“Let’s get out of here,” he said. “You can drive.”
For weeks, Brenda had dreaded the day they were to leave Nantucket—but now, with Walsh at her side, it didn’t seem so bad. They would return to Manhattan together, Brenda would assess the damage and make some decisions. As Brenda was packing up, El en Lyndon teetered into Brenda’s room and handed her a jel y jar fil ed with sand.
“For your shoes,” El en Lyndon said. “I just gave your sister some.”
Brenda shook her head. “You’re insane, Mother.”
“You’re welcome,” El en Lyndon said.
Brenda considered the jar. She didn’t real y have room for it in either of her bags. She would just leave it on the dresser. But first, just in case El en Lyndon actual y was the owner of divine intuition, Brenda sprinkled some of the sand into her Prada loafers, shoes she had not worn since arriving on the island. And then, in the end, she stuffed the jel y jar into her duffel bag. She needed al the help she could get.
Brenda’s parents left first on the fast ferry; they would pick up their car in Hyannis and drive back to Philadelphia. Melanie was the next to go.
Josh appeared in his Jeep to deliver her to the airport so she could make her flight to LaGuardia. Ted, Vicki, and the boys were taking the noon boat and driving back to Connecticut in the jam-packed Yukon. So that left Brenda and Walsh to close up the house. Brenda was amazed that her parents and Vicki had entrusted her with such a massive responsibility, and she wanted to do a thorough job. The fridge was empty and shut off, the gas line disengaged from the gril , the beds stripped. Brenda returned Aunt Liv’s enamel boxes, silver tea set, and lace doilies to their rightful place on the coffee table; she tucked the key under a shingle for the caretaker, who would come the next morning. Right before Brenda closed the door to the cottage for good, she noticed the paper cup of pebbles sitting on a high windowsil . Should she leave it there or throw it away?
She left it there. There was always next summer.
Brenda’s cel phone rang in the cab on the way to the airport. For the first time in months, the Beethoven-in- a-blender ring did not cause her any anxiety.
“Wel , I know it’s not you,” she said to Walsh. “Not that it was ever you.”
“I cal ed once,” he said.
Brenda checked the display:
“Hel o, Counsel,” she said.
“I just got the strangest phone cal ,” said Himself.
“Did you?” Brenda said. Her mind started running like a taxi meter times ten. “Pertaining to me?”
“Someone cal ed asking about the rights to your screenplay,” he said.
“What?”
“This guy, Feldman? He cal ed the university and they gave him my name, as your attorney.”
“Feldman?” Brenda said. In the end, she hadn’t sent her screenplay to Ron Feldman or anyone else at Marquee Films. Because after that horrible phone cal , what was the point?
“Yeah. I guess he borrowed his daughter’s copy of the book and he liked it and he wants to see your screenplay. He was very clear that he makes no promises. I guess Marquee is already doing something similar, a book by some guy named George Eliot, more of that old-time shit, but he did like the Fleming Trainor, he said, and he wants to see the script. You know, I sort of got the impression he thought I was your
“So what did you tel him?”
“I told him the script was out with various studio execs, we had lots of interest, but that we would keep him in the loop before we made any decisions.”
“You’re
“He makes no promises, Brenda. In fact, he said even if he did option it, it might molder for years, unproduced. I asked him what his bal park was for an option, and he made it clear it was five figures, not six, so don’t go jumping over the moon.”
When Brenda hung up, she threw her arms around Walsh’s neck. “Feldman wants to see it. He makes no promises, but he does want to see it.”
This was good news, not great news, not the best news, but not bad news either. For the first time al summer, Brain Delaney, Esquire, had cal ed without bad news.
Brenda rested her head against Walsh’s sturdy Australian shoulder as the taxi barreled down Milestone Road toward the airport. She was already over the moon.
EPILOGUE
WINTER
Al over the world, mothers are dying, but at eleven o’clock on the morning of January 29, a mother is born. Melanie Patchen delivers a baby girl, Amber Victoria, weighing eight pounds even and measuring twenty inches long. Healthy.
When the nurses wheel Melanie out of recovery (after eighteen hours in labor, an epidural, a shot of Pitocin, and a distressed heartbeat, the doctors performed a C-section), Melanie is able to hold her daughter and nurse her for the first time, and she feels like the world is brand-new; she feels like she is seeing everything for the first time.
When she conveys this feeling to Peter, he says, “That’s the morphine talking.”
