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Things settled into an even pattern after that. Christine, Susan, and Lola shared house responsibilities, deep-cleaning and scrubbing and taking trips to the second-hand store and making nightly dinners for the remainder of the Sheridan clan. Sometimes, they had everyone from the family over—Aunt Kerry and Uncle Trevor and the cousins and whoever else was around. It was mid-June and inching toward late-June, and Susan felt time dribbling between her fingers. Days with Wes Sheridan were always a toss-up. Sometimes, he seemed sharp as an arrow, vibrant and ready to make jokes and banter with the best of them. Other days, he seemed hazy-eyed and overly willing to stay in bed for many hours at a time. These days, Susan took over the brunt of the work at the Inn.
Susan now had a good grip on the day-to-day events at the Sunrise Cove Inn. As the weeks passed, she felt closer and closer with her mother, who had spent most of her final years at the Sunrise Cove, giving her life to the demanding pleasure of hospitality. Susan was genuinely surprised at how good she was at this. After years as a criminal lawyer, she was glad to say cheerful hellos and shake hands and grow close to families over their visits, only to feel really sad when they returned home. When she told this to Amanda over the phone, she said, “Who are you and what have you done with my mother?”
Still, it bothered Susan that she hadn’t been able to figure out where a lot of the money was going. It seemed like they had to order new food and supplies constantly, and the accounts were bled out quicker and quicker. She resolved to get to the bottom of it, but there were also about eight zillion other things to “get to the bottom” of at the moment. Patience, she would tell herself. She had to be patient.
Dinners between the four remaining Sheridans weren’t always easy, but nothing ever grew as tense as it had on that first night of Lola’s arrival. Lola very quickly recognized Wes’s dementia and tried her best to remain upbeat. Susan also suspected that the letters had added a jolt of confusion to the situation. The world didn’t seem entirely black or white anymore, although they weren’t overly willing to forgive their father for anything any time soon.
June 20 was the yearly Oak Bluffs Harbor Festival. Both Lola and Christine resolved to stay through it, although Susan could sense they had begun to grow restless. The days were summery and beautiful; the water was constantly pristine. Scott had even taken the three of them out on his boat a few times. They’d donned their swimsuits and leaped into the waves and hollered at the big, impossibly blue sky, and Scott had laughed and stayed on the boat with a beer in-hand. “The three of you haven’t changed at all since you were teenagers. Did anyone ever give you a sign that it was time to grow up?”
“Never,” Lola said with a wink.
On these boat trips, Susan always sat up front with Scott while he drove. She felt strangely pulled to him, although they’d done nothing but talked so far. When she glanced his way, she felt her heart surge with the memory of her love for him. But was that love something she wanted again? So much of her existence was tied up in dishonesty at the moment. Still, she could feel his love for her coming off of him in waves. The attraction was most definitely still there.
On the morning of the Oak Bluffs Harbor Festival, Susan awoke with more pain than she had experienced in several months. She held the rail as she hobbled downstairs and sat at the edge of the porch with her legs swinging in the air in front of her. She sucked on her weed pen, her eyes closed, and willed herself to keep her cool throughout the day. She had looked forward to it for weeks since Amanda had said she would come to the island for the festival. She had only met Lola and Christine once each before, and neither time together. Lola had also decided to bring Audrey out to the Vineyard for a long weekend. “I said I would pay for the flights. I guess she can pay me back when she becomes a famous journalist,” Lola had said.
Regardless, Susan wasn’t willing to let a little pain get in her way.
Lola, Christine, and Susan drove together to the ferry dock at ten in the morning. Miraculously, Audrey and Amanda had nabbed the same ferry that morning. According to several hilarious text messages, the girls had been able to find one another almost instantly.
Amanda: I mean, we look alike, Mom. Like sisters, even though we are first cousins.
The girls sent a selfie from the deck of the ferry. Lola and Susan nearly lost their minds over it.
“They finally met each other!” Susan cried.
When the ferry arrived, it was obvious that Amanda and Audrey had spent the entire ride digging into the gritty details of each other’s lives, asking questions, and swapping secrets. They walked down the ramp from the ferry in the middle of raucous laughter. When Amanda lifted her eyes to find her mother, she immediately bolted forward and wrapped her arms around her.
“Mom! Wow, you look fantastic,” she said, breaking the hug and beaming at her. “Seriously. You’re glowing.”
“She’s probably spent more time in the sun over the past few weeks than she has in years,” Lola said. “It’s so good to see you again, Amanda. You look beautiful. And that ring! Susan hasn’t been able to shut up about your engagement.”
Big hugs came next: Susan and Audrey, Christine and Amanda, Lola and Audrey, again and again, and again, with little kisses on her forehead and cries of, “My little Chicago journalist!”
Audrey was the spitting image of Lola. Her mannerisms were the same along with her chestnut hair; they dressed the same; and they seemed on the verge of flying off the wall at any moment, with their bright-eyes. Amanda was much more level-headed, like Susan, she supposed and looked at Audrey and Lola like they were co-conspirators, on the verge of taking over the world.
The sisters piled the suitcases into the back of the car and then drove back to the main house. Susan tried to point out as much as she could to the girls—the Sunrise Cove Inn, which already looked much better than it had weeks before, and the little hiking trails, coves, and old friends’ houses. Both Amanda and Audrey seemed in awe of the place.
“You can’t be serious. You grew up here?” Amanda said as she cut out from the car at the main house and peered down the hill at the Sound below. “I can’t believe it. It’s so beautiful here.”
Susan tried to see the place through Amanda’s eyes. It was probably a quarter of the size of the place she had grown up within Newark, with its own set of crooked shutters and chipped paint. But it also beamed with charm and goodwill. Amanda and Audrey grabbed their bags and hopped up into the house. It had been agreed that the girls would sleep on the pull-out couch downstairs. Almost immediately, they changed into their swimsuits and rushed toward the water below to leap in.
“Look at them,” Christine said, looking out the window. “They’re so young! Their whole lives ahead of them.”
“I wonder if Amanda will want to have her wedding on the island,” Lola said. “Charlotte and Rachel have really picked up business with their event coordinating. Oh my gosh! And Claire does flowers...”
“It’s almost like they were all lying in wait for us, just to give Amanda and Chris the perfect wedding,” Susan laughed.
Late that afternoon, Christine, Susan, Lola, Amanda, and Audrey donned summer dresses and headed to the Oak Bluffs Harbor Festival. The festival simmered with electricity and life. A live band played old hits from a podium while people danced below. A large Ferris wheel inched around and around, showing its riders an immaculate view of Oak Bluffs and the surrounding areas. Susan remembered one of the first Harbor Festivals with Scott. They’d ridden the Ferris wheel and kissed at the top, her heart performing a little tap-dance across her stomach.
At the festival, the girls ate and laughed and walked around, greeting several other Vineyard locals and introducing them to Amanda and Audrey. To most everyone, it was obvious that Audrey and Amanda were “Sheridan girls.”
Amanda fell into step with Susan and slipped her fingers through her hand like she had done when she had been much younger. “You didn’t tell me that everyone on Martha’s Vineyard knew your name,” she said with a sly smile.
“Ha. It’s a tiny place. Everyone knows each other and everyone else’s business. Now that they know you, I’m sure they’re gossiping about you, too,” Susan said.
“I love it. We didn’t have that kind of thing in Newark growing up,” Amanda replied.
Susan’s stomach dropped like a stone. “Would you have preferred living here?”
Amanda shrugged. “I just think it’s interesting that it wasn’t an option. That’s all.”
Susan nodded contemplatively. “I have considered staying. At least till the end of this summer season. Then, who knows?”
“You’re working really hard. Christine said that you’ve been at the Inn almost every day since you got here,” Amanda said. Her brow furrowed with worry.
“Yes, but you know me. I like hard work.”
“You’re crazy,” Amanda said. “But I get it. It’s good to throw yourself into something after everything that’s happened. I think Jacob and Kristen are a bit perturbed that they don’t have that live-in babysitter they were promised.”
Susan laughed good-naturedly. “Can you imagine me living as a live-in babysitter? As much as I love those babies, I don’t think I could hack it. Not for very long, anyway.”
“Audrey says she hardly knows her dad,” Amanda continued. “That he ran off when she was little. I think his name is Timothy?”
Susan nodded. “None of us knew him. One day, Lola had a boyfriend. The next, she had a baby. And then the next, many, many years went by—and now, we’re here, trying to make up for lost time.”
That night, everyone gathered at the main house for a barbecue and to watch the fireworks blare out across the water. Aunt Kerry, Uncle Trevor, all of their children and as many of their grand-children and great children ambled in with a wide variety of delicious snacks, main course meals, desserts and crates of beer and bottles of wine. There was always more than enough to go around, but this took the cake.
Wes arrived from the Sunrise Cove Inn just after six-thirty. He scrubbed his forehead of summertime sweat and beamed at Audrey and Amanda with confused, yet happy eyes. Susan assumed that he thought he looked at his wife or his daughters again.
But Wes surprised her. “These must be my beautiful granddaughters,” he beamed at them.
Aunt Kerry gave Susan a knowing look. Maybe he wasn’t as far gone as they’d all assumed. Maybe there was still time.
“Hey, Grandpa,” Audrey said. “You have a really beautiful place here.”
“I can’t believe you get to see the water every day,” Amanda said.
“It’s a little slice of heaven. That’s what your grandmother always used to say,” Wes said. He hugged them close. “Now, Amanda, Susie told me that you’re engaged to be married.” He released them and smiled wider. “Tell me. Is the guy good enough for you?”
Amanda chuckled and blushed. This kind of conversation—this was something she’d missed out on her entire life. Susan’s eyes traced across the room as Amanda answered good-naturedly. Suddenly, there was a holler from the back door. Scott Frampton appeared with another crate of beer and a big bag of ice, which they’d tended to need as of late for these bigger parties. Susan felt her face nearly stretch in half with her grin. Scott leaned down and gave her a small kiss on the cheek—just a greeting, nothing more. Still, the contact was almost more than Susan could bear.
“There he is. Our ice-savior,” Lola said. She yanked one of the big coolers out from the kitchen closet and immediately filled it with ice.
“Mom!” Audrey said with a laugh as Lola began to sling beers into the ice, like some kind of Vineyard-barbecue expert. She made eye contact with Susan and said, “I’ve never seen her look so...”
“Domestic?” Lola said as she snapped up and swiped her icy hands across her lap.
“I guess that’s the word,” Audrey said.
“What can I say? I’m my mother’s daughter,” Lola said.
Later that night, as the sun inched lower beneath the horizon line, Lola, Christine, Susan, Amanda, and Audrey sat out on the porch, in a haze of wine and conversation. Christine peppered Amanda with questions about her wedding, leaning toward her “chipper-drunk” personality, which Susan was grateful about.
“You have to let me make your cake,” Christine insisted.
“She’s a pastry chef,” Susan explained. “One of the best in New York.”
“I don’t know about that. But I do know my way around a cake,” Christine said with a laugh.
“I just think it’s fantastic. You have your career and your fiancé and your entire life before you,” Lola said. “And you’re close with your brother, it sounds like?”
Amanda nodded and blushed. She seemed to sense how awkward this question was. After all, the Sheridan sisters had gone so many years without much conversation at all.
“Good. Hold onto him,” Lola said. Her voice was heavy, intense. “He’s much more important than you can fully realize right now. You can’t imagine what it feels like to have lost so much time.”
There, at the picnic table, the three Sheridan sisters and the next generation of Sheridan women placed their hands in the center of the table, a kind of allegiance to the love of their family and how they needed to rebuild it, make it stronger and better than ever so that it would never tear apart again.