Winter Storms (3 page)

Norah says, “When does Paddy get out?”

“June first,” Jennifer says.

Norah's expression is sympathetic and Jennifer softens toward her former sister-in-law. Gone are the days when Jennifer could claim some kind of moral superiority. Now, sadly, Norah is one of the most important people in Jennifer's life—her dealer. Jennifer had meant to quit the oxy after the holidays, but then she was faced with the quiet, cold weeks of January, and February brought Valentine's Day and her husband was
still
incarcerated. Then came March, with its surprisingly beautiful weather. Everyone in Boston had spring fever. The sidewalk cafés were packed; lovers held hands and lay on blankets on the Boston Common. Jennifer could see them from the window of her townhouse on Beacon Street. The sight depressed her. Then in April, Jennifer took the boys away for spring break—to San Francisco to visit her mother. There was no way she could handle a week with her mother without pharmaceutical help. So now she finds herself in May still buying drugs from Norah. Meanwhile, she's trying to parent three boys and run her interior
design business. Today she has two large Kangxi blue-and-white
porcelain vases, valued at over twenty-five grand apiece, in the back of her Volvo to deliver to a client in Duxbury.

“So will you be wanting any more, do you think?” Norah asks. Their implicit understanding has been that this new relationship of theirs will end once Patrick gets out of jail. Norah seems to be asking for confirmation of that. Does Norah possibly sense that Jennifer has become an addict? Well, yes, there is dependency,
obviously,
but is it permanent? Jennifer has blithely chosen to believe that once Patrick is back in the house, once he is back working, making money, helping out with the boys, and sleeping next to Jennifer in bed, there will be no need for the pills. Patrick's return will be her drug. Most likely, Norah is concerned only for her own welfare. Her lifestyle has certainly improved with this new line of work. Jennifer can hardly be her sole client; Norah is probably supplying pills to half the housewives between Mashpee and Mansfield. Her appearance has changed. She has started wearing Eileen Fisher in an eerie—or perhaps flattering?—echo of Jennifer herself. Norah Vale, once all denim and leather, is now silk and linen. And she's got on earrings that Jennifer recognizes as Jessica Hicks. Wow. At this rate, Jennifer might soon be
Norah's
decorator. The thought isn't all that outlandish.

Okay,
Jennifer thinks,
time to leave.

“I have to scoot,” she says. “I have two Chinese vases waiting to meet their new parents.”

“So this is it, then?” Norah says. She eyes the front of the deli. “You don't want to go in and grab a sandwich real quick, do you?”

Jennifer is touched, but also alarmed, mostly at her own feelings of fear and regret. She has grown to sort of like Norah now that their connection has nothing to do with the Quinn family, and she will miss their weekly meetings, in a way.

“I'll call you the next time I'm on the island,” Jennifer says.

Norah's face falls. Both she and Jennifer know Jennifer will never call. Even if she wanted to, she couldn't.

“Okay, then,” Norah says. “See you around.”

 

T
he week after his final radiation treatment, Kelley returns to Mass. General for an MRI to determine if his cancer is gone. After a tense five-day wait, Dr. Cherith—a med-school classmate of Margaret's fiancé, Dr. Drake Carroll, as it turns out—calls to say Kelley appears to be in the clear.

“Cancer gone,” Dr. Cherith says. “No guarantees, of course. But for now, safe to say you beat it.”

After he hangs up, Kelley takes a deep yoga breath, then exhales in an
Om,
the way Mitzi has taught him. Gratitude to Mother Earth, gratitude to God above. He has beaten it. It wasn't easy; prostate cancer isn't glamorous. Kelley spent over a month in adult diapers, a fact he'd like to forget as soon as possible. And the radiation exhausted him. Thank God Mitzi had left George and come back to him. She took complete control of his treatment and made every decision. She brought Kelley breakfast in bed each morning—organic acai bowls with fruit and seeds and nuts—and every night, she read to him. They got through the first three Harry Potters, books Kelley had longed to read—he loved magical fantasy stories—but back when they were published, his kids were far too old for them and his grandchildren not old enough. Mitzi has a wonderful reading voice—clear and expressive—and at one point, Kelley had rolled toward her and said, “Have you ever considered a career in broadcasting?”

She glowered at him. “I'm Mitzi, Kelley. Not
Margaret.”

“I know that,” Kelley had said, although he then realized he'd gotten mixed up for a second. That was another side effect of the radiation: mental confusion. Kelley had such intense dreams that he sometimes mistook them for reality. In the most vivid, the U.S. military made contact with members of the Afghan rebel group Bely, the faction that was holding Bart and his comrades prisoner, and asked what they would accept in exchange for the soldiers. The Bely had responded that they wanted Leonardo DiCaprio and a hundred dozen Mrs. Fields chocolate chip cookies. The transaction had gone through and Bart had come home, whole and unharmed, unmarred except for a tattoo of a star on his cheek. Mitzi had screamed—her baby's face!—but Kelley had simply gathered his son into his arms, kissed the star, and thought,
I am never letting this kid go.
When Kelley woke up, he'd experienced that particular elation one feels when something valuable that has been lost is returned. But then, upon realizing it was just a dream, Kelley fell back into his shallow pool of despair. William Burke, from Bart's platoon, is still unconscious. Back in February, he had been transported from Landstuhl in Germany to Walter Reed in Bethesda and the whole world is waiting for his condition to improve. Kelley had toyed with the idea of going to Bethesda himself to visit William Burke—Kelley had just enough hubris to believe that his presence might be the very thing to snatch Private Burke from the jaws of darkness. But Mitzi told Kelley the idea was impractical. He had to fight his own battle.

He has fought the battle and emerged victorious!

He will tell everyone the news soon enough. But first, Kelley is going to walk down Main Street to the Nantucket Pharmacy lunch counter, where he will order the ham-and-pickle sandwich on rye bread and a chocolate frappe. He has been dreaming of this exact lunch for months, but it has remained a fantasy. While he was sick, Mitzi put him on an organic vegetarian diet.

If Kelley never sees a leaf of kale again, it will be too soon.

 

A
fter breakfast most days, Kevin takes his daughter, Genevieve, to Children's Beach and pushes her on the baby swing. It's his favorite hour of the day. As soon as he releases Genevieve from the straps of the stroller, she starts kicking her legs and making hoots of anticipation. Then, once she's buckled into the swing and Kevin pushes her, she starts to belly-laugh. The other parents at Children's Beach are all mothers and they comment on what a gorgeous baby Genevieve is and what a devoted father Kevin seems to be. On the one hand, this makes Kevin feel like a superstar—the mothers anticipate his arrival at the park and compete for his attention—but on the other, it makes him feel like a loser. He's here at the park with the
mothers
. Their husbands are at work. Kevin, too, should be at work.

For over a year, Kevin and Isabelle have been running the Winter Street Inn. Kevin assumed Mitzi's duties when Mitzi left, and then when Kelley got sick, he took over Kelley's duties as well. But two weeks earlier, Kelley was given a clean bill of health. He and Mitzi are back together and, suddenly, there are three jobs for four people. Isabelle is indispensable—she is the cook and the housekeeping manager. All Kevin has proved useful for is taking the heavy loads of dirty linen down to the basement.

Kevin needs another job. He toys with going back to the Bar, but the day shift doesn't bring in any tips, and if he works at night, he'll never see Isabelle. A few weeks earlier, Margaret and Ava went to Anguilla on vacation and Ava texted Kevin a photo of a beach shack where they ate lunch every day. She said:
You could do this at home! Quinns' on the Beach!
Kevin had studied the menu. Grilled-fish sandwiches, tacos, rice bowls, flatbreads, salads, frozen drinks, ice cream. Ava's right; Nantucket needs a place like this. There is the Jetties on the north shore—and what a gold mine that place has turned out to be—but the south shore, which is where all the teenagers and college kids hang out, is a lunch wasteland. The shack on Surfside Beach used to sell hamburgers, hot dogs, and ice pops but it shut down a few years ago. Could Kevin take over the lease and turn it into something better than it had ever been?

It wouldn't hurt to find out.

His thoughts of striped-bass BLTs are interrupted by Haven Silva, a girl Kevin went to high school with and who is now one of the Children's Beach mommies. Haven has gained a lot of clout with the other mothers because she knows Kevin from another life. The two of them are in a private club, of sorts; they both grew up on the island. Haven really grew up here—was born and raised—as opposed to Kevin, who summered on Nantucket from infancy to age fourteen, when he moved here year-round. Kevin marvels at how his fellow islanders feel like family to him. He remembers Haven with braces; he remembers that she left for boarding school at Tabor in their sophomore year but was back by Christmas because her younger brother, Danny, had had a seizure during recess and died. Kevin had gone to the funeral; the whole island had gone to the funeral. After college, Haven returned to Nantucket. She waitressed at the Lobster Trap for a while, then took the office-manager position at Don Allen Ford. Her mother died, and Haven moved back in with her father—and in this way, Haven and Kevin were in similar boats. But in recent years, they agreed, the gods have smiled upon them. Haven married a mechanic and had a little boy she named Daniel, after her brother. Kevin got together with Isabelle and had Genevieve.

“Kev,” Haven says. “Do you have a second?”

“What's up?” Kevin says.

Haven positions herself just behind Kevin's right ear, out of the way of the trajectory of Genevieve's swing. Kevin does a daddy-scan of the playground. He sees the other mothers—Deborah, Rebecca, Wendy—sneaking glances at him and Haven. Haven's son, Daniel, is in the sandbox playing with his front-end loader.

“I heard a rumor about someone you know,” Haven says. “And I think it's legit. Something Norm heard at the shop.”

Kevin is, admittedly, a part of this little mom clique but he draws the line at gossiping with them. He doesn't want to hear any rumors. However, his immediate next thought is:
What could it be?
In general, the Quinn family has combated rumors by just coming out and telling the truth. Yes, Patrick went to jail for insider trading. Yes, Bart has been taken prisoner in Afghanistan. Yes, Mitzi left their father for George the Santa Claus. Yes, Ava is dating both Nathaniel Oscar and Scott Skyler. Yes, Kelley has prostate cancer. Yes, Mitzi came back to Kelley. Yes, Kelley's cancer is in remission. What else is there? Kevin wonders if the rumor is about Isabelle. She has never once brought Genevieve to the park. He realizes the other mothers wonder about this.

“Do I even want to know?” Kevin says.

Haven twists her mouth. “Probably not. I've sat on this a couple days already. If you don't want to hear, tell me to go away.”

“What is it?” Kevin says. He pushes Genevieve and she coos with delight. Nothing Haven Silva tells him can ruin this moment.

“It's about Norah Vale,” Haven says.

“Oh, come on,” Kevin says. Norah Vale is Kevin's ex-wife, the person he cares about least in the world. He wouldn't give her a second's attention except that Norah has moved back to Nantucket for a seemingly indefinite period, so every time Kevin leaves the house—to go to the grocery store or the gas station—it's like a game of dodgeball. He can't bump into her, even accidentally. Isabelle will kill him. Every so often, Kevin will see Norah's black pickup on the road, but he keeps his eyes straight ahead. He won't bother to lift two fingers from the steering wheel in greeting.

“I guess she's got quite a drug-dealing operation going,” Haven says. “Pharmaceuticals.”

Kevin shakes his head. “That's so unsurprising, I can't believe it even counts as gossip.”

“She has a bunch of high-end clients,” Haven says. “Apparently the ladies-who-summer are washing Vicodins down with those bottles of rosé when they have lunch at the Galley.”

“Good for Norah,” Kevin says. He doesn't even like saying her name out loud. “She found a niche market.”

“The story gets worse,” Haven says.

Kevin closes his eyes.

“I guess. And this is only what I
heard
,
Kev…”

“What?” he says impatiently. He can guarantee he doesn't want to hear the next sentence out of Haven Silva's mouth.

“One of her clients is your sister-in-law.”