back because he’s afraid of muddying the waters of their newly formed alliance and he doesn’t want it to be confusing to the kids. He would love to go with her to Manaus and volunteer, but it’s still too busy at the Cone for JP to travel. By the time Savannah gets back, summer will officially be over and JP will be getting ready to close the shop.
He’ll make his move then, maybe. See what happens.
Lucinda is attending the burial with Penny Rosen. “Someday that will be us,” Lucinda says, nodding at the coffin.
“Someday soon,” Penny says. “I woke up this morning with the worst chest pain.”
“Well, for goodness’ sake, see a doctor!” Lucinda says. “If something happens to you, who will I beat at bridge?”
Penny smiles and decides not to tell Lucy that the tightness in her chest remains to this very minute or that she has been having vivid dreams about her late husband, Walter. She knows that beneath Lucy’s joke about the bridge, there’s genuine concern. Penny will try to hang on for Lucy’s sake. Maybe she’s just hungry. Rumor has it that Joe DeSantis is catering the lunch after the burial. Joe’s chicken salad with pecans and dried apricots in mustardy dressing is as good a reason to stay alive as any.
Marshall Sebring, of Gaston, Oregon, grew up with a mom, a dad, a sister, and a dog—a regular, happy American family—and although he wouldn’t change a second of it, there’s something about Carson’s family that is fascinating in a way that Marshall’s family is not. Her father, JP, owns the Cone; her sister, Willa, works at the Nantucket Historical Association; and her brother, Leo, just graduated from Nantucket High School and is going to the University of Colorado, Boulder. Then there’s Carson’s grandmother and Mrs. Rosen; they’re two tough but elegant ladies—Marshall has served them dozens of times this summer at the club. And there’s Savannah Hamilton, who founded Rise and whose family has owned their house on Union Street for something like three hundred years. Marshall has just met Leo’s friend Cruz and Cruz’s father, Joe, who owns Marshall’s favorite sandwich shop, the Nickel. Marshall feels like he’s standing in a cluster of real Nantucketers, people whose attachments to this island run as deep as tree roots into the soil of the island.
The person Marshall really wishes he’d been able to meet, however, is Carson’s mother, Vivian Howe.
“She was magic,” Carson told him. “But she was my mom, so I took her for granted. I didn’t understand how lucky I was to have her until she was gone.”
Marshall decides when he gets home from the luncheon following the burial, he’s going to call his parents and tell them he loves them.
Lorna O’Malley drives past the cemetery on her way from the hospital to her apartment. The biopsy has come back positive for a malignancy. Lorna has triple-negative intraductal carcinoma—a complicated way of saying breast cancer—at the age of thirty-one, and although the news could be worse (she’s still stage one, they caught it early), it could also be better. Lorna notices JP walking with Vivi’s daughters—they’re all dressed in dark colors, so they must have just buried Vivi. Lorna thinks about calling Amy to let her know that Vivi has finally been laid to rest, but she can’t bring herself to think about death and burial right now. She’ll call Amy later, with her own news.
Pigeon, she’ll say, I’m about to lose me tits!
Amy will cry about it, Lorna is certain. But she will shore up and become Lorna’s person. She will go with Lorna to her appointments, share her Netflix password during Lorna’s chemo, be in the waiting room during Lorna’s surgery; she’ll keep Lorna’s mother, back in Wexford, calm, and she’ll take Cupid for walks. After all the hours Lorna has listened to Amy chatter about JP, Dennis, and, most of all, Vivi, she’d better! Thinking this makes Lorna chuckle. At least she still has her sense of humor.
Amy
On the Friday of Labor Day weekend, Amy and Dennis are enjoying the raw bar special at the Oystercatcher. Amy had been purposefully staying away from the Oystercatcher because she didn’t want to face Carson at the bar—she couldn’t imagine what Carson would think when she saw Amy and Dennis together—but then Amy heard from her client Nikki that Carson no longer worked at the Oystercatcher.
“You’re kidding!” Amy said. “What happened?” She felt a twinge of regret (quickly followed by relief) that she was