Nantucket Sisters (26 page)

Later, after Cameron has showered and Serena has wakened for her nighttime nursing and they are all tucked away in the bedroom—Serena slumbering in her co-sleeper attached to the bed—Emily snuggles up to Cameron. She wraps her arms around him, spooning her front against his back.

“I do love you, Cameron. You are such a good, sweet man.”

Cameron’s silent for so long she thinks he’s sleeping. Then he says, “And I’ll try to be for as long as I can.”

What does
that
mean, Emily wonders, but she’s tired … Right now she needs sleep more than anything else in the world.

When Heather is fourteen days old, Maggie lies on a cushiony lounge chair on the back screened-in porch, her daughter asleep in a basket next to her. The day is a return to summer, hot, humid, calm, drowsy. She’s wearing maternity shorts and an old blue shirt that buttons up the front, or barely does. If her breasts were large before, they’re massive now, full of milk. Clarice is napping. Frances has gone to the grocery store.

A man comes around the corner and up the stairs. “Hello, Mags.”

She blinks, startled out of her doze. “Ben.”

He’s dressed like a summer person in khakis, rugby shirt, and loafers without socks, and Maggie starts to sneer. Then she notices his face. His black hair is styled long and sleek, but his face is sad. She remembers him as a boy, pedaling like a hellion on his bike through the dirt roads of the moors, escaping or running toward—
moving
—and he’s her brother and she knows exactly what he wants. He doesn’t want to be fatherless, either. He doesn’t want to be poor. He wants to be anyone but himself. Now Ben’s older. He doesn’t want Thaddeus, the one man who loved him, to be dead, leaving him without a guide. He doesn’t want the woman who loved him to be married to another man.

“I’d like to see your baby,” Ben says simply.

Maggie bursts into tears. “Ben, I’ve missed you so much!” Awkwardly, she tries to move off the chaise, but Ben backs away slightly, as if afraid to be touched.

“Are you okay?” Ben asks. “Was it horrible, the giving-birth thing?”

Maggie smiles. “Yeah, it was. And wonderful, too.” Swinging her legs to the floor, she pats the end of the lounge chair. “Sit down and I’ll show her to you.”

Ben sits, his eyes on the small bundle in the basket. Because of the day’s heat, Maggie’s simply dressed Heather in a diaper and wrapped her in a light cotton blanket. She’s sleeping on her tummy, which doctors advise not to let an infant do at night, but which Maggie lets her do when she’s right there with her.

Maggie picks Heather up. She already weighs eleven pounds. Her face is angelic. She has the glistening perfection of a newborn.

Ben is mesmerized.

“Want to hold her?” Maggie asks.

Ben draws back. “I might hurt her.”

“No, she’s not that fragile. Here.” She settles her daughter in Ben’s arms.

Gently, with his finger, Ben pushes back the blanket to expose Heather’s two little fists, lightly closed, smaller than scallop shells.

“Her fingers,” he says.

“I know.”

The baby gives a shuddering breath and opens her blue eyes. She gazes up at Ben for a long time with that inscrutable questioning infant stare. Then she smiles.

Maggie feels a tremor move through Ben. “Her name is Heather.”

“Hello, Heather.” Ben touches his niece’s cheek and she turns her head toward his hand. “My God, Maggie, she’s amazing.”

“Yes. Yes, she is.” Maggie knows her brother’s holding back a powerful emotion, perhaps enough to make him cry, which might embarrass him terribly, so she rises. “I’m going to fetch myself some ice water. Want some?”

Ben looks terrified. “You can’t leave me here alone with her!”

“Don’t be silly. Sit there and talk to her. She’ll enjoy a male voice.”

Maggie goes into the kitchen, takes down two glasses, fills them with ice, and bursts into tears. It is not fair. Love is not fair. It is too
hard. She is deeply attached to the farm, but she loves her brother, and seeing him with her child cracks her heart open with joy.

After a few moments she wipes her eyes, runs tap water over the ice, and carries the glasses out to the porch.

“Did you both survive?” she asks lightly.

Ben looks up at her. “Maggie, I’m not going to sell the land.”

Maggie almost drops the glasses. “What?”

“I’ve been thinking. I mean … this baby is a little girl.”

Cautiously, Maggie sits next to her brother, almost holding her breath. “Yes, that’s true.”

Heather has Ben’s finger clutched tightly in her tiny fat hand.

Ben gazes with adoration at his niece. “She should grow up there, on that land. She should learn about the island there, run to the harbor like you did, play in the boathouse, in the barns.”

“Ben, that would be wonderful for her. That would be paradise.”

Heather makes a strange face and a stranger sound. Ben glances at Maggie, slightly alarmed.

“She just filled her diaper,” Maggie explains. “I think that’s a sign of approval.”

Ben laughs, gazing down at his niece with pride in his eyes. “I’m going to buy her a pony.”

Maggie laughs, too, at the same time choking back tears. “Ben, she’s too little for a pony. But oh, I would love it if she could grow up on the farm.”

“Then that’s what we’ll make happen,” Ben says. “I’ll find a way.”

In the Park Avenue apartment, in her exquisitely hand-painted nursery, Serena enjoys her late morning nap. She is four weeks old, healthy and active, a true bouncing baby. Cameron is at work. Emily’s housekeeper has left to run errands. Emily’s parents, having
fussed over Emily and her daughter for an appropriate amount of time, are at brunch with friends. Emily wanders her large, elegant apartment, overwhelmed with a melancholy so painful it’s almost like homesickness. She misses Maggie. Tiffany, not yet pregnant, isn’t interested in discussing the details of life with a new baby, and her Manhattan mommy friends are vaguely competitive—which agency did Emily’s nanny come from, in which preschool will Emily enroll Serena?

She wants to laugh. She wants to be at home. Finally she gives in, curls up in a chair in the living room, and picks up her iPhone.

“Maggie, it’s Emily. I’m calling to thank you for the gorgeous Nantucket sweater and cap for Serena!”

Maggie sounds distant and slightly formal. “Oh, you’re welcome. And thank you for the silver cup for Heather. I’m planning to write you an official thank-you note—”

“Please, don’t!” Emily laughs. “If you don’t, I won’t have to write you. And I don’t have time to. I don’t have time to go to the bathroom.”

Maggie chuckles, and instantly, they’re close again. “I know! How do they sense it? Heather will be sound asleep and the moment I shut the bathroom door, she wakes up and wails.”

“Serena does the same thing! It’s like she possesses some odd ESP telling her the second my focus is on something other than her.”

“And the laundry. Who knew one little baby’s poop could ruin so many of her clothes and mine at one time? Thank heavens my mother helps. Is Cara staying with you?”

Emily hesitates. “No, although she did come over almost every day the first week. But she’s not great with babies. Or with thinking of anyone but herself, actually,” Emily adds with an easy laugh. “I think I’ll break down and hire a nanny, though. Honestly, it’s been four weeks and I still can’t accomplish a thing. Time is doing a
strange warp trick, moving faster sometimes and wayyyy slower in the middle of the night when Serena’s having a crying jag.”

“I know,” Maggie says. “I’m learning a lot about late night TV. Heather likes being awake about three in the morning. It’s her wiggle time. No chance I can persuade her back to sleep for an hour.”

“Cameron takes care of Serena then,” Emily admits. “He seldom sees her during the day, he’s working. He’s asked to take over the early morning feeding. I pump and keep bottles in the fridge.”

“Lucky you,” Maggie says. “I don’t know when I’ll ever sleep a full night again.”

Emily asks, “What does Ben think of Serena?”

“Oh,” Maggie begins, then interrupts herself. “Emily, Heather’s crying and Mom’s out getting groceries. I’d better go. Let’s talk another time. Love you.”

“Love you, too,” Emily replies. Without Maggie’s voice, the silence around her seems enormous.

Part Six

Hail, Lord Boulder!

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Four Years Later

On a foggy November afternoon, Maggie and Heather sit together at the kitchen table with their colored pencils and pads of paper, drawing pictures of the island and its creatures, real and imaginary. Frances is baking cookies, infusing the air around them with the scent of cinnamon and sugar, and Clarice is in the living room, lying on the sofa reading, with a blanket over her and the cat Cleopatra on top.

The phone rings. Heather jumps up. At four, she finds answering the phone a constant adventure. “For you, Mommy.” She brings Maggie the handset.

“Hi, Maggie. How are you?” It’s a vaguely familiar voice, low, compelling.

“Fine,” Maggie responds crankily. She hates guessing games. “I’ll be better when I know who this is.”

A short burst of laughter breaks over the line. “Same old Maggie.”

Who is this? She
knows
she knows but can’t quite conjure up the name. “Come on!”

“It’s Tyler.”

For a beat she stands there with her jaw hanging open. “Tyler. Tyler! Honey, how
are
you?”

“I’m great, as a matter of fact. I’m coming to the island. I might settle there.”

“Get out!” She’s wracking her brain but she can’t remember the last time they wrote or emailed or talked. It’s been years.

“It’s true. I’m coming on Wednesday. Want to meet for a drink?”

“Meet for a drink? Are you kidding? I’m going to meet your boat!”

Again, the low roll of laughter. “Think you’ll recognize me after all these years?”

“Are you nuts? Of course I will.”

It’s a blustery day, the intermittent wind pushing and tugging at the clouds, turning cloud hills into cloud mountains, then blowing the peaks away. Nantucket Sound tosses restlessly, its blue, green, gold waves leaping, lapping, and crashing over the long jetties, as gray and rounded as the seals who will soon recline there throughout the winter. The ferry rumbles in, banging the dock as a wave slams its hull, then the engines subside and the ramps are maneuvered into place and the cars roll off and the passengers come down the foot ramp.

Maggie shields her eyes with her hand against the noon sun and peers up at the line of people coming out of the boat. She doesn’t see anyone who looks like Tyler.

“Maggie?”

A man walks toward her. Tall, muscular, easy in his bones, he strides along in chinos, blue dress shirt, red tie, leather jacket. A
mop of gleaming brown hair falls over his forehead and ears. Dark Buddy Holly glasses, retro and attractive, frame his dark eyes. He’s
gorgeous
.

“Tyler?”

“The one and only.”

“Oh, my God.” She throws herself at him, hugging him, then standing back to check him out, every inch. “Tyler, look at you! My God, you’re absolutely
handsome
! You’ve become a hunk! Your smile, I could die! Why, it’s a
miracle
!”

“Don’t hold back, Maggie. Tell me what you really think.”

“Oh, stop it.” She runs her hands down his arms. “Look at these muscles!”

Tyler’s face is serious when he says quietly, “You’re looking extremely appealing yourself, Maggie.”

She has no idea what she’s wearing. Certainly she put no effort into her appearance today; she was only meeting Tyler. “Yeah, but
you
, just look at you!”

“Hey, you’re making a commotion. Let’s get in your car.”

“Do you have luggage?” she asks.

“No, I’m only here for the day.”

“But you’re coming back, aren’t you?” Maggie grips him by the wrist as she drags him to her car. She can’t take her eyes or her hands off him.

“Yeah, I told you, I’m considering setting up an optometrist practice here.”

She has to let him go while they slide into opposite sides of the car, then Maggie turns to stare at him again.