Page 30 of Summer Longing
“No, no. It’s fine. And of course it must seem odd that we have a baby all of a sudden. Like I said, it’s not official yet. But we’re keeping our fingers crossed.”
“Well, everyone is rooting for you. Sorry to intrude on your personal life, but people do talk and I just wanted to make sure there wasn’t a problem.”
“No problem,” she said, trying to smile.
“Great. Well, tell Fern I said hi.”
“Will do,” Elise said.
She would be in no rush to tell Fern anything about the conversation at all.
The third-floor bedroom at Shell Haven was small and quaint with a sloped ceiling, Shaker furniture, and a window with a perfect view of the bay.
With Fern and Elise occupying the second-floor guest room and the baby in the office, the third floor was the only logical place to put Olivia. It was going to be quite the full house.
But for today, at least, Shell Haven was tranquil. Fern was away in Boston, Elise was working at the shop, and Rachel Duncan had the baby at the Beach Rose Inn. And if things got too crowded later in the weekend, Ruth told herself it didn’t matter; there was plenty to do around town. The weather was supposed to be sunny with temperatures in the high seventies. Ruth hoped to take Olivia to the beach. They could go on one of the water tours that the Barros family ran from the boatyard. Or, if they really wanted to make a day of it, there were whale-watching boats that left from the wharf. Then there was shopping, restaurants…but she was getting ahead of herself, wasn’t she? Just having a meal together would be a huge first step.
All she wanted was for Olivia to feel welcome. She added a few touches to the bedroom—fresh flowers and the bookLand’s Endby Michael Cunningham on the night table; on the dresser, rose-and-black-currant candles from Good Scents on Commercial Street. In the kitchen, there was gourmet cheese, fresh fruit, and bread from the Portuguese bakery.
Olivia would be arriving on the one o’clock ferry, and Ruth felt anxious. She looked out the third-floor window at the bay. It was hard not to consider the fact that they’d barely had more than a five-minute conversation in years. There was nothing to worry about, she told herself. Vacations had a way of bonding even the most intimacy-challenged family members. Provincetown would work its magic on their relationship, just as it had worked its charm on her so many years ago.
At ten in the morning, foot traffic on the sidewalk outside the house was light. From her high perch, Ruth watched bicyclists ride by, a couple walking a Weimaraner, a woman with a baby stroller. A woman with a baby stroller stopping in front of Shell Haven.
She realized it was Rachel Duncan pushing the baby stroller. Ruth watched, incredulous, as Rachel unlatched the gate and made her way up the path to the house.
What was she doing there?
Ruth hurried down the two flights of stairs and met Rachel at the front door, trying to head her off at the pass. Before she could tell her this wasn’t a good time, Rachel said, “Ruth! I’m so glad you’re here. I have a mini-emergency at the inn. Can you watch Mira for just an hour or so? I can’t take her to the shop—Elise is working alone today.”
“I’m sorry, Rachel. My daughter is visiting and I can’t.”
“What time is she getting here?”
“Around one. But—”
“I’ll be back by one, I promise!” she said, turning back to the street and waving her hand above her head. “Thanks, Ruth, you’re a lifesaver.”
Oh no—this was not happeningtoday.
“Rachel, wait,” Ruth called out, following her. “If you’re not back here before one, I’m parking this stroller in the middle of the tea shop. I’m serious. I don’t care who is working or not working or what’s going on. Understood?”
“Understood,” Rachel said. “I’ll be back before your daughter arrives.”
Chapter Fourteen
Olivia was on the road to Provincetown by five in the morning.
Once she’d made the decision to visit her mother, she had to make a second decision: Drive the whole distance or take a train to the ferry? Driving, she would feel less trapped; at any point on the way to Cape Cod, she could change her mind and turn around. And at any point during the weekend, she could leave.
For most of the trip, she kept SiriusXM tuned to talk radio, keeping her mind occupied. But on a narrow stretch of highway framed by lush green fields, wind turbines spinning in the distance, she found herself struck by a mental montage of idyllic beach scenes with her mother. The two of them could have been played by Meryl Streep and Emma Stone, the vignettes directed by Nancy Meyers. This was dangerous thinking.
How many times over the years had she looked forward to spending time with her mother only to be disappointed? The dinners that were interrupted with urgent work calls. The planned shopping excursions (bonding time) that ended up with her mother giving her a credit card number and telling her to order whatever she wanted online. The college visits that were canceled because her mother had to fly to Manhattan or LA for the company. There was always some fire to put out. Olivia had heard the termrain checkin her life more times than she’d experienced actual rain. On Olivia’s twenty-first birthday, Ruth had canceled her planned visit. She told Olivia that one of her friends needed her, but of course she was lying. It was always work. There was nothing her mother wouldn’t do to be at work—get divorced. Give up physical custody of her daughter. Lie.
The lowest point had come during Olivia’s senior year at Vassar. On one of the worst days of Olivia’s life, the day she’d lost her nana—her father’s mother, Elaine—Ruth was out of reach, in Milan. Olivia remembered sobbing at the cemetery, watching her father enact the ritual of tossing dirt onto the casket after it was lowered into the ground, feeling not only the loss of her grandmother but the acute, endless absence of her mother.
It was impossible not to fantasize, to imagine something different. The previous winter, in the months leading up to her best friend Julie’s wedding, at which she was the maid of honor, she’d spent weekend after weekend with Julie and Julie’s mother shopping for dresses, dealing with the registry, picking out flowers. It was agonizing, not because Olivia wanted to get married—she didnot—but because she knew that if she ever did, it would be yet another milestone in her life when she’d feel a void instead of a guiding hand. Of course, she had friends who had actually lost a parent. Maybe this should have helped Olivia put her relationship in perspective. But it didn’t. Having a mother and yet not having her around created its own kind of suffering. Still, she thought as she drove, she had to admit the long weekend had come at a good time.
She’d felt shaky at work ever since that disastrous post for April Hollis. The whole experience rattled her confidence about making her move. She found herself waking up every morning at four or five, gripped with anxiety. Olivia was not one to agonize over things. She prided herself on her decisiveness. But this was a setback.
