by Grace Palmer
She hustled Alice into the shower while she got Grady set up with a bowl of cereal for breakfast. Then, when she was satisfied that they could operate self-sufficiently for the next few minutes, she laid out their clothes on their beds and returned to her bedroom to pack everything she would need for the morning.
Pete was shaving and singing to himself in the mirror, some low old crooner’s song. She peeked through the crack in the bathroom door and watched him. Her heart swelled with love. He had a towel tied around his waist and no shirt on. His skin was a little bit flushed from the heat of the shower and he really ought to spend a little more time in the sun to do something about that pastiness. But she loved watching his shoulders and forearms flex and move as he turned this way and that. She loved how capable his hands looked—strong, deft, nimble. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply as he applied cologne, loving how it mingled with the remnant steam of the shower and the soap Pete favored. He was hers, hers, hers. She loved him. She loved all of him.
Shyly, she pulled the door open a touch more and slipped through, then walked up behind Pete and laid her cheek between his shoulder blades. Her hands hugged around his waist. He stopped, surprised, and laughed.
“Sneaking up on me now, are ya?” he accused with a grin.
“Shh,” she admonished, keeping her eyes closed. She took another deep inhale of his scent—that spicy, woodsy cologne, the cleanliness of the shaving cream, and that innately Pete smell—and let it fill her. “Just let me hug my husband and be happy for a second.”
He opened his mouth to say something else witty, then thought better of it and patted her hand where it clung to his stomach.
They stood there for a minute, maybe more, as curls of steam rose and fell around them and the coolness of the air conditioning snuck through the cracked-open door to nip away at the remaining heat. The contrast of the two temperatures played against Holly’s skin. Her nose was filled with scents. Her face, still lying against her husband’s back, was soft and relaxed. It felt like they were floating in a cloud together.
“Do you remember our wedding?” Pete asked softly.
“No,” Holly teased, sliding her chin up to rest on Pete’s shoulder so she could look at their reflection in the mirror. “Tell me about it.”
“You kept laughing during the vows.”
“I did not!”
“You did too. You held it back good, but I saw right through you. Giggle fits.”
“You’re making things up now.”
“I would never.”
“Well,” Holly said, “I remember that you tried to smear some icing on my face and you got it in my hair instead.”
“You flinched!”
“I would never,” she mimicked in his voice.
Pete wagged his razor threateningly at their reflection. She’d moved her head so her chin rested on his shoulder and they were both looking at each other in the mirror, smiling. “Watch yourself, Benson,” he warned.
“I’m a Goodwin now,” Holly said in a quiet voice. “All yours.”
He couldn’t help but smile at that. He turned around and settled his hands on Holly’s waist, then leaned his forehead over to rest against hers. His glistening eyes, his sweet breath, the warmth and breadth of his love—all of it took up Holly’s vision. Pete was all that she could hear or smell or sense. She felt wrapped up in him, consumed by him. She felt safe and loved here.
“That’s right,” he murmured. She watched his lips move. “And I’m all yours.”
“That’s right,” she repeated.
It felt, in the strangest way, like taking vows of their own again. Like recommitting to each other. So when she tilted her chin up and kissed Pete softly on the lips, that too felt like a reenactment of their own wedding. Full circle, both here now and back then at the same time, all of it linking up until that surrounded her too, just like the steam and the scent and Pete’s love. She felt blissfully, deliriously happy.
Pete’s cell phone began to vibrate where it sat on the countertop. Sighing, he broke apart their kiss and glanced down at it. When he saw the caller ID, he rolled his eyes. “World’s most annoying client,” he bemoaned.
Holly smiled up at him. “Take it,” she said. “I’ll go finish getting the kids ready.”
“You sure?” His eyes searched hers. He knew darn well the rules they’d set up about when work could and could not intrude on their lives. But right now, it didn’t matter. Right now, Pete could do no wrong. He loved her. In so many ways, that was the only thing she needed.
“Positive,” she said. She leaned up and kissed him once more. Then she pinched his bottom and scampered out before he could get her back, the two of them giggling like they really were newlyweds.
She stepped out of the bathroom and back into the coolness of the bedroom. But the feeling of being surrounded by warm love never left her. Maybe it never would.
25
Sara
Sara had been wrestling with her secrets for two straight days and nights.
As she sat in Eliza’s bridal room while the hairdresser braided her hair, she stared into the distance and let her mind wander back and forth over the same question it had been considering since Benny first emailed her: what should she do?
She was no closer to an answer than she had been in that very first moment of opening the email. She felt rage and guilt in equal measure. Neither one was convincing enough to make her act one way or the other.
She didn’t know what she was waiting for. Some sign from the universe? It’s not like an angel was going to beam down from the heavens above and reveal to her what she should do with the information she had. She wasn’t going to go to the library and find a how-to manual on destroying a person’s reputation. That wouldn’t help, anyway. What she needed was a “whether-to-do manual.” The “how” of it was simple: Call a reporter. Explain the scoop. Forward the documents. Then sit back and watch the fireworks. It was the “if” that was keeping her up at night.
This wasn’t the time or the place to be considering these questions, either. It was supposed to be a happy day, a joyous day, right? Eliza was getting married! Holly had been blowing up the Benson girls’ group text message thread all morning with googly eyes and heart emojis. That was typical Holly, of course—a notorious sap if ever there was one. But Sara ought to be joining in.
She looked around the room. It was a happy room for a happy day. The windows set high in the walls were allowing that pearly early-morning Nantucket sunlight to shine through and cast everything in a soft white glow. The mirrors reflected the light, too, doubling it and tripling it until it felt like they were seated in the middle of a star. There were lilacs in vases set on every flat surface, the same color as the bridesmaid robe that Sara was wearing with her name embroidered in royal purple thread on the breast pocket. A fan whirred lazily overhead, and gentle music played through a speaker set up in one corner. This was a happy place, to be sure.
Sara knew that Eliza deserved happiness. After everything she’d been through, she deserved at least one day of carefree bliss. It was just hard for Sara to pretend her heart was in it right now.
Right then, as if she was reading her brain, Eliza turned to Sara. “What’s on your mind?” she asked.
Sara forced a smile. “Not a thing.”
“Liar.”
“That’s rude.”
“Not if I’m right.”
“You’re not.”
“Again—liar.”
Sara sighed. “It’s your big day. We don’t need to worry about my problems right now.”
Eliza turned to the hairdresser duo who were working on the two of them. “I’m really sorry, but do you ladies mind giving us just one sec?”
“No, no, no—” Sara started to say, but Eliza pinched her thigh until she yelped “Ouch!” instead. The hairdressers smiled and ducked out immediately, leaving just Sara and Eliza alone in the room. Holly would be here shortly, as soon as she got Pete and the kids taken care of,
and Mom would be coming by in a little bit as well. But for now, it was just the two of them.
“All right,” Eliza said, turning to face Sara again. She leaned forward to grab Sara’s hands in hers and fixed her with a serious gaze, that big sister look that Eliza had perfected decades ago. “Talk to me.”
“It’s really not important,” protested Sara, but she hardly had the words out of her mouth before Eliza shook her head firmly.
“Talk to me,” she repeated. Demanded. “It’s definitely important, and I want to hear about it. Besides, it’s my wedding day. I get what I want.”
“I think you have that confused with your birthday,” Sara joked lamely. Eliza pinched her on the thigh a second time and Sara yelped once more. “Fine,” she groaned. “I … I don’t know where to start.”
Eliza didn’t hesitate. “The beginning.”
So that was what Sara did. She told Eliza about the email, about her battle with revenge versus forgiveness, about how she didn’t know what to do next. Eliza held her hands and listened intently, as if this was the only thing in the world that mattered right now.
Sara felt so guilty. She meant what she had said—this wasn’t important, not right now, not today. Eliza was getting married. Surely Sara’s problems could wait.
But Eliza was as stubborn as Sara was, and she knew that her eldest sister was every bit as serious about listening as she was about everything else in her life. New Eliza might have relaxed somewhat compared to Old Eliza, but she could still turn up the intensity meter when she wanted to. It was on full blast at the moment.
When she finished telling the story, Eliza was silent. She sat back and let one of Sara’s hands go, though she still kept a tight grasp on the other. She glanced out the window like there was an answer written there. Sara followed her gaze. From here, they could see just a sliver of the beach. The waves were rolling in strong, thanks to the hurricane offshore. The whitecaps were thick and expressive, like eyebrows on the face of the ocean.
Sara remembered thinking that the ocean was alive when she was younger. Like an entity, a being in its own right. That, like so many other little kid beliefs, faded away over time. But she never lost the sense of seeing moods in the waves. Right now, she thought she saw the same intensity in the water as she did in her sister’s face. Fitting, she thought. An intense ocean for Eliza’s wedding day. That seemed about right.
Finally, Eliza turned back to her. She was smiling, bizarrely enough.
“Why on earth are you smiling?” Sara asked, bewildered.
“Because I’m proud of you,” Eliza answered simply.
“I’m gonna need you to explain how that relates to anything we’re talking about.”
Eliza’s smile just grew a notch. “A year ago, you wouldn’t have hesitated to pull the trigger.”
Sara started to say something, then stopped. Eliza was right. The old Sara would’ve gone sprinting to a newspaper as soon as Benny’s email hit her inbox. Her first and only thought would have been to destroy the person who hurt her. Anger—rash, unthinking, immediate—was her default reaction.
Not so much anymore, it seemed.
“Yeah,” Sara said softly. She looked down to where Eliza’s fingers were intertwined with hers. “Maybe you’re right.”
“I’m your big sister; of course I’m right.”
The women laughed and looked each other in the eye again. Sara was struck for a moment by how much of their father was in Eliza’s face. She had that twinkle in her eye, kind of halfway between kindly and all-knowing, like a smart aleck Santa Claus.
“I want to tell you something else, too,” Eliza continued. “I see so much of Dad in you.”
Sara straightened up at that. The coincidence was freaky. Here she was, thinking about how much her sister looked like their dad, and Eliza said the exact same thing right back to her? “What do you mean?”
“Well, you’re stubborn as all get-out. But you’re learning how to do it in the right way. You’re stubborn where it matters. With your restaurant, with Joey—you went out and got everything you wanted. I admire that. I admire you. You’ve always been the strongest one in our family, so I’m just … I’m just happy that you’re happy, is what I’m trying to say.”
Sara sat still, stunned. This wasn’t like them. She and Eliza were fairly close, yes, but not like this. And yet, it felt like something in her heart clicked into place. Like she’d always wanted—no, needed—to hear these words from her big sister.
She wished she knew what to say back, but she was scared that, if she opened her mouth, she was going to cry. So she did the only other thing she knew to do—she leaned forward and pulled Eliza into the tightest hug she could manage. They sat there and held each other like that for a while, while the gulls cried outside the window and the sun kept shining through the windows.
A knock on the door interrupted them. Holly and Mom were here. Sara reluctantly released her sister and the two of them straightened up, dabbing tears from the corners of their eyes. Everyone swept into the room, including the hairdressers. Eliza turned the music up and happy chatter filled the air.
Sara ducked into a corner for one moment and fished her cell phone out of her bag. Pulling open a text message, she typed something out and hit send.
Benny: trash the docs. Let it go. Not worth the fight.
She felt lighter at once.
26
Mae
Leanne, the wedding planner, stuck her head in the bridal prep room. She was a smart, competent woman, the kind who looked like she was always carrying a clipboard and wearing a walkie-talkie headset even when she was doing nothing of the sort. That’s how Oliver had described her, at least, which made Mae laugh.
“Mae?” Leanne said brightly. “Think I could steal you for a second?”
“Of course!” Mae was in full hummingbird mode, buzzing around happily anywhere she was needed this morning. The ceremony was going to take place on the beach, but they’d rented a small cottage for the day that would house all the preparatory tasks. Later this evening, the reception would take place in the yard, which was a lush green carpet with fairy lights strung across the tree branches that encircled the property. Mae had been there since early in the morning, taking care of everything. She’d gotten Grady and Alice squared away with some activities in one corner, directed Holly to the bridal room, conferred with caterers and Leanne and any number of other people who were involved in all the proceedings. It was a perfect Mae day. Love in the air, lots to do, and a beautiful Nantucket morning to do it all in.
She followed Leanne out of the building, across the yard, and down the walkway that led to the beach, chatting idly about all the different tasks that were underway.
But when they cleared the dunes and she saw the completed setup for the ceremony, it took her breath away. She froze in her tracks, hands clapped over her mouth.
The backdrop was pure Nantucket beauty. Waves lapped delicately at the soft sand, set underneath a sky of cerulean blue that looked like a velvet ceiling stretching far above. Way in the distance, she saw the coiled knot of roiling gray clouds that was the hurricane. She’d thanked her lucky stars again and again that the threat of the storm hadn’t come to fruition. She still couldn’t quite believe their luck. Truth be told, she suspected Henry had something to do with it. He’d stalled the storm way out to sea to protect his baby girl’s big day. If she closed her eyes, she could just picture Happy Henry, tapping his fingertips together merrily, blue eyes twinkling.
But, as gorgeous as the setting was, the decorations themselves were even more fabulous. When Oliver and Eliza had first pitched their general idea for the setup to Leanne, the woman had sat bolt upright in her chair with the faraway look of an artist in her eye. “I know the perfect thing,” she’d said. “Do you trust me?” Mae had convinced Eliza to trust the woman, and—well, the proof was in the pudding.
“Leanne, it’s—it’s—oh my goodness, there aren’t even words.”
Lean
ne smiled. “I thought you’d like it.”
“Like it” didn’t even begin to cover it. Mae felt her heart melt and shape up and melt again.
The white sand stretched in all directions. Leading from the foot of the path they were on towards the water was a walkway festooned on both sides with flowers in every shade of pink and purple. The walkway itself meandered up to the mouth of a massive arch. The flowers climbed unbroken straight from the sand up the sides of the arch, as if they had grown there. They dazzled, studded amongst the green leaves like jewels in a crown. The scent of the flowers carried on the breeze and over to Mae. Beyond the entryway arch, beach and garden flowed together and met at the “altar,” which was a perfectly circular wreath nearly ten feet in diameter. It, too, was made of leaves and flowers woven together in soft, delightful hues. It looked like a telescope, like an eye open to the ocean, like a doorway from one life into the next.
Mae turned to Leanne and hugged her, speechless. “You have outdone yourself, lady,” she teased.
“Do you think she’ll like it?” Leanne asked.
Mae nodded fervently. “She’s going to absolutely love it.”
The two women stood still for a moment longer, just admiring the spectacle that Leanne had put together. Mae still didn’t quite believe that all this was happening.
Then, she felt her phone vibrating in her pocket. “Oh! Excuse me for just a moment, if you don’t mind. Someone is calling me.” There was no contact assigned to the number. She stepped back towards the cottage a few yards and answered. “Hello?”
“Mrs. Benson?”
“Yes? May I ask who is calling?”
“This is Mrs. Murphy. I’m Father Murphy’s wife.”
