She said he could tell her the rest later. She rang off and looked at Rex.
“How long does it take to get to the ferry terminal? I’m having such a good time and I hate to interrupt it . . . but my son’s on the ferry, and I’d love to be there when it comes in.”
Rex glanced at his watch, then swiftly started packing the leftover food. “He must be on the two thirty. If we shake a leg—oops, no offense—we can make it. Is he coming into Vineyard Haven or OB?”
“He said Vineyard Haven.” She wasn’t sure, but thought that OB stood for Oak Bluffs. Or Oaks Bluff. Something like that.
“It’s closer, then. And after we get him, I’ll run you both up to Menemsha.”
Maddie frowned. “But you need to be in Edgartown at four.”
He shook his head. “I’ll make a call. Your family is more important than pan-seared halibut with lemon pepper sauce. That’s the special for tonight.” He winked.
And Maddie laughed. Again.
* * *
The drive took forever. On the way, Maddie called Joe and canceled their meeting. She perched on the edge of the seat; she frantically tried to sort out everything she wanted to tell Rafe. She almost forgot that Rex was next to her. They arrived at the Steamship Authority, just as she finished preparing her agenda.
But the boat wasn’t there yet.
When Maddie had arrived over a week ago, she hadn’t paid attention to the size of the crowd—unsure of where or how to get around on the big boat, she’d stayed in her car on the freight deck during the crossing. While waiting to disembark, she’d merely set her GPS for Grandma Nancy’s address, then followed the car in front of her as they clunk-clunked down the ramp onto the pavement.
But as Rex found what he said was a miraculous parking space and she exited his pickup, the crowd made her feel terribly claustrophobic. But with her crutches firmly in place, she told Rex she’d be fine without the wheelchair and that she’d like to do this alone if he didn’t mind waiting. He agreed and gestured toward an area where people with dogs on leashes and others wheeling suitcases were crammed together, either waiting to board or there to meet someone. Praying she’d stay upright, she thanked him, limped across the pavement and joined the masses.
Leaning on her left leg, her right one bent at the knee and dangling in the air the way CiCi’s earrings dangled, Maddie waited. And waited. When she’d been standing all of four or five minutes, a man shouted, “Here she comes!”
Heads turned, voices hushed, and eyes, Maddie’s included, riveted their gaze to the not-too-distant jetty where the big white ferry turned into the harbor, inching along so slowly it was barely leaving a wake.
Like others around her, Maddie couldn’t help but smile.
Several minutes later, the boat bumped against the pier. Dockworkers in neon-yellow vests performed their mechanical routines—aligning, cranking, and hooking up all things that needed aligning, cranking, and hooking.
The herd then shifted to the left; a boat worker unlatched a heavy chain and signaled the vehicles to start departing. It was a rhythm Maddie figured was repeated many times every day, every month, of every year. But she also knew she shouldn’t think about that now; her mind should be on Rafe, her 25 percent Indigenous son.
The crowd swayed again, this time drawing Maddie’s attention to the side of the boat where another mass of people, dogs, and rolling suitcases were descending down an enormous angled ramp. Like many around her, she bobbed her head this way and that, hunting for Rafe.
And there he was!
In cargo shorts and an Amherst T-shirt, his step was as jaunty as his smile was big, as he was scoping the area, too, searching for her, his mom, the person who loved him the very most.
Making sure not to knock anyone with her crutches, she lifted one and waved it toward the tall, so-handsome boy approaching.
He reached the bottom of the ramp and saw her. Waving back, he laughed and turned his head as if telling the person behind him that he’d just seen his mom.
Her love for him began to swell . . . until she noticed that the person behind Rafe looked an awful lot like her ass of an ex-husband.
Chapter 22
Maddie’s first instinct was to rush over to the pickup and tell Rex to leave without them, that she’d get a taxi. But she was hardly able to sprint on crutches, let alone across the lot where people were dodging the stream of vehicles parading off the freight deck.
Then, as her gaze gravitated back to the person who now ambled next to Rafe, her body stiffened, as if she’d become one of the life-size sculptures in the garden at Field Gallery on State Road.
“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no.”
“Mom!” Rafe called, weaving his way toward her, and rewarding her with a nice, big hug. “We made it! And I tried to warn you, but . . .” He offered a wry smile.
She looked over his shoulder.
