Chapter Six
Daniel sits on the bench outside the Hub while Bee stocks up on newspapers, shells for the girls and funny books about Nantucket. The road is absolutely quiet, although everyone they met yesterday said they wouldn’t believe how busy it would be next month once the season had truly got underway; that you would barely be able to move for tourists wandering up and down the cobbled streets; that the traffIc would be terrible, old beaten-up Land Cruisers owned by the islanders replaced by Range Rovers and Escalades too big, too flash for the down-to-earth island.
On the other side of the road a dog barks from the cabin of a pickup truck while his owner has scrambled eggs and bacon in the garden of the Even Keel, and locals wander up and down, shouting good morning as they bump into one another while buying the local paper.
It is lovely here, and Daniel is surprised at how relaxed he feels, how easy it is to be here with Bee, how, for the first time in months, he doesn’t feel tangled up in knots.
They are staying at the Summer House, in a tiny little cottage covered in tangled roses that makes Daniel think of a fairy tale, the enchanted house in the middle of the magical forest.
But it isn’t in a forest. It’s in Sconset, across the road from the ocean where they sat last night, listening to the waves crash and talking about—what else?—how much they miss the girls.
They drove home after dinner in town and Daniel felt the familiar fear as he climbed into bed. How could they possibly not make love on a weekend away? He braced himself as he listened to Bee in the shower.
She came out in pretty, white, broderie anglaise pajamas, and climbed into bed next to him, immediately opening up her book, and he began to relax. Perhaps she wasn’t expecting anything after all.
But then, when they’d turned out the lights, just as he was drifting into sleep, Bee started tenderly stroking his thigh, and he lay with his eyes closed for a while, feeling her fingers circle him gently. He was so relaxed, and it felt really quite good, and so when she snuggled into him he nuzzled her back, and they ended up kissing, then one thing led to another . . . and when they had finished Bee lay her head on his chest and smiled.
She knew this weekend was exactly what they needed.
Daff parks her BMW in the driveway and taps her way up the garden path to the front door, her file in one hand, cell phone in the other.
"Daff !” The front door is flung open and a short blond woman with a small child attached to her right leg extends her arms to give Daff a hug.
“You look wonderful!” Daff says, and it is true. She has not seen this woman, Karen, since she sold her this house—one of her first big sales—and now she is returning to value it as Karen is unexpectedly pregnant with her third child, and they need something bigger.
“And who’s this?” Daff crouches down to say hello to the small person. “Oh my goodness!” She looks up at Karen. “I haven’t seen Jack since he was a baby. Look how big you are!”
She has careful notes about all her clients, their children’s names, ages, where they are in school, their hobbies, interests, where they go on vacation. She has developed a reputation, in a very short time, for being one of the nicest realtors to deal with—always honest, a hard worker, known as being someone who can close a deal and, more importantly, someone everyone likes being around. Most of her clients go on to become friends, and Karen is one of the few that Daff doesn’t see regularly, only because Karen is so busy with her children, her PTA work and her charities.
“I can’t believe what you’ve done!” Daff says, following Karen into the kitchen. “It’s beautiful.”
“I can’t wait to show you. The addition is wonderful and I love this house more than anything, but it’s still not going to be big enough when the baby comes.”
They have coffee, then do the tour, Daff exclaiming over the new master bedroom suite, the walk-in closets, the beautiful sun room with floor-to-ceiling French doors, which used to be a rickety and rather dirty screened-in porch.
The cherry kitchen, always dark and depressing, has been replaced with white wooden cabinets, black iron hardware and white marble countertops. The whole house has been beautifully decorated, and Daff pauses as she walks up the stairs, the wall being covered with family photographs.
“I love what you’ve done here.” Daff smiles as she looks at the family pictures, remembering how she once had a picture wall of happy family snaps—until the marriage split up, when she had to take down all the photos of Richard. And knowing that it would pain Jess immeasurably to see just the pictures of her father removed, she proceeded to take down all of them, putting up a large mirror instead, and placing the photos carefully in a box in the garage.
“Where’s this?” She points to a picture of the family sitting on a deck at twilight, the ocean behind them. “It’s beautiful.”
“That’s Nantucket. We go there every summer. Isn’t it wonderful?”
“I’ve never been, but this looks truly gorgeous. Do you have a house there?”
Karen laughs. “Years and years ago my parents were looking to buy, and back then, for a couple of hundred thousand, you could have bought something wonderful on the ocean, but they decided it was too expensive. Now we’re all kicking ourselves because no one can afford it anymore, but we rent there every summer.”
“The same house?”
“Never. Some years we’ve had wonderful houses, and others we’ve had horrors, but the island is still wonderful and when you’re outside all the time it doesn’t make much difference.”
“I’d love to go,” Daff says. “Nantucket is one of those places people always tell me I would love.”
“Oh but it’s true,” Karen says. “You really would.”
“Maybe I’ll take Jess there sometime,” Daff says. “Although right now I’m public enemy number one. I’m lucky if she even comes to the diner with me, never mind Nantucket.”
“I think there’s something magical about the island.” Karen smiles gently. “Amazing things happen there. It’s where I met my husband, for starters.”
“Well, the very last thing I need is another husband.” Daff laughs. “Perhaps I won’t be going there after all.”
Carrie pours herself a glass of wine as she gets dinner ready, still feeling jarred by the events of the weekend. She has always considered herself someone who loves children. She has nieces and nephews, and is adored by them, and although she has no children of her own, she has always assumed that if the man she would eventually end up with had children, it would be nothing but a blessing.
And Richard might very well be that one. At thirty-seven Carrie has had her fair share of suitors, but none of them has ever been right, has ever been the man she feels she ought to settle down with. A successful journalist, she is forever meeting people, forever going out on dates, but it wasn’t until she met Richard that she started to think she might be happy settling down, could see herself with someone for the rest of her life.
So early to say that, she chides herself, when those fantasies creep in, but she has never been one of those girls who spend their life looking for Mr. Right, and she has assumed that it is quite possible she will never get married, which is absolutely fine.
And yet after two months she realizes she adores Richard. And it is more than just adoring him; she knows that they make a good team. The fact that he’s already been married is also a good thing, in her book. He has told her all about his affair with Nancy, and although infidelity is not something she is remotely comfortable with, Richard has been honest about the reasons why it happened, honest about his regret and remorse, and honest about why he had allowed himself to fall in love with someone else when he was married.
“It doesn’t make it right,” he explained to her, “but I understand now that as wonderful as Daff was, is, she and I were not the right match, and I feel as if Nancy was the catalyst to make me understand that.”
Carrie likes that he only has good things to say about Daff. She doesn’t feel threatened by Daff in the slightest, nor concerned by his closeness to his daughter. She had been so looking forward to meeting her. Had imagined them becoming close friends— shopping together, cooking together, an instant family.
Nothing had prepared her for Jess, for the pain she is so obviously in, for the attachment to her father and the jealousy that came with it. Her anger, her hurt, was so incredibly jarring to Carrie that after Richard dropped her home, after that miserable hour at the diner, Carrie seriously started to question whether they had a future after all.
Richard came straight over after he dropped Jessica off, and they talked. He talked about his guilt, his horror at seeing her behave like that, his need to give Jessica what she needed, his desire to be present for her, to be a proper father, not to be like one of those fathers who just disappear after the divorce.
And Carrie felt her heart melt. This was, after all, one of the reasons that she was falling in love with him. Because he wasn’t the type to run away, because he was good, because he wanted to look after his daughter.
“She just needs time,” he said eventually. “Think about it. She’s been used to her mother and I being together, then her whole world fell apart when we divorced, and this is the first time I’ve introduced her to someone else. You have to understand how difficult this must be for her.”
“I do understand,” Carrie said. “I do. It’s just . . . it was just so upsetting to me, and understanding it doesn’t prevent me from feeling hurt. And shocked.”
“I know,” Richard murmured, standing up and putting his arms around her, pulling her close. “I know how shocking it was. Trust me, I was shocked too. I’ve never seen her behave like that. I’m going to talk to her, but I need you to be your kind, loving self. Okay?” And he pulled back and looked into her eyes.
Oh shit, Carrie thought to herself. This journey may well be hell, but I’m in too deep and there’s no going back. Not now. Not now that I love this man.
“These may be the best banana oatmeal pancakes I’ve ever had in my life,” Daniel says, looking down with horror at his expanding stomach as the waitress refills his coffee cup in the Sconset Café.
“Why is it we always eat so much more on vacation?” Bee laughs, reaching over the table to squeeze Daniel’s hand, so happy they finally made love, so happy that she feels at last, after such a long time, that she has a shot at getting her husband back.
They pay the bill, then walk outside, stopping at the tiny realtor next to the café while Bee puts her sunglasses on and squints at a small iron table in the courtyard, stacked high with papers weighted down with large stones.
“Oh look!” she says. “They leave their listings on the table! Isn’t that clever?”
“What, you mean if we happen to have a few extra million lying around and decided, on a whim, to buy a cottage?”
“But we have to look,” Bee says, taking his hand and pulling him through the gate. “Come on, you know you want to.”
Twenty minutes later they are sitting inside, with the realtor, looking at pages of rentals on the island.
“Can we go and see it?” Bee turns breathlessly to Daniel. “Doesn’t it look perfect for us?”
And looking at the little cottage on the shores of Lake Quidnet, Daniel has to admit it does look like a gorgeous proposition, and hell, it’s not buying, it’s just a summer rental, and if Bee and the girls were here for a few weeks he could fly back and forth, and maybe a little bit of space would do them some good.
“Okay,” he says. “But you know if we took a summer rental I couldn’t spend the whole holiday out here.”
“I know, I know, but the girls would love it here and you could come every weekend, couldn’t you?”
“I’m sure I could,” Daniel says.
“Will you phone and see if we could come now?” Bee asks, and the realtor picks up the phone.