Page 79 of Summer Light on Nantucket

Kate yawned. “I have. Nothing’s changed. They say she’s resting peacefully.”

“Let’s go home, Kate,” Teri said. “You can sleep for a few hours and I’ll deal with the phones. Bob can stay here with Celeste.”

Kate nodded. “That’s a good plan, Teri. Bob, really all you have to do is sit with her. Of course, call us if there’s a change.”

Blythe stood a few steps away from the others, feeling left out. Shewasleft out. It was as if she’d become invisible to the other three.

Childishly, she said, “I’ll stay here and keep Bob company.”

Why did she say that? She didn’t want to spend time with Bob. She wanted to be there for Celeste, which was why she’d come in the first place.

Kate looked over her shoulder as she walked away. “You don’t need to do that, Blythe. Bob will be fine by himself.”

“I want to stay,” Blythe called. “I’ve got a lot to tell him about our children.”

“I’ll talk to you soon,” Teri assured Bob.

Blythe hoped she’d made them uncomfortable. She’d certainly made herself uncomfortable. Hadn’t Kate learned by now not to ignore Blythe? And why did Blythe want to irritate Kate?

Probably she always wanted to irritate Kate.

The two women turned left and disappeared down the hall.

Bob sat on a chair, head in his hands. He glanced up and saw Blythe. “Blythe, thank you for waiting with me. I’m afraid for Mom. A heart attack…and she’s over seventy.”

“I know. But she’s strong, Bob. She’s healthy.”

To her surprise, Bob stood up and threw himself around Blythe.

“I don’t want her to die,” he cried.

“She won’t die,” Blythe insisted.

Being this close to her ex-husband was unexpected and overwhelming. Blythe sympathized with him. She knew how much Bob loved his mother, and Bob knew how much Blythe loved Celeste. She wanted to be comforting.

But they hadn’t hugged for years. Without trying, she noticed that he’d lost weight and his arms were more muscular. The children told her he’d joined a gym and was working out. It seemed she was embracing both a familiar man and a strange one. Her body swept her through a reservoir of memories she hadn’t realized she’d kept, in her limbs and her skin and her deepest mind. He’d held her like this the first time she told him she was pregnant. He’d been in awe. She was going to make him a father. It had always seemed so unfair and capricious of nature to gift a woman with so many physical signs of becoming a mother while a man never had so much as a hint. She had loved being pregnant, except for the first few weeks of morning sickness.

The last time Bob had held her like this, or tried to, was the morning they stood before the judge who pronounced them divorced. Bob had pulled her to him in a brief, pro forma hug.

Now, in the Nantucket Cottage Hospital, she stepped back. “Let’s check Celeste.”

Celeste lay quietly in her hospital bed. She was sleeping, so very still. Her dark hair was long and streaked with silver, spiraling over the pillow like strands from a star. Blythe had known Celeste for twenty years. When Bob had brought her home to meet his parents, Celeste had been only a little older than Blythe was now.

Who could stand at someone’s bedside without counting years? Years past and years to come. Celeste was only seventy. She would have years, maybe a decade or two, to enjoy life.

“She looks so small,” Bob said.

“She’s strong,” Blythe reminded him. “She needs to rest.”

“It’s odd to see Celeste so still. She’s always so active, so creative.”

Bob pulled a chair next to the bed for Blythe, and one near her for himself.

“Yeah, and remember the Halloween she turned the house into a haunted mansion?”

Blythe laughed, remembering. “Celeste dressed up as an old witch, complete with a pointed black hat and pointed black teeth and long fingernails. When she opened the door to the trick-or-treaters, she cackled.”

“Right. Holly was only three then, and she was terrified.”

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