Chapter Six Lily
I have officially outgrown the bed Lottie got me when I was a kid. When I wake up, my feet are almost dangling over the edge. I stretch, feeling the bruises from the grocery store incident.
I have a vague sense of embarrassment, and as I try to remember yesterday’s events, images flash by all at once: Henry’s face in the aisle, the bottles of detergent, the man at the bar, Mary’s diamond ring.
I groan audibly, burying my face in the flower-printed pillowcase. Next door, I can hear what sounds like the hum of a hair dryer, which means Rose is already awake. No surprise there. She’s probably lived a whole life today, while I’m still in bed.
I grab my phone from the nightstand, open up Instagram, and search Henry’s name.
It’s a reflex, like biting your nails, like forgetting to put on a seat belt, like sticking a fork in a toaster.
I had him blocked this past year, so I wouldn’t be tempted to check his profile.
Now I let myself see everything I’ve missed.
Here, the girl is everywhere.
There are vacation photos taken in Greece, yellow flowers for Valentine’s Day with the city skyline behind it, and even, I notice with a sinking sensation in my chest, images of them in Nantucket at Queequeg’s, my favorite restaurant.
Mary is shorter than I am, and in the photos, she’s cuddled up into Henry’s arm, smiling sweetly for the camera.
She fits better there, in the crook of his shoulder, than I ever did.
She looks like she belongs, like she could make it a home.
And then, the final blow. Henry on one knee in Boston Common at the golden hour. Behind them, the Public Garden. The bridge perched above the scene like a witness from God.
In all of the photos—the story of their romance—I check the date and can pinpoint the times we were still texting or catching up on the phone.
Just four months ago, we stayed up for hours on Christmas Eve talking. We did this frequently since the breakup. Our only rule was to never talk about our romantic lives, but we could discuss everything else: our families, jobs, mutual friends, movies, the past.
Had he been engaged then? His voice sounded the same, familiar and warm. Was it all an act? Was Mary in the other room, wrapping presents?
Something in the pit of my stomach pinches and loosens, and then I am running to the bathroom.
The door sticks with humidity, so I bang my body against it, hitting the wooden frame with my hips until it budges open.
I lean over the porcelain toilet seat, vomiting until I’m certain there’s nothing left in my body.
I’m not sure if it’s the hangover, the heartbreak, or both.
Sometimes the edge of a panic attack will sneak up on me like a villain in a horror movie.
It will lurk behind the shower curtain, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.
It’s like I can feel the edge of it, threatening me in the periphery.
Other times, it rolls in unannounced. Those are the worst ones, relentless and vicious as weather.
Right now, I can feel the burgeoning signs: the perspiration above my lip, tingling in my hands, dizziness, dark clouds infringing on my vision. I take slow, deep breaths like Rose taught me until it begins to dissipate.
I stay like that for several minutes, waiting for a second wave of puke, but it doesn’t come. Still, I let myself slump there an extra few minutes, alternating between staring at my phone and the white ceiling fan, until Mom appears in the doorway.
“Lily-pad,” she says cheerfully, not commenting on my current state. “You have to get up, the renters are arriving soon.”
Rose is wearing a crisp white dress. Her hair is curled and shiny, her makeup fresh and dewy. She looks like the sun, and when she sees me, practically hugging the toilet, she just laughs. “Well, you’ve looked better.”
“I’ve felt better,” I groan back.
Something about my tone must alarm her, because her expression shifts. “Are you okay?”
I try to get up, still dizzy, and force a smile. “I’ll be fine,” I assure her, just like I did last night. I don’t want her to worry.
Rose looks contemplative. “I know you’re in rough shape, but are you still able to help me deliver the renters’ welcome baskets?”
“Sure,” I say. “Of course, but why do you need me for that, again? I’m happy to help, but I’m not sure I’m the best welcoming party.”
“It’s cuter this way,” Rose says. “It’s part of our charm as a mother-daughter duo. Much cuter than an old lady like me showing up alone. And, since I’m letting you stay here all summer rent-free, I get to parade you around town. It’s only fair.”
I roll my eyes at the “old woman” comment. Rose is only fifty and looks more like forty.
“Fine, fine. Anything for my dear mother… Also, how are you not hungover?”
“Years of experience.” Rose winks.
Twenty minutes later, we’re standing outside in the garden waiting.
I’ve managed to make myself presentable by slicking my hair back into a low bun and throwing on a simple blue dress I borrowed from Rose.
I always jokingly refer to her closet as the “Nantucket mall,” because of how often I go shopping in there.
It’s warmer than yesterday but the air still has a bite to it.
Mom has a bouquet of white lilies and roses in one hand and a set of keys on a shell key chain in the other.
I’m holding a wicker basket filled with a sampling of treats from all over the island: chocolate-covered cranberries from Aunt Leah’s, Triple Eight blueberry vodka from Cisco Brewers, a fresh loaf of herb bread from Something Natural, sugar-covered donuts from Downyflake, and a cozy beach towel that reads “Nantucket Beach Permit” across it.
The garden is Lottie’s masterpiece. The rose-covered arches and lush garden have practically become a fixture of the island’s tourism.
Right now, only a few early buds have begun, but by the middle of summer, pink roses climb up a trellis on the street side, engulfing the roof.
In the front are flowers of all kinds: white hydrangea bushes, perennials with funny names like Vision in White astilbe, buddleia, daylilies, foxgloves, and peonies.
A rose of Sharon hedge and honeysuckle bush provide a leafy wall of privacy from the street.
In Lottie’s absence, Rose has maintained it on her behalf. It’s all she can do to keep away the deer that circle the place like burglars, considering it their own private dining room. She has also made several significant renovations to both of the cottages, preparing the smaller one as a rental.
Rose painted the old warped cabinets in the rental unit a cheery light yellow. The countertops have been replaced with marble. A fleur-de-lis tile backsplash in French blue sits in front of the new white stovetop.
It is designed like an art exhibit, the colors carrying you from one room to the next.
The blue continues into the living room, a harmony of light and dark juxtapositions with painted plates hung on the wall.
It’s like the garden is inside the house.
It’s the antithesis, the antidote, to the trend of minimalism, the plain cookie-cutter beach houses that have become the norm.
The extra rental income has been essential, allowing Rose to save up for when she eventually opens her own private practice.
In the corner of our living room, Rose designed a nook into the wall so Lottie could take her coffee and read by the window when she got too sick to go on her daily walks on the beach. A wood-burning stove sits beside it. Everything about the place sings warmth.
To finish it off, I painted a mural in Lottie’s former bedroom: a sprawling, decadent image of the flowers outside in full bloom. I included a small image of Lottie bending over in the garden, tending to her peonies in the corner. When Lottie first saw it, she wept, which made me cry, too.
The only missing touch is its name. On Nantucket, it’s a maritime tradition to name your house.
The oldest accounts start in the late 1600s, but the practice became especially popular after the War of 1812 when privateers, enlisted to help fight the British, became pirates.
To curb the problem, a maritime law was passed requiring all US vessels to be named.
When the rocky shoals of the island led to shipwrecks, these quarterboards washed ashore, and people would grab them from the beach and use them as decoration for their homes.
Today, carved names hang above the entrances of almost every house in ’Sconset.
Lottie never got around to naming the cottage, although the three of us played around with various ideas for years, each one more ridiculous than the last. With Lottie gone, neither of us has had the heart to revisit the conversation.
For now, it remains nameless, which feels oddly poetic, since after Lottie’s passing, the two of us have been lost ourselves, ships without a name or a destination.
A taxi appears on the road, and out walks a handsome man in his early fifties. He has fluffy black hair with subtle streaks of silver running through it. He has stubble on his chin and looks tan and active. In his arms are two canvas and leather duffels.
What happens next is too confusing for my brain to process. When this man, the renter, sees my mom, he drops his bags immediately to the ground.
“Rose?”
I look at my mom, but her face is strangely empty. All of the usual, subtle micro-expressions wiped clean and replaced by the singular emotion of shock.
“What are you doing here?” Rose’s voice is strained, choked sounding.
“I’m—I’m here.” He clears his throat, and the resulting voice is deep and commanding. It’s the kind of voice that could quiet an entire room. “I’m renting for the summer.”
Despite his confident demeanor, a flush of color spreads up his neck to his cheeks. It looks out of place on his otherwise masculine features, betraying him. When Rose says nothing, he continues, taking a few hesitant strides toward the house through the wooden arbor and onto the lush green grass.
I remain transfixed, frozen, incapacitated.
“My sister rented it for me,” he explains. His voice isn’t nervous but there’s an uncertain tilt to it, like he’s afraid of Rose’s reaction. “It was a Christmas gift.”
“Your sister? The name on the contract was Rachel Simmons, not Rachel Wentworth. I know your sister, I would’ve—I just mean—I would’ve recognized her.”
“She got married,” he says simply, still rooted in the same spot on the lawn.
“Oh,” Rose says. “Well, yes, of course she did. I suppose.”
I look between the two of them, trying to configure a cohesive narrative.
“As did you, I see,” says the man, nodding in Rose’s direction. “I mean, I didn’t recognize your name either. No longer an Elliot.”
I wait for a response from Mom, expecting her to perhaps tell the story behind the name change.
I wish I could pull her aside behind the honeysuckle bush and force her to explain.
It’s a rare sight to see Rose Gardner speechless.
There is a long stretch of silence punctuated only by the sounds of the robins cawing by the rosebush behind us.
“We hope you enjoy your stay?” I say hesitantly, taking a cautious step forward.
My eyes dart back and forth between the renter and my mom, still trying to figure out the connection. I cross the short patch of lawn to hand over the basket. The renter looks at me with a little too much intensity as I approach. He’s doing his own calculation.
“Um.” I put the basket in his hands. “Here you go!”
I back away to rejoin my mom. What the hell is going on here?
Rose stays silent, staring blankly. The man takes a step forward. His hands are stretched toward her and he looks genuinely panicked.
“If I had known it was you, Rosie,” he says with a sudden urgency, the intensity lowering his speech, “I wouldn’t have come. I’m not trying to pull anything funny, I swear.”
He holds his hands up as a physical display of surrender. There’s another moment of profound silence.
“You still have all of your hair, I see,” Rose says with an ache in her voice, and then, as if shocked by her own words, she snaps back into focus. “I mean, it’s fine. The door is right here.”
She gestures to her left and hands him the bouquet she’s been holding. There’s an instant when their hands almost touch, and it seems to disproportionally embarrass them both.
“You can drop your bags off there. On the entranceway table, there’s a list of restaurant recommendations, instructions on how to work all of the appliances, a password for the Wi-Fi, and some suggested activities.
” Her sudden businesslike tone startles both me and this strange man.
We look at her, our faces full of question marks.
Rose turns and heads back to the house. She pauses with her hand on the doorknob before seeming to realize that she’s still holding the shell key chain. Without another glance, she throws the keys over her shoulder. They land on the grass in front of the renter’s feet.
I’m astonished by her rudeness, and for a few beats, I keep standing there. The renter stares at the keys on the ground, not bothering to pick them up. He looks like someone has grabbed him and physically shaken him. I fight the urge to turn and run: Emotions are Rose’s domain, not mine.
I’ve seen Rose Gardner lose her cool exactly two times in my twenty-five years on this planet. First was the day we lost Lottie. Today is the second.
“Um, do you want me to help you get settled?” I ask half-heartedly.
“No.” He bends over to grab the keys. “It’s okay, thank you though, dear. I’ll be okay.” He picks up his bags and heads to the screen door of the cottage with his head hung low.
Before he goes inside, the man pauses, turns around, and clears his throat. “Apologies, my manners have escaped me. It was really nice to meet you. Please thank your mother for me, too. I promise to stay out of both of your ways.”
He has the diction and practiced speech of someone raised with exceptional politeness, and in an odd way, he reminds me of Rose, who is usually so sure of herself in every social encounter.
The renter gives me a tight smile and disappears behind the screen door, leaving me in the garden all alone.