Sweet Salt Air

by Barbara Delinsky

  “Up the coast?” she managed to say.

  Angie’s smile was stilted. “We went to Bar Harbor. Acadia is a fabulous place to hike.”

  Nicole had never known her mother to be a hiker but couldn’t say that with Tom right there at her elbow. Rather, an inbred politeness kicked in, and she nodded and smiled, at which point Angie drew her into a motherly hug and deftly changed the subject. “I’ve been worried about you since I learned about Julian. I talked with him again this morning. He’s worried about you, too.” Holding Nicole back, she scowled. “For what it’s worth, I’m furious at him for making you keep this all to yourself. There was no reason why you couldn’t tell me. You poor thing.”

  Not wanting to dwell on what “poor thing” could mean, Nicole reached for her mother’s bag before Tom could and led them to the car. Once the engine turned over, though, Angie picked up where she’d left off. “He sounded okay. But, of course, I couldn’t see him. This has to have been such a strain on you. He was right to want you here, though this has to be bittersweet for you, too. Well, maybe it’s different for me. My memories go so far back. Even standing on that ferry and watching Rockland recede, how many times your father and I did that.” She sucked in a breath. “Has the island given you any kind of a break?”

  Nicole checked the rearview mirror, then turned left and started down the neck road. She didn’t have time to answer before Angie said, “Of course, you have the cookbook to do. That must be a diversion. How’s it coming? Have islanders been cooperative? I don’t suppose they wouldn’t be, but asking for something as intimate as a personal recipe has to be challenging. Recipes are intimate, don’t you think? Many of them have been in families for generations. I was telling Tom about the project, and he raised the issue of getting signed releases for everyone whose recipes you print. Have you thought about that?”

  “My publisher did. They gave me a form.”

  “Oh, good. Do you think that’s okay,” she called to Tom, who was in the backseat, “or should we have someone in the firm check it out?”

  “I’m sure it’s fine,” he reassured her, much as he had done dozens of times during the funeral planning—and suddenly Nicole had a thought that would have made her apoplectic, if she hadn’t already been numb. Angie and Tom, even before Bob died? She couldn’t bear to think it!

  But here was her mother, giving a running commentary on whose drive they passed and how were the Warrens or the McKenzies or the Matthews? Yes, she jabbered. Normally Nicole would have given her competition, but since she wasn’t saying much now, Angie had the airwaves all to herself. Still, she sounded … what? Apprehensive? Uncomfortable? Guilty?

  * * *

  By the time they were home, Nicole’s head was throbbing. While she filled a glass with water and downed two Tylenol tabs, her mother opened the refrigerator and, after studying its contents, extracted boxes of blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries. Setting a colander in the sink, she put the berries under the spray.

  She paused only to ask, “You haven’t washed these, have you?”

  “No. Uh, Mom…” What to say? “I was going to grill steaks for dinner, but I don’t have enough for five.”

  “No problem. I thought we’d go to the Grill.”

  Nicole swallowed. “Okay. And, uh, how do you want to handle bedrooms? The master is the only one free—”

  Hands stilling, Angie gasped. “Oh no, I couldn’t sleep there. The memories would keep me up all night! When your father and I walked out of that bedroom last September, we had no idea he would never be back.” She resumed washing the fruit.

  “So you came here with Tom?” Nicole asked, because berries were nothing next to the memory of her father, which felt like it was being shoved into a dark, dusty corner.

  Angie shushed her and glanced at the door. “Don’t rush to judgment, honey. Tom didn’t have to come. But he knew I’d have trouble here.”

  “Well, you can’t both sleep in my room,” Nicole said, bewildered.

  “Why would either of us want to, when there are six other perfectly good rooms in the wings?”

  * * *

  In two bedrooms or one? That was what haunted Nicole. But it wasn’t until after lunch, when they had exhausted the issues of Julian’s diagnosis, treatment history, and current symptoms, that she was alone again with Angie and able to ask. Charlotte had offered to show Tom around the island, and had drafted Kaylin to narrate the tour.

  They were on the patio, Angie rearranging the furniture there as though nothing was wrong, while, in Nicole’s world, nothing was right. With growing astonishment, she watched her mother bend to check under the table for traces of where the legs had stood on the stone the summer before. Straightening, she moved one chair after another aside, all the while ignoring Nicole, who simmered.

  “What is going on, Mom?” she finally cried. “Are you with Tom?”

  Having pulled out all six chairs, Angie was struggling to move the table. “Take that end, like a good girl, would you?”

  Nicole helped her inch the table to the very spot where it had likely been last year, then dropped her hands and asked, “Are you?”

  Angie began returning chairs. “Would that be so awful?”

  “Yes! Dad hasn’t been dead seven months!”

  “It’s been seven months and three weeks.”

  “You said you loved him.”

  Angie stared at her. “I did love him. With all my heart and soul.”

  “Did you always have a thing for Tom?”

  “Nicole,” she warned. “That is very wrong. I’ve always loved Tom as a friend. So did your father. What you’re suggesting is an insult to all of us.”

  Nicole knew her mother enough to recognize honest outrage, but she was only marginally appeased. She couldn’t get her head around the idea of Angie dating. “He wasn’t around the last few times we visited. All this time, I’ve pictured you alone.”

  “I’ve been telling you about dinners with friends.”

  “I assumed you were talking about couples, like the Farringtons or the Spragues.” But that raised another awful thought. “Does the firm know about this? Dad’s friends?”

  “They don’t think twice about Tom’s support. In some regards, they’re happy to have me off their hands, and they trust Tom.” She grew crestfallen. “I knew you’d be upset.”

  “How could I not be?” Nicole cried.

  “Tom is a friend, honey. When someone dies, everyone gathers around for the first week, then little by little they wander off. Tom didn’t.”

  “But he’s nothing like Dad.” Bob was affable, outgoing, a rainmaker. Tom was none of those things.

  “That’s the point. I’m not looking for someone to replace your father.”

  Nicole barely heard. “I thought you loved him.”

  Angie’s voice shot up. “I did. Listen to me, Nicole. This has nothing to do with Dad. Dad is dead.” There were tears in her eyes. She held the chair so tightly that her knuckles were white. “Maybe I shouldn’t have brought Tom. But I wanted to be here with you and didn’t think I’d be able to handle it all on my own. Look at this table. I remember when your father and I bought it. And that planter … and those mushroom lights. Back home, I took care of these kinds of things while your father worked, but up here, we did everything together. This house may not much resemble the one your grandparents built, but I look at this one and see that one. It’s where your father and I were married.”

  Nicole tried to understand, but she kept picturing Bob looking down from heaven at the sight of his best friend in this house with his wife. Wasn’t it a betrayal, not totally unlike Julian and Charlotte?

  She must have looked like she would cry, because Angie had a quick arm around her. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t think you’d take it this badly.”

  Nicole couldn’t speak.

  “So much happening in your life,” Angie cooed, squeezing her sweetly. “I can understand why you’re numb.”

  Nicol
e had a hysterical thought. Numb? After four years? No way. It’s seeing my mother with another man after seven months!

  There was more to it, of course. She had taken a breath—tempted, oh so tempted by that loving arm to let loose about Charlotte and Julian, trust and betrayal, and how little Angie knew of it all, when she spotted movement in the Great Room. The island tour was apparently done.

  Angie gave her a last squeeze before letting go. “There’s a fellow at our church whose wife has had MS for thirty years. You’d never know she was suffering from anything worse than aging. Julian will be fine, honey. I know he will.”

  “How can you be sure?” Nicole asked, knowing that no two cases of MS were alike, but willing to grasp anything that would make her feel better.

  “Because God wouldn’t take your father and your husband in the same breath.”

  “Mom—”

  “Remember what Dad used to say when things didn’t go the way we wanted? What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”

  Nicole was stunned. Mention of death did not make her feel better.

  Angie must have taken her inability to speak for thoughtfulness, because, after pressing a cheek to hers, she went inside.

  Nicole watched in despair. There was no PDA, but Angie was smiling for Tom. Or maybe the smile was for Charlotte or Kaylin. She didn’t know what to think.

  Retreating into numbness, she wandered up the path and into the garden to sit with the plants. The valerian was thriving. Same with the lavender. She didn’t know which would help her more and didn’t care, as long as one of them worked.

  Charlotte joined her a short time later. “I’m sorry. I tried to draw it out, but there just isn’t much to see.” She settled down on the path, not quite invading Nicole’s space in the garden, but not going away, either.

  And Nicole didn’t want her to. There was something to be said for not feeling entirely alone. “Are you scandalized?” she asked Charlotte with a sideways glance.

  “About Tom? Surprised when I first saw him.”

  “Do you think she’s wrong?”

  “I’m not one to judge,” Charlotte had the good grace to say.

  “But what do you think?”

  Another person would have given Nicole the answer she wanted, but Charlotte would be truthful. This was why Nicole had asked.

  Her dark hair was a wild riot caught in a hair tie, but her brown eyes were more restrained. “I think they’re both alone,” she finally said. “They’re not breaking any rules.”

  “What about Dad’s memory?”

  “That’ll always be here.”

  “But buried under a mountain of new ones?”

  Charlotte smiled sadly. “There would be new ones anyway. Angie is young—”

  “Sixty-two.”

  “That’s young,” Charlotte remarked. “Women in Appalachia—or Ethiopia or Zimbabwe? Sixty-two is old in those places, but not here. Not the way Angie has lived. She’s still full of life. She’ll never forget Bob—never in a million years—but you can’t expect her to close up like a clam and wait to die. You wouldn’t want that for her.”

  Nicole supposed not. “But so soon?”

  “He’s helped her through a hard time. He seems like a nice enough guy.”

  “He’s bland.”

  “Anyone would be bland next to Bob.”

  True, Nicole thought. Still, having Angie show up with another man was not what she needed just then. “She should have warned me. All these months, and she said nothing. Did she have to hide it?”

  “Did you ask?” Charlotte argued gently. “She was protecting you, Nicki. Think about it. Would this have been easier two or three months ago?”

  No, Nicole admitted and watched a bee hovering over the sweet William, which were in full bloom and lovely, their frilled edges framing petals layered with deep shades of pink. The buzzing was loud enough to survive the rumble of the nearby surf. She listened, breathing in wisps of the spicy clove scent of valerian, a soother in the salty sea air.

  One thing about Charlotte; she knew when not to talk. She waited a full five minutes, until Nicole was feeling calmer, before quietly asking, “Did you tell her?”

  About the affair, the child. “No.”

  “Will you?”

  Nicole had come close. But something had stopped her, and it wasn’t only the return of the others.

  “If I’m going to talk about stem cells, I have to,” she said, though Charlotte had already made the opposite point. No one had to know the identity of the donor. Anonymity was expected with donor banks. Julian would have to know, of course, but he wouldn’t want the source of the cells advertised. Nor would Nicole. What had happened was humiliating enough without.

  But she had no intention of sharing those thoughts with Charlotte, who deserved to worry a little.

  Chapter Twenty

  CHARLOTTE WAS APPREHENSIVE ENTERING THE kitchen Monday morning, wondering whether Nicole would have spilled all to Angie overnight and, if so, what manner of condemnation would greet her. But Angie smiled brightly at her from the counter, where she was slicing kiwi, and someone must have already driven into town, because not only was Tom reading the Wall Street Journal in print, but Nicole was slicing bagels, fresh from a Quinnie Café bag.

  Kaylin was a no-show; she wouldn’t be up until ten. Charlotte might have stayed in bed late, too, if she hadn’t been edgy thinking of Nicole and Angie alone. If it was going to happen, it would happen, but she wanted to be able to defend herself when it did.

  That said, there was safety in numbers. Nicole wouldn’t spill the beans in front of Tom, and since Tom sat there through breakfast, seconds of coffee on the patio, and cleanup back in the kitchen, Nicole and Angie weren’t alone. By the time Angie took Tom back into town to browse in the shops, Kaylin was awake, so Charlotte was safe for another little while.

  Under the guise of scouting out potential interviews, she left the two on the patio in the sun and went to visit Isabel Skane. There were others in the shop, two browsing the floor-to-ceiling bins of yarn, three at the table knitting. Charlotte had brought her sweater, which elicited more ooohs and ahhhs than it deserved given the number of mistakes, and Isabel quickly saw the problem with the cables.

  “Once you slip stitches to the holder for a cable, whether you place the holder in back or in front determines the look of the finished cable. See these early ones?” Isabel spread out the lower sleeve. “You’ve consistently given the cable a left twist here, meaning the holder was in front, but you lost track of that as you moved up the arm.”

  Charlotte didn’t like the implication. “So I need to tear all of this out?”

  “Not if you think the Native American way,” Isabel offered gently. “They deliberately knit a mistake into each piece to let the recipient know it was hand-knit with love.”

  “Well, that would work,” Charlotte remarked, “except for two things. A, I’m the recipient and, B, there was nothing deliberate about these mistakes.”

  Soft laughter, a grin, and a knowing nod came from the three at the table.

  “Want me to rip?” Isabel whispered. She was definitely a perfectionist, though that had never been in doubt in Charlotte’s mind, given the samples on display in the shop. Each was flawless. Charlotte wasn’t sure she would ever reach that stage.

  “You’re doing a great job,” Isabel encouraged her, taking the sleeve. “This pattern would challenge even me.”

  Charlotte doubted that, but the remark opened the door for her to dig deeper into Isabel’s knitting background and, unaware of her own professional purpose, the two shoppers joined in. Day-trippers, they were avid yarnies, asking questions Charlotte wouldn’t have known to ask but the answers to which were fascinating.

  Isabel paused from ripping only to ring up their sales. By the time she had the sleeve back to the first wrong cable, Charlotte was on her third chocolate almond candy and feeling no pain.

  * * *

  The pain returned, of course. Drivi
ng back past the beaches and flats, she could think of nothing but that Nicole had either told Angie or hadn’t told Julian. Either way, there would be increased tension in the house.

  But lunch was underway with no added tension, just hearty turkey sandwiches on thick slices of Melissa Parker’s anadama bread. And so went the day. Nicole read through recipes with Angie for a while, then they all went to the beach. Charlotte stayed behind to edit photos, and when they returned she held her breath, searching faces to see if anything had changed.

  Something actually had. Nicole confided to her in a private moment that Angie was urging her to fly to Durham despite what Julian wanted, because, after all, a wife should be with her husband, and what did Charlotte think about that?

  Charlotte thought it was a good idea. She hoped—but didn’t say—that if Nicole were there, she might be more apt to tell Julian what she knew about the affair, the baby, the stem cells. Charlotte was starting to think of telling him herself, and not only for his sake. Nicole was suffering holding it in.

  But Nicole was adamant about picking the time. And since Charlotte didn’t want to betray her again, she waited.

  * * *

  By the time the patio grill had cooled and the dishes were done, Charlotte needed to get out. Staying nearby to help Nicole was all well and good, but the tension was getting to her. When Trivial Pursuit, which was best played with exuberance, was retrieved from the giveaway box, she pleaded a need to see the ocean and excused herself from the room.

  Can I come over? she typed into her phone as she climbed the stairs for a sweater.

  Since when do you have to ask? Leo texted back, then, seconds later, Want to go sailing?

  Now?

  Why not?

  Don’t sailors return to shore at night?

  Not me. I know these waters. Do you trust me?

  Charlotte thought about racing with him from Quinnipeague to Rockland for Nicole, pouring her heart out to him in a flood of tears, and believing all the unbelievable things he said. Did she trust him? She figured she did.

  Be there in five, she typed and, pocketing the phone, went for her keys.

  * * *