Beloved (58 page)

Jane talked with Bing briefly in
New York
at the funeral. Still shattered, still inconsolable, he told her he was extending an upcoming business trip to
Europe
by a couple of weeks. He had friends in
Rome
, and he needed to be away. Jane
'
s heart went out to him. Bing had tried to be mother, father, and brother to Cissy; when she slipped through all the love and care anyway, he took it personally. Jane held Bing close to her. Their parting was unbearably sad.

Now that she was off the island, Jane decided to visit friends who lived an hour north of the City. Hillary was rich and bored, the mother of two kids away in school and mistress of a big Greek Revival overlooking the
Hudson River
. Spring came early, almost excessively, to Hillary
'
s valley. Riots of apple trees in blossom, acres of greening woods, stands of red-kissed magnolias
—
Jane had forgotten how lush a land could be. In
Nantucket
'
s grudging climate, only the salt-r
e
sistant survived on their own. Everything else was coddled by master gardeners and maniacs.

"
And even then, one good nor
'
easter will burn every rhododendron on the island,
"
Jane told her friend as they lingered over sundowners on her brick terrace.

"
Enough
about horticulture,
"
Hillary said, amused by her urban friend
'
s conversion to the green-thumb faith.
"
Will you sell, or will you stay?
"

Jane sighed deeply.
"
A few days ago, I was hoping I could stay. I had the inspired notion that I
'
d help run this tree farm,
"
she said, blushing at the presumptuousness of it.
"
But the owner
'
s not interested.
"

"
Have you had any offers on the house?
"

"
Right before I left the island, I got a call from a neighbor who
'
s taken an interest in finding a buyer for me; I suppose he wants to make sure his new neighbor doesn
'
t collect junk cars or anything. Anyway, he says he
'
s putting together a deal I won
'
t be able to refuse.
"

"
Good!
"
said Hillary.
"
Then you can set yourself up in
Connecticut
, and we can go back to visiting one another without calling in the Coast Guard. You must be thrilled; you
'
ll be your own woman at last.
"

"
Yup. Just what I
'
ve always wanted.
"

****

Jane stayed less than a week, but by the end of that time she missed the island with an intensity that amazed her. She
'
d had enough of lazy, warm days in the valley. She longed for the moody, rugged side of
Nantucket
—
the biting salt air; the cold and clammy fog; the pale, subtle hues of the heaths on the moors. She missed the reassuring intimacy of the walk
around town, and the flowers jammed into every windowbox and pot. She missed the mournful sound of the foghorn on
Brant
Point
, and walking on the beach with gulls screaming overhead.

She missed Mac.

She couldn
'
t think of the island without thinking of him; they were as woven together as honeysuckle through trellis. Not that it mattered. It was obvious that her time on
Nantucket
was winding down. So she packed her bags and took the train back to
New York
, and a plane to
Nantucket
, and a cab to Lilac Cottage. Billy was outside scraping down the east side of the house, getting it ready to paint. Jane was thrilled to see that he was alive and that the house hadn
'
t burned down. Everything looked so normal; maybe that horrible morning had cleared the air once and for all of tragedy.

They went inside and had coffee, and Billy brought Jane up to date on events. The big news was good news.

"
Uncle Easy
'
ll be out of intensive care tomorrow. They
'
ve unhooked the tubes; he
'
s eating on his own. He told Mac to bring in the cigars you gave him. His nurse overheard him and said no way. He told her to go to hell.
"

Billy chuckled and added,
"
He
'
s a legend around here, you know. Everyone played in his homemade pool. My
mother
played in his pool. The townies called his place
'
The Easy Living Country Club.
"

He held up his coffee cup in a toast.
"
Here
'
s to Uncle Easy. He
'
s dodged a bullet, and I for one am glad.
"

Jane clinked her cup to his.
"
I for two am glad,
"
she said softly. They talked for a while, and then Jane asked casually,
"
How
'
s Mac?
"

"
Busy.
This is his big season, and instead he
'
s been parking himself at the hospital where he second-guesses the physical therapists all day. They
'
ve thrown him out twice. You know Mac.
"

She laughed, but the fact was, she
didn
'
t
know Mac. Everything she knew about him she
'
d learned from others, or by watching him furtively out of the corner of her eye. Mac himself had told her almost nothing about himself, and yet they
had
connected, in a very real way, more than once. Too bad she couldn
'
t get him to admit it. Of course, that would require actual speech.

Billy went back to scraping, and Jane put on her rattiest workclothes and joined him. It was time for the big push. She couldn
'
t hold out forever, waiting for some fairy-tale ending to the saga of Lilac Cottage. The tenant in her condo had moved out, which meant no more help with the mortgage, and meanwhile the spring real estate market was peaking. Lilac Cottage had to be sold, and soon.

So she and Billy shared the staging he
'
d put up, she at her end, he at his; and all day long, sun or fog, they scraped. Sometimes they played Billy
'
s radio, and sometimes they talked, but
all
the time, they scraped. The paint came off in chattering, brittle showers, right down to the wood. They kept on scraping. On foggy days she bundled up. On sunny days she stripped down to shorts and a halter. Her limbs became deeply tanned, and her stamina improved. After a week, she stopped whining to Billy about how hard the work was.

And all the while, Mac drove up and Mac drove down the narrow strip of land that was his lifeline to the outside world. Often he had an assistant in the truck with him. For a while he had Jerry. The back of his dark green pickup was always filled with balled-and-burlapped shrubs and evergreens when he left. When he came back, late in the day, it was empty. Occasionally some other pickup came through, filled up, and left, but that was rare. Jane wondered just how profitable Mac
'
s business was, and spent a lot of her time daydreaming about ways to improve it.

Mac almost never stopped to talk. He
'
d speed up, in fact, to get past her house quickly. If they happened to make eye contact, he nodded stiffly, and she smiled even more stiffly. Once or twice Billy flagged him down and asked about Uncle Easy. Mac
'
s answers were short and to the point. Soon Billy gave up. He could tell something was wrong. A ladybug could tell something was wrong.

One afternoon, Mac did stop. He leaned out of his truck window and said,
"
Billy! Any idea where Phillip Harrow is?
"

"
Not re—
"

"
Tell him Phillip is in
Grand Cayman
,
"
Jane muttered under her breath.

Billy looked at her and looked at Mac.
"
He
'
s in
Grand Cayman
,
"
he yelled.

"
Any idea when he
'
ll be back?
"

"
Thursday,
"
she murmured.

"
Thursday!
"

"
Thursday? Thanks. Uncle Easy gets out of the hospital on Thursday,
"
Mac called back.

Billy turned to Jane and said,
"
Uncle Easy gets out of the—
"

"
For God
'
s sake, I heard the man; I
'
m not deaf,
"
Jane said irritably.

"
And, Jane?
"
Mac called softly from the seat of his pickup.

She caught her breath at the sound of her own name and turned to him, her eyes flashing with tears of arbitrary, pent-up emotion.

"
Uncle Easy says thanks for the flowers and the bubble gum cigars.
"

"
Tell him
—
tell him I
'
m glad he
'
s coming home,
"
she said.

"
He
'
d rather hear it from you, I think. I
'
ll be off-island tomorrow,
"
he added meaningfully.

"
Ah.
"
No risk, then, of some awkward meeting between Mac and her; no danger of being forced to chitchat politely in front of Uncle Easy.
"
I
'
ll be there,
"
she said. Too bad Mac wouldn
'
t be; she could blow him away in a chitchat contest.

L
ilac Cottage was scraped, sanded, and waiting for dry weather. It looked about as bad as a house can look. So Jane was stunned when Phillip Harrow came back from
Grand Cayman
and promptly offered her more than she thought she
'
d get for it in her wildest dreams.

"
You
'
ve done a very nice job with it,
"
he said,
"
given the limits of your budget.
"
He smiled good-naturedly and added,
"
I
'
ve been cheering you on, you know; you remind me of me when I started out in real estate.
"

They had just completed a tour of the inside and were sitting in the front room, looking out at a rainy, foggy day. Billy hadn
'
t come today; Jane and Phillip were alone.

"
So
you
'
re
the interested buyer?
"

"
Yes and no,
"
he admitted.
"
I have an aunt and uncle who
'
ve just sold a big house in
Minneapolis
. It had become too much work
—
he
'
s ailing
—
and nowadays they hate snow. They
'
re a sweet old couple, but they have no children; I
'
m their closest relation. They need looking after, and if they were in Lilac Cottage I could do that. We walked around it while you were away and they were very taken by it.
"

"
Just like that? But
...
the stairs are steep; and there
'
s no upstairs bath,
"
Jane confessed.

"
I
'
d put in a small bath for my aunt. My uncle would stay downstairs, in the room you haven
'
t redone.
"