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Andrew had never recovered so quickly from a panic attack. Ordinarily, they were all-encompassing and left him flat on his back for the rest of the evening. Only when sleep came, if it did at all, could he find any kind of relief.
Beth brought a level of welcome calm to his frantic mind. As she drove them back toward Oak Bluffs, she crafted a conversation that lacked nostalgia and had nothing to do with today’s sadness; one that brought out the life and vitality that had once brewed between them when they had been much younger kids.
Once outside the Montgomery family house, Beth heaved a sigh and said, “Every time we drive past this place, Will asks about it. He thinks it’s haunted.”
“The kid might be right about that,” Andrew said with a wink. “Kids are always good about that, aren’t they? They’re always the ones who figure out what’s wrong in scary movies.”
“Any ghost that passes Will’s path will have a lot to reckon with,” Beth said. “He can be quite a handful.”
“Like any other boy in the world,” Andrew affirmed. “I was a monster.”
Steven’s truck and Claire’s car had returned to the Montgomery family driveway. Their mother’s car was presumably up at the hospital, and their fathers was at the salvage yard somewhere, all crumpled up after the accident.
“Wish me luck,” Andrew said as he popped out the side of the car. He hovered in the gap of the door and made heavy eye contact with Beth Leopold, the only woman he would have welcomed into haunting him. “It was so good to see you, Beth. Thank you for getting me out of there when I needed it.”
“Don’t mention it,” she said. “If you stick around, maybe our paths will cross again.”
Beth always had that way about her. She knew how to play “cool,” and it came off so easy, as first-nature as breathing. Andrew walked up the driveway and rammed his hands into his pockets. His leg continued its angry hiccup, but he hardly noticed.
When he entered the front door, the smell of New England clam chowder, his mother’s glorious recipe, assaulted his nostrils. The memory of it made his mouth water on command.
“Who’s that?” Claire called from the kitchen.
Charlotte appeared outside the kitchen to check. There was a splatter of chowder across her chest, and she held a glass of red wine in her hand. She grinned to show red wine-tinged teeth.
“There he is. Andy’s back!”
She looked at him without anger or remorse. She looked at him playfully, with the scornful look of an older sister. This time, it didn’t annoy Andrew in the least.
“Andrew! Get in here. We got the game on and Charlotte’s pouring illegally large glasses of wine,” Steven called.
The kitchen jutted out to the side into a TV-room, where Steven, Kelli, Abby, Gail, and another girl Andrew assumed was Rachel sat. A football game appeared on the screen. Rachel’s eyes dug into him curiously, just as Charlotte snuck up behind and said, “Little bro, I’m so happy you get to meet my best girl. This is Rachel.”
Rachel popped up from the chair in the corner. She had a funny mix of Jason and Charlotte’s features and had somehow stirred them together to craft her own unique look. Before Andrew could speak, she threw her arms around him.
“Uncle Andy! I’ve heard so much about you over the years.”
And I only learned you existed last night.
“How is it possible that you girls are all teenagers already?” Andrew said to Gail, Abby, and Rachel as the hug broke.
“Tell me about it,” Claire said as she hovered over a huge vat of clam chowder. “You blink once, Andrew, and then—whoosh. Time catches up to you.”
“Come sit with us,” Kelli demanded. She tapped the space beside her on the couch, one that, funnily enough, looked to be the same exact one that had existed in their family room, the room that had been dubbed ‘only for family.’
Andrew did as he was told and the moment he collapsed, Charlotte appeared beside him with a glass of merlot. He clicked his glass with Kelli and with Steve, before turning to click his with Gail, Rachel, and Abby’s glasses of hot apple cider.
“Laura’s on her way,” Steven announced. “Along with Jonathon and Carrie and their babies and Isabella.”
“My three are on their way as well,” Kelli said. “They were such little things when you left.”
“Jonathon remembers you,” Steven asserted. “We talked about it a few weeks ago, actually, around Thanksgiving time. He said he remembers playing catch with you in the backyard. Apparently, it was big news to him, the fact that his uncle was the star pitcher at the high school.”
“It sounds like a story from someone else’s life,” Andrew said.
“You were a killer on the mound,” Steven continued. “The guy at-bat never knew what was coming for him. I watched you pitch that no-hitter your junior year, remember? We went out and celebrated after, me and your buddy. What was his name?”
Kelli ribbed Steven with her elbow. That had reminded Steve that he wasn’t supposed to bring up Kurt’s name, not that he’d remembered it.
“Oh, man. I’m so sorry about that,” Steven said.
“It’s okay,” Andrew said. He was surprised to feel that he really meant it. “That was one of the best nights, that no-hitter. And me, you and Kurt went out on the boat after. Laura was so mad that you got home late. Jonathon must have been just five or six.”
“That’s right,” Steven agreed. He gave Andrew a grateful smile. “She was not thrilled.”
“Who wasn’t thrilled?” Laura’s voice rang out from the kitchen as she entered with a platter of what looked like brownies. She grinned broadly at Andrew as she said, “Well, hey there, Andy Montgomery. Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”
There was the sound of a screeching baby, another sound of a woman doing what she could to calm that same baby. A dark voice Andrew didn’t recognize said, “Let me take him.”
“No, no. Go say hello to your uncle,” a woman said. “I’m sure he’s dying to see you again.”
In actuality, Andrew was. He nearly jumped to his feet when he spotted the twenty-four-year-old version of Jonathon Montgomery: tall and broad-shouldered like all the Montgomery men, with a twinkle in his eye that reminded him of Steven as a younger man.
“Uncle Andy,” he boomed. He said it like a guy who tried and failed to hide his excitement. “Man, it’s good to see you.”
“You’re even older than I was when I left the island,” Andrew said as he shook his nephew’s hand.
“Don’t rub it in,” Jonathon said with a laugh. “Now that I have two kids of my own, I feel ancient.”
“I think you still have some good years left,” Andrew offered.
“I guess you probably didn’t hear this, but I went on to play baseball in high school,” Jonathon said.
Andrew’s heart quickened. “No way.”
“Yep. Pitcher on varsity all four years,” Jonathon said. “I was never as good as you; they were weak years on our team.”
“He’s being modest.” His wife, Carrie, appeared beside him with a toddler; apparently, she’d gotten the baby to go to sleep. “He was the star of the team. It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with him.”
Jonathon blushed heavily. “Don’t listen to a single lie that comes out of her mouth. She was after my buddy on third base, but he was already taken.”
Carrie rolled her eyes and swatted Jonathon across the arm. Charlotte cut forward, passed them both glasses of wine, and told everyone that the clam chowder was very nearly ready. The screen door slammed closed again to bring Isabella, the spitting image of Laura round-about the time Andrew had met her for the first time. Behind her was Christine Sheridan, the same woman Andrew had seen on Charlotte’s doorstep. In her hands, she held several French-style baguettes.
“Christine! What are you doing here?” Charlotte asked brightly.
“I heard you guys were having a little dinner get-together, and I wanted to make sure you had enough bread,” she said. “Freshly baked by yours truly.”
“Christine, you’re too generous,” Claire said as she accepted the baguettes in her arms. “Seriously, this will go perfectly with...”
“Clam chowder?” Christine finished. “How could you have anything else? Especially with Andy back after so long.” She gave Andrew a tiny wave and added, “I bet you hardly remember me. I left when you were just a kid.”
Andrew shrugged. “Guess we’re both back now. How ya been?”
Charlotte ushered Christine in and threw an arm around her. “She’s been all over the world, is how she’s been. What was it you were telling me? Paris? Stockholm? London?”
“Yada yada yada,” Christine said. “But now I’m back where I belong. I do the desserts and pastries at the Sunrise Cove Bistro. My boyfriend is the chef.”
“Wow. Full circle,” Andrew said.
Christine blushed. “It’s been a pretty big year for me and my sisters. I never imagined any of us would return to the Vineyard. Now, I can’t imagine my life without it.”
Kelli’s children arrived after that: Sam, Josh, and Lexi. Andrew could hardly believe that this full-grown teenager, Lexi, had been the teensy babe he’d held in his eighteen-year-old arms. Apparently, they had all heard tons of stories about him; they spoke to him as though he was a celebrity.
Claire ushered everyone to the big dining room for clam chowder, freshly-baked bread, heaps of salad, homemade cheese from the nearby dairy farm, and buckets of wine. Christine bid everyone goodbye; she had to return to Zach for the night. When she ducked out of the house and disappeared, Claire mentioned, “She used to be so upset when we were growing up. Who could blame her though after Aunt Anna died and with Susan leaving the island right afterward.”
“She looks very happy,” Andrew said.
“She really does,” Charlotte affirmed as she decorated the edges of her plate with salad and cherry tomatoes. “There has been a bit of drama in the Sheridan house lately. Lola’s only daughter, Audrey, is pregnant and Christine has offered to raise the baby for the first few years so Audrey can go back to college. What else? Oh, Amanda, Susan’s daughter, is about to get married. And they also discovered Aunt Anna was having an affair with Stan Ellis and he was with her when the accident happened.”
“That’s a whole lot of something,” Andrew said with a hearty laugh. “I thought I had problems.”
“We all have problems,” Steven said as he broke off a healthy dose of baguette. “The Sheridan sisters have always handled their problems with style.”
Aunt Anna’s funeral was one of Andrew’s first really powerful memories. He’d been eight years old at the time, and his mother had forced him to wear a suit, one that made his neck itch terribly throughout the service. The Sheridan sisters had been inconsolable throughout, Lola especially, as she had been the youngest, the one more apt to fall apart. There had been a great deal of bickering after the service. Andrew’s mother had struggled with Wes. There had been a number of discussions between his mother and father about “how to help Wes” and, “what should we do about the girls?” As an eight-year-old, Andrew had only known one thing: what had happened couldn’t be taken back. Nothing would ever be the same again.
**
THE CLAM CHOWDER WAS sinfully delicious. It tasted every bit the same as their mother’s, and perhaps the tiniest bit better, although Andrew would have never informed Kerry Montgomery of this opinion unless he was after a beating. He dunked Christine’s perfect baguette into the sludge-like goodness and closed his eyes as he chewed. Since his departure from the island, he’d eaten perhaps thousands of TV dinners, fast-food-take-out, and random bags of chips. He had forced himself to forget what it meant to eat something made with love.
“Was a real shocker to see Beth Leopold today,” Steven said as they finished up the meal. “I guess I forgot about her over the years.”
“She has a young son,” Charlotte said. “Will. Poor thing has autism.”
Andrew’s heart sank. Beth hadn’t informed him of this. It added color to the sadness behind her eyes, the truth of the weight of her life.
“It was such a horrible thing when her parents passed,” Claire said. “I thought the poor thing was going to break in half.”
“She might have if it wasn’t for Will,” Charlotte said. “She had to be strong for him.”
“Where did she take you today?” Steven asked Andrew. “You guys were gone quite a while.”
“We just went for a drive,” Andrew said. “It calmed me down a lot.”
Steven studied Andrew’s face, contemplatively. He looked on the verge of asking a question that had way too much in its answer: what the heck happened to you over there?
But Claire interjected before Steven had the chance. “Who wants to help clean up?”
“I will,” Andrew said immediately. “I owe it to you. That was one of the best meals I’ve had in my life, or at least, in the past seventeen years.”
“Let’s not make our baby brother clean up,” Charlotte said. “He’s been gone all these years. We shouldn’t put him to work.”
“I insist,” Andrew said. This would allow him to avoid any uncomfortable conversations that could pop up.
Once at the sink, his leg tried its best to seize upon him. Andrew placed his elbow on the counter to support himself as he sipped his wine. Claire arrived with the first stack of bowls and winked at him. “Thanks for doing this.”
Kelli appeared with another stack as Andrew ran the water. Steam billowed around them as she beamed at him. “What if you wash and I dry?”
“A bit of teamwork in the Montgomery clan?” Andrew heard himself ask.
“That kind of thing. Yep,” Kelli said. “If you think you can handle it?”
“I’ve been a lone wolf all these years.” He chuckled.
“Oh, you mean, like this?” Kelli suddenly dropped her head back and wolf-howled toward the ceiling.
The sound and the look of it made Andrew burst into outrageous laughter. Carrie rushed into the kitchen and hissed, “You guys! I don’t want to wake the baby.” She looked on the verge of attack.
When Carrie disappeared again, Kelli winced and said, “She almost tore us to pieces.”
“And she would have been in the right,” Andrew said.
“Sure. I remember what that was like. If anyone messes with your baby’s sleep schedule, it’s grounds for murder.”
Andrew scrubbed the bowls and plates and passed them over to Kelli. Between bowls, Kelli snapped on the radio and hummed along. After a few rounds of forks and spoons, Andrew said, “You know, I was reading about Charlotte’s wedding thing in a magazine when Claire called.”
Kelli’s eyebrows snapped up. “That’s eerie, isn’t it?” After a pause, she added, “But not as eerie as you actively purchasing a wedding magazine.”
Andrew chuckled. “Are you suggesting my heart is too black to read about the joys of marriage?”
“Naw. I saw the way you looked at Beth Leopold today. I know your heart is still the color of cotton candy,” Kelli teased.
Andrew rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Right.” He leaned toward her then and whispered. “What happened with Jason? Obviously, Charlotte was out west with some guy called Everett, but I can’t get a full read on what’s up.”
Kelli’s eyes grew shadowed. “He died in a fishing accident. It was awful. To be honest with you, Charlotte has only just begun to act like herself again. Claire and I thought she would never find a way out of that black hole. But that’s the thing about life, isn’t it? The only way through is... through.”
Andrew’s throat felt tight. How dare he think, after all these years, that he was the only one of his siblings who had gone through trauma and horror? He scrubbed at another bowl and said, “I should have been here.” The words were a surprise to him.
“It’s okay that you weren’t,” Kelli breathed. “Charlotte understands. We all do. At least, as much as we can. I know we’ve missed so much. It seemed like you were always on one tour or another when we tried to get in touch with you.”
“I was pretty purposeful with that, I guess. I didn’t want it to be easy to find me,” Andrew admitted.
“Oh, really?” Kelli said with a sarcastic smile. “Huge shocker.”
Andrew blushed as he sipped a bit more wine. “You never lost that sense of humor after all these years? I would have thought you would have turned into an upstanding lady by now.”
Kelli scoffed. “A lady? I can’t believe you would insult me like that.”