regularly and took the occasional trip together. Ben and my mother still saw each other on the sly, meeting in New York at the InterContinental. Whenever possible, I joined them for a power pack in their room or at the hotel bar.
Then, during my junior year of college, my mother got the idea that she would bring the two families together, kids and all. Determined to orchestrate a joint family getaway, Malabar found a large house on Harbour Island in the Bahamas that was available for two full weeks that included Christmas and New Year’s. According to her, the Southers loved the plan; they hoped that an all-expenses-paid trip to a tropical island would entice their two children, Jack and Hannah, both in their early thirties, to spend the holiday with them. It did. My mother invited our extended family and even encouraged Peter and me to bring our significant others. In my case, this was Hank from the clam bar; he’d been my boyfriend since August, when I encouraged him to extricate himself from his relationship with Sally. Malabar planned to show Ben Souther exactly what she could pull off with a family vacation. She figured she’d string together so many memories—exotic meals and ocean adventures—that the Southers would talk about their trip to Harbour Island for years to come.
* * *
I met Jack Souther in the Miami International Airport, where the first tranche of our vacation crew—flying in from Boston, New York, and San Diego—had arranged to converge for a meal in the terminal. The rest of our group would arrive in dribs and drabs over the coming week, but for forty-eight hours, it would be just five of us: Malabar, Ben, Lily, Jack, and me. Jack had full lips, a shag of light brown hair, and an athletic build, the result, I would come to learn, of a rigorous daily regimen of sit-ups, pushups, and squats. The way he stood, relaxed with his arms crossed, exuded confidence and conveyed a certain kind of easy masculinity. He was a decade older than I was, could speak knowledgeably on a range of topics from international politics to the environment, and addressed people—his father included—as “pal” or “pally,” which sounded either affectionate or condescending, depending on the circumstance. Over dinner at the airport bar, I noticed Jack eyeing my shrimp cocktail. “Here, have one,” I said. I dunked a large shrimp into horseradish sauce and placed it directly into his mouth, surprising us both.
The next morning, we flew to Nassau, and from there, we were taken across a clear blue ocean by a water taxi and deposited on a dock near a town dotted with pastel-colored homes and boutique hotels. After some quick wharf-side negotiations with the locals, we procured a golf cart that we loaded up with luggage and drove to the large yellow house that would be our home for the next two weeks.
Once we’d all unpacked our suitcases, Ben and Jack took off on a snorkeling adventure and Lily meandered into town in search of a good book on the island’s history. My mother and I organized the kitchen, no small feat as Malabar had planned two weeks’ worth of dinners. She had brought an enormous Styrofoam cooler full of frozen meat and had shipped a case of wine and a box of culinary necessities like basmati rice, Italian pasta, spices, and extra virgin olive oil. And she never traveled without her own pepper grinder.
After everything was put away, my mother suggested that we unwind and catch up out on the veranda, where fuchsia climbed the latticework and bell-shaped yellow elder shrubs released a pungent perfume. She excused herself to change while I brought out two glasses of iced tea. When my mother emerged, she was wearing a chic sun hat, oversize sunglasses, and a boldly patterned bikini beneath a sheer shift. She stretched out on the chaise longue, knee bent just so, looking as though she were posing for an advertisement for this very vacation. She sighed in contentment at her surroundings. The place—both the house and the island itself—had exceeded her expectations, and now, after weeks of planning, she just needed to allow the vacation to unfold.
But I could tell that my mother wasn’t fully relaxed. She fingered the fringe of her cover-up, smoothing it over her thighs again and again. There was a lot to orchestrate here—all these people and meals—and I understood that the stakes were high. Malabar wanted to show everyone a