Page 52 of Trick of Light

The hypocrisy was startling, given the fact that they’d never appreciated Bethany’s medical degree as a woman.

She shook her head, reminding herself it was over and that these ghosts didn’t have to haunt her anymore. That she could let go.

“Something smells good!” a familiar voice called from the back door.

Bethany turned to find Ben wheeling Doug’s chair out onto the porch. Rebecca was behind them, beaming, with her hand on Ben’s shoulder. Love shimmered between them. Bethany wondered if they’d allowed themselves to fully give in yet.

Rebecca needed to listen to her heart. She’d lost her husband only eight months ago, so perhaps she wasn’t ready.

“Make room! Make room!” Esme said, hurrying to move chairs around so Doug’s wheelchair could join the table.

“Don’t fuss over me, Esme,” Doug said with a smile. It was a smile that told you exactly how he’d looked as a younger man when he’d been stationed in Germany with Grandpa Thomas. It was a smile that obliterated decades of time.

Ben headed for the grill with a big bag of chicken. “I seasoned everything up at the Book Club,” he explained to Rebecca. “Should be ready to go.”

“The coals are hot,” Rebecca said, hurrying up beside him to touch his arm. “What can I do to help?”

Beside Bethany, Rod drank a beer and gazed out across the frothing sound. In the late afternoon light, the wrinkles around his eyes looked deeper, more worn. Bethany reached under the table and took his hand. She wanted to claim the time they had left. She didn’t want to wait.

Waiting meant opening yourself up to tragedy. Nothing was a given in this life.

Renee told Esme about how healthy and happy Felix was in the days after the surgery. “For so much of the past few months, he just wasn’t my happy, healthy boy anymore. Now, it’s like Bethany has given him back to me.” She beamed across the table.

Bethany squeezed Rod’s hand harder, listening to Victor’s questions about Felix’s recovery, her mother questioning, “Does anyone need anything?” and Rebecca hollering to the children, telling them to come in for dinner. To get washed up.

Every single sound, every single second, glowed with the promise of summer. Bethany’s heart swelled.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Four days later, Bethany woke up early to prep for her job interview at the hospital in Nantucket. She stretched her legs down the beach in a five-mile run, performed some yoga in her bedroom, and meditated on her needs and hopes for the next five, ten, or fifteen years of her life. When she emerged for a cup of coffee downstairs in the kitchen, she was surprised to find Victor and Esme seated together quietly, both doing crosswords.

“Morning!” Victor said.

Bethany smiled. It was only six thirty. Had her father slept over? “Morning!” She poured herself a mug of coffee and sat at the table with them, rubbing her chest, hoping to relieve her nerves.

“Today’s the big day,” Victor said.

“It is.” Bethany couldn’t help but imagine herself to be ten or eleven, eating breakfast with her parents on the morning of a big spelling test or a field trip she was sure would change her future. It was funny how little anything changed.

Victor pressed his pencil onto the crossword and wrote out the word BILLOW. Bethany sipped her coffee.

“It’s funny talking to that Renee,” Victor said, speaking mostly to the crossword. Again, Renee, Rod, and Felix had come over last night for dinner—an event that would prove to be very consistent over the next few months. “She’s quite a wonderful young woman. It’s hard to believe her mother wanted to give her up.”

Esme gave Victor a harsh look like don’t do this.

But Bethany was fascinated with this, too.

“It’s hard to believe,” she said. “You couldn’t have taken my babies away without a fight.”

Victor cleared his throat. “I’ve met women like that in my years of therapy work, of course. Women without that maternal instinct. Women who want to run away from the little kids who need them most. But it seems to me that it fights against the natural order of things.”

“Renee has that instinct,” Esme said.

“She does,” Victor said. He set down his pencil and looked at Bethany square in the eye. “I think it’s wonderful that you and Rod are overcoming what happened in the past. That you’re facing it and moving forward. Together.”

“Victor…” Esme begged him to stop.

“Let me finish,” Victor said. “Rod made a life-altering mistake. But nobody could ever say Renee wasn’t a blessing. Nobody could say things didn’t happen the way they were meant to.”

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