in the garden, the grown-ups standing at one end with their gin and tonics and their devils on horseback, smiling indulgently as the magician arrives to delight their children by pulling rabbits out of hats.
The days ticked by to her trip to New York, and again her period came. I need this break, she told herself. Maybe I’ll even see a doctor in New York. She trusted them, had heard there were doctors over there who knew the secrets to getting pregnant.
This trip will change my life, she decided, will change my future going forward. The butterflies came back, on the flight, at the airport, in the car Aunt Judith had sent to drive her to Hyannis to catch the ferry, and then finally, as the boat plowed along the water, she glimpsed Nantucket Harbor, whereupon her heart caught in her throat with nostalgia and joy.
Four
Nantucket, the little island off the coast of Massachusetts, made famous by whaling in the mid-nineteenth century, had been discovered in the 1950s by developers who encouraged wealthy vacationers to visit the island with its cobbled streets and pretty grey-shingled houses, trellises weighed down with roses and hydrangeas.
People came here to get away from the noise of Boston and New York, to enjoy the beauty of the pretty village, the beaches, the harbor, in a place the locals referred to as Fantasy Island.
Aunt Judith had bought her own house, a Federal off the top of Main Street, in the late 1950s, just as they were starting to build on the island, just as the island was starting to become popular. Her house had been inhabited by an elderly couple and hadn’t been touched for years. She was one of the first to see the beauty in the place, a house that shocked her children, who swiftly forgot their reservations over the dark, peeling wallpaper when they were brought in to help, given sledgehammers to knock down walls between the parlor and the kitchen, opening up the house, choosing their own paint colors for their rooms.
Aunt Judith planted hydrangeas along the front of the house, and replaced the rotting shingles on the front with new white cedar ones. She built vegetable beds in the tiny yard and filled them with tomatoes and lettuce.
In Nantucket, Aunt Judith found out how to be happy. Divorce was frowned upon in the New York suburb of Rye, where she had been living with her husband, until she discovered he was having a long-term affair with his secretary. It all ended very quickly after that. She wanted a fresh start, and had spent a handful of happy vacations on Nantucket; it seemed like a place where you could reinvent yourself, cast aside the dull suburban detritus of your housewife life in Rye. Nantucket was a place where Aunt Judith could discover the inner bohemian she hadn’t realized was lurking until she shed her staid uniform of neat skirts and pumps, embracing loose-fitting clothes and sandals that made navigating the cobblestones, if not entirely pleasurable, at least manageable.
The house wasn’t big—four bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, all under the eaves—but as she always said to Audrey, it was big enough.
* * *
The house looked the same. Of course, thought Audrey, as the car pulled to a halt outside. It’s only been five years since I was last here, why would it have changed? The gravel was thin, a few weeds pushing through, the paint on the windows peeling again, but the house was still pretty, with its classic lines and peaked roof, the window boxes still filled with geraniums.
The station wagon was gone, which meant Aunt Judith was out. She had said she was leaving the key under the pot, which Audrey quickly found, as the driver hauled her suitcase up the steps and deposited it on the porch. She thanked him and sent him away.
The door opened, a wave of déjà vu washing over Audrey as she stood for a minute, drinking in the smell, the feeling, of being home. Little had changed. The table in the hall was new, fresh-cut peonies in the vase as always. Aunt Judith always had pitchers and vases filled with flowers all over the house; it was one of her signature touches.
The suitcase was heavy, but bumping along every step, Audrey managed to get it up the staircase, breathing heavily, dragging it along the narrow corridor until she reached her room and pushed the door open to find the bed made up with crisp