Author: Kristan Higgins

“Me? I’m good. Great, in fact,” I answered, immediately assuaged by the unforeseen attention. Such was the plight of a younger sibling.

“How’s Gran’s house?” she asked with only a moderate amount of hostility.

“It’s getting there,” I answered. “Is there anything you want? Maybe an afghan?”

“God, no, Millie. Please.” We were back to normal.

“Well, I’m going over to see Danny later, and I’ll tell him you said hi,” I said, hoping to inspire some guilt. It didn’t work.

“I called him earlier. He’s coming to visit again next weekend.”

“Oh.” Our conversation was clearly over. We said our uncomfortable goodbyes and hung up.

Trish and I were as different as two who shared a gene pool could be. While I had battled crooked teeth and fat as a youth, Trish had floated through adolescence, untouched by eating disorders, pimples or bad hair choices. Trish had been captain of the cheerleading squad. I had been president of the science club. Trish had been prom queen. I’d taken honors biology. She’d dated the football hero. I’d dated not at all.

In order to dispel the feeling of incompetence and frustration my sister inspired, I next called Katie Williams. We’d been friends since kindergarten, when she’d thrown up on my desk, a bonding experience that has withstood the test of time. There’s something irreplaceable about a person who’s known you since you lost your first tooth, bought your first bra, had your first drink. Katie knew about my undying love for Joe, my plans, Trish, everything. Being the single mother of two little boys, she seemed to enjoy hearing about topics other than potty training and Bob the Builder. And of course, she got free medical care, courtesy of her sons’ godmother (that would be me). At any rate, Katie was my sounding board as I plotted, ranted, raved and fantasized about Joe Carpenter. She had always been extremely tolerant of this.

Katie listened with false compassion and far too many laughs to the account of my first athletic attempt, sympathized about my sister and agreed to come over for coffee the next day with my godsons. After we hung up, I got dressed, hooked up my CD player and danced around to U2, pretending to be Bono for two songs. Then I finally stopped stalling and got into my car. Time to go see Sam and Danny.

They lived on the other side of town in one of Eastham’s most picturesque neighborhoods. When my nephew was three or four years old, Sam’s parents had died in a car accident, the result of a drunken teenager smashing into them on Route 6. Trish, Sam and Danny had moved into Sam’s parents’ house three weeks after the funeral. My sister had begun remodeling immediately. A year later, the house was unrecognizable. They’d gutted it almost completely, and in its place now stood a modern, angular structure with huge windows facing the bay. Sam had taken a second job to help pay the bills.

The modern house was not at all my taste, though I had to admit it was very impressive—large, open, lots of glass and deck space. But it was the view that made your heart stop. The house overlooked a tiny bayside beach. Water stretched out to the horizon, dotted with wooden rowboats and seagulls, cormorants, the occasional swan. You could hear their constant cries, a melody of sea birds, if you will, that blended with the omnipresent wind and gentle lapping of the waves. At low tide, you could walk almost a half mile out, and at high tide, the water was deep enough to swim. Sea grass waved gracefully, deep green in the warm weather, golden in the winter. People, even we hardened locals, came to the beach to get a glimpse of the sunsets that glorified the sky each night. This was what my sister had left for Short Hills, New Jersey, where I hear they have an impressive mall.

I parked my car in the crushed-shell driveway and ran up the steps. Sam was a cop, and when he was not making the world safe for the rest of us, he worked part-time for a landscaper. His own gardens were spectacular. Even now in March, unexpected green things popped up to relieve the gray and brown of the dormant flower beds. In a few more months, people would be stopping on the street to admire my sister’s former showplace.

I opened the door and shouted hello. With pounding feet, my nephew came bounding down the stairs like an excited Irish setter. I felt a rush of love and gratitude that even at the advanced and cynical age of seventeen, Danny was still so happy to see me. My nephew seemed, to me and just about everyone else, the culmination of what you’d hope your child would be. Funny, generous, extremely smart, tall and a bit gangly, he also excelled at baseball, truly the all-American boy.

“Hey, Auntie,” he said, bending down to smooch my cheek. He’d become taller than I was about five years ago.

“Hello, youngster,” I said. “What are you doing?”

“Calculus homework. Want something to eat? I’m starving,” he said as we went into the kitchen. Stainless-steel appliances, granite countertops, stark white walls and an unforgiving black tile floor gave the room an imposing military feel. Clambering onto a stool at the counter, I watched Danny galumph around, slamming, rattling, sloshing. I refused his kind offer of sustenance, though my stomach growled, triggered by the smell of a toasting bagel and the sight of my nephew downing a glass of creamy whole milk in four swallows. Thousands of calories.

“Is your dad at work?” I asked.

“Nope. He took the day off,” Danny said, peeling a banana and stuffing half of it into his mouth while he waited for the bagel to toast. “The divorce is final today, you know.”

“Yes, I heard. How are you doing with all that?”

“Well, okay, I guess.” He paused for a moment, looking out the window toward the bay. “I mean, Mom’s been gone for a while now, so I’m pretty used to that. But Dad’s taking it kind of hard.”

“Did you talk to your mom today?”

“Yup. She’s okay.”

I waited, fascinated by the amount of food my nephew could force into his mouth at once. A third of a bagel. My, my.

“She said she’s glad to be on to a new chapter of her life, a door closes, a window opens, that sort of thing. I think she’s doing all right.”

“Wonderful,” I murmured, trying to be neutral.

“Oh, come on, Aunt Mil. You can’t blame her too much.” Danny continued with a shrug, swallowing like a python polishing off a goat. “She deserves to be happy. Just because my parents screwed up when they were kids doesn’t mean Mom shouldn’t be able to move on. I mean, yeah, the whole cheating thing really sucked. But I don’t think she meant to hurt anybody.”

Such generosity! How could this child be the product of my sister’s loins? “You’re the best boy in all the world,” I said. “And they didn’t screw up, having you. You’re the best thing that ever happened to either one of them. Or to me, for that matter. Come here so I can pinch your cheek.”

“You’re not that old yet, Aunt Mil,” Danny said. “Hey, remember my friend Connor? He said you were cute. He wants to play doctor when you open the clinic.”

“That’s terrifying,” I laughed. “So, where is your dad, anyway?”

“He’s walking on the beach.” Danny turned somber. “He’s wicked sad, Aunt Mil. Wicked.”

Poor Sam, walking picturesquely on the beach on the day of his divorce. My heart tugged. I chatted with Danny a little more, asked him about his grades to remind him that I was the adult, and then left the house to find wicked sad Sam.

How Trish had landed Sam Nickerson—well, getting pregnant with Danny had worked its magic. But she’d never deserved him, that was for sure. Sam was the nicest guy around and always had been, and he’d always been especially good to me.

When I was eleven or twelve and Trish and Sam were hormonal teenagers, my parents had gone out, leaving my sister in charge. Katie was sleeping over, and Trish stuck her head into my room to inform us that she and Sam were going to a party. She warned us not to tell Mom and Dad or she would kill us, a threat we’d taken with the gravity it deserved.

At this moment, Sam came in and said hello to us, commented favorably on my Barbie and her Dream Van, chatted us up for a minute or two. When he realized that Trish was supposed to be babysitting, he told her that they couldn’t just leave us alone. They ended up taking us to the movies to see some preteen-appropriate flick. Sam even bought us popcorn and soda and hadn’t seemed to mind that Trish was fuming. Tragically, that night still held the title of Best Date of My Life.

That was Sam for you. Or that was Sam before seventeen years of marriage wore him into a “yes, dear” kind of husband, slightly defeated and always a little confused when it came to Trish. But once, at least, he had genuinely loved her, and when I caught sight of him, looking out over the ocean, shoulders hunched against heartbreak, he did indeed look wicked sad.

“Hi, zipperhead,” I called merrily over the wind, my shoes crunching on the crisp, cold sand as I walked over to him. He turned slightly, wearily.

“Hey, kiddo,” he responded listlessly.

“That’s Dr. Kiddo to you,” I said. My eyes felt wet; not from the wind, alas, but from seeing Sam so obviously miserable. I linked my arm through his. “How’s it going?”

“Okay.” He gave a halfhearted grin and returned his tragic gaze to the ocean. Sympathy and irritation bickered in my head. Sam was better off without Trish, though I knew better than to say this.

“Guess what?” I offered, determined to be upbeat.

“What?” Sam answered.

“I’m taking you out tonight! Come on, let’s go back to the house. Man, that wind is murder! My ears are like hunks of ice.” I began to steer him to the path that wound through the sea grass toward his house.

“Sorry, kiddo. I don’t want to go anywhere,” Sam answered, letting me propel him, though he had at least eight or nine inches on me.

“I know. That’s why we’re going out. It’s too pathetic to sit at home on the night of your first divorce. As opposed to your second, when you can indeed stay home. It’s every other divorce. Go out, stay home, go out, stay home.” Shockingly, Sam was unamused by my feeble attempt at humor. I stopped to look up at him. “Really, Sam. Come out for a beer with me. I’m buying. You will not sit home alone tonight. I will chain myself to your oven before I let you.”

“Millie…”

“Come on! Please?”

He sighed. “Okay. One beer. Nowhere local.”

“Good boy!” As we climbed up the deck stairs, I turned to him once more. His face was so sad, so dejected, that my eyes filled. “Listen, Sam, I want to say something. Seriously.” I swallowed. “I just wanted to tell you that I think you’re wonderful. And I’m sorry you’re hurting.” My mouth wobbled. “I’ve always been really proud to have you as my brother-in-law.” I wiped my eyes with the heel of my hand and gave him a watery smile.

Sam looked at me with a trace of amusement, then put his arm around my shoulders and started into the house. “That was pretty good, kiddo. Did you practice it in the car?”

“Yes, I did, wiseass. For that, you’ll have to buy the second round.”

CHAPTER TWO

TWO HOURS LATER WE WERE at a bar in Provincetown, drinking beer and waiting for buffalo wings. There are still places like this in P-town, though you have to know where to look. Otherwise, you end up eating things like grilled sea bass enchiladas with fresh cumin in a creamy dill sauce.

The bar was perfectly ordinary and nice, and chances were we wouldn’t run into anyone we knew. I understood Sam’s desire to get out of town. There wasn’t a person around who didn’t know about the breakup and winced at the fact that not only had Officer Sam been dumped, but for a rich stockbroker from New Jersey.

We sat quietly at our little table, watching the local color. Sam had been pretty morose on the way up, and I was getting a little tired of it. Trish had left last August, and though today was the official day, it seemed (to me, anyway) that Sam was enjoying his misery a tad too much. Determined to snap him out of his funk, I kicked him under the table.