Winter Solstice Read online

  Margaret dedicates the next few days to shopping for her kids and grandkids, for Mitzi, for Kelley, and for Drake. In years past Margaret had her assistant, Darcy, pick out everyone’s gifts, but it’s so much more fun to do it herself. She is in the spirit!

  On Friday afternoon Margaret goes gown shopping with Ava at Bergdorf’s. Margaret doesn’t say this out loud, but she hopes it’s only a matter of time before they’re shopping for a wedding dress.

  Over the weekend Margaret turns her vision outward. Saturday afternoon she sits in a warehouse on the Lower East Side of Manhattan for four hours and wraps presents for Toys for Tots. Margaret herself donated nearly a thousand dollars’ worth of toys, but when she sees the list of children who wouldn’t get anything for Christmas were it not for this worthy program, she nearly cries. There are pages and pages of names.

  Ezekiel, age six.

  Marco, age nine.

  Patrick, age ten. There’s a Patrick, Margaret thinks. And there’s probably also a Kevin and an Ava, children like her own, children who will now find something beautifully wrapped under the tree.

  Margaret has never learned how to properly wrap a present, and so she serves as tape maiden to a wrapper named Nell for the first hour. Then Nell takes mercy on Margaret and gives her a quick wrapping tutorial.

  Margaret spends Sunday morning telling Drake how wonderful it felt to actually do some good.

  “I wasn’t sitting at a ten-thousand-dollar table eating rubber chicken at a charity benefit,” she says. “It was real. I was wrapping presents for Ezekiel and Marco and Patrick. I think I’m going to find a soup kitchen next.”

  “Why don’t you come to the hospital and read to the kids?” Drake says. “I’ll let them know tomorrow, and you can plan to come on Tuesday. I don’t know if anyone has ever told you this, but you have a lovely speaking voice.”

  “Yes!” Margaret says. She can’t believe she never thought of this before! She’ll go to Books of Wonder, buy some Christmas storybooks, and read them to the children on the pediatric oncology ward at Sloan Kettering.

  Tuesday is one of the most memorable days of Margaret’s life. She brings four picture books to the children’s cancer ward. Two are Toot & Puddle Christmas books by Holly Hobbie. Toot and Puddle are pigs who live in a place called Woodcock Pocket. Toot is an adventurous pig, and Puddle is a homebody. They are best friends, kind of like Ernie and Bert. Margaret has been a fan of these books since Barrett, her oldest grandson, was small. She loves the art, the quaintness of life at Woodcock Pocket, and the inherent kindness and good judgment displayed by Toot and Puddle.

  Margaret has also brought Olivia Helps with Christmas—another pig! This one is female and headstrong. The Olivia books were written and illustrated by Ian Falconer, who is also one of Margaret’s favorite cartoonists for the New Yorker. And the last book is ’Twas the Fright Before Christmas, which is a brilliant amalgam of Halloween and Christmas, told in clever rhyme.

  Only five children are well enough to come to story time: Hayden, Christopher, Madison, Jayquan, and Gladys.

  Gladys? Margaret thinks. Gladys is five years old. Everything old is new again.

  The children seem to like the stories—Fright is the big favorite, no surprise there—and Margaret marvels at how kids act like kids no matter how sick they are. Hayden, Madison, and Jayquan have lost their hair, and Gladys is hooked up to an IV. But they laugh and stand up to get a closer look at the pictures. Christo falls asleep, then wakes up with renewed energy.

  After the stories Margaret meets the parents. They all want autographs and photos with Margaret. Jayquan’s mother, Aileen, says that she first saw Margaret reporting on September 11. Aileen was fourteen years old, a freshman at Benjamin Cardozo High School. On that day, Aileen says, Margaret became her hero.

  Aileen is now Margaret’s hero. To have a child this sick is one of the greatest burdens a parent can bear. How do these parents do it? How do they endure? How do they keep upbeat, optimistic, smiling? How do they keep from breaking?

  They do what they have to do, Margaret supposes. Her children were all healthy, but if one of them had been sick, Margaret would have made the necessary sacrifices. She would have done whatever it took to get her child well again. Margaret hugs Aileen extra tight and gives Aileen her personal e-mail address.

  Drake meets Margaret just outside the ward. “Let me take you to dinner,” he says.

  “No,” Margaret says. “I want to eat here.”

  “Here?” Drake says. “At the hospital?”

  Margaret isn’t sure how to explain it. She wants to stay at the hospital until she’s sure that her five new friends are asleep. If she could, she would like to tuck them all in. “Please?” she says.

  “Okay,” Drake says. He leads Margaret down to the cafeteria. There is one artificial tree decorated with paper snowflakes, and one rather sad-looking menorah. They walk through the food line listening to piped-in Christmas music—Straight No Chaser singing “The Christmas Can-Can,” which Margaret thinks is catchy. Margaret gets a tuna fish sandwich and a bowl of vegetable soup, and Drake gets the chicken pot pie. They sit down at a table, and Margaret studies the other people eating, many of them with slumped shoulders and hollow eyes.

  “How do you do it?” she asks Drake. “How do you keep from getting emotionally involved? How do you keep from falling in love with every single child?”

  “It’s difficult,” Drake says. “But then I remind myself that they don’t need me to love them. They need me to be their doctor, to operate, to make them better.”

  As Margaret processes this, her phone rings. She checks the display.

  “It’s Mitzi,” Margaret tells Drake.

  “Answer it,” he says.

  But Margaret doesn’t want to answer it. There’s only one reason why Mitzi would be calling now, so late at night. It’s after nine.

  Maybe Mitzi just wants gift ideas for the kids, Margaret thinks. That’s feasible.

  “Answer it,” Drake says again.

  “Hello?” Margaret says.

  “Margaret,” Mitzi says. “We’re losing him.”

  “No,” Margaret says. She closes her eyes. Lou Rawls sings “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” “No, Mitzi.”

  “Dr. Cherith was just here. And Lara, the hospice nurse. They think he only has a couple of days left. He’s not going to make it to Christmas.”

  “No,” Margaret says. Her eyes flood with tears. Drake reaches for her hand.

  “Can you call the kids and tell them?” Mitzi asks. “Patrick and Ava? Kevin was here just a little while ago, so he knows. But would you call the other two for me, please?”

  “I think it should come from you,” Margaret says. “You’re his wife.”

  “You’re their mother,” Mitzi says. Margaret hears a familiar hardness in her tone. It’s back to their old territorial war—who is what to whom. “I need you to do this for me, please. Just call and tell them they have two days, three at the most, if they want to see him.”

  “Yes, okay,” Margaret says. “I’ll call them. And Drake and I will leave tomorrow night after Drake’s last surgery. We’ll drive through the night if we have to.”

  “Thank you, Margaret,” Mitzi says, and she hangs up.

  Margaret will call Ava first, she decides. Ava can drive up to Nantucket with Margaret and Drake tomorrow night if she wants.

  Then Margaret gasps. Austria!

  Oh, sweet child, she thinks.

  She dials Ava’s number.

  KELLEY

  Sight gone now in both his eyes. Hearing gone in one ear. He can make noises but no longer speak. He sees his mother, Frances. His brother, Avery. A kid with Popeye biceps and a Southern twang sticks out a hand and says, Nice to meet you, Mr. Quinn. I’m Centaur.

  Centaur? Kelley says. That’s your name?

  The kid vanishes.

  Kelley is very tired.

  Is it Christmas yet? Kelley wanted to make it to Christmas. But Kell
ey would also like to be granted permission to let go.

  Mitzi’s voice. “George bought the inn, sweetheart. He paid the full listing price. He says we can stay as long as we want. He says he won’t change a thing. He and Mary Rose are going to keep it just like it’s always been. Isn’t that good news?”

  George? Kelley thinks. Who is this George person who bought the inn?

  Then he thinks: Oh. George. Kelley has some vague protest, but he can’t possibly articulate it.

  He punched George once, right in the kisser. George had deserved it.

  George will do a great job of running the inn, Kelley decides.

  Mitzi’s voice. “Potter is on the phone. He has something he wants to ask you.”

  Mitzi sounds coy. Who is Potter? Harry Potter? Kelley made it through the first book only.

  “I’ll give him your blessing,” Mitzi says. “Our blessing.”

  Is it Christmas yet?

  He feels someone rubbing his feet. Lara, not Laura.

  Kevin’s voice. “I love you, Dad.”

  A tiny, soft hand on his cheek. Genevieve!

  Isabelle says something in French. Kelley remembers the puzzled look on Isabelle’s face seconds after Kelley found Mitzi and George kissing in room 10.

  George is buying the inn.

  Mitzi’s voice. “It’s December twenty-first. The winter solstice,” she says. “It’s the shortest day of the year. It’ll be dark by quarter past four. So dark, so early.”

  Mitzi touches his face. “It’s okay, Kelley,” she says. “We are all going to be okay.”

  It’s permission, he realizes. He can let go.

  It’s the winter solstice.

  Do you know what the best thing about the winter solstice is? he wants to tell Mitzi.

  After today the days will get longer.

  AVA

  Both her mother and Mitzi give her a pass. By the time she gets to Nantucket, Kelley may well be unconscious. He’ll never know if Ava is there or not. She should go to Austria like she planned.

  “Your father would want you to be happy,” Mitzi says.

  Kelley may never know, but Ava will know. He’s her father. Her spirit sinks at the thought of missing Austria, a place she has always wanted to go at the most magical time of year with the man she loves. Potter is still on the plane. She will call him in the morning and tell him she won’t be joining him.

  In the morning she has a text from Potter that says: Landed safely. Checking into hotel and crashing. Ava tries calling him, but she gets his voice mail. She calls the hotel, and they put her through to the room but there’s no answer. He must be sound asleep.

  She sends a text that says: My father has a day or two left. I have to go to Nantucket tonight. I love you.

  And then she sends a second text that says: I’m so sorry.

  Ava goes to school to teach. Her mother and Drake are leaving the city at seven o’clock, but Ava doesn’t want to wait that long. She books a five o’clock flight to Boston and squeezes herself onto the last flight from Boston to Nantucket on Cape Air.

  Austria will always be there, she thinks. She feels bad about abandoning Potter at Christmastime, but he is a good person; he will think she’s making the right decision. Potter’s parents were killed in a car accident; he never got to say good-bye.

  She tries not to think about Potter or Austria or Kelley or a world without Kelley; she doesn’t respond to any of the texts between Patrick, Kevin, and Bart discussing travel plans. She focuses only on logistics: Uber to JFK, the hour-long flight from JFK to Boston, the walk through Terminal C to gate 27, home of Cape Air. Ava has an hour before her flight to Nantucket. She can finally relax.

  Wine, she thinks.

  She sees an empty chair at the bar right next to gate 27.

  “Is anyone sitting here?” she asks the guy on the neighboring stool.

  He turns. They lock eyes.

  Not happening, she thinks.

  “Ava,” he says, and he gives her that familiar wicked grin.

  It’s Nathaniel.

  “What?” she says. “Are you…?”

  “I’m going back to Nantucket for Christmas,” he says. “My parents are taking everyone skiing in Tahoe, but I fell off a ladder this fall and tweaked my back, so I can’t ski. Plus, I can only take four or five days away, so I thought I’d just go back home. Hang at the brewery the whole time, probably. See some friends. In fact, you know who I’m supposed to see tomorrow night is your old friend Scott Skyler.”

  “Scott?” Ava says.

  “I said I’d help him serve the holiday dinner at Our Island Home, then we’re going out drinking.” Nathaniel arches his eyebrows. “You could come!”

  No, thanks, Ava thinks.

  “We could surprise Scott. I show up, bring you along. He’ll flip. You know that other chick, the English teacher? She really put him through the wringer. She’s sixteen kinds of crazy.”

  “Roxanne,” Ava says.

  “I’m meeting him at five tomorrow,” Nathaniel says. “Early bird special and all that. I can pick you up.”

  Ava signals the bartender and orders a glass of wine. “I’d love to,” she says. This isn’t remotely true. The last thing she wants to do is climb aboard the same old merry-go-round with Nathaniel and Scott. Ava can’t believe they’re friends now, friends who make plans together! “But I can’t. My father is very, very sick.” Her wine arrives in the nick of time, because Ava feels tears building and the last thing she wants to do is cry in front of Nathaniel, thereby giving him reason to comfort her. She clears her throat. “I’m going home to say good-bye.”

  “Good-bye?” Nathaniel says. “Is he that sick?”

  Ava nods. “Brain cancer. He’s got… a day or two left, I guess.”

  “Oh no, Ava. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “Please,” she says. “Let’s change the subject.”

  “Okay,” Nathaniel says. “Let’s see… you live in New York now. How do you like it? Are you still dating the ridiculously handsome guy I met last Christmas?”

  “Potter,” Ava says. “Yes.” She holds up a finger and rummages through her bag for her phone. There is one missed call from Potter but no voice mail and no text.

  At that instant the seven-fifteen flight to Nantucket is called.

  “There’s our chariot,” Nathaniel says. He plunks some money down on the bar. “I’ve got your wine.”

  “No,” she says.

  “Ava,” he says. He touches her cheek. “It’s me.”

  Ava spends forty-five minutes in the dark cabin of the Cessna staring at the back of Nathaniel’s head. She thinks about the years they were together, how crazy in love she was. Nathaniel was always just out of her reach in those days. Three years ago at Christmas he went back to Connecticut and got entangled with his high school girlfriend. He broke Ava’s heart. Then, when Ava started dating Scott, Nathaniel came back with a vengeance. He proposed, even.

  But it had never been right with Nathaniel. It had never been real.

  And Scott… Ava’s relationship with Scott was more viable. She thought they might end up together—but then he flaked out. Scott Skyler was the biggest disappointment of Ava’s life, a far bigger disappointment than Nathaniel because Nathaniel had been so unreliable to begin with.

  Ava can’t believe the two of them are now friends. She hopes they’ll be very happy together.

  She loves Potter. She misses Potter.

  When they land at Nantucket Airport, Nathaniel says, “Do you want to share a taxi?”

  “Kevin is picking me up,” Ava says.

  Nathaniel says, “I’m sorry about your dad, Ava. Call me if you need me.”

  Ava smiles. If there’s one thing she knows for sure, it’s that she won’t need Nathaniel Oscar. “I will,” she says.

  The inn is quiet when Ava gets home, and all of the lights are out except for the lights on the tree, the mantel, and the wreath. It’s pretty in the living room and it smells good. There
’s the usual glass canister filled with ribbon candy, that old deceiver—looks so alluring, tastes so terrible.

  Ava longs to sit down at the piano and play some carols, something soothing—“O Little Town of Bethlehem” or “Away in a Manger”—but she doesn’t want to wake Kelley or disturb the peace of the house. She’ll see everyone in the morning.

  She tries calling Potter one more time before she goes to bed, but she gets no answer.

  Paddy arrives at eleven the next day with Jennifer and the boys, and Margaret and Drake come at noon. Kevin goes to Sophie T’s for pizzas, and Jennifer sets up Monopoly in the kitchen. Bart, Allegra, and the three boys play, and Drake agrees to serve as banker. Ava knows the game is meant as a distraction. They’re having a vigil. They’re waiting for Kelley to die.

  Patrick and Kevin are talking about how George is buying the inn. The terms are incredibly favorable—Mitzi can stay for as long as she wants. And George plans to keep everything the same, so for as long as George and Mary Rose have tenure, the Winter Street Inn will live on.

  “It sounds like a gesture on his part,” Kevin says. “An atonement, maybe, for getting involved with Mitzi.”

  Ava can’t get wrapped up with the fate of the inn. She’s still waiting to hear from Potter. She eats a piece of sausage and mushroom pizza; she watches her nephew Pierce put up hotels on St. James Place and Tennessee Avenue. Ava’s favorite property was always Marvin Gardens; she wonders why that was.

  Finally her phone pings. Ava checks the screen. The text is from Scott Skyler. It says: Nathaniel just told me about your dad. I’m on my way over right now.

  “No,” Ava says.

  Everyone at the table looks up at her. She fakes a smile. “I’m going to my room to take a nap. I don’t want to be disturbed for any reason. Except if Dad wakes up. That’s the only reason. Is everyone clear on that?”

  “Clear,” Drake says. “Allegra, it’s your turn.”

  Allegra rolls the dice.

  Ava must fall asleep, because the next thing she knows, someone is tapping on her door. She sits up. It’s getting dark outside, but that doesn’t mean it’s late; today is the shortest day of the year.