The Cottage on Nantucket

by Jessie Newton

  When storms caused any damage, Bobbie called Mom and reported. As far as Tessa knew, Mom and Bobbie had been best of friends, and they’d spent a lot of time with Bobbie and her husband, Riggs, growing up.

  Tessa opened the door, and sure enough, petite, blonde, blue-eyed Bobbie stood there. “Bobbie,” Tessa said with a big smile on her face. Maybe too big. Maybe a little fake.

  She stepped into the older woman’s arms and hugged her. Her eyes drifted closed, because hugging Bobbie was almost like getting a hug from her own mother, even if the other woman wasn’t Tessa’s favorite person on Nantucket.

  Bobbie tended to gossip too much and pry too hard, but she had a similar body shape to Mom, and she smelled just like her—like powder and sugar and fresh coffee. Another powerful rush of missing and grief flowed through her, and Tessa found she couldn’t let go of the older woman. Everything spun at the speed the Earth rotated, and Tessa felt wildly untethered.

  “There, there,” Bobbie said, repeating the single word she’d said many times before. When Tessa had been stung by a jellyfish, Bobbie and scooped her up into her arms and said, “There, there, I know just what to do.”

  And she had. Bobbie knew a home remedy for every ailment, and Tessa wondered if she had something to cure a broken heart.

  Without Mom, Tessa honestly felt like she had no one. Her husband had barely been present for the funeral, and Ryan had shown up late and left immediately afterward, his finals the same day she’d buried her mother. He’d texted to say he’d wanted to stay longer. That he’d make sure he got over to the cemetery to visit Mom’s grave. That he missed them.

  Tessa wasn’t sure what she believed. She didn’t want to think that her son didn’t like being around her. She thought she’d done the best she could for him. She hadn’t worked when he was a child, and she’d been there for every science fair, every concert, every parent-teacher conference.

  He’d played rugby, and she’d gone to many of the games. Enough to be supportive, but not so many as to smother him. Ron made good money, and Ryan had never truly wanted for anything. She had no idea why her son had pulled away and refused to be reeled back in. Tessa simply didn’t know what to do about it.

  “Bobbie,” Janey said from behind Tessa, and that got her to step away. Tessa moved to the side so Janey could greet Bobbie, taking the opportunity to wipe her eyes quickly. She desperately wanted a nightcap and the time to sit on the porch while she sipped it—alone.

  But Janey invited Bobbie into the cottage, and the blonde woman went. Tessa was left behind to close the door, which felt about right to her. She’d often existed in Janey’s shadow or two steps behind her sister as a teen. She’d taken that feeling into adulthood, having one less child than Janey, and getting married two years later.

  She trailed behind the other two women, and waved Janey away when she offered tea. Bobbie took a cup while Tessa started cleaning up the remnants of their dinner. With that done, she joined Janey and Bobbie at the table. The furniture coverings needed to be removed and shaken from the sofas in the living room, and neither Tessa nor Janey wanted to do it tonight.

  They’d agreed to open all the windows in the morning and let the sea breeze blow through the cottage then. They’d uncover everything and start wiping everything out and down. They had groceries to get—along with those doughnuts—and plenty of items to discuss to finish up dealing with Mom’s trust.

  “…such an amazing woman,” Bobbie said, shaking her head. “We’re really going to miss her around here.”

  “Yes, she did love being part of this community,” Janey said diplomatically. She hadn’t lied; Mom did love Nantucket, and she’d come for months at a time, especially once Dad had passed.

  “She met Dennis here, you know,” Bobbie said with a self-important wobble of her neck.

  “She did?” Tessa asked, casting a look at Janey. “She said she met him at the theater.”

  “Yes, yes,” Bobbie said. “The movie theater on the day cruise.”

  The sisters exchanged a glance, and this time, Janey asked, “Day cruise?”

  “You know,” Bobbie said, clearly exasperated. “The six-hour cruise that goes around the island? There’s a movie theater on-board the ship. They met there.”

  Tessa wasn’t sure what to say, though her mind moved a mile a minute. She wasn’t the funny, witty sister, nor the life of the party. She liked to have a good time too, and she’d always participated in family parties and events. Happily.

  “Are you sure?” Janey asked.

  “Quite,” Bobbie said, her blue eyes blazing. She leaned forward and set her teacup on the table. Looking between the two girls, she asked, “She didn’t tell you that?”

  “She said they met at the theater,” Tessa said. “It obviously doesn’t matter.” She shot a look at Janey, who still wore a frown between her eyes. “They got along so well, and we were just glad she didn’t have to be alone for very long.”

  Bobbie’s countenance fell again. “Yes, Dennis’s passing was hard for many here.”

  “Did he live here, then?” Janey asked, her face back to her normal placid expression.

  “The Martins owned several homes here at one point,” Bobbie said.

  Shock spread through Tessa. Several homes? That meant money. A lot of money.

  Janey crossed her legs and leaned back in her chair, though Tessa had seen this tactic before. She was interested but wanted to look like she wasn’t.

  “They didn’t stay, though,” Bobbie continued. “They rented their homes for years and years. I saw couple up for sale after Dennis died, but I don’t think the sales went through.”

  “Hm,” Janey said. “Mom did like living in the city.”

  Darkness and disgust ran across Bobbie’s face. “You couldn’t pay me to go back to the city.”

  Tessa laughed, glad when Janey did too. “We know,” Tessa said. “You left forty years ago, and you’re not going back.” She smiled at Bobbie, who wore her islander spirit right on her sleeve. She never held back her opinion either, and Tessa had forgotten about her bluntness. That, combined with the “free advice” Bobbie tended to hand out, kept Tessa from wanting to spend much time with her at all. She certainly didn’t want to tell Bobbie Friedman anything of any significance. She didn’t need the mundane details of her life being spread around the island to strangers.

  Sometimes she wished she could tell people exactly what she thought about them, but she rarely did.

  “Well, I’ll leave you girls to get settled,” Bobbie said, standing. She placed her teacup in the sink and another round of hugs took place before their neighbor left. Janey closed the door this time, a sigh coming loudly from her mouth.

  “She exhausts me,” Janey said as she turned around. “I need a drink.”

  Tessa said nothing, though she’d like one too. She let Janey rifle through the cabinets until she found a bottle of rosé. She only knew she’d done that when Janey called, “There’s wine,” from the kitchen. “Rosé.”

  “Okay,” Tessa yelled back, continuing to take her clothes from her weekend bag. Her sister wouldn’t expect her to come drink with her, so Tessa finished unpacking and changed into her pajamas. She’d just plugged in her tablet and her phone when her sister leaned in the doorway.

  “I’m going to bed,” Janey said, holding her wine glass by the stem like a refined socialite. “We’ll go downtown for groceries tomorrow. I desperately need coffee with caffeine in it.”

  Tessa smiled, because Mom had switched to decaf at least a decade ago. “Agreed.”

  “I’m not setting an alarm,” Janey said, throwing back the last swallow of her wine. Tessa’s mouth watered, but she just smiled. “Good-night.”

  “Night,” Tessa said.

  Janey went to the next bedroom and closed the door behind her. To be safe, Tessa waited another ten minutes. She used the time to send a quick text to her husband that she’d made it to the cottage, and she’d hope to know more later.

&nb
sp; He hadn’t texted or called, though she should’ve checked in hours ago. He’d barely paid attention to anything in the will and trust, and Tessa didn’t have final numbers for an inheritance yet anyway.

  That was why she and Janey needed to be here. They had another bank to visit, that blasted binder to find, and a lawyer to meet with. Perhaps then, they’d get some final answers and be able to start dividing the estate.

  Certain her sister wouldn’t make a reappearance, Tessa went into the kitchen, noting that all the lights in the cottage still blazed as if electricity were free. She turned off lights as she went, finally leaving only a single bulb burning above the kitchen sink.

  She poured herself a healthy serving of wine, picked up the bottle, and crept through the house to the front door. The porch wrapped around the front and side of the house, and around the corner sat two weathered Adirondack chairs.

  Tessa sank into one of them and lifted her wine in a toast to the ocean she could only hear. Darkness stretched before her, but she imagined the water washing ashore just to say hello to her.

  She gulped the wine before forcing herself to slow down, her unhappiness and discontent finally allowed to stream out of her. If she kept it bottled up inside, Tessa wouldn’t make it through tomorrow, let alone the next few weeks, with her sister.

  She let her mind linger on any topic while she drank glass after glass of rosé, allowed her tears to overflow, and then fell asleep right where she sat on the covered porch, her wineglass in her fingers.

  Chapter Four

  Tessa woke with a start, her head pounding and the remnants of a distinct sound still ringing in her ear. Her tongue felt like a thick sock in her mouth, and she groaned as she sat up. Darkness covered everything, the deep, thick kind that spoke of a time when no one should be awake, let alone out on a porch by themselves.

  She stood, a chill covering her skin and making her shiver. She stepped on a piece of broken glass, and she cried out as she jerked her foot back.

  The glass. That was what she’d heard. The wine glass she’d drunk from last night had fallen and broken, the shattering sound waking her.

  Her stomach sloshed as she squinted at the deck, trying to navigate around any other broken shards. In the end, she made a big leap and got past the wreckage. She limped around the corner, awake enough now to realize she was leaving bloody footprints behind her.

  She simply couldn’t take care of it right now. In fact, she’d really like someone else to take care of something, for once. Just one time, she wanted someone else to do the dishes. Put in the laundry. Vacuum the straight lines into the carpet and pay all the bills.

  Tessa was simply tired of taking care of everything.

  She should go clean up her foot, but her head hurt so badly, and she was so tired, that she simply went into the bedroom she’d used for years and collapsed onto the mattress. Hopefully, she wouldn’t bleed too much before morning.

  The next time she woke, the first rays of dawn fell across her face. A low pain echoed from Tessa’s foot, and the events of the previous evening ran through her head. She took her time opening her eyes, as they suffered the most when she drank too much.

  Finally, she got them open enough to adjust to the light, which was thankfully still fairly weak. With a groan and a sigh, she sat up and let her legs hang over the edge of the bed.

  The mattress on this bed still caused a pinch in her back, and Tessa reached up and pushed her hair out of her face as she arched to get the pain stretched out. She didn’t think for a moment Janey would be awake already, as her sister was notorious for sleeping very late, especially when she went on vacation.

  Sure, she’d brought work to the cottage and they had plenty to do here, but Tessa knew she still viewed it as vacation.

  Tessa went into the bathroom and drank two glasses of clear, cool water. She knew the best way to get rid of all signs of drinking was to hydrate, clean up, and get some food in her. Then the alcohol would dilute enough for her to function.

  She got in the shower, dressed in clothes she could go to town in and go through closets in, and made herself a couple of fried eggs and a single piece of toast. After eating, she cleaned up the dishes, as well as the porch where the bottle had broken. If Janey asked about the wine—and she likely would—Tessa could simply say she’d brought it out here to have a glass and accidentally dropped it.

  In fact, she’d mention the wine for sure before they went to town. Then they could get more.

  Janey still hadn’t made an appearance, and Tessa stood in the front part of the house, in the intersection that led to all other parts. To her right lay the living room and front door. To the left, the dining room and kitchen. Behind her, the hall that led to the bedrooms on this level, and the stairs that led up to the second floor.

  The cottage had an attic too, and Tessa couldn’t remember the last time she’d been up there. As children, she and Janey had loved the attic, because Mom and Dad had filled it with tiny, child-sized furniture just for them. A little couch and a little chair. A desk, and a table and chairs. When it rained on Nantucket, they’d happily have tea parties with all their stuffed animals or plan big birthday celebrations with plenty of cake and chocolate milk.

  Tessa smiled at the memories, because she had so enjoyed coming to the cottage as a child. She hadn’t even minded it as a teenager, though Janey had thrown a fit or two about leaving her friends for “months on end” in the summertime. Once she got old enough, she’d gotten a job, and she hadn’t come to the cottage for longer than a week in the summertime.

  The whole house needed to be aired out, wiped down, and opened up. The job would take one person a few weeks; Tessa knew. She’d done the apartment in the city by herself, and she wondered if Ron had even missed her. She’d stayed there, and while he worked in the city, he hadn’t come to her mother’s apartment after work. He’d gone back to his. She hadn’t contacted Ryan, because she hadn’t wanted to bother him.

  “No,” she muttered to herself. “You didn’t want to hear whatever excuse he’d come up with for why he couldn’t see you.” Somehow, not asking her son to get together for a quick lunch was easier to digest than getting rejected if she did ask.

  Pushing her husband and son from her mind, Tessa faced the living room. She could open blinds and doors, tear sheets off furniture and wave them out in the breeze to get the dust out, and sweep up anything that remained.

  As she worked, she wished rooting out the dirty, hidden things in her life was as easy as taking a storage cover from a sofa. She wished she could beat her relationships against the porch railing and have them come out clean and ready to be used in the future. As the pile of sand, leaves, and a bit of other debris got swept into a pile, Tessa could identify each piece of her life she’d like to group together, pick up, and toss out.

  With sunlight streaming through the front windows of the cottage and the living room clean, Tessa finally found a smile. It wobbled on her face, and she didn’t know what to do with the swirling feelings inside her.

  She fumbled with her phone but got it out of her pocket. She never called Ron during the week. Truth be told, she hardly texted. They lived two different lives, especially now that Ryan was grown and gone, and she honestly didn’t have anything to tell him.

  She tried, as evidenced by the string of pictures she’d sent in the past couple of months. The garden before and after. The new rose bushes she’d put in. The first bloom of the azaleas she’d planted especially for him. Other than that, she might tell him about a neighbor they’d known for a while who’d fallen ill, or something particularly unique that had happened at the library.

  Whenever she asked him what was happening at work, he said, “The same old thing,” with a sigh. She’d asked him if he ever explored the city, and he’d dryly said it was just a city, and no, he had no interest in exploring it.

  He didn’t use social media, and by all accounts and purposes, he went to work every day at a prestigious and very competitive
law firm, put in eighty hours in five days, and came home on the weekends. Sometimes, when he had a high-profile case, he didn’t return to Pennsylvania for Saturday and Sunday.

  He’d made partner two years ago, and Tessa had thrown a huge party for him—in the city. All of his friends lived there, and she was the only one who had to commute to celebrate all of his hard work. She was proud of him, and if she thought about him for very long at all, she realized she did love him.

  She simply wondered if what she and Ron called their life together was truly any way to live. Today, she went out onto the front porch and took a picture of the sun hanging over the water. The sky didn’t hold a single cloud, and after snapping the photo to send to her husband, Tessa took a moment to close her eyes and breathe in the sunshine, the air, the life this new day promised to bring her.

  She sent the picture to Ron with the message, Wish you were here. This place is beautiful, and we need a vacation.

  He responded instantly. We sure do. I do love Nantucket. Let me look at my schedule and see what I can do.

  Hope filled Tessa’s heart, though she pushed against it. Ron had made such promises before, and sometimes his schedule simply didn’t have any openings in it. Still, she leaned against the porch and whispered into the morning breeze, “Please keep him well, and bless us that we’ll find a time to reconnect soon.”

  She could say the same prayer for Janey, so she did. Then she turned to go wake her sister. After all, Tessa wanted doughnuts, and Janey had promised they could get some that morning.

  Chapter Five

  “I just don’t understand,” Janey said a week later. “She said we had to come here, right? That there was something we had to go through?” She looked at the various items scattered around her, a frown pulling her eyebrows down.

  “That’s what she said.” Tessa understood the frustration, because it had been running hotly through her for a few days now. Even the most delicious apple fritters and tiger tails hadn’t alleviated her irritation that they had not found another binder. She’d shown Janey the instruction sheet from the first binder, and it was very clear there were instructions here too.