AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Victor parked the sailboat two minutes from the harbor docks and burst from the driver’s seat. Rebecca and her children got out of the car and followed his confident strides toward the docks. Rebecca’s heart had begun to beat very slowly; memories hovered around her, heavy and light at the same time. She could almost trick her mind into thinking Joel was just up ahead of them, skipping along the dock as the sunlight danced on the water.
All at once, it was before them—a glorious sailboat with the name ESME painted on the side. Rebecca’s throat was very tight. Nostalgia was a powerful thing. She touched her father’s arm and whispered, “You’ve had it all this time?”
Victor nodded, unable to look at her. “I put it in storage all those years ago. She needed a bit of TLC, but she’s in working order now. She’ll be out on this dock all summer long if you want to sail her.” Finally, he turned to find her eyes. “I know you’re a good sailor. You always amazed me.”
Lily, Shelby, and Chad were impressed with the boat. Fred had never owned one, as the water around Bar Harbor was always more tumultuous. He had preferred the mountains to the seas.
“Shall we take her for a spin?” Victor asked his grandchildren.
They cried out with excitement and boarded. Lily’s and Shelby’s hair flashed around with the wind off the sound. Victor mounted afterward and headed for one of the ropes. He then pointed for Rebecca to untie the opposite one, just as he’d done when she’d been a girl.
When the boat was safely out on the water, rushing through the waves as the Nantucket sun burned above them, Victor surprised them with a picnic. He looked jolly and eager as he passed around sandwiches, fresh fruit, nuts, and chips. Rebecca had never once imagined what her father might have been like as a grandfather. It turned out, he was pretty good at it.
When Victor was preoccupied with something on his phone, Rebecca gazed at her children, who nibbled on their sandwiches and watched the water. It had always amazed her how painful it was to love the ones you loved most. It was a physical ache.
“Do you want to learn how to tie a few sailor knots?” Rebecca asked suddenly.
Her three children nodded eagerly and watched as she lifted a spare rope and began to twist it into the bowline and the reef knot and the clove hitch. They were mesmerized and soon came over to try their hand at each knot. Rebecca felt proud to show them this element of her past. Several paces behind her, she could feel her father watching her, terribly proud to be there.
So much had happened. So many eras had passed them by. But a sailor’s knot was still a sailor’s knot. They were still tied the same way as ever before.
That night on the back porch, Chad slathered his face with lotion and laughed that he’d let his cheeks burn. Rebecca poured her children glasses of water and supplied snacks. Together, the four of them sat and watched as orange and pink light played over the horizon and turned them over to darkness.
For not the first time that week, Rebecca forced herself to tell the story of Joel Sutton. She explained to her two youngest how difficult Joel’s death had been on the Sutton family and how they’d never really dealt with it. She watched Shelby and Chad for some sign of breakage or distrust. But instead, they just showed how truly sad they were—not to have known Joel and not to have understood the depths of their mother’s pain.
Soon, Lily, Shelby, and Chad began to recite their favorite stories of their father. They told his favorite stories, talked about his favorite foods, and remembered him for the delightful, hilarious, complicated, and marvelous person he’d been. Rebecca spent the evening alternating between laughter and tears.
“I don’t want us to pretend this terrible thing never happened,” she said slowly. “My parents and sisters and I never spoke about Joel, and that turned Joel’s death into a mountain of unspeakable pain. We have to be open about how we feel. We have to acknowledge what he meant to us.”
Her children nodded. Lily reached across the table and took her mother’s hand. “We’ll always be together,” she told her softly.
Rebecca nearly broke down after that. Her biggest fear had been that her own children would run away from this pain, just as she had from Joel. She didn’t deserve how good they were, but God, she was grateful for it.
The following early afternoon, Rebecca and Esme began to set up for The Sutton Book Restaurant. They placed tables with white tablecloths and decorated them with beautiful china. Already that evening, sixty people had reserved seats around The Sutton Book Restaurant, and they would host up to twenty-five at a time. It was exhilarating. Esme also hoped everyone would rent out a book when they left. “Maybe we could even recommend a book to pair with their meal?” she suggested. Rebecca loved the idea, and Esme set to work. It was her lifelong duty to get people excited about reading again.
Rebecca was nervous. Yes, she’d had a restaurant of her own before. But back then, Fred had been her backbone, her strength. Now, she had to rely on her family, who had very little restaurant knowledge. Her children, the servers for the night, assured her they would do as she said, whenever she said it. Then they laughed and called her “chef,” just as they always had. This lightened her mood a great deal.
The menu for the evening was fit for any night at Bar Harbor Brasserie. The starter was a French mussels pot followed by a clam sauté, a blue lobster Catalan, and a Hokkaido scallop grain. She planned to finish the dinner with her favorite dessert, a crème brûlée. Who could resist?
When Rebecca explained the menu to Esme, Esme’s eyes got progressively larger and panicked.
“I haven’t even heard of half of those words, Rebecca,” Esme said.
Rebecca laughed and fanned herself with her hand. “Don’t make me more nervous than I already am!”
Midway through prep, Ben arrived. Rebecca had invited him to help slice and dice vegetables and fish, and then she’d promptly cursed herself for asking him. Who was she kidding? She couldn’t have a silly crush. But Rebecca's heart nearly shattered when he breezed through the kitchen door and flashed her that handsome smile. She handed him a knife, and he set to work with his head down. He explained that he genuinely liked to work hard, but that his PTSD had gotten in the way of so many of his career options.
“How is the sailing job going?” Rebecca asked.
“It’s the best job I’ve ever had,” Ben explained. “It helps to be outside. To feel the sun on my face and breathe the salty air. When I get home, I feel rejuvenated and ready to talk to Doug, to tell him jokes and go for a walk and cook dinner. Having a house without so many holes in it has also been great for our moods. Victor really came through.”
Rebecca slid onions into a skillet. Her smile made her face ache. Many, many years ago, when she’d fallen in love with Fred, she’d been a young woman reeling from the broken hearts of her youth. Now, she was a middle-aged woman, and she was still reeling.
A few hours later, Esme called into the kitchen to report that the first guests had arrived. “Lily’s already out there asking for their wine order!”
Rebecca and Ben locked eyes. Rebecca felt exhilarated and anxious all at once. Perhaps if she’d been a different sort of person, less afraid, she would have kissed Ben on the cheek and wished him luck. But as it stood, she wasn’t ready.
What she really needed was a friend.
