The thought shot through her. She stood on the patio and walked to-and-fro until she got too tired and had to retire inside. This was a dangerous thought. Since her diagnosis, she hadn’t allowed herself to dream about having health insurance again. She hadn’t allowed herself to imagine actually receiving a liver transplant. A liver transplant was a pipe dream. It was what happened in the movies, not to people like Helena in real life.
Of course, being on the list for a transplant meant nothing unless your name came up before you passed away. Helena knew that. It was a race against time. But—if her name ever did come up, and she had health insurance? What did that mean for her future?
What did that mean for her understanding of her life’s trajectory?
That night, to escape her anxious and swirling thoughts, Helena slept for another eleven hours, then woke up to find another message from Hilary Salt, wondering when she could come by to pick up the painting she’d bought and see the rest of Helena’s work. Helena felt momentarily claustrophobic. She hadn’t spoken to another human since Matteo had left more than a month ago. She’d been having her groceries delivered. She left the delivery driver’s tip on the porch and let them take it without seeing her.
Did she have the will, not only to meet someone new, but to sell herself and her art to that woman? She knew that selling anything was about personality. She knew that from studying social media and providing her followers with a version of her life that was mostly fiction.
But wouldn’t Hilary Salt take one look at Helena, at her gaunt face and body, at her solitude, and realize how strange Helena was?
Helena wasn’t a Nantucketer, after all. She wasn’t a normal person in the slightest.
Was revealing herself a risk Helena was willing to take?
14
When they first started, Bethany hardly clocked the cramps. Overwhelmed with work, with a string of surgeries that felt back-to-back, and with family stuff, Bethany felt disconnected from her body in a way that she knew wasn’t customary for a pregnant woman. It worried her, but only passively, until she finally went to the doctor in mid-July for a checkup.
Dr. Schreiber took her blood pressure, noted her heart rate, snapped his gloves against his wrists, and assessed her insides. His face was grave, strange. When he sat back down, Bethany recognized the shift in the air of the room that indicated something was wrong. She braced herself, her hands over her stomach. She hadn’t allowed herself to think of a miscarriage.
“I’m worried, Bethany,” Dr. Schreiber confessed. “I have a hunch that you’re working yourself too hard. You’re too many things to too many people. Have you considered taking a little bit of time off?”
Bethany wanted to scoff at him. But rather than disrespect him and the profession they’d both given their lives to, she shook her head. “It’s so early on. I have all these surgeries scheduled.I’m needed at the hospital till it’s impossible for me to go on.” She’d planned to work there until she went into labor, if she was honest. But she didn’t tell her doctor that.
“To tell you the truth,” Dr. Schreiber said. “I’m considering putting you on bed rest. What do you think about that?”
Bethany’s jaw dropped.
Dr. Schreiber stretched both of his hands out between them. “Don’t panic. We aren’t there yet. But this is your official warning. You need to slow down, or else you’re going to be horizontal for a whole lot longer than you’re used to. I know the likes of Bethany Sutton don't like to slow down.”
Begrudgingly, when Bethany left the doctor’s office, she called the hospital staff to tell them that she needed a sub for her shift that evening. She’d slow down— for today—and assess herself tomorrow. Gina at the front desk was surprised. “You’ve never called in. Are you feeling okay?”
“The doctor said I’m pushing things too hard,” Bethany said.
“I guess you’d better listen to the doctor, just like all your patients listen to you,” Gina teased her lightly.
“My patients don’t listen to me,” Bethany said, laughing.
“Sure. But you know better, don’t you?” Gina said.
Bethany returned home to find Rod and Phoebe in the living room, prepping for one of Phoebe’s shows for theater camp, which was to be held that evening. Phoebe threw herself into her mother’s arms, crying dramatically, “I thought you had to work! But you’re here!”
Bethany smiled, realizing her night of dozing off in front of the television would have to be pushed aside. The theater called. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
For this first performance ofThe Taming of the Shrew, Alana Copperfield had a makeshift stage set up on the beach in front of the part-family-home, part-artist residency, The Copperfield House itself. Bethany, Rod, and Phoebe went to theartist residency around six so Phoebe could warm up with the other theater kids. Maddie and Tommy came shortly before the performance, still in their lifeguard swimsuits. They were tanner than they’d ever been and strong as oxen.
“How’d it go today?” Bethany asked Maddie as Maddie settled in beside her.
“Johnny’s new girlfriend came by while he was working.” Maddie rolled her eyes. “He wanted to show her off, I think. Or rub the whole situation in my face. It was gross.” But she sounded proud and sure of her decision to ignore Johnny forever. He’d blown it with her. She’d never go back.
Bethany was grateful that Maddie had allowed herself to grow within this experience. She hadn’t given up on herself.
“A tourist thought they saw a shark,” Tommy piped in. “Everyone ran out of the water, panicking. But it was literally just a scrap of wood.”
Bethany laughed, lacing her hands through Rod’s. Thinking of the baby, of the fact that she didn’t want to overexert herself, she calmed her laughter and her breath and her heart. She wanted to be in the world with her family. She didn’t want to be locked away in a bed somewhere, waiting for her baby to grow. It meant she had to slow down, even when she laughed.
Alana Copperfield stepped out on stage to welcome the audience to the first performance of the theater camp season. A beautiful forty-something woman with long, dark hair and a figure that spoke of her actress past, Alana spoke animatedly about how wonderful the summer had been so far. “These kids are boundless with creativity. They know what they want and how to show it. And they teach me something new every single day. Thank you for allowing me all this special time with them, parents. And thank you for coming out tonight.”