She sliced into it with her knife and scooped a piece into her mouth.
“Oh my God.” It was heaven—perfection. What to compare it to? Maybe the best cottage cheese imaginable but more firm. She had done it!
It was, unbelievably, the most accomplished she’d ever felt in her life. She wanted to feel this way every day. Could she possibly be a cook? Was that the calling she had been searching for?
Rachel walked outside, smiling at the early-morning sun, setting out the corn bread and coffee and fresh fruit, consumed by the fantasy of running her own little Provincetown restaurant.
Molly, the chocolate Lab, bounded in from the street, wagging her tail and sniffing around the table.
Rachel peeked around the corner of the house, wondering if Bart was nearby. But apparently Molly had just made her way to the house, as Rachel had learned that first day Molly had a tendency to do.
The Miller daughter appeared wearing very short shorts and a Marina and the Diamonds concert T-shirt.
“Good morning!” Rachel sang.
“Hey.” The girl patted Molly. “I remember this dog from last summer,” she said, pouring herself coffee. “Can I ask you something?” she said, shaking long bangs out of her eyes.
“Sure,” said Rachel.
“Is there anything to do in this town? It’s so fucking boring. Like, am I missing something?”
“Boring?” Rachel said, as if the word were utterly foreign. “I don’t know. I think it’s pretty great.”
“Well, clearly you’ve never been anyplace cool. No offense.”
“I live in LA, and I’m having the best summer of my life here.”
“Okay, then—can I have some of whatever you’re smoking?”
Before Rachel could begin to think of a response, Marin rolled out, hand in hand with the Boyfriend. Crisis averted? Maybe ripping the Band-Aid off really was the best thing. Life lesson noted!
“Wow. You really have Amelia’s whole thing down,” Marin said, taking a hard-boiled egg and pouring orange juice.
Rachel beamed.
“Good morning,” Blythe called out, walking to the table in her bathing suit and terry-cloth cover-up. It had taken some time, but she’d finally let go of the cardigans and linen pants. She sat across from Marin and the boyfriend. “Julian, glad to see you decided to give Provincetown another day or two.”
Blythe introduced herself to the Miller daughter just as Mrs. Miller strolled out wearing her pajama pants and a P-Town sweatshirt.
“The Millers have been coming to the inn for twenty years,” Rachel told Blythe.
Joan Miller looked around the table. “So you’re all relatives of Amelia? I’ll be darned. We never knew she had so much family. I feel like we’re here for reunion week!”
Rachel and Marin looked at each other.
“Yeah, well, it’s been that kind of summer,” said Marin.
And then Rachel was struck with inspiration: Why stop at making breakfast? Why not have a family dinner tomorrow night? Or more than family; she would invite Luke, Thomas, and Bart. A friendly dinner.
She walked back into the kitchen to look through Amelia’s recipe box and make a shopping list.
Marin and Julian rented bikes and rode to Herring Cove. They walked along the ocean, the same path she’d been taking on her mornings with Amelia.
Marin picked up shells as they went, pointing out the different varieties to Julian.
“Quite an education you’re getting out here,” he said.
“I take walks with Amelia almost every morning. She’s been collecting shells all these years for Kelly’s mosaics. And stones and sea glass.”
She handed him a pristine wentletrap.
“What’s it like? Being with this woman who’s suddenly your grandmother?” he asked, putting the shell in the pocket of his bathing shorts.
“It’s strange, but not as strange as you’d think,” she said, stopping and looking out at the horizon. “I like her. It’s easy to like her.” The waves rolled in and she bent down to rinse off her sandy hands. Standing up, the sun kissed her face, and she closed her eyes. “And I love it out here.”
“I can see why,” he said.
“Obviously, I wish I were here under less complicated circumstances. But the thing I worried about the most—telling my dad the truth—turned out to be the most painless part.”
“He took it well?”
She turned to face him. “He said he knew all along. It never made a difference in how he felt about me.”
Julian looked away, distracted. Two children, a boy and a girl with sun-bleached hair and tans the color of caramel, ran past them to the water’s edge. The boy, taller by a head, splashed the girl, and her shrieks of laughing protest made Marin and Julian share a smile.
“It’s interesting we’re both only children,” he said.
“I never thought of that before, but yeah, you’re right.”
He put his arm around her and they watched the brother and sister until their mother called them farther down the beach.
Someday our child will play on this very spot, she thought.
“It’s a great place for kids,” he said, clearly having similar thoughts. She felt a swell of happiness. Until he asked, “What time does FedEx show up around here?”
“I’m not sure.” He was thinking about the test kits?
“Maybe we should head back to the house and wait for it,” he said.
She looked at him, a chill running up her spine as the water licked her feet.
“Okay. Sure.” And in that instant, she knew.
If this baby wasn’t his, they were over.
Rachel jotted down her shopping list on the Beach Rose Inn notepad Amelia kept on the counter next to the toaster.
4 lbs. of fresh cod
4 lbs. of ripe tomatoes
4 large sweet onions
8 cloves of garlic
1 small bunch of parsley
Lentils
Quinoa
Kale
Eggs
What else? She glanced at the index cards—stained from years of consultation mid-cooking—then looked through the pantry to make sure she had enough flour and sugar to make dessert. In the front of the house, Molly barked relentlessly.
“Molly!” she called out, penciling in a few more vegetables. “Quiet!”
The barking grew more excited. Was someone out there? She put down her pen and headed to the front door.
She was halfway through the entrance hall when, disbelieving, she spotted the woman on the couch, leafing through a copy of Provincetown magazine.
It couldn’t be. It was her mind playing tricks on her.
“Hello?” she said quietly, as if she were talking to an apparition and if anyone heard her, she might be committed. At the moment, the notion that she was losing her mind was a best-case scenario, the one that made the most sense. The alternative was too crazy.
“Hey there.” Her mother closed the magazine and looked at her calmly, as if Rachel had just happened upon her in her own living room.
“Fran? What are you doing here?”