The Identicals(108)

And as for him envisioning Harper with Fish, well, that was a given. If Harper returned to the island, she would have Fish with her.

But still, the feeling lingers—insistent, pervasive. Harper is coming home.



It’s no real surprise, then, when Reed hears the knock on his front door. It’s ten past eight at night; the sun has descended past the tree line on Sheep Crossing. It’s dusk, but not dark.

Reed tries not to anticipate. It might be the goofy neighbor or a Jehovah’s Witness, although the hour is a little late for both.

He opens the door, and there she is. She is not as he imagined her. She’s wearing jeans shorts and a Hot Tin Roof T-shirt, neither of which he’s seen before. There is something off about her face that he can’t quite pinpoint. But then again, he thinks, he isn’t the same, either. He must look like a different person to her as well.

“Harper?” he says.

She goes to him.





TABITHA


He kisses her, long and deep. It’s a skillful kiss, she thinks, but she feels nothing except a sharp stab of longing for Franklin. Chemistry between two people is a slippery, elusive thing. Love is not transferable.

Still, she participates. The thrill here is in the deceit. She tries to imagine what Harper would do, and decides to run her hands through the doctor’s hair. Yes, this appears to be right. The doctor kisses her more deeply, pulls her closer. Tabitha feels him stiffening against her leg, and she hesitates. Kissing is one thing, but how far is she willing to go? When she knocked on the door, she had assumed: all the way. Anything less would be shy of revenge.

The doctor’s hand travels up the inside of Tabitha’s shirt. He is clearly fooled, even though Tabitha is, as Eleanor so kindly pointed out, heavier than Harper, a little thicker in the midsection. The doctor reaches up to unfasten her bra.

Whoa. She pulls away, casts her eyes down.

“Hey,” the doctor says. “I love you, Harper. You need to know that. I love you.”

Tabitha nods as tears fill her eyes. The doctor loves Harper, and no doubt Harper loves the doctor. But because of this, Tabitha is doomed to be alone.

“I love you, too,” she whispers to the floor.

She allows the doctor to lead her by the hand to the back bedroom. With each step, she considers turning around. She had intended to betray Harper, but with each passing moment, she becomes more aware that she’s betraying Franklin. If he could see her right now with his brother-in-law, he would… what? Tabitha is also betraying the doctor, which bothers her as well, though less. The doctor is hardly an innocent in all this.

As the doctor shuts the door behind them, Tabitha reluctantly sits on the bed. The doctor lifts her shirt up over her head, removes her bra, gently encourages her to lie back. He starts kissing her stomach.

It’s then Tabitha realizes that the person she is ultimately betraying is herself.

“Stop,” she says.

The doctor, obedient, looks up. He sees something in her face—or he doesn’t see something.

“Harper?” he says.

“No,” she says. “I’m not Harper.”





AINSLEY


She is summoned to her grandmother’s house after she gets home from work. Getting to the boutique and seeing Caylee that morning had been a relief; it felt like she had been away forever. Something had happened with Harper, although Ainsley wasn’t sure what. She had been fine after seeing Mrs. Donegal, but when Harper picked up Ainsley in Vineyard Haven, she was trembling, teary, weird.

Adults remain a mystery to Ainsley.

Harper’s mood improved when they got back to Nantucket, even once they learned that Eleanor was in residence at Seamless.

“I should probably go say hello,” Harper said when they saw the note from Aunt Flossie on the kitchen counter. “I haven’t seen Flossie in eons.”

“Me, either,” Ainsley said. She had last seen Aunt Flossie on spring break in Florida when she was in sixth grade. Flossie was a younger, much more fun version of her grandmother. “But can we wait until morning?” Ainsley wasn’t quite ready for things to go back to the way they’d been. “Grammie is probably asleep anyway.” It was nine thirty at night.

“You’re right,” Harper said. “Let’s wait until morning.”



Harper had headed over to Seamless the next morning, but Ainsley had to get to work at the boutique. She thought perhaps she had dodged a bullet at least for another day, but as soon as she gets home, Harper says, “Your grandmother would like to see you.”

“Oh,” Ainsley says. “Are you coming, too?”

“No,” Harper says. “She wants to speak to you alone.”



Ainsley dreads the mandatory solo audience with her grandmother; she expects a lecture. Even the sound of the doorbell when Ainsley rings it—she and Tabitha are required to ring the bell when Eleanor is in residence so they don’t catch her “indisposed”—sounds ominous.

Felipa answers. Ainsley hasn’t seen Felipa in weeks, but there is no cheerful reunion. Felipa nods at Ainsley as though she’s the exterminator. “Senorita.”

“Hey, Flippah!” Ainsley says. “Qué pasa?”

Felipa leads Ainsley to the glassed-in porch, where her grandmother is sitting on the divan, wearing a silk kimono—black with white lilies. There’s a cane hooked over the arm of the divan. Eleanor’s hair is more white than silver now. She looks about a hundred years old.