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“Oh, yes, of course,” Hollis says. “What did she call him?”
“Mr. Wonderful,” Ethan says. “She called him Mr. Wonderful.” He raps on the tailgate of the Bronco, proud of himself for remembering this. “Enjoy your weekend.”
Once Ethan is back inside the store, Hollis presses her forehead to the steering wheel.Mr. Wonderful,she thinks—and one of her favorite memories plays in her mind with such clarity she could be watching it on a movie screen.
Hollis and Matthew have moved out of the city to a center-entrance Colonial on a wooded lot on Livingston Road in Wellesley. Hollis has leftBostonmagazine, and now she’s a stay-at-home mom to Caroline, age three. However, Hollis needs “something else,” so she agrees to chair the gala benefit for the hospital’s heart center. The development office has never seen a chair as organized and capable as Hollis Shaw. The tickets sell out immediately; they have corporate sponsors, and they book a musical guest who may or may not be Boston’s own Peter Wolf of the J. Geils Band—and rumor has it, Steven Tyler will join him onstage.
The night of the benefit, Hollis gets ready, then sits down at her dressing table to put in her diamond stud earrings. Her hair is in a chignon, and she’s wearing a slinky purple dress (it’s the first slinky thing she’s been able to fit into since she got pregnant, and it required a lot of hours at the gym and three months without dessert).
Matthew walks in wearing his tux and holding two flutes of champagne. He hands one to Hollis and smiles at her reflection in the mirror. “To my beautiful wife,” he says. “Everyone at work is talking about what a wonder you are. I’m so proud of you.”
They touch glasses and drink. Matthew bends down to kiss the back of Hollis’s neck. Down the hall, Hollis hears Caroline chattering with the babysitter about what book she wants to read. Hollis closes her eyes and thinks,I am so lucky.She thinks,This is what I’ve wanted my entire life. A moment just like this.
Back at the house, Hollis moves at double speed; her Fitbit can barely keep up.
She wants each bed to be as luscious as a bakery confection. She stuffs the duvet covers with two down inserts for extra fluffiness. She arranges an assortment of pillows—some feather, some firm—at the head of each bed and places a farm bouquet on each nightstand next to a water carafe and a stack of new magazines. Hollis uses a TikTok hack to arrange the flowers: She crosshatches tape across the top of the vase so the flowers stand up straight, and she adds vinegar, sugar, and ice to the water to keep the flowers fresh. She recognizes this absurd attention to detail for what it is: a way to control the few things she can control. She can’t believe she had to tell poor Ethan at Hatch’s that Matthew was dead. For a second, she’d considered pretending that Matthew was at home working in the garden, tending their tomato plants. He used to prune them back, his surgeon’s hands confident and adept in the cutting.
She folds pristine white Turkish cotton towels in every bathroom, then unwraps bars of wildflower soap from Nantucket Looms.
In the kitchen, she marinates the swordfish (she’ll post the recipe when the weekend is over), softens the cheeses, and prepares her famous bacon and rosemary pecans (she’ll post this recipe as well; she can practically hear her members clamoring for it, then asking if they can substitute almonds for pecans).
She sets the table on the deck—two overlapping tablecloths in a blue toile print, wicker chargers, linen napkins, beeswax candles in Simon Pearce holders, a bouquet of hydrangeas cut from the bushes that line the driveway. She hangs citronella lanterns and stacks cashmere blankets on a nearby ottoman in case anyone gets chilly. (The blankets make her feel as though she’s thought of everything.Hasshe thought of everything?)
She ices the wine and champagne in the large hammered-silver bucket, polishes her wineglasses, gently pulls the stamens off the lilies using a damp paper towel. She goes out to the shed and wipes the cobwebs from the beach umbrellas. As she’s cleaning the inside of the cooler, two cases of sparkling water at her feet, her phone dings with a text.
It’s from Caroline.I’m here. Where r u?
Here?Hollis thinks. What does that mean—here onNantucket?It’s only 11:30. Did Caroline take an earlier flight? Hollis could have sworn the flight she booked for Caroline landed at 1:30. Hollis quickly finishes rinsing the cooler with the hose and leaves it in the sun to dry. She strips off her rubber gloves and hurries inside to her laptop. She clicks on the confirmation e-mail she sent Caroline the night before and gasps.
Departing JFK 10:13 a.m.
Arriving ACK 11:27 a.m.
Oh no. No, no, no, no, no!Hollis thinks. She needs to call Caroline, but her phone—where is her phone? Back outside with the cooler? No. She finds it on the shelf in the shed, then hurries back through the house thinking,I blew it. I seriously blew it.She climbs into the Bronco and is halfway down the driveway, white shells spraying all over the place she’s peeled out so fast, when another text comes in.
Also from Caroline:Nvm. I found a ride.
Hollis hits the brakes and releases a breath. She found a ride. Okay, that’s good, right? But Hollis knows it’s not good. Hollis should have double-checked the flight time.
She remembered the cashmere blankets but she forgot her own daughter.
It takes all of Hollis’s willpower not to lurk in the doorway until Caroline arrives. She goes to the kitchen counter and assembles a BLT on toasted Portuguese bread, Caroline’s favorite summer lunch, and arranges it on a plate with a handful of Cape Cod chips and a ripe peach. She hears a car and peeks out to see Caroline climbing down from an enormous black truck. Hollis squints; she can’t make out who the driver is, but Caroline waves at him (or her). She’s smiling. Maybe things aren’t as bad as Hollis thinks.
“Darling,” Hollis says when Caroline storms in, the screen door slamming behind her. “Welcome home.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Caroline says. She gives Hollis a death stare before crouching down to pet and kiss Henny, who is shimmying with excitement and love.
“I’m so sorry, darling. I thought the flight landed at one thirty. That’s what I had written on my list.”
“On your list,” Caroline says and she gives a breathy laugh. “Classic.”
“You’re obviously more than an item on my list, Caroline,” Hollis says. “But I had one thirty in my mind, I was planning on—”
“No thank you to lunch,” Caroline says, and she sweeps past Hollis and down the hall to her bedroom. Hollis hears the door slam.
Leave her be,Hollis thinks. The big hurdle has been cleared; she’s back under Hollis’s roof. Hollis will save her lunch for later. She probably just needs a nap.
She taps on Caroline’s door an hour later. No response.
