Mack
Contrite: full of guilt or regret; remorseful
Mack abandoned her bike in the garden of the Sail Loft and ran through to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
She flung herself down on the bed and sobbed.
She was crying so hard she didn’t hear the door open, but she did feel the bed dip as her grandmother sat down next to her.
“Go away,” Mack hiccupped. “I want to be on my own.”
“Is that really what you want? Personally I hate being on my own when I’m upset. Every time I discovered another of your grandfather’s affairs I used to lock myself away, when what I needed to do was have a good vent with someone who loved me.”
“No one loves me.” Mack choked into her pillow. “I don’t matter to anyone. I want Ed. I wish Ed hadn’t died.”
“Oh, honey—”
Mack felt her grandmother’s hand on her head. Part of her wanted to push her away, but another part wanted to fling herself into her arms and be held.
“I wish we’d never come here. I want my old life back.”
“Change is always hard, especially when it wasn’t your choice. Do you want to tell me what happened?”
Mack discovered she did, and in halting, choppy bursts she told her grandmother about going to visit Scott after school and what she’d seen.
She’d expected to see her shock reflected in her grandmother’s face, but Nancy didn’t react the way she’d expected.
“You saw them kissing.”
“It was more than a kiss. It was like one of those movie kisses where the people look desperate. Kiss or die, that kind of thing.” She brushed the tears away from her eyes and stiffened defensively. “You look pleased. How can you be pleased?” Her voice rose. “No one understands. I hate everyone. I hate my mom, I hate Scott and most of all I hate my stupid life.”
Instead of reacting to this dramatic announcement, Nancy patted the bed next to her.
“Sit up. It’s time you and I had a talk.”
“We’re talking.”
“No. You’re sobbing into a pillow and giving me teenage drama, but I have no idea how to deal with teenage drama because I skipped that part of parenting, so I’m going to have to treat you as an adult. You did say you wanted to be treated like a grown-up, didn’t you?”
Had she really said that?
Right now she wished she were back in kindergarten waiting for her mother to pick her up.
Mack hauled herself upright. Adult. Right. She wasn’t feeling it, but she could probably fake it. “What do you want to talk about?”
She noticed that her grandmother was wearing another of her brightly colored scarves. This one was a swirl of turquoise and green. Mack wasn’t used to seeing her so glamorous. Everything and everyone was changing round her.
“Why don’t we start with your telling me why it upset you seeing your mom and Scott together.”
Wasn’t it obvious? “Dad just died! I mean Ed. Ed died. Mom was supposed to love him and now she’s kissing some guy—”
“She was kissing Scott.”
“Sure, Scott, but—”
“Scott who is, in fact, your father. A man she also loved very much.”
“You can’t love two people! That isn’t how it works.”
“Welcome to adulthood.” Nancy’s voice was loaded with sympathy. “It’s messy, complicated, the pieces don’t fit and the picture rarely looks the way you want it to. It’s called real life.”
“Real life sucks.” Oh yeah, very adult, Mack.
“Quite often it does. And other times it’s wonderful. Light and dark, like one of my paintings. Don’t you like Scott?”
Mack sniffed. “Of course. He’s cool. And he’s a great listener, but that doesn’t mean I want him and Mom to—you know...” She couldn’t bring herself to say it. She couldn’t work out what it would mean for her. In that car neither of them had been thinking of her, that was for sure. “I’d like life to stay the same for five minutes. Is that so hard to understand?”
“No. I understand how you feel, but have you thought about how your mother might feel?”
“About what?”
“Life. Your mother has gone through hell and back the last few months. The man she spent more than sixteen years with and loved very much—” Nancy raised her hand as Mack opened her mouth “—yes, loved very much, died. That’s tragic and difficult, and the whole thing was made even more difficult because of the mess he left. Your mother had no cushion to protect her from that blow. She’s been weathering the anxiety of that alone, along with managing your grief and her own. She’s been worried about how she’ll support the two of you, how she’s going to give you a good life, how she’s going to fix things so that I don’t have to sell The Captain’s House. She’s been focused on her own survival and on being a mother, a daughter and a sister. It’s about time she thought about being a woman.”
“I get that, but it’s like she’s forgotten Ed.” Fear made Mack defensive. She hadn’t forgotten him. She thought about him all the time. She carried his photo with her, although that wasn’t something she’d told anyone. What would happen if her mom loved another man? Where would she fit in that? She couldn’t see, and that scared her. “It’s like he never existed.”
“She hasn’t forgotten him. She’s trying to find a way of living without him. Ed’s gone.” Nancy said it gently. “And no matter how much we want things to be different, he isn’t coming back. Once a person is gone, they’re gone. You can wait six weeks, six months or six years but that isn’t going to change a thing. Your mom can waste years of her life locked in a cycle of grief, looking backward as I did, or she can pick up those memories and carry them forward into a new life. I’m hoping that’s what she’ll do, and the sooner the better as far as I’m concerned. She’s my child. No one wants their child to be unhappy. It’s the reason she puts you first in everything. One day, when you have a child of your own, you’ll understand that.”
“She didn’t seem to be thinking about me when I saw them together.” Mack knew she sounded petulant and selfish and felt a flush of embarrassment. “Sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. This adult thing isn’t as easy as it looks.”
Nancy smiled. “I suspect that for that short time she wasn’t thinking about you, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you very much. She’ll always be your mother. Nothing is going to change that fact.”
“I won’t stop talking about Ed. I’m not going to pretend he didn’t exist.”
“Of course you’re not. You can talk to me about Ed any time. All the time, if that’s what you’d like. And I’m sure you can do the same with your mom. She isn’t trying to forget him, Mack. She isn’t trying to push you out. She’s trying to find a way to move forward and that’s healthy. She deserves to be happy. You don’t want her to be sad, do you?”
“No.” Mack felt smaller than an ant. It wasn’t that she wanted her mom to be sad, of course it wasn’t. But nor did she want her life to be rocked by another major change. “I just—I felt as if I was losing my mom, too.”
“Oh, Mack.” Her grandmother wrapped her in a hug. “I don’t know how your mother feels about Scott, but I do know how she feels about you. She loves you, and nothing is going to change that. As for Scott, let’s assume for a moment that she loves him—maybe she never stopped loving him—that doesn’t take anything away from what she felt for Ed. There are different types of love, and not every marriage looks alike, but that doesn’t mean they’re not real.”
It felt confusing to her. Scary. “I’m not sure I can handle it.”
“You will. People are capable of so much more than they think they are. It’s possible to rekindle relationships you thought were lost, build a new life when the old one was dead, learn new habits, break old ones.” She eased away from Mack. “It’s possible to forgive a friend a grievous hurt.”
Mack felt another flicker of guilt that she’d been only thinking about herself. “What are you going to do about that?” She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “Are you going to kick Alice’s butt?”
Her grandmother stirred. “What do you think I should do?”
Mack was surprised. No one ever asked her advice. No one asked her opinion. She thought about it hard before she answered.
“I guess it depends. I mean, Alice was your best friend, which kind of makes the betrayal worse—”
“That’s it exactly.”
Mack felt her confidence grow. “—but also it sounds like Gramps was—” She pulled a face. “Actually do you mind if we don’t think about that part?”
“Not at all. I’d rather not think about it either, but you’re right—he was. He had a way of dazzling the people around him.”
“I know.” Mack tucked her legs up and leaned back against the pillows. “When he was in the room you kind of only noticed him.”
“Yes. Alice had lost her husband. It was tragic. She was alone and vulnerable. I suspect, for her, it wasn’t so much an affair, as a moment of madness. But there comes a point where you have to make a decision. You can carry anger and hurt round with you and keep stoking it and keeping it alive, or you can choose to let it go and build something new.”
“Is that what you did with Gramps? I mean, you cleaned him out of your life like dust bunnies.” She wondered if that was a tactless thing to say, but then she saw her grandmother smile.
“I did. And I said things I should have said years ago. Unfortunately he was too dead to hear them. But now that’s done.” She gave a burst of laughter and Mack looked at her anxiously.
“Are you okay, Grams?”
“Never better. Talking with you made me realize that I really have put it all behind me. Maybe it was all the clearing out. Maybe it was the yelling.”
“Maybe it was Ben.” Mack watched as her grandmother’s cheeks turned pink.
“Ben?”
“Come on, Grams. I know you’re really into him. And he’s into you.” She nudged her grandmother. “You should see your face. You’re blushing.”
Nancy put her hands on her burning cheeks. “It’s been years since I blushed.” She gave Mack a naughty look. “And years since I did other things.”
Mack felt a flash of panic.
Teasing was one thing, but this—“It’s okay,” she said. “I don’t need the details.”
“Good, because I have no intention of giving you details.” Her grandmother seemed almost playful and Mack decided it was definitely time to move the subject away from Ben.
“What are you going to do about Alice?”
“I’m going to talk to her. It’s time we were honest. Secrets are like walls. They stop you getting close. If our friendship is going to endure and be something worth having, we need to break down those walls.”
Mack pulled a face. “That’s going to be awkward.”
“Life is full of awkward, but this thing with Alice is like having a stone in my shoe. I can keep walking, but I know it’s there. We can’t move forward comfortably until it’s out in the open, so that’s what I’m going to do. I’m hoping we can start over. That’s all you can do, isn’t it? Give up or start over, and we Stewarts aren’t good at giving up.”
“That’s brave. And forgiving.” Mack felt something else was needed. Something grown-up and worthy of the conversation they’d been having. “I guess love is complicated.” She couldn’t even imagine it, but judging how so many adults made crazy decisions she had to believe it was true.
“It is complicated.”
Mack relaxed. It was good to know that in the world of adult conversations, she wasn’t a complete failure. “But it must be worth it, or people wouldn’t keep doing it, right?”
“I suppose so.”
Mack wondered if her grandmother was in love with Ben. “Do you think Mom is in love with Scott?”
“Why don’t you ask her?”
“Because that would be awkward, too. Also, I’ve probably already messed it up.” Now that the shock had faded, Mack wished she could turn the clock back and react differently. Why did her feelings always explode out of her? She wished there was a pause button she could press to give herself time to think before reacting. “Scott is probably relieved I’m not his responsibility. After the way I yelled at him he’s probably already planning his next sailing trip round the world to get away from me.”
Although he was her biological father, he wasn’t really tied to her in any way, was he?
He’d walked away once before. He could walk away again.
And after she’d been so rude, he probably would.
She thought about the sailing lessons and about Captain and the fun of helping out in the boatyard. She thought about how Scott had encouraged her to talk about Ed even though it must have been hard for him and how patient he’d been with her.
Her heart started to pound.
Tears stung her eyes. “She’s going to tell him they can’t be together because of me, isn’t she?”
“Is that what you’d want?”
“No! I don’t know. I don’t know what I want. It’s not like it’s my choice.” She didn’t want to forget Ed, but nor did she want Scott to sail out of her life.
“That’s where you’re wrong. You’ve made excellent choices since you’ve been here. You settled into a new school, and you’ve grabbed opportunities that came your way. You joined the Coding Club. Because of that you found yourself some friends, a new passion, maybe even a future career.”
She hadn’t thought of it like that.
“I guess some things have turned out okay.”
“How about I pour us both some lemonade?” Nancy reached out a hand and pulled Mack to her feet. “We can sit outside in the garden.”
Mack was sitting in the garden with delicious lemonade and one of Jenna’s cookies when her mother arrived home.
The guilt returned with a rush.
Her grandmother was right about one thing. Her mom was always there for her. No matter how much Mack yelled or stomped off or said mean things. Her mom was always in her corner.
Mack noticed she had her “London look” about her. She wore tailored pants, a silk shirt and a simple gold necklace Mack recognized as one Ed had given her at Christmas.
She remembered her grandmother’s words about how hard things had been for her mom since Ed died.
“Hi, Mom.” She saw anxiety in her mother’s eyes and felt guilty because she knew she was the one responsible.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
The endearment almost cracked her heart open. “Grams made homemade lemonade. Do you want some? There’s more in the fridge.” She was going to do better, she promised herself. She was going to stop thinking about herself all the time. She wanted to start by saying sorry, but she didn’t know where to begin. “I’ll fetch you some.”
“I’ll fetch it,” Nancy said, “but first tell me how your meeting with the bank went.” She stood up and gestured to her chair. “Sit down. You look exhausted.”
“The meeting with the bank didn’t go so well,” Lauren said and Mack noticed her mom’s mascara was smudged.
“They said no?”
“Oh, those stupid people.” Nancy sounded cross. “How long have the Stewarts lived on this island? I’ve a mind to call them up myself and give them my opinion.”
“Don’t. It isn’t necessary.”
Mack wondered how her mother could possibly think that. “Without the money, you can’t start the business. And that business is your dream.” Suddenly it mattered very much that her mom had a dream, too. “Maybe we could call Aunt Jenna. Four heads are good, right? We have to find another way.”
“There is another way. Scott wants to loan us the money.” The look she gave Mack was cautious, even a little nervous. “It’s his way of stepping up and helping.”
Nancy nodded approvingly. “I hope you said yes.”
Lauren didn’t answer right away. “Do you mind if I talk to Mack for a minute?”
Mack’s heart sank. Her mom was going to lose it with her, and she deserved it. Was she going to tell her that Scott had been so appalled by her childish explosion he’d set sail to the Bahamas?
“I’ll fetch that lemonade,” Nancy said and Mack waited, miserable, as her grandmother vanished into the Sail Loft.
Her mother was twisting the ring on her finger. Ed’s ring.
“Mack, there’s something I need to—”
“Me first.” Mack blurted the words out. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all of it. For yelling at you. For yelling at Scott. For behaving like a brat when you were dealing with so much, for being so difficult and h-horrible to you—” Tears started to fall, flowing like a river in full flood. She gulped and swallowed, tasting salt on her lips and on her tongue and then her mother was hugging her tightly, rocking her as she’d done when Mack was a child.
“Don’t cry, sweetheart. Don’t cry.”
The love in her voice made Mack cry even harder.
How could her mother possibly forgive her so easily?
“I’ve been h-horrid, and you keep forgiving me and being there and trying to help and I’m such a mean person.”
“You’re not a mean person. It’s not you that’s horrid, it’s the situation.” Lauren smoothed Mack’s damp hair away from her face and kissed her forehead. “You’re a good person, and you’ve had to deal with more than any person should.”
“But you’ve had to deal with it all, too, and you’ve had to deal with me, and I made it worse instead of better.” She was choking on her tears, gulping air in between sobs, breathing in the mix of her mother’s floral scent and the sea breeze. There was nothing on earth that smelled as good as her mother. She smelled like home and safety. She smelled like love.
“Oh, Mack, you make everything better. All of it. If it weren’t for you, I don’t know how I’d carry on.”
Mack clung to her mother. “How can you say that after the things I said earlier?”
“You were upset. Understandably so. And I’m sorry you saw that because I wouldn’t have wanted you to.”
Mack noticed her mother didn’t say she was sorry she’d kissed Scott.
She eased away and took a juddering breath. “Has he gone?”
“Gone?”
“Scott. He’s probably packing the boat right now so that he and Captain can sail to a place that doesn’t have a teenage population.”
“Is that what you want him to do?”
“No.” She rubbed her hand over her face. “I like him, but I’m sure he hates me now. He’s probably thinking he did the right thing leaving before I was born.”
“He’s not thinking that, and Scott’s leaving had nothing to do with you. He’s never been part of a family the way we have. He doesn’t know what it’s like to have people stick by you, no matter what. To be able to be yourself and make mistakes and know you’ll still be loved. He was scared out of his mind.”
Mack couldn’t imagine Scott being scared of anything. “He’s very strong. He can do a hundred push-ups without breaking into a sweat. And he has this quiet way about him that makes you pay attention. Cal in the boatyard told me he once broke up a fight just by walking into the bar. He didn’t say a word, but they all took one look at him and backed away. I get that. What I don’t get is him being scared of anything.”
“There are different types of scared. Scott was terrified of letting me down, and terrified of letting you down but most of all terrified of letting himself down and finding out he couldn’t be the person he was trying so hard to be.”
“That’s crazy. Scott is great. He’s so calm.”
“He wasn’t calm after you yelled. He was worried he’d messed it up and driven you away.”
Mack sniffed. “He’s worried about driving me away?”
“Yes, so I don’t think you’re going to be able to shake him off that easily. He is trying very hard to get it right this time.”
The relief was enormous. “I am sorry, Mom. I should have thought more about you. I should have made you tea in bed and stuff.”
Lauren laughed. “No, not that!”
Mack eased away and gave a watery grin. “What’s wrong with my tea?”
“You make terrible tea.”
“Sometimes I boil the water and forget about it, so by the time I make the tea the water isn’t hot but I wouldn’t call it terrible exactly.”
“It’s terrible. Even thinking about it makes my stomach roll.” Lauren leaned in and gave her another hug and Mack closed her eyes.
“Mom?”
“Mmm?”
“If you and Scott—well, you know—I mean that’s okay.”
“We’re not anything. I was upset because of that meeting at the bank and other things and Scott is a good listener and somehow things—” There was a pause. “Believe me, Mack, there is nothing that you’re thinking that I haven’t already thought. It’s too soon, all wrong. How could I do this to Ed? It’s not fair to you.”
Her grandmother was right. Her mom thought about everyone but herself. “How about you?”
“What about me?”
“You’re thinking about Ed and you’re thinking about me—but what about what you want? You’re important, too. What you want matters.” Mack felt her cheeks burn. “You have a right to be happy, Mom. I want you to be happy and Ed would have wanted that, too.” And she was going to find a way to get that pause button installed on her feelings. “And while we’re on the subject, the things I said about Ed not being my dad. I didn’t mean that. He was totally my dad. I mean, he took me to swimming lessons every Saturday and that must have been pretty boring.” She was relieved to see her mother smile.
“He loved you. He would have done anything for you. You were the child he’d always wanted.” Lauren paused. “Ed couldn’t have children of his own, Mack, and he wanted them badly. He wanted you.”
Mack felt a stab of shock and sadness. “He couldn’t have them? That’s why I never got a baby brother or sister?”
“That’s right.” Her mother rubbed her arm gently. “But it didn’t matter because we had you. Ed thought of you as his daughter in every way.”
Mack felt as if a big lump had lodged itself behind her ribs. “It would have been nice to have known that, so I could have been better at it.” It made her feel bad to think about the times she’d been less than perfect.
“Oh, honey, you were you and he loved you. He wouldn’t have wanted you to be different.”
Mack felt her eyes sting again. “I wish now that I’d made him breakfast on his birthday. I was difficult to live with,” she muttered. “Do you think it was my fault he had a heart attack?”
“What? No!” Her mother sounded horrified. “Is that what you’ve been thinking?”
“Occasionally.” Mack gave an awkward shrug. Her mind was such a mess these days she couldn’t untangle any of it.
“Ed had heart disease. A damaged valve. That was what the report said. Nothing you said or did had any influence on what happened. The doctor said he was a ticking bomb.” Her grip on Mack’s hand tightened. “Sometimes, when someone dies, we blame ourselves. We’re trying to find a reason, but not everything has a reason. I blamed myself, too.”
“You?”
“Yes. For not insisting that he go to the doctor when he said he felt tired all the time. I should have made the appointment myself.”
“Dad was always useless at going to the doctor.” They exchanged a look of shared understanding.
“He really was.”
“I wish now I’d talked to you right away when I found my birth certificate.”
“We shouldn’t have kept it from you.”
Mack thought about what Nancy had said about never wanting your child to be unhappy. That made sense to her. And even if she might have argued that it was the wrong thing to do, she couldn’t argue with the sentiment behind the decision. Love. Who could argue with that? “You were trying to protect me. I get that. You wanted me to feel secure. I guess decisions aren’t always black-and-white.” It felt like an epiphany. Maybe it wasn’t so awful that she didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life yet. Maybe it was unrealistic to expect an answer to pop into her head. And maybe she wasn’t as bad a person as she thought she was.
Lauren sighed. “I loved Ed a great deal. I want you to know that. We had a good marriage and I have no doubt at all that if he hadn’t died we would have stayed married. I loved Ed, but I also loved Scott. I loved him in a way I didn’t think it was possible to love. I loved him so much that I couldn’t even be angry that he didn’t want us to be together. I understood him. I understood why. But I also wanted the best for you. I wanted you to have a stable home and love. After what I experienced with my own father, I wanted yours to be reliable.”
But he hadn’t been reliable, Mack thought. In the end Ed had let her mother down.
“Did everything in London have to be sold?”
“Yes. James called last night. Everything has finally been tied up.”
Mack wondered if that was another reason her mom was so upset. “So the house is gone and everything?”
“All of it.”
“That sucks.”
Her mother gave a tired smile. “It does, although part of me is pleased it’s over. It’s been hanging over me.”
Mack ached inside. She’d had no idea her mom was even thinking about that. “You must feel terrible. What about Nana? Has she been in touch?”
“No. I think she’s still very angry with me. And hurt.”
“But Ed knew everything, and Ed loved you. I mean, she could have blamed him for keeping it a secret. Why you?”
“She’s grieving. I hope that in time she might soften a little. This is tough on everyone.”
“Do you think I should write to her?”
“Would you like to?”
Mack thought about it. “I guess I would. I think Dad would have wanted me to.”
“I think so, too. I’ll give you her address.”
“She was so mean to you and you lost everything.”
“Not everything. I have you and Aunt Jenna and Grams. I have this place, this island. I still have hopes and dreams.”
And Scott, Mack thought. They still had Scott.
Mack thought about the life she had here. She thought about waking up in the morning to the sound of the ocean and the call of the birds. “I guess the life we have here isn’t so bad.” You virtually had to write a suicide note before you went cycling in London, but here she cycled everywhere and it gave her a sense of freedom. “Mom?”
“Yes, honey.”
“I think Grams might be in love with Ben.” She saw her mother smile.
“I hope you’re right.”
“You wouldn’t mind?”
“Mind that my mother finally finds happiness? I think it would be great, don’t you? They have been seeing a lot of each other, that’s true. I wonder if they’re—”
“No!” Mack held up her hand. “Don’t go there, I beg you.”
“You’re right. It’s never a good idea to think about one’s parents having sex.”
“And for me it’s grandparents, so—enough said.” Mack shuddered. “As long as I don’t bump into him in the night on my way to the bathroom.”
Nancy appeared at that moment with a jug of lemonade in her hand. “So are you going to take Scott up on his offer?”
Lauren held a glass steady while her mother poured. “Taking a loan from him ties him into our lives.”
“That’s good, isn’t it? It will stop him sailing off when I say the wrong thing and irritate him.” Mack flushed as her mother looked directly at her. “And anyway he’s already in our lives.”
“He wants to be more involved. He’d like to see more of you.”
“After what I said to him earlier?”
“Yes. What do you think?”
Mack tested the idea out in her head and decided she liked it a lot. “I guess that would work. Maybe the three of us could go sailing together. If you could handle that.”
“She’ll handle it.” Nancy topped up Mack’s glass. “And you’ll take that loan. To Coastal Chic and the future. And speaking of the future, I have news, too.”
“What news?”
“I’ve decided to sell The Captain’s House after all.”
Mack saw her mother frown.
“You’re selling to Scott?”
“I offered it to him, but he has other plans now so I’m going to talk to a Realtor. After all our hard work someone might like to buy it as a rental property. I wanted to discuss it with you first. I told Jenna this morning while we were making adjustments to the website.”
“Why wouldn’t Scott want it?” Mack sipped her lemonade. “Or maybe he can’t buy it and loan you the money.”
“Are you sure, Mom?” Lauren said. “After all these years of battling to keep it in the family?”
“Exactly. I’m tired of battling. Where does it say that life has to be a battle? I want a more peaceful existence, and I want my life to be full of the things I want, not the things I’m keeping out of obligation to others or some ridiculous sense of responsibility. That house is too big for me. It doesn’t fit with this new phase of my life. I’m going to live right here in the Sail Loft. Ben is going to help me design a garden that is going to be the talk of the island.”
Ben.
Mack caught her mother’s eye.
It was difficult to imagine people falling in love when they were as old as her grandmother, but it probably happened, didn’t it?
Did people of that age still have sex or did they just hold hands?
Scarlet faced, she drank her lemonade.
Being an adult was one thing, but some thoughts were definitely off-limits.