reading again—first in her favorite rocking chair, then in the hammock on the back porch, then on the couch—but everywhere was equally uncomfortable. Truthfully, it was her mind that wasn’t letting her relax. Every time she started settling into a position, she would think about Pete, sitting sadly at the kitchen table with the newspaper in front of him, and her eyes would start to water.
She missed him, but this was for the best. Maybe they just needed this time apart in order to remember what they loved about each other. At the end of the day, love wasn’t the issue. She loved Pete and he loved her. That hadn’t changed since they had first started dating. But she couldn’t be in love with an absent husband. She needed him with her. If he couldn’t give her that, then it didn’t bode well for their future together. He had to see where she was coming from on this, right?
Those were the kinds of thoughts that prevented her from unwinding. Finally, fed up with the silence and the stillness she was desperately trying to wrangle for herself, she gave up and set the book down. “I’ll just be busy for a bit. Burn off some of this mental energy, and then I’ll be able to spend the rest of the afternoon actually kicking back,” she said out loud. She hoped that, by voicing her thoughts to—well, to
nobody—that it would manifest them into reality. She’d always liked the idea of manifesting things into reality, even if she didn’t truly believe in that woo-woo nonsense deep down. Maybe she just wasn’t trying hard enough.
So, to take her mind off Pete and Plymouth, she started cleaning the house. Part of her was screaming to turn her Mom Mode off, but once she got going, she simply could not stop. She mopped all the hardwood, going so far as to yank the couches away from the places they’d spent decades resting and get under there, too. She scrubbed the crown molding. She dusted light fixtures and baseboards. She repotted three plants that had outgrown their homes. She even vacuumed the lampshades, which was getting a little bit ridiculous—even she realized that—but she was on a tear and couldn’t hold herself back if she tried. A few hours went by in a flash. Holly felt like she’d just gotten going, but try as she might, she simply couldn’t find anything else that really needed doing.
“I’ll just go for a walk then,” she said out loud, again to nobody. “A nice, brisk walk. It’s a beautiful day. I should be outdoors anyhow.” Then, realizing that she sounded like an insane person babbling to herself, she tucked her cell phone into her pocket, grabbed a hat from the hook by the door, and left the house.
She went down the street and swung towards downtown. Then, thinking better of it, she doubled back and went towards the beach on the south side of the island. When she got there, she slipped off her sandals and let her toes sink into the damp sand. She let out a long, exaggerated sigh. Maybe she could fool herself into relaxing. She closed her eyes and focused on the sensation of the sand suckling ticklishly at her feet. “Ah, there we go …” she murmured. “That feels—”
Her phone started ringing.
“Oh, for crying out loud!” she bemoaned. She plucked it out of her pocket and froze when she saw the caller ID.
Pete.
She thought about not answering. She’d barely been gone for twenty-four hours, and he was already calling her. What happened to a trial separation? To “some time apart to figure things out”?
But then again, this man was her husband. Her first and only love. The father of her children. Maybe he had something he needed to tell her, maybe something had happened, or maybe he was just struggling. She couldn’t just ignore him. That wasn’t right at all.
So she answered, though hesitantly. “Hi,” she said in a near-whisper.
“Hey.” His voice sounded strained. Nothing like her normal, jovial Pete, the one she fell in love with way back in the hallway at Nantucket High. “What are you doing?”
“At the beach,” she told him.
“Oh. Must be nice.”
“I wish it was.”
She could practically hear his brow wrinkling through the phone. “What does that mean?”
“I just can’t relax. That’s all. Thinking about—uh, the kids.”
“Yeah. I’m sure they’re having fun. The camp posted pictures online. They look happy. Grady is a mess. Rubbed a popsicle over every inch of his face, if the photo is anything to go by.” Pete chuckled, but Holly didn’t. She couldn’t. She just felt sad.
“Are you at work?” she asked.
“No,” he replied. “I went in a little bit ago, but I just couldn’t get anything done. Couldn’t focus. I … I miss you, Hol.”
“I know. I miss you, too. But we need this. I can’t come home yet. You have to figure out if you can have this job and a family at the same time.”
“I know,” was his murmured reply. He sounded so pained. She thought about his face on the security cameras again. “I’ll let you go then. You should relax. Enjoy the beach for me, okay?” Holly had to bite her lip to stop from smiling. Pete hated the beach; they both knew that. He was a winter guy, a mountain guy. She was the beachy one out of the two of them.
“I will.” She hesitated then, not sure what else to say.
“I love you, okay, Hol? I love you a lot.”
She didn’t know how she should reply to that. She just decided to say the truth. “I love you, too, Pete. Get some rest if you can.” Then she hung up.
That evening, Holly and Eliza walked over to the Sweet Island Inn. Sara was out on her date with Russell, so it would be just the two of them and Mae spending some time together. Holly had a bottle of her favorite chardonnay in hand. Mae welcomed them in and they went to the back porch to relax in some rocking chairs that were situated out there. The view of the sunset was nice, and the wine helped put a damper on Holly’s racing anxiety. She wished Eliza could have some. It seemed like she needed it; she looked exhausted even after her nap. But when Holly asked, she just said she was tired and wouldn’t offer up anything more. Holly knew something else was bothering her big sister, but Eliza didn’t like to be pushed, so Holly left it alone. If she wanted to talk, she’d open up on her own time.
For her part, Mae looked weary, too. She said it was one of those days where everybody needed something from her at the same time. She hadn’t had a moment to herself since opening her eyes. Holly knew that her mother loved nothing so much as staying busy and being helpful, but she was worried that she was wearing herself thin.
“You sure you want to keep doing this, Mom?” Holly asked as she poured wine into glasses for her and Mae, and a seltzer water with lime for Eliza. “The inn, I mean.”
“Don’t be silly,” Mae dismissed. “I’m enjoying myself very much here. It feels like I was made for this. It’s so nice to meet all different kinds of people and welcome them to Nantucket.”
“We just want to make sure you’re okay. That’s it,” Eliza said.
Mae gave them both a smile and a pat on the knee. “My girls, always looking out for me. Don’t worry about your mother. I’ll be just fine.” Eliza seemed satisfied enough with that for the time being. Holly wasn’t, but she didn’t want to be a nag.
“So, my darlings,” Mae went on, “how are we doing today?”
“Tired,” Eliza replied at once.
“Tired,” Holly agreed.
“Something troubling you?”
Holly looked to Eliza, figuring her big sister was going to take the lead and answer first, like she always did. But Eliza looked oddly reluctant. Eventually, she said in a soft voice, “Clay called.”
That was surprising. He hadn’t said much of anything to Eliza since she left—at least, to Holly’s knowledge. Eliza was private by nature, but she would’ve shared something like that with her sisters, certainly.
“Why did he call?” Holly asked.
“I’m not sure, honestly,” Eliza admitted. “Maybe he realized I was serious. Maybe he just thought enough time had passed that I’d change my mind. Either way, I told him not to call me again.”
“I’m sorry, honey,” Mae said, patting her knee again. “That must have been hard. It’s always tough when the past reaches out like that, even when you’re sure about your decisions.”
“Oh, I’m sure,” Eliza said without hesitating. “I don’t want anything to do with him ever again. It is tough though, you’re right. I just thought it was all figured out. Turns out I was wrong.”
“I know what you mean,” Holly offered. She didn’t want to make this about herself, but she could certainly understand feeling like you’d had your life all set in place and then someone came along and yanked the tablecloth out from underneath it like a magic trick gone wrong.
“Did something happen with you?” Eliza asked her.
“Pete called.”
Eliza laughed darkly. “Two tough calls today, then. Better tell Sara not to check her phone.”
“Definitely should,” Holly agreed. “It wasn’t a bad call, necessarily. It was just … hard. I know he’s hurting, and I want to help. But I really feel like this is important. We can’t keep going the way we were going.”
Eliza nodded enthusiastically, but both women fell silent, thinking about where things had gone so wrong.
“Let me tell both of you girls something,” Mae said. “Relationships are hard. As ha
rd a thing as exists in this world. It’s tough to share your entire world with another person. You have to rely on them at the same time that you have to make sure you’re not wholly dependent on them. It’s a tricky balancing act.”
“You can say that again,” Holly said.
“But you also have to see that love is so precious. Isn’t it nice to know that there’s someone who wants what’s best for you, no matter what? Now, it’s not quite a mother’s love—” Holly and Eliza both laughed softly at that—“but the love of a good man is something special in its own right. I know that you both are grown and smart and brave. I raised you to be that way, and you’ve both made me so proud over the years. But, if a little old lady can be so bold as to offer you some advice, it’s just this: if you find a good love, don’t let it go.”
Holly let those words sink in. If you find a good love, don’t let it go. She was confident that what she had with Pete was a good love. The question was, did he feel the same way? He was so absorbed in his job, and though part of the reason for that was his desire to provide for his family, she knew that he also relished the difficulty of it and the challenge it presented. Could he be okay with letting that go in order to be there for her and their children the way they needed him? That was a tough ask. But it was essential.
She wondered what Eliza was thinking. Her sister was lost in thoughts of her own. She looked so sad sometimes, when she thought nobody was looking at her. That worried Holly perhaps more than anything. Eliza was as tough as they came, and if there was anyone who could handle the stress of being a single mother, it was her. But she worried anyway.