Page 30 of The Price of Protection

For a strange and exhilarating moment, Rose thought he was going to kiss her. She reminded herself why this couldn’t be so and took a hesitant step back.

“We should get a drink,” Nathaniel suggested. “I want to hear all about your life. Did you have children? Did you get married?”

Rose let out a strangled laugh. Was the photographer down the harbor still taking pictures of them? Or were the lights she thought were flashes just tricks of the sunlight above?

“We don’t need to talk about my life,” she said. “I need to go, anyway. I have things to take care of. Things at the bakery to clean.”

Nathaniel looked disappointed. He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Do you ever think you’re living the wrong version of your own life?”

Rose laughed. “Never,” she lied.

“Good,” Nathaniel said. “I don’t want that kind of thing to be normal. I want people to feel sure of themselves, even as I feel like I’m floating. My children—I have four of them, actually—seem quite sure of themselves. They have all these opinions that I can’t make sense of, and they make me laugh like nobody else.”

Rose imagined Nathaniel at a dinner table, surrounded by his beloved children. She tried to imagine their own child, what she might look like now and what she might say. Would she have fit in with her brothers and sisters? Would Maxine have looked up to her? What might have happened if Rose hadn’t hidden herself and the pregnancy away, with the help of the Legacy Club? It was hard to fathom. It was hard to know.

Nathaniel insisted on walking her back to the bakery. On the way, he recounted a memory he had of her, one in which they made an omelet at that ’Sconset house, using all the ingredients they could find in the then-sparse fridge. Nathaniel cackled, reminding her of the inventiveness she’d used in crafting “the bizarrest omelet anyone has ever eaten.” But it was delicious, he said.

Although Rose told him she remembered, she didn’t. She was glad she didn’t. Before she entered the bakery, she gave him a side hug and told him his brownie was on the house.

“See you around, Nate,” she murmured before slipping back into the bakery and closing the door behind her.

Later that evening, Rose returned home to find Maxine and Minnie on the sofa, eating snacks and pretending to do their homework. Maxine popped up to hug her mother and accept the platter of blondies that Rose had baked that afternoon, after Nathaniel had gone and her energy was all over the place. Maxine sliced three pieces and laid them out on a plate while recounting to Rose something that had happened at school that day. As Maxine spoke, laughing, Rose caught herself imagining what Nathaniel might think of Maxine. She thought he’d find her clever and funny. She imagined him saying something like, You’re just like your mother was at your age.

Of course, this wasn’t entirely true. Maxine looked much more like Mike than she did Rose, which Rose generally didn’t mind. Still. Why was her brain playing tricks on her?

That night, after Minnie returned home and Maxine went to her room, Rose couldn’t help but dial Eleanor Pike’s number. Eleanor answered with a hiccup in her voice, one that surprised Rose. Eleanor sounded uncertain about something. But Rose had never known Eleanor to be uncertain about anything in her life.

“He came here,” Rose stammered, tears filling her eyes. It was as though all the day's emotions were catching up to her. “He came here, and he asked if I had children, and he asked if I’d told anyone about what happened between us. But he doesn’t seem to know anything about the…” She trailed off, unable to say the word “pregnancy,” as it felt cursed. “Eleanor, you need to make this go away. You promised you’d make this go away!”

With that, Rose hung up the phone and gasped for air.

14

Nantucket Island

Rhett

After months at sea, sailing from coastal town to coastal town and photographing whatever he saw along the way, Rhett was surprised to admit to himself how much he liked walking on dry land. It was solid beneath him. He felt safe in a way he’d forgotten was possible.

His coat zipped to his chin, he wandered through the Old Historic District of his hometown, his heart swelling with memories and his camera bag knocking against his back. The thing he loved most about this time of year on Nantucket was how sea-torn everything looked, as though the summertime glitz could be so easily destroyed by a bit of weather, air, and sea. It was proof of the ephemeral nature of all things. He thought that men and women were not necessarily permanent fixtures on this earth, that we had so little control over it.

According to the internet, there was still one operable dark room on Nantucket Island. It was attached to the public library. At the front desk, he asked the woman working if he could use the dark room even though his Nantucket library card had been out of use for the better part of twenty-five years. She laughed at him and insisted that he make a new one before he used the dark room. But instead of filling out paperwork, he asked if his Boston library card would work.

“Oh! Yes,” she said, nodding happily. “That will do fine.”

The woman led him to the darkroom, where two other photographers were already at work, focusing on their prints as they came to life in the chemical solution. As soon as Rhett entered the darkroom, he felt an ease within himself, as though all the world's panic could fall away and leave him be. It reminded him of being eighteen, a freshman at art school, discovering a medium that, to him, beat out every other medium. Back then, he’d been freshly bruised from his breakup with Rose Calder. He’d also been sure that after she dumped him, she got with someone else almost immediately. That had stung. But he’d met someone shortly after that, a girl at art school from the West Coast whose name, so many years later, escaped him.

But he couldn’t forget Rose Calder, not ever.

In fact, he was rather sure that the woman he’d just seen at the harbor, the woman leaning against the railing with her hair whipping in the wind, was Rose herself. Pretending that he was out photographing (as he always did), he’d taken a few shots of her. Now, consumed with curiosity, he wanted to see those prints. He wanted to make sure it was her. He wanted to see what she was like now, without having to face her.

He thought, You’re a wimp for not wanting to face her. You’re here; you should walk up to her and tell her how often you think of her. You should tell her how much that relationship mattered despite its brevity.

As Rhett prepared his prints, he tried to imagine what Rose would say if she learned that Rhett was divorced. Rhett knew from the grapevine that Rose, too, was divorced, that she had a child with her first husband, that they all lived here in Nantucket, happily enough. He wondered if her first husband had made her happy for a time before things fell apart. He wondered if Rhett might have made her happier than that guy ever had, then told himself not to think about it. Life had happened, and he couldn’t take any of it back.

As the prints he’d taken today and yesterday came to life in the chemical solution before him, Rhett furrowed his brow with alarm. For yes, he was pretty sure the woman at the harbor was Rose, a forty-something updated version of the girl he’d loved. But he was also pretty sure the man beside her was a minor celebrity named Nathaniel Hawkins. If Rhett wasn’t mistaken, he was running for mayor.

Rhett gaped at the sight. When he’d been taking the photographs, he’d been so focused on Rose and the possibility of seeing Rose again that he hadn’t looked at the guy. But yes, beneath that black cap was Nathaniel Hawkins’s handsome, moneyed face.