Elin Hilderbrand: Beautiful Day

“I miss her,” Jenna said.

Margot’s eyes stung. The longest, most excruciating weekend of her life had officially begun.

“I know, honey,” she said, hugging her sister close. “I miss her, too.”

The Reception

The reception can be held under a tent in the backyard. Call Sperry Tents and ask for Ande. I worked with him on the benefit for the Nantucket Preservation Trust and he was a dream. I do here want to insert a warning and I hope you won’t find it trivial: I would be heartbroken if anything happened to my perennial bed. By “perennial bed,” I mean the narrow garden that runs along the eastern edge of the property from the white gate all the way to Alfie’s trunk. The blue hardy geraniums, the moonbeam coreopsis, the black-eyed Susans, the plum pudding Heuchera, the coneflowers-all of these I planted in 1972, when I was pregnant with Margot. That bed has bloomed reliably for decades because I have taken good care of it. None of you children seem to have inherited my love of gardening (unless you count Nick, and the pot plants in the attic), but trust me, you will notice if one summer those flowers don’t bloom. Please, Jenna, make sure the perennial bed remains unmolested. Do not let the tent guys, or anyone else, trample my blue hardy geraniums.

Somehow, he had ended up with the Notebook.

It was Thursday afternoon. Doug had left the office early and had taken the 3:52 to Norwalk, Connecticut, where he lived with Pauline, in a house across the street from the Silvermine Tavern. But when the conductor announced the stop for Darien, Doug grabbed his briefcase and stood halfway up before remembering.

Remembering that the life he had lived for thirty-five years-married to Beth, father of four, in a center-entrance colonial on the Post Road-was over. Beth was dead, she’d been dead seven years, the kids had all moved out, they had lives of their own, some of which they’d already managed to screw up, and Doug was now married to Pauline Tonelli, who had, once upon a time, been his client.

This wasn’t the first time he’d nearly stood up at the Darien stop. But it seemed more meaningful today because today wasn’t just any Thursday. Today was the Thursday before his youngest child got married.

The girls, as far as Doug knew, were already on Nantucket. They had a reservation for Margot’s car on the afternoon ferry, which meant they would be arriving right about now, driving up Main Street to their home on Orange Street. They would pull the key from under the stone turtle in the garden, where the key had always been kept, despite the caretaker. They would walk into the house, they would throw open the windows and unstick the back screen door, they would turn on the water heater, they would make a shopping list. They would hasten to get all the suitcases inside, but they would be arrested by the view of the sparkling harbor below. Margot’s kids would head out to the backyard to see Alfie, the two-hundred-year-old oak tree, and sit in the swing. Or at least Ellie would; the boys might be beyond that now.

Of course, Doug remembered when it was Jenna in that swing.

Pauline’s car wasn’t in the driveway, which came as a relief. For the past twelve months, maybe longer, Doug had found he was happier without Pauline around. This was a bad sign. For his entire professional life, Doug had sat on one side of his partners desk and listened while the person on the other side shared the details of his or her disintegrating marriage. Doug had heard it all-He cheated with Her best friend, She cheated with the tennis pro, there was wife swapping, He hit the kids, She had Munchausen’s, She had a drinking problem, He gambled away the kids’ college funds, He was addicted to pornographic websites, She abused prescription drugs, He lost his job and sat around the house all day in his bathrobe, She weighed three times what She had when He married Her, He was an asshole, She was a bitch, He wasn’t giving Her one red cent, She was going to take Him for all He was worth. For thirty-five years, Doug had nodded along, pretending to be feeling his clients’ angst, but really, he had no idea. He was happily married; he flat-out adored his wife. Even after twenty-five years of marriage, he had sat on this very train and looked forward to the moment he would walk into the house and see Beth.

It was only in the past year that Doug had finally understood what his clients were feeling. He didn’t recognize himself in the dramatic scenes-there was no abuse in his marriage to Pauline, no derelict behavior, no destructive habits, no special needs children, no financial woes, no infidelity-rather, Doug identified with his quieter, sadder clients. The marriage no longer provided any joy. They got on each other’s nerves, there was a constant buzz of low-level bickering, they were happier and more comfortable when they were apart from each other.

Yes, that was him. That was him exactly.

Pauline was out somewhere, she had probably told him where, but he had forgotten; it went in one ear and out the other, just as she always said. He didn’t care where she was, as long as she wasn’t home. Lately, Doug had even had fantasies of Pauline driving on Route 7 while talking on the phone to her daughter, Rhonda, and having a fatal accident. He couldn’t believe it. He had heard similar sentiments come out of his clients’ mouths- I wish he/she would just die! -but he never believed himself capable of such a thought. And yet it did now occasionally cross his mind. He nearly always amended this fantasy. Pauline didn’t have to die to set him free. She might, one day, wake up and decide that she wanted to go back to her ex-husband, Arthur Tonelli. She might climb into the car, get Rhonda immediately on the phone, as was her annoying habit, and announce to Rhonda that she was driving to the Waldorf Astoria to see if Arthur would take her back.

Doug shed his suit coat and his briefcase and loosened his tie. He’d skipped lunch so he could get out of the office early. Edge was going to court first thing in the morning to deal with the shitshow Cranbrook case (Mr. Cranbrook, investment banker, leveraged to the hilt because he was keeping a woman on the side in an apartment on East Sixtieth Street and had bought her a Porsche Carrera, all with his secret credit card, the fate of three children under seven, one of them with extreme special needs, hanging in the balance)-and thus Edge wouldn’t get to Nantucket until six o’clock tomorrow evening at the very earliest. He would miss the first round of golf, and Doug felt guilty about that. The Cranbrook case was Doug’s case, and it was a hot, steaming mess. Edge was helping Doug out by taking over tomorrow. Doug obviously couldn’t do it himself and risk missing his daughter’s wedding.

He was starving and went into the kitchen for something, anything, to eat. Pauline, like a housewife from the Depression era, liked to leave the fridge and cupboards all but bare before they went away. In the crisper, Doug found one apple and a few stalks of celery. He bit into the apple and dragged the celery lavishly through a jar of peanut butter that he pulled out of the pantry.

Then he saw it on the kitchen counter, next to the prep sink where Pauline was defrosting a couple of sad-looking lamb chops that were probably going to be their dinner.

The Notebook.

His mouth was sticky with peanut butter, but he let a garbled cry escape: Oh, shit!

The Notebook.

That was it, right? The spiral-bound notebook with the kelly green cover and the word in black Sharpie written in Beth’s handwriting: WEDDING. The notebook itself had probably cost $1.69 at Staples, but it was no less precious than the Magna Carta. That notebook contained all of Beth’s hopes, wishes, and suggestions for Jenna’s wedding. She had written it in the eight months between the time she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and the time she died. She had written it not to interfere or be prescriptive but because more than anything she wanted Jenna to feel like she had a mother during that time when she most needed a mother.