No Beach Like Nantucket

by Grace Palmer

  But there was still painting to be done, wasn’t there? There remained blank spaces on the canvas of Mae’s life that she had not yet gotten to. And if she stayed buried in the past, if she rooted herself next to Henry’s grave, enmeshed herself in his memories, they would stay blank forever. Didn’t she owe it to herself, to her children, to Henry, to paint those spaces in?

  She fervently believed that she did. No matter which way she cut it, she could not bear to put her life on hold and mourn indefinitely. She was a hummingbird, gosh darn it, and hummingbirds did not sit still. They were physically incapable of it. That was how Mae felt. As though she’d spent a year flying in place, and if she did not take off for a new horizon soon, then she would simply fall from the sky and never, ever fly again. Her heart ached at that, too.

  So, back to the question that had kept her up late every night for a year: How was she supposed to live her life? She knew her children would be part of it. She knew that Nantucket would be part of it. But what else might fill in the spaces?

  Could Dominic be one of those things?

  That thought frightened her, because it came so suddenly and unexpectedly and yet so, so forcefully. Perhaps Dominic had filled in a space in her life before she ever realized that that was what he was doing. How could she have been so blind to what he had come to mean to her? It took Lola and Debra pointing it out to make her really look the thing in the eye and make sense of it.

  Dominic was a stroke of paint on the canvas that hadn’t yet quite taken shape. It was up to Mae now to decide what to do with that stroke. And that was a scary thought. Because taking up her brush again meant, in some way, that she would be leaving Henry behind. Not all of him, of course. But part of him would stay in the past while she walked into her future. She didn’t think she was ready for that. She wasn’t sure if she would ever be.

  So she stayed away from Dominic, and she kept herself occupied, and she decided that she would think about it later, when she wasn’t quite so busy.

  That Saturday, after replying curtly to Dominic, she bid him a quick goodbye and went into the inn to take care of the few little things this morning that required her attention. Her phone rang almost as soon as she stepped inside. It was Eliza.

  “Hi, honey,” she said, grateful for the distraction.

  “Hey, Mom.” She went muffled for a second, then fixed the phone. “Sorry. Anyway, listen: it’s been a hectic morning over here. Winter is being a handful. She has a little bug, I think, or maybe she just didn’t sleep well, I’m not sure. And packing is taking forever and a half. We had to come over to Howard Street to get a few things. I know we had plans so you could see her before we leave, but do you mind just coming over here instead? It would make my life a lot easier.”

  “Oh,” Mae said. “Oh. Well, okay. Sure, hon. Whatever you need.”

  “Thanks, Mom. See you in a bit.” She hung up before Mae could say anything else.

  Mae stood on the threshold for a moment. She heard Dominic sigh behind her on the other side of the porch door.

  Oddly enough, her heart was pounding. She knew why.

  She’d been very apprehensive about going back to the Benson family home on 114 Howard Street. As a matter of fact, she’d avoided it whenever possible over the last twelve months after moving to the innkeeper’s quarters at the Sweet Island Inn. If she needed something or other from the house, she usually sent Brent or Sara over to fetch it for her.

  She was reluctant to go back because she knew that returning to the home she’d shared with Henry was always going to be hard for her. That was another reason that her heart had plummeted so dramatically when Toni had told her about her plan to sell the inn. Did that mean Mae would return to Howard Street? Was she mentally, emotionally, or spiritually prepared for that? She honestly wasn’t sure.

  But she had to see her daughter and granddaughter before they embarked on this wild adventure of theirs, so it didn’t seem like she had a choice. Best to just swallow her fear and get things out of the way as quickly as she could manage.

  Once she had bagels set out for breakfast and beach towels stacked up by the door for her guests to use for the day, she left a note on the refrigerator that said she’d be back in a little while. She decided to take her bicycle from the inn over to Howard Street. It was a nice morning, warm and sunny. She let her mind wander as she rode slowly down the road.

  There was so much happening all of a sudden. It felt like the whole family had been in something of a holding pattern for a year. And now, out of nowhere, it had burst into a million different directions, like a fireworks display. It was getting a little hard to trace all the patterns.

  Eliza, Oliver, and Winter were headed off for an eight-month sojourn with a rock band. Mae’s heartstrings twinged at the thought of being separated from her granddaughter for so long. She’d come to rely on Eliza’s wisdom when it came to various administrative tasks around the inn, too, so she knew she would miss her eldest daughter’s intelligence and foresight. But she felt deep in her soul that this was the right thing for Eliza. She’d spent so long coloring in the lines, so to speak—living her life according to rigid expectations, both those others placed on her and the ones she placed on herself—so to see her follow her heart and live spontaneously seemed like just the ticket for unlocking a path to real happiness. Oliver was a kind man, too. He treated her Eliza well. This was the best thing for both of them.

  But just as Eliza was leaving, Holly would be returning home, and bringing Mae’s other grandchildren with her. That was a welcome surprise. Mae had always loved Pete, ever since he and Holly had first fallen for each other all those years ago. It would be a joy to have them all back home on Nantucket again.

  Then there was Sara. Mae hoped desperately that her grand plan for this restaurant was coming from the right place—a place of hope and ambition, rather than a place of desperation. There was no way to know for certain. But no matter what, Mae knew that she would be behind her one hundred percent.

  Lastly, as always, was both the simplest and the hardest of her children. She knew that Brent thought of himself as a straightforward man. He was born on Nantucket, he lived on Nantucket, and he would always do so. But she wondered sometimes if there was a side of himself he hadn’t yet discovered. Let him be his own man, Henry said often when she worried about what route her son would take in life. She tried to do that as much as possible. But it was hard to see him struggle. In those moments, all she had to offer was love. She had to believe that that was enough to see him through to the light at the end of the tunnel.

  By the time she arrived at Howard Street, she felt somewhat better, having catalogued everything and given each winding branch of her life a dose of careful consideration. She still had a little undercurrent of anxiety as she walked her bicycle up the lane and propped it against the fence, but she swallowed it back and put a smile on her face. Eliza opened the front door as she approached. She had Winter in her arms. At the sight of her grandmother, Winter cooed and reached out a hand.

  “Aww, my love!” Mae exclaimed. “Come to Grandma.” She nestled Winter in her arms and poked her nose with a soft fingertip.

  “She’s been something else this morning,” Eliza said, sighing. “Woke up every hour on the hour. I’m dead tired. And this packing is—well, nightmare doesn’t even begin to cover it. How is a woman supposed to pack for both herself and a three-month old baby for almost a year on the road? I’m exhausted, and we’re not even halfway.”

  Mae laughed. “Babies are a handful. And babies on the road doubly so. Tell you what—you go finish packing. I’ll entertain the little angel for a while.”

  Eliza scoffed. “Little angel—man, she’s got you fooled.” But Mae could tell that she didn’t really mean it. Try as she might to act the role of a sleep-deprived new mom, Mae knew that her oldest daughter was as competent as they came. She was more prepared than anyone else to handle the fickle moods and needs of a newborn. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t appre
ciate a few minutes of peace and quiet. After all, what else were grandmas for?

  “Come, come,” Mae murmured to Winter in a sing-song voice. “Let’s go see what trouble we can get into.” She followed Eliza into the house.

  “Hi, Mrs. Benson!” called Oliver from the living room. He was seated in the middle of a monsoon of clothes, bottles, open suitcases, and a million and one other things that were halfway to being packed or unpacked.

  “Good morning, Oliver,” said Mae. “Looks like you two have quite the project on your hands.”

  “You can say that again.” He laughed. “I wasn’t prepared for this.”

  “I’m sure you will be just fine. Just be nice to each other, all right? I remember one of the only times that Henry and I ever truly fought was over packing for a trip. Lordy, that was a nightmare.”

  “Oliver’s already getting on my nerves this morning,” Eliza accused, but she was laughing.

  Oliver, for his part, held his hands up. “Who, me? I’m innocent of all charges.”

  Mae just shook her head. “I’m staying out of this. You kids be adults now. And be nice to each other!” she called over her shoulder as she headed for the stairs with Winter in her arms.

  It was quieter upstairs. The wooden floors creaked under her weight, exactly as she remembered them. It was like hearing a familiar song from years and years ago come on the radio—a little sweet and a little sad at the same time. She walked slowly down the hallway. “Look,” she said to Winter, raising her granddaughter up so she could see the framed picture Mae was pointing at. It was a family photo of Henry, Mae, and all the kids, taken at Winter Stroll almost two decades ago. Brent was a toddler, all bundled up in enough layers of scarves and beanies and a parka so thick that it swallowed him whole. “That’s your mommy,” she whispered to Winter. “And that’s your uncle, and your aunt Sara, and your aunt Holly. That’s Grandma. And that right there—that handsome fella—that’s your grandpa. It’s a shame you never met him, love.”

  Winter just looked solemnly at Mae.

  “A shame indeed. You would have liked him. And he would have loved you, I can promise you that much. He was always a sucker for babies.” Mae let loose a long exhale and kept walking down the hall. Her old bedroom was waiting at the end. It hadn’t been used in months. She pushed the door open with one toe. It swung inward on silent hinges. She stopped at the threshold.

  Everything was more or less how she left it. Bed made, dresser cleared, window shades pulled closed. One beam of light had snuck through the tiny sliver left between the curtains. It lit up a column of dust rising from the floorboards. The scene was oddly beautiful.

  Mae felt suddenly uneasy. She didn’t want to step in. It felt like disturbing something that ought to just be left alone. But that was silly. This wasn’t a mausoleum. It was a bedroom, nothing more and nothing less. She walked in and sat down on the bed.

  Winter looked around. She was starting to get better and better at controlling her head. Mae ran a gentle thumb along the soft slice of belly that lay exposed beneath the hem of Winter’s shirt. Babies were always so soft and unblemished. And that baby smell … she bent over and inhaled that unmistakable freshness, like powder and breeze.

  “I used to live here with your grandpa,” she murmured. Winter was gazing at her, unblinking. “For a long time. Your mother lived here with all her siblings, too. We were a very happy family.” She frowned and corrected herself. “We are still a very happy family. But I do miss your grandfather. I miss him very much some days.”

  If she expected something to happen—for Henry’s ghost to emerge from the closet or speak to her from the netherworld beyond—she was disappointed, because the only thing to answer her was silence.

  She took a slow breath and looked around. She knew every inch of this room. Henry’s gilded pocket watch, a gift from his own grandfather, still sat in its velvet box on his bedside table. The ceiling fan would still whine if you put it up to its highest setting. In the far right-hand side of the closet hung her wedding dress and Henry’s tuxedo. She closed her eyes and remembered the day they were married. She remembered nestling her head against Henry’s chest as the band played “The Way You Look Tonight” for their first dance. She could practically smell his cologne and the faint tang of whiskey aroma.

  And then, inexplicably, she thought of Dominic. It was too much to say that she suddenly felt open to the possibility of loving again, but perhaps she just felt a little less uneasy about it than she had once before. Something about remembering Henry gave her this sense of—well, not exactly closure, but something akin to it. Like Henry was finally beginning to settle into a place in her heart where he could stay for the rest of her life. Like maybe there was a path forward. Only time would tell, she knew, and it wasn’t as if she had ever gone through this experience before. She had only her own sense of rightness and wrongness to light her way. And right now, in this moment, she felt a powerful aura of rightness. It seemed to emanate from the things in this room, like the comforter and the bathroom mirror and the lamp in the corner were all vibrating at the same frequency as her own memories, and all of them were in harmony.

  “I loved your grandfather very much,” she said again to Winter. The baby said nothing back, of course, but she didn’t need to. This time, when Mae said it, she felt like she could hold onto her past and her future at the same time. They weren’t in conflict. There was nothing that needed to be untangled. There was Henry, forever and always, and there was the wide-open possibility of blank canvas, with the bright, alluring brushstroke that was Dominic, yearning to be explored.

  A few hours later, after Eliza and Oliver had managed to wrangle their belongings into some kind of packing arrangement, Mae handed Winter back over to her mother and returned to the inn. She noticed a strong smell when she walked in the door. It was a fresh, floral smell, and when she rounded the corner into the living room, she saw why.

  At least a dozen massive floral arrangements took up every conceivable flat surface. The room was positively bursting with color and scent, like a jungle had taken up residence in the inn. And standing in the middle of it with his back turned to her, carefully adjusting a bouquet of white roses in a glass vase, was Dominic.

  He must have heard her enter, because he turned to her and smiled. His eyes flashed with an inexplicable river of emotion. “I recalled you saying that you quite admired the work of Soiree Floral at the silent auction,” he explained gently. “And, I must admit, I tend to be quite lucky when it comes to winning things like that. So I took the liberty of putting my name forward.” He smiled again.

  Mae’s heart swelled. He was a good man. The flowers were beautiful. Her life was knotty and unpredictable, more so than she had ever realized before. But in this moment, everything seemed so simple.

  So she smiled, walked forward, and pulled Dominic into an embrace.

  18

  Brent

  Later on Saturday evening.

  Brent was roused from sleep by his phone ringing.

  It had been a very, very long day. Roy was a restless kind of guy, the sort of fisherman who’s always convinced that “this spot is totally dead” and the next one will be the good-catch jackpot. Grass is greener on the other side, basically. Which was all well and good if that was a client’s preference, but it meant that they’d spent the whole morning and the better part of the afternoon going from spot to spot to spot, barely taking any time to actually set up camp for very long at any of them. Despite that, they’d still managed to catch a fair amount of fish, so Roy was pleased enough with the day’s haul. Nonetheless, it made for tiring work for the crew of Captain Cook Charter Fishing Co. Even Marshall, who’d barely stopped talking long enough to take in a full breath since the day he was born, was reduced to mumbling tired goodbyes by the time they returned to the marina. Brent had taken care of clean-up post-haste and jetted off home for the comfort of his bed.

  “Sailor boy,” said the voice on the other end of the line.<
br />
  Brent sat bolt upright. “Ally?”

  He was sure he was dreaming. But if he was, this was a weird dream. Not very imaginative. If he was going to be in charge of scripting his own dream, he sure wouldn’t have set it in the same crummy apartment that he had to face during waking hours. But he looked around and confirmed that yes, he was still at his place—on the couch, as a matter of fact; he’d been too tired to drag himself even as far as the bedroom before keeling over and falling asleep. That meant he wasn’t dreaming.

  He pinched himself as hard as he could, just to be sure. “Ouch!”

  “What?”

  “Um, nothing,” he muttered. He threw the ratty blanket off him. He stubbed his toe on the coffee table in the process and let out a blue streak of curse words.

  “Wow, ‘sailor boy’ was really spot on, nickname-wise, wasn’t it?” Ally remarked over the phone. “Do they teach you all those words in pirate school?”

  “Who? I mean, how? What is happening?” His voice was still thick with sleep, and though he’d confirmed that he was in fact awake now, he hadn’t processed much else. Well, besides the fact that Ally was on the other end of the call. Then again, that still didn’t quite make much sense.

  “You sound awfully confused. Should I call back?”

  “No!” he blurted, way more forcefully than he intended. “No, no, it’s fine. I was just—I’m awake.”