Page 15 of Summer Rose

“Even stranger to see Doug still alive,” Victor countered. “He must be a hundred years old. He looked at me like he hated me. Did you see that?”

Rebecca eyed Victor warily. Since their strained lunch at the diner that afternoon, she’d tried to keep conversation topics loose and easy. Now that they were on Nantucket, their emotions ran high.

The first sight of the Nantucket Sound sparkling on either side of the ferry had been nostalgic, yet painfully so. As the ferry motor roared, Victor and Rebecca had clung to the outside railing and watched the beautiful island come toward them, opening its arms in a way that made Rebecca ache. She’d suddenly longed to drop into the belly of the past and fix everything that had gone wrong even though it was probably too late.

“What year did Grandpa die?” Rebecca muttered as she drove. “It must have been fifteen, twenty years ago?”

“Thomas passed in 2006,” Victor affirmed.

“I read about it. Fred and I talked about coming down for the funeral.” Rebecca blinked away tears, remembering her grandfather and his iconic laugh.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Honestly?” Rebecca glanced at her father. “I was terrified to face Mom and see Grandpa lying in a casket. I hadn’t been back in years.”

They drove in silence. Rebecca was astonished at the ease with which she took to the old streets. The route seemed to appear to her on instinct, guiding her to the beachside Victorian. In the driveway, Rebecca turned the engine off and peered at the dark-gray house with its sharply slanted rooftops and big bay windows that looked like eyes. As a child, she’d thought the house had a soul. She’d told her younger sisters it could talk. What had she heard the house say? She couldn’t remember anymore. Her childhood magic had been lost a long time ago.

Rebecca and Victor walked to the front porch. Victor knocked on the porch railing, inspected the new paint job, and muttered, “Larry and Esme took pretty good care of the place over the years. I have to hand it to them.”

“I’m sure they didn’t do it for your sake,” Rebecca said under her breath. Why would they have? Victor had abandoned this house. He had no say in how it had been taken care of.

“What was that? I couldn’t hear you,” Victor asked.

“Nothing.” Rebecca pressed the doorbell and listened as the sharp tune echoed through the halls. She craned her neck to hear the sound of footfalls or the creaking of the staircase, but it remained quiet.

“Huh.” Victor shifted his weight and peered into the dark window.

“Don’t do that. You don’t want her to see you for the first time through the window,” Rebecca pointed out.

“I don’t think she’s home,” Victor said.

Rebecca pressed the doorbell again and again, but there was no sound of life within. “Maybe she went to the store,” Rebecca tried. She pictured her mother loading a cart with cereal boxes and fresh fruit, greeting the woman at the cash register warmly and asking about every single member of the woman’s family. “We can just wait in the car.”

Instead of turning back to the SUV, Victor walked along the front porch and disappeared around the side. Each of his footfalls made the porch floorboards creak. Rebecca groaned. A frantic wind ripped through her hair, and she leafed for a hair tie in her pocket and tied her hair into a bun. The action reminded her so much of being a teenager, and she shivered with déjà vu. “Dad! Wait up.”

Rebecca hurried around the side porch and found her father on the sand halfway between the Victorian and the rolling waves. Ordinarily, the Nantucket Sound was a peaceful expanse of silver and turquoise waters. But as evening fell and the winds escalated, waves had begun to roar to shore. Victor’s gray hair flapped unceremoniously in the wind, and his suit jacket whipped open. Rebecca stepped down the porch steps one at a time and ran out toward him. Above, clouds huddled together, and it suddenly felt much later in the day.

“Dad?”

But she could see the water captivated him by how he gazed out across it with enormous eyes. Several thick raindrops flashed across Rebecca’s cheeks and forehead. “Dad, I think we should get under cover.”

It was one of those frantic island storms. Growing up on Nantucket had meant understanding the ease with which a storm came and dissipated. It meant having sharp senses to notice a swift change.

“I forgot how beautiful it is,” Victor breathed. He was barely loud enough against the scream of the wind and water.

Rebecca tugged on her father’s elbow, and they raced back toward the Victorian home. The darkness intensified by the minute. Once they got to the porch, rain rattled across the rooftops and threatened to tear through the house. Victor’s laughter echoed through the porch.

“This is quite a storm, Becca!” he cried. Nobody had called Rebecca that in forty years.

“I hope Mom’s okay out in this,” Rebecca called back.

“Your mother has Nantucket blood, same as I do,” Victor said. “She’ll be fine.”

Rebecca remained very still, her hands at her sides as she watched the rain pound against her SUV. Around the Victorian were the same set of old colonials and Victorian styles with two- and three-story homes from Rebecca’s youth, some updated with paint jobs and new bay windows. Perhaps the same families remained, too sure of the beauty of their surroundings to entertain a move elsewhere. Although Rebecca had given her heart to Bar Harbor, she couldn’t blame them.

“Hey. Rebecca. Look at this!”

Rebecca turned to find her father bent, the doormat lifted to reveal a shining set of keys beneath.

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