No Secret Like Nantucket

by Grace Palmer

“Don’t judge me,” Shelly said. “But I sit in my dining room window and watch him do his yardwork. It’s fascinating.”

  “No judgement. It’s very entertaining.” Holly had spent more than a few Saturdays peeking through her bedroom blinds at their neighbor, Mike, who had a bit of a reputation for getting a little cavalier with the weed whacker. “He has to duck and dodge all of those flying twigs and leaves.”

  Holly knew it wasn’t nice to gossip about him. Especially since Mike smoked meat he got from his cousin’s butcher shop in New Bedford once every few months and always made sure to bring Pete a large cut of it.

  But it did feel good to laugh at someone else’s problems rather than stew in her own. If only for a moment.

  “Anyway, what have you been up to lately?” Shelly asked, stirring her tea with a stainless-steel straw. “I always see you and Pete coming and going with the kids, but there’s never any chance to talk. Ronny gave Pete’s name to a man from church who was looking for a lawyer. Mr. Thomas, I think his name was.”

  Ronny was a pastor at the First Baptist Church of Nantucket. Shelly was a stay-at-home mom, like Holly, but her kids were in high school and middle school. The oldest boy had his driver’s license, so Holly saw him ferrying the younger two kids to school and to other activities while Shelly waved goodbye from the front stoop.

  During the school year—whenever she found herself wrestling Grady into the car with his homework or pleading with Alice to unpack her doll from her bookbag—Holly couldn’t help but imagine Shelly lounging inside the house each morning in a robe. Probably sipping on her still-hot coffee and enjoying the quiet, slow start to her day.

  Such luxuries were nothing more than a dream in the Goodwin residence.

  “Pete was just talking to Mr. Thomas on the phone this afternoon, so I’m sure he appreciated the word of mouth.” And I’m sure he had a grand old teaching the man how to use the internet, she added silently. “We’ve been good. Busy. But nothing compared to the rest of my family. Eliza had her baby, if you didn’t hear. Just last week. And my mom’s inn is closed down while the movie crew films. So yeah, just busy. Busy but good.”

  Unless you counted criminals invading your sofa and your first baby getting in his first fight, that is.

  “Everyone cannot stop talking about the movie!” Shelly exclaimed. “No offense to your mom or Dominic, of course. I’m happy for him. But I’d like to talk about anything else. Even my hairdresser got hired as an extra.”

  “None taken. Mum’s the word.” Holly sipped her tea and tried not to wince. There was an awful lot of lemon squeezed into it. Enough that it made her jaw twinge with each drink. “Though I don’t have much to talk about otherwise. I just needed to get out of my house for a little bit.”

  Shelly tipped her head forward and lowered her voice. “Trying to get away from a certain houseguest?”

  “You know about him?”

  Shelly nodded. “I thought I saw Pete walk outside in his boxers and a white tank top to get the newspaper the other morning. Took me a minute to realize it wasn’t Pete at all. I saw him again yesterday doing push-ups on his knuckles in the driveway.”

  Shelly tried to deliver the information as though it was just a factual, non-judgmental relaying of events, but her nose wrinkled slightly at the memory.

  “I’m sorry,” Holly groaned, dragging a hand down her face and flopping back on the porch swing. “That was Pete’s cousin, Rob.”

  In an uncontainable rush of information, more like an exorcism than anything else, Holly explained the last week of her life in minute detail.

  She told Shelly about Rob’s past and Pete’s total trust and acceptance of his cousin, despite not having seen him in over a decade. About the dirty clothes in the living room, Rob opening her underwear drawer, the kids practically worshipping “Uncle Rob,” and a thousand other miniscule, frustrating details she’d been saving up to use as funny anecdotes in the memoir she’d surely never write.

  “Wow,” Shelly said, eyes wide.

  Holly nodded and then remembered the latest bit. “Oh, and Grady just came home with a bloody nose. He got in a fight.”

  With that final burden off her chest, she let out a heavy sigh and sunk back into the porch swing. “I’m exhausted.”

  “I can’t imagine.” Shelly’s lower lip pouted out in sympathy. “I hate having anyone stay at my house for more than a weekend. Let alone a man who wanders around in hole-y boxers. When missionaries come to the island for church visits, Ronny always offers them our guest room. They are the nicest people, but that does not mean I want to wake up to find them sitting at my kitchen table in the morning.”

  Holly’s mind clung to one detail in particular. “The boxers had a hole in them? You didn’t mention that before.”

  “I was trying to be kind,” Shelly admitted. “I didn’t know if you liked him or not. Now that I know you don’t, I can give you all my sympathy. Tell Pete to kick him out!”

  “I tried, but Rob is his family. He wants to help him.”

  Holly understood Pete’s instinct. She even respected it to a certain extent. But she certainly didn’t agree with it.

  Clearly, Rob was having a bad influence on the kids. On Grady, at least, though God only knows what Alice would cook up next.

  It just couldn’t be a coincidence that Grady had his first-ever fight the same week Rob was staying with them. There had to be a connection.

  Holly was about to change the subject, not wanting to bad mouth her husband to anyone. But then she looked up and saw Shelly frowning at her.

  No, not at her. Over her.

  “Speak of the devil, isn’t that him right now? With Grady?”

  Holly spun around so fast her tea sloshed over the rim of her goblet and down her hand. The chain of the porch swing squealed, and Shelly yelped, reaching out to steady the swing from swaying side-to-side rather than front-to-back.

  The houses between Shelly’s and Holly’s had landscaping of their own, so Holly had to squint to see beyond the white picket fence next door and the hedge bush Mark had weed-whacked half to death.

  Setting aside the racket he made every Saturday morning, Holly was grateful for Mark and his chaotic lawn care methods now. Last week, he’d made a particularly nasty gouge in the upper lip of the hedge. And it was over that dip in the foliage that Holly could see Rob and Grady sitting on her front porch.

  Their heads were bowed together. Rob was illustrating whatever point he was making with wild hand gestures.

  Grady watched him, enraptured, nodding along as though he was in a trance.

  Holly placed her tea goblet on the glass side table with a little too much force and stood up. “I have to go.”

  “Good luck,” Shelly said, waving from her chair without getting up. “Godspeed.”

  Shelly’s words had a hint of amusement to them, though Holly knew the woman wouldn’t find it a bit funny if her own kids were being influenced by a man who blew his nose by pressing his finger against one nostril and sending whatever was in his other nasal cavity spraying into the air for all to share.

  Holly’s shoes slapped down the concrete sidewalk even as she did her best not to look like she was hurrying.

  Neither Rob nor Grady seemed to notice her coming up the driveway. When Holly cleared her throat just as Rob clenched his fist and reared his arm back, as though about to hit someone, they both jumped.

  Rob dropped his arm quickly, his body relaxing back onto the concrete step unnaturally fast. In the entire week he’d been staying with them, the man hadn’t shown an ounce of shame about anything. So if he didn’t want Holly to know what he’d been saying to Grady, it couldn’t be good.

  Grady blinked up at his mom like he’d just walked out of a dark movie theatre, his eyes adjusting to the real world around him.

  “What are you two talking about?” she asked, her voice bordering on maniacally pleasant.

  Neither of them answered.

  “Where’s Dad and Alice?�
�� Holly tried again.

  “In the backyard finding caterpillars.” Grady’s shirt was still dirty, even though Pete had promised he’d take care of it. A small bit of dried blood remained smeared under his nose.

  “Why don’t we go finish cleaning you up?” Holly ruffled his hair and waved her hand, ushering him up the stairs and into the house.

  Rob smiled at Holly as she passed, but didn’t make a move to follow them inside or say anything.

  Holly was fine with that. As far as she was concerned, he could stay on the porch all night.

  No one would catch her complaining.

  Pete took the weekend off work.

  Holly didn’t know if it was because of the laundry room conversation they’d had or because of the whole Grady debacle. Either way, her husband apparently felt like he needed to spend more time with his family.

  On Saturday, they all went to the park—Cousin Rob included—and flew kites.

  “They aren’t going to get the kite to fly,” Alice remarked sourly, shaking her head and stretching her leg out across the picnic table bench.

  Alice didn’t like how much attention Grady had gotten over his bloody nose, so she played it up big time when she tripped over a protruding tree root while running and hurt her ankle.

  “They got it to fly once already,” Holly countered.

  Alice looked at her mom, pale eyebrow raised. “Yeah—into a tree.”

  Holly didn’t know when her seven-year-old had become so opinionated—or so feisty—but she had to bite back a laugh and feign hope for Grady and his superhero kite.

  Rob had volunteered to climb the tree and get the kite down. He kicked off his shoes and socks and scaled the tree like he’d done it a thousand times before. Grady was in awe.

  “Rob and I used to climb trees all the time when we were kids,” Pete was telling Grady. “You know that big tree in the middle of downtown? The one with the park bench underneath it?”

  Grady nodded, mouth hanging open.

  “I scaled that one in my day.” Pete puffed out his chest. “The old women at the hair salon across the street got nervous and called the sheriff on us.”

  “Can you climb this tree?” Grady asked, pointing up to where Rob was untangling the kite. The thin branch beneath him bent under his weight.

  Holly laughed to herself when Pete changed the subject suddenly, pointing out a woodpecker two trees over.

  Alice was right, though—they never did get the kite airborne again.

  On Sunday, Holly used her mom’s recipe to make lobster quiche.

  Mae had given Holly a clothbound book of family recipes passed down over the years when she and Pete got married, but Holly rarely cooked from it. Mostly because what she made never turned out as well as anything her mom could make.

  The lobster quiche, however, she had perfected.

  It was Holly’s favorite kind of meal—one that felt like a luxury, but was actually simple to make.

  She used a store-bought crust (Mae Benson would never!) and loaded it with cooked lobster meat leftover from a seafood chowder two nights earlier. Then she poured in her egg mixture, mixed with Dijon mustard and heavy cream, and topped it all with chunks of cream cheese, fresh dill, and asparagus pieces.

  “I don’t like the green things,” Alice said, tongue stuck between her teeth.

  Grady nodded in agreement. “Asparagus is gross.”

  Holly didn’t have it in her to care when the kids picked all of the green bits out and piled them on the edge of their plates. In every way that counted, the brunch was a crowd pleaser. Even Rob enjoyed it, though thankfully he did so silently.

  By the time Monday came around, Holly felt good. Better than she had in a long while.

  “Since Billy is out of office, I can push my meetings to phone calls and man the phone from here,” Pete said as he shoved his wallet in his back pocket and clipped his work phone onto his belt. “Just in case.”

  After last week, Holly felt anything really was possible, but she shook her head.

  “I’m determined to ride the wave of this good weekend and have a good week, too. Go to work. I’ll be fine here.”

  “Look at you and your positive outlook.” Pete pulled Holly close and kissed her, smiling as he backed away. “I’ll try and be positive, too. Maybe Mr. Thomas took a computer class over the weekend and won’t need to call me again to figure out why his email won’t pull up.”

  Holly wagged a finger. “No, I’m with Mr. Thomas. It should be as simple as typing ‘my email’ and letting the robots figure out how to make the darn thing work.”

  Laughing, Pete dispatched to work. Robin Schmidt picked Grady and Alice up for day camp—it would be Holly’s turn to drive the carpool in the afternoon—and thus, Holly found herself with a relatively free morning.

  Then, miracle upon miracles, Rob seemed to be changing his tune, as well. For the first time since appearing on their doorstep, he actually left the house on his own and went to explore downtown.

  Holly secretly wished the townspeople of Nantucket who would cross his path good luck, but she was grateful to have the house to herself for a few hours.

  She spent the free morning listening to a guilty pleasure celebrity gossip podcast and organizing her closet. It was a long overdue task. Some of the clothes hanging up were from before Alice was born.

  Holly made a pile of clothes and shoes and purses to throw away and another pile to donate. When she was finished, an hour and several pairs of regrettably too-small jeans later, she snuggled into the green plaid arm chair at the end of her bed to read a book and drink a cappuccino.

  The life she imagined Shelly Frank lived.

  Of course, not ten pages into her book, her phone rang.

  Caller ID said it was from the Nantucket Nature and Wildlife Center front office. Holly’s heart jumped into her throat as she answered.

  “Hello?” She tried to keep her voice even, not letting herself drift into thoughts of a tree having fallen on Alice or Grady being bitten by a poisonous snake.

  Were there poisonous snakes in Nantucket? Pete would know. He’d been a Boy Scout.

  “Hello. Is this Holly Goodwin?”

  “Speaking. Can I help you?” The woman on the other end of the line sounded calm enough, but maybe it was because she made these kinds of calls all the time. Maybe the sight of some other person’s child being rolled away on a stretcher no longer phased her.

  “Hi, Holly. This is Miranda Chen with the Nantucket Nature and Wildlife Day Camp. I’m calling to let you know your son, Grady, was in an altercation today. He is in the office now, but we need you and your husband, if you’re able, to come in immediately.”

  Holly blinked, trying to process what she just heard. “An altercation? With another person?”

  “With another camper, yes,” she said. “Can you come in today and meet with the director?”

  “Grady was in a fight?” Holly asked again, trying to get more clarification. “Is he okay?”

  “He’s fine, Ma’am. Your son was actually the aggressor. He hit another camper.”

  Aggressor.

  The word sounded nasty. Violent. Nothing like her Grady.

  “Can you come in today for a meeting?” Miranda asked again. “As soon as possible, preferably? The other boy’s parents are already here.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course.” Holly jumped up, the book she’d been reading sliding from her lap onto the floor. Her bookmark skittered under the dresser, kicking up a dust bunny in its wake.

  But it didn’t matter. Holly had a feeling she wouldn’t remember anything she’d read before the phone call, anyway.

  “We will be right there.”

  She texted Pete: Meet me at the Nantucket Nature Center right now. Camp called and Grady is in trouble. We have to meet with the director ASAP.

  A minute later, Pete responded: On my way.

  After all the cleaning, her hair was a mess of flyaways and her forehead was shiny from sweat, but there wasn�
�t much Holly could do about either of those things without being late.

  So she smoothed her hands through her ponytail and dabbed at her face with a blotting sheet before she pulled on her slip-on sneakers and jogged down the stairs. Leggings and a long chambray shirt would have to suffice.

  Just as Holly opened the front door, keys in hand, Rob appeared on the doorstep looking much as he had the first time Holly had seen him. Only this time, instead of a suitcase, he held a large kite in the shape of an airplane in his hand.

  When he saw Holly, Rob grinned and held up the kite. “I bought this for Grady. I saw it in a shop window. Thought we might have better luck with it than the cheap kite from the dollar store.”

  Holly couldn’t even register what he was saying. The only thing she could think about was that Grady had hit someone.

  He was an aggressor.

  And whose fault was that?

  “What did you say to Grady the other day?” Holly asked suddenly. “When you were sitting on the porch. When I walked up, you had your hand in the air like you were telling him to hit someone. What did you say?”

  Rob dropped the kite, his brows knit together. “Nothing. He was just down in the dumps about being hit, so I was talking to him about what happened when I got jumped.”

  “You talked to him about your time in prison?”

  “Yeah, so?” Rob tucked his chin in, taking a more defensive posture. “I just told him that if he acted like a victim, he’d continue to be a victim. The kid who hit him has been bullying him all summer.”

  “No, he hasn’t.” Holly shook her head. “He would have told me.”

  Rob shrugged. “Some kid picked on him cause he couldn’t climb a rope or something dumb like that. And the notes you put in his lunchbox aren’t helping his popularity, I guess.”

  Holly had found the note she put in Grady’s lunch box shoved under the seat last week—Have a great day, honey! Love u xoxo. She’d assumed he’d dropped it, but was that a dumb thing to assume? Maybe it was. Maybe he’d taken it out on purpose so he wouldn’t get made fun of.

  She shook her head. One thing at a time.

  “What did you say to him?” she asked again. “The exact words.”