Nantucket Blue

Forty-one





DAD PLANTED A KISS on my forehead when I stepped out of the cab. He handed the driver some money and took my duffel bag. There were bunches of balloons tied to the porch railing. In front of the house hung a big colorful banner that spelled out HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ALEXI! in primary colors.

“Hi, Dad.” I leaned into his shirt. He wrapped his arms around me and gave me a squeeze. This is what I’d needed. A Dad hug. I couldn’t exactly tell him what had happened (who wants to tell their dad the details of their love life?), but I was hoping he might be able to sense my wound and apply his special Dad Band-Aid. When I was little and I’d fallen down and scraped my knee, he would sweep me into his arms so fast that I’d actually forget to cry. The tears were coming now, so I squeezed him back, hard, hoping to make them stop.

I hadn’t told Mom I was coming home yet. I couldn’t take her sadness. It was so dark and deep, I was afraid, now more than ever, that it’d pull me in and I wouldn’t be able to get out. What if I was like her? What if I became permanently sad? What if the same cloud was destined to hover over my head?

Dad ended our hug with three pats on the back and guided me up the walkway. “Come on, the party is in full swing.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Your Aunt Phyllis is here,” he said. “And so is Uncle Rob.” I was about to ask why Aunt Phyllis, who lived in Maine and only visited at Christmas, was here in Providence, when Dad opened the gate to the backyard. There were llamas in my father’s backyard. Llamas! There were other animals, too. There was a sheep, a goat, and a pig—an entire petting zoo. There was one of those jumpy castles. There was a guy in overalls sitting on a bale of hay playing songs for kids. There was a popcorn maker, like the kind they have in movie theaters. And who were all these people? Was that a waitress serving the punch? The only thing that had come close to this was Mom’s fortieth birthday party, and even that hadn’t included a waitress.

“Oh my god, Dad. This is amazing. What’s all this for?”

“Alexi’s birthday,” he said. “He’s six!”

“It’s so cool that you did all this.”

“Well, it made Polly happy for me to make a big to-do,” Dad said, beaming. “And if Polly’s happy, I’m happy.” There was Polly in a sundress. She did look happy. Her hands were on Alexi’s shoulder. He was watching the guitar guy, riveted. Polly waved to me and I waved back.

“So, Dad, do you notice anything?” I asked, and twirled around in my new jeans.

“A haircut?” Dad asked.

“No! I’m wearing the jeans you got me. My Clovers!”

“Oh, do you like them?”

“I love them!”

“Good. Polly picked them out,” he said. I kept smiling, even as my thoughts were suddenly treading dark pathways. He hadn’t met the Great Birthday Challenge after all. Polly had chosen my present. He had given up on the very last year.

A woman I didn’t know approached us. She and Dad started talking about the special school Alexi was going to in the fall.

“Your father is an absolute saint,” the woman said to me. “An angel!”

“I know,” I said, my cheeks hurting from smiling. One of the goats bleated. Dad didn’t even like zoos. He was allergic to all animals.

“Go put your bag inside, honey, so you can enjoy the party,” he said, and gave my shoulder a squeeze.

“Okay.” I headed into the house. I put my bag in the kitchen and looked for a glass to fill with water. I couldn’t find the glasses. I didn’t know where they were kept. So I grabbed a mug and held it under the tap. As it filled, I looked out the kitchen window at Polly and Alexi.

I watched as Dad brought Polly a drink and put his arm around her. He tussled Alexi’s hair. Polly called Dad her “knight in shining armor,” her “dream guy.” And I got it now. He would do anything for them. He would turn his yard into a zoo. He loves them, I thought as I watched Polly lean on him. He really loves them.

I took a sip of water and found my hand shaking. Dad had traded Mom and me in for Polly and Alexi. We were out and they were in, and it was just our tough luck. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair at all. Those people, those strangers, stole my family. I drank the water. Then I spotted an open bottle of wine. With a shaky hand, I filled the mug to the top and downed it in just a few swallows. My empty stomach seemed to curl around it. A scream sat at the bottom of my lungs, waiting, like a crocodile.

“Hey, honey, you find what you needed?” Dad asked as the screen door slammed behind him.

I turned around and crossed my arms, glaring at him.

“You okay?” Dad asked.

“Eighteen is a much bigger birthday than six,” I said. I hated how bratty I sounded, but the wine had gone straight to my head. I was dizzy and warm and certain I was right.

“Don’t tell me that you wanted a petting zoo, Cricket.” He was smiling, but he looked kind of scared. His eyes searched mine as if to ask, “Are you joking?”

“You couldn’t pick something out for me, but you got Alexi a…a…farm festival?” My voice was shrill, loud. I could hear it, but I couldn’t stop it, like it was coming from a different person.

“I thought you liked the jeans.” He put a hand on my back. I recoiled from it like it was a hot iron.

“That’s not the point,” I said.

“Well, what is the point?” he asked.

“I wanted you to pick them out. Only you.”

“Well, Polly and I are a team now.”

A team? Barf. “You know, maybe if you’d done something like this for Mom she wouldn’t have gotten so depressed. But you never even tried.”

“Yes, I did,” he whispered.

“Not like this,” I said, pointing to the party outside. Tears sprang to my eyes. “You never tried this hard!”

“Oh, honey.” He opened his arms, but I took a quick step backward.

“Why didn’t you fight for her? Why didn’t you fight for us?” I pressed my fingertips to my chest so hard I left a red mark. Tears poured down my cheeks. I couldn’t catch my breath. Dad tried to hug me, but I sidestepped him, turned away, and gripped the counter. “I don’t even know why you love them. Polly’s not that great and Alexi isn’t even your kid. Who knows whose kid he really is.”

“Cricket, that’s enough,” Dad said. His voice was low and angry.

I turned around. Polly was standing there, covering her mouth.

“You need to leave,” Polly said. Dad wrapped his arms around her as if she were a little girl, as if she were his one and only daughter, as if she needed protection from some awful stranger who’d barged into their home.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” I said to Dad, pleading. My ears were ringing. “It’s not fair. I didn’t know she was there.”

“Go to your mom’s,” Dad said, shaking his head at me. “Just get your things and go to your mom’s.”

I grabbed my duffel bag and ran out the back door.

I was at the Claytons’ house in twenty minutes. Not the Nantucket house, but the real house. The Providence one. I knew where the key was hidden, under the stone mermaid in the backyard, and I knew the alarm code. I let myself in to the peacock-blue vestibule with the rustic coat rack and the dark wood table with the curvy silver bowl on it and the portrait of the woman with the green scarf.

I climbed the stairs, two at a time, and opened the door to Jules’s room, which was stuffy and hot, familiar and safe. I kicked off my shoes, threw off the quilted coverlet, and crawled under the sheets—the cool, beautiful sheets that Nina had brought back from Italy. Nina, I thought. Nina would’ve known what to say and how to make me feel better. She would’ve given me words to hold on to as the world swung around. “Nina,” I said aloud. “Please be a ghost, please be a ghost.” I kicked my legs against the mattress and waited for the lights to flash. I listened for the house to creek, for footsteps to land, or a window to fly open, for the stereo to blare. I waited for a chill to pass over me, for her presence to be made known, but there was nothing but silence. Dead, empty silence.

I’m eighteen, I told myself. This divorce stuff wasn’t supposed to bother me anymore. I was leaving for college next year. I’d even found a really nice guy for Mom. So why was I such a wreck? And why was this just sinking in? Why didn’t this happen right after the divorce? Or when Dad got remarried?

Zack. It was sinking in because I had fallen in love. This was the thing about feelings. They find each other. You let one in and others follow. I pulled the sheet over my head, curled myself into a cocoon, and let the tears fall until I was tired and ragged and my eyes were raw and my stomach muscles hurt. An hour passed, and then another, and then I fell asleep.

It was dusk when I woke up. The light switched on. Mom stood in the doorway.

“Cricket,” she said. She ran to the bed and opened her arms. “Oh, my sweetheart, I was so worried. Oh, my dear girl, here you are.” She wrapped her arms around me.

“Mom,” I said, and wept into her sweater. “Mom, I’m so alone.”

“No, you’re not. I’m right here.” And for the first time in I don’t know how long, I let her hold me. Really hold me. She smelled like Paul Mitchell shampoo and almond soap and a little bit like Cheerios. She smelled like home.