by Grace Palmer
But that isn’t even the real thing of it all.
What is getting to her even more is that he would do all this for her. That he cares. That he—gulp—likes her? Loves her? She doesn’t know which words are right in any of the languages Nicolas speaks.
That doesn’t matter so much, though. As she stares at Nicolas, biting her lip to hold back happy tears, she knows that he wouldn’t care which words she picked. They fell for each other while dancing—hardly a word spoken between them. And it seems that the most important moments that pass between them are always the silent ones.
So she decides she doesn’t need to say much of anything at all. She walks up to him and squeezes his hand, then stands on her tiptoes to kiss him on the lips.
He is a good man. He is her man.
That’s enough.
13
Nantucket, Maine —July 3, 2000
Toni woke up with a dry mouth and a headache lodged deep in her temples. She stayed in bed, staring at the ceiling with gummy eyelids as she groaned softly.
“I am way too old to be getting hangovers,” she mumbled to no one in particular.
She heard the pitter-patter of young footsteps scampering up and down the stairs over and over again. Those belonged to Brent, no doubt, who appeared to be off to a rowdy start on this bright and sunny morning. From what she could make out through the door, it sounded like he was miming fireworks exploding, complete with the whine, the boom, and the crackling aftermath. Very on-brand for the little hellion, Toni thought to herself.
She wasn’t sure how long she lay there, thinking about nothing in particular before she decided that lazing about in bed was going to do precisely zero favors for her future prospects.
What to do, though?
A shower and breakfast seemed like a reasonable place to start. She let out a hiss as she sat upright and threw the covers off her. The motion caused her headache to rear up fiercely. Easy does it, then—no need to rush the day.
She hobbled her way to the adjoined bathroom, found a towel in the linen closet, and got the shower going. She stood and looked in the mirror as she waited for the water to warm up.
“Well, old girl,” she said to herself, feeling a little silly for talking at her reflection but much too hungover to care, “you’ve got what you wanted. A fresh start, wasn’t that it? Isn’t that what you asked for?”
Her baleful eyes gazed back. They were still red and weary from last night’s whiskey, which had kicked her in the teeth a little harder than she’d realized until she and Mae had begun the walk back.
What she was saying was true; a fresh start was exactly what she’d voiced to the universe. But the one she had in mind looked nothing like this. So much for hot coffee and summer sunrises over the lake with her husband in the rocking chair next to her. So much for the chirping of birds getting their day started. Instead, she was camped out in her niece’s bedroom while her nephew stormed around outside, now pretending to be a tiger.
“A real monkey’s paw situation you’ve found yourself in, Toni,” she scowled. Her reflection scowled right back. “Isn’t this the part where you say, ‘I never should have made that stupid wish?’”
She wrangled her hair into some semblance of neatness. The first curls of steam from the shower had begun to seep out, although Toni had spent enough nights here to know that the hot water was never in any hurry to arrive. She still had another minute or two before the shower would be bearable. Long enough to castigate her image in the mirror a bit more, at least.
“Here’s the thing, though: maybe this was all for the best. Could be, couldn’t it?”
Her voice was hopeful—far too hopeful for her to actually believe the words she was saying. She knew she was trying to convince herself that this was all headed towards a happily ever after.
But right here and right now, it sure didn’t feel that way. It felt a lot closer to rock bottom.
Enough, she thought to herself. She tried it out loud: “Enough.”
She needed to quit it with the self-pity, with the wallowing in her own muck. The recurring thought that was troubling her most was that her future was wide-open and empty. What she ought to do instead was figure out what kinds of things might fill it.
She thought of the house she and Mae had passed on their way home from the beach last night. It was like the seed of an idea, one that didn’t have any shape just yet. Toni couldn’t quite say why she thought of that house; all she knew was that there was something to it that was appealing.
She also thought of Mae’s comment that her old friend Kendra Adkins had just given birth to a little girl. “Bingo!” she said out loud. “I’ll swing by for a visit today.” What better than a newborn to cheer her up?
She felt the familiar pang of sadness that she always felt whenever a new birth announcement made its way to her through the grapevine. When will it be my turn? went the self-pitying complaint.
But now was not the time for that. She had more concrete things to mourn for right now.
When she saw a bead of sweat form on her forehead, she knew the shower was ready. She stepped in. It felt good to rinse off the crustiness of the hangover, and her headache felt a little better by the time she was scrubbed, toweled off, dressed, and on her way downstairs to see what wonders Mae’s kitchen might be holding this morning. The fresh smell of coffee hit her before she even got to the bottom of the staircase.
“Which of my gremlins is that?” Mae called out from around the corner. She smiled when Toni came into sight. “Oh! Sorry, Toni. Not a gremlin at all.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Toni said with a wink. “Could I bother you for an aspirin, hon?”
Mae grinned and pointed with her spatula towards a hallway closet. “Third shelf in there, little red bottle. Did the whiskey fight back?”
“It is certainly trying its best,” Toni admitted sheepishly as she followed Mae’s directions and retrieved a white miracle pill. “As if I needed the reminder for why I stick to wine.”
“Shall I add a little brandy to your coffee, then?” Mae said with a wicked smile when Toni returned to her stool behind the kitchen counter. “Hair of the dog?”
“Only if you want to see a sad old woman get sick all over your kitchen.”
Mae swatted Toni on the elbow. “If you’re old, that means I’m old, and I don’t want to be old, so stop saying that.”
Toni smiled again. She drank gratefully from the cup of coffee Mae placed in front of her. It warmed her bones as soon as it went down, and the headache receded just a bit further.
“Over-medium eggs on rye toast, right?” Mae asked with the wry air of someone who already knew that she was right.
“One of these days, I’m going to deprive you of the pleasure of knowing the right thing to do in every single circumstance,” Toni teased. “But yes, eggs and toast sound like a gift from the gods. What did I do to deserve a sister-in-law like you?”
Mae chuckled as she expertly cracked two eggs onto the skillet. Their sizzle rang out pleasantly in the morning air. “You must’ve been someone special indeed in a former life.” She winked. “Only joking. I might ask you the same question, actually.”
Toni barked out a shallow laugh. “Ah yes, I’m exactly what everyone is always begging for: an unexpected house guest arriving on short notice to eat your food and steal your daughter’s bedroom.”
Sara came wandering into the kitchen blearily just then, before Mae could say something pointed about Toni’s poor attitude this morning. “Good morning, hon,” Toni greeted her niece. “Sleep okay?”
“Well, if it isn’t Sleeping Beauty!” Mae exclaimed sarcastically. “Or are you the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz? With that hair, I’m not so sure!”
Sara’s blonde hair was sticking up in all directions, and it did look an awful lot like a messily assembled straw man. Toni figured she’d stay quiet on this particular topic, though, judging by the acidic grimace on Sara’s face at her mom’s cheery early morning jesting
.
“Ha. Ha. Ha,” Sara intoned grumpily. “Coffee, please.”
“Lord, child, you think you’re just so grown!” Mae said, wide-eyed with her hands on her hips. “You know the rules: no coffee until you’re older.”
“But Mom, that’s not fair!” Sara whined. “Jenny MacMillan’s mom lets her drink coffee on the weekends whenever she wants!”
“Well, hip hooray for Jenny MacMillan,” Mae shot back without hesitation. “Do let me know if you decide to move into their house. I’ll be sure to inform Mrs. MacMillan that you snore at night.”
“Ugh!” Sara yelped. She threw up her hands and stormed out of the room, fuming.
Mae winked at Toni once her daughter was gone. “Life with teenage daughters is wonderful, isn’t it?”
“She’s headstrong, that one,” Toni acknowledged.
“Has been since the day she was born. And it’s only getting worse. I fear that our worst years might be ahead of us, as far as mother-to-daughter communications go.”
“I don’t envy you that,” said Toni. “Speaking of daughters, I think I’m going to go say hello to Kendra and her husband today. Are they still at the same house?”
“Oh yes,” Mae said, “I believe so. Here, eat this,” she slid the finished eggs and toast over in front of Toni, “and I’ll go put together a little gift basket for you to bring to them.”
“Oh,” interrupted Toni, “you don’t have to—” But Mae was already gone, whisking away down the hallway to rummage through closets and singing softly to herself all the while.
Toni laughed. Mae Benson was a good match for her brother, that was for sure. The woman could hold her own no matter the storm she was facing. It was reassuring to see her poise and calmness in the midst of the chaos that came with running a house of four Benson children. Toni felt like she was drawing a little strength from her example—or perhaps from her cooking; it was hard to say which was helping more.
By the time Toni had finished eating—and the hangover had admitted it was fighting a losing battle against her sister-in-law’s peerless good grace—Mae had assembled a small wicker basket filled with flowers, candy, and a bottle of wine. “That last one is for the parents,” she said with a teasing elbow to Toni’s side.
“I can’t promise it will make it to them,” joked Toni.
Mae looked up with a mixture of amusement and concern in her eyes. “Hey there,” she said softly, in the kind of voice that Toni understood meant she was talking indirectly about the crumbling of her marriage. “Whatever it takes, you know?” She squeezed Toni’s forearm tenderly. “Tell Kendra I said hello.”
“Will do,” Toni replied after a moment. She felt a little choked up. Small gestures like Mae’s carried outsized importance these days. Everything had been flipped upside down. The thought of Jared was just too big to process, so she felt numb whenever he crossed her mind. But a pair of eggs on rye, the simple touch of Mae’s fingertips on the back of her hand? Those things meant everything.
“And Mae?”
“Yes, love?”
“Thank you.”
Mae paused in the hallway for a moment before she turned around and smiled at Toni once more. “I’ll tell you something my momma always used to say to me: I’d give you the world in a handbasket if I could, darling.” She cleared her throat. “But seeing as how I can’t, you’ll have to settle for the wine.”
Kendra’s house had hardly changed at all from the last time she’d been here. That must’ve been at least five years ago.
It seemed a shame to Toni that they’d lost contact. Life just got in the way, she supposed. Through no fault on either end, they’d simply talked less and less until they fell off altogether. Calls went unreturned, Christmas cards didn’t get mailed, and before she knew it, her friendship had dissipated.
And where had that left her? When Jared did what he did, did Toni have an army of friends waiting to take up torches and pitchforks on her behalf?
Not as many as she might have once upon a time. Looking back on it now, it seemed crazy not to be more diligent about those things. Kendra and dozens of other friends had gradually slipped away into lives of their own when Toni had forgotten to keep looking out for them.
She needed those friendships. Pity that she was just now realizing it, but better late than never, right? They’d sustained her in a way she didn’t realize was vital. Female friendships—that’s what made the world go ’round. That had to be a song lyric or something. A fortune cookie saying, maybe.
Toni was thankful for the basket that Mae had bundled together for her. She would’ve felt horribly guilty showing up unannounced and empty-handed. She hadn’t even known that Kendra was pregnant, after all! This, at least, let her come knocking with a shred of dignity intact. As it was, she felt a little bit nervous as she parked her bicycle at the end of the driveway and walked up to Kendra’s front door.
Like just about every other family home on the island, the outside was done up in that classic Nantucket gray. It looked placid and friendly in the midmorning sunlight, and the emerald green of the hedges and lawn was a nice contrast.
Kendra had fresh flowers blooming in windowsill pots, Toni saw. Which made sense, seeing as how she ran a florist’s shop she inherited from her parents. She had a natural touch for making things grow around her. Even when they were in high school, Toni remembered how Kendra had been forever fostering things—birds with broken wings, runaway cats with independent streaks, the tomato vines they were assigned for a freshman-year biology project.
She rang the doorbell and waited. She shifted her weight back and forth from foot to foot. The sudden nervousness that had overtaken her didn’t seem to come from anywhere in particular, but it didn’t exactly require Sherlock Holmes to figure out why her palms had begun to sweat and her lingering hangover had returned with a vengeance.
In a cruel way, she was about to open the door on a picture of what her life might have been like if everything had gone according to plan. Mae had mentioned at dinner that Kendra and her husband, Andy, were the spitting image of happy and in love. With a newborn daughter to grace their home, Toni had no doubt that they would be radiating happy energy.
She wished she could reciprocate. As she stood on the threshold listening to the footsteps approach from within, she did her best to project the kind of peace and vitality she was desperately wishing for herself.
Then the door swung open.
It took a moment for Kendra to recognize her old friend, but Toni had no trouble at all. Both women split into broad smiles at the exact same moment and squealed excitedly.
“Toni Bologna!”
“Kenzie!”
They embraced. Toni felt a little silly for her girlish yelp, but oh well—it was okay to be a little silly sometimes, wasn’t it?
“Oh my God, I can’t believe it’s you!” Kendra exclaimed when they’d parted ways, though she didn’t quite let go of Toni’s forearm. “You look amazing.”
“I should say the same to you!” Toni took in Kendra’s long, dirty blonde curls, which fell almost all the way down to her waist. Between the healthy hair and the watermelon-pink sundress she was wearing, she was practically glowing.
“Come in, come in!” Kendra said, dragging Toni inside. “I’m still in shock. Where did you come from? It’s so good to see you.”
“I’m in town for the Fourth,” Toni explained as she followed Kendra to the living room. “My sister-in-law told me that you’d recently had a baby, so I thought I’d swing by to say hello. I’m sorry for just dropping in on you like this—I forgot your phone number, if I’m being perfectly honest. I felt terrible.”
“Don’t even start!” Kendra snapped cheerily. “I couldn’t be happier to see you. It has been way, way too long. Can I get you anything? Lemonade? Water? Coffee? It’s a little early to start drinking, unless…?”
“No, no,” Toni said in horror. She raised a hand to ward off the merest thought of alcohol as she blanched with a wave of n
ausea. “Mae and I stole a little bit of Henry’s whiskey last night, so alcohol is the last thing on my mind, believe me.”
Kendra chuckled. She had a beautiful, feminine laugh, like tinkling bells. It went perfectly hand in hand with the glow of her hair and the pop of the colors she favored in her clothes. “Water it is, then.”
“That would be lovely, thank you.”
Toni sank back into the leather armchair as Kendra went into the kitchen and filled a pair of glasses with cool water and ice. She accepted it gratefully when her friend came back.
“You’re a lifesaver, Kendra. My body can’t handle drinking anymore.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Kendra laughed again, raising her water glass in a mock toast. “Those days are far behind us. Lord, we used to be able to get into all kinds of trouble and still show up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at school, didn’t we, though?”
“Here’s to being eighteen again,” agreed Toni with a smile.
Kendra shook her head. “Oh, you couldn’t pay me enough to go back to that age. My thirties suit me much better.”
“You look fantastic, hon. How’s motherhood?”
“Well, I’m only a month in and still getting my sea legs back under me after the delivery. But honestly, I’m loving it.” Kendra leaned forward so that Toni caught sight of how her eyes were glistening with happiness. “She’s an angel, full stop. Sleeping about as well as can be expected, but how can I complain when I get to wake up four times a night to that cute little face?”
“Where is the bundle of joy?”
“Andy just took her for a walk around the block—get some fresh air, you know—so they should be back any second.” She glanced at her watch and smiled.
The whole scene made Toni want to laugh and cry at the same time. Here was someone she’d grown up with, gotten in trouble with, dealt with high school crushes and heartbreak and first loves with, coming into full bloom as a mother and a wife. It was beautiful to see.
