A Nantucket Wedding(36)

“You’ve just moved my heart from open to shut at warp speed,” Jane said, trying to calm herself. “First you opened me up, let me get all mushy, then you knocked me down. Good legal trick, Scott, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt as distant from you as I do now. I don’t think I’ve ever disliked you as much.”

“Back at you,” Scott said.

Jane’s jaw dropped.

The waiter appeared with their appetizers. The food was beautifully prepared and displayed, but Jane wasn’t hungry. She was stunned, she was horrified at Scott’s words, which seemed much more insulting and bitter than hers. She’d never believed she could hate Scott, but that was how she felt. She hated him. If she were any other woman, she’d toss down her napkin and storm off. She’d never stormed off in her entire life.

Scott took up his knife and fork and ate. Jane sat with her hands in her lap, focusing on taking deep breaths. She knew he could do this, flip a switch and move from an argument to the next thing, eating or falling asleep, as if he were an automaton. But she also knew how she could touch him, how she could bring him to her, how they could be together. This was not a dispute over legal matters. This was deeply personal. Maybe she’d done it all backward. Maybe if he spent some time with her on the island…Maybe if he saw Felicity’s children, and Poppy’s, too, he’d be charmed. He’d fall under their spell, too.

“I don’t want to feel distant from you, Scott.” She spoke quietly, as if coaxing a lion to lie down. “You are my person. My life is with you. I don’t think I was under my family’s spell. I think it was more the magic of Nantucket. So much light and air and space, and the ocean is so vast and natural, well, of course it’s natural, but it’s natural in a way that gives me perspective on life. It’s as if the ocean is a gift, a continual gift, making the ordinary into the miraculous.”

    “It certainly makes you eloquent,” Scott said, giving her a small smile.

So she had brought them out of their deadlock. She hadn’t succeeded in convincing him to have a child. But maybe she could convince him to come to the island. “I wish you’d come see it with me. I wish you’d come for just a couple of days. We could walk on the beach. We could kayak or sail…”

“All right, Jane, I’ll go to Nantucket with you. For a weekend. On one condition. That you don’t say even one word about us having a child.”

“You drive a hard bargain,” Jane told him.

“I’ve been told that before,” he said. “Now eat your bolinhos. They’re delicious.”





twelve


Noah was at his office. Alice was at day camp. Luke was trailing around behind Felicity as she performed her normal Monday tasks. Sweeping the kitchen floor. Making the beds. Doing the laundry. She wished Luke would play with his Legos, heaven knew he had enough, but Luke was a sociable kid and some days he couldn’t be happy without someone near. So she sang nonsense songs while she worked, children’s songs she’d learned when she was a child that were still sung by children.

“The ants go marching one by one, hoorah, hooray…”

She’d put in a load of children’s clothes—how many thousands of children’s socks did she wash in a week? She went into the master bathroom and hauled her clothes and Noah’s and their bedsheets and dumped them into her wicker laundry basket.

“The ants go marching two by two, hoorah, hooray…”

    When her cell buzzed, she checked the caller ID. Noah! He almost never called her during the day.

Happily, she answered, “Hey, baby.”

“Felicity? This is Ingrid Black. Noah asked me to tell you that he left a folder on his desk in his house. He’d like you to bring it here right away.”

Felicity sank down onto the edge of the bathtub, breathless with shock. Why did Ingrid have Noah’s private phone? And who was she to speak to Felicity in such autocratic tones?

“Felicity, are you there?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m here,” Felicity answered faintly. All sorts of responses were swirling through her mind and she knew she’d better not say any of them. “I’ll bring the folder in. Can you tell me what it says, or what color, so I’m sure to bring—”

“It’s in his leather portfolio that he always carries. You don’t need to read anything on it, just pick it up and bring it to us.”

So now it was “bring it to us”?

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Felicity killed the call before Ingrid could say another word.

She found the leather folder in the middle of Noah’s desk. Because Ingrid had told her not to read anything, she took the time to read through some of the papers, which were filled with numbers and graphs and charts and seemed deathly boring.

“Come on, Luke, we’re going for a ride to Daddy’s office!” She took him out to his car seat, dropped her enormous bag and Noah’s folder on the passenger seat, and started the SUV.

Her phone buzzed again.

“Yes?” Felicity said warily.

Ingrid said, “Felicity, don’t worry about bringing it in to the building. I’ll be waiting at the door, watching for you. I’ll come out and get it.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Felicity said sweetly. “I’ll have Luke carry it in to Noah. Luke loves coming to his daddy’s office.” Once again she killed the connection.