| |
Susan couldn’t remember the last time she had checked into an Inn without her husband. She gave a little “hurrah” for this moment as she passed her credit card over the counter and gave the concierge a sleepy smile. She had driven non-stop for the past five-some hours and all she wanted to do was crash between some high-count bed sheets.
Upstairs, though, she really couldn’t sleep. She donned a nightgown, washed her face, and smeared on various night creams. Then, she took to pacing, just as she had done during the days when she’d had particularly rough cases to deal with.
She hadn’t been to Falmouth in fifteen years, not since she had left the Vineyard in a huge huff. Susan had been twenty-nine, with two young children, and had had this stupid itch to head out to the place where she had grown up, make peace with her father, and show her kids some of her favorite sights.
At the time, she had thought to herself: I’m an adult. I have two children of my own. I can see through everything my father’s done and forgive him.
But it hadn’t taken long for them to leap back into their long-standing disputes. She remembered screaming at him outside the Sunrise Cove Inn, her children just behind her. “That’s the thing about you, Dad. You’re just like this island. You’ll never change. You’re stuck back in time and you can’t see it. You can’t see how selfish and arrogant you are.”
She couldn’t even fully remember what had started the fight.
She guessed she just couldn’t forgive him for what he had done all those years ago.
She would never forget it.
After that, Susan hadn’t heard from her dad for a few years. She had told Richard at the time that she didn’t care if she ever spoke to him again. Some years, he remembered her kids’ birthdays and sent along cards and money. Other years, there was nothing but silence.
She wondered what her dad would think when he saw her at the hospital. Probably calling her to the Vineyard hadn’t been his idea. Aunt Kerry had always been like that: meddling but in a sweet kind of way. She certainly never meant any harm and only had her brother’s interests at heart.
Regardless, it was true what Susan had told Amanda. She didn’t have anything to stay in Newark for at the moment.
The first ferry of the morning left at eight. Goosebumps popped up and down Susan’s arms and legs as she parked her Prius in long-term parking and then purchased a ticket at the ticket stand. The woman who passed the ticket to her and said a chipper, “Have a great day on the Vineyard!” could have been any other woman she’d ever seen sell tickets at that very stand. It was like time had stopped. Upstairs in the café, she bought herself a large coffee and a bran muffin, which she hardly touched as she gazed out at the glittering water. It was still early in the season, which meant the boat was only about half-full. Tourists flocked to the Vineyard in June, July, and August, so much so that the normal population of 15,000 people skyrocketed to close to a hundred thousand.
Susan had always loved this about the island. It was always morphing, shifting, and becoming something more beautiful and alive. And then, just at the breaking point, it closed up shop. Autumn would come and with it another season, a softer and more peaceful one. All the hotel and Inn and restaurant owners, the owners of tour companies and whale-watching boats, would come together in friendship and camaraderie, to celebrate the closing of the summer season. Although Susan’s family had always been tight-knit on the Vineyard—both of her parents had grown up there and most of their siblings hadn’t left—and they also had dear friends who also felt like family.
Memories flooded through her. It was difficult to breathe as she thought about fishing on the Nantucket Sound, whale watching and kissing boys at Felix Neck. She had always helped her mother with responsibilities at the Inn and laughed with her. She and her friends always loved to go hiking, swimming; they’d built bonfires and danced, building bonfires, and dancing beneath the moon while catching fireflies.
Yes, growing up on the Vineyard had been almost picture-perfect.
Until it hadn’t been any more.
She caught sight of the Vineyard for the first time a few minutes later. She could feel herself in so many other forms: twenty-nine, trying to keep track of Jake and Amanda and all their toys and crayons; eighteen years old and escaping the island, telling anyone who would listen that she was never coming back; all the years before that, too, as a wild-eyed teenager, in love with everything and everyone, but also a responsible and loving older sister, a girl who had pledged to do anything for her younger sisters.
Christine. Lola.
It had been so many years since she had even heard their voices.
They didn’t know she had gotten divorced.
They didn’t know about anything.
Suddenly, Susan felt more alone than she had ever felt in her life. Ironic, really, since this was the opposite feeling you were supposed to feel when arriving at the home where you grew up at.
Aunt Kerry had texted her that morning to say that her husband, Uncle Trevor, would be at the dock to pick her up and drive her to the hospital. Susan had always loved her Uncle Trevor. Aunt Kerry was her father’s older sister, and Uncle Trevor had always been her sturdy and loving and stoic husband, handsome with jet-black hair and thick eyebrows and a broad chest. They had four children, Steven, Kelli, Charlotte, and Claire—all of whom, as far as Susan knew, had remained on the island.
Susan stepped off the ferry on quivering legs. She felt she had walked directly into her past, updated only with the new fashions. Around her, tourists flocked from the boat and onto the Vineyard, there at the port at Oak Bluffs. Couples latched their hands together excitedly, beaming at one another. while Susan wished she could tell her heart to feel something besides dread.
At the edge of the dock, she entered the parking area and slowly scanned it, hunting for Uncle Trevor. Suddenly, a massive hand sprung up from the side of a truck and whipped back and forth. Her eyes caught the face attached to that hand: stoic, handsome, despite his seventy-one years, with salt-and-pepper hair that had still resisted thinning.
Susan walked up to the truck and placed her hand on her hips. Her eyes connected with his as she shook her head.
“My goodness. You’re a sight for sore eyes,” she said, smiling at her uncle. He was still as handsome as ever.
Uncle Trevor let out his good-natured laugh. He cut out from the side of the truck, admittedly a bit slower than he had fifteen years before, and wrapped her in a massive bear-hug. If anything, this was the punch to the heart Susan had been waiting for. She could feel the lump in her throat but swallowed to keep it at bay.
I’m back. I’m here. This is where I used to belong.
“Susan! It is so terrific to see you,” Uncle Trevor said. He beamed at her as the hug broke. “And looking prettier than ever. Your cousins are dying to see you. It’s been... how long? Oh, shoot, I don’t care. Let’s get you up to the hospital.”
Susan let her much-older uncle take her suitcase and fling it into the back seat of the double-wide truck. She then slid into the passenger seat.
“Must be strange to be back here,” Uncle Trevor said. He turned quickly to gaze out the back window as the truck eased through the traffic and pedestrians. “I’ve never spent more than a week off the island. And you—you’ve now spent most of your life off of it!”
“I guess you’re right,” Susan said. “I hadn’t thought about it that way.”
“Oh, but my kids love to brag about you,” Uncle Trevor continued. He cut the truck into drive and slowly skated through the rest of the parking lot. “They love to talk about their big-deal criminal lawyer cousin in Newark. Tell you the truth; I think one or two of ‘em wish they would have spent a bit more time off the island like you and your sisters. By the way. How are they doing? Christine? Lola?”
Susan swallowed. She had to lie; she couldn’t enter into this world of family and kinship with, I haven’t spoken to my sisters in years. So, she said, “They’re pretty good.”
“They must feel pretty crazy about your dad. I’ll let Aunt Kerry tell you more when we get there. She’s been, well. She’s been out of her mind. I’m just glad to have you here.”
Should Susan have told her sisters about their dad? She supposed she should have, although it struck her that it hadn’t even occurred to her until just then.
What had happened to her family?
The drive to the hospital in Oak Bluffs only took about five minutes longer due to traffic. It was still early in the morning, but everywhere they turned, it seemed there were horses and carriages, people jutting out into traffic excitedly, everyone big-eyed with wonder. Uncle Trevor clucked his tongue and said, “I guess it’s getting to about that time, isn’t it?”
“They’re back,” Susan said jokingly. Tourists had always been their bread and butter—but it was fun to be annoyed with them, too. You had to, in that business. At least, that’s what her mother had always said.
Her uncle and aunt were now retired, but they’d made their money through real estate on the Vineyard—mostly selling vacation homes to very rich buyers. This had suited them handsomely. They had always made a great team—Uncle Trevor with the more trusting nature, and Aunt Kerry with her upbeat chatter and neighborly feel. She had baked a lot of cookies and sold a lot of houses. And when tourists grew bored with their enormous, expensive vacation homes, they always hired Uncle Trevor and Aunt Kerry to sell them to the next ones who lined up.
When they reached the hospital, Susan had another out-of-body moment. Again, she glanced at her uncle as he hurriedly unbuckled his seat belt and gestured with his head. “Come on. She’s waiting for us.”
Susan slipped out of the truck and followed her Uncle Trevor slowly toward the glass doors of the hospital. This was a nightmare, come to life.
Time had caught up to her. And she couldn’t avoid it any longer.