bible, is not the only way to grieve. There is no one way when it comes to how people react to loss.
Before you try to heal your friend, consider this:
Do you know for sure that she needs healing? Has she
ever shared her true feelings about her late husband?
I know you think you know how she felt, but is it pos-
sible you’re wrong? Assumptions can be so tricky.
But okay, say your friend adored her husband like
you think she did. It’s possible she adored him so much
that living without him now is a challenge. It’s possible
her strategy for getting through the day, with a wound
so deep and fresh, is to minimize her feelings for a
while, until she gets stronger. If that’s the case, let her be. What she needs is what she’ll get: time.
But you know what else is possible? She didn’t
adore her late husband. What you saw was a mask. In
the privacy of their home he wasn’t so great. It’s pos-
sible he was a control freak or an abuser or a liar or a
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drunk or all of the above. It’s possible your friend is not so much cheerful as relieved.
Here’s what we can know about someone else’s
marriage: nothing. We can never know for sure what
goes on behind the closed doors of other people’s
homes.
I commend your heartfelt desire to help your
friend. You just need to make a slight adjustment. Your
assumption is that what you’re offering—a shoulder to
cry on, an ear to listen—is what she needs. The facts
disagree. The choice your friend has made is to carry
on. Your mission is to support that choice.
Helping is not as easy as one might think for the
simple reason that we cannot read minds. For every
grieving person who appreciates someone taking in
their wash, there’s another who finds doing laundry
therapeutic. A freezer meal is not helping someone
who’s lost their appetite. What is a friend to do? Ask.
Simple as that.
Yes, as a woman of a certain age you’ve experi-
enced a lot of loss. But you haven’t experienced every-
thing.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record: Less
judging. More loving.
Yours forever, or at least for now,
Roxie
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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
There was no traffic until the approach to the Bourne
Bridge but still the drive still felt long. Lane in the back middle seat, Henry’s head resting on her shoulder as he
dozed, tried to let her mind go blank.
Sylvie sat in the front where Nathan was making a
valiant effort to engage her in conversation. “Ever been
on the Island?”
“Not really,” Sylvie said.
His eyes widened at the strangeness of the response but
when he met Lane’s eyes in the mirror, she just pressed
her lips together and shrugged. Her mother being unin-
telligibly vague was nothing new to her.
Before they left, Lane shared with Nathan what she’d
learned since her mother’s arrival the week before. There
wasn’t much to share. Her father was in a mood, was the
first thing she’d gotten out of her mother. He needed
some time to himself. It was almost as an afterthought
that she added, “Your uncle passed.”
“What? When? How?”
“A few weeks ago. Sorry I waited to tell you. I couldn’t
bring myself to say it over the phone.” She met Lane’s
eyes. “It wasn’t what you think. It was very peaceful. In
his sleep. May his memory be a blessing. Oh well.” She
looked around. “Which room is mine?”
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Lane had felt a familiar fog descend, the same numbness
that often came over her when she was with her fam-
ily. She felt it when she walked upstairs and showed her
mother to the guest room and she felt it as she watched
her mother unroll the clothes from her suitcase, meticu-
lously folding them into tiny packages that she laid out
“You don’t mind if I leave them here until I find a
proper place to put everything, do you?” she asked.
Dumbstruck, Lane said she didn’t mind and then
excused herself. She closed the door to her bedroom
and called her sister three times, their Bat-Signal for
catastrophe.
Shelley picked up on the third try. “I’m afraid to ask.
Who is it? Who died?”
“Uncle Albie.”
Shelley let out a sound of relief. “Oh. You scared me.
That’s not exactly hot-off-the-press news. Who told you?”
“Mom. Just now. She’s here. Was there a funeral? Did
you go?” It amazed her to think that this was something
she could imagine, that her sister went to the funeral
while she didn’t even know about the death.
“There was something,” Shelley told her. “Maybe just
a burial. I forget. I didn’t go. I don’t think they went.”
It never got less bewildering, how her family seemed
to decide, as a unit, that it wasn’t necessary for her to
know things. But no good would come from thinking
about it. Better that she take care of what needed to be
done now. There was a lot to do. She needed to help
get Henry started on his first worksheet. She needed to
reach out to Summer to make sure Bert was going to
run her July Roxie Classics letters. She needed to pack up the house.
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“Let me do that,” Sylvie said when she came upon
Lane in the kitchen, cabinet doors open, looking over-
whelmed. “You know I’m an excellent packer.”
Lane agreed because the alternative—that she did
the packing while her mother watched with a critical
eye—was not worth it.
As it turned out, there was an advantage to having
her mother around that Lane had not anticipated. Henry
hadn’t accumulated a lifetime of grudges against his grandmother, so being with her wasn’t hard. In fact, because
Sylvie took up so little space in a room, it was easy for
Henry to forget she was even there. Lane watched it hap-
pen, Henry slowly relaxing in his grandmother’s presence
until—first tentatively, then more boldly—he started to
show her his drawings. Sylvie’s response was a perfect
mix of muted admiration and no questions. Her mother
didn’t interrogate Lane about Henry, either. The day Lane
explained to her that Henry had a problem speaking, her
mother took it in, nodded slowly, and left it at that.
What remained a puzzle for Lane in the days that fol-
lowed was why her mother had come. Was it to tell her
about Uncle Albie in person? Was it because her father
was in a mood? Had they had a fight? And hadn’t Shelley
mentioned that her mother was thinking about coming?
So it was something she’d been mulling over. But why?
Equally up in the air was the question of how long she
was staying. Lane had tried gently prodding to find this
out but after s
ending up several conversational flares that were returned with the usual, “Oh well,” she changed
her approach and told her mother her own plans—their
moving date—so that her mother could accommodate her.
Lane prepared, coming downstairs with a list of flights
to Florida spread over several days before their move.
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Information in hand, she approached her mother as she sat
in a corner of the living room couch, reading an Agatha
Christie novel.
Her mother looked up, smiled vaguely, and went back
to reading.
Lane took a breath. “Hey Mom. I wanted to remind
you that next Friday is when we’re moving to the Vineyard.
I looked for some flights—”
“We’re flying?” her mother interrupted. “I thought
we were driving.”
You’re coming? Lane thought. “You’re right,” she said.
“We’re driving. With Nathan.”
“Can we fit everything in his car?” she asked. Lane
was still digesting the news that her mother seemed to
have no leave date when her mother added in a whisper,
“Is Nathan someone special?”
“Just a friend.” Lane felt a fog descend. “I hired a
mover. They’ll follow in few days. I’m putting stuff in
storage. I’m not sure where Henry and I are going after
the summer.” She paused and then—maybe it was the
numbness that made her risk a question—asked, “Don’t
you want to get back home to Dad?”
“Oh well.” Her mother got up and busied herself ex-
amining a carton shoved against the wall. “Don’t forget
Rule Number Five: If You Didn’t Unpack It in the Old
House, Don’t Bring It to the New One.”
h h
h h
It wasn’t until Lane got out of the car in Woods Hole, to
use the restroom before getting on the ferry, that she felt her fog lift. The sky, she noticed with a start, was a shade of blue she’d never seen before. The air had a crispness
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to it. The breeze was soft against her cheek. She parted
her lips and tasted salt. She looked over and saw Henry
watching the snaking line of cars, and then enormous
trucks, that had just begun to drive into the wide belly of the ferry. She heard her name and saw Nathan motioning for her to get back in the car. He followed the ferry
staffer’s directions and drove on board.
“Lucky day,” he told them. “The luggage cart is at the
back of our lane. That means we’ll be first off the boat.”
While he hadn’t been on the island for over a decade,
he moved about the boat like he belonged, hurrying
them to a particular stairwell and then up three flights
and out onto the packed upper deck. The large crowd, he
explained, was partly because it was Saturday—turnover
day for rentals—and partly because July Fourth was only
days away. He ushered them to the less populated side
of the ferry.
“Soon as we pull out and turn,” he said, “we’ll be in
the shade. Best seats on the boat.”
Lane sat and closed her eyes, feeling the breeze blow
her hair as families, small, extended and chosen, negoti-
ated what to bring to their beach barbecues and whether
they would go to the parade this year and if they should
go by shuttle bus to see the sunset in Menemsha or take
their chances with finding parking.
Other people’s families always looked so happy, Lane
thought, from a distance.
She turned and saw her mother rubbing her arms.
Despite the mild breeze, goose bumps had risen on her
pale, freckled skin. She dug around in her bag, found the
shawl she’d tucked inside and draped it lightly over her
mother’s bony shoulders.
“Wrinkled,” her mother said, and drew it closer.
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When the ferry gently bumped and then settled into
the dock, Nathan stood up. “This way.” He guided them
back down the stairs to the vehicle hold, where they
walked, single file, through the narrow space between
the parked cars.
“Don’t worry,” he told Lane after holding the door
open for her mother to slide inside. “The pond has a way
with people.”
Lane wasn’t sure about that, but her mother, she’d
noticed, had quickly warmed to Nathan. He had a way
with people too.
Henry seemed to fall under the spell of the pond on
the drive there. Like a happy puppy, he tipped his head
as far out the window as his seat belt allowed and opened
his mouth to drink in the salty air while the breeze made
a party of his curls.
Nathan rolled down his window and opened his mouth
to the air too. “Do you know what they say?” he called out to be heard over the sound of the wind. Everyone shook
their heads. “Every day you breathe in Island air adds a
day to your life. I think it’s been scientifically proven.”
Her mother smiled. Henry closed his mouth and sat
back. Lane imagined him wondering how things might
have gone if his father had tried that, drinking island air instead of city bourbon.
h h
h h
After he pulled into the parking spot at back of the guesthouse, Nathan asked Lane and her family to wait in the
car for minute. When he came back, he got in, turned
the engine on, and headed up the hill to the main house.
“Change of plans. It’s too small. We’re switching. I’m
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staying at the guesthouse.” He followed the road around
a bend and there it was, the clean lines of a large house
with gray weather-beaten shingles and hydrangea-blue
trim. “It’s too small,” he said again. The wheels crackled over the oyster-shell driveway. Nathan turned off the car.
“You stay here. I’ll stay there. There’s no point in arguing about it. That’s what makes sense.”
“No.” Lane shook her head. “Absolutely not. We don’t
need a lot of space. We’ll be fine in the guesthouse.”
Nathan sat for a moment and then gave up. He restarted
the car and drove back down the hill. “See for yourself.”
She did. To call it cozy would be an exaggeration. In
theory, it would fine. It was charming, perched on a small rise at the edge of the pond. Magical even, like a tree
house, with two bedrooms, which sounded like enough
until Lane saw them: the first was a sleeping loft accessible by a narrow staircase that would be too treacherous for
her mother; the second was a tiny room, a closet really,
with nothing in it but a set of bunk beds.
Nathan was waiting for her in the narrow kitchen.
“I remembered it wrong. Everything is so small. The
bedrooms. The bathroom. The refrigerator. I didn’t even
realize they made two-burner stoves. I guess we never
cooked down here.” He let out a stream of disappointed
air. “Look, if it was just you and Henry maybe it would
be passably okay. But with your mom? No way. It won’t
work. We’re switching. It makes s
ense.” Lane said no
several more times. Nathan continued to press his case.
Finally Lane gave in. “We’ll switch for tonight. I’ll
look for a place to rent in the morning. I’m sure I’ll be
able to find something.” She tried to sound sure. She
wanted to be sure. But she wasn’t. “It’s not right for you to stay down here.”
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“I want to,” he told her. “I love this place. I have so
many good memories of staying here. Leo and I used to
come down for sleepovers.” He smiled thinking about
it. “Not much sleeping happened those nights. Leo
was quite the talker. If I drifted off for a second, he’d
give me an elbow. I used to beg him, Please, Leo, I got to sleep.” He shook his head and smiled, which did nothing to disguise the scrim of sadness that had descended over
his face.
Henry saw it too; he ran over and gave Nathan a
tight hug.
Chip went another piece of Lane’s heart.
In the end Lane took Nathan at his word; he pre-
ferred staying down at the guesthouse. She couldn’t deny
that the main house was a better fit for the three them.
There were four bedrooms, three bathrooms, two decks.
Clean and bright, set up for renters, it had a well-stocked kitchen and a shelf of board games, but was otherwise
underfurnished, free of knickknacks. To her surprise Lane
immediately felt at home.
Up at the house, Nathan gave them a quick tour and
then left them to get settled. On his way out he stopped
to ask Lane if she would consider joining him on Monday
at the Rec Center for Opening Party.
“It’s an annual thing,” he said. “I haven’t been for so
long, people are going to be shocked to see me. They’re
all going to want to meet you,” he added. “They just
don’t know it yet. Will you come?”
To her surprise, she agreed. Maybe the pond was al-
ready working its magic. How else to explain that Lane
Meckler had voluntarily agreed to attend a party?
h h
h h
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That Sylvie opted out of going to Opening Party was
not a surprise. That Henry decided to join them, was.
Nathan had sold him on the idea with the simple statement
that it could make his first day of camp easier. Although
camp would start the day after the Fourth, the campers
traditionally came to Opening Party to have their own
reunion, in the supervised back room of the Rec.