Elin Hilderbrand: The Beach Club

At the end of Miacomet Pond, where she could see the ocean peeking over the dunes, Maribel stopped running. She sat down on the marshy bank of the pond and she cried. In the weeks since the hurricane, Maribel told herself that the turn of events was inevitable. Breaking up with Mack, getting together with Jem, leaving the island-all part of some larger plan for her life. But it wasn’t easy. She remembered the rides she’d taken with Mack in the Jeep with the top down, all the walks through town in the winter, holding hands. Mack and Nantucket were interchangeable, one and the same, and that was why she had to leave.

She didn’t want to chase love anymore, she didn’t want to pursue a futile dream. She couldn’t make Mack love her any more than she could make her father, whoever he was, wherever he was, love her. She wondered why God had created this kind of exquisite pain, a pain so awful and so complicated, it had its own word-unrequited. She was trading in unrequited for requited, for the opportunity to be loved, to be held and cherished the way she deserved. With Jem, she told herself, she would be loved more, she would hurt less.

And, too, Maribel felt the only way she might ever get Mack was to leave him. She didn’t think he’d change his mind immediately-but maybe someday. Maybe someday when she was a school librarian in some Los Angeles suburb, a huge bouquet of yellow zinnias would arrive with a card from Mack. Or maybe she’d have to wait until she was as old as Lacey Gardner. She imagined sitting on a porch in rocking chairs and talking with Mack in fifty years-not about what went wrong with their relationship, because by then they would have forgotten what went wrong. No, they would remember happiness. Living in the Palace, seeing the seals at Cisco Beach, listening to Christmas carols from outside the Unitarian church. They would remember all the things that were good about being young and healthy and together on Nantucket. If Mack asked her to marry him when they were in their eighties, she would say yes. And the wait would be worth it.

The day before she and Jem were scheduled to leave, Maribel found herself running down the familiar road to the hotel. She told herself she was headed down there to see Jem-he had to work right up until the very end, carrying bags for the last guest, stripping the last room. But she knew she was really running toward the Beach Club to see Mack. Six years earlier, this was how they met. He waited for her every morning in the parking lot, pretending to sweep, and then one day he gathered the courage to offer her some water. She couldn’t help but wonder, What if I hadn’t accepted it? What if I’d changed my course and never met Mack at all? Her life would be a different shape, different colors. Many hours could be wasted this way: pondering the way things might have been.

Mack must have sensed her because he was out front by himself, taking down the Nantucket Beach Club and Hotel sign. He turned as soon as he heard footsteps, and when he saw her his face brightened, but only momentarily.

Maribel was terrified, her heart kept on its eight-minute-mile pace even after she stopped to talk to him. She was having difficulty catching her breath. This was ridiculous! she wanted to shout. How could they say good-bye?

Mack spoke first. “What boat are you on tomorrow?” he asked.

She swallowed. “Noon.”

He held the unwieldy wooden sign out in front of him. “Another season almost over,” he said. “Only Cal West is left.”

“You’re staying the winter?” she asked. “And next year?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I called How-Baby and turned down the job. I think you were right about me. I think I’m stuck here.”

She looked out across the beach at the water, at the ferry headed for Hyannis. Tomorrow, it would be her ferry. “You could be stuck worse places,” she said.

“Do you want me to see you off tomorrow?” he asked.

“Would you?” she said.

He kicked a hermit crab shell across the road. “I’ll be there.”

Maribel bit her lip; she was going to cry, but he didn’t have to know about it. She waved, turned toward home, and ran like hell.

Bill had survived another season. Barely. And not without profound loss. His daughter was gone, and the hotel needed colossal amounts of work-the floors and carpets on the Gold Coast had to be relaid, sections of the roof had to be repaired, and Clarissa Ford’s room-Lucky number 7-had to be totally renovated. Bill was leaving those projects until the spring, when he hoped he would feel more enthusiastic than he did now.

Bill couldn’t run the hotel without Mack’s help, that was for sure. Bill watched from his bay window as Mack walked into Lacey Gardner’s. Mack would stay there over the winter-he’d already agreed to pay Bill for the cost of heating.

Bill went over to Lacey’s. The cottage had a spare look to it inside, although the sign for Lacey’s hat shop still hung, and her Radcliffe diploma. But the Spode was down and the flowery Nantucket prints. It looked less like an old lady’s house and more like a monastery.

Mack came down the hallway carrying two empty boxes.

“You need some stuff for the walls,” Bill said. “I’m sure Therese can spare a few things from the hotel.”

“All the prints in our apartment were Maribel’s,” Mack said. “She’s taking them. But that’s okay. I’m going to bring some things from home.”

“From home?” Bill said.

“I’m going back to Iowa at the end of the month,” Mack said. “For Harvest.”

“You’re going to Iowa?”

“I’m selling the farm,” Mack said. “I need to meet with my lawyer. I need to clean out my parents’ house. So I figure I’ll put a trailer on the back of the Jeep and haul it all back here.”

“That’s a big step,” Bill said. “Selling your farm.” Bill felt ashamed. With all the other excitement, he’d forgotten Mack had to make this decision about his farm. If he’d paid attention, there might have been a way he could have helped. But maybe not.

Mack threw the empty boxes down. “I haven’t managed to make it back to Iowa in the last twelve years, I don’t see myself moving back there in the next twelve. This is my home.”

“Well, I’ve been rethinking your proposition about the profit sharing,” Bill said.

“Forget about it,” Mack said. “That was Maribel’s idea, not mine.”

“I want to give you something,” Bill said. “I want to thank you for staying.” An idea came to Bill then-an idea so crazy, so luminous that Bill flushed, his heart moved in his chest as though it were trying to escape. Where did the idea come from? From losing W.T., then Cecily, from Mack cleaning out his parent’s house, from standing here in Lacey’s cottage. It came from all of those places, and from the desert place inside of him. He should talk to Therese first, of course, they should think long and hard about this idea, they should have time to embrace it, shun it, and embrace it again. But Bill couldn’t wait. Mack stood in front of him, sandy haired, ruddy faced, handsome, saying he would stay. The son Bill had always wanted.

Mack shoved his hands in his jeans pockets. “You don’t have to give me anything,” he said. “You’ve given me plenty already.”

“I’d like to adopt you,” Bill said.

“Adopt me?” Mack’s brow folded and Bill felt like a fool. Just because he yearned for a son didn’t mean Mack wanted parents. He’d had two perfectly good parents-that was obvious from who the boy grew up to be. “You want to adopt me?” Mack asked.

Bill nodded, and then he was overcome with the fear that Mack would say yes.

Mack smiled. “I’m flattered, Bill. I’m… I’m touched. But I don’t know about that.”