EPILOGUE
“I’m in the mood for some steamers. A big bucket of them.”
Hugh glanced briefly over at his wife sitting in the passenger seat. “I thought pregnant women weren’t supposed to eat seafood. Shellfish in particular.”
“That myth has been debunked. At least I think it has.”
“Are you sure you want to take a risk?”
Thea sighed, pretending annoyance, but what she really felt was deep gratitude for life having given her such a caring, if sometimes overly cautious, husband. “Okay,” she said, “if it makes you feel better, I’ll call my doctor and check before I order anything that came from the ocean.”
“Yes,” Hugh said with a smile, “thanks, it would make me feel better.”
It was the summer after that momentous one, the summer after the one in which Thea Foss and Hugh Landry found each other after far too many years apart. It was the first summer of their married life and Thea’s first summer—first any season!—of being pregnant. She was about four months along and due in late November. She was kind of hoping the baby would be born on Thanksgiving, which was her favorite holiday, but the only thing that really mattered was that he, or she, was healthy. Neither Hugh nor Thea wanted to know the baby’s sex beforehand. At least, each had declared as much. Thea had a sneaking suspicion that they were both going to break down before long and have a nice chat with Dr. Mathis.
“It was really nice of Alice to have us stay with her for the week,” Thea said as they drove past a crop of new summer cottage communities along Route 1 in Wells.
“She might not feel as generous with her home when the baby comes.”
“She likes babies. I think.”
“Liking babies is one thing,” Hugh said. “Graciously putting up with someone else’s baby screaming all night is something else entirely.”
“Our baby won’t be a screamer. He—or she—will be very polite.”
“You’re being delusional.”
“I know.”
Thea watched as the summer cottage communities gave way to picturesque bed-and-breakfast establishments and expensive hotels and resorts as they left Wells and entered Ogunquit. And she thought back to last summer and realized how vastly different— and better—her life had become in the space of about a week. First, she was alone and depressed and frightened of her own shadow. And then, she was not alone and no longer depressed and if not entirely courageous, then well on her way to being so.
She and Hugh had left Ogunquit together last August and within the space of a month they had planned a wedding. Though Hugh had suggested they marry in France, in the end they both agreed that it would be much more fair, i.e., affordable, to the most important guests—particularly the Fosses and Alice, who was to be Thea’s witness—if they married in New York. Which they did, at a lovely chapel in the Hudson River Valley. Thea wore the Napoleon miniature portrait Hugh had given her for her sixteenth birthday on a chain her mother had given her for the event. A honeymoon in Europe followed, taking the pair from Rome to Paris and then on to London. Only the demands of careers brought them home after almost a month abroad. Hugh returned to his office and when the spring semester opened, Thea began teaching at a small, academically rigorous high school in the upper reaches of Manhattan.
And then, Thea learned that she was pregnant and life really did seem magical, wondrous, amazing. After a brief run of morning sickness, her body seemed to settle down comfortably in its new job of building a new life.
“Anyway,” Hugh was saying, “I thought we wanted to buy a summer place of our own in Ogunquit. We can’t inflict a growing family on Alice forever. And your parents will want to spend some time with us, right?”
“And your parents ...”
“Most likely will not. Which is fine by me.”
As Hugh had predicted, the Landrys had voiced no objection to their elder son’s marriage to his high school girlfriend. Neither had they rejoiced. It seemed that what Hugh had told Thea was true—they had lost any real interest in Hugh’s life sometime before. All of their dynastic concerns had been transferred onto Hugh’s younger brother, Piers, who, it was rumored, was gearing up for a career in politics, something in which Hugh had never had the least interest.
“Did you bring the gifts for Henrietta?” Hugh asked.
“Of course. How could I ever forget my guardian angel? A bag of organic catnip, though I suspect Henrietta won’t care about the organic part, and a bag of pom-poms with bells inside. Though honestly, I never saw her playing with anything other than live creatures.”
“It’s the thought that counts.”
Yes, Thea thought, and I hope Henrietta knows just how thankful I am to her. The last Thea had seen or heard of her rotten ex-husband Mark Marais was the moment after Henrietta’s spectacular flying attack. Thea grinned at the memory of a bloody Mark racing for escape.
“Almost there,” Hugh said when they had passed through the heart of town and turned onto a smaller road that, after some twists and turns, would take them to Oak Street.
“Good, because I’m starved. Alice is bound to welcome us with a snack.”
She did. When Hugh and Thea pulled into the gravel driveway in front of Alice’s timber-framed house, the smell of freshly baked bread greeted them. As did Alice, who had been waiting on the tiny front porch for their arrival.
“The drive was okay, I hope,” she said after greetings and hugs were exchanged.
Hugh shrugged. “No worries. Except for Thea’s alarming hunger pains.”
“Ha ha. But before I eat, I’d love to say hello to Henrietta.”
As if on cue, the large, irascible calico strode from around the back of the house and made directly for Thea. She arched her back and wound herself around Thea’s right leg and then her left, and strode back the way she had come.
“That was unusually obliging of her,” Alice noted. “Now, come inside you two.”
Thea smiled. “Please tell me that’s cinnamon-raisin bread I smell.”
Alice put an arm around Hugh and one around Thea and ushered them up onto the porch. “And there’s plenty of butter to go with it,” she said.