Thursday morning dawned dark and gloomy. A storm was moving in, and the wind started to kick up, catching the sand and peppering it against the glass. The kids were still sleeping, so Nora shrugged into sweatpants and a sweatshirt, pulled her hair into a ponytail, and poured herself a cup of coffee before she stepped out onto the back deck.
The wind whipped around her, nipping at her legs, chasing under her sleeves. Angry waves rolled through the ocean, crashing into each other in great foamy white explosions. Rain started to fall, coming at an angle with the wind, hitting the deck with a hard, fast patter. The droplets spattered Nora’s bare toes, the edges of her sweatpants.
She’d barely slept last night, dealing with a different storm, this one inside her head. The guilt over going to the barbecue when she should have been focused on finding a way out of this mess. Regret that she had let them end up in this situation in the first place, thinking she could juggle the bills and the creditors and somehow turn negatives into positive numbers. Guilt over how she had failed—her family, her children, herself. And most of all, a flood of deepening, impotent frustration.
Maybe if Nora had been honest that day with Ben, none of them would be here. Maybe he would have stayed home and everything would have been different. Maybe she would have been standing at a barbecue with his soft brown eyes staring into hers, instead of a stranger’s. And maybe she wouldn’t be thinking right now how easy it would be to start over again with another man, instead of trying to fix the mess with the man who had let her down one too many times.
Magpie came outside, bundled in a rain jacket, her hands cupped around a mug. A bolt of lightning cracked overhead, and Magpie flinched. “Trying to get yourself electrocuted?”
“I’ve always loved storms. They’re just so…unexpected.”
“And dangerous and unpredictable. Everything you aren’t, right?” Her little sister laughed.
“Maybe it’s everything I wish I had been,” Nora said softly. A woman who was dangerous and unpredictable would have flirted back last night instead of taking her burger to go and heading home thirty minutes after she’d arrived. A woman who was like a storm wouldn’t have let her home slip away. She would have moved heaven and earth until the bank came back with a workable solution. A woman like that wouldn’t have been caught unawares by her husband’s gambling and the shambles her marriage had become, and she sure as hell wouldn’t have painted a pretty picture over the ugly truth.
Nora took a sip of coffee and watched a forgotten beach ball tumble down the shoreline, the bright colors rolling over each other like a runaway rainbow. “Did you ever wonder what might have been if you took a different path?”
“You know me, I don’t second-guess anything. I just dive in and save my regrets for retirement.”
Nora couldn’t even imagine living like that. But Magpie had none of the ropes that tied Nora to that whirling circle of worries and decisions. A house, a husband, kids. Responsibilities—like keeping children clothed, warm, and fed, not to mention teaching them to be considerate people—loomed over Nora every minute of the day. Even here, standing on the deck while the storm raged around her, a part of her mind worried about Sarah and Jake. Were they awake now? Scared by the noise? Would they be disappointed to have their beach day canceled? Was she giving them too little of her time? Of her heart? Would they one day grow up and look at her with anger and disappointment in their eyes? How could you let us lose our house, Mom?
“Are you wishing you had a do-over?” her sister asked.
“No, no, of course not.” Nora took one last look at the storm and then turned back to the house. She pulled open the thick glass deck door. “My life is what it is. I wouldn’t change any of it.”
Except that was another lie. The dishonesty was stacking up like bricks between her and Magpie. Nora hated that, but she’d always protected her baby sister. Magpie had enough to worry about, and besides, how could she possibly understand the stress of being a wife, a parent, and a soon-to-be-ex-homeowner?
Nora had kept so many secrets so close to her chest for so long, she wasn’t even sure where to begin. Lies she’d told her family. Her husband. Herself. Better to not burden Magpie with things that were beyond her control. It was a vacation, and Nora was determined to keep it that way for the kids and for her sister.
They went inside. Nora poured a second cup of coffee, and Magpie hung up her jacket. Then she curled into one of the kitchen chairs, her knees up to her chest. “I know you say everything’s fine, but it might not hurt to step out of your comfort zone a little.”
“I step out of my comfort zone once in a while. I did it when I went to that barbecue at a perfect stranger’s house. And there was that time I quit working at the bakery, in solidarity with Bridget.” Nora sprinkled some sugar into her coffee, added a dash of cream. She watched the white liquid swirl into the dark brew and felt a little pang of regret that she’d left Bridget, Abby, and Ma in charge of the bakery. None of the cake orders required complicated decorating jobs, but still, she should have been there. Maybe she should go back early—
Except that meant dealing with that whole where-to-live question sooner. In this little beach house, she had a reprieve from all that. She could pretend her life wasn’t totally screwed up and that she didn’t feel a constant panic in her chest.
“Those are great things but not exactly life-changing. I love you, Nora, but you’ve always been so…uptight,” Magpie said. “Such a stickler for the rules. Even here, you get up at the same time, go to bed at the same time. The kids have the same routine every night—”
“Schedules are good for kids. It helps them know their world is predictable.” Except being homeless negated all of that predictability. Her world was about to turn upside down, and everything her children had known all their lives would be ripped away.
“For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve run every part of your life by a watch. Maybe it’s time you did something else. Like throw your watch into the ocean—well, not really, because it isn’t good for the fish—but symbolically. You are on vacation, after all.” Magpie leaned forward, her eyes bright with mischief. It was a look Nora knew well because it usually meant Magpie was going to propose something Nora wasn’t going to like. “Why not take a vacation from your worries too?”
“What is this, a Bill Murray movie? I can’t do that, Mags. I have kids. I can’t just abandon all my responsibilities.” And because all a vacation from her worries did was put off decisions that had to be made. She’d done that when she’d gone to the barbecue, and all it had done was give her a sleepless night and a mountain of guilt. She needed to get back on track, needed to find a solution. Ben sure as hell wasn’t going to do it, which put all the responsibility of finding four affordable walls in Nora’s hands.
“You can abandon all that while I’m here,” her sister said. “I’m fully capable of feeding my niece and nephew and getting them to bed on time.”
Nora snorted. “You. Temporary mom.”
Magpie dropped her gaze and whisked a forgotten crumb off the table. “I may not look or act it, but I’m more domesticated than you think.”
“I’m sure you are, but, sweetie, cooking dinner? I love you, but seriously, you could ruin a bowl of cereal.” Of the four girls, Magpie had been the only one who never wanted a baby doll or played with Barbies. She didn’t set up house or pretend to make dinner in the cardboard boxes the girls had fashioned into a fake kitchen. Magpie had been the one exploring creeks and climbing trees and writing in her journal. No one had been surprised she grew up and wanted nothing to do with the bakery.
“Okay, so I can’t cook,” Magpie said. “That particular gene seems to have skipped me. But I am fabulous at ordering takeout and being the cool aunt who lets them watch Frozen six hundred and seventy-two times. Which means you can go vacate.”
There was a reason Nora had twenty-two vacation days saved up. The best time to take a few days off never seemed to coincide with the kids’ or Ben’s schedules. When spring break rolled around, the bakery was overrun with orders for Easter and spring baptisms and weddings. When summer break came, she was knee deep in family reunions, corporate picnics, and meetings with fall brides. The thought of a day without a schedule, without a plan, nearly made her hyperventilate. Magpie was right, though. Even here, on “vacation,” Nora had kept to a schedule with bedtimes and reading time and meals. “It’s been so long since I had a day with nothing to do that I don’t know what I’d do,” Nora said. “As it is, I’m already itching to get back to work. I shouldn’t have left the bakery shorthanded. There’s the Collins wedding and—”
“Nora, you have been more responsible for that bakery than all of us combined. You’ve given most of your life to that place.” Outside, the storm began to pick up, winds hitting the flagpole next door and making the cable clang. “I think it’s about damned time you took a few days for yourself.”
She’d heard the same lecture from her other sisters, usually on a monthly basis. Nora couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t worked at the bakery, a time when she had thought about nothing but herself. Once she became a mother, thinking of herself first was impossible. Every decision she made, every thought in her head, every free hour on the calendar, circled around the kids. “That’s pretty much what Bridget and Abby said.”
“There, it’s official. You’re outvoted.” Magpie grinned. “So go into town today, and leave the kids here with cool Aunt Magpie. Treat yourself to a big breakfast, a new dress, or just go shopping for shit you don’t need. I don’t care if you curl up in the library with a book. Just get out of here and do something just for Nora. If you come back with a gift for me or anyone else, I’m confiscating it. Got it?”
Nora laughed and shook her head. Magpie knew her well. Chances were good without that warning that Nora would have found some trinket for the kids or a thank-you gift for her sister. “I haven’t done anything like that…”
“Ever. Even when we were kids, you were the most responsible one. Who made sure my shoes were tied and I had lunch money? Who never forgot me at school and even now, when I’m a grown woman, checks to make sure I arrived safely?”
She shrugged. “That’s just being a sister.”
“No, honey, it’s more than that. It’s being everyone’s mom.” Rain pelted the windows, and the darkening clouds cast the house with a dim light. “I agree, Ma could have been more involved, but she was juggling the bakery and raising four kids on her own. But that didn’t mean you had to do it.”
“When Dad was gone, someone had to help her,” Nora said. Bridget had been busy with school, Abby devastated by the loss of their father, and Magpie too little to understand. Nora had stepped in, using the vacuum and the dust rag to avoid her own grief.
Magpie put a hand on Nora’s arm. “I don’t think you’ve had a single moment of your life where you were selfish. Hell, you’ve never even taken a spa day. But you did give all of us one for Christmas last year.”
Nora started to protest, but instead shut her mouth. Her mind reached back, and in her memories she saw herself, on the sidelines, the one who made the dinner or did the dishes or sewed the costume while everyone else lived their lives, went on their adventures. She’d filled in for her sisters’ sick days and vacation days, come in early to do extra prep, stayed late on busy days. In the in-between time, she’d been room mom and served on the PTA, sold the Girl Scout cookies, and hosted the play dates.
She’d done everything for everyone else, telling herself it was because it was easier. And where had it left her? Was it selfish to pretend, at least for today, that she didn’t have a family? To abdicate the breakfast and bath time battles to someone else? She’d have a taste of what it would be like to be on her own, doing things entirely for herself without worry about other people, because she’d gone straight from mothering her sisters to being Ben’s wife.
Magpie dug in her pocket and pulled out a few bills. She pressed them into Nora’s hand. “Now don’t say a word about not taking money from me. You have taken care of me all my life. You’ve put me up in your house when I needed a place to stay, you’ve fed me when I was hungry, and you’ve nursed me through the flu twice. I can’t do any of those things, but I can watch your kids for a day and order you to treat yourself to a pedicure.”
“Mags, I can pay for my own pedicure.” Nora tried to push the money back, but Magpie just put her hands behind her back and shook her head.
“You can, but if I know you, you won’t. You’d use the last dime of your allowance to buy a teddy bear just because you wanted to put a smile on your sister’s face.”
Magpie’s eyes shimmered, and the shared memory flowed between them. Nora remembered finding Mags crying in their room about a month after their father had died, inconsolable because he was going to miss her first day of kindergarten. He’d told his youngest daughter many times that he would be there. He’d take the day off from work and walk his little girl into school, just as he had all the others. Nora had shaken the few bills and change out of her piggy bank, dashed down to O’Donnell’s Sundries, and bought a teddy bear from Mr. O’Donnell. Years later, she was sure the kindly man had charged her far less than the sticker price, but at eight years old, all Nora knew was that the stuffed animal Magpie had noticed a few days earlier was the one thing that would ease her tears. In her first-day-of-school picture—taken by Ma, who had filled in for their late father—Magpie held the dark brown bear to her chest, beaming. “You left that bear outside my door and told me that the fairies had brought it for me from Dad. I carried that little guy everywhere for years.”
Nora shrugged. “You needed it, Mags.”
“And you need this. So go on, get out of here.”
Nora drew her sister into a tight hug. “I hate you for being right.”
Magpie laughed. “That’s a new one, isn’t it? Magpie the wise O’Bannon.” She waved at Nora, ushering her down the hall and into the guest bedroom. “Now shoo. Go get changed into something that makes you feel fabulous and head into town. Take my Miata”—she tossed Nora a set of keys—“and live a little.”
The little red car zipped along the roads, hugging the curves like a lover. The engine hummed when she was cruising and let out a deep, growling roar whenever she sped up. Nora had never driven anything like the Miata, and although it took a few minutes before she was comfortable behind the wheel, the temptation of a mostly empty Route 6 won, and before she knew it, she was pushing the little car well past the speed limit. The rain had stopped, leaving behind only dark, threatening clouds and brisk winds.
Downtown Truro was anchored by the Highland Light, standing tall and proud in its acclaim as Cape Cod’s first ocean beacon. Locals had dubbed it the Cape Cod Lighthouse and gladly recounted its storied history of saving lost travelers and ships caught in storms. In the bedroom where Nora was staying, there was a painting of the same lighthouse, a throwback image to the days when massive wooden ships made the dangerous cross-world journey to bring people and cargo to the fledgling United States.
Truro was the sleepier cousin to bustling Provincetown, just a few miles down the road. Unlike some of the more crowded and tourist-centered towns on the Cape, the few shops in Truro were largely converted saltbox houses, quaint and cozy. The businesses blended in so well that it almost seemed like there weren’t any.
She parked in front of a little deli and headed inside. She inhaled the scent of freshly brewed coffee, mixed with the sweet aromas of muffins and pastries. The deli bustled with business, people filling almost every table, the hum of their conversations creating an undertow to the alternative rock playing on the sound system.
Nora ordered a coffee and tucked herself into a corner table with a forgotten copy of the Cape Cod Times. She skipped past the stories about a hit-and-run crash and another about the dip in tourism dollars, and settled on a lifestyle piece about a couple renewing their vows on a fisherman’s trawler and tried not to feel both envy and a certain amount of you’re crazy for getting married while she read.
“Let me guess. Coffee to offset your vicious single-beer hangover?”
Nora looked up. Will stood before her, wearing a non-paint-spattered pair of jeans that drew her eye along his lean legs and up to his face. She blushed, both at the unexpectedness and the ironic reference by another man to her drinking at parties. If she was the kind of person who believed in signs, she might see one in that comment, so eerily reminiscent of Ben’s twelve years ago. “Will. You surprised me.”
“I seem to have a habit of doing that.” He gestured toward the empty seat across from her. “May I?”
“Sure.” She folded the paper and set it aside and grabbed her mug, suddenly unsure of what to do with her hands. For a second, she wished she’d taken more care before leaving today. She’d pulled on jeans, a pale pink T-shirt, and a faded blue hoodie that had comfortable but frumpy written all over it.
Will settled into the chair and leaned against the wall so he was half turned toward her. He had on another concert T-shirt—the Stones, in gray today—and she could see red and yellow paint freckling his arms. He took a sip of coffee from a paper mug. “So, what brings you to town on this rainy day?”
“You want the truth?” She leaned forward, lowered her voice. “My sister kicked me out. She said I needed a day on my own, to do whatever I wanted. But…I don’t know if I should.”
“And what’s so wrong with that?”
She glanced out the window, at the gray day and the bustle of traffic going by. People hurrying to destinations, to people they loved, things they had to do. “I haven’t had a day to myself in so long, I don’t know what I want. I thought I’d just sit here, read the paper, then go home.”
“That would be one sad, sad day off, and absolutely not the way anyone should spend their time on the Cape. Ever.” He got to his feet and put out his hand. “Come on, let me show you Truro the way I see it.”
She cocked her head and studied him but didn’t take his hand. “The way you see it?”
“Through an artist’s eyes. It’s a beautiful place, if you know where to look.” He lowered his hand to his side but kept talking, without any hint of disappointment or annoyance that she’d ignored his offer. “First stop, the art gallery, to see everyone else’s impressions of the town.”
A dangerous and unpredictable woman would go. She would see the adventure and leap on it with both feet. But Nora O’Bannon didn’t do unpredictable. Didn’t do adventures. “I probably shouldn’t…”
“It’s not a date, if that’s what you’re worried about. Think of me as part of the tourism board.”
“Just doing a community service?”
“That’s it, ma’am.” He tipped an imaginary hat her way and extended his arm toward the door. She looked at the café table, the newspaper, the coffee, all those predictable, boring, sad remnants of her day off, and then again at the door and the possibilities that lay beyond it. “Come on, Nora the Neighbor. Let’s explore this town and find out exactly what you want.”
Find out exactly what she wanted. Somehow, it seemed a few hours strolling around a beach town with a handsome stranger was only going to muddy the waters.