Beautiful Day

MARGOT

She was determined to do this by herself. She would find Jenna, she would save the wedding.

She left the children with Beanie, saying she had to run some errands. Kevin, who was reading the Times at the kitchen table, huffed.

“Why can’t your kids go with you?” he said.

“Because,” Margot said. “They can’t.”

“It’s not a problem for us to watch them,” Beanie said. “They’re all happier when they’re together anyway.”

Kevin arched his eyebrows. Margot could hear his thoughts: Margot is outsourcing her children again.

He said, “What errands?”

“I need to pay my cocaine dealer,” Margot said.

He said, “You might try and get Ellie out of her bathing suit before you go.”

“Fuck you, Kevin.”

“Nice,” Kevin said.

“What do you care what Ellie wears?” Margot said. “She’s not your child.”

“She’s a girl,” Beanie said. “Girls are different. Kevin doesn’t understand that.”

Kevin eyed Beanie over the top of his newspaper. “I don’t understand that girls are different?”

“You’re trying to make me feel like a bad mother,” Margot said. “You’re being passive-aggressive.”

Kevin said, “Along with apparently not understanding that girls are ‘different,’ I have also never understood that term. ‘Passive-aggressive.’ What does that actually mean?”

“It means you’re a jackass,” Margot said. She hated acting this way; being around Kevin and Nick made her revert to twelve-year-old behavior.

Beanie pretended to search for something in the refrigerator. Margot needed to ask Kevin or Beanie for one of their cell phones-she couldn’t go on this quest without a phone-but she was so pissed at Kevin that she wasn’t willing to ask him for anything else.

“I won’t be gone long,” Margot said to Beanie, hoping this was true.

She left the house by the side door. Thank God for Kevin! she thought angrily. But she was glad to have avoided her father and Pauline, and Nick and Finn. Suddenly everyone was a land mine.

Margot had read all the Nancy Drew mysteries as a girl; she had waited thirty years to do some sleuthing of her own. How had Jenna traveled? All the cars were present and accounted for. Had Jenna gone by foot? If so, the only logical place to look for her was in town. She might be browsing in the stacks at Mitchell’s Book Corner, or maybe she’d bought a strawberry frappe at the pharmacy and was sitting on a bench on Main Street, counting the number of Lilly Pulitzer skirts that passed her by.

Bicycle? Margot wondered. And sure enough, when she checked the shed, the padlock was hanging loose, and the door was ajar. The bikes in the shed were the bikes of their childhood, Schwinns circa 1983, all rusted and, Margot had assumed, unrideable.

But Jenna had taken a bicycle somewhere.

Where?

Well, if Jenna was dead set on canceling the wedding, there was one person she would have to talk to.

As Margot was unlocking her Land Rover, Rhonda popped out of the house with white earbuds in.

“Hey, Rhonda,” Margot said.

Rhonda removed her left earbud, and Margot could hear the tinny screeching of Rihanna. “I’m going running!” she said, too loudly.

“Is there any way I could borrow your phone for an hour?” Margot asked. “I sunk mine on Thursday night, it’s useless, and I really need a phone this morning.” She swallowed. “Secret wedding mission.”

Rhonda’s face was uneasy as she regarded her phone. “I can’t really run without music. And Raymond is supposed to call…”

“Oh,” Margot said. “Okay, no problem.” She looked at the house and sighed. She would have to go back in and ask Beanie.

Rhonda said, “Don’t be like that.”

“Be like what?” Margot said.

“You know like what,” Rhonda said. She shoved her phone at Margot. “Just take it.”

“No, no,” Margot said. When she looked down at the phone, she saw that the screensaver was a picture of Rhonda and Pauline taken the night before at the Nantucket Yacht Club. They were standing in front of the giant anchor with their arms wrapped around each other. Pauline, in her blue suit, looked like Gertie Gloom, but Rhonda was smiling wide enough for the two of them, perhaps realizing that it was up to her to put forward a good face on behalf of the Tonellis. “It’s okay, Rhonda. I’ll ask someone else.”

“You asked me,” Rhonda said. “Just take it.”

Margot couldn’t tell if Rhonda was being passive-aggressive (whatever that meant) or genuine. Margot didn’t really have time for games or mind reading, so she accepted the phone.

“Thank you for this,” she said. “I’ll bring it back as soon as I’m done.”

“Whenever,” Rhonda said, shrugging. “Glad I could help.”

Margot considered asking Rhonda to come with her. This would then become the story of a woman and the stepsister she had never appreciated and was about to lose, as they hunted down the runaway bride.

But no, Margot wanted to do this herself.

“Thanks again,” Margot said.

“Good luck,” Rhonda said.

Margot turned the key in the ignition. The radio was playing Elvis Costello, “Alison,” and Margot thought about Griff the night before at the bar and how he had so easily identified her favorite lyrics in the other song, and she wondered what it would be like to be with someone who actually wanted to understand her, then she wondered if anyone would ever kiss her again the way Griff had kissed her, and she knew the answer was no. She was doomed to have experienced the very best kissing of her life with someone she would never kiss again.

This might have seemed like a problem if she didn’t have bigger problems on her hands.

“Why?” Stuart said as he descended the stairs of the groomsmen’s house, looking like death on a stick. “Is she missing?”

“What is it this morning?” Ryan said. “Everyone is going missing.”

“Margot!” Ann Graham said. “I hope you’re hungry. We have eggs.”

“Negative on the eggs, Mom,” H.W. said. “I just finished the ones left in the pan.”

“If you’ll excuse me.” These words were spoken by Helen, Chance’s mother, who was responsible for this whole mess in the first place. Margot was tempted to call Helen out right there and then, but she didn’t really have time for a grand confrontation with all the Grahams watching. Helen edged past Margot out the front door, followed by a very tall man who was wearing a pair of embroidered whale shorts that he must have bought right out of the front window at Murray’s Toggery.

Margot took one step into the house. She watched Helen leave, thinking, Interloper!

Stuart ran his hands over his bad haircut. “Is she missing?” he asked again. He looked green-maybe alarm, maybe nerves, maybe hangover. The house was trashed; it looked like it had hosted an all-nighter with Jim Morrison, John Belushi, and the Hells Angels.

“She went for a bike ride,” Margot said. “And I need to find her. Roger has a pressing question.”

All true. She congratulated herself.

“She hasn’t been here,” Ryan said.

Chance pulled aside one of the truly horrendous brocade drapes and said, “Thank God my mother is gone.”

Now Ann Graham looked worried. “When was the last time you saw Jenna?”

“A little while ago,” Margot said. She didn’t want to disclose anything more. “I should go.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Stuart asked.

Margot regarded Stuart. He was pale and sick with love. If he came with her, this would become the story of Margot and the soon-to-be-jilted groom as they hunted down the runaway bride.

Margot said, “Come outside with me?”

Stuart followed Margot outside, and she could sense that Ann Graham was antsy to join them. Margot and Stuart stood in the overgrown crabgrass of the front yard. It was warm in the sun, and Margot worried momentarily about freckles, then told herself to forget it.

“Jenna was really upset last night,” Margot said. “She called Roger and canceled the wedding.”

Stuart dropped his head to his chest. “Fuck,” he whispered.

That was the first time Margot had ever heard the man swear. He was such a good guy. “She’s upset about Crissy.”

Stuart held out a hand. “Stop,” he said. “I can’t even stand to hear her name.”

“You probably should have told her about the engagement,” Margot said.

“It wasn’t a big deal,” Stuart said. “It only lasted a month. As soon as Crissy booked the Angus Barn for the engagement party, I broke up with her. And two weeks later, I moved to New York. I was done with her-done done done.”

“It feels like a big deal to Jenna,” Margot said. “She’s… well, you know how she is.”

“Sensitive,” he said.

“Yes,” Margot said. “And in this case, she’s also jealous. She was raised differently from the rest of us. You know, Kevin and Nick and I were always fighting for our parents’ attention. Always jockeying for first place. But not Jenna. She had their undivided attention.”

“Are you saying she’s spoiled?” Stuart said. “She’s never seemed spoiled to me.”

“She’s not spoiled,” Margot said. “But she’s probably not as experienced with this kind of jealousy as another person might be.”

“I didn’t tell her because I didn’t want to tell her,” Stuart said. “I just didn’t want her to know. It meant nothing, it was a big fat mistake, and I wanted to pretend like it never happened.”

“She feels like you lied to her,” Margot said. “I understand it was a lie of omission-”

“I apologized fifty times, a hundred times. If she ever checks her phone again, she’ll see I called her seventeen times last night between the hours of midnight and five. I don’t know what else to do.” He put his face to his hands. “If she leaves me, I’ll die, Margot.”

“I have to go find her,” Margot said. “Let me talk to her.”

“I want to go with you,” Stuart said. “But I’m afraid I might mess it up even worse.”

“You might,” Margot said. She smiled to let him know she was kidding. “But I might, too.”

Margot drove out to Surfside, searching the road for Jenna. She turned down Nonantum Avenue and headed toward Fisherman’s Beach. From Rhonda’s cell phone, she called Jenna’s number. Jenna wouldn’t answer if it was Margot, or the number of the house, but would she answer if she saw a call coming in from Rhonda? Maybe.

But no. The call was shuttled right to voice mail.

Margot paused in the parking lot at Fisherman’s and walked to the landing at the top of the beach stairs. She scanned the coast to the left, then the coast to the right. No Jenna. There were only a couple of men, surfcasting at the waterline.

Margot remembered herself as a malcontented teenager, pacing this very beach with her Walkman playing “I Wanna Be Free,” by the Monkees, and “Against All Odds,” by Phil Collins. The beach was often shrouded in fog, which made it an even better place for soulful reflection for Margot and her adolescent woes: she hated her braces, her parents didn’t understand her, and she missed Grady McLean, who was back in Connecticut working the register at Stew Leonard’s.

Margot had also surfed this beach, too many times to count, with Drum Sr. He had been a bronzed surfing god back then, king of these waves. Margot had been awed by his grace and agility on the board. Of course she’d fallen in love with him! Every single person-man and woman, boy and girl-who had watched Drum surf had fallen in love with him. Margot had believed that the magic he demonstrated in the water, and on the ski slopes, would translate to real life. But as a landlubber, Drum Sr. had floundered. He had never been able to display the same kind of confidence or authority.

Maybe now, with his fish taco stand and Lily the Pilates instructor. Who knew.

But these were Margot’s ruminations, which she had to set aside. She needed to start thinking like Jenna.

Margot checked Rhonda’s phone for the time. It was nearly ten o’clock. She wondered what Roger looked like when he lost his cool. She had to move quickly.

As she turned away from the beach, she noticed someone waving at her. It was one of the surfcasters. Waving at her? Was there someone drowning offshore, or a shark? Margot squinted. The man was wearing a white visor.

It was Griff.

Not possible. But yes, of course. Of course Griff was fishing here. Had he mentioned fishing the night before? She couldn’t remember. Maybe he had, and now it would look like Margot was stalking him. Maybe this would become the story where Margot and the man who had kissed her like no other man before but whom she could never kiss again because of the awful way she had wronged him would hunt down the runaway bride.

Margot waved back, but the wave was halfhearted, despite the way her whole heart felt like it was dangling from the end of Griff’s line.

She hurried to her car.

Beth Carmichael had requested that her ashes be scattered in three places on Nantucket. And so, seven years earlier, Margot and her father and her siblings had taken the box of Beth’s remains to the locations she’d specified. The first place Margot and her family had scattered Beth’s ashes was the Brant Point Lighthouse. Brant Point was just a knuckle of land that jutted out into the harbor. The lighthouse was a white brick column with a black cap and a red beacon. It was prettiest at night or in the fog when the crimson light seemed to glow with warm promise. The lighthouse also charmed at Christmastime when the Coast Guard hung a giant evergreen wreath on it.

An old Nantucket legend said that when a visitor left the island on the ferry, she should toss two pennies overboard as the boat passed Brant Point Lighthouse. This would ensure the visitor would return one day. Beth Carmichael had been fanatical about the penny throwing. On the day that the Carmichaels departed each summer, Beth would herd all four kids to the top deck, where they would throw their pennies. Margot even remembered throwing pennies in rainstorms with punishing winds. When Margot, Kevin, and Nick were teenagers and refused to participate in the penny throwing, deeming it “lame,” Beth had taken Jenna up with her to throw the pennies. Jenna had believed in the penny throwing, just as she believed in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. It was Nick who said, “You know it’s a bunch of baloney, right? Throw the penny, don’t throw the penny, you can still come back to Nantucket. It’s a free country.”

But their mother would not back down from this particular superstition. She could risk certain things, but she could not risk a life without Nantucket.

Now a part of her was here forever. As Margot walked to the lighthouse, she spied bike tracks in the sand, ones that her Nancy Drew instincts told her belonged to Jenna’s Schwinn. But when Margot reached the small beach in front of the lighthouse, the exact place they’d all stood when they’d scattered Beth’s ashes, it was deserted. There was gravelly sand, pebbles, the overturned shell of a horseshoe crab, and one of the most arresting views on the island: the sweeping harbor, sailboats, the shore of the first point of Coatue visible a few hundred yards away across sparkling blue water.

Breathtaking.

But no Jenna.

Margot got back in the car. She checked Rhonda’s phone in case Jenna had called. Nothing. It was 10:18.

Madaket was the settlement on the west coast of the island, the somewhat poor relation to Siasconset in the east. Sconset was fashionable and popular; it was home to the Sconset Market and the Sconset Café, it had the Summer House and Sankaty Head Golf Club, it had rose-covered cottages that had once been owned by the silent film stars of the 1920s.

Madaket was low-key by Nantucket standards. There was one restaurant that had changed hands a few times-in Margot’s memory it had been called 27 Curves, and then the Westender, which had served a popular drink called the Madaket Mystery. Now it was a popular Tex-Mex place called Millie’s, named after an iconic but scary-looking woman who had worked for the Coast Guard named Madaket Millie.

Beth had loved Madaket; she found its simplicity pleasing. There was no flash, no cachet, very little to see except for the natural beauty of the sun setting each night and the quiet splendor of Madaket Harbor, which was small and picturesque and surrounded by eelgrass.

Margot traveled the road to Madaket slowly, searching the bike path for Jenna. There were, in fact, twenty-seven curves in the road that took one past the dump, then the trails of Ram’s Pasture, then the pond where Beth used to take Margot and her siblings turtling-four sturdy sticks, a ball of string, and a pound of raw chicken equaled an afternoon of hilarity. Both Kevin and Nick had always ended up in the pond with the turtles.

Margot didn’t see Jenna on the bike path. This was impossible, right? Margot tried to calculate time. If Jenna had left the house when Margot suspected she had, and if she’d stopped at Brant Point Lighthouse, then Margot would have seen Jenna on the bike path, either coming or going. There was only one way out and one way in. There were a few stands of trees and a couple of grassy knolls, but otherwise nowhere to hide.

Margot reached the parking lot of Madaket Beach. She climbed out of the car and wandered over to the wooden bridge that looked out on both Madaket Harbor and the ocean.

Madaket Mystery, Margot thought. Where is my sister?

It occurred to Margot then that maybe she was wrong. Maybe Jenna hadn’t gone on a quest for their mother. Maybe Jenna had ridden her bike to the airport and flown back to New York.

Margot pulled out Rhonda’s phone and dialed the number of the house. Five rings, six rings… there was no answering machine. The phone would just ring forever until someone picked it up. There were a dozen people in residence; someone had to be home. But answering the phone was one of the things the rest of the family left to Margot. How long would it take someone to realize she wasn’t there?

Finally the ringing stopped. There were some muffled sounds, then a froggy “Hello?”

Margot paused. It sounded like Jenna. Had Jenna made it back? Had she possibly never left? Had she found a quiet corner of the house to hide and fallen back to sleep?

Margot said, “Jenna?”

“Um,” the voice said. “No. This is Finn.”

“Oh,” Margot said. “This is Margot.”

“Uh-huh,” Finn said. “I know.”

Margot said, “Is Jenna there? Is she at the house?”

“No,” Finn said.

“Have you heard from her since I saw you last?” Margot asked.

“I’ve sent six texts and left her three voice mails,” Finn said. “And I’ve gotten nothing back. She hates me, I think, because…”

Margot understood why Jenna might hate Finn right now. “Stop. I can’t get in the middle of this,” Margot said. “I’m just trying to find Jenna.”

“Find Jenna?” Finn said. “What does that mean?”

Margot closed her eyes and inhaled through her nose. Madaket Harbor had its own smell, ripe and marshy. Margot could go back to the house and pick up Finn, and this would become the story of the sister and the shameless, irresponsible best friend hunting down the runaway bride.

That’s my decision, Jenna had said. And I’ve made it. I am not marrying Stuart tomorrow.

“I have to go,” Margot said, and she hung up.

She had a hard time finding a parking spot near the church. It was July; the streets were lined with Hummers and Jeeps and Land Rovers like Margot’s. Margot felt a sense of indignation at all the summer visitors, even though she was one herself. She drove around and around-Centre Street, Gay Street, Quince Street, Hussey Street. She needed a spot. It was five minutes to eleven, which was the time they were due at the salon. Margot couldn’t bear to think about Roger. Would he be attending to the 168 details of this wedding that needed his attention, or was he throwing darts in his garage, or was he out surfcasting?

Surfcasting, Griff, the kissing. Margot needed a parking space. She had waved back at Griff, but lamely. What would he make of that? What would he be thinking? The one thing I miss about being married is having someone to talk to late at night, someone to tell the stupid stuff. Did Roger have a picture of Jenna’s face plastered to his dartboard? Was he trying to stick her between the eyes? He would get paid regardless; their father would lose a lot of money if Jenna canceled, but of course that was no reason to go through with the wedding. Edge was coming today, or so Doug had said, but Margot was trying not to care. Of course she did care, but that caring was buried under her concern for Jenna and her urgent desire to salvage the wedding, and her pressing need for a parking space.

In front of her, someone pulled out.

Hallelujah, praise the Lord, Margot thought. She was, after all, going to church.

The Congregational Church, otherwise known as the north church or the white spire church (as opposed to the south church, or the clock tower church, which was Unitarian) was the final place that Beth’s ashes had been scattered. Beth wasn’t a member of this church; she was Episcopalian and had attended St. Paul’s with the rest of the family. Beth had asked for her ashes to be scattered from the Congregational Church tower because it looked out over the whole island. Doug, fearing that tossing his wife’s remains from the tower window might be frowned upon by the church staff, or possibly even deemed illegal, had suggested they smuggle Beth’s ashes up the stairs. They had gone at the very end of the day, after all the other tourists had vacated, and the surreptitious nature of their mission had made it feel mischievous, even fun-and the somberness of the occasion had been alleviated a bit. Margot had stuffed the box of ashes in her Fendi hobo bag, and Kevin had pried open a window at the top. Beth’s remains had fallen softly, like snowflakes. Most of her ashes had landed on the church’s green lawn, but Margot imagined that bits had been carried farther afield by the breeze. She lay in the treetops, on the gambrel roofs; she dusted the streets and fertilized the pocket gardens.

Margot entered the church and checked the sanctuary for Jenna. It was deserted.

The Congregationalists normally asked a volunteer to man the station by the stairway that led to the tower. But today the station was unoccupied. There was a table with a small basket and a card asking for donations of any amount. Margot had no money on her. She silently apologized as she headed up the stairs.

Up, up, up. The stairway was unventilated, and Margot grew dizzy. Those martinis, all that wine, four bites of lobster, Elvis Costello, Warren Zevon, Griff’s brother killed in a highway accident. Chance’s mother at the groomsmen’s house at the same time as Ann Graham. Was that awkward? What was it like for Ann to see the woman whom her husband had had an affair with so many years ago? Margot would someday meet Lily the Pilates instructor; Margot would probably be invited to the wedding, since she and Drum Sr. were still friends. Margot used to love to watch Drum surf; she had been unable to resist him. All her children had his magic, if that was what it was, despite Carson’s near flunking and Ellie’s hoarding; they were all illuminated from within, which was a characteristic inherited from Drum, not from her. Kevin was an ass, Margot didn’t know how Beanie could stand him, and yet she’d been standing him just fine since she was fourteen years old. So there, Margot thought. Love did last. She wondered if her father had read the last page of the Notebook. She must remind him.

Margot was huffing by the time she reached the final flight of stairs. She couldn’t think about anything but the pain in her lungs. And water-she was dying of thirst.

At the top of the tower was the room with the windows. Standing at the window facing east-toward their house on Orange Street-was Jenna.

Margot gasped. She realized she hadn’t actually expected to find anyone up here, perhaps least of all the person she was looking for.

“Hey,” Jenna said. She sounded unsurprised and unimpressed. She was wearing the backless peach dress, which was now so bedraggled that she resembled a character from one of the stories they’d read as children-a street urchin from Dickens, Sara Crewe from A Little Princess, the Little Match Girl. She wore no shoes. If anyone but Margot had discovered Jenna up here, they would have called the police.

“Hey,” Margot said. She tried to keep her voice tender. She wasn’t positive that Jenna hadn’t completely lost her mind.

“I saw you walking up the street,” Jenna said. “I knew you were coming.”

“I had a hard time finding a parking spot,” Margot said. “Have you been here long?”

Jenna shrugged. “A little while.”

Margot moved closer to Jenna. Her eyes were puffy, and her face was streaked with tears, although she wasn’t crying now. She was just staring out the window, over the streets of town and the blue scoop of harbor. Margot followed her gaze. Something about this vantage point transported Margot back 150 years, to the days of Alfred Coates Hamilton and the whaling industry, when Nantucket had been responsible for most of the country’s oil production. Women had stood on rooftops, scanning the horizon for the ships that their husbands or fathers or brothers were sailing on.

“I have a question,” Margot said.

“What’s that?” Jenna asked.

“Did you go to Brant Point?”

“Yes,” Jenna said.

“And did you go to Madaket?”

“Of course,” Jenna said.

“I didn’t see you,” Margot said. “If you had biked to Madaket, I would have seen you.”

“I didn’t bike,” Jenna said. “I hitched a ride.”

“You hitched?” Margot said. “I’m surprised anyone stopped to pick you up. You look like an Alphabet City junkie.”

“Four Bulgarian guys in a red pickup,” Jenna said. “It was pretty funny. They’re baggers at the Stop & Shop.”

“That’s not funny,” Margot said. “They could have taken advantage of you. Who brought you back to town?”

“The guy driving the Santos Rubbish truck.”

“Really?” Margot said.

“Really,” Jenna said.

“But you knew I would come looking for you, right?” Margot said. “You knew I would find you.”

“I figured probably,” Jenna said.

Margot gulped fresh air from the one partially open window. She was sweating, she was very, very thirsty, and Roger-who represented 150 people and over a hundred thousand dollars-was waiting for an answer one way or the other.

“Listen…” Margot said.

“No,” Jenna said. “You listen.”

Margot clamped her mouth shut and nodded once sharply. She hadn’t known what to say next anyway.

“I thought Stuart was different,” Jenna said. “I thought he was a good egg.”

“Jenna,” Margot said. “He is a good egg.”

“He’s just like everyone else,” Jenna said. She cleared her throat, then said, “Finn slept with Nick! She told me she thinks she’s fallen in love with him! After one afternoon on a paddleboard, she thought nothing of letting him join her in the outdoor shower, the second you walked out the door!”

Margot put up a traffic cop hand. “Please,” she said. “Please don’t tell me any details.”

“And do you know what Finn’s excuse is? Scott was unfaithful first! Scott hooked up with some waitress from Hooters on a golf trip to Tampa in April. He and Finn had only been married six months, she was thinking about trying to get pregnant, then he goes away on this golf trip with the guys, no big deal, because Scott is always going on golf trips with the guys, only this time he comes home and gives Finn the clap-and then he has to confess about the skanky waitress. Now he’s in Vegas, and instead of being on his best behavior, he told Finn that all the guys were getting lap dances, and going to a private party with performing lesbians.”

Margot sighed. “She was obviously bent out of shape about that on Thursday night.”

“So then Nick shows up and starts paying all kinds of sweet attention to her.” Jenna sniffled and wiped her nose on the neckline of her dress. Margot winced. “And Finn starts imagining they have all this history, she’s been in love with him since she was thirteen years old and he came home from Penn State, then yesterday they had this magical day at Fat Ladies Beach, and…”

“And I left for the yacht club,” Margot said. Because she was so anxious to see Edge. She should have waited for Nick and Finn. She should have stayed home and chaperoned.

“And it’s Nick,” Jenna said. “And apparently he just can’t help himself. Doesn’t matter that Finn is married, doesn’t matter that I was her maid of honor, or that she’s my bridesmaid and best friend.”

“You can’t let Nick’s behavior or Finn’s poor judgment influence you,” Margot said.

“Then we have Dad and Pauline. He’s sixty-four, and she’s… what? Sixty-one? This was supposed to be their great second chance at love; they were supposed to grow old together. But no. Love has died there as well, and now Dad will start dating younger and younger women-your age first, then my age, then Emma Wilton’s age…”

“Jenna…”

“And then we have Stuart’s parents. I used to think their story was so lovely-at least the part where they got married for a second time. But last night, when I met Helen, I felt sick, and that was even before she opened her mouth about Stuart and Crissy Pine. She’s this freaking Swedish supermodel-type woman, and she wore that look-at-me, center-of-attention dress when she was lucky to be invited to the wedding at all. Ann only included her because Ann is a saint.”

“Okay,” Margot said, thinking, Stupid Ann.

“And when Chance got sick and Jim and Helen left for the hospital, it became, duh, obvious to me that Jim had cheated on Ann, cheated badly. He had a child with another woman!”

Margot wanted to say, Oh, come on, that just occurred to you tonight? What kind of Pollyanna world had Jenna been living in? But instead Margot said, “You can’t let other people’s failings-”

“But worst of all,” Jenna said, “worst of all is you.”

“Me?” Margot said. Her thoughts twirled and tumbled. How could she be the worst of all? Worse than Nick? Worse than Helen in the yellow dress? What did Jenna know about her personal life, anyway? Had Autumn told her about Edge? Had she seen Margot kissing Griff? And why would either of those things matter to Jenna?

“Of all the marriages I’ve ever seen, yours was my absolute favorite,” Jenna said. “And you just walked away from it.”

“My marriage?” Margot said. “You mean to Drum?”

“Maybe it was because of our age difference,” Jenna said. “I was still in high school when you got married, and as we know, I’m a hopeless romantic.”

“There was nothing romantic about when I got married,” Margot said. “Hello? It was a shotgun wedding.”

“You two were the coolest people I knew,” Jenna said. “When you two surfed together, you were so… beautiful. Then you got pregnant and Drum took you to dinner at the Blue Bistro and he gave you the oyster that had the diamond ring in it.”

“And I puked,” Margot said. “I saw the ring embedded in oyster mucous and I ran to the ladies’ room and threw up.”

“You got that amazing apartment in the city,” Jenna said.

“Drum’s parents bought us the apartment,” Margot said. “They picked it out, they paid for it. That’s not romantic or cool, Jenna. That’s mollycoddling.”

“You had your job,” Jenna said. “Drum watched the baby, he cooked those gourmet dinners and always had a glass of wine waiting for you when you got home. You took those great vacations to Costa Rica and Hawaii and Telluride.”

“Because Drum wanted to surf,” Margot said. “And he wanted to ski. I always got stuck at the hotel watching the kids.”

“I wanted your life,” Jenna said. She sniffled a little more. “I wanted the beautiful babies and the doorman building and the trips to exotic places. I wanted someone to love me as much as Drum loved you. He worshipped you, Margot. You were a goddess to him.”

Margot snorted. It was astonishing how warped Jenna’s view of her marriage was. “Please.”

“I got a text from Drum yesterday, you know,” Jenna said. “He said he’s getting married in the fall.”

Margot felt a pang of guilt. “I meant to tell you.”

Jenna brushed off her dress, an exercise in futility. The dress would end up in the trash, along with Margot’s stained white dress from Thursday night.

Margot thought, We are a couple of girls without a mother.

“So, anyway, my dream of you and Drum getting back together is over.”

“Excuse me,” Margot said. She decided to pull out some Taylor Swift lyrics, maybe make Jenna smile. “We were never, ever getting back together. Like ever.”

The joke was lost on her. She made a face. “But you two were perfect together!”

“Honestly,” Margot said. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. And that’s the thing about marriage. It can look perfect to people from the outside but be utterly imperfect on the inside. The reverse is true as well. No one knows what goes on in a marriage except for the two people living in it.”

“I lied when I said you were the worst,” Jenna said. “You weren’t the worst.”

Margot felt stupidly relieved. She pursed her lips; they were so dry, she feared they were going to crack.

“The worst of all…” Jenna trailed off and stared out the window. Her eyes filled. “The worst of all was Mom and Dad. At the end. I was there, watching them.”

“I know,” Margot said.

“You don’t know!” Jenna said. “You don’t know because you weren’t around. You were living in the city with Drum and the boys. You were working. Kevin was in San Francisco that spring, and Nick was in D.C. I was at home with them by myself.”

Yes, Margot remembered. Seven years ago, Drum Jr. had been five, and Carson only three. Margot had been desperately trying to make partner at Miller-Sawtooth, which meant not only acting like a person without two small children at home but also acting like a person whose mother was not dying an hour north in Connecticut. Margot would use the fifteen minutes she took for lunch in those days to call Beth. They talked about normal things-Drum Jr.’s kindergarten teacher, Carson’s biting problem, the placements Margot was working on. Only at the end of the conversation would they address the elephant in the room. Margot would ask Beth how she was feeling; Beth would lie and say she was feeling okay, the pain was manageable, she was glad, anyway, to be finished with chemo. Anything was better than chemo. Margot would promise to come to Connecticut over the weekend and bring the kids, but more than once she had failed to do so. Drum Jr. had kinder-soccer, or Carson took a longer nap than Margot expected, or Margot sneaked back into the office for a few hours-and plans for the trip to Connecticut were dashed.

Margot knew her brothers had been busy, too. Kevin had been trying to save the Coit Tower, and Nick had just taken the job with the Nationals. They were, all three of them, inconsolable about the idea of losing Beth, but they hadn’t been right there the way that Jenna had been. Jenna had taken a semester off from William and Mary to go home and be with Beth. She moved back in at the same time that Beth went into hospice.

“You know what?” Jenna said. She was gearing up now, her voice taking on a scary intensity that Margot almost never saw. “For most of my life, I felt like I wasn’t even part of the family. It was always the three of you and Mom and Dad. When we used to sit at the dinner table, you all would be talking and arguing and I couldn’t understand or keep up. The three of you would have parties or go on dates, and you would break curfew and come home with beer on your breath. One of you ended up lost after a concert at Madison Square Garden, and Mom was on the phone with the police all night.”

Me, Margot thought. The Rolling Stones, the summer between junior and senior year.

“Nick crashed the car and then he got caught growing those pot plants in the attic, and Mom was certain Kevin was going to get Beanie pregnant. Mom and Dad were so consumed with keeping track of the three of you that they forgot about me.”

“That’s not true…”

“It is true. Kevin broke his leg playing lacrosse, remember, and they left me at Finn’s house for three whole days.”

“Well,” Margot said. “We were older.”

“And when you all moved out and moved on, we were like a family again. But a different family. A family with me and Mom and Dad. We would sit down to dinner and we might talk about you, but it was like talking about relatives in Africa or China, you were so far away. Which was fine by me.”

Margot made a face. What was this? Decades-old resentment about birth order?

“At the end of Mom’s life, it was just the three of us again. I had a front-row seat for her death and what it did to Dad.” Now her tears were flowing freely. “It was horrible, Margot. He loved her so much, he wanted to go with her. Hell, I wanted to go with her.” Jenna yanked at her blond hair, which was still in some semblance of a bun. “Love dies. I watched love die with my own eyes. She left, we all stayed. And that, that, Margot, was the worst of all.”

“You’re right,” Margot said. “Of course, you’re right.”

“And so now we have Finn and Nick, and Daddy and Pauline, and Jim and Ann Graham and horrible Helen, and you and Drum Sr. And as if all of that didn’t make me skeptical enough, Stuart lies to me about an enormous event in his life. Enormous!”

“But it’s not a deal breaker, Jenna,” Margot said. “When you said that he revealed himself to be just like everyone else, you were right. He’s a human being. He was scared to tell you about Crissy Pine. He wanted to pretend like it never happened. I’m not saying he wasn’t in the wrong. He was. You deserved to know. But do not cancel the wedding over this. It isn’t worth it.”

“He gave her his great-grandmother’s ring!” Jenna said.

“Since when do you care about things like rings?” Margot asked. “I promise you there are hundreds of thousands of diamond rings in this world that have been kept or stolen or thrown out of car windows in anger.”

“I care because he gave it to her-something precious, a family heirloom. He loved her enough to give her that ring.” Jenna sniffled. “I want him to love me that much.”

“He does love you that much!” Margot said. “He loves you more than that! He loves you enough to have gone out and found a ring with ethically mined diamonds! He didn’t recycle some fusty ring that belonged to his dead ancestor. He found a ring for you, one that you could love and be proud of.”

Margot thought this was a point well made, and she let her words hang in the air for a moment. Then she said, “I saw him this morning. He’s a mess.”

“I hope he is,” Jenna said.

“He is,” Margot said. “He looks god-awful. He said if you leave him, he will die-and I don’t think that was hyperbole.”

Jenna started to cry again. “I love him so much! I’ve just spent the past twelve hours trying to make myself stop loving him. And I can’t stop, I’ll never be able to stop, I’m going to love him for the rest of my life! But he lied to me! It’s like he’s suddenly become a completely different person-a person who was engaged and chose to hide it from me.”

Margot knew enough not to speak. They both stood at the window, the same one Kevin had pried open so that they could all toss handfuls of their mother’s ashes out over the island she adored. The breeze coming in the window was the only thing that was keeping Margot from fainting.

She pulled Rhonda’s cell phone out of her pocket and handed it to Jenna. “Call Roger,” she said. “Call Roger and tell him it’s definitely off.”

“Okay,” Jenna said. She accepted the phone and stared at the face of it for a second, and Margot thought, She won’t be able to do it. She loves Stuart, and they will end up having a marriage like Beth and Doug’s-a marriage that will be a fortress for all of them. Margot’s perfect instincts told her so.

But this time, it seemed, Margot’s instincts were wrong. Jenna dialed the number and held the phone to her ear. Margot had the urge to grab the phone from her sister’s hand and talk to Roger herself. The wedding is on, Margot would say. Jenna is just scared. She’s just scared is all.

Anyone who had listened to that laundry list of marital disasters would have been scared.

“Hello?” Jenna said.

Margot thought, Oh, honey, please don’t. It’s not a deal breaker. Stuart is just like everyone else, but you and Stuart, as a couple, are different. You two are going to make it.

She thought, Mom? Help me?

“Stuart?” Jenna said. “I love you, Stuart. You jerk, I love you!”