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But in the foyer, Olivia wrapped her arms around her daughter yet again and demanded, “What the heck got into you? Why the heck are you here? Chelsea?” Her heart thumped against her ribcage and threatened to crack itself through. Chelsea shivered against her as Anthony’s words boomed, “We need to get in the library. Right now!” His hand-stretched across Olivia’s and pressed her toward the room, where she watched as the dock worker already took up residence at one of the tables and demanded to be a part of the board game. Everyone looked at this man dripping wet from the storm, burly from long hours at the dock and decided not to make a fuss about starting over. Anthony latched the door closed behind them and gaped at Chelsea. She was the prodigal daughter.
“Come on,” Olivia whispered. She slipped her fingers through her daughter’s and rushed her toward the far corner of the library, where they were hidden by a large shelf of books. Once there, she hugged her daughter all over again, then lifted the bottle of whiskey from her purse. “I can’t believe all this time that I’ve thought I only had to worry about my friends and family and the hotel guests. But you were out there? Traveling from New York City? And paying some dock worker to bring you all the way here from Oak Bluffs?”
Chelsea’s eyes sparkled mischievously. “It worked, didn’t it?”
“It sure as heck shouldn’t have.” Olivia poured them small shots, which they clinked quietly. Her eyes felt glazed over with fear. “Chelsea. Why are you here?”
Outside, the wind pressed itself like a thick blanket against the side of the mansion. Chelsea’s eyes searched the space around them.
“I should have checked the weather before my spontaneous trip home, I guess.”
“That’s just your generation, isn’t it? Endlessly optimistic about your plans,” Olivia teased.
Chelsea shrugged. “I wouldn’t want you to go through this alone.”
Olivia furrowed her brow. Her daughter hadn’t said such kind words to her in quite a while — words that suggested that the two of them were more like a team.
“Your dad. I didn’t want to pry...” Olivia began.
Chelsea’s eyes hardened slightly. “Can we talk about this after the hurricane sweeps us away?”
Anthony ambled around the bookshelf and crossed his arms nervously. “The guests are growing nervous and more annoying by the second if you can believe it.”
“We have that stock of wine here in the library,” Olivia pointed out. “And there are those boxes of coffee mugs in the cabinet. Let’s make it a little party.”
Anthony nodded and turned back toward the kitchen staff, who assisted him with finding the crates of wine and the mugs. Olivia and Chelsea stepped out from the back of the library and huddled together, listening as the wind smashed around them. There was so much to say, so much they’d buried beneath the surface.
“Crap. The phones just went out,” Olivia said as she checked her cell. “I wanted to text the girls to see if everyone was okay.”
“Ugh. Well, to be honest, not having a phone right now is beneficial for me,” Chelsea admitted.
“Didn’t you have work tonight?” Olivia asked.
Chelsea shrugged flippantly. Olivia knew better than to press the matter.
As this seemed a bit like “the end of the world,” it was fascinating to eavesdrop on others’ conversations in the library. The seventy-something-year-old sisters got into a funny argument, bickering about something that had happened all the way back in the seventies.
“You told Jeffrey that you wish you’d married him instead of Ollie,” one of them said pointedly. “I’m tired of you pretending that you didn’t say that. He was my husband! What made you think that was okay?”
“Oh, God, Mary-Anne. Are we really going to get back on that?” the other demanded.
“When you insinuated to the father of my children that you wished you would have built a life with him instead of your own husband? Yes, we’re going to get back on that,” the other retorted.
Mary-Anne countered wickedly. “Then why the heck did we spend all that money on therapy in the nineties if we’re just going to keep bringing it up again and again? You said you were over it! Besides, Jeffrey died ten years ago, and Ollie died two years ago. It’s just you and me, babe. You and me till the end and maybe this is it!” She raised her mug of wine and waggled her eyebrows.
Chelsea squeezed her mother’s wrist hard and seemed to suppress endless giggles.
Alongside the bickering sisters, the dock worker continued to play a terribly competitive game of Life alongside a family of four and another straggler.
“I don’t see the benefit of going to college,” the dock worker informed one of the younger girls from the family as she toyed with the card in her hand. “I mean, you could make money immediately and then buy whatever you want.”
The young girl’s mother and father glowered at the dock worker. “I don’t think that tells the whole story,” the mother said, careful not to say anything too dark, as she didn’t want to insult the fact that the dock worker had never gone to school.
“It’s marriage and babies for me this time around,” the dock worker said. He then turned his head toward Chelsea and actually winked at her.
“Chelsea. You made the dock worker fall in love with you. During a tropical storm,” Olivia said.
“Actually, right before I came in, it switched to a hurricane.”
“Good to know. Does it have a name yet?”
“Yep. It’s called Janine.”
“Tropical Storm Janine. Huh.” Olivia had just met a woman named Janine — Janine Grimson, who had just arrived on the island in June after her life had crumbled in Manhattan.
“It’s not a bad name. Sometimes, they come up with the weirdest names,” Chelsea said thoughtfully.
“You’re changing the subject. What’s the deal with the dock worker?” Olivia asked under her breath as she watched as the dock worker slipped a little pink figurine into his Life vehicle and clapped his hands.
“Finally! A wife!” he cried.
“I don’t know. His name is Tony and he was just there with his truck watching the waves when I got off the boat. I almost didn’t make that ferry. Thank goodness we made it all the way from Woods Hole before the storm really picked up.”
“And you paid this Tony character one hundred dollars? In cash?”
“Tips add up differently in NYC, Mommy,” Chelsea told her. “But everything else hits differently, too.”
The storm grew more violent. The lights went out, and several guests shrieked and refilled their mugs of wine. Olivia wrapped her arms around Chelsea and shook violently. Anthony returned with mugs of wine for the three of them, then sat alongside Olivia and held her tightly, too. Olivia was overwhelmed with the love she felt and also with just how terrifying it was to not know what would happen next. Here, she had the two people she loved in the world the most. But she was helpless against nature. She wasn’t helpless against time.
She’d long ago understood that everything you loved in the world eventually went away or changed. This had never been an easy thing for her to accept. Her thoughts burned with sorrow. Not today, she thought. Spare us today.
“I don’t think we should use the lights going out as a reason to end the game of Life,” Tony said to the other players at the table.
They looked at him as though he had three heads.
“Mom?” Chelsea breathed.
“What is it, honey?”
“I’m scared.”
“I know. Me too.”
There were wicked sounds after that: the creaking of wood both new and old — the trees outside and bits and pieces of the hotel cracking, the beautiful mansion that had withstood so many years of winds. There was the sound of shattering glass, despite all their best efforts. Olivia gripped Chelsea and Anthony’s hand so hard that her knuckles turned to a crisp white.
They remained in that room for four hours. At times, Olivia felt it was a version of hell that they’d all been sent there to wait out the rest of eternity. Her heart went out to her parents, to her brother and his family, to her sister off the island, and of course, to her best friends. She prayed they would all be safe and together soon.
When the winds calmed, Anthony announced he would leave the shelter and check. Olivia nearly refused to let his hand go. She gazed lovingly into his eyes and said, “Maybe just a little while longer?”
But Anthony beckoned to the frantic guests and said, “We owe it to them to report what’s going on.”
Olivia knew he was right. After he released her hand, she threw this open one over Chelsea’s, as though she could trick it into believing Anthony remained. Anthony eased out of the shelter door and back into the foyer. Throughout the next ten minutes, during which Anthony wandered around outside of the shelter, Olivia couldn’t muster a single word.
Finally, Anthony reappeared in the crack of the door. He beckoned for Olivia and Chelsea and Mary to come with him. Olivia squeezed Chelsea’s hand as the two of them stood and walked softly, gently, toward the door. Once there, Olivia turned back to announce her plans to the guests.
“Hello, everyone. I know it’s been a remarkably stressful time for all of us. Thank you for your patience and your cooperation and your bravery. Right now, I’m going to assess the outside and report back to you when we know more. Let’s be grateful this wasn’t one of the longer ones. I have no way to check the weather, but I remember other storms like this that stretched on from twelve to twenty-four hours. This one just nicked us. And it seems we’re all okay. So, everyone just hang in there.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat, surprised that she sounded at all comprehensible. Her mind was a tangled mess.
“Keep drinking as much wine as you like. We will provide you with dinner soon,” she said.
Dock-worker Tony rubbed his palms together excitedly. He’d won the game of Life, and he’d kept his little car stocked with his two adults and four children, a reminder of the life he’d built in 2-D. Somehow, this made Olivia terribly sad.
Olivia, Mary, and Chelsea followed Anthony into the foyer and clipped the library door closed behind them.
Almost immediately, Olivia felt a scream coil up from her stomach. It threatened to burst from her lips, but she kept it in.
Already, it was clear. The storm had come and threatened to sweep them all away. And it had taken a great deal of The Hesson House along with it.