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“Oh, crap,” Kyle says.
Hollis stares at him.
“Lump in her right breast,” he says. “She missed the doctor’s call with the results on Thursday, and now she has to wait until Monday.”
Hollis exhales. How can Kyle—and Jack, for that matter—be so calm? They all lived through Laura Leigh’s cancer together. Tatum’s mother, Laura Leigh Grover, wore a knit Nantucket Whalers hat over her bald head to their graduation; three weeks later, she was dead. Kyle and Jack had served as pallbearers; they had lowered the woman they all fiercely loved into the ground.
Tatum!Hollis thinks. How had Tatum kept this news to herself? She is so brave but also such a dummy. Hollis is her best friend—or was. It pains Hollis that Tatum apparently doesn’t trust her enough to confide in her. Laura Leigh’s breast cancer wasveryaggressive; the end was swift and brutal. Tatum must be terrified.
But thirty-five years have passed since Laura Leigh was diagnosed. There has been research; there have been breakthroughs and clinical trials. Tatum will be treated in Boston, maybe even at Mass General, where Matthew worked and where Hollis will be able to get her access to the best doctorsin the world. And, too, the lump might turn out to be benign.
But this all feels like magical thinking. A possible cancer diagnosis, especially with a family history like Tatum’s, is frightening. Hollis thinks back to the night before: Tatum eating, drinking, smoking a cigarette, dancing. Before she retired to the Fifty Shades of White guest suite, she’d hugged Hollis and said, “Thank you for having me, sis.”
There was a lot to unpack in that one line, not least of which was Tatum using their old nickname. Hollis could have reminded Tatum that she’d invited her for dinner every summer since she’d built the new house and Tatum had never come—but this would lead other places that neither of them wanted to go, and it was late and they’d both been drinking, so Hollis said, “Thank you forcoming,sis.” And they’d stumbled off to their respective bedrooms.
“She didn’t tell me,” Hollis says. “She seemed fine last night. She had fun. We did our dance.”
“Oh, the dance,” Jack says.
Kyle stands up. “I’m going to check on her.”
He leaves the table as Naz drops off a pot of orange marmalade. Jack slides it over to Hollis.
“You got this for me?” she asks.
“You want it, don’t you?”
Well, yes, of course. Hollis’s buttery rye toast wouldn’t be complete without orange marmalade. “I can’t believe you remember.”
“Oh, Holly,” he says and he sighs. “I haven’t looked at a piece of rye toast in the past four decades without thinking of you slathering it with the most revolting of all condiments, orange marmalade.”
Hollis shakes her head, her eyes misting with tears.
Jack puts his arm around her and gives her a squeeze. “She’s going to be fine,” he says.
While Kyle and Tatum are having a long kiss goodbye outside Black-Eyed Susan’s, Jack insists that Hollis take his cell phone number. “Call me later if you’re not busy.”
“I’ll be busy,” Hollis says. She thinks guiltily of Brooke, Dru-Ann, and poor Gigi, all of whom she left to fend for themselves. But… wild horses couldn’t keep her away from Jack. When she looks at him, she sees a fifty-three-year-old man but also a seventeen-year-old kid. His smile is like sunshine on her face. “Okay, fine.” She takes his number.
“I met your daughter this morning,” Jack says. “I probably shouldn’t tell on her, but she woke up at the McKenzie household and couldn’t find a Lyft, so I gave her a ride to town.”
“The McKenzie household?” Hollis says. “She was… what? With Dylan?”Thatmust have been who dropped Caroline off yesterday, Hollis thinks. Dylan McKenzie!
Jack holds up his palms. “We didn’t discuss it.”
“Whatdidyou discuss?” Hollis says. “Caroline isn’t exactly my biggest fan these days.”
“Well, she seemed surprised to learn that you used to hunt and scallop with the old man.”
“Oh, jeez,” Hollis says. “I haven’t been scalloping in eons.”
“Bet you still remember where your dad’s secret spot is, though,” Jack says.
“I do,” Hollis says. She swats at him. “And no, I’m not telling you.”
Finally, Tatum and Kyle separate; they all say goodbye, and Tatum turns around one last time to wave. Hollis had planned to ask Tatum about the biopsy the second they were alone but she decides she should let Tatum be the one to bring it up.
Tatum stops in the middle of the sidewalk to light a cigarette. “Holly?”
