Bill thanked god for Therese. People in distress were her specialty, her domain. No sooner had she returned to the hotel with the guests than Mack pounded on the door to tell them the news about Lacey.
Therese brought Mack inside and gave him a glass of water, she sat next to him on the sofa and held his hand. She cried with him a little, and said, “Lacey’s where she wants to be, Mack. She’s with her husband, finally.”
“But what if that’s bullshit,” Mack said. “What if there is no meeting place in the sky.”
Bill waited to hear what Therese would say. He wondered this himself-every time he had chest pains, and last winter when the ambulance rushed him to the hospital-what came next? It was a question without an answer. Nobody knew, not even Robert Frost. Bill had always believed in something bigger; for twenty-eight years, since W.T. died, something bigger planted itself in Bill’s mind. A reason. Lacey Gardner, here yesterday, gone today. Why?
Therese said to Mack, “We have to hope. When I’m dying and ready to go, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to hope with all my heart. And then I’m going to let go. Hope I don’t disappear. Hope I land somewhere safely.”
The ends of Bill’s fingers tingled. He loved his wife. When he was dying and ready to go, he would hope, too. He would hope that death did not separate them.
Therese sent for the undertaker, and personally cleaned Lacey’s cottage from top to bottom. It was Therese who found Lacey’s will. Therese called the paper and put in the obituary. Therese contacted Father Eckerly at St. Mary’s and arranged for the service, to be held on Friday.
That night as she and Bill lay in bed, Therese said, “I read Lacey’s will before I sent it to her lawyer. She left Mack her cottage, you know.”
“She did?”
“You didn’t think she’d do otherwise?”
“I never gave it any thought at all,” Bill said. That was the truth: Therese had fussed over Mack and the rest of the staff who were upset-Vance, Jem, Love-but no one asked Bill how he felt. And he had known Lacey Gardner longer than anyone. He met Lacey when he was eight years old, an ornery, sullen little boy. Lacey and her husband, Maximilian, were Beach Club members and they were on property every day of the summer after the war ended. Lacey used to shake Bill’s hand like an adult, and say, “How do you do?” Bill would cross his arms across his chest and give her a withering look. Then Lacey promised she’d give him two pennies if he would smile. “Nope,” he said. “I don’t smile for money.” Bill could remember what Lacey looked like as a young woman (blond hair in a chignon, dresses that cinched at the waist)-throwing her head back and laughing, wiping the corner of her eye with an embroidered handkerchief. She reminded him of that moment many times in the years that followed; it was their shared punch line. I don’t smile for money. He supposed he meant his affections couldn’t be bought; they had to be earned. And Lacey Gardner had earned them.
He never thought of Lacey dying-she seemed superhuman, the one member of his parents’ generation who was going to live forever. But now she was dead. Not only was Bill deeply saddened by the loss but he knew what this meant: he was next.
“So she left her cottage to Mack,” Bill said. He recalled his conversation with Mack during the storm. “He promised he’d stay.” He took his wife in his arms and spoke into her sweet hair. “I just want someone to stay.”
Mack moved his things out of the basement apartment while Maribel was at work. He threw his clothes into garbage bags and sorted through the CDs. He packed his pay stubs and pictures of his parents. The TV was his, but he let Maribel keep it; the kitchen stuff was all hers, except for a bottle opener shaped like a whale that had belonged to Maximilian. Mack took that. They’d bought the gas grill together, but he let it be. He packed all his belongings into the back of the Jeep, and then he sat in the driveway. He considered leaving a note. A note saying what?
Back at the club, there was no shortage of work. Mack shoveled sand-it was like eating a giant plate of spaghetti-he couldn’t seem to make any headway. It kept his body busy and hurting; he tried to concentrate on the physical pain and not his other pain. Lacey gone. Maribel gone.
After work, Mack carried his bags into Lacey’s cottage. He dug out the whale bottle opener and popped the top off a Michelob. He settled down in Lacey’s chair. He had two phone calls to make.
The first was to How-Baby.
A sugar-voiced, southern secretary answered the phone. “Is this the Mack Petersen, as in, our new vice president of travel and hospitality?”
“Yeah,” Mack said weakly. “Can I speak to Howard, please?”
How-Baby came on the line, voice booming as though he were sitting three feet away. “I was worried about you!” he said. “We saw you take a real beating from Freida. Watched it on national news. How’s the hotel?”
“She’ll be okay,” Mack said. “But there’s a lot of work to be done.”
“So it doesn’t look like you’ll be getting out of there easily,” How-Baby said.
“I’m not getting out of here at all,” Mack said. “That’s why I called.”
How-Baby was quiet.
“I’m calling to turn down your offer, Howard,” Mack said. “I have to stay here. It’s not personal and it has nothing to do with money. Believe me, everything you offered is top-notch. It’s just what my gut is telling me.”
Still How-Baby was quiet.
“Howard, are you there?”
How-Baby coughed; Mack tried to imagine him upset, agitated, thrown off guard. Caught unaware. It didn’t seem possible.
“I’m here,” How-Baby said. “You know, just last night Tonya asked what we were going to do next summer when we came to Nantucket and you weren’t there. She said she couldn’t imagine it.”
“She won’t have to imagine it,” Mack said. New job gone.
“No,” How-Baby said. “I guess she won’t.”
The second phone call was to David Pringle. Mack took a long swallow of his beer before dialing.
“David, it’s Mack. Mack Petersen.”
David chuckled. “It’s only September, Mack. I was figuring you’d put off this phone call for at least another month.”
“Nope!”
“What’s happening?” David asked. “You had all summer to think about it. Come to any conclusions?”
“Has Wendell changed his mind?” Mack asked.
David whistled. Mack pictured him leaning back in his leather chair, shirt sleeves rolled up. “No, he hasn’t changed his mind. He’s rented a hall for his retirement party.”
“Oh.”
“You’re going to sell, then?”
“No one else has shown any promise?” Mack asked. “This summer, no one…”
“Mack, I told you how things were. Nobody will put forth the effort on a farm that’s not their own. Wendell did it out of love for your father, simple as that. There’s no one else.”
“Okay,” Mack said. “Sell.” Farm gone.
“I’ll put it up first thing in the morning,” David said. “We’re not going to get rich from this, you know.”
“I know.”
“What should I do about the house?”
“Don’t do anything,” Mack said. “I’m coming back. I’ll clean it out myself.”