The lawn was landscaped with pine trees and hydrangeas, a rose bower and half a dozen mature, flowering trees that would, I told Melissa, be stunning in just a few more months. There was an infinity pool in dark granite, a hot tub, a cabana, an outdoor shower and a subtly placed building covered in ivy that housed the sauna, a meditation room and a changing room. Just outside that was an exterior plunge pool of icy salt water. The vast lawn stretched right down to four stairs that led straight into the bay.
“At high tide, you can take a kayak or sailboat right off here,” I said. “At low tide, you and Ophelia can go dig your own clams.”
Melissa Spencer Finch paid a hundred thousand dollars above the hefty asking price, “just in case someone else falls in love with it.” She paid in full, in cash. Within three weeks, she and Ophelia had moved—I saw the trucks as they passed Wellfleet OB/GYN. Since my in-laws were still abroad, I called Melissa for the official welcome, recommended some local vendors for handyman work, decorating and housekeeping, and invited her to dinner with Brad and me at the Mews, one of Provincetown’s best restaurants.
The evening of that dinner, I felt proud of Brad and me as a couple. Me, the local, an earthy midwife who loved to garden and knew everyone, proud daughter of a Portuguese fisherman; Brad, the more erudite, preppy PhD from Beacon Hill. He studied the wine list as if it were a lost gospel and ordered a bottle of ridiculously expensive wine (since his parents’ company would be paying) and listened to Melissa and me chat.
Was there a local florist open year-round? According to her, a house without fresh flowers wasn’t a home, something I agreed with (though the flowers in my house were from my own garden). Did I know of any French tutors, since she wanted Ophelia to continue her lessons and become fluent? My mother’s wife was from France, and I’d put them in touch. Did I know any wine vendors to help her stock her wine cellar? I did—Beth was a second-level sommelier. Were there any parenting groups, because she didn’t know a soul other than Brad and me? I told her I’d call some people I knew who had kids Ophelia’s age.
“You’re so wonderful, Lillie,” she said, her green eyes so pretty and clear. “It was my lucky day when I met you. I just know we’ll be friends.”
In the space of a few weeks, she and Brad were sleeping together, he decided he no longer loved me and that it was imperative for him to discover joy.
I think you can see why I kidnapped the skunk.
CHAPTER 1
Lillie
Let’s spin back a few months.
Brad had never had great timing. Some examples . . . He booked a weekend for us to New Orleans for September 1. A massive hurricane hit two days before. A decade later, he planned a vacation to Puerto Rico for the last week of October, and New England had a nor’easter that crushed the power grid and grounded all planes for a week the day we were supposed to take off.
When he was twenty, his grandfather died and left him a drafty, never-renovated, single-family brownstone in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, a part of New York that no one had really heard of before. Brad, not telling his parents, wanting to be his own man, sold it immediately for $350,000. (The house is worth upwards of $4 million today . . . I check Zillow from time to time.) He invested the real estate sale money in the dot-com bubble four months before it burst and lost every penny he’d earned on the sale.
Brad would leave for the airport early enough, but he’d pick the wrong bridge to cross—if he chose the Sagamore, there’d be an accident. If he picked the Bourne, there’d be construction. If he went to the bathroom during one of Dylan’s games, our son would sack the quarterback or make a leaping interception and run the ball in for a touchdown.
He proposed to me as I was vomiting up lunch the day I learned I was pregnant. Literally, as I was on my knees in front of the toilet, gacking, he sat on the edge of the tub and said, “Will you marry me, Lillie?” I had to puke twice more before I could answer.
And then, the night before our son graduated from high school, he told me he was leaving me, mere seconds after I told him I had booked us a trip to Europe come October.
I should’ve known something was up. Brad never arranged our date nights, but that night he had announced he was taking me out to dinner. To Pepe’s in Provincetown, even, one of my favorites, especially because of their incredible coconut cake.
“Wow!” I said. Pepe’s was usually reserved for special occasions, like birthdays or anniversaries. “What a nice surprise!”
And, you know, how lovely. Maybe Brad was doing this to celebrate our eighteen years, four months, two weeks and three days of parenthood. Dylan Gustavo Fairchild, named for a poet and my grandpa, was our near-perfect son, a wonderful human and the sun, moon and stars to us. Maybe Brad was feeling sentimental, too. Maybe he wanted to talk about our boy and thank me, something he had done at every one of Dylan’s birthdays over the years, which never failed to make me tear up.
Maybe he sensed that I was a little terrified of what life would be like without our boy living with us.
How thoughtful. And talk about perfect timing! I’d originally been waiting till after graduation to tell my husband about the big surprise. As a reward for raising a child into adulthood and sending him off to college—and to have something exciting and different to look forward to—I’d booked us a trip. In April, sensing Brad was getting a case of the blues (as I was), I’d decided we should take a vacation, just the two of us, something we hadn’t done since our honeymoon, aside from the very occasional weekend away. I spent hours and hours on travel sites, looking for the best hotels, restaurants, cheap flights, special offers, upgrade possibilities.
Venice for three days, a train ride into the Swiss mountains, where we’d stay at a beautiful hotel on a lake, then five days in Paris, where Brad had always wanted to go. A trip to begin this new chapter of our lives and take the sting of our son’s absence away.
Dylan would be out with his friends tonight, so he wouldn’t miss us. He was the very best of kids—a football player who viewed his body as a temple and all that. Drinking and drugs could seriously screw up his place at the University of Montana. Also, the dangers of drinking, drugs, unprotected sex (and saturated fats) had been drilled into him since his conception. His mommy was a healthcare professional, after all.
When I got home from work that night, I shaved my legs and washed my hair, conditioned it so I wouldn’t break the hairbrush—I took after my Portuguese ancestors with thick, coarse black hair. Last year, I’d found a few white strands, too, but hey. Well-earned, right? After I dried off and put on some lipstick and mascara, I decided I was gorgeous and Brad was a lucky man. Then again, he was damn good looking, too, just a little gray in his blond hair, a neatly trimmed beard, his aqua-blue eyes framed by glasses. He had movie star eyes, Beth liked to tell me. Almost too blue to be real.
I put on a cute summer dress and pulled my long hair into a side ponytail. Earrings, perfume, strappy sandals. Texted my patient Ciara, who was at thirty-eight weeks and felt like the baby had dropped. How are you feeling, goddess? Anything changed?
No, but she just punched me pretty good in the side, and I saw her knuckles, Lillie! So amazing!
You’re growing a human, I texted back. YOU are amazing. Have a great night, and call me with any changes.
Being a midwife was like being someone’s best friend for an entire year, from the first obstetrical visit—sometimes before, if they come to you for fertility or other issues—to the three-month follow-up. The thrill, the responsibility, the honor of guiding the mama through her pregnancy, birth and postnatal care, not to mention any other female issues she might have in her lifetime . . . it was like nothing else. Ciara was a primipara—this was her first pregnancy—and she was in awe of the whole process, as she should be.
Smiling, I went into the front hall, where my husband was waiting. “You look gorgeous,” I said, kissing him on the cheek.
“Thanks,” he said, looking up from his phone. “Take a sweater in case it gets chilly.”