Amelia Cabral had been creating mosaics for as long as she could remember, but it was Kelly who had turned it into a business. For Amelia, it was a family tradition that evoked fond memories of her childhood summers on the beaches of Provincetown, when her mother had taken her for long morning walks and they collected shells. Her father would give them discarded bits of wood from whatever furniture piece he was working on, and her mother would sand them and then glue them together to make picture frames. Amelia’s job was to artfully arrange the shells and create unique mosaic patterns for the frames. Her mother sold them to tourists for five dollars apiece.
Like many families four or five generations deep into life in Provincetown, the Cabrals had had to adapt to the decline in the seaport, and they’d made money however and whenever they could. Her mother spoke of picking and selling blueberries when she was a child and, as a young woman, cleaning rooms at the island’s one small hotel. It was the influx of artists—many of whom would go on to be the greats of their eras (Jack Kerouac, Jackson Pollock, and Norman Mailer had all, at one point, called Provincetown home)—who showed her there were other ways to earn a living. For survival, there had to be. That’s when her mother, inspired by photos of the elaborate artwork in the walkways of Lisbon, began creating her own mosaics.
Years later, after Amelia had established—and destroyed—a life for herself in Boston, she would remember the other means by which her mother, widowed at a young age, learned to support herself: she began renting out the rooms of their home to the artists flocking to Provincetown. Oh, there had been nothing official about it. It wasn’t a bed-and-breakfast, as they called them nowadays. Word simply spread among the creative community that if you needed a place to sleep and work you could try Renata at 157 Front Street. That had been back in the days when the sea, and not tourism, had been the backbone of the town. Now the same strip was called Commercial Street, and Renata’s informal lodging house was now the Beach Rose Inn, reestablished in 1989.
Amelia had thought the old house had seen the last of its stories, the last of its transformations. But now, her granddaughters were on their way. Who would have ever imagined?
“It’s a beauty,” Amelia said, appraising the mosaic from the doorway of the studio. “I’m tempted to buy it out from under that woman.”
“You can’t afford it, darling,” Kelly said. “But I’m working on something for you next. A surprise.”
Amelia smiled. “Give me a hint.”
Kelly shook her head, a sly smile on her face. Amelia felt a pang of guilt. She had a surprise for Kelly as well. And probably not a pleasant one.
Amelia hesitated, then pulled a chair out from the worktable. She might as well tell her now. No sense waiting until they had guests in the house.
“I sent a letter to Nadine,” she said.
Kelly set down her glue and placed both hands on the table, her shoulders dipping forward.
“I had to tell her,” Amelia said. “It’s her brother’s children. She has a right to know.”
Kelly sighed. “Of course. I get it. I’ve never been happy about this situation, Amelia. You don’t have to be apologetic on my account.”
“Well, she’s been so hurtful.”
“She’s your daughter. And like you said, she has a right to know. It has little to do with me at this point.”
“I asked her to come here.”
Kelly looked startled. “Did you hear back from her?”
Amelia shook her head.
“Okay, well—I just don’t want you to set yourself up to be hurt. That’s all I care about.”
“The only thing that can hurt me right now is the continued silence.”
Kelly put her arm around her. “You have two granddaughters coming. Granddaughters! Let’s focus on the positive.”
“I will. I mean, I am. But I also feel like this is my last chance with Nadine.”
She could see Kelly wrestling with the idea of Nadine showing up, of seeing her again after three decades. After all of the hurt and anger and terrible things said. Yes, Kelly was concerned for her. But she knew that, selfishly, Kelly didn’t want to revisit the past. But Amelia, twenty years Kelly’s senior, didn’t have the luxury of waiting any longer.
By a miracle of fate, the past was arriving on her doorstep tomorrow. And she would welcome it with open arms.
Two hundred and ninety miles from New York City. One hundred and seventeen miles from Boston.
Provincetown might as well have been on the moon.
Four hours into the drive, Marin was steeped in regret. With her mother and Rachel chattering happily the entire time, you’d never have guessed that (a) they’d just met the night before, and (b) her mother had just been revealed to be the world’s biggest liar.
But what did Rachel care? She had what she wanted: an instant new family. Oh, why had Marin agreed to go? She’d been caught up in the moment. Or maybe it would have been a decent idea, if her mother hadn’t hijacked it.
“Get off here,” her mother chirped from the backseat. The sign in front of them read DOWNTOWN NEWPORT.
“Okay, Blythe!” Rachel sang happily.
“Recalibrating,” monotoned the GPS.
“Wait, why are we getting off here? We decided to do this in a straight shot,” Marin said, sitting up in the passenger seat. She knew she should have stayed behind the wheel.
“Oh—I thought we agreed to have lunch in Newport. The beach is supposed to be really cute,” Rachel said.
“I never agreed.”
“Majority rules, Marin,” said her mother.
It was something her father used to say to quell dissent on family road trips. In the context of this trip, the comment infuriated her. She turned around to the backseat, glaring. “Mother, you invited yourself along on this trip and, frankly, I still don’t understand why. But the least you can do is stay out of things.”
“You need to get over your anger.”
“Get over my anger? You’ve been lying to me my entire life!”
“That’s why I want to be with you…to help you understand—”
The GPS interrupted in its mechanical voice, “I’m not sure I understand.”
“Goddamn it,” said Marin.
“I’m not sure I understand,” repeated the GPS. Rachel turned it off.
“We really do have to eat,” Rachel said, casting a sideways glance at Marin. With the open windows, the breeze fanning her long hair out like a kite, the gold in her hair glimmering in the sun, she looked like an actress in a happy-road-trip movie directed by Nancy Meyers.
“Fine,” Marin muttered.
She had to admit, the harbor was pretty, with red-shingled restaurants like the Barking Crab and stores like Egg and Dart on Bowen’s Wharf, and it made Manhattan seem very far away. She exhaled, thinking that maybe, just maybe, things would be okay. But the moment of optimism, a fragile balloon, was punctured by thoughts of Julian.
Still not a word from him.
They circled around until Easton’s Beach appeared on their right. The ocean shimmered, turquoise and calm. Marin had had no idea the Atlantic could look like that. The ocean of her childhood, the Jersey Shore, was dark blue or gray, rolling with steady waves. The squawk of a seagull cemented her sense memory of those days, and she felt like crying for the loss of everything she had believed to be true about her life.
Rachel parked in a wide-open lot, the noonday sun beating down on them.
“Where are we going?” Marin asked, following her mother and Rachel, who was consulting Yelp.
“There’s a snack bar on the beach,” Rachel said.