The Captain's Daughter

by Meg Mitchell Moore

  “I don’t know,” said Deirdre morosely. She was having a bit of trouble holding her bottle straight; it kept leaning to one side or the other, like a heeling boat.

  “Okay,” said Rob. “I just want to make sure I have it down before they start. I get mixed up sometimes, the two different schedules—it’s confusing, right? All this kid stuff.”

  He had meant this as a demonstration of camaraderie, mucking through the details of parenting together, but somehow what he said had flipped a switch in Deirdre. She started crying.

  “Hey,” he said. “Hey, hey.” He almost patted her consolingly on the shoulder, but she was wearing so little that he couldn’t find a reasonable place to put his hand without looking like he was molesting her. “Hey,” he said again. “What is it? Deirdre? What’d I say?”

  “Nothing,” Deirdre said, wiping savagely at her nose with the feeble cocktail napkin the bartender slid toward her. “It’s just that when I was out with the ladies earlier, Shannon Markum announced that she’s pregnant. With her fourth.”

  Rob waited; he still didn’t understand the problem. He didn’t know who Shannon Markum was. Sometimes it was hard to keep track of the women in Eliza’s crowd: most were tall, blond, some shade of tan much of the year, clad similarly in yoga clothes or tennis clothes or sundresses, holding water bottles or Starbucks mugs, driving Tahoes or Expeditions or Suburbans, small blond children spilling out of them, those children also clad in tennis clothes, also toting water bottles and sometimes even their own Starbucks cups.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” she said. Deirdre hiccuped and then went on. “You know those pajamas kids wear? With the feet?”

  That was out of left field. But he did know those pajamas. He said, “The fluffy ones. With ducks or bunnies on them.”

  “Right.” Deirdre pointed her bottle at him and a few drops spilled out onto the bar. “Or, at Christmastime, elves or Santas. Sofia doesn’t wear those anymore. Of course she doesn’t! She’s too big. She’s almost as tall as I am. She’s a teenager. They would look ridiculous.”

  Rob brooded over this. “Zoe’s too big for those pajamas too,” he said. “Evie’s borderline.” A memory came to him, Zoe on a Christmas morning, so young that Evie wasn’t even born yet, asleep in the middle of the Christmas presents, exhausted by all of the fuss and bother.

  Now he was depressed. Time was passing. He was aging. Right here at The Wharf Rat, with Deirdre Palmer crying next to him, he was aging. Charlie Sargent was terminally ill, Cabot Lodge was in trouble, nobody in his family wore pajamas with feet. He never should have come out on Ladies’ Night: he should have known better. Ladies’ Night was a dangerous, dangerous business.

  He ordered another round.

  He could see now why Eliza valued Deirdre’s friendship. She was a good listener, a solid presence.

  If only he could get this one thing clear in his mind, this thing from last December. He could, actually, if only he asked. So he did.

  “Do you remember the Colemans’ holiday party?” It was a clumsy segue, but no matter. It made sense in the depths of his own addled mind.

  Deirdre laughed, revealing her extremely white teeth and a silver filling toward the back of her mouth. Old-school fillings; now they were all tooth colored. Not that the mollycoddled children in Barton were allowed to get cavities. “That depends,” she said.

  “Oh.” Rob fiddled with the label on his beer bottle. “Because I was wondering…do you remember when we were standing under the mistletoe? Near the half bath off the kitchen with the marble floor?”

  “The half bath off the kitchen with the marble floor,” said Deirdre. “Always the architect, Rob.”

  “Do you?”

  “I remember. Sort of.”

  “Well, what I was wondering…”

  “Yes?” prodded Deirdre.

  “I was pretty drunk,” Rob said.

  The next morning, he’d call Eliza and apologize. She’d said some shitty things on the phone but he’d been the one who’d put her on edge first, getting angry that she’d gone out on a lobster boat. It was only his fear of losing her that made him do that, but still. What kind of husband was he, losing his shit over something like that with Charlie as sick as he was? He should be oozing nothing but understanding and caring. He should be reaching over to Eliza’s plate and taking every single worry off of it and moving them all over to his so that the only thing left was her father. And that, starting now, was exactly what he would do.

  “Everybody was drunk at that party,” said Deirdre. “The Angel’s Delights.” She smiled. “Brock and I had to take an Uber home!”

  “Okay, so my question is, did you—” The memory was hazy, but it was right there, if he could just reach his hand out a little further he could grasp it.

  “What happened was…” Deirdre paused, and the very bar seemed to take a breath.

  “Yes?”

  “You kissed me.”

  “I did not.”

  She shrugged again, and this time one strap of her top slipped a little bit. She pushed it back up. “Okay,” she said. “If you insist. But you did.” She said that emphatically, almost kindly, like a teacher explaining something to one of the slower students in the class.

  “Impossible. That’s impossible. I’d never do that. I’m happily married. I’m so in love with Eliza.”

  “I know you are.”

  “And if I did something like that—well, I’d remember.”

  “Okay,” Deirdre said again. “But before you say that. Why don’t you tell me if this seems familiar.” She grasped the buttons of his shirt and pulled him toward her. And kissed him. Full-on, unabashedly kissed him, in The Wharf Rat, in plain sight of the bartender and God and everyone else.

  Deirdre stopped kissing Rob and looked him straight in the eye. She seemed alarmingly unapologetic. And also very drunk. The biker let out a low whistle.

  Oh boy. Things had taken a turn. Things had definitely taken a turn.

  Robert Barnes II was out of his element. No question. He was a man sitting in a testosterone-filled bar on Ladies’ Night, with a woman who was not his wife, waiting and waiting—almost without breathing, he was waiting so carefully—to see what would happen next.

  24

  LITTLE HARBOR, MAINE

  Mary

  Andi had given Mary a bunch of smoothie greens that were technically past their sell-by date and now Mary was in her kitchen making them into a salad. “They’re perfectly fine,” said Andi. “I’d eat them myself, I would, we just have to abide by the date. Per the health board.” The greens still had firm stems and bright, healthy leaves.

  Mary had planned on a salad with the greens, avocado, and tomato slices, but first she had to clean up the kitchen, which was small and cluttered in the best of circumstances and downright impossible to work in the rest of the time. Vivienne was a famous non-cook; she said it proudly, like some people would say, I don’t smoke or I don’t shoot heroin.

  To make room for the cutting board on the small square of counter, Mary moved three different piles of mail, a hairbrush, a flatiron, a tube of mascara with the top loose—all Vivienne’s—and her own copy of The Fault in Our Stars, which she was reading for the sixth time; she could quote certain passages out loud, if anyone asked her. (Nobody ever did.) Mary loved The Fault in Our Stars. When the movie had come out two summers ago she’d gone with Tyler to see it, and she’d weeped through the entire second half while Tyler had tooth-murdered the leftover popcorn kernels and snorted at all of the best parts. She should have known then.

  Mary also loaded Vivienne’s breakfast dishes into the dishwasher—Vivienne’s breakfast was always the same, two heavily buttered English muffins with instant coffee—and then she started in on a sticky substance on the Formica. It was a Thursday, and Mary had the day off. Vivienne went to work at one on Thursdays because the salon was open until nine.

  Someday, Mary thought, she would have her own tiny house, and it would be clean and orderly, with
gleaming counters and nice food stored neatly in the cupboard.

  Her fetus-tracking website told her that the baby was an inch and a half long, the size of a prune, with little indentations on the legs that were planning to turn into knees and ankles.

  She was thinking about that when Vivienne came into the kitchen, dressed for work, her hair wet from a shower. Vivienne plucked the hairbrush from the pile Mary had made on the table and began to work it carefully through her hair, pulling gently when she snagged on a tangle. While she brushed she watched Mary.

  “I saw that jerk Tyler Wasson in Ellsworth,” Vivienne said, after a while.

  “Oh yeah?” said Mary. She was trying to make her voice sound uninterested.

  “Yeah. He was with his mom, coming out of Cadillac Mountain Sports.”

  Mary had liked Tyler Wasson’s mom. She felt an unwelcome ping of nostalgia. But she didn’t like to think about the girl she’d been then: that girl had been innocent and trusting and zero percent pregnant. She worked off the skin of the avocado the way Daphne had shown her and shuffled the nostalgia to the back of her mind.

  Vivienne stopped brushing and said, “I just don’t know how you got yourself into this situation, Mare.” Mary looked up from the avocado and blinked at her and Vivienne said, “I mean, of course I know how, but I’m just not sure why.”

  “It wasn’t on purpose,” said Mary. She went back to making her salad. She finished the avocado and got to work on the tomato, slicing it the way Daphne had taught her, tucking her fingers under so that she wouldn’t cut them off. “Obviously.”

  “Obviously,” repeated Vivienne. “But: here you are.”

  “Here I am,” said Mary.

  It was hard to say now, in the bald daylight seeping into the kitchen, what had made her tell Eliza Barnes at the bar.

  Eliza had said, “Oh, sweetie,” and had looked like she was about to start crying herself. Eliza had sounded the same way she had the time Mary overheard her talking to one of her children on the phone, and for just a moment there Mary had felt safe and cared about. Then she’d smiled in a sad way and half stood, like she was going to hug Mary or something. That was when Josh had come over to the table, and that had been it.

  Josh wouldn’t tell her what he’d gotten into with some of the guys at The Wheelhouse, and his mood had turned so black so fast. She’d told him she felt sick to her stomach (true) and had gone home right from the bar, and straight to bed.

  Everybody had black moods sometimes, right? Didn’t they? Did they?

  Vivienne picked up the book and said, “What’s this?”

  “Just a book,” said Mary. She’d only had it hanging around the house for three years, did Vivienne notice anything about her?

  “Any good?”

  Mary sighed and said, “It’s perfect.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “It’s a love story. And a tragedy.”

  Vivienne snorted and said, “Love,” like she’d taken a bite of a nail sandwich.

  “Someday I’ll fall in love,” said Mary. “Someday somebody will fall in love with me.”

  A complicated expression crossed Vivienne’s face and for a brief hopeful second Mary thought Vivienne was going to agree but then she just snorted again and brushed her hair even harder. She picked up the mascara and inspected it and said, “Oh, Mary, what are you going to do?”

  Mary shrugged. She thought about the parents in The Fault in Our Stars, who were kind and loving, even in the face of tragic circumstances. Those parents would never say, What are you going to do because they would be busy saying, What are we going to do.

  “What did Josh say?”

  “I haven’t told him.”

  “You haven’t told him? What do you mean?”

  Mary arranged it all in a bowl: the greens, the avocado, the tomato, and said, “I mean, I haven’t had a chance.”

  “Mary. You need to.”

  “I know.”

  “If you don’t tell him, I will. Somebody needs to make sure that he—”

  “Don’t, Mom. Don’t.”

  “Mary, something like this doesn’t go away on its own, he’s going to have to help you, you’re going to have to go to a clinic…”

  “I know that.”

  Vivienne opened the mascara and applied it without the benefit of a mirror. It looked perfect anyway. Of course Vivienne wasn’t a mother from a novel. Nobody was: mothers from novels were made up.

  After Vivienne left for work Mary brought her salad over to the table and picked up the book.

  What if Mary’s heart turned into a dried fig, and nobody ever loved her? What if she never loved anyone? What then?

  25

  BARTON, MASSACHUSETTS

  Rob

  Rob stood in the kitchen, making waffles for the girls. Zoe was nowhere in evidence, but Evie had perched herself on a kitchen stool and was watching his every move. In fact, it was unnerving, the way her eyes were following him. Her eyes were exactly like Eliza’s eyes, so it felt to him like it was Eliza watching him, Eliza peering into the black and sullied depths of his soul.

  “Your phone’s ringing!” said Evie. She glanced at the screen. “It’s Deirdre. Should I get it?”

  Rob reached across the island and snatched the phone from Evie’s hand. “No!” he said. “No, you should not get it.” His heart was thumping like a steelpan, and his pounding head felt like it had its very own heartbeat. “I don’t want to talk to anyone.”

  “Okay,” said Evie uncertainly. “Sorry.” She flicked her eyes back and forth, back and forth, just like Eliza did when she was hurt.

  “Sorry,” said Rob. “Sorry, Evie, I didn’t sleep well last night, I’m a little tired. I’m just not ready to deal with today’s plans yet.” If I didn’t sleep well could serve as a euphemism for I am aching, then, true, he hadn’t slept well. He couldn’t believe he’d gone out drinking with Deirdre. He couldn’t believe that he’d let that kiss happen, that he’d done something that would hurt Eliza. Eliza, whose father was dying and who would do anything to help him. Eliza, who had dropped out of medical school to raise their children; who gave a killer shoulder rub; who made a lemon crème brûlée that was to die for; who laughed at ninety-nine percent of his jokes because she actually thought they were funny…Eliza. “Okay, sweetie? Do you accept my apology?”

  She considered him and said, “Yup.”

  “Good. Thank you.” He would deal with Deirdre later.

  “I just can’t remember,” he said aloud to himself, “if you put the oil in the waffle maker before or after you heat it up…”

  “Ask Judith,” Evie said.

  Rob was pretty certain the closest Judith ever came to a waffle maker was Sunday brunch at the Ritz-Carlton.

  “Ask me what?” came Judith’s voice, followed closely by Judith herself. It was seven thirty in the morning but Judith was in full makeup, stylish white pants, and a cerulean tank top with a matching cardigan. She looked like she was on her way to a private Caribbean island.

  “Ask you how to use the waffle maker!” said Evie. “Daddy’s trying.”

  “I know how to use the waffle maker,” said Rob. “I’m not trying; I’m doing. Morning, Mom. How are you?”

  “I feel incredible,” Judith said. “Just wonderful. I took an Ambien, and I clocked ten solid hours. I feel like a new person. Your guest room is like a tomb.”

  “Great,” said Rob.

  “In a good way.”

  “Better.”

  “I’m guessing you were out until all hours,” said Judith. “You look awful.”

  Evie swiped Rob’s phone and disappeared from the kitchen. “I’ll be back,” she said. “For the waffles.”

  Rob tried to make his voice sound detached, nonchalant, and, above all, very, very monogamous. “Not too late,” he said to Judith.

  Rob tried not to look at Judith’s raised eyebrow. He was an adult! He was allowed to go out if he wanted to! He worked the first set of waffles carefull
y out of the maker and set one on a plate. “Evie!” he called. “Breakfast!”

  Evie returned, put Rob’s phone back on the counter, and said, “Mom called.”

  His heart vaulted. “She did? Why didn’t you tell me?” Probably Eliza didn’t want to talk to him—probably she’d sensed from afar that he was a despicable, unlovable human being.

  Evie knitted her brows together. “You said you didn’t want to talk to anyone, so that’s what I told her.”

  “Did she say anything?”

  Evie climbed onto a kitchen stool. “She said she’s sorry. And she’ll call you later.”

  “Okay,” said Rob. With a flourish he produced the maple syrup and poured it over the waffle in the shape of an E. The E didn’t last long, because it soon settled into the grooves of the waffle, but Rob was a great believer in the It’s the thought that counts philosophy of life.

  Evie studied the waffle and smiled. She could see the E. “Oh! I forgot one thing. She said the work you do is very important.”

  “She what?”

  “She said the work you do is very important.”

  “Interesting,” said Judith. She was attempting to make herself a coffee. “So where’d you go last night, anyway?”

  “I met up with some of the guys—”

  “Which guys?” asked Evie.

  “Huh?”

  “Which guys did you meet up with? Any of my friends’ dads?”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t think so, there were a bunch of us. Now eat, before it gets cold.”

  But Evie persisted. “Well, which guys? I bet I know some of their kids.”

  “Eat, Evie. Just eat.”

  Judith fiddled for a while with the cappuccino machine and said, “Heavens, Rob, this is so complicated. You should get the kind with the capsules.”

  “Mommy says those are wasteful,” said Evie. She took a single bite and shook her head, laying down her fork carefully next to her plate, as though she were setting the table for a formal dinner party. “These aren’t right,” she said. “These don’t taste the way they do when Mommy makes them.”