No Secret Like Nantucket

by Grace Palmer

  Some of them were dated, almost as old as Eliza was. Others looked brand new, fresh as the dawn.

  A rough estimate pegged more than seventy-five percent of the pictures as nauseatingly “Nantuckety.”

  Babies swaddled in a fisherman’s net.

  Babies wearing fishermen’s bucket hats.

  Babies in tiny swim trunks embroidered with whales.

  Eliza tried to imagine her daughter’s picture up on the wall amongst the others. But for some reason, she couldn’t. Which was odd, because when she was pregnant with Winter, she’d had no problem envisioning things. She’d seen her first daughter’s life play out before her eyes, long before the girl had ever been born. First words, first steps, first loves, first everything.

  Not so with this one.

  Odd.

  A quick knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. Dr. Geiger came strolling in a beat later, frowning down at the clipboard in his hands as per usual.

  “Mrs. Patterson,” he said on an exhale, never looking up. “How are you feeling today?”

  “Fine. Tired.” Eliza laughed again, though Dr. Geiger didn’t join her.

  She’d long ago given up delving into Dr. Geiger’s personality. As one of only a few obstetricians on the island, he had a full slate of patients and barely enough time to see them. But what he lacked in personal rapport, he made up for by being an incredibly well-respected doctor.

  The man radiated competency. Eliza of all people could respect that.

  “Marcy said you’ve been having contractions.” He dropped the clipboard on the counter and motioned for Eliza to lay back on the table.

  “Just a few. Braxton Hicks, I’m sure.” She sounded confident, and for the most part, she felt that way.

  But there was a niggle of concern, somewhere deep down. A festering doubt.

  He nodded and lifted the hem of her shirt, feeling around on her stomach before grabbing the doppler and checking for a heartbeat.

  Eliza tried to feel something when she heard the whoosh-whoosh of the doppler, but it eluded her. It didn’t sound like a heartbeat. The stormy sound didn’t make her own heart jump with delight.

  That feeling wouldn’t come until the baby was in her arms.

  Then Eliza would feel everything.

  Abruptly, Dr. Geiger pulled her shirt back over her belly and held out a cold hand to help her sit up. “I’d like to get some images of the baby today. Just a precaution.”

  “Oh. Okay.” She wasn’t due for another scan before the baby was born, but surely this was all normal.

  Precaution, as Dr. Geiger had said. That was a nice word.

  “This way.”

  Eliza only had to walk two doors down to find herself in the dim sonographer’s room. A petite, thin-lipped woman ushered her into place and set to work without a word.

  Eliza gazed around the room. A television hung from the ceiling, ostensibly so she could watch as the scan came to life. But today, the screen remained blank.

  Not to worry. If there was a problem, they’d point it out to her.

  Plus, she could feel her little girl kicking around in her belly, playing bongos on her ribs the way she liked to do.

  All was well. All was fine. She had no reason to fret at all.

  After only a couple minutes, the sonographer pulled away the wand and handed Eliza a sheet of paper towel to wipe the jelly off her stomach.

  “The doctor will be in to talk with you about the results. It should only be a minute or two,” she said with another thin smile.

  “Thanks,” murmured Eliza. The woman nodded and slipped out of the room.

  Eliza patted around for her phone. She’d told Oliver this appointment would be quick, so she figured she ought to send him a text to let him know what was happening. She didn’t want him to worry.

  But it wasn’t in her pocket, and when Dr. Geiger swept into the room, she abandoned the hunt.

  As expected, the clipboard was in his hand once again.

  But this time, his face was lifted. Aimed at her.

  He had green eyes, she noticed. Maybe she’d noticed before, but if so, she’d never truly looked at them. They suited him. Piercing, intelligent, frank.

  Up until perhaps thirty seconds ago, that would have made her feel better. A doctor should have eyes like that.

  But she’d have preferred they not be looking at her so intensely. Because, when Dr. Geiger made direct eye contact with Eliza, her stomach fluttered nervously for the first time all morning.

  “What is your pain level right now?” he asked. “On a scale of one to ten.”

  Right on cue, Eliza’s stomach squeezed in another contraction. This one wrapped around to her lower back, a vise grip working on her from the inside.

  “Three.”

  “Okay, good.” With deft fingers, Dr. Geiger slid a sonogram photo out from between other papers in his stack and held it in the air. “So you seem to have suffered a placental abruption.”

  The words meant nothing to Eliza. But they didn’t sound good.

  Dr. Geiger kept talking. The next pitter-patter of words coming from his mouth made as little sense as the first few. Heavier on the anatomy than a former finance woman would understand.

  He pointed at the picture and said more things. Mostly, Eliza just looked at his eyes. They really were a very nice green.

  She realized with a start that he was waiting for her to respond. To her embarrassment, she had no idea what the question was.

  “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” she mumbled.

  “I asked if you were still with me.”

  She started to nod like she was with him every step of the way. But then she wilted under those piercing eyes and shook her head instead. “I, uh… no, I apologize. Could you just tell me what that all means?”

  He lowered the pictures and sighed. “It means you are going to meet your baby earlier than planned. And since she is still breech, it will be a C-section.”

  Eliza once again patted the pocket where she usually kept her phone, already drafting a text to Oliver in her mind. You’re not gonna believe this…

  But her pocket was empty. That’s when she realized she’d left it at home. Forgot to grab it in her hurry to get out the door.

  What a day for that happen.

  She’d just have to tell Oliver everything the moment she got home. He’d worry, of course, but as always, there was nothing to worry about. A Caesarean was not such a big deal. It would all be fine.

  No reason for anyone to fret.

  “Okay,” she said, “so, scheduling-wise, my nephew and my mom have a joint birthday party tonight, but beyond that, I’ve kept my schedule clear because all kinds of craziness happens towards the end of pregnancies, am I right, so anyway I’m glad I did that because really any time this week works for me, or next if that’s better, perhaps Monday, or maybe—”

  Dr. Geiger blinked and held up his hand. Eliza’s words died on her lips.

  “Mrs. Patterson, I think you’re misunderstanding me. You are not leaving here today. The baby has to come right now.”

  2

  Brent

  114 Howard Street—Brent & Rose’s House

  Almost a year into living with Rose and Brent still couldn’t get over what it was like waking up next to her.

  If they traded places, she would think her hair messy, but he thought it was endearingly gorgeous. He liked the tousled look of her when she first woke. Cheeks pinked by a good night’s rest, hair in wild disarray.

  Thinking back over the last few years, Brent smiled. He had matured a lot. Perhaps he had been a late-bloomer when it came to fully embracing adulthood, but once the process had begun, it came to fruition fast.

  Susanna, Rose’s daughter, helped with that. Before her, Brent’s biggest responsibility was his dog, Henrietta. Now, he had a full-fledged tiny human to look after.

  It was a lot, but he also couldn’t think of anything in the world he’d rather be doing.

  As
he gently brushed the stray lock of hair from Rose’s forehead, Brent felt he was well on his way. The alcoholic, depressed mess he had been seemed to lie in the far and distant past. A memory from another life.

  He supposed it was, in a way.

  Rose stirred and softly groaned in the back of her throat. Her hand stretched across the bed and felt for him, curling into his shirt.

  “Well, well, well—look who decided to finally wake up.” He kissed her forehead. “Thought you were going to sleep all day.”

  “What time is it?” Pushing to her elbow, Rose looked toward the window and immediately scowled at him.

  “Barely past sunrise,” he said.

  “You scared me. I thought I was going to be late.”

  “Impossible,” he said. “Your internal clock never fails. I’m not even sure why you set your alarm.”

  She leaned over and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Because the one day I don’t set it, I’ll oversleep. It’s the rule of the universe.”

  Brent grabbed at her nightgown as she slid to the edge of the bed, feet already in her slippers. “You just woke up. Stay in bed.”

  “Can’t.” She pried his fingers loose and kissed his knuckles. “I told you yesterday, I have to be into work early today.”

  “I remember,” Brent sighed. “I was hoping you’d forgotten.”

  “You’re handsome, but not ‘causing a case of amnesia’ handsome.”

  As the bathroom door closed, Brent chucked a pillow at it. “Gah! My ego!”

  Her laugh echoed underneath the door.

  Thirty minutes later, Rose came out of the bathroom with her hair artfully arranged into a bun on top of her head and her makeup done. She dressed in a pair of dark gray cigarette pants and a bright blue short-sleeve button-down with a ruffled Peter Pan collar.

  Brent had never heard of a Peter Pan collar before Rose came into his life, but now he was intimately familiar. An essential part of The Rose Uniform, as he called it.

  He whistled as she slipped on a pair of red ballet flats. “How does a man like me get this lucky? You look amazing.”

  Rose raised a brow at his bare chest and bedraggled pajama bottoms. “You, too. Very haute couture.”

  He held his arms out in welcome. “The offer still stands. I’ll be here all day if you wanna play hooky.”

  “You better not be,” Rose warned, a twinkle in her eye. “Your mom and Dominic are coming to stay soon.”

  “So?”

  “So I don’t want them to think we’re slobs!” she said with slightly more alarm in her voice. “We need to clear out a room upstairs for them and make some space in the workshop for their stuff. Your mom said the film crew is making them remove some furniture, and I don’t know if you’ve peeked in that pigsty you call a workshop recently, but there’s barely enough room for a house plant, much less a couch.”

  Brent waved a dismissive hand. “My mom has known me my whole life. She already thinks I’m a slob.”

  “Some of us don’t have the benefit of being related to her,” Rose drawled.

  “You being related to my mother would not be a benefit for me. It would be illegal.”

  Rose laughed. “I only mean she has to love you. She doesn’t have to love me.”

  “First, she loves you. And Susanna. Neither of you have to ‘earn’ her love,” Brent said. “Second, I’m only teasing. I am going to take care of all the cleaning and tidying today like I’m Cinderella. Even though, like I said, it’s unnecessary. She already loves you.”

  Rose hurried to the bed and pressed a quick kiss to Brent’s lips. “Well, I better keep working at it, just in case. You know me—I’m an over-achiever.”

  “You mean I’ll keep working at!” Brent yelled as she threw a wave over her shoulder and disappeared into the hallway. “I’m the one who has to do all the cleaning!”

  Almost the moment the door shut behind Rose, Susanna woke up, and Brent had to turn his attention to “The Other Woman,” as he called her—a joke that pretty much no one else found funny but that never failed to make him laugh.

  The first item on the agenda was getting the little girl dressed.

  “I can’t wear a flower shirt with flower tights,” Susanna said, wrinkling her nose and swinging her pajama-clad legs from the edge of her bed.

  “What about a pink shirt with flower tights?” Brent asked hopefully.

  “I want to wear my sparkly purple tights. And my light-up shoes!” She jumped off the bed and pushed past Brent to get into the closet.

  Ten minutes later, she had on a pair of sparkly purple tights, a yellow- and black-striped bumblebee t-shirt, and pink light-up shoes.

  How she could lack faith in Brent’s clothing choices, yet come up with this outfit, Brent had no idea. But he was smart enough to know not to question it. The women ruled the roost at 114 Howard Street. Brent Benson was merely along for the ride.

  “Runway ready,” he said with a big smile and a thumbs up. “Now, waffles and then we’re shipping you off to China.”

  Susanna shoved him in the thigh. “You can’t send me to China!” she cackled.

  Brent smiled softly, unfazed. “Did I say China? I meant daycare. Come on—I’ll race you to the kitchen.”

  He lost the race due to some questionable delaying tactics on Susanna’s part, but that was all well and good.

  Everything was, really.

  Not a thing in his world out of place.

  By the time Brent made it back to the house from daycare drop-off, a paper cup of coffee in hand from Two Birds Coffee downtown, he already felt like he needed a break. But there was no time. He had a to-do list to tackle.

  First, Brent cleared out his old bedroom with a vengeance.

  Most of the furniture was hand-me-downs from his sisters and covered in dabs of nail polish, perfume bottle stains, and stickers that had been haphazardly scraped off over the years.

  Brent moved two bedside tables, a desk, and a fraying wicker disc chair down to a growing pile of trash next to the curb.

  He also ripped all of the band posters and swimsuit models off of the walls and wadded them up in the trash. Teenage Brent had never been so betrayed.

  Then he started the deep clean. He threw all of the linens in the laundry, swept the floors, dusted what furniture remained.

  Lunchtime found Brent sweating and worn, but at least the room looked comfortable. Nothing like the lurid den of teenage boyhood it had been earlier that morning. Mom and Dominic would be just fine in here.

  Onto the workshop, then.

  The space was perpetually covered in a thin layer of sawdust, even years after his father’s death.

  Henry Benson had been handy. He made built-in bookshelves for the living room, a bassinet for an infant Grady, and built the deck on the back of the house ten years earlier.

  But his main and most beloved hobby was whittling. He could sit all day in the shop with the large door wide open, the breeze swirling wood chips and sawdust around his feet, and turn a solid block of wood into anything. A wooden spoon or a French bulldog or a walking stick covered in flowering vines.

  Brent could almost hear the old sounds now as he stepped into the familiar space. As he inhaled the familiar smell.

  Life’s meant to be enjoyed, isn’t it, son? Dad’s catchphrase, ringing in Brent’s head almost like he was standing right beside him.

  Eliza, ever the pragmatist, had suggested selling all of Dad’s old tools, but Brent couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. Brent had all of his own tools now. But he’d learned everything he knew about wood-working and construction in this workshop. Using these tools. He wasn’t ready to part with anything just yet.

  But he could certainly tidy up.

  Over the course of an hour, Brent played a real-life game of Tetris. He arranged and rearranged a cutting table, various saws and saw horses, large wood scraps and pieces of leftover trim, and seemingly endless bags of small hand tools until it all fit just right.

  At the
very least, they’d be able to squeeze a couch and a few other large items into the shop. Which seemed like more than enough space to Brent.

  He was ready to call it quits. Then his eyes fell on the shelves stuffed fat with half-finished projects that Dad had left behind.

  Some of the pieces were misshapen mistakes his dad couldn’t let go of. Mom always said Henry was a sentimental pack rat, and it seemed Brent was well on his way to being that way, too.

  “You’re a hoarder!” Rose had accused more than once. “You and your whole family. Not one of you Bensons can bear to part with a single thing.”

  He denied it, of course. But she may’ve had a point.

  So, with a sigh, he set upon the shelves, muttering under his breath the whole time, “I am not a hoarder. I am not a hoarder. I am not a hoarder…”

  In the end, two of the four shelves was available for anything Mom or Dominic might need to store.

  Brent was just about to call it quits for the day when one last item on the top shelf, curiously wrapped in a dusty white trash bag, caught his eye.

  The bag was tucked in the corner next to the four mobiles his dad had carved for Brent and his sisters.

  Each of the mobiles had the same overall design—a wooden placard with the child’s name and then four arms from which hand-carved bobbles hung.

  Folks on the island were always after Henry to carve them something or other, and as much as he liked to oblige them, these pieces he kept for himself. For his family.

  No one but a Benson child got a mobile like this.

  And each Benson child got one uniquely their own. Eliza’s, for instance, held planets and shooting stars bobbing from the strings.

  Holly’s featured a menagerie of farm animals, which she still jokingly complained about. “Eliza got shooting stars and I got a cow,” she always grumbled.

  Sara’s mobile dripped with rainbows and butterflies, a pairing so ironic Brent couldn’t help but laugh. Nothing about his sister was as gentle or delicate as a butterfly. Dad didn’t call her his “little bull” for nothing.