Page 3 of Summer Rush

Nancy parked the car in the driveway of the Remington House and hustled inside, where she found Janine at the kitchen counter, Maggie in a kitchen chair with Lucy on her lap, and Alyssa leaning against the wall with a mug of tea.

“Grandma! Hi!” Maggie smiled, her eyes sparkling with tears.

“Grammy!” Lucy waved both of her hands and giggled. It was clear that she couldn’t fully comprehend what was about to happen, that her father was on his way to the island to pick her up, and that this was her goodbye brunch.

“Oh, sweetie, good morning.” Nancy kissed Lucy on the forehead and blinked back tears of her own. “It smells great, Janine.”

“Eggs, bacon, blueberry pancakes, and yogurt with homemade granola,” Janine said, speaking a little quicker than normal.

“I hope you’re hungry,” Alyssa said. “Mom made enough to feed a team of football players.”

Janine blushed as Nancy hurried to say, “I can understand that. Sometimes, we need to put our nervous energy somewhere. Might as well put it in some pancakes.”

“Apparently, there’s even more to be nervous about,” Alyssa went on. “Have you told Grandma, Mom?”

“Told me what?” Nancy asked, suddenly terrified: was Janine going to move out of the house? Were Alyssa and Maggie going to go back to the city? What would she do in this big place, all alone?

“I got a call from Jack’s lawyer yesterday,” Janine said. “Apparently, his biological mother died.”

Nancy wrinkled her nose, never keen to hear anything about that scoundrel who’d cheated on her daughter. “And?” She felt impatient.

“He never really knew her,” Janine explained. “After his father cheated on her, she left Jack behind and returned to Venice, where she lived mostly by herself until her recent death. Apparently, Alyssa and Maggie are her only next of kin.”

Nancy’s jaw dropped. This was a storyline she hadn’t anticipated, not in her wildest dreams.

“There’s a will,” Maggie explained. “And Mom thinks we should head out there and check it out.”

Lucy babbled to herself, then took a doll from the tabletop and swept her fingers through her blonde curls.

“It’ll be a good distraction,” Janine offered, raising her mug of coffee toward Lucy.

“I see,” Nancy said. “When are you off?”

As Janine explained that Alyssa and Maggie had doctors’ appointments before they left, just to clear them for travel, there was the sound of the front door opening, followed by Carmella’s bright voice. “Good morning!” Afterward came her daughter, Georgia’s coo of happiness.

“Morning!” Alyssa, Nancy, Janine, and Maggie answered in unison as Janine hurried to pour Carmella a mug of tea.

Carmella set Georgia up in her carrier in the next room, where she remained fast asleep, then sat across from Maggie, both hands on her stomach. Recently, she’d divulged the fact of her second pregnancy, which thrilled Maggie and Alyssa, as it meant Carmella’s children would be approximately the same age as theirs. It boggled Nancy’s mind sometimes to consider that Carmella had gotten pregnant with both of her children in her forties while Nancy had had her only daughter at the age of sixteen.

Not long afterward, Elsa came with the fresh orange juice, followed by Mallory, Elsa’s daughter, and Aria, Cole’s new girlfriend. Nancy swallowed all three of them with hugs and ordered everyone to sit at the outdoor table, with its glittering view of the ocean— a sight to see this early in the morning, before sunlight burned the sands and sent them indoors until evening.

Plates filled, the Remington women tucked in, breaking egg yolks, sliding toast through the orange, and drizzling syrup over pancakes. In a final moment of motherly love, Maggie sliced Lucy’s pancakes and helped position the tiny plastic fork in Lucy’s hand so that she could serve herself. It broke Nancy’s heart to see it, an act Maggie had done hundreds of times at this point.

“It’s hard to believe we won’t see her every day,” Maggie said, her voice very small as she watched Lucy dig into the pancakes.

Alyssa swept her napkin beneath her eye to catch a tear. “You should see the list Maggie made Hunter.”

“What? He needs to know about his daughter! About how she likes her bedtime stories and how she eats her pears and…” Maggie trailed off and smiled to herself. “I realize I’m making it sound difficult. But in retrospect, taking care of Lucy was maybe the easiest thing in the world. She was always, always so good to us.”

“And you were good to her,” Janine said.

“I think we should go around the table and say a memory we have of Lucy,” Elsa suggested.

Maggie’s face crumpled. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to choose just one!”

“I can start,” Nancy said, sensing Maggie was on the brink of breaking down. “It was last autumn when we took Lucy to the apple orchard for fresh donuts and cider.”

“Oh!” Maggie crossed her arms tightly over her chest. “Her face was covered in cinnamon all day long! I couldn’t get all of it off.”

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