This morning, I called her. We went for that walk. We met at the Hub and walked around the harbor, coffees in hand. It was easier to walk side by side, to talk about things, without having to look each other in the eye. She wasn’t warm, particularly, but nor was she cold. I think she was mostly embarrassed. She was honest enough to admit her bitterness toward me, that she had always felt she never got enough of her father, had to fight for any attention, and my appearance was one more thing to take her father further away from her.
I understood, and told her a little bit about my own father. She had never been interested in hearing my story all those years ago, had never been interested in me. Today she listened, not saying much, but nodding in the right places.
I made my amends. We didn’t fall into each other’s arms as long-lost sisters, but we agreed to see how it goes. More important, Ellie agreed to foster this precious relationship between our daughters, this bond that is already so clear to both of us.
“I’m sorry for how I treated you,” says Ellie when we are about to leave, and even though I’m still not experiencing waves of warmth, I go to put my arms around her, and she hugs me back.
“I’m sorry for how I treated all of you,” I say. And I know that even if we will never be friends, we can now be friendly. And the girls can be the cousins they are so desperate to be.
These past afternoons Jason has been taking Annie to see Trudy at Ellie’s house. The girls spend several hours together every day, and when Trudy starts to get tired, Jason picks Annie up and brings her to wherever we are, usually at the beach.
Eddie joins us from time to time, while Brad Pitt frolics in the water, and yes, I will admit it, I still salivate over Eddie’s extraordinary body. Of course he’s gay, I think to myself drolly. What straight men do I know with bodies like that? I know I’m never going to have him, but what a delightful sight to brighten up a girl’s day, particularly when her loins have been reawakened after the desert of the last few years.
I go to my meetings every morning, and Jason goes to his own, later in the day at the First Congregational Church. Abigail and I meet for tea, and I tell her that her son is adorable but there’s no chemistry between us, so although I am thankful for her introduction, a romance between us is not on the cards.
“Pffft,” she says. “Who needs chemistry? Well, it’s nice to see he’s made a new friend in your friend Sam.”
Indeed.
* * *
Suddenly, unbearably, we are two days from the end, and I realize I don’t have nearly enough information about Nantucket for my piece. I leave Annie in the care of Jason and Sam and whirl around the island going to the lighthouse at Sankaty, the whaling museum, the Nantucket Lightship Basket Museum, in order to fill my article with things to do on this island.
Although frankly, I’m sure the Daily Gazette readers would be just as happy doing what we have done, exploring the restaurants and spending all day on the beach.
Tomorrow is our last night, and I have booked Corazon del Mar, thinking that tonight I will cook a family dinner here at home. I have lobsters in the fridge, their claws surrounded by rubber bands. Although I love lobster, I’ve never cooked them before. I didn’t know, London girl that I have become, I didn’t know until I went to buy lobsters, that you have to plunge them into boiling water while they’re still alive. It is too late to change my mind, even though I’m not at all sure I’m going to be able to go through with it.
I have made potato salad, and coleslaw, and shrimp cakes to start, with a cilantro lime mayonnaise. I made a simple peach tarte tatin and have a tub of homemade (not by me) vanilla ice cream in the freezer, and a vase stuffed with blue hydrangeas, clipped from our own garden, in the middle of the table.
The table has been set for four, with Sam’s hurricanes lit in the center. It looks beautiful. I’m excited we’re going to be home, not least because this, more than anything, is what