CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Five years later

The photo from Mom and George's wedding sits on my mantlepiece now, in my apartment in Windsholme, where we live in the summer. The Snowden Family Clambake lives on, much as it always has, because, as I have come to see, tradition is the point.

Tom lives here, too. It turns out the logistics weren't so complicated. We bought him a motorboat so he could commute and rented a dock at the yacht club, where he keeps his car.

We've expanded our apartment into the bedroom next door to make room for our two little girls, three and two. I'm watching them running and screeching on the great lawn right now. Jack is supposed to be babysitting, but he's chasing them, hands held up like a monster's claws, growling all the while. I supposed that counts as babysitting.

For our wedding, Tom and I had wanted to split the difference between Mom and George's little garden party and Zoey and Jamie's traditional do. But Tom's Rhode Island–based family was enormous, and everybody came. Even the sister-in-law he was formerly engaged to. It turned out she was nice and particularly warm toward me. Her loss had been my gain, so I could afford to be gracious.

Learning from history, we didn't have a wedding cake and instead offered our guests whoopie pies, a staple sweet in Maine. The day turned out to be everything we'd ever hoped. I have a photo of the two of us on the mantel, too. The girls love to look at the wedding album and hear about the time before they were born.

When we're not at Windsholme, we live in Wiscasset, a half an hour from Tom's office and twenty minutes from Lupine Design. Wiscasset is the "Prettiest Village in Maine." At least it says so on the sign on Route 1, though the title is heavily disputed. The logistics came together as soon as Tom and I determined that we had to figure them out.

Lieutenant Binder shocked everyone two years ago by taking a job in private security. He said he was worn out facing death every day at work—not his own, but other people's. Tom had already qualified for the promotion, and he got the job. I am so proud of him. It means he's away from home more nights, summer and winter, but I can get by with help from my friends and family.

Page graduated from college this year. She's moving to New York in the fall to work for a financial company, inspired, she claims by her aunt. Me. Before she goes, she'll spend one last summer working at the Clambake. She's one of our best employees.

Lupine Design is thriving. We signed our first licensing deal for manufacturing this spring. For Zoey, the pottery was very much about getting her hands dirty, but she said, as time went on, leveraging her effort and getting paid for work already done, instead having to create each plate and bowl, became attractive. Livvie and Amelia made the models for the first pieces that will come off the line, and they'll share in the licensing revenue.

Zoey and Jamie's first baby turned out to be a boy. They have a little girl, too, the same age as my younger one. Zoey has a biological family now as well as her found family. The children play together all the time.

Linens and Pantries imploded in spectacular fashion, and Mom got laid off with the rest of the employees. She says she's just as happy. With two new grandchildren, she's content to be retired. The captain often stays overnight in their apartment here in Windsholme and rides in with Tom in the morning to ready the Jacquie II.

Quentin met a man in Cannes. I love to say that to him. "You met a mon in Con," I say. It's meant we see even less of him, which causes me to say, "We can't make a plon because you have a mon in Con," until it drives him crazy. I'm happy for him, even if I miss him.

A friend of a friend told a friend who told Livvie that Chris still lives in Florida. I'm sure he wouldn't have stayed if he hadn't reconciled with at least some of his family. He's married and has a baby girl. I'm happy for him.

Fee and Vee closed the Snuggles Inn last year. Making the beds, doing the shopping, and cooking the breakfasts all got to be too much. They can enjoy their own house now year-round, though often when I visit my mother, I see former guests standing on their front porch, come by to say how much the place meant to them.

Gus died a year ago in March. He finished the lunch rush, took off his apron, and was gone. In the way of long marriages, Mrs. Gus went two months later. Their son and his wife run the restaurant now. They don't have the same attitude about people "from away" that Gus did. Like sane capitalists and business owners, they are happy to serve tourists. But they've kept the menu the same, and in the winter, there are no tourists. I take the girls there because I want the restaurant to be part of their childhoods. But I always get a pang when I look behind the counter and Gus isn't there. He and Mrs. Gus are buried in the Busman's Harbor cemetery, and I often go to see them when I visit my dad.

Which isn't as often as I'd like. Life gets complicated with a preschooler and a toddler, a husband often out of town for work, a full-time job, and a seasonal job. The days are long, but the months fly by. On the days that are hard, when one little girl is screaming in the bathtub and the other is naked and dripping, just outside the door, throwing everything out of the laundry basket, I remind myself of what my mother said on the day of her second wedding. "Grab life. Grab love." And hold on for the ride.