Page 117 of Summer Longing
“Remember when Amelia came to the shop and insisted I stop by the inn for a drink?”
Of course Elise remembered. And she also remembered that Fern left the next morning for Boston.
“That’s when she said she was certain the baby belonged to Jaci. She wanted me to help break the news to you gently—she knew you were hoping to keep her. And I didn’t want you to lose another baby, so I asked her to give me some time.”
“I don’t understand. Why did you keep this from me? All along, you said I was getting too emotionally invested in Mira, and then you made it worse!”
“I didn’t want to make it worse. I wanted to make it better. I wanted to figure out a way to fix this so that you weren’t heartbroken yet again. And so, once I realized that we would never be able to keep Mira—that she belonged to Jaci—I went to see Dr. Sparrow.”
Dr. Sparrow. In Boston. Elise didn’t dare breathe. “Why?”
“I had our remaining embryos implanted. Like I said, it’s earlier than I wanted to tell you about it, but…we’re having a baby.”
Chapter Fifty-One
Low tide arrived just before six thirty a.m. The sun had barely been up for twenty minutes when Olivia and Marco climbed onto the skiff.
Their hours on the water had become a welcome respite from Marco’s family drama. His father had unceremoniously kicked Bianca out of the house for publicly shaming his daughter, prompting Bianca to fly back to Florida. Manny had also not spoken a word to Jaci since the night of Carnival, but Lidia insisted he just needed time. As for Lidia, no one was surprised to see her hands-on with the baby, but Marco was not prepared to see the ongoing chill between his sister and mother.
“It’s not ideal; she made some bad choices,” he said to Lidia. “But it’s going to be okay. She’s a good kid. We’ll get through this.”
“What keeps me awake at night is the lying,” Lidia said. “For months and months, never once confiding in me. Going through this alone. And then trying to give her baby away without even letting me have the chance to help. Is this how I raised her? It’s a betrayal. There’s no way around it.”
Marco and Olivia took care of Mira as much as possible, trying to give Jaci and her parents breathing room to heal their relationship. And time was running out—later that day, Jaci was leaving for school.
Marco’s bachelor pad was less than ideal for caring for Mira, so they ended up spending more and more nights at his parents’ house.
“Sorry about this,” he’d said to her just that morning. Both of them were in Lidia’s kitchen getting ready for a few hours on the flats while also trying to feed Mira and get her back to sleep before they left. “I know this isn’t what you signed on for.”
Wasn’t it, though? Wasn’t it exactly what she had offered the morning after Carnival, the day he’d told her it was premature for them to undertake something so serious together?
Now, walking behind Marco through the shallow seaweed-dense water and across the sand to the cages, she noted that the morning was chillier than it had been in weeks. It was a reminder that September was right around the corner—that summer would not last forever.
For days, ever since she’d declined Dakota’s offer to join her in the new company, she’d been thinking about what would come next. All she knew was that no matter what happened between her and Marco, no matter how short or long a time she remained in Provincetown, she could not devote her life to something as ephemeral and meaningless as social media. Her mother, for all her faults, had at least created products that made women feel pretty. Even now, she was making things to help people feel good. Marco spent his time harvesting food, sustaining people in the most primal way. Surely there must be something worthwhile for her to do with her life.
They sat side by side, pulled on gloves, and unlatched their cages. Olivia pushed the oysters to one side to make room for her methodical inspection of each one. She held the first up to measure it, a motion she would repeat a hundred times in the coming hour.
Picking oysters had become one of her favorite ways to spend time with Marco. Sometimes they passed the hours chatting away about everything, from her life in New York to books and movies to Marco’s memories of P’town growing up; other days, they sat in comfortable silence and just focused on the task before them. That day seemed like one of their quiet sessions; Marco was deep in thought. She looked over once or twice to say something, but then, noting his look of concentration, refrained.
When he finally spoke, she was zoned out, completely in her own little world. The sound of his voice surprised her.
“What do you think of this one?” he asked, passing her an oyster. He was askingheradvice?
“You must really be distracted today,” she said, taking it from him. It was too light. It didn’t feel like more than a shell.
“Just look at it,” he said. “Tell me what you think.”
“There’s no oyster in there.”
“I think you’re right,” he said. “But something is.”
She opened the shell wider and found a large pearl. No, a pearlring.
What was going on? Marco took the shell from her, removed the ring, and reached for her hand.
“Olivia, I don’t know…maybe you’d prefer a diamond. But I thought something from the sea would be a more fitting way for me to ask you to become my wife.”
“Your wife?”
