Page 2 of A Nantucket Wedding

Felicity, Alison had to admit,wasadorable. From the moment she’d toddled across the floor, babbling with glee, Felicity was happy and friendly and girly and sweet. As she entered her teens, she chose lace and ruffles, pale pink and baby blue, short flippy skirts, and multicolored friendship bracelets (which she and her friends made themselves, of course). In high school, she’d had lots of friends. And boyfriends. Felicity had been the drum majorette for her high school’s marching band. She’d been prom queen her senior year. She’d attended the University of Vermont, married Noah right after graduation, had two babies, and become what Jane sometimes called “the little wifey.”

Now Jane was a lawyer in New York, and so was her husband, Scott, although they worked for separate firms. They rented an upscale apartment on West Sixty-Fifth and went backpacking in Costa Rica and river rafting in Utah. Their lives were crazy busy and stressful and completely adult. Alison wasn’t sure how she felt about Scott. He was so quiet, restrained, locked up. He was probably perfect for Jane.

Alison wasn’t sure how she felt about Felicity’s husband, Noah, either. Noah was an idealistic man, brilliant and ambitious. Straight out of college, he’d started a company selling organic drinks with catchy, healthy names. Now, Noah was trying to make “green food,” alternative protein foods made, as far as Alison could tell, basically from kale and beet juice. Alison wished him well, although she worried about the stress he carried with him and how exhausted he always seemed.

Noah and Felicity’s two gorgeous, funny, good children were the lights of Alison’s life. The children adored their father—when they saw him, which wasn’t often, since he worked at the office late into the night and on weekends. Alison did her best to feel fond of him and to smooth Felicity’s life in little ways—buying her a nice new SUV for driving around with her children, or taking them on a Disney vacation.

But she couldn’t wave a wand and make things perfect for Felicity; and, as David reminded her, Alison had her own life to live.

And she was living a wonderful life.

She’d never dreamed, after Mark’s death six years ago, that she would love again. Of course her love for David was quite different from her love for Mark. Mark had been the love of her life. They’d been married for nearly twenty-five years, and after his sudden death, after the shock and the bitterness of grief, and the support of her friends and the days of mourning with her daughters, after the tedious legal work of life insurance and the will, after the months spent with other widows joining together to relearn the movements of normal existence, Alison had finally settled down like a swan without her mate, understanding that even with his loss, the nest that was her life was a lovely creation. She took a job as a receptionist for a dental group and became friends with the staff. She was busy, helpful, and grateful for each daily pleasure. She had her two daughters, her beloved grandchildren, her comfortable house, happy memories. Many friends. Many pleasures. She could go on.

And on she went, if not happily, at least gratefully, for almost six years. She hadn’t been prepared last June, when she visited a friend on Nantucket, to meet David Gladstone. The love of his life, Emma, had died after a long illness four years ago, and David had never planned to marry again. Like Alison, he had a busy, if lonely, life.

When Alison and David met, at a simple summer cocktail party, it was as if the moment they stepped out onto the patio, they boarded a train that would speed them into lives they’d never anticipated. For one thing, the first miraculous, surprising, joy-making thing, there was thechemistry. Right from the moment their eyes met, a physical attraction reawakened them to the joys of the body. Who knew that a woman could experience adolescent sexual hunger in her fifties? Right there, in the midst of perhaps two dozen other people, men and women in light summer colors, wineglasses in hand, canapés floating by on the caterer’s trays, right there, right then,Boom! David introduced himself. Alison shook his hand. They couldn’t stop smiling at each other. Alison heard herself laughing softly in a feminine way she’d thought she’d forgotten. She practically cooed like a dove at the man.

“Would you like to leave this party and join me for dinner?” David had asked.

“Oh,” Alison had said. “Yes. Yes, I would.”

They’d departed without saying goodbye, like a pair of teenagers sneaking away from their parents. David took her to Topper’s, the poshest restaurant on an island blessed with posh restaurants, and while they feasted on lobster washed down with an icy champagne, they talked. Their conversation told them much about one another, but the hours they spent together told them more.

Alison quickly learned that David was a man of action, not of contemplation. He was a man of hearty appetites. He was only a few inches taller than her, but he had a wrestler’s shoulders and arms, so the extra weight he carried looked good on him. He was more enthusiastic than elegant—when he laughed, his entire body shook and others around him, overhearing that wholehearted laugh, found themselves smiling. David loved to eat and drink and travel. He loved to dance and make puns and tell jokes and swim in the ocean no matter how cold it was. He was a successful, well-educated man who over the course of his life had worked for and then become the CEO of a popular skin-care line called English Garden Creams. At sixty-three, he was wealthy and planning to retire, even though he still enjoyed the complicated responsibilities essential to manufacturing and selling a fine product. He liked his employees, the challenges, the rivals, the achievements. He enjoyed the work.

His hands were big and elegant. Alison was mesmerized by his hands—how would they feel on her body? She imagined he’d be an enthusiastic lover. And he was.

They both lived in the Boston area, and for three months they spent every free moment together. They attended art gallery openings and concerts. They sat in front of the fire on rainy days reading books. They went dancing and spent the next morning in bed with the Sunday papers. They made each other laugh. They reminisced about their spouses and consoled each other for their losses. They fit each other like two halves of a Fabergé egg.

They met each other’s children. First, David took Alison to the Boston’s Top of the Hub to meet his daughter, Poppy, and his son, Ethan, both in their late thirties, both with all of David’s charm. Ethan, who lived an easygoing life as a gentleman farmer in Vermont, had been delighted to see his father with a new love interest. Poppy, not so much. She was married with two children and was in line to take over English Garden Creams when her father retired. And Poppy was ambitious. Alison could almost read her practical thoughts like a ticker tape running across Poppy’s sapphire blue eyes:New woman, marriage, retirement, the business will finally be mine!

That encounter had been cordial if not delightful, so Alison and David considered it a success. Soon after that, Christmas arrived, held that year in Alison’s house in a Boston suburb. Her oldest daughter, Jane, and her husband, Scott, traveled up to stay with Alison for the holidays. Felicity lived in the Boston suburb of Arlington with her two small children and her husband, Noah, so of course they came for Christmas. David stopped by for a drink that Christmas evening and met Alison’s small clan. He brought presents for Jane and Felicity—beautifully wrapped gift packages of English Garden Creams products—toys for Alice and Luke, and handsome bottles of Scotch for the men. He also brought champagne for them to share. That evening was great fun.

In January, David asked Alison to marry him and live with him in Boston and wherever else he was. And really, since they were together every morning and night and weekend, it was silly for Alison to retain a house that she scarcely even saw. Alison had sold the home she’d lived in for years, with Mark and the girls, and then with Mark when the girls grew up and got married, and finally, alone, in the years after Mark died. She put some family furniture and china into storage and placed the money from the sale of the house into money market accounts and wrote a will dividing all her assets between her two daughters in the event of her death. She was surprised at how free she felt when she said goodbye to the house. It had become for her a place of mourning and loneliness. She happily moved into David’s large apartment on Marlborough Street in Boston, and now here she was, hostess and chatelaine of his gorgeous Nantucket summer house and about to marry David in the most fabulous party of her life.

Today, Alison reminded herself, she had her daughters with her for the weekend in David’s beach house. She wanted to savor each moment.

“MOM!” Felicity burst into the kitchen. “This house!”

Jane followed more quietly. “It’s stunning, Mom.”

“I know,” Alison agreed. “Let’s go out on the deck so you can enjoy the view.”

They sat at the round wooden table on wooden chairs softened by cushions—another David touch, this comfort. Steps led down the deck to the tangled mass of wild beach roses and razor-edged beach grass. A well-trodden sandy path wound through the shrubbery down to the golden beach and the deep blue ocean, today rolling calmly toward shore.

“This is heaven,” Felicity cooed, resting her feet on another chair and pulling her skirt up to her hips to allow the sun to tan her legs. “Are you so thrilled, Mom?”

“I’m thrilled to be with David. The beach house is wonderful, but it’s David who makes me happy.”

Felicity eyed Jane. “You look fabulous, Jane. How are you?”

“I’m good. Scott’s good. And you look great, too, Filly.”

“I do?” Felicity glowed at her sister’s compliment. “I don’t feel like I look great. I’m so exhausted from the children, I never get enough sleep, I haven’t lost my baby weight, and my breasts are all saggy from nursing.”

Alison laughed. “Oh, darling! You look beautiful.”

“So, Mom,” Jane said, “when do we get to hear about your plans for the wedding?”

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