“Maybe I’m just drawn to you because you’re pregnant,” Kirby says. “I was pregnant not so long ago.”

“You were?” Ann looks behind Kirby for any sign of a child.

“I lost the baby,” Kirby says.

Ann flinches like Kirby slapped her. “No!” she cries.

“It was probably a good thing,” Kirby says. She flashes Ann her bare left hand. “I got in trouble. And the father”—she takes a step closer to Scottie. She’s so close, she could slap him…or kiss him—“was a married man. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time.”

Ann gasps, apparently too overcome for words. Scottie opens his mouth to speak but Kirby raises a traffic-cop hand. “The man had absolutely no integrity and a dishrag for character,” Kirby says. “But I’m sure he’ll pay a price for this somewhere down the road.”

“I should hope so!” Ann says. She’s now Kirby’s champion and Scottie pulls out a handkerchief to wipe sweat off his brow.

“Lucky for you, you seem to have a good man right here,” Kirby says, nodding at Scottie. “An honest, upright man.”

“He’s a policeman!” Ann announces proudly.

“Is he?” Kirby says. She allows herself a direct gaze into Scottie’s green eyes; she might as well be leaping off the bow into the sound. “What a field day for the heat,” she sings. “A thousand people in the street.”

She expects to meet a barrier, a boulder, a concrete wall—but instead she finds something softer. A field of grass.

I’m sorry, his eyes say. I had a wife and a baby on the way. But please know that I did fall in love with you. I’m in love with you still and always will be.

Or at least that’s what Kirby imagines his eyes are saying. It’s good enough.

She grins. “Have a nice day!” she says, and she saunters to the back of the boat.

Because all the ferries to Nantucket are sold out—“It’s July, sweetheart,” the world-weary ticket agent says—Kirby rides to Nantucket on the evening freight boat with her two suitcases perched on the starboard side atop some packing crates filled with dry goods. Kirby is tired—physically and emotionally—but she perks up when the twinkling lights of Nantucket town become visible on the horizon. She picks out the spire of the Congregational church and the clock tower of the Unitarian church, marking north and south, but what she loves the best is the way the lights of the boats scattered across the dark harbor mimic the stars in the night sky.

There are no taxis waiting to meet this boat when it docks, so Kirby makes her slow way with her suitcases—both so heavy they might contain gold bullion—and her beloved Silvertone record player down Easy Street and up Main Street. When she turns left onto Fair, she wants to break into a run.

Home; she’s finally home.

She leaves her luggage on the front step—she will get it in the morning—and tiptoes inside and up the stairs. She isn’t foolish enough to enter her grandmother’s room or her parents’ room but she has no problem waking up Jessie.

Surprise! The third bedroom is crowded—a rounded figure in the bed barricaded by two bassinets. Kirby doesn’t want to disturb Blair, but she takes a moment to gaze at the tiny faces of her new niece and nephew. She can’t tell which is which but it doesn’t matter. She’ll make their acquaintance in the morning.

Down the stairs, down the hall, through the kitchen that still smells of the cooking fireplace even though it hasn’t been used in a hundred years, out the door, and across the lawn to Little Fair.

The downstairs bedroom is dark and empty. Tiger’s room, Kirby thinks with an ache. Then up the stairs she goes. It’s pitch-black but she doesn’t need a light; this path is ingrained in her muscles and bones. She could navigate Little Fair with her eyes closed.

Bedroom one, Blair’s room, is empty and Kirby could easily lie down and sleep for the next two days straight, but instead she eases open the door to the second bedroom.

Jessie is asleep, splayed across the bed like she fell out of an airplane. Her hair is spread out over her pillow. Kirby has always been jealous of that; Jessie’s hair is as thick and lavish as mink. She doesn’t have a single blemish, either on her face or on her soul. Oh, how Kirby wishes she could go back to this age and start over.

She lifts the dead weight of Jessie’s arm and slides into bed next to her. Jessie stirs, and one eye flutters open.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me. Kirby.”

Jessie hugs Kirby with a ferocity that is childlike in its enthusiasm and adult in its strength. “Welcome home,” Jessie says. “I missed you.”

Kirby sighs as she closes her eyes. It has been a long day.

Get Back

The twins are eight days old when Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins reenter the Earth’s atmosphere. The only communication Blair has received from Angus is the telegram, now also eight days old. He hasn’t called Blair at the hospital or at home, which means…what?

Blair received a dozen pink roses from Joey Whalen and a card that said Congrats, Sis! This, she notes, is a far cry from I loved you first. Eternally yours, Joey.

Blair feels untethered, like an astronaut whose lifeline to the mother ship has been cut. She’s alone, aimless, abandoned.

Kirby shows up fresh off the ferry from the Vineyard and Blair brightens. She has her confidante back. But when Blair tells Kirby how bereft she feels because she has managed to lose both Angus and Joey, Kirby puts her hands on her hips and delivers a lecture. “What would Betty Friedan say? You don’t need a man. You can raise these twins by yourself. I’ll help. We’ll all help.”

Blair is skeptical about this. And to add insult to injury, she still looks pregnant! She isn’t as big as she was just before she delivered the babies; she’s back to where she was in month four or five. Her breasts are gigantic and as heavy as sandbags, her nipples two points of fire.

Despite this, Blair loves nursing the twins. When their tiny mouths tug, the milk flows out of her, just as it’s supposed to, and her body practically glows with relief. The only time she relaxes is when one of the twins is latched on, even though she suspects she looks like a cow. Kate keeps telling her there’s “no shame” in switching to formula.