“I’ll get my phone. Call me if anything’s going on.”
Crossing the street, Marin was distracted; a bicyclist had to ring her hand bell so she didn’t collide with her. Car traffic was already at a standstill. She could see from two buildings away that Joe had a line out the door. In the late weeks of July, the town had swelled into something unrecognizable from the intimate community she had met just a month earlier.
Marin pulled her hair off her neck and into a ponytail. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and took a place in line. It moved quickly. The server behind the counter was the blond-dreadlocked girl from the first day they arrived in town. Today her T-shirt read VAGITARIAN.
She ordered her croissant just as her phone vibrated in her pocket. Marin so fully expected it to be her mother that she barely registered the incoming number before hearing his voice.
“Hey, I’m glad you finally answered,” Julian said.
“Hold on a sec.” She paid quickly, cradling the phone between her cheek and her shoulder, and rushed back outside. Bart was seated at one of the tables with a bunch of friends, and he waved at her. She waved back, then turned left on Commercial, falling into the tide of pedestrians.
“Julian, I told you not to call me.”
“I know. And I probably deserved that. But Marin, we need to talk. I don’t care how many times you make me beg.”
In the middle of the street, a drag queen dressed as a mermaid had halted traffic. Cars honked—tourists, no doubt. She knew by now the locals had infinite patience for traffic stoppage on Commercial. The mermaid handed out paper flyers. A sequined lobster appeared beside her, hoisting a 1980s-style boom box in the air and blasting “The Edge of Glory” by Lady Gaga.
“Come one, come all—it’s the sixth annual Lobsterfest to Benefit Outer Cape Health Services!”
“Hold on a second. I need to find a quieter place—” Marin ducked into Marine Specialties, a quirky cavelike place that was part thrift store, part gift shop, part she didn’t quite know what. She walked toward the back, weaving through racks of cargo pants, a display of thermal underwear, a box piled with straw hats, and a low-hanging smattering of pi?atas. She found a quiet spot next to a box of movie posters.
She took a breath and put the phone to her ear. “Okay,” she said. “I’m back.” Julian began talking, something about time and thinking about everything and realizing how much she meant to him…
Marin could still hear the Lady Gaga music and the shouting mermaid. From Julian’s end of the phone.
“Julian,” she said, barely daring to breathe. “Where exactly are you?”
Kelly was wrong. Amelia did not need a house that was full of people. She didn’t need the house itself. Amelia needed her.
She pulled her suitcase from the top of her closet and began throwing clothes into it. She didn’t know yet where they were going; all she knew was that they had to get away.
The universe was punishing her. It was very clear. Loving Kelly, leaving her marriage—it was a transgression for which she had been paying ever since. Loss after loss. When Nick died, she had the same thought, and in her heart and mind she told God that she accepted her penance. She would have to live with it. But now this.
Last year, when the cancer first appeared, she felt it was the universe wagging a finger at her, saying, Don’t get too comfortable. Kelly told her she had to stop with the magical thinking.
“It doesn’t work that way,” she’d said.
Amelia closed the bag, knelt on the floor, and dissolved into tears. She indulged herself, because while she was determined that after last night she would not cry again in front of Kelly, at the moment, Kelly was not in the bedroom. She had gone to her studio to work, as she did every morning.
“I don’t want anything to change,” she’d told Amelia, kissing her before she rolled out of bed, that cough trailing after her like a blaring alarm.
Her bag packed, Amelia sat immobile on the floor until she heard a knock on the door. She wiped her eyes.
“Who is it?”
“Blythe. I have coffee for you.”
Amelia took a deep breath and forced herself to do the right thing and open the door.
“We missed you at breakfast,” Blythe said. She held a tray with Amelia’s yellow coffeepot and set it on the wooden bureau. Amelia did a quick calculation on the odds that Blythe knew about Kelly’s illness; Kelly had admitted to Amelia that she’d told Marin, “Only because she busted me on the phone.” The question was, had Marin told her mother?
“I overslept,” Amelia said. “Thanks for the coffee. That was so thoughtful of you.”
“It’s the least I could do,” Blythe said. There was something about the expression on her face, a look that was both sorrowful and searching, that gave Amelia her answer. But she would not acknowledge it. She refused.
Blythe eyed the suitcase. “Are you going somewhere?”
Amelia nodded. “The island is so overrun this time of the summer. We need to get away for a few days.”
“Oh, dear,” Blythe said. “Are we crowding you? I can round up the girls. We don’t want to outstay our welcome. You two have been so generous, but of course you must want some time to yourselves—”
“No, no—please. Don’t be silly. We’re thrilled to have you here, and in fact I’m more comfortable leaving when I know the place is being looked after. Rachel has been such a help and I know she’ll step in if Thomas needs anything.”
“Yes. Absolutely.” Blythe stood awkwardly, wringing her hands.
Amelia smiled patiently, waiting for her to leave. Blythe walked to the door, reached for the knob, then paused. She turned back to her.
“I wanted to give you some good news,” she said. Amelia looked at her, wondering if she was hearing correctly.
“Good news?”
“Yes,” Blythe said, smiling tentatively and moving closer to her. “Marin is pregnant. You’re going to be a great-grandmother.”
“What?”
“She just found out last week.”
Blythe went on and on, but to Amelia it was white noise. She searched deep inside herself for some feeling, some hint of joy. All she felt was a sense of betrayal, that the universe was playing a cruel joke on her, taunting her with its ability to deal its cards of life and death. She began to sob, and Blythe’s hopeful smile quickly faded. She embraced her, telling her it was going to be okay—that they would be there for her. Amelia searched for words, a way to express her feeling that everything she loved was eventually taken from her and so how could she feel joy even about this good news?
“What’s going on?” Rachel appeared in the doorway.
Amelia and Blythe looked at each other. Amelia mouthed, No.
Blythe invited Rachel in and closed the door behind her. When she turned around, she had a smile planted on her face. “We have some good news,” she said, her eyes shining with tears that only Amelia knew were sorrowful. “Marin is pregnant.”