There was no better place to prepare the dried seaweed than Lidia’s long kitchen table. Somehow, Marco’s mother had found a way to accommodate their complete takeover on the days when they had to do their chopping and sorting. It had become one of Olivia’s favorite parts of the workweek because, unlike when she was sitting with Marco out on the flats or working on the dock, here she could keep the baby nearby. Today, Mira amused herself with a row of rings on a new bouncer Lidia had bought her. Olivia and Marco worked in comfortable silence, the only sound the distant grind of Manny’s power drill outside.
“Your phone’s ringing,” Marco said.
“Is it?” Only then did she hear the faint tri-tone of an incoming call. She looked around for her tote bag and retrieved the phone; her mother’s face filled the screen. “Hey, we’re just chopping seaweed. Can I call you back?” Olivia said.
“I’m at the new house on Nickerson,” Ruth said. “I need you and Marco to stop by for a few minutes.”
Oh, the house. Olivia still had not checked out the place her mother would be moving into in just a few weeks. It was amazing how her sense of time had changed now that she had a baby to care for. An errand or visit that might have been spontaneous or happen easily just weeks ago now took military-style planning.
“Okay. Maybe before dinner? Mira’s dinner, I mean. So around—”
“I need you to come by now,” her mother said. Olivia glanced at Marco; he was completely absorbed in the work in front of him.
“Let me talk to Marco and call you back,” Olivia said. When she relayed the odd summons, Marco sighed, looked at the clock, and said, “We should just go and see what’s going on. Maybe she needs help with something.”
Nickerson was a two-minute walk from the house. They put Mira in the stroller and decided to just call this their lunch break.
Marco was good-humored about the interruption; now that he felt more confident about the business, it was like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Spindler’s had just added the seaweed tea to its menu. He felt he had successfully created a category instead of just trying to compete in a market that was already competitive. It was a big step for his business.
Still, it would be a while before they could afford to move into a place of their own. Considering they’d outgrown his current living quarters, their next move was a question mark. Lidia was happy to have them under her roof, but Olivia didn’t see that as a long-term solution. She’d had enough of communal living during her months at Shell Haven.
“I think my mother is just trying to distract herself from the fact that my father is leaving tonight,” Olivia said.
Days after Carnival, Olivia’s parents had invited her to dinner and announced they were “spending time together” again. Olivia didn’t know who was more surprised by this development, herself or her father, who, frankly, seemed a little shell-shocked. Still, it had to mean something to him because he delayed his departure yet again. But tomorrow it was back to Cherry Hill. Olivia knew it was probably rough on her mother, who had acted like a googly-eyed teenager at that dinner. But a summer fling was a summer fling—even if it happened with your ex-husband.
“She’ll find a way to keep busy,” Marco said. “This town has a way of keeping everyone busy long after the summer ends. You’ll see.”
They followed the house numbers until they reached a three-story Greek Revival.
“I know this house,” Marco said.
“You do?”
“Of course. How can anyone miss it? It’s a beauty.”
Ruth waved at them from the front porch. Olivia turned to Marco. “We’ll make this quick,” she said, maneuvering the stroller onto the stone walkway.
“I’m so glad you two could come,” Ruth said.
“Well, Mom, it seemed very important to you. But we don’t have a lot of time.”
“Neither do I,” Ruth said, handing her a set of keys.
“What’s this for?”
Ruth spread her arms wide. “It’s the keys to your new house.”
Olivia looked at Marco. Marco looked at Ruth.
“I’m not sure I follow,” he said.
“I bought this house but now I don’t need it. But you two do. I mean, you three. So please—accept it as an early wedding gift.”
“Mom, it’s a lovely thought, but you need a place to live,” Olivia said, bending over to retrieve the pacifier Mira had dropped on the ground. Honestly, sometimes her mother was just absurd. It was as if she needed melodrama to breathe.
“No, I don’t,” Ruth said. “I’m leaving with your father tonight.”
Olivia straightened up. Her mother was beaming.
“What? So you’re giving up this house?”
“That’s right,” Ruth said. “I’m moving back to Cherry Hill.”
The light still had the ability to take Ruth’s breath away even three months into the Provincetown summer.
Ruth and Ben sat on a bench at the water’s edge waiting for the ferry. As daytime turned to twilight, the sky became a pale rainbow, blue to yellow to orange to pink and lavender at the horizon. She’d never seen a lavender sky before her summers in Provincetown, and it was one of the many things she would miss.
The hardest thing to leave was her new group of friends, the people gathered beside her at the edge of MacMillan Wharf to see her off: Amelia and Rachel, Elise and Fern, Clifford and Santiago, Lidia and Manny. And, of course, she was saying goodbye to her daughter. She focused on Olivia, taking in the sight of her holding Mira in her arms, Marco by her side. Ruth was leaving Olivia, but she was leaving her smiling. She was leaving her happy.
Amelia appeared beside her, touched her arm. “A little going-away present. It was supposed to be for your new house,” she said. She handed Ruth a bubble-wrapped package in a brown paper bag. It was heavy.
“Oh, Amelia. You shouldn’t have!” Ruth gingerly pulled at the masking tape at the edge of the bubble wrap. The gift inside was square and flat and she was able to slide it out of the wrapping.
She gasped. It was her starfish drawing, transformed into a tile-and-seashell mosaic. In the center of the starfish, the piece of blue sea glass.
Amelia leaned close and said quietly, “I told you, you can take something broken and turn it into something whole.”
Ruth felt her eyes fill with tears.
She had been right to follow her instinct back to this magical place. She’d come searching for a house, looking for a place to belong. She’d believed she had nothing from the past to build on, that she was starting over. Instead, Provincetown brought her back to the beginning and showed her that the building blocks of your life didn’t fall away and disappear; it was all there, still solid, waiting to be leaned on.
The ferry pulled up to the dock. Ben grabbed their bags, and they hugged everyone goodbye. Ruth tried not to cry as she boarded the boat and followed Ben to the upper deck.
“I’m going to miss it,” Ruth said.
Ben put his arm around her. “Me too.”
The whistle sounded. The ferry pulled away from MacMillan Wharf. Ben looked straight ahead, but Ruth turned to watch the Pilgrim Monument fade from view, holding her starfish mosaic to her chest.
Regeneration. Renewal.
I’ll be back.