| |
The baby on all fours smack-dab in the center of the Sheridan house living room knew precisely the power of manipulation he had over his elder Sheridans. There in his little mustard-yellow button-down and his diaper, he clambered forward, his ocean-blue eyes shining. His dark curls tickled across the upper edge of his ear, and his face erupted into a magnetic smile that was just as powerful as the bright sun. Only nine months before, Audrey had given birth to baby Max Wesley Sheridan, and since then, he’d grown like a bad weed and now weighed almost twenty pounds. He could even pull himself up to a standing position and had begun to babble out nonsensical words, proof he was almost brave enough to try out a real word of his own.
In every way, this once very sick baby at the NICU, Audrey’s tiny miracle, had traveled through time with the rest of them, changing and growing so much stronger.
And Audrey felt she’d missed every second of it.
“He’s coming to you, Momma,” Lola announced in a bright tone as Max hobbled toward Audrey, smacking his palms against the carpet.
Audrey dropped onto her knees and brought her arms out wide. Her smile stretched her cheeks as Max buzzed his lips with excitement.
“Come on, Max. You can do it. Come to me,” Audrey urged him on, just before she bent down and lifted him into her embrace. His once-soft and downy baby smell had shifted slightly. She stretched a hand behind his head and bobbed him against her as his large eyes widened. They held one another’s gaze for a long moment, both captivated. She had only a couple of hours left before her mother planned to drive her back to Penn State for her final few weeks before Christmas break. Audrey planned to use every second she had.
“Can I get anyone a piece of pie?” Susan Sheridan Frampton stepped out from the kitchen, rubbing her hands against a red-checkered apron that had once belonged to Anna Sheridan, Audrey’s grandmother.
“I’d love a piece, please. I guess I could put on a few more pounds.” Christine laughed as she spread a hand over her large pregnant stomach.
“I can’t believe we still have some,” Lola stated now as she jumped up to help. “I figured we’d clear that out by Saturday, at least.”
“We always over-prepare on pie,” Susan affirmed. “Audrey? Amanda? You good for a slice?”
Audrey’s cousin Amanda was wrapped up in a thick blanket across the living room, her pencil poised over a crossword puzzle. She chewed distractedly at the edge and then hurriedly scribed whatever answer she’d just come up with across the page.
“Audrey?” Susan tried again without an answer from either of them.
“Oh, sure. I guess it wouldn’t be the Sunday after Thanksgiving if I didn’t stuff myself with leftovers until I regret every decision I’ve ever made.” Audrey walked toward the kitchen with Max on her hip, bobbing him as he buzzed and popped his lips.
“I received a few more photos from Aunt Kerry.” Lola slid her phone from her pocket and flashed it toward Susan and her daughter as Susan sliced a knife through the center of a pecan pie. In the image, Susan and Lola’s younger cousin, Andy, kissed his new bride, Beth, in the backyard of Trevor and Kerry Montgomery’s home. The spontaneous marriage had occurred the previous afternoon after a volatile and confusing engagement.
“She’s wearing Grandma Marilyn’s dress?” Susan all-but shrieked yet managed to cling to the knife with white fingers.
“I guess they dragged it out of the attic and realized it fit Beth like a glove,” Lola affirmed as her eyebrows rose.
“I didn’t know that was an option.” Susan muttered distractedly, her voice edged with a little jealousy.
“Come on, Susan. You looked like a dream at your wedding,” Lola told her. “And you know how difficult it was for Beth and Andy to come together— with Andy being overseas for so long, and Beth all alone with her baby... Gosh, when I think of it...” She pressed her hand over her heart as her eyes grew shadowed.
“Of course. Of course.” Susan shook her head distractedly as she slid several slabs of apple, pumpkin, and pecan pie onto small china plates. “Apple?” She glanced at Audrey and then warmed her face at Max’s babbling.
“Pumpkin, I think,” Audrey replied.
Susan slid the plate across her palm and dotted a fork to the left of the orange triangular slab of goodness. Since Audrey’s arrival Wednesday afternoon, she hadn’t gone more than an hour or two without eating something that was stuffed full of carbs and overloaded with sugar— and her stomach gurgled with borderline aggression.
“Audrey, I feel like I hardly got a chance to sit with you these past few days,” Susan admitted. “Our lives here on the Vineyard have been so chaotic; it’s so beautiful to imagine you out there, working tirelessly to pursue your dreams. I know Max will be so proud of this story when he’s old enough to understand. I feel that’s one of the greatest things I did for my children— reach for what I wanted. Finish my law degree. Practice to the best of my ability, despite dance recitals and chicken pox and all the things life throws at you as a parent.”
Audrey’s stomach tightened with sorrow. How could she illustrate how difficult the previous few months had been for her? With only a few hours left before her return, she couldn’t just vomit out the darkness in her heart, which had only grown denser over the previous semester.
“Oh, it’s been busy,” Audrey said, her voice overly bright and false.
“I’m sure,” Susan offered. She then passed through the kitchen doorway to deliver slabs of pie to Christine and Amanda, who initially refused before placing it on the little side table beside her. Probably, she’d pick at it for the next three hours.
Audrey’s mother Lola’s eyes seemed all-seeing. She leaned against the furthest kitchen counter and crossed arms against her chest. “Do you have a lot of papers to write before the end of the semester?”
“It feels like a never-ending stream of papers,” Audrey affirmed.
“I’m sure. Have you signed up for your next semester of classes?” Lola asked.
Audrey’s heart jumped into her throat, just as the back door that led from the driveway, through the mudroom, and then into the vibrant warmth of the living room, kitchen, and dining area, creaked open, bringing with it a crisp rush of late-November air. Grandpa Wes hollered excitedly in greeting.
“We saw him!”
Audrey hunkered back from her mother’s question and grinned up at one of her favorite people in the world, a man who’d provided a backbone of support for her over the previous year and a half since her discovery of her pregnancy, her nine months of ballooning, and then her devastating weeks of being a new mother to a baby latched away in the NICU. Despite his dementia diagnosis, Grandpa Wes was frequently a sharp-edged character, an avid bird-watcher, and wickedly funny, apt to hurl silly insults and sarcastic remarks just as quickly as Audrey could dish them back.
“The big cardinal again?” Audrey asked.
Kellan, Scott’s teenage son, who’d recently built up a profound friendship with his step-grandfather, stepped around Grandpa Wes, grabbed a plate of apple pie from Susan’s outstretched hand, thanked her, and then beamed up at Wes.
“It’s like the cardinal just knows when Wes will be out there,” Kellan affirmed. “I look for him on my own, and he stays away.”
Wes puffed out his chest proudly. He then removed his fingers from his gloves and wrapped his first finger and thumb around Max’s meaty palm as Max cooed with excitement.
“That’s right, Max. I saw him again. You and Christine saw him with me a few weeks ago, remember? You pointed up at him and said, ‘Ga!’”
Christine burst into laughter, so much so that her pie plate nearly dropped from her pregnant belly.
“Audrey, you should have seen Max,” Christine offered. “The bird landed on a tree branch only about as tall as Dad’s head. Max’s eyes were about as big as saucers.”
“I think we’re raising ourselves a future bird watcher,” Grandpa Wes said brightly.
Audrey’s throat tightened. Here it was: the hundredth memory her family had of her baby during the months she’d been away. What had she done during that time? Her memories revolved around her frequent drives from Penn State to Martha’s Vineyard and back again, as those hours were charged with a supersonic level of guilt and emotion. Everything else seemed a stream of burnt coffee, overcharged at the library, horrific flirtations from fraternity brothers, papers turned in two to three minutes prior to their due time, and stress so bad it made her want to vomit.
There was a rap at the back door. Kellan marched around Wes, as though he owned the place these days and yanked open the door. A familiar voice swirled out from behind the whoosh of the wind.
“Hi! Is Audrey here?”
Fearful and unwilling to look at anything else, Audrey turned her large eyes back toward Max, whose eyelids had begun to curl downward. Her heart shattered. This would be the last time she put him to sleep before she had to return to school.
“She’s right here, actually!” Kellan had been so resistant to the Sheridan family, yet now found himself overjoyed at his inclusion, it seemed. Audrey currently resented it.
Nine months before, when Audrey had spent her long, gut-wrenching days at the NICU, she’d met a young man named Noah. Noah’s mother had given birth to a sick baby, and he’d walked the halls of the hospital, grabbing meals for his mother, tending to loose ends, all in expectation of his sister’s release. They’d met at a vending machine, which now in hindsight seemed so silly, during a time when Audrey’s devastation had been so complete that she almost hadn’t been able to form words with her own tongue.
In Noah’s words, at the end of the summer, he’d fallen “head over heels” for Audrey.
Audrey’s feelings had matched his. But that had been in August. And currently, her heart was shattered— she had four papers due, and the concept of romance felt as distant as the planet of Neptune. When she looked at herself in the mirror, she no longer saw the glamorous beauty she’d felt herself to be (especially around the time when her older colleague at her Chicago-based internship had gotten her pregnant).
His texts had been frequent; his calls had come three or four times a week. His masculine baritone voice had calmed her and excited her for the first few weeks of the semester. Once a wave of depression had crashed over her, the voice had become a nagging reminder of how small and unworthy of love she truly felt.
“Happy Thanksgiving!” Noah held a bouquet of flowers and beamed down at her as he entered the kitchen.
“Noah! It’s good to see you.” Lola, ever sociable, pressed a hand across Noah’s upper arm in greeting. “I thought you’d be here a bit earlier this weekend, but I guess you had a number of family obligations.”
Noah blinked at Audrey expectantly. He’d asked her precisely seven times if he could stop by the Sunrise Cove Inn on Thanksgiving Day to meet her extended family. Instead of texting him back, she had burrowed her face in Max’s luscious hair and left the text unanswered.
“I guess you’re about to head out,” Noah said. To his credit, his voice held no resentment.
“Looks like it.” Audrey shifted Max against her as his head grew heavier with sleep.
“Why don’t you two head out to the porch?” Lola suggested. “I can take Max.”
“No. I have him.” Audrey’s tone was sharp-edged. There was no taking it back, now.
Audrey left her untouched slice of pie on the counter and led Noah toward the enclosed back porch, with its glittering view of the Vineyard Sound beyond. The Vineyard Sound at the end of November was a far different beast than the glorious, turquoise waters of mid-June or July. It was grey and tumultuous and unforgiving.
“It’s good to see you,” Noah said after she’d pushed the porch door shut.
“You too.”
Months before, when the house had been mostly empty, and Grandpa Wes had latched himself away for the night, she and Noah had cuddled on this very porch, peering out at the twinkling stars that ignited so brightly against the immensity of the night. She could never have envisioned the sight of him would make her stomach flip upside down.
Silence seemed monstrous, but Audrey felt unwilling to bridge the divide between herself and this relative stranger.
“You have a couple more weeks left?” he asked.
“That’s what they tell me.” Audrey very well could have thrown up right there across the porch.
“I hope we get to see each other a little bit more over your Christmas break,” Noah told her. “It’s been really boring on this island without you.”
Audrey’s nostrils flared. There was nothing worse than having someone in love with you when you weren’t sure how to love yourself. Max’s lips shivered open into a yawn, which surprised him. He awakened totally and let out a wild yelp.
“Shhh.” Audrey cupped Max’s head to try to calm him. In truth, she didn’t have the same skills with him that she’d developed over the summer. He wasn’t as accustomed to her as he was to Christine, who now raised him, or Lola, who often took him off Christine for nights at a time.
“He’s getting so big,” Noah observed, trying to side-step his previous sentiment.
But Audrey’s eyes snapped up toward his. He stopped short as his smile fell from his face. Max’s wails continued. They were a kind of soundtrack to the rift that now existed between them.
“I just don’t know if I can do this anymore, Noah. I’m so busy with school and with Max.”
“I know that you’re busy. But I’m willing to do whatever I can to...”
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t be willing,” Audrey blared then. “You’d be much better with someone with less on her mind, that’s for sure. I can’t be funny or interesting or whatever it is you need. I can hardly be myself right now. Do you understand?”
Noah’s cheeks sagged. He looked like a greyhound dog that knew his running career was over. He opened his lips to speak, just as Susan pressed open the back door and said, “Hey Noah! Can I get you a slice of pie? It turns out we made enough pie to feed a small village.”
This was the Susan way. She was the eternal mother goose. Audrey resented it just then.
“I’m good, Susan,” Noah hollered back. “I have to get back to my own family soon. We’ve got leftovers of our own to eat.”
Noah then made intense eye contact with Audrey before he again bucked through the porch door and headed into the warmth of the Sheridan family. As though someone had pressed the laugh-track button, they all burst into laughter at something someone had said. Max wailed against Audrey’s chest as her own heart burst with fear and sorrow.
At this moment out on the back porch, her eyes toward the ballooning moon on the horizon, Audrey felt she’d made every mistake possible.