Nantucket Sisters (21 page)

“Oh, Lord,” Maggie moans. “Of course she doesn’t. She’ll be horrified.”

“I doubt it. She’s older now, but she’s always been a lovely woman. No doubt she had her share of what she would call suitors.” Frances smiles. “I’ll bet it would cheer up the old lady enormously to have a baby around the house.”

“A baby,” Maggie whispers. She can’t take it all in. She has to throw up.

She runs from the room.

Emily wakes. Cameron’s beside her, still sleeping. She sinks into her pillow, playing through last night: her announcement, his kindness, their decision to marry. It was emotionally exhausting. She was glad she’d brought food, because suddenly they were both hungry and devoured her little feast. Emily drank no wine but Cameron did, which relaxed him, and they ended the evening making love in her bed.

It seems unreal to her, though. A dream.

Beside her, Cameron stirs and wakes. “Good morning.”

She kisses his mouth. “Good morning.”

He glances at the clock. “I’ve got to get to work.”

“I’ll make coffee.” She pads barefoot into the kitchen and fills the Keurig, prepares coffee the way she knows he likes it, and carries two cups of it into the bedroom. He comes out of the shower and quickly dresses, his mind obviously on business.

She hands him his cup of coffee. Leaning against the counter, she stares down into her own cup, milky and sweet.

“How would you feel about eloping?” Cameron asks.

Emily tilts her head, considering. “Would your family be terribly upset if we didn’t have a big fat wedding?” Elopement’s probably a good idea, given Emily’s condition, but she wishes
he
had asked
her
if she’d like a big fat wedding.

Cameron shrugs. “They’d probably be happy not to interrupt their busy schedules.” Carelessly, he adds, “Anyway, if we elope, you won’t be bothered planning a wedding and you can still finish your semester and get your degree.”

“Okay,” Emily agrees reluctantly. She pulls herself together. The man is going to marry her. Sweetly, she tells him, “Then I want to stay home and take care of our baby and take care of
you
.”

He lifts his coffee mug and salutes her. “Sounds good. How are you feeling?”

Grateful for his question, Emily nestles against him. “I’m fine right now. The morning sickness seems to have faded.”

“Good. Because I’ve got piles of work.” Cameron moves away, to put on a tie.

“Of course.” Emily gathers herself. Almost casually, she adds, “I’ll find out about getting a marriage license.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

In her bedroom at Thaddeus’s farm, Maggie sits at her old desk, making a list. She must buy baby books. See a doctor. Talk with Clarice. She hopes Clarice will understand if she moves back to the farm when she has her baby. Maggie will need Frances then as she’s never needed her before. Clarice is getting around fairly well these days.

She adds to her list: tell friends. Ha, won’t they be shocked! Boring old Maggie who does nothing but clean houses and write. Check out the thrift shop for secondhand maternity outfits, although she won’t need those for months. And baby clothes? Baby furniture? She is so unprepared.

A vision of a baby snugly tucked into a carrier on Maggie’s bosom blossoms in her inner vision, and happiness washes through her blood. This baby will have everything—a family to love it, and this magical island floating in the sea, with its shorebirds and seals and shells and ferries, its sailboats and tugboats and fields of wildflowers, its picture book town with—

A cry shatters her thoughts.

And then, a heartrending howl.

Frances!

Maggie runs down the stairs and into the kitchen. The sight before her waves like a hallucination. It takes a moment to come clear. To make its terrible sense.

Thaddeus lies on his back on the floor, a felled giant. Maggie’s mother is on her knees, hitting Thaddeus in the chest over and over again.

“Maggie!” Frances cries. “Call 911! I think Thaddeus has had a heart attack!”

Maggie calls for an ambulance. She phones Ben, who’s in Vermont skiing with friends. He doesn’t answer, so she leaves a message on his cell:
Thaddeus. Heart attack
. Dropping to her knees on the kitchen floor, Maggie takes her stepfather’s wrist in her hands and feels for a pulse. If one is there, it’s so light she can’t find it.

The ambulance arrives quickly. With swift, efficient care, the EMTs lift the big man’s inert body onto a stretcher and slide it into the van. Frances steps inside.

“Go. I’ll follow,” Maggie tells her.

The Nantucket Cottage Hospital is two stories high and, not counting the labor-delivery-room area, it holds fourteen beds. Thaddeus is in the emergency room. Frances paces the floor of the waiting room, wringing her hands, her face white.

“What did they say?” Maggie asks her mother.

“They’re trying to save him.”

Save him
. Very quietly, Maggie asks, “Is Thaddeus
dying
?”

Her mother’s voice shakes. “They told me the situation is grave.”

“Oh, Mom, Thaddeus is too young to die.”

“He’s fifty-five.”

“That’s far too young. I mean, his own mother is still alive.”

“No one ever said life was fair, Maggie.”

A nurse comes down the hall. “Why don’t you come in?” she says, inviting them to see Thaddeus at last.

The lights are low in the room made intimate by white curtains. Thaddeus reposes on a hospital bed, long and straight against the white sheets like the mast of a capsized schooner lying on its sails. Machines wink and blink around him and tubes snake into his gigantic arms.

Frances stands by his side, holding his hand. He doesn’t know it, he’s sleeping, or so it seems. Frances’s hair is sliding free of the clip, her eyes rimmed with shadows.

“Hi, Thaddeus.” Maggie puts her hand on his arm, an uncomfortable gesture, for she’s seldom touched her huge, taciturn stepfather. His arm, muscular, hairy, hard as bricks, is reassuringly strong.

Thaddeus’s jaw clenches, and his throat bulges as he swallows, but he doesn’t make a sound.

While Frances sits with her husband, Maggie drives to the house on Orange Street to tell Thaddeus’s mother. Maggie lets herself in to the house. Clarice is seated in her living room, dressed in slacks, cashmere sweater, and pearls, reading a biography of Thomas Jefferson.

“Hello, darling,” Clarice says when Maggie enters the room. Seeing Maggie’s face, she puts the book in her lap and removes her reading glasses. She sits up straighter, steeling herself.

Maggie knows not to touch Clarice right now, but she kneels next to her grandmother’s chair. “Thaddeus had a heart attack. He’s in the hospital. Mom’s with him.”

Clarice puts her hand to her heart and turns away, shoulders bent. For a moment Maggie thinks the older woman will crumple to the floor. But Clarice straightens.

“Could you drive me to the hospital, Maggie?”

“Of course.” Maggie holds a coat for the older woman to slide into, awkwardly, as if she’d forgotten how it all works, these moving limbs, this clothing against the cold.

Thaddeus dies at midnight. Frances is with him, as are Clarice and Maggie. It happens so quickly Maggie feels
cheated
. She feels more angry than sad. She wants to say, “Wait!” Ben has texted to say he’s driving home from Vermont.

She stands at the end of the hospital bed while Clarice smooths her son’s hair and bends to kiss his forehead. Clarice turns to Maggie and says, “Let’s give your mother some time alone.” As they leave the room, Maggie turns back to see Frances fall across Thaddeus’s body, her face contorted with such grief Maggie has to look away.

They wait in the hall, Clarice and Maggie, not talking, while in the room Dr. Anderson does his final ministrations to Thaddeus’s body and talks with Frances.

When Frances steps out of the room, Dr. Anderson is with her, his hand on her elbow. “I’m sorry,” he tells Clarice. “It was massive, unavoidable.”

Frances reaches for Clarice. The two older women embrace, heads bent, keening softly.

Dr. Anderson puts his hands on Maggie’s shoulders and takes her aside. “I’m concerned for Clarice. And for your mother. They’re both in shock right now, and I don’t think they should be left alone. I’m giving you sleeping pills, one for each woman.” With his weary, wise eyes, he scans their faces, and hers. “I’ll give you an extra in case you need one, too.”

Maggie escorts the older women out to the car, handling them as gently as porcelain statues. Clarice is nearly comatose in the front seat, but as Maggie drives back to the farm, Frances rails, arguing with Fate as if she believes she can change the course of things.

“This is absurd!” Frances weeps. “He was so
hearty
! He didn’t smoke, his cholesterol was fine, there’s no earthly reason this should have happened!”

“I know, Mom,” Maggie says quietly.

“He was a
fighter
, God damn it!” Frances hits her fist against the window. “He was a fighter, wasn’t he, Clarice? Why didn’t he fight this? Oh, God, why didn’t I sense that something had happened? Why didn’t I know? I can’t believe I didn’t feel something!”

Maggie helps Clarice from the car and holds her arm as they enter the house. Clarice has gone so white she seems nearly transparent.

“Let’s go up to bed, Clarice,” Maggie says. “I have a pill for you that will help you sleep.”

“I don’t want to sleep.” Her voice is weak.

Because Clarice doesn’t look strong enough to manage the stairs, Maggie settles the older woman on the living room sofa.

“I’m cold,” Clarice whispers. “I want to keep my coat on.”

“I’ll make you a pot of tea. But take this now. Dr. Anderson prescribed it.” She fetches a glass of water and watches Clarice take the mild sleeping tablet.

“I’m going up to bed.” Frances weaves slightly as she stands in the doorway.

“Did you take your pill?” Maggie asks. “You need to, Mom. It won’t knock you out. It will help you sleep.”

“The house is awfully cold. Has the furnace gone out?” Frances asks.

“I’ll check.” Maggie looks and sees that it’s a comfortable seventy degrees, according to the thermostat. She turns it up to eighty.

As Frances slowly goes up the stairs, Clarice’s eyes close. Her body
sags. Maggie removes Clarice’s shoes and lifts her legs onto the sofa, arranging her body so it’s fully supported, tucking a pillow under Clarice’s head, and covering her with two afghans that Clarice had knit herself. Clarice is soon deeply asleep.

What else can she do? When she goes to her room, she sees that Frances’s door is shut. She leaves her own door open, in case someone calls, and falls onto her old childhood bed wearing all her clothes, too tired even to remove her shoes.

Wednesday morning, Emily drives back to her apartment at UMass to organize her clothes.

She checks her phone and finds a message. One message, from Ben. “Emily. Please call me. Please.” His voice is thick with emotion.

Great timing, Ben, she thinks.
Now
you deign to return my calls. Tears fill her eyes and she puts her hand to her mouth, as if she could force back a sob and all the sorrow it carries. But they’ve been over this before, they’ve argued, they haven’t been able to agree, and their sweet young love has been transformed by reality into something different, something somehow soiled.

She erases the message with tears streaming down her face. Ben was her childhood love. Perhaps he was the love of her life. But now—she is
carrying
the love of her life.

In the late afternoon, when Frances wakes from her drugged sleep, Maggie brings her breakfast in bed.

“How is Clarice?” Frances asks.

“Stunned,” Maggie says. “She spent the night here, on the sofa. Now she’s just sitting there. I got her to drink some tea.”

“Have you reached Ben?”

“He drove all night from Vermont. He should be here any moment.”

Frances closes her eyes against the pain. “Poor Ben.”

“Mom, drink some tea. I know you don’t want to—”

“Actually, I do. My throat is raw from crying.” Frances drinks slowly. “Thank you, darling. It’s soothing.” Tilting her head, she remarks, “It’s quiet in here.”

“Yes,” Maggie agrees. “I took the phone off the hook. It was ringing nonstop.”

“Oh, God.” Frances rubs her hands over her face. “People will be coming by soon, won’t they?”

“And they want to know about the funeral.”

“The funeral.” Frances seems to age years right before Maggie’s eyes. Then she tosses back her covers. “I’ll dress. We have a lot to do.”

The front door slams. Ben stampedes up the stairs, energetic even in his sorrow.

“Mom.” He kneels next to the bed, hugging his mother to him. “Fucking shitting hell.”

“Yes,” Frances agrees, smiling wanly. “I would agree with that.”

Ben looks up at Maggie. “Where’s Clarice?”

“In the living room downstairs.”

“I tried to phone but the line was always busy.”

“I took the phone off the hook. Everyone’s calling.”

Frances straightens her back. She throws her legs over the side of the bed. “Let me take a shower and change.”