A Nantucket Wedding(25)

    “Maybe you’re afraid of change, Scott,” Jane challenged. “Maybe you’re so stuck in your rut you can’t notice what you’re missing.”

Scott shrugged. “Maybe.” Reaching over, he turned off his bedside lamp and lay down to sleep. On his side. With his back to Jane.

“Well, I’m changing, Scott,” Jane said quietly. “I’m widening my horizons.”

Her husband didn’t reply. He was very good at not replying.

Jane wanted to hit him with her pillow. She wanted to burst into tears. She turned off her lamp and slid under the covers, and lay there, unable to fall asleep.





nine


On a balmy Friday in the middle of June, Alison stood with her housekeeper, Alani, working on a chart. What had seemed like a delightful idea during Alison’s phone calls with her children and with David’s children now seemed like a complicated puzzle. Everyone was coming for the weekend. Oh, except Noah. And Scott still hadn’t made up his mind. So, on David’s side, that left Ethan, a lone male; and David’s daughter, Poppy O’Reilly; and Poppy’s husband, Patrick; and their two children, Daphne, eight, and Hunter, six. Plus Jane, probably alone, and Felicity and Felicity’s children, Alice, seven, and Luke, five.

So, counting Alison and David, that made twelve people for five bedrooms.

“Mr. Ethan will use the foldout sofa,” Alani told Alison. “He’s very nice, no problem.”

Alani was young, only about forty, but her voluptuous body and languid personality sometimes made Alison wish Alani were her grandmother. She also wished, when she had a free moment for such a frivolous thought, that Alani would do Alison’s hair in one of the many fantastic arrangements Alani did her own. Today Alani had multiple braids curling in and out to make a kind of space-age crown.

    “All right, then. Thanks, Alani. If you could bring some towels and sheets and a pillow down for Ethan, I’ll put together the seafood casserole.”

Felicity’s children ate only Annie’s organic mac and cheese, but for this weekend, she had agreed they could eat Alison’s five-cheese mac and cheese, while the adults shared the seafood casserole. Tomorrow night, David was planning a cookout with hamburgers, hot dogs, and, for Felicity and her children, tofu hot dogs. Alison wondered if Felicity would choose a hamburger without Noah there to watch her. But no—Felicity’s children would undoubtedly notice.

Now, as she set a pot of water on to boil for the rice—organic brown rice, to be exact—her thoughts were tangled. She hoped everyone would get along, but she worried that would be a problem. Alison had met David’s daughter and son-in-law only once, at a dinner in Boston. Poppy had made it clear that David was her possession and Poppy considered Alison an interloper. Plus, Poppy had mentioned David’s first wife, Poppy and Ethan’s mother, constantly, and in terms that made Emma seem like a gorgeous saint.

Jane could take on Poppy, Alison decided. Jane was as bossy as Poppy and a lawyer in a prestigious firm. Ethan would be the easy one. He could hang out with Felicity.



* * *



—

“Noah, please.” By early Saturday morning, Felicity had packed the children’s suitcases and her own as well, and they absolutely had to leave in the next ten minutes in order to make the drive down to Hyannis and catch the ferry. “It’s beautiful there. Mom wants to see you. The children need some time with all of us together.”

“I don’t know why you keep pushing me on this, Felicity.” Noah forced himself from his computer, where he’d been since five in the morning, when he threw himself from bed, made a strong pot of coffee, and settled down to work. “I have to get this grant done. It’s crucial to Green Food. It’s not a matter of whether or not I want to go, it’s simply that I can’t go.”

    Felicity was standing by his desk, looming over him and she knew how he hated that. So she was surprised when Noah suddenly stood up and put his hands on her shoulders.

“Look,” he said with soft intensity, “try to think of it this way. Remember when you were in labor with Alice? You were working hard, and you couldn’t stop. That’s where I am with this grant. I’ve gotten up a head of steam and I’m going to push right on through till I get it done. With you and the children gone, and with me here without any interruptions from my team, I’ll be able to accomplish twice as much as I could on any normal work day.”

Felicity studied her husband. Sometimes his concentrated drive to save the world made her crazy, made her want to run out and buy bags of Fritos and gallons of ice cream and serve it to her family for dinner. But most of the time she admired him for his ethics. And now as he stood before her, she saw the dark half moons beneath his eyes and the slight rash of acne that broke out along his neck when he was stressed.

“Mother.” Alice stood in the door of the den with her hands on her hips. “According to my watch, if we don’t leave in three minutes, we’ll miss the ferry.”

Noah pulled Felicity closer, whispering, “Are you sure that child is ours?”

Felicity smiled, amused that Noah couldn’t see how Alice’s anxious bossiness echoed his own.

“Come on, then,” Noah said to his daughter. He took his car keys from the hall table. “Let’s get this show on the road.”