Kailee asked, “Are you sure you can do all this and the rest of the foundation work, too?”

  The two women began walking back to the small sandy parking space by the road. “I’m sure. I have to research what plants can be transplanted when and where, but your mother’s foundation has sufficient funds to pay for landscapers to improve the soil. It’s sandy, which means it needs organic materials added. Compost. Manure. And seaweed.”

  “Dad hasn’t put the house on the market yet. He’s talking to realtors, and so are Ross and I.” Kailee glanced at Heather. “I hear you’ve bought your little cottage.”

  “I have, yes.”

  “My father doesn’t want the sale to become a circus. He wants to get rid of a lot of the furniture and general stuff. Ross and I will take a few things, and Dad will take a lot of the furniture for his new place. You should go through the house, see if there’s something you’d like.”

  “Seriously? You would be okay if I took some furniture? I love my cottage, but it could use a few rugs and fireplace tools, but I wouldn’t want to upset you by having them in my house.”

  “It would be wonderful if you took whatever you want,” Kailee said. “My mom obviously liked you a lot. And she didn’t like a lot of people.”

  “Maybe she just didn’t have time to get to know me,” Heather joked.

  They had arrived in separate cars, and now they lingered, with so much more to say.

  “Have you found a house you and Ross like?” Heather asked.

  “We’re deciding between two different ones.” Kailee leaned against her car. “The one we like best is off Surfside Road, near the schools and the bike path to the beach. You know, we’d thought we’d build our perfect house, but now that we’ve got the Kid on the way, we don’t have time for that kind of project.”

  “Does it have a backyard?” Heather asked.

  “Yes! Already a small patio, and a lawn perfect for a swing set and a tree at the back where Ross can build a tree house.”

  “It all sounds like heaven,” Heather told her.

  “It would be heaven if my mother were alive,” Kailee said. “But at least we’ll have this garden. Thank you for that.”

  “Thank you for that,” Heather said, pointing to Kailee’s belly.

  Kailee laughed. “Want to feel? I’m bulging out a little bit now.”

  Heather crossed the short distance between them and gently put her hand on Kailee’s belly. “Nice and firm. Lovely.” She bent down and whispered, “Hello, baby.”

  When she stood up, she saw tears streaking down Kailee’s face.

  “Oh, honey,” Heather said. She took Kailee in her arms and hugged her as the young woman wept on her shoulder. This was what she could give, because no words would suffice.

  “Sorry,” Kailee apologized, pulling away and taking a tissue from her pocket. “I’m so emotional these days.”

  “You have a lot to be emotional about, plus you’ve got all sorts of rampaging hormones inside.”

  “Sometimes…” Kailee paused, not sure if she should share this. She hadn’t told Ross this. But she thought Heather would understand. “Sometimes I think Mom is near me, not visible, not a ghost, but a…warmth.”

  “ ‘There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’ ” Heather quoted. “I’m sure your mother is near you, and I’m sure she is happy.”

  Kailee nodded, sniffing. “Thanks, Heather. I should get back.”

  “Yes, me, too.” Heather went around her old Volvo and got in, waiting until Kailee had settled in her car and buckled up and left the parking lot. “ ‘I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,’ ” she said, quoting from Casablanca.

  She laughed at herself, sitting in her car talking to herself. She started her car, did a three-point turn, and drove home.

  It was Heather who loved Kailee first, and as time went by, Kailee loved her back.

  For my daughter, Sam Wilde

  Acknowledgments

  My daughter Sam appeared in my first novel, Stepping, as a toddler with chicken pox. I was writing about a woman loving her children and also wanting to have an intellectual and professional life. This year, as I wrote All the Days of Summer, I was inspired and cheered by Sam, a Yale-trained theologian, master yoga teacher, novelist, and mother of five children, my absolutely perfect grandchildren Ellias, Adeline, Emmett, Annie, and Arwyn. I’m grateful to her partner, Tommy Clair, for all he does for their children and his community, and I’m grateful to him for being there for Sam as she does five important things at the same time. And it’s Sam, my radiant whirlwind of a daughter, who reminds me to keep the spiritual in my life, to be still, to go to the ocean and breathe. Thank you, Sam.

  How fortunate I’ve been to have Shauna Summers as my editor. It’s impossible to describe how indispensable Shauna’s ideas, edits, and excellent care have been to this book.

  I’m grateful to Gina Centrello, Kara Walsh, and Kim Hovey, the powerhouse beauties of PRH, and to Lexi Batsides and Mae Martinez. Thank you, Allison Schuster and Karen Fink, for your invaluable assistance with publicity. Jennifer Rodriguez, your help has been essential, and our phone conversations have made proofreading fun. (Were those last two words ever used together in a sentence before?)

  My agent, Meg Ruley, her associates Jesse Errera and Christina Hogrebe, and everyone at the Jane Rotrosen Literary Agency are totally golden. I’m so glad to be with them and so grateful to them for all they do. Christina Higgins, my virtual assistant, has been dynamite, and to Chris Mason, my website manager, the best is yet to come.

  Nantucket is a small island, but we’ve got a huge bookstore. Nantucket Book Partners, with Mitchell’s Book Corner and Bookworks, continues to champion authors and satisfy readers. Wendy Hudson, Annye Camera, Christina Machiavelli, Dick Burns, and Evelyn Hudson keep that book beehive buzzing. Tim Ehrenberg works publicity magic, bringing authors new and old to the store and whipping up excitement about their books. I think Tim might have read more books than I have.

  Bookstores, book clubs, and libraries are all as necessary to a writer as breathing. I send my thanks and my love to them all. I hope to see you there, even if only virtually. Island life always depends on good weather, as we were reminded this past year when we tried to go see our grandchildren for Christmas, only to be prevented by a gale-force wind stopping all ferries and planes. (But the waves were fabulous!)

  Special thanks to island historian Frances Ruley Karttunen for her remarkable research and books on Nantucket history.

  My family calls me an introvert, and maybe a writer has to be an introvert, but I know I couldn’t write a page if I didn’t see my friends once in a while. And no, I don’t get ideas from their lives. Okay, maybe a little bit. Cheers to Jill Hunter Burrill, Deborah and Mark Beale, Mary and John West, Tricia and Jimmy Patterson, Melissa and Nat Philbrick, Gussy Manville, Dinah Fulton, Sofia Popova, Martha and Chuck Foshee, Antonia Massie, Patsy Ernst, Jane Oman, Barbara and Bob Bailey, Julie Hensler, and Curlette Anglin. A special thank-you to Katie Hemingway of Grass Roots Garden, whose knowledge and talent brighten my days.

  And I love being in a writing world with Brenda Novak, Debbie Macomber, Mary Alice Monroe, Wade Rouse, Kristan Higgins, Jamie Brenner, Mary Kay Andrews, Patti Callahan Henry, Kristy Woodson Harvey, Kristin Harmel, and the phenomenal Friends and Fiction book group.

  Most of all, I’m grateful for my readers. Words can’t say how much it means to me to be in touch with you all through Facebook, Instagram, and newsletters. (I tried to go on TikTok, but my sixteen-year-old grandson said, “Nanny. Don’t.”)

  Finally, to my husband Charley, thank you. I love you more than I love tacos.

  by nancy thayer

  All the Days of Summer

  Summer Love

  Family Reunion

  Girls of Summer

  Let It Snow

  Surfside Sisters

  A Nantucket Wedding

  Secrets in Summer

  The Island House

  A Very Nantucket Christmas

  The Guest Cottage

  An Island Christmas

  Nantucket Sisters

  A Nantucket Christmas

  Island Girls

  Summer Breeze

  Heat Wave

  Beachcombers

  Summer House

  Moon Shell Beach

  The Hot Flash Club Chills Out

  Hot Flash Holidays

  The Hot Flash Club Strikes Again

  The Hot Flash Club

  Custody

  Between Husbands and Friends

  An Act of Love

  Belonging

  Family Secrets

  Everlasting

  My Dearest Friend

  Spirit Lost

  Morning

  Nell

  Bodies and Souls

  Three Women at the Water’s Edge

  Stepping

  About the Author

  Nancy Thayer is the New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty novels, including All the Days of Summer, Summer Love, Family Reunion, Girls of Summer, Let It Snow, Surfside Sisters, A Nantucket Wedding, Secrets in Summer, The Island House, The Guest Cottage, An Island Christmas, Nantucket Sisters, and Island Girls. Born in Kansas, Thayer has for nearly forty years been a resident of Nantucket, where she currently lives with her husband, Charley, and a precocious rescue cat named Callie.

  nancythayer.com

  Facebook.com/​NancyThayerBooks

  Instagram: @nancythayerbooks

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  Nancy Thayer, All the Days of Summer

 

 

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