2. Sabrina
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Sabrina
The ferry horn blasted as we pulled away from Hyannis, and Ivy pressed her face to the window with both hands spread against the glass.
“Mommy, look! The water’s all sparkly!”
“I see it, baby. It’s beautiful.”
She’d bounced back from the ear infection faster than I had.
Two days of antibiotics and she was running around the apartment asking when we could go to Nantucket, when could she see Grandma and Grandpa, when could she play on the beach.
Meanwhile, I’d spent those same two days packing our bags and avoiding my husband and pretending everything was fine.
Killian had tried. I’d give him that. He’d taken the day off after the ER trip, made Ivy her favorite breakfast, played tea party with her all morning. He’d looked at me over the top of a tiny plastic teacup with hope in his eyes, and I’d looked away.
Now he was back at the lab, finishing some urgent project before he could join us on the island. One more week, he’d said. Maybe two.
I’d stopped expecting anything different.
“Can we go outside?” Ivy tugged at my hand. “I want to see the front of the boat.”
“The bow.”
“The bow. Please, Mommy?”
I grabbed our jackets and let her pull me through the cabin, past tourists taking selfies and regulars reading newspapers, up the stairs and out onto the deck. The wind hit us immediately, sharp and salty and clean in a way New York air never managed.
Ivy shrieked with delight and ran to the railing, her ponytail whipping behind her. I caught up and held onto her, one arm wrapped around her waist, my chin resting on the top of her head.
“Do you see the lighthouse yet?” she asked.
“Not yet. It’ll be a little while.”
“Grandma says when you see the lighthouse, you’re almost home.”
Home. I’d grown up in Boston, not on this island.
Nantucket had belonged to Killian’s family for generations, a claim to certain streets and certain clubs and certain unspoken rules.
But somewhere along the way, it had become mine too.
The first summer Killian brought me here, I’d felt the tension bleed out of my shoulders the moment the ferry passed Brant Point.
I’d understood then why people fell in love with places the way they fell in love with people.
Now I wasn’t sure what I loved anymore.
“There it is!” Ivy bounced on her toes. “Mommy, there it is! Brant Point!”
The lighthouse rose up small and squat in the distance, its red stripe bright against the gray sky. The boat began its turn into the harbor, and I dug in my jacket pocket for the penny I’d remembered to bring.
“Ready?”
Ivy nodded solemnly and held out her hand. I placed the penny in her palm.
“What do we do?” I asked, though she knew the answer better than I did.
“We make a wish and throw it over our shoulder so we’ll come back again.”
“That’s right.”
“But Daddy says the wish only works if you don’t tell anyone what it is.”
“Your father’s very smart about some things.”
Ivy screwed up her face in concentration, clutching the penny in both hands. Her lips moved slightly, mouthing words I couldn’t hear. Then she turned around, her back to the lighthouse, and threw the penny over her shoulder with all the strength in her five-year-old arm.
It arced through the air and caught the light for a moment before disappearing into the gray water. Ivy spun back around and grinned at me.
“I wished for a puppy.”
“I thought you weren’t supposed to tell.”
“I didn’t tell you the whole wish. Just part of it.”
I laughed, and the sound surprised me. It had been a while since anything had surprised me.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go get our bags before the boat docks.”
Killian’s parents were waiting at the ferry terminal with open arms and matching smiles that told me they’d been standing there a good while just to make sure they didn’t miss us.
Bridget scooped Ivy up before the girl’s feet hit the pavement, covering her face with kisses while Ivy shrieked and giggled.
“There’s my favorite granddaughter!”
“I’m your only granddaughter, Grandma!”
“That’s what makes you my favorite.”
Alistair reached for our bags without a word. He was a man of few words on the best days, all quiet observation and perfectly pressed chinos, but his eyes crinkled at the corners when he looked at Ivy. That was his version of squealing with joy.
“Where’s Killian?” Bridget asked, adjusting Ivy on her hip.
“Working.” I kept my voice light. “He’ll be here next week.”
“That boy works too much.” Bridget shook her head. “Alistair, tell her what I said this morning.”
“She said it twice, in case I missed it.”
“I said that boy is going to work himself into an early grave and leave a beautiful young widow, and what a waste that would be.”
“Mom.” I’d started calling her Mom a while back, and every time I did, she lit up. “I’m fine. We’re fine. Ivy’s excited to see you, and that’s what matters.”
Bridget studied my face for a long moment. Whatever she saw there made her expression soften.
“Come on, then. Tessa’s waiting at the house with approximately nine thousand snacks for this one.” She bounced Ivy on her hip. “She’s been baking all morning.”
The house was exactly as I remembered, gray shingles and white trim and hydrangeas in full bloom along the front path. Tessa burst out of the front door before Alistair had even parked the car, her dark hair flying behind her.
“Finally! I’ve been waiting forever!”
She pulled me into a hug that carried butter and sugar and the perfume she’d worn since college.
Tessa was Killian’s sister, younger, with the same sharp cheekbones and dark eyes but none of his awkward intensity.
She was warm where he was focused, effusive where he was quiet.
She’d been my friend before I’d married into the family, and she remained my friend regardless of what happened with her brother.
“You look exhausted,” she said, pulling back to examine me. “Have you been sleeping?”
“Ivy had an ear infection. It was a rough few days.”
“Killian mentioned. He called me freaking out about the ER visit.” She lowered her voice. “He sounded terrible, Sabrina. Guilty as hell.”
“Good.”
Tessa’s eyebrows rose, but she didn’t push. That was one of the things I loved about her. She knew when to step back.
“Come inside. I made lemon bars and that weird chocolate thing you liked last summer. Mom’s going to stuff Ivy full of sugar and then hand her back to you at bedtime, which is a classic grandparent move.”
The afternoon passed in a blur of food and laughter and Ivy running circles around the living room while the adults tried to keep up.
I smiled when I was supposed to smile and answered questions when they were asked and pretended everything was normal, that I was just tired from the trip, that nothing was wrong.
But when I stood up to help Tessa clear the plates, the room tilted sideways.
I grabbed the edge of the table. The plates in my hands clinked together, and I breathed through my nose, waiting for the dizziness to pass.
“Sabrina?” Tessa was at my side immediately, her hand on my elbow. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just stood up too fast.”
“You went completely white. Sit down.”
“I’m fine.”
“Sit down.”
I sat down because my legs weren’t giving me another option. Bridget looked up from where she was showing Ivy something on her phone, her brow furrowed.
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” I said at the same time Tessa said, “She almost fainted.”
“I didn’t almost faint. I got dizzy for a second.”
Bridget handed her phone to Ivy and crossed the room with a brisk purpose that didn’t allow for argument. She pressed her palm to my forehead.
“You’re clammy. When’s the last time you ate?”
“I had some of Tessa’s lemon bars.”
“Before that.”
I tried to remember. The ferry had a snack bar. Had I eaten anything? I’d been so focused on Ivy, making sure she had her life jacket, making sure she didn’t run too close to the railing, making sure she didn’t get seasick.
“I don’t remember.”
Bridget and Tessa exchanged a look.
“Okay.” Tessa took my arm. “We’re going to Dr. Patterson’s. Right now.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“You almost fell over. It’s necessary.”
“Ivy-”
“We’ve got her.” Bridget was already reaching for her granddaughter. “Go with Tessa. Get checked out. Don’t argue with me.”
I didn’t have the energy to argue.
***
Dr. Patterson had been the Kerrington family doctor for thirty years. She was in her sixties now, silver-haired and sharp-eyed, and she didn’t put up with nonsense from anyone, including the island’s wealthiest families.
She took my blood pressure (low), asked about my symptoms (dizziness, fatigue, occasional nausea), and then asked me a question that made my heart stop.
“Any chance you could be pregnant?”
I stared at her. The room felt very far away.
“I don’t know. I mean… we haven’t exactly… it’s been so long since I paid attention to any of that. I’ve been late, I think, maybe twice, but I chalked it up to the stress. Everything’s been stress.”
But there had been that one night, back at the start of the summer, a couple of months before any of this.
We’d barely spoken all day, our argument from the night before still hanging in the air between us, and then he’d come to bed late and reached for me in the dark, and I’d let him because I missed him, because I was tired of being angry, because for a little while I could pretend we were still us.
“Let’s run a test,” Dr. Patterson said gently.
The test was positive.
I sat on the exam table and stared at the little plastic stick with its two pink lines and tried to remember how to breathe.
Dr. Patterson was saying something about how I measured further along than I’d realized, around eleven weeks, and about HCG levels and first-trimester care and scheduling a follow-up appointment, but her words were coming from very far away.
“Sabrina?” Tessa’s hand closed over mine. “Hey. Talk to me.”
“I’m pregnant.”
“I heard. How do you feel about that?”
“I don’t know.” My voice sounded strange to my own ears. “I don’t know how I feel.”
Dr. Patterson left us alone. Tessa sat down next to me on the exam table and waited.
“Your defenses are low,” she said finally. “That’s what she said. You’re run down and you need rest. But the baby looks okay so far.”
“So far.”
“Sabrina.”
“I lost a baby.” The words came out before I could stop them, and once they started, I couldn’t make them stop. “Eighteen months ago. Only Killian knows. I was eight weeks along and then I wasn’t, and it almost destroyed us, and what if it happens again? What if I lose this one too?”
Tessa’s arm went around me. I leaned into her and let the tears come, hot and messy and completely beyond my control.
“What if the marriage doesn’t survive another loss?” I whispered. “We’re barely surviving now. We don’t talk, we don’t connect, he’s never home, and I’m so tired, Tessa. I’m so tired of doing everything alone.”
“Have you told him? About any of this?”
“How can I tell him when he’s never there to listen?”
Tessa held me tighter. Outside, the sun was setting over the harbor, painting the sky in shades of pink and gold. It was beautiful, and I couldn’t feel any of it.
“You need to tell him about the baby,” Tessa said quietly. “Whatever else is going on between you two, he needs to know.”
“I know.”
“And you need to rest. Doctor’s orders.”
“I know.”
I wiped my face with the back of my hand and stared at the test results in my lap. Pregnant. Again. With a husband who felt further away than ever and a body that had already failed me once.
The fear sat heavy in my chest, cold and familiar.
I had already lost one baby and most of a marriage, and I couldn’t stand to lose the rest of either.
What I didn’t know was how to hold onto what was left.