Page 11 of Swan Song

“Of course you didn’t,” Kacy says. “What’s the couple’s name?”

“The Richardsons.”

Kacy doesn’t know them, though they might know her; she has one of the most recognizable last names on the island. “I’ve never heard of them,” she says. “But they’re new and I’ve been gone for a while.”

Coco waves a hand. “You were so cool to buy me this chowder, I don’t expect you to solve my housing issue. I was an idiot for not confirming with this couple. I’ll figure something out. I’m just happy that someone on this boat is being friendly instead of looking at me like I have fleas.” She tucks the cracker wrappers and her napkin into her empty bowl. “So what were you doing in California?”

Over the course of the boat ride, Kacy spills her guts about her job in the NICU, her clandestine affair with Isla, Isla’s engagement to Dr. Rondo, losing Little G—and Coco says all the right things. Wow, you’re such a hero, talk about making a difference every single day when you go to work; I can totally see how you and Isla fell in love, I can’t believe the fiancé created a Pinterest board, that’s so funny; I’m so sorry, your heart must be broken, I understand why you came home.

Kacy laughs. “I can’t believe I unloaded all that when I literally just met you.”

“Sometimes that’s easiest, right?” Coco says. “Believe me, I’m the last person who’s going to judge you.”

The ferry slows down, and the captain announces that they’re entering Nantucket Harbor.

“Let’s go up top,” Kacy says. “We want your first time seeing the island to be memorable.”

Coco follows Kacy to the top deck. Kacy points out the Nantucket Beach Club, where green, blue, and yellow umbrellas are lined up in rows. Next to that is a beach bar called the Oystercatcher. Coco sees kids building sandcastles, a gentleman flying a kite; she catches the scent of fried seafood on the breeze.

“That’s Brant Point Lighthouse,” Kacy says. Her voice is thick. “The white steeple is the Congregational church, and the clock tower is the Unitarian church.” She wipes a finger under each eye. “I’m not sure why I’m getting so emotional. I guess it’s just being… home. I haven’t been home since the Christmas before last, and it’s been forever since I was here in the summer. I forgot how pretty it is.”

It’s more than pretty, Coco thinks. Sailboats in the harbor bob on colorful buoys. The row of summer cottages fronting the water all have gray shingles and crisp white trim, window boxes bursting with spring flowers, snapping flags. Coco didn’t have a clear picture of what Nantucket would look like, but it’s everything she wanted it to be: classic, charming, a freaking postcard.

She doesn’t belong here. Like, at all.

She thought it was a good thing that the Richardsons were new to the island—they could all be new together!—but now she sees the downside. The Richardsons don’t know a soul, and neither does Coco.

Except now, she knows Kacy.

They disembark side by side, and when Kacy’s feet hit the wharf, she thinks, I’m home. The NICU; her apartment on Filbert Street; the cable cars; the Golden Gate emerging from the fog in the morning; Coit Tower; casual carpool; Crissy Field, where she used to run on the weekends; Hog Island Oyster Company in the Ferry Building… and Isla’s liquid brown eyes, her beauty mark, her nimble hands—all of it seems very, very far away.

Kacy receives a text from her father: Here. She spies the black Suburban pulling into the parking lot; it’s impossible to miss. But Kacy can’t just abandon Coco, can she? “Take my number, Coco,” she says. “Keep in touch, okay? Let me know where you end up staying.”

“I’ll figure it out,” Coco says. “I always do. And hey, Kacy, thanks for the chowder—it meant a lot.”

Kacy walks toward her dad’s car, but she’s hesitant to leave. Coco was such a good listener, exactly what Kacy needed. She can’t imagine explaining about Isla to either of her parents, and after being gone seven years, Kacy doesn’t have many friends left here.

Romeo from the Steamship, whom Kacy has known for eons, helps her roll her suitcases over to her father’s car. Romeo must have a speeding-ticket fine he wants reduced, she thinks, because he never helps anyone.

Kacy opens the passenger-side door and sees her dad, the Chief. He looks older, grayer, and way more exhausted than she remembers. But then he smiles. “Hey, you,” he says. “Hop in before someone writes a letter to the editor about how I blocked traffic.”

Kacy climbs up into her seat and gives him a fierce hug; she doesn’t care who has to wait. She could have been coming back to Nantucket under very different circumstances, ones that are almost impossible to imagine. Ed Kapenash is a strong, solid, unimpeachable human, the kind of man who deserves a statue at the top of Main Street. Kacy feels ashamed of her recent transgressions—conducting an affair with Isla when she was engaged to someone else, running away from a job she was good at in a place where she was needed. She could go further down this rabbit hole, but as they’re navigating their way out of the parking lot, Kacy spies Coco standing by the luggage carts looking… well, the word that comes to mind is forlorn.

Ed Kapenash glances at his daughter. He can’t get over how elegant and mature she seems—and yet he can still see the little girl in pink ballerina pajamas. He recalls the year she made her own slime, when the house was filled with glue and borax; he remembers the glasses and the braces, the bloody nose from catching a basketball with her face at the Boys and Girls Club. He pictures her on the lifeguard stand at Nobadeer in her red tank suit, a stripe of zinc down her nose. He thinks about the day he and Andrea took her to Logan Airport. Kacy had finished her master’s in nursing at Boston College and accepted a job in San Francisco, and he and Andrea had been equal parts proud and heartbroken. So far away, they thought. They’d never see her. For the most part, this has been true. They fly to San Francisco for a week every fall; Kacy comes home for holidays when her schedule allows. But it isn’t the same. Eric and his girlfriend, Avalon, are always around, meeting the Chief and Andrea at the Anglers’ Club for Friday appetizers, coming for dinner every week. Chloe and Finn, the twins Ed and Andrea adopted after Andrea’s cousin Tess and her husband, Greg, died, are both in college. Chloe insisted that the Chief join Snapchat, and thanks to this, he can follow the twins’ every move; he probably knows more about their lives than he wants to. Only Kacy remains a mystery.

She’s home now, Ed thinks. She’s in his car; her luggage is in the back, and boxes have arrived at the house. She’s moving home for the summer, taking a leave of absence from UCSF.

“Why?” Ed asked Andrea. “Did something happen?”

“All she told me was that she wanted to come home for a while. She didn’t offer anything else. You know Kacy.”

You don’t give up your life and move across the country for no reason. Was it because of work? Ed wondered. Or a relationship?

Ed knows Kacy is gay, though she never officially came out to him—she’d told her mother and asked Andrea to tell Ed. In some ways, this was a relief. Ed isn’t much for dramatic emotional moments in his personal life; he gets enough of that on the job. But he does wonder why Kacy wasn’t comfortable telling him. Did she think he’d disapprove? Andrea handled the whole thing with great equanimity. There might have been a single beat where Andrea had to let go of whatever vision she’d held for Kacy’s future—a traditional husband and family. But hey, she said, there could still be a wedding, still be babies. Andrea told Ed that she’d always suspected Kacy was gay, and Ed thought, Really? In high school, Kacy had boyfriends—admittedly nobody serious, but she’d gone to both the junior prom and senior banquet with a terrific kid named Lamont Oakley.

Now Kacy says, “I have a strange request. Feel free to say no.”

She’s smart, Ed thinks. He’s so happy to see her, he would say yes to nearly anything. “What’s up?”

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