Winter Storms (4 page)

“My…” It takes Kevin a second. His sister-in-law? Which sister-in-law? No, wait, there is only one: Jennifer. “Jennifer? Patrick's wife, Jennifer?”

“That's what I heard,” Haven says. “I thought you'd want to know.”

Kevin finds Haven's tone so irritating that his first instinct is to tell her that she's part of the problem. Probably she has shared this juicy nugget with all of the other mothers here at Children's Beach. Norah Vale, his ex-wife, is purportedly selling pills to his sister-in-law, Jennifer. Jennifer hates Norah. Even when they were part of the same family, Jennifer didn't have a nice word for Norah. And vice versa.

But Kevin applies his verbal brakes. He can't lose his temper with Haven Silva. First of all, she's telling him only because he should know the rumor is out there. Second, and far more important, Haven's uncle Chester Silva is one of Nantucket's five selectmen, and if Kevin wants to lease the Surfside shack, he's going to need Chester's support.

Kevin smiles at Haven and the smile is sincere. She named her son after her beloved younger brother, taken from them too soon. She is a good person.

“I doubt it's true,” Kevin says. He lifts Genevieve out of the swing and she squawks in protest. “But thank you for letting me know.”

P
atrick's release from jail is delayed by three weeks.

Why? Why?
Jennifer wants to know why.

“I'm not sure why,” Patrick says over the phone. “Maybe I understood it wrong to begin with? Janine in Processing was adamant. I get out the twenty-first, not the first.”

Patrick sounds like he's just going to roll over and accept his fate rather than fight it. He has been in jail too long; he's become submissive. Where is her take-charge, fix-everything husband?

“Have you called Hollis?” Jennifer asks.

“I called him, he knows, but there's nothing he can do about it, and even if there were something he could do about it, it would likely take the same amount of time I have to wait anyway. It's only three more weeks,” Patrick says. “I've gotten through eighteen months. I can wait three more weeks.”

Maybe he can, but Jennifer can't. June 1 is decorated with a pink heart on her calendar. In her mind, the day is a starburst. She has rationed her energy and her patience to make it to June 1—not a day longer. And certainly not three weeks longer. She has already planned a family dinner for Patrick's first night home—poached salmon with mustard-dill sauce and the crispy potato croquettes that Patrick loves. And then the following two nights, Jennifer has farmed the boys out on sleepovers so that she and Patrick can have the house to themselves. She has bought new lingerie and new sheets; she has ordered a tin of osetra caviar and chilled a vintage bottle of Veuve. She has told Jaime, their youngest, that Patrick will make it to his final lacrosse game of the season. The plans are so embedded in Jennifer's mind that she can't shift them forward three weeks. She just can't!

“It sounds like you
want
to stay in jail,” Jennifer says. “Maybe you have a little romance going on with Janine from Processing.”

“Jennifer,” Patrick says. “Please.”

“Please
what?
”

“Please try to understand. This isn't my fault. It isn't anyone's fault. It was a misunderstanding. A scheduling glitch.”

Jennifer nods into the phone but she can't speak. She knows it's not Patrick's fault. She knows she should accept this news gracefully and adjust her expectations. She's an interior designer. She, of all people, understands delays. It happens all the time in her business—carpets from India get stuck in Customs, quarries run out of a particular kind of granite, her son Barrett gets walking pneumonia and Jennifer has to postpone an installation by a week.

“Okay,” she says. “We'll see you on the twenty-first.”

“That's my girl,” Patrick says.

Jennifer hangs up the phone. Immediately, she calls Norah Vale.

It's June 20, the first day of summer, when Jennifer drives out to Shirley, Massachusetts, to pick Patrick up. She can't seem to control her nerves, despite eating two Ativan for breakfast. Her heart is slamming in her chest, almost as if she's afraid. Afraid of what? She went to visit Patrick a week ago Thursday and talked to him yesterday afternoon, but this is different. He's coming home. He's coming home!

Patrick is standing by the gate with his favorite guard, Becker, a man even Jennifer has come to know and appreciate. Jennifer barely remembers to put the car in park. She jumps out and runs into Patrick's arms. He picks her up and they kiss like crazy teenagers until Becker clears his throat and says, “You all need to get a room.”

Patrick shakes Becker's hand and says, “Thanks for having my back, man. I'm gonna miss you.”

“No, you won't,” Becker says with a smile. “Now get out of here.”

Patrick drives them home. He says, “It's like the world is brand-new. I missed driving.”

“You hate driving,” Jennifer says.

“I'll never complain about it again,” Patrick says. “I'll never complain about anything again.”

It's a good lesson about the things we take for granted, Jennifer thinks. Patrick reenters the free world with the enthusiasm of a child.

Jennifer says, “What do you want to do first?”

He gives her a look as if to say
Do you even have to ask that?

She swats his arm. “After that.”

“I want to hug my children,” he says.

“Obviously,” Jennifer says. “After that.”

“I want to stop at the store and get a cold six-pack,” he says. “I want to smell a flower. I want to take a bath. I want to get into a bed with my head on three fluffy pillows. I want to swim in the ocean. I want to go to the movies and get popcorn with too much butter. I want a glass of water filled with ice. You have no idea how much I've missed ice. I want to walk across Boston Common and smell the marijuana smoke and get asked for spare change. I want to wear my watch. I want to download music. I want to watch the sun go down. I want to throw the lacrosse ball with Jaime. I want to meet my new niece. I want my electric toothbrush. I want to wear
my
shirts,
my
boxers,
my
loafers.” He pauses. He seems overcome. “There are so many things.”

“There will be time,” Jennifer says. “I promise.” She knows what he means. He's here, right here next to her. She puts her hand on the back of his head. She never wants to stop touching him.

“And you,” Patrick says. “You are amazing. You held everything together. You were
so
strong. You deserve a medal. I wouldn't have blamed you if you'd left me, Jenny.”

“I would never leave you,” she says.

“I don't know how you did it,” he says. “I don't know how you got through the days. It must have been so hard on you and yet you never complained. You are my hero, Jennifer Barrett Quinn.”

She longs to confess:
I'm addicted to pills. Completely, pathetically addicted.

But instead she says, “Stop. You're embarrassing me.”

 

J
une 20 is the first day of summer and the last day of school. Ava can remember only one other year when the two converged, but everyone finds it fitting: a seasonal passing of the baton.

The day is sweltering, and naturally, tradition dictates that the majority of the last day be spent with the entire school packed together in the gymnasium, the one room in
the building that defies even the most powerful air-conditioning.
Ava has begged Principal Kubisch to keep the two back doors propped open for ventilation, despite the fact that, in this day and age, it's a security violation.

There is a pint-size version of pomp and circumstance for the departing fifth-graders, and Ava is overcome with nostalgia. She remembers Ryan Papsycki and Topher Fotea and the clique now headed by Sophie Fairbairn back when they were tiny kindergartners. Today, Sophie has seen fit to wear a lace bustier and show off her double-pierced ears. She'll be a big hit in middle school.

Ava herds the fourth-graders into rows of chairs for their three minutes of fame. They have been practicing “Annie's Song,” by John Denver, on their recorders ever since they got back from Christmas break and they've gotten proficient enough that Ava doesn't have to put in earplugs when they play it. She and Scott have an ongoing debate about how teaching the recorder should have been banned back in 1974 after the first class of students learned to play “Annie's Song.” The recorder is such a lame instrument! Ava would far prefer teaching something the kids might actually use later in life—the harmonica, say, or the ukulele, the xylophone or the bongo drums. Anything but the recorder.

Ava raises her arms and imagines for a moment that she is Arthur Fiedler conducting the Boston Pops. Ha! That's funny enough that Ava nearly breaks into a grin. D'laney Rodenbough still has her recorder swaddled in a striped kneesock, but Ava can't wait for D'laney. It's too hot and everyone wants to get out of there.

You fill up my senses…

The song is over in two minutes and thirty-six seconds and as Ava zips her hands over her head, like she's closing
up the school year and all the laughter, learning, rule-breaking,
and scolding that went with it, she sees, standing by the open back door, the tall, authoritative figure of the assistant principal, Scott Skyler, and, next to him, Roxanne Oliveria.

The assembled crowd applauds. Ava takes a shallow bow. The person inside Ava shakes her head in disgust. What is Mz. Ohhhhhh doing here?

Ava's best friend, Shelby, the school librarian, grabs Ava's arm as they're walking out of the gym. “She's shameless.”

“I'm sure he invited her,” Ava says.

“Only to make you jealous,” Shelby says.

Ava thinks that this is probably true.

Somehow, Scott and Mz. Ohhhhhh have teleported
themselves from the back door of the gym to just outside the main office, where they are jointly waving good-bye to the students, like Mr. and Mrs. America on a parade float. Ava is so perplexed—what is Roxanne
doing
here?—that she allows herself to be carried along on a wave of students giddy with escape.

She gets close enough that Roxanne can grab Ava's arm. “Congratulations!” she says.

“Thanks?” Ava says.

“This is my favorite day of the year,” Roxanne says.

Ava makes a face. Roxanne teaches high school English. The high school got out last week. For the past seven days, Roxanne has been reading the new Nancy Thayer novel and catching up on Netflix.

Whatever,
Ava thinks. She wants to get away, but there are kids everywhere. Scott is involved in high-fiving all of the children from his special advisory group, kids who were considered “at risk” at the beginning of the year but who are now contributing citizens.

“… Tuscany?” Roxanne says.

Ava looks at her, alarmed. Is Roxanne still talking to her?

“I'm sorry?” Ava says.

“Did Scott tell you he's taking me to Tuscany?” Roxanne says. “We've rented a villa.”

Ava is too blindsided to bluff. “No,” she says. “He did not tell me that.”

“We leave tonight,” Roxanne says.

Ava collects her things from her room. The previous year on the last day of school, she and Scott had stopped at Henry's Jr. for sandwiches and Hatch's for beer and then had driven Ava's Jeep up to Great Point, where they stayed until the sun went down.

Tuscany. A villa.

Ava had had drinks with Scott on Saturday night at the Jetties. Drinks turned into a dozen oysters at the bar, which turned into dinner. Marshall sat them at the table he called Romance No. 1, set apart from all the other tables and lit only by candles. They ordered a crisp white wine and the lobster pizza and they listened to the guitar player do a pretty creative acoustic version of “Paradise by the Dashboard Light.” Ava went back to Scott's place afterward and then in the morning, they'd gone to the Downyflake for breakfast, where they saw half the school faculty. Ava told Scott how excited she was to work with Kevin at Quinns' on the Beach—four days a week, eleven to five.

Scott had kissed Ava and said, “But I'll never see you.”

“You can come visit,” Ava said. “I'll make you a frappe.”

Scott had not said word one about taking Roxanne to Tuscany or renting a villa.

Ava bristles. Scott has never taken Ava anywhere except to Tuckernuck, which is a whopping half a mile from Madaket Harbor by boat. They had stayed two nights in the old schoolhouse, which was appropriate for two educators. The schoolhouse was home to field mice and spiders, and Ava had to relieve herself in a bucket. It was not a villa in Tuscany.

She considers sending Scott a text—but what would she say? That she's hurt? Obviously, he realizes this. That he should have told Ava himself instead of letting Roxanne drop the news like a dirty bomb? Obviously, he realizes this as well. Next, Ava considers sending Shelby a text, but Shelby has a husband and a cute baby boy waiting for her at home. She claims she loves hearing about the drama in Ava's life, but she's lying.

Ava slogs through the heat out to the parking lot. Silence will be her weapon of choice, she decides. Scott can go to Tuscany tomorrow, he can have fun dancing Roxanne around their villa to “Brown-Eyed Girl,” Ava doesn't care. She won't call, she won't text. She will be a stone wall of impenetrable silence, a fortress of noncommunication.

Then Ava finds a dozen pale pink roses lying across the front seat of her Jeep. Her heart lifts briefly—Scott? There's a note on top:
Congrats, babe! Meet me on the Straight Wharf tonight at 7:30 sharp. Love, N.

Nathaniel.

Ava can't help herself; she feels let down. She wonders if this means she's any closer to solving her quandary. Does she really love Scott? Or is it a false construct—she loves Scott only because Scott is taking Roxanne to Tuscany?

She lifts the roses and inhales. She stands in the parking lot sniffing her lavish bouquet a little longer than she might have normally, hoping that Scott will come out and see her. His Explorer is three cars away from her car in the parking lot. Has Scott ever expressed
any
interest in going to Italy? Africa, yes, the Peace Corps—a lifelong dream. But Italy? Scott doesn't even like Italian food!