Nantucket Sisters

by Nancy Thayer

  A hurricane is forecast for the northeast coast the day Maggie goes into labor. Strong winds whip the ocean into a froth of white. The trees, still laden with green leaves, flail drunkenly, limbs cracking off, twigs littering the streets.

  Maggie’s friend Darcie, a midwife, stays with Maggie at the Orange Street house, trying to allay her fears, which do have a foundation in logic. If something should go wrong—there’s no reason anything should, but if some dire emergency takes place—the helicopters that come from Mass General Hospital to pick up Nantucket patients won’t be able to fly in this wind.

  Usually Maggie finds hurricanes exhilarating. She likes to walk on the beach, listening to the ocean roar. But today she wants to be safe. It doesn’t help that the old house is creaking around her or that Clarice reminds her it has stood for one hundred eighty years in all kinds of weather. Maggie had assumed that since she was healthy and active, the birth would be relatively quick and easy, but after fourteen hours of labor, she’s weak with exhaustion and pain. She wanted to have a home birth; she felt she’d be letting her baby down somehow if she didn’t, but at three in the morning she begs her mother to drive her to the hospital. A doctor is summoned. He turns the baby’s head, which was caught on her cervix, and in minutes, Maggie’s daughter is born.

  Over the next week, Maggie’s friends, Frances’s friends, and Clarice’s friends come by with casseroles and infant clothing and flowers. Maggie names the baby Heather, because she loves the heather on the moors. Heather is small, pale, and dainty, with glimmers of blond hair on her pink scalp. Maggie is completely in love with her baby, and she’s grateful for the support of her mother and step-grandmother, happy to be celebrated by her friends. Yet in the small hours of the morning when Heather wakes with her creaking cry, Maggie weeps as she nurses her child. She knows what it’s like to be a girl with no father. She can’t believe she brought this upon her own daughter. The thought that her baby has no man to love her is a spear of grief in Maggie’s heart.

  Ten days after Serena’s birth, Emily dozes on the living room sofa, her baby in a wicker basket next to her. When she hears the apartment door open, she snaps awake, sits up, adjusts the neckline of her robe, and runs her hands over her hair. The baby nurse they hired for a week has gone. Her parents have made their daily visit and left. Emily’s put on lipstick, blush, and eyeliner for the first time since she returned from the hospital, and as Cameron enters the room, she arranges her face in a welcoming smile.

  “You’ve been working terribly hard,” she coos. “Did you get dinner?”

  “We had it sent in.” Cameron goes to the drinks table and pours himself a scotch. “What are you doing up this late?”

  “I’d like to chat. I haven’t seen you for days, it seems. And look, we have all these lovely baby presents to open.” She doesn’t mention the fact that he hasn’t come over to peer down at his child or to kiss his wife.

  Cameron sinks into a wing chair by the cold fireplace. He rubs his forehead. “I don’t have the energy to deal with those tonight.”

  “Cameron, are you all right?” Emily leans toward him, genuinely concerned.

  His smile is rueful. “I’m fine, Emily. But with every day that passes, I feel more like a fool.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Emily. No one in the Chadwick family has ever had black hair. You played me, didn’t you?”

  “No!” Emily’s maternal defenses ignite. “Cameron—what …” She begins again. “If you’re talking about Serena, then no, I absolutely did not play you. She is your child. She’s only ten days old, give her some time.” Cameron’s face is blank, unresponsive. Rising, she moves across the room, sinking onto the floor next to his chair, putting her hands on his knee. She knows her robe has fallen open, exposing her lovely, large milk-filled breasts. “Cameron. You and I scarcely know one another, it’s true. This has all happened in such a rush. I remember quite clearly that you don’t love me, but every day I love you more. We can create a wonderful life for ourselves and our daughter. We can be happy.” She feels him relaxing. Emily moves closer. “I want to make you happy.”

  Cameron shakes his head but smiles at the same time. “Oh, Emily.”

  She moves her hand up his leg. “I could make you happy now,” she whispers, moving between his legs. “Let me try.”

  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.

  “My God, Tyler. I can’t believe it.”

  He smiles, but he’s changed, become an adult, and now he rolls his eyes. “Enough. Tell me what you’re doing.”

  “Oh, nothing, cleaning houses. Living at the farm, which we might as well call The Convent—it’s all women, my grandmother, mother, me, and Heather.” Her heart stops. “Are you married?” A guy who looks like this? He’s married.

  “Nope.” Tyler’s head is bent as he fastens his seat belt.

  “No way. Engaged?”

  “Nope.” Seemingly determined not to meet her eyes, Tyler focuses on untwisting the belt.

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve been too busy.” He clicks the seat belt fastened. “How’s your mom? How’s Ben?”

  “He’s good. But he’s changed.” She can’t talk fast enough, she has so much to tell him. “All he wants is to get rich.”

  “And is he rich?”

  “Oh, yes. He lives in the Orange Street house.” Seeing Tyler’s expression, she admits, “It’s taken a long time, but we’ve finally sorted it all out: Mom, Clarice, Heather, and I have moved from the Orange Street house to the farm. Ben and I did all the legal paperwork, and now the Orange Street house is his, the farm mine. It was pretty difficult, convincing Clarice to leave her beloved home, but she’s older now, and aware that it’s better for her to live with us. She’d lived on the farm years before, when Thaddeus was born, and she loves it there, too.”