“You may go home now,” Susan said, and her boys thundered down the hall and out the door. Susan turned to Darcy. “I want to thank you, too, for all you’ve done. I don’t think I could have made it through this summer without you.”
“It’s been wonderful having you as a neighbor,” Darcy said honestly. “Do you think you’ll come back next year?”
Susan hesitated. “I’m not sure. Otto wants to try a place in Maine…but we’ll keep in touch, won’t we, Darcy?”
“Of course,” Darcy said, although she knew from experience that summer people often forgot island people when they returned to their “real” lives.
Susan hugged Darcy tightly. Darcy kissed Susan’s cheek.
“Goodbye, have a good fall,” Susan said.
“Goodbye, have a safe trip home,” Darcy said.
Susan went down the hall, stopped at the front door to turn and wave. And then she was gone.
That night, when Darcy looked, there were no lights on in the house next door.
Willow, Boyz, and Autumn were the next to go. It happened all in a rush. Willow knocked on Darcy’s door in the late afternoon.
Willow was breathless. “Darcy, Boyz said our car is number one on standby on the car ferry. We have to leave now and hope we can get on. He’s pretty sure we’ll be able to get on. We have tickets for the ferry tomorrow afternoon, but Boyz wants to get home as soon as we can.”
Darcy felt a little stab in her chest. Somehow she couldn’t take it all in. She knew Willow was leaving, but now that the moment was here, Darcy felt off guard. This was too important; she’d left something unfinished. She stuttered, “Oh, oh, so soon, I—”
Willow was in too much of a hurry to wait for Darcy to make sense. “Thank you so much for everything this summer, Darcy, and I’ll text you all the time, and I hope I can visit you this October for the Cranberry Festival.” She threw her arms around Darcy, squeezed her so hard it hurt, then took a few steps in place, like a jogger waiting at a traffic light. “Thanks, thanks, thanks!”
Willow was gone. It was like a light being switched off. That fast, that conclusively. Darcy stood at her doorway like a coma patient, and not until Muffler rubbed up against her ankles did she close the door.
Her mind flooded with questions. Did Willow know Autumn was pregnant? How would Willow feel about that—probably thrilled to have a baby sister or brother. Willow was starting high school next week, always a turbulent period of life. She would seem more grown-up. Well, Willow was more grown-up, and a great many events had happened in her brief time on Nantucket to blast her out of the world of innocence and, in a way, out of the Garden of Eden. Willow had seen her mother with another man. Willow had been seduced by a handsome older boy into sex play and invited to try drugs. Willow had learned that the deliciously painful emotions of attraction and desire could lead her into all kinds of trouble. That was good. Willow needed to know that, and she’d come through it all stronger and more optimistic. Willow had chosen to spend the summer in safety, with pleasant older women and with children. She was about to be plunged back into the world of adolescence. Darcy wished the girl well. And she doubted that Willow would return for the Cranberry Festival. Maybe Darcy could go up to Boston someday and take Willow out to lunch….
“Stop it!” Darcy said aloud. She had to wrench her mind off Willow. She had to return to her world and her own challenges. Would she give up this house, her house that held all her memories and hopes, and was also a fabulous house in a wonderful location…would she give it up in order to live in another house with Nash?
It was much easier to wonder about Willow.
Finally, Mimi and Clive left. Clive and Mimi enjoyed a goodbye dinner at Darcy’s the night before, and Mimi and Darcy had promised to email and text and phone. Mimi still had a bit of a cold but promised she had tucked nasal spray and throat lozenges into her purse. Leaving was an emotional time for Mimi, who might never see the island again, so Darcy promised to drive out to the airport to wave goodbye.
It was always hard to see someone off on a plane. The passengers had to mill around in a small holding area like cattle, waiting for their release to the plane.
“I bought this paperback to read, but I’m not sure it will hold my interest,” Mimi murmured to Darcy, fishing around in her enormous bag for the book.
“Mimi,” Clive said, “you’ve got your e-reader with you. You can order another book or you can work a crossword puzzle on it.”
Mimi brightened. “Oh, yes, of course, what was I thinking?”
Darcy and Mimi had said their goodbyes and hugged each other several times, and still they were left to wait restlessly in a kind of limbo. Then suddenly the flight was called and the mob morphed into an orderly line, and the passengers went out through the gates, waving and calling goodbye, goodbye.
And Darcy was left standing alone. She gave herself a moment to recover from the sadness that had settled on her. Then she walked out the door and called Jordan and told her she was taking Jordan and Kiks out to lunch.
—
September was always an orphan month, not still summer, not yet fall. When Labor Day passed, people thronged to the ferries and planes, going back to school, back to work, back to reality. Many of the beautiful houses on Darcy’s street were empty, their windows dark. Landscaping crews came around to keep the grass cut, to water and prune and fertilize, and to empty the window boxes or fill them with orange gourds and purple mums, which were unsettling, still unseasonal.
At the library, Darcy and her colleagues did the professional version of cleaning up a house after a wild party. Books were reshelved properly, emails were caught up, and the staff had a chance to linger and reevaluate the summer and discuss plans for the fall.
On a rainy Tuesday morning, Beverly Maison came into the office carrying her umbrella and a floppy foul-weather hat.
“You’re here early,” Beverly said.
“It’s the perfect time to clean up this desk and go through all the papers I’ve been avoiding,” Darcy told her.
Beverly shut the office door. She took off her raincoat and hung it on the stand and leaned her umbrella in the corner. She smoothed her hair down and settled in at her desk. She swiveled her chair around so she could face Darcy.
“Let’s talk a moment,” Beverly said.
“Okay.” Darcy picked up her coffee cup and drank. The coffee was still nicely hot.
“You know I’m not so young anymore,” Beverly began.
Well, this was odd. “You seem young to me,” Darcy said.
Beverly laughed. “You’re a good friend, Darcy. And a good librarian. You did a sterling job keeping the children’s library on track this summer.”
“Oh, well, thank you, Beverly.”
“I had a meeting yesterday afternoon with Edith and Grace.”