“I’ve never been, but this looks truly gorgeous. Do you have a house there?”
Karen laughs. “Years and years ago my parents were looking to buy, and back then, for a couple of hundred thousand, you could have bought something wonderful on the ocean, but they decided it was too expensive. Now we’re all kicking ourselves because no one can afford it anymore, but we rent there every summer.”
“The same house?”
“Never. Some years we’ve had wonderful houses, and others we’ve had horrors, but the island is still wonderful and when you’re outside all the time it doesn’t make much difference.”
“I’d love to go,” Daff says. “Nantucket is one of those places people always tell me I would love.”
“Oh but it’s true,” Karen says. “You really would.”
“Maybe I’ll take Jess there sometime,” Daff says. “Although right now I’m public enemy number one. I’m lucky if she even comes to the diner with me, never mind Nantucket.”
“I think there’s something magical about the island.” Karen smiles gently. “Amazing things happen there. It’s where I met my husband, for starters.”
“Well, the very last thing I need is another husband.” Daff laughs. “Perhaps I won’t be going there after all.”
Carrie pours herself a glass of wine as she gets dinner ready, still feeling jarred by the events of the weekend. She has always considered herself someone who loves children. She has nieces and nephews, and is adored by them, and although she has no children of her own, she has always assumed that if the man she would eventually end up with had children, it would be nothing but a blessing.
And Richard might very well be that one. At thirty-seven Carrie has had her fair share of suitors, but none of them has ever been right, has ever been the man she feels she ought to settle down with. A successful journalist, she is forever meeting people, forever going out on dates, but it wasn’t until she met Richard that she started to think she might be happy settling down, could see herself with someone for the rest of her life.
So early to say that, she chides herself, when those fantasies creep in, but she has never been one of those girls who spend their life looking for Mr. Right, and she has assumed that it is quite possible she will never get married, which is absolutely fine.
And yet after two months she realizes she adores Richard. And it is more than just adoring him; she knows that they make a good team. The fact that he’s already been married is also a good thing, in her book. He has told her all about his affair with Nancy, and although infidelity is not something she is remotely comfortable with, Richard has been honest about the reasons why it happened, honest about his regret and remorse, and honest about why he had allowed himself to fall in love with someone else when he was married.
“It doesn’t make it right,” he explained to her, “but I understand now that as wonderful as Daff was, is, she and I were not the right match, and I feel as if Nancy was the catalyst to make me understand that.”
Carrie likes that he only has good things to say about Daff. She doesn’t feel threatened by Daff in the slightest, nor concerned by his closeness to his daughter. She had been so looking forward to meeting her. Had imagined them becoming close friends— shopping together, cooking together, an instant family.
Nothing had prepared her for Jess, for the pain she is so obviously in, for the attachment to her father and the jealousy that came with it. Her anger, her hurt, was so incredibly jarring to Carrie that after Richard dropped her home, after that miserable hour at the diner, Carrie seriously started to question whether they had a future after all.
Richard came straight over after he dropped Jessica off, and they talked. He talked about his guilt, his horror at seeing her behave like that, his need to give Jessica what she needed, his desire to be present for her, to be a proper father, not to be like one of those fathers who just disappear after the divorce.
And Carrie felt her heart melt. This was, after all, one of the reasons that she was falling in love with him. Because he wasn’t the type to run away, because he was good, because he wanted to look after his daughter.
“She just needs time,” he said eventually. “Think about it.