overrun by the super rich. What are they like to work for?”
I steel myself for great stories about entitled millionaires, realizing suddenly that there very well may be a great feature in this for me, but Abigail surprises me.
“I love everyone I work for. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t do it. That’s one of the things I learned in program: Life is where you look. Of course, entitled, snobbish people are here on the island, but if I’m not focusing on them, not only am I not attracting them into my life, I’m not even seeing them. I work for some really important, wealthy people, and my experience of them has been great. Obviously a couple of unfortunate things, but you move on. I raised my son here, and there is nowhere else in the world I’d like to live.”
“Is your son still here?”
“He is now. He left for a few years, went down to Boston, but luckily for me, he decided to come home. All my friends’ kids seem to be divided into two camps, those that can’t wait to get off the island and never come home again, and those that can’t stay away. Thank goodness he’s one who loves his home. Lucky me.”
“Lucky you, indeed. What does he do?”
“A little bit of everything, like the rest of us. Although now he’s really doing construction pretty much all the time. He’s always done carpentry, but he’s building houses now, a couple of beautiful ones down in Sconset. At forty years old he finally seemed to have found his path!”
“You don’t look old enough to have a forty-year-old son!” I lie, knowing it’s what’s expected of me.
“He’s forty-two now,” she says proudly. “And thank you. I’m seventy-five years young. It’s the summers that keep me young,” she says. “I love the influx of people we get. Every May I start to get excited that the island’s going to wake up again. Granted, I get tired by the end of the summer, but I wouldn’t change it. Things used to stop dead after Labor Day, but not so much now. It’s a funny thing about island life,” she muses. “We can’t wait for everyone to leave, then we can’t wait for them to come back. We need money, for starters,” she says, and I think of my father, painting, selling paintings on the wharf all summer.
“My father’s family was here,” I say. “You probably know them.”
“What was their name?”
“Mayhew.”
She nods, entirely unsurprised. “I figured as much. Even before you spoke, I took one look at you and knew you had to be a Mayhew. You and Julia look like twins.”
It is like someone has twisted a knife in my heart, and for a second I almost can’t breathe.
“You know Julia?”
“Of course! Everyone knows Julia. She worked for me for years, helping out with the houses. She still does sometimes, off-season, when her store is closed. She’s the one, then? The one you talked about? Or is it Ellie?”
“Oh God. I’m sorry. I just … I just didn’t realize you would know my family so well.”
“I knew Brooks very well. He was a kind man. Big drinker. Really should have been in program. And Julia I watched grow up, of course. Ellie I only know a little. She always felt like a summer person.” She laughs briefly. “Of course, Ellie really was a summer person; she never felt like an islander. You, on the other hand”—she peers at me as the waitress brings over an enormous plate of huevos rancheros—“apart from the accent, you could definitely be an islander.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s a compliment. We’re a certain type, we New Englanders, and in particular we islanders. The Vineyard or Nantucket, it’s much the same. We live hard. There’s a lot of depression here, a lot of drinking, family secrets everywhere, and tremendous loyalty. In program we say there are two types of people on the island: those that are in AA, and those that should be.” She barks with laughter.
“I guess, if drinking or being in AA is a qualifier, then that qualifies me.” I take a bite, and it is delicious, the creamy egg yolks bursting over tomatoes and spicy black beans.
“It’s more than that. You’re tough. A survivor. Don’t ask me how I know, but I felt I recognized you as soon as you walked in, and not just because you look like a Mayhew. Julia’s on island, you know. I saw her in the store a couple of