Now That You Mention It. Kristan Higgins

blinked. “Oh.”

      Strangely enough, I wanted my mother. I wanted the pine trees and rocky shores. I wanted to sleep in the room I hadn’t slept in for fifteen years.

      I wanted to see my sister.

      Yes. I’d go home, as one does after a brush with death. I’d take a leave of absence from the practice and go back to Scupper Island, make amends with my mother, spend some time with my niece, wait for my sister to come back and...well...reassess. I might not have died, but it was close enough. I had another chance. I could do better.

      “And I’m bringing Boomer,” I added.

      * * *

      A week later, still sore and slow, arm in a sling, leg in a soft brace, one crutch to balance me, I looked around our apartment for the last time. Bobby’s apartment, really. Roseline had come over last night, and we got a little weepy, but she said she’d come see me on Scupper. Bobby had thoughtfully made himself scarce and had been sleeping on the couch all week.

      I should never have moved in with him. We’d only been dating a couple of months before the Big Bad Event, after which we shacked up. Way too early. But then, going back to my place was out of the question. He said we were moving in together, I said yes. Also, we’d been in love.

      And lest we forget, Bobby got off on saving people.

      In the week since I was hit by Beantown Bug Killers (who had sent flowers every day), I’d done a lot of thinking. I wanted to stop being afraid, to stop settling for the half love Bobby gave me, to stop feeling so gray. The time had come.

      Bobby stood by the door, Boomer on the leash. There were tears in his aqua-blue eyes. “This is harder than I thought it’d be,” he admitted.

      “We’ll still see each other. Joint custody and all that.”

      He smiled, petting Boomer’s big head. “Thanks for that.”

      Yes, we were sharing the dog. After all, we’d gotten him together.

      “You want to go for a ride, Boomer?” I said, uttering the most wonderful words a dog could hear. “You want to go in the car?”

      Bobby drove us to the ferry station, where people could grab a boat to Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, Provincetown or, in my case, Scupper Island, my hometown, a small island three miles off the rough and ragged coast of southern Maine. The ferry came to Boston almost every day; it was also the mail boat and could carry all of three cars.

      Bobby unloaded my suitcases and bought my ticket. Our breakup had made him once again solicitous; he’d been a prince these past few days, fetching me my painkillers, reading to me as I fell asleep, even cooking for me.

      I didn’t care. He’d been fondling someone’s hair in my hospital room, and that was not something I’d forget.

      The ferry pulled in, a battered little thing, same as it had always been. Jake Ferriman, the eponymous captain of the Scupper Island ferry, was a fixture. He didn’t acknowledge me, just tied up the boat and jumped off, a small sack of mail in one hand.

      I’d hoped my mom would come on the ferry to get me; I’d called her when I was discharged from the hospital and told her I’d be coming home, that I’d been hurt but was okay—I think I used the words expected to recover, always looking for attention where my mother was concerned. Her only response had been a sigh, followed by “I’ll pick you up at the dock when you get here,” and I bit down on all the things I wanted to say. It could wait. I was starting over, after all.

      Jake returned from wherever he dropped the mail, carrying the return post in a bag in one hand. He checked his clipboard. “You travelin’ alone?” he asked, eyeing Boomer.

      “With the dog here.”

      He frowned, glanced at me again, then made a check mark on his clipboard.

      “I guess this is it, then,” Bobby said. “Call me when you get settled, okay?”

      He hugged me carefully, then buttoned my coat over my sling. There was the lump in my throat again. “Take care,” I whispered.

      We’d been friends for a long time and a couple for more than a year. All that was over and done with now.

      Bobby’s eyes were wet, too.

      Jake hefted my suitcases onto the boat, then took Boomer’s leash. My dog jumped happily onto the boat and snuffled the wind. I followed more carefully.

      I went inside the ferry’s cabin and sat down, laid my crutch next to me. Looked at Bobby through the window and waved. Tried to smile.

      “Ever been to Scupper before?” Jake asked.

      I blinked, surprised he didn’t know who I was. Then again, I was an adult now. I wasn’t the overweight girl with bad skin and worse posture. “I grew up there. I’m Nora Stuart, Mr. Ferriman.”

      “Sharon’s girl?”

      “Yes.”

      “The one with the kid?”

      “No. The other one.” The doctor, I almost added, but that would’ve been prideful, and Mainers didn’t like that.

      Jake grunted, and I sensed our conversation was over.

      Then he started the engine, pulled the lines, and we were off, Boston’s pretty skyline growing smaller as we headed out on the dark gray water, toward the clouds hanging on the horizon.

      My hands tingled with nerves, and I petted Boomer’s head. He looked up at me with his sweet doggy smile. “Sorry about this, pal,” I whispered. “No one is going to be too happy to see us.”

       3

      Scupper Island, Maine, was named for Captain Jedediah Scupper, a whaling captain who left Nantucket after he lost an election on the church council. He came to settle his own island and give Nantucket a big middle finger. Nantucket didn’t seem to mind. Captain Scupper brought a wife and five kids, and those five kids found spouses, and before you knew it, there was a legitimate community here.

      Over the years, its residents lived the same way as those on most Maine islands did—they suffered after the whaling industry died, then turned to fishing and lobstering.

      Islanders prided themselves on survival and toughness, bonded together by hurricanes and nor’easters, drownings and hardship. When the Gilded Age hit, it gave Scupper a new industry—service. Cleaning, gardening, catering, carpentry, plumbing, nannying, taking care of the rich folks and their property.

      That never changed.

      I grew up with the belief that while the rich people came in June—the summer nuisance, we called them—Scupper Island was for us, the tough Yankees. We’d deal with the summer people, those who owned big houses on the rocky cliffs and moored their wooden sailboats in our picturesque coves. The kids were attractive and polite, but never our real friends, not when they wore Vineyard Vines and Ralph Lauren and had European nannies. Not when they ate at the local restaurants where our parents worked.

      But they were our bread and butter, and lots of them were genuinely nice people. They donated to our schools, paid the taxes that kept our roads patched and plowed, fed the local economy. Still, we were glad when they left every Labor Day. Being cheerful representatives of their summer getaway was a little wearing.

      Scupper belonged to us. To my sister and me, to our dad and absolutely to our mom.

      My mother, Sharon Potter Stuart (and believe me, her maiden name was the source of great joy to this Muggle), was a fourth-generation islander, born and raised here. She was a typical tough Maine woman—able to shoot a deer, dress it and make venison chili in the same day. She cut and stacked her own wood, made her own food, viewed going to restaurants as wasteful. She knew how to do everything—fish, sail, fix a car, make biscuits from scratch,