Chapter 30
May
Maddie spent the next several days drowning her anxiety by organizing the bookshop, worrying about Rex, and once in a while, feeling sorry for herself.
She called the ICU every day to see how he was doing, and Kevin filled her in whenever he heard something.
Taylor stayed at the hospital the whole time.
Just before the calendar turned to May, Rex was moved to a room in the main hospital until he was stable enough to return to rehab. Maddie breathed more easily. But any hope she had to visit him was quickly squashed.
“Unfortunately, setbacks, even small ones, can interfere with the progress he’d been making, in unrelated ways,” Maddie had learned from a doctor—via Taylor, via Kevin.
So Maddie promised Taylor, via Kevin, that she wouldn’t try to see Rex unless he asked for her. It was for the best; her guilt was more massive than she could have imagined, and she wouldn’t blame him if he never wanted to see her again.
Meanwhile, her second appointment with Dr. Mason went well—the baby was growing nicely, and Maddie continued to be physically healthy. Again, however, she declined to know the baby’s sex.
“Maybe next time,” she said. She didn’t add that it depended on if Rex was still interested.
With the bookshop’s interior “paint and polish,” as Kevin called it, finished and looking great, the time had come to start setting out the products. She planned to hold off on filling the bookshelves for another week or so when more books arrived; for now, she’d begin with the baskets.
Opening a box of the large- and medium-size baskets that Grandma had made, Maddie was awed by the blend of craftsmanship with simplicity that included decorative accents of hand-tooled dots that outlined the shapes of shells and butterflies.
A few had strips of light, creamy ash; others were from hickory, a richer brown with golden hues.
The results were breathtaking; that they’d been made by a woman over ninety, with severely arthritic hands, was astounding.
Maddie was proud that that woman was her grandmother, her wutt∞kummissin, in their Native language.
Next came the two dozen small baskets that Rafe had shipped the week before: Of the same ash and hickory, they weren’t as elaborate as Grandma’s, but nonetheless were charming and should sell well. Best of all, Grandma had given him an A++ for the quality of his work.
Maddie was trying to determine how to arrange the different basket sizes and styles when the door to the shop opened.
“Sorry,” she called, without looking up. “We’re not open until Memorial Day weekend.”
“I know that.” The voice was familiar.
Setting down a basket, Maddie turned, and saw Taylor standing in the doorway.
“Oh,” Maddie said, her throat tightening. “Is Rex …?” She didn’t know how to finish her sentence.
“He’s fine. Got moved back to rehab this morning.”
A million drops of relief flooded through Maddie. “That’s wonderful.” And it was. But then she doubted Taylor had driven all the way up-island to convey the rehab message. She could have called. Or texted. Or asked Kevin to pass it on.
Maddie gathered her wits and her patience as best she could.
Taylor tossed back her mane and spun it into a ponytail, snapping an elastic band around it. “I came to apologize,” she said.
If she next said she’d stopped by to say King Charles would be there for the grand opening, Maddie would not have been as surprised. So she simply stood there, staring at Rex’s sister.
“I was too harsh on you, for which I’m sorry,” the auburn-haired curiosity continued. “But I wasn’t ready to lose my brother. I’m not sure I ever will be.” She looked at the floor.
“I was about to take a break,” Maddie heard herself say.
“Join me for tea?” She went to the “Tea and Scones Corner” area of the shop and plugged in the hot pot.
“Our kitchen isn’t set up yet, and Grandma hasn’t yet packaged her teas, so right now we’re dependent on the good people at Twinings. Is green tea okay? It’s decaf.”
“That’s fine,” Taylor said.
Maddie got to work as a proper hostess; when she turned around again, Taylor was sitting on a folding chair by the window that overlooked the harbor and the deck. She’d opened another chair for Maddie.
Yes, Maddie thought, Taylor, indeed, was a curiosity.
The water bubbled.
Maddie poured, brought the mugs to where they apparently were going to meet, and sat.
“It’s nice of you to come,” Maddie said, “but there was no need to apologize. Rex’s ordeal must be horrible for you, Taylor.”
“And a tiny bit for you?” she asked.
Maybe Kevin had slipped a bottle of “be nice to Maddie” pills into his wife’s morning coffee. She almost sounded compassionate.
“I can’t say it hasn’t,” Maddie said, “but you … you went out to California. And now these past weeks …”
Taylor raised her eyes up to the ceiling. “The hardest part was seeing him in the coma.” Then Taylor did something completely out of character: She cried.
Maddie wasn’t sure if she should acknowledge it or pretend she hadn’t noticed.
“I’m sorry,” Taylor apologized again, wiping her tears, and then taking a gulp of tea. “I’ve been kind of crazy lately.”
“I know the feeling.”
After a pause, she asked, “What about you? Have you been feeling okay? With the baby?”
“I feel great. I want to be on prenatal vitamins for the rest of my life.”
Taylor laughed. Out loud. Which was another surprise. “I was sick as a dog with Jonas. Almost every day for nine stupid months.”
Then they talked about the mysteries of being “with child,” at one point commiserating, even laughing.
It didn’t seem that Taylor was accustomed to sharing her emotions with a friend; Maddie wasn’t sure that the woman had many of those.
But then Taylor became serious and shared her story that she’d been pregnant as a teen and had watched the father of her baby drown.
He’d been a kid from a wealthy, summer family—her loss was magnified when she told her parents she was pregnant and her father shipped her off to Boston and told her to never return.
She studied the floor again, the wavy old boards having been replaced by gleaming new ones.
Maddie didn’t need the details to tell she must have suffered.
“Anyway,” Taylor added, “I had Jonas and gave him to my boyfriend’s parents to raise; I had no choice.”
Maddie was appalled.
“I didn’t meet my boy until he was out of college, when he came to his grandparents’ summer home on Chappy—they’d raised him to think they were his mom and dad.
They’d had no idea I was back on the island, taking care of my mother after my father died.
The fact that Jonas and I are close today still amazes me. ”
Maddie had an urge to ask about Rex’s child, if she knew how old the child was, or where he or she lived. But she quickly stopped herself. That information had to come from Rex, not his quirky sister.
After saying all she evidently wanted to, Taylor finished her tea and said, “But I’ve taken too much of your time. I only came to apologize and to ask a favor.”
So … the woman has an ulterior motive. Which might explain why she’d been so nice. Maddie sat up straight. “Go ahead.”
“Can you hold off seeing my brother until tomorrow? Another day will give him time to get resettled. He’ll be in rehab at least another couple of weeks, so there’ll be plenty of time for you …”
“Does he want to see me?”
Taylor nodded. “He’s angry with me that I wouldn’t let you come even when he was in ICU. I’m sorry for that, too, but it felt like the right decision at the time.”
Maddie took solace in that: Rex had wanted to see her all along. “I know how that feels, but thanks for telling me. I’ll go see him tomorrow. What’s a good time?”
“He’ll finish PT around the same time. So, one o’clock?”
“I’ll be there.”
Taylor nodded, stood up, and walked her mug over to the sink. “By the way, this place looks great. You’ll have a nice little business here.”
After Taylor left, Maddie remained bewildered. But she also was grateful that, in spite of her “perils with Owen,” as she liked to think of her former marriage, no one had ever tried to take her son from her. Maybe because her father had been there, protecting her.
So if her blowup with Rex had ultimately caused Taylor’s transition, maybe a small blessing had come out of it.
All she really knew was that instead of continuing to feel sorry for herself, she now felt sorry for Taylor.
Because apparently, accidents weren’t the only things that could change life in a flash.
That night, Maddie called Rafe.
“Hi, Mom,” he said. “Your timing’s great. I was looking for a good reason not to study for an economics exam.”
“No! Don’t tell me things like that. Would you rather I called tomorrow?”
“Nope. I know the stuff anyway.”
Of course he did. Rafe was brilliant.
Maddie smiled.
“How’s Rex?” he asked.
“Getting better every day.” It wasn’t a lie. “But I want to talk about you.”
“Me? Boring subject, Mom. Worse than economics.”
“Okay, then let’s talk about graduation. Rex will be in the hospital another couple of weeks, so we’ll have to rule him out. But Grandma wants to come. And Joe. Is that okay?”
“Absolutely awesome. My friends will love them, especially since I’ve spent my whole senior year talking about them. Don’t tell Grandma, but I’m going to wear my great-great-grandfather Thurston’s arrowhead outside my graduation garb so everyone will see how proud I am of being Wampanoag.”
She couldn’t speak.
“So will everything else be okay, Mom? Like, will you be okay with Dad?”
“Everything will be fabulous. As for your father, yes, I’ll be fine. You haven’t told him that I’m pregnant, have you?”
“Nope. My only disappointment is I’ll be somewhere offstage when he sees your nice big belly. You do have a big belly now, don’t you?”
She looked down. “I do. And it will be even bigger in another couple of weeks. And you’re sure you won’t be embarrassed?”