The Identicals(115)

“We have a favor to ask,” Harper says.



“Wow,” Tabitha says as they stand at the tee of the third hole. “Look at that view.”

Harper nods. The third hole has the finest vista, possibly, on the entire island—across Sengy Pond over the beach with the tip of Chappy visible in the distance. If there is a heaven and Billy has anything to say about it, Harper thinks, it probably looks something like this.



They proceed to the harbor in Oak Bluffs next. Harper finds a parking spot right near the ferry dock—a miracle in itself—and now Tabitha carries the urn. There are tourists everywhere, and Harper adjusts her expectations for this venture. It’s not going to be a peaceful, profound moment; they should each toss a handful and try not to attract anyone’s notice. There are families shopping and eating ice cream, trying to enjoy summer. Nobody wants to be witness to an ersatz funeral.

Harper leads Tabitha down the dock but stops dead in her tracks. There is a motor yacht as white and sculptured as a wedding cake right in front of them, and on the back of the yacht, all dressed up, is Drew Truman amid a gaggle of elegant-looking older black women. His mother, Harper thinks, and the aunties.

“What’s wrong?” Tabitha says. She follows Harper’s gaze. “Do you know those ladies? Girlfriends of Billy’s? Think they want to join us?”

“No. Keep walking,” Harper says, without opening her mouth.

“Why?” Tabitha says. “Look, one of those women is wearing Mother’s dress!”

Harper turns. One of the aunties—or maybe it’s Yvonne, because she’s the one who is standing closest to Drew—is wearing the Roxie in ivory. The dress accentuates Yvonne’s waist but still presents a classic silhouette. Harper feels an unexpected surge of pride. Her mother designed something that will last generations beyond her death. How many people can say that?

As they head down the dock, Harper with her head down, there’s a sharp whistle, and involuntarily Harper looks up. Drew is waving at her, and… Polly Childs, the Realtor, has suddenly materialized at Drew’s side. Polly drapes an arm over Drew’s shoulder and gives Harper a finger wave.

“Hey, Harper,” Drew says. “Hello, Tabitha!”

“Do I know that guy?” Tabitha asks.

“You met him at Billy’s reception,” Harper says. “He’s the policeman I was sort of dating.”

“Looks like he’s sort of dating someone else now,” Tabitha says. “Sorry, Sis.” She grabs Harper’s hand, and they walk purposefully down the dock. Tabitha removes the top from the urn, and they reach in for a handful of their father’s remains.

“Ready?” Tabitha says. “One, two… three!”

Together they throw the ashes into the air. The powder sparkles like mica.

“We love you, Daddy,” Harper says. If the baby is a boy, she decides then, she will name him William.

“If the baby is a boy, you should name him William,” Tabitha says.

Harper whips her head around to look at her sister. You can read my mind? she nearly asks. Is this a talent you’ve had all along? But she notices that there are tears standing in Tabitha’s eyes. Poor Pony.

Harper throws an arm around Tabitha’s shoulders. She marvels at how everything in the world is bearable now, with her sister at her side.





MARTHA’S VINEYARD


The most underrated force at work in the universe is that of coincidence. And yet who among us hasn’t been at its mercy?



Sadie Zimmer has left the house only when necessary since Reed moved out. She closed the pie shop, has turned down invitations to barbecues and cocktail parties with friends, and has repeatedly said no to joining the Excellent Point book group even though her mother has been relentless in trying to get Sadie to think about something other than her pathetic life circumstances.

“That’s the wonderful thing about books,” Lydia said. “You get to read about other people’s trials and tribulations. Spend an afternoon with Kafka, and you’ll be counting your blessings you didn’t wake up to find yourself turned into a cockroach.”

Sadie doesn’t want to read Kafka; she doesn’t even want to read Nicholas Sparks or Maria Semple. Sadie wants to wallow in self-pity. It feels good: poring over Reed’s cell-phone bills and detailing the number of calls he made to Harper and how long those calls lasted. Stalking Harper on Facebook, although admittedly the offerings there are sparse. Harper hasn’t posted anything since she put up a photo of her and her father landing a forty-inch striped bass in 2014 with the caption: Size matters! Forty inches! In that photo, Harper is squinting under the brim of a Farm Neck Golf Club visor. She’s wearing white cutoff shorts and a man’s fishing shirt turned back at the cuffs. Is she pretty? Sadie supposes so, but she has a reputation for trouble—Joey Bowen and all that—and as a doctor, Reed has professional and personal standards to uphold. If he started up with Harper Frost, he must have been desperate. He was desperate, Sadie knows, because she froze him out as a husband and as a man. What did she expect—that he was going to live out his adult life without sex? Sadie had had no intention of letting him back into their marital bed. She had been the one who fantasized about leaving Reed. She had an agonizing crush on Tad Morrissey, but she would never have had the courage to act on it—out of fear of rejection and, she supposes, because she worried what her parents would think and how the rest of the island would talk about her.