Winter Solstice Read online

  She hears footsteps on the stairs, then Potter’s voice and a child’s voice. A child’s voice. This is real, Ava thinks. She’s about to meet Potter’s son.

  She opens the door and stands on the landing wearing what she hopes is a carefree, welcoming smile. She notices tiny pinpricks of red on her white blouse—splatters from the tomato soup.

  Oh well, Ava thinks. The blouse is a small sacrifice to make for this suddenly all-important dinner.

  “Hi, guys!” Ava says as soon as the top of Potter’s head is visible.

  Potter turns to give her a warning look. Ava realizes that Potter is pulling seven-year-old PJ up the stairs, and then Ava hears the sobbing. Potter makes it to the landing below Ava’s apartment with PJ in tow. When PJ looks up and sees Ava, he lets out an ear-piercing shriek.

  Ava puts a finger to her lips. “The neighbors,” she says. “Mrs. Simonetta.” Mrs. Simonetta is sensitive to noise and has more than once complained about the volume at which Ava plays her Natalie Merchant. PJ’s scream will likely spur Mrs. Simonetta to phone in a SWAT team.

  Potter picks PJ up, even though he is far too big. “You have to stop, PJ. Ava is nice. Ava is my friend and she wants to be your friend.”

  PJ shrieks again.

  The scene on the landing lasts another sixty seconds or so, with PJ shrieking every time Potter tells him Ava is nice and would PJ please climb the final set of stairs so they can eat supper. Mrs. Simonetta clearly isn’t home, because there is no way she would tolerate that kind of commotion outside her door.

  Ava resorts immediately to bribery. “If you come upstairs, PJ, I’ll give you an ice pop. I have three flavors: cherry, grape, and orange.” In truth, the organic flavors are pomegranate, fig, and mango, but they can deal with Ava’s deception once they get the child up the stairs.

  “I don’t want an ice pop!” PJ screams.

  “I also have whoopie pies,” Ava says. She congratulates herself for “treading lightly.” Could Margaret Quinn herself be handling this any better?

  “What about a whoopie pie, buddy? It’s chocolate cake with marshmallow filling.”

  “No!” PJ screams. “No! No! No!” He looks up at Ava and says, “I hate you! I want my mom!”

  Ava draws in a breath. She looks at Potter and sees the expression of helpless agony on his face. “I think he’s t-i-r-e-d from traveling,” Potter says.

  “Okay,” Ava says. “Why don’t we try this again tomorrow?”

  “But—,” Potter says.

  “I am not tired!” PJ screams. “I’m screaming because I hate you! I hate you, lady!”

  Ava channels her inner saint. She didn’t even know she had an inner saint, but apparently she does, because she smiles at Potter and says, “It’s fine. Call me later.”

  “You win, buddy,” Potter says to PJ. “We’ll go home. But you and I are going to have a serious talk in the taxi.”

  PJ races down the stairs. Potter mouths I love you to Ava, then chases after his son.

  Ava closes the door of her apartment, flips the dead bolt, and stares at the table set for three, with the candles flickering and the red Gerber daisies showing their perky, optimistic faces. She inhales the scent of onions, tomato, and basil, and then she starts to cry.

  KELLEY

  He begged Mitzi to put off calling hospice until things got really bad.

  Things are really bad.

  Kelley had a seizure while watching a football game with Bart, and he lost the sight in his left eye. That sight is never coming back, Dr. Cherith said. And he may soon lose sight in his right eye. Then his hearing will go, his sense of smell, his ability to chew and swallow. He feels like the poor chump in the song “Moonshadow.”

  Kelley is dying and there is nothing he can do to stop it. When Kelley was released from Mass. General after the seizure, he gave Mitzi the okay to call hospice and suspend operation of the inn.

  The funny thing was that as soon as the hospice workers started showing up, Kelley felt better, stronger, healthier. He guesses he’s the healthiest person ever to use hospice. Today, the twenty-fourth of October, he has enough energy to use his walker all the way down the hall, through the living room, to the kitchen. He wants a cup of tea, and rather than ring his bell, he decides to go in search of the tea himself.

  He says to Lara—Lara not Laura, she has corrected him three times, no concessions made for his pronunciation even though he has brain cancer—“Mitzi likes me to drink herbal tea, but would it be okay for me to have a cup of regular Lipton?”

  Lara says, “I don’t think a cup of regular Lipton will hurt.”

  Kelley decides to press his luck. He says, “What I’d really like is a teaspoon of white sugar in my regular Lipton tea. Not honey, not agave, not raw organic turbinado. Just good old white processed sugar.”

  “Does Mrs. Quinn keep something as toxic as that in the house?” Lara asks.

  “She does,” Kelley says. “We keep it on hand for the guests. There are packets of Domino in the breakfront. Might you grab me one… or two?”

  Lara disappears into the guest dining room and emerges shortly thereafter shaking two sugar packets like castanets. Lara is a stickler about her name, but she is wonderfully lenient about other things, Kelley is happy to see.

  The next day Kelley is in bed. He can no longer read or watch TV—it puts too much strain on his good eye—and so he listens to books on tape. He considered choosing some classics that he’d always wanted to read, but it turned out there were no classics he’d always wanted to read. He will go rebelliously to his grave never having slogged through Moby-Dick. Instead Kelley becomes addicted to the novels of Danielle Steel. Now, there’s a woman who knows about life: dying billionaires who cut their obnoxious children out of the will, unappreciated housewives who fall into the arms of the children’s sailing instructor. And Ms. Steel writes one heck of a sex scene. Today Kelley is listening to The Mistress. It’s his fourth Danielle Steel book in a row, and he fears he might be falling a little in love with her. But becoming attached to someone new at this stage of the game is probably not a good idea.

  Lara comes into the room to do her hospice duties, and Kelley holds up a finger to let her know she should wait until the narrator reaches a break before she takes his lunch order, plumps his pillows, refills his meds, and rubs ointment on his feet.

  He pauses his book and says, “Hello, Lara.”

  She smiles. “Hello, Kelley. Are you ready for lunch?”

  Kelley grimaces. He fears lunch is spinach soup made without any butter, cream, or salt. Basically, Mitzi boils raw spinach, purées it with some vegetable broth, heats it up, and calls it soup. She serves it with hard little seeded crackers that taste like something she stole from the bird feeder.

  “I want a ham and pickle sandwich from the Nantucket Pharmacy,” Kelley says. “On rye bread. With a bag of regular Lay’s potato chips and a chocolate frappe.”

  “That sounds ambitious,” Lara says.

  It is ambitious. Kelley feels hungry in his mind, but when food is in front of him, he can normally manage only a few bites. But it occurs to him that this might be because he isn’t tempted by any of the offerings. If there were something he actually wanted to eat, he would devour it. Or eat more than usual. He has lost twenty-nine pounds since he stopped chemo in June.

  “Please?” he says.

  “I can run out and get it for you now,” Lara says.

  Kelley’s functioning eye widens, and he tries to sit up a little straighter, although doing so hurts. He now has tumors on three of his vertebrae. “You can?”

  “I’d like to see you eat,” Lara says. “And I’d like to see you happy. It’s amazing how indulging a little bit can boost the morale.”

  “You know,” Kelley says. “I used to think Jocelyn was the nice hospice worker and you were the tough one. But you are rapidly gaining ground, Lara. Before you leave, may I inquire: Where is Mrs. Quinn?”

  “She left a few minutes ago to meet with
the caterers for Bart’s birthday party,” Lara says.

  Yes! Kelley thinks. They have a window! Let the caper begin!

  “Go,” he says. “Quickly, go!”

  The learning curve is steep once you discover you are terminal. Kelley understands so much more about life now than he ever did when he was well. On the one hand, it’s frustrating—what good will his newfound knowledge do him once he’s six feet under? On the other hand, he’s grateful. That’s actually the first and last lesson: gratitude for every experience. Gratitude for two packets of sugar in his well-steeped black pekoe tea. How many times in his life did he take something this simple for granted? He feels enormous, tearful gratitude for the first bite of his contraband sandwich: lightly toasted, buttered slices of rye containing luscious ham and pickle salad and crunchy, crisp iceberg lettuce. How many times did Kelley wolf down a similar sandwich while sitting at his desk on Wall Street? He barely tasted those sandwiches, much less reveled in their nuances. If only someone had been there to remind him that his life, someday, would be over and he should pay attention and enjoy while he could.

  His next adventure is two Lay’s potato chips, one flat, one folded over. Folded-over chips are preferable to flat chips—why is that? It’s one of life’s ten million mysteries. That has been another lesson. So many things can’t be explained; they just are. Love, for example. And illness. Why should Kelley be struck with brain cancer at the youthful age of sixty-four? He had expected to live until ninety. Okay, maybe not ninety, but long enough to make certain all of his kids turned out okay.

  And he has done that, hasn’t he? Patrick is out of jail and he has some kind of new investment concern going. Jennifer is decorating houses for every Mayflower descendant in Beacon Hill, and the three boys are busy with fall lacrosse and fantasy football. (Kelley still doesn’t understand fantasy football, and now, he supposes, he never will, a small regret.)

  Kevin and Isabelle just ended a wildly successful season at Quinns’ on the Beach—the liquor license more than doubled their income, Kevin confided—and Isabelle worked alongside Kevin until three days before she gave birth to Kelley’s fourth grandson, Kelley Jacques Quinn, known as KJ. Kelley is honored to have a member of the new generation named after him; however, he’s also glad they decided to use the nickname KJ, because Kelley can’t count the number of times in his life that someone saw his name and thought he was a girl. Woman. Whatever the proper terminology. (Terminology no longer matters to Kelley, if it ever did, but pronouncing Lara’s name correctly very much matters.)

  Ava has, perhaps, made the greatest strides of all the children. She is living in Manhattan. Kelley initially feared that she would rent a place in Brooklyn, start wearing vintage clothes, and get upset about the distinction between girl and woman. But Kelley needn’t have worried. Ava settled in the borough of her youth. She is paying her own rent, working at a prestigious if elitist private school teaching music, real music, not just kids banging on wooden blocks. And she’s dating a very nice man, a real man, not one of the boys-slash-clowns who dominated her life the past three or four years. Kelley never held a very high opinion of Nathaniel Oscar; he was far too handsome, and Mitzi enjoyed his company way too much. Scott was better, but ultimately, Kelley suspected, Ava would have grown tired of him. This new fellow—at the moment Kelley can’t come up with his name—is a professor at Columbia, and he has a son who lives in California with the mother. He seems just right for Ava, or at least right for now. The important thing is that Ava is finally getting some air under her wings, and she’s getting to see more of her mother, which Kelley knows is something she missed growing up.

  Bart is home safely from Afghanistan after being held prisoner for nearly two years. Kelley has tried to talk to Bart about what happened overseas, but Bart is tight lipped, just as Kelley’s own father was silent about what happened during the years he was stationed in the Philippines during World War II. Kelley talked with Mitzi about getting Bart to a therapist, but Bart flat-out refused. He wants to work through things on his own, he says—meaning, it seems, that he wants to sit in his room and smoke dope. He has reverted to the same behavior he exhibited before he joined the Marines. Has nothing changed? He did go to work for Kevin and Isabelle at Quinns’ on the Beach. But the crowds and the fast pace caused Bart to have panic attacks, and after two weeks he quit. There was then talk of Bart working as Kevin and Isabelle’s nanny, but that idea got shot down as well. Bart isn’t qualified to work for Patrick, even at the entry level. And now there is no business at the inn for him to help out with.

  Kelley is worried about Bart.

  Mitzi is worried as well, although by necessity her worrying has to be divided between Bart and Kelley. She’s putting up a pretty strong front, stronger than Kelley thought possible. Likely, she’s in denial. She talks about getting the most out of the time Kelley has left, but she’s also praying for a miracle. She prayed for a miracle with Bart—and look what happened! He came home, safe and sound.

  Here Kelley would like to point out that there is probably a one-miracle-per-family limit; otherwise, it wouldn’t be fair. Kelley knows there won’t be a miracle where he’s concerned. He feels his body shutting down. He’s going to die and he’s okay with that. He had a long, elucidating conversation with his old friend Father Paul, and they agreed that Kelley should make his peace with the people he’s leaving behind and then have faith that God will take over from there.

  Kelley can’t share this philosophy with Mitzi, however. She will accuse him of giving up.

  Kelley is worried about Mitzi. He doesn’t think she can or should run the inn by herself. She should sell the inn and buy something smaller or move away altogether. Her parents have died; her brother died. Her only family once Kelley is gone will be Bart and Kelley’s other kids.

  Kelley has had serious conversations with Patrick, Kevin, and Ava: they are not to let Bart and Mitzi fall through the cracks.

  We won’t, Dad, they said.

  Kelley tells himself that he will have a brass-tacks conversation with Mitzi about selling the inn this week.

  At that moment Mitzi bursts into the room. What remains of Kelley’s sandwich is on the lunch plate before him, along with an untouched dill spear and the half-empty bag of chips.

  “You are a very naughty patient,” Mitzi says, and she leans in to kiss his greasy, salty lips. She always gives him long, lingering kisses now, and he savors each one. She smells like woodsmoke and fresh air. Her cheeks are pink and her curly hair is windblown. She grows more beautiful each day, at least in Kelley’s mind. He feels he’s adjusting well to his prognosis, but he won’t lie: he experiences fiendish jealousy whenever he thinks of the man Mitzi will fall in love with after Kelley is gone. If he were to voice this thought, Mitzi would throw herself headlong into his arms and vow that she will never meet anyone else. She will remain faithful to Kelley until her own death. And whereas, selfishly, this is exactly what Kelley wants, he knows it is unfair and unrealistic. Mitzi is exactly like one of the heroines in Danielle Steel’s novels. Kelley will die and Mitzi will think her own life is over. She will never find love again. She will consider joining an ashram or adopting a cat. But then one day she’ll be shopping at Annye’s Whole Foods, and she will reach for the last package of flaxseeds—no, kale chips!—at the very same time as a handsome stranger. After deflecting her gentle protests, the stranger will insist Mitzi take the kale chips, and as they’re standing in line, he will reveal that his beloved wife of thirty years has just died of MS and he has come to Nantucket to take long walks on the beach and reflect on his loss.

  Or… Mitzi will take a trip to Sedona, a place Kelley knows she has long wanted to visit. She will wander into a crystal shop and suddenly feel a hand on her back. It will be the mysterious, bearded owner of the crystal shop, who will ask if Mitzi would like to join him in a cup of matcha. Mitzi will not believe the way the universe provided for her at—literally—her lowest moment.

  Mitzi breaks the
spell of Kelley’s awful reverie. “I just had the best conversation with the caterer! This party is going to be So. Much. Fun.”

  Party? Kelley thinks. What party? He wonders for an instant if Mitzi is already planning his funeral reception. Why else would she need a caterer? Then he remembers Bart’s birthday party at the VFW. Kelley tried to discourage Mitzi from planning this party. Why would she take on such an enormous project when her husband was dying and her son was depressed?

  She looked at him as though he were a moron, and he realized that was the point. Kelley was dying and Bart was depressed; Mitzi needed a happy distraction. Still, Kelley worries the party will put too much pressure on Bart. He doesn’t like being the center of attention. He didn’t want any kind of celebration when he came home from Afghanistan, and there he was, a war hero. Kelley himself would have taken the Chamber of Commerce up on their offer of a parade, but Bart said he couldn’t stand to be honored when half of his fellow Marines had been killed by the Bely.

  Mitzi was inviting everyone they knew to the VFW. It would be a Halloween version of their Christmas Eve party. Once Kelley realized that, he turned to Mitzi and said, “Why don’t we just throw our Christmas Eve party as usual?”

  “But that’s so far away,” Mitzi said. Before Kelley could chide her for being as impatient as a child, she kissed his forehead and said, “And you’re feeling good now.”

  That was when Kelley understood that Mitzi didn’t think Kelley would make it to the holidays. She didn’t think he would make it two more months. Wow. Well, he would show her! There was no greater motivation for doing anything—including staying alive—than being able to tell your spouse: I told you so.

  There followed some days, however, when Kelley feared that Mitzi was right. He felt he could barely keep breathing for another hour, much less two more months.

  Now he has decided to follow Bart’s lead and just nod along when Mitzi talks about the party. It will be fun. Sort of. Kelley will have to attend in his wheelchair, but if he takes pain medication, he should be able to stay alert. He won’t be out on the dance floor—yes, Mitzi hired a band, some operation called Maxxtone that Kevin recommended—but it’ll be fun to see people.