Across the hall two young midwives giggled. I blinked up at Patrick, who held me in a theatrical dip. “Very cute. Let me up.”
Patrick, our consulting pediatrician from St. Mary’s Hospital upstairs, was forever coming down to our birthing center, getting the nurses all excited with his ridiculous gestures. But I didn’t bother being flattered. Yes, he was young and charming—and good-looking in a disheveled, just-rolled-out-of-bed kind of way—but I knew for a fact that he dropped the word “gorgeous” with more regularity than I used the word “contraction.”
“Your wish, my command.” In a heartbeat I was back on two feet. “I’m glad I ran into you, actually,” he said. “I have a joke.”
“Go on.”
“How many midwives does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” Patrick didn’t wait for an answer. “Six. One to screw in the lightbulb and five to stop the ob-gyn from interfering.” He grinned. “Good one, right?”
I couldn’t help a smile. “Not bad.”
I started walking and he fell into step beside me. “Oh … Sean and I are heading to The Hip for a drink tonight,” he said. “You in?”
“Sorry,” I said. “Hot date.”
Patrick stopped walking and stared at me. That’s how unlikely it was that I would have a date.
“I’m kidding, obviously. I’m going to Conanicut Island to have dinner with Gran and Grace.”
“Oh.” His face returned to normal. “I take it you’re not getting along any better with your mom, then?”
“Why do you ‘take’ that?”
“You still call her Grace.”
“It is her name,” I said.
I’d started calling her Grace when I was fourteen—the day I delivered my first baby. It had seemed strange, unprofessional, to call her Mom. Saying Grace felt so natural, I’d stuck with it.
“You sure you can’t come for one drink? You haven’t come for a drink for months.” He adopted a pouty expression. “We’re too boring for you, aren’t we?”
I pushed through the door to the break room. “Something like that.”
“Next time, then?” he called after me. “Promise?”
“Promise,” I called back. “As long as you promise to learn some better jokes.”
I was confident it was a promise he wouldn’t be able to keep.
*
I arrived in Conanicut Island at ten to eight. Gran’s house, a shingle-style beach cottage, was perched on a grassy hill that rolled down to a rocky beach. She lived on the southern tip of the island, accessible only by one road across a thin strip of land from Jamestown. When I was little, my parents and I used to rent a shack like Gran’s every summer, and spend a few weeks in bare feet—swimming at Mackerel Cove, flying kites, hiking in Beavertail State Park. Gran was the first to go on “permanent vacation” there. Grace and Dad followed a few years ago and now lived within walking distance. Grace had made a big deal about “leaving me” in Providence, but I was fine with it. Apart from the obvious fact that it meant Grace would be a little farther away from me and my business, I also quite liked the idea of having an excuse to visit Conanicut Island. Something happened to me when I drove over the Jamestown Verrazzano Bridge. I became a little floppier. A little more relaxed.
I stepped out of the car and scurried up the grassy path. I let myself in through the back door and was immediately hit by the scent of lemon and garlic.
Grace and Gran sat at the table in the wood-paneled dining room, heads bobbing with polite conversation. They didn’t even look up when I entered, which showed how deaf they were both getting. I wasn’t exactly light on my feet lately.
“I made it.”
They swiveled, then beamed in unison. Grace, in particular, lit up. Or maybe it was her orange lipstick and psychedelic dress that gave the effect. Something green—a bean, maybe?—was lodged between her front teeth, and the wind had done a number on her hair. Her bangs hung low over her eyes, reminding me of a fluffy red sheepdog.
“Sorry I’m late,” I said.
“Babies don’t care if you have dinner plans, Neva,” Gran said. A smile still pressed into her unvarnished face. “No one knows that better than us.”
I kissed them both, then dropped into the end chair. Half a chicken remained, as well as a few potatoes and carrots and a dish of green beans. A pitcher of ice water sat in the center with a little mint floating in it, probably from Gran’s garden. Gran reached for the serving spoons and began loading up my plate. “Lil hiding?”
Lil, Gran’s painfully shy partner of nearly eight years, was always curiously absent for our monthly dinners. When Gran had announced their relationship and, as such, her orientation, Grace was thrilled. She’d yearned her whole life for a family scandal to prove how perfectly tolerant she was. Still, I had a bad feeling her avid displays of broad-mindedness (one time she referred to Gran and Lil as her “two mommies”) were the reason Lil made herself scarce when we were around.
Gran sighed. “You know Lil.”
“Mom’s not the only one who can bring a partner along, Neva,” Grace said. “If you’d like to bring a guy alo—”
“Good idea.” I stabbed some chicken with my fork. “I’ll bring Dad next time.”
Grace scowled, but one of my favorite things about her was that her attention span was short. “Anyway, birthday girl. How does it feel? The last year of your twenties?”
I speared a potato. “I don’t know.” How did I feel? “I guess I’m—”