Elin Hilderbrand - Winter Storms

Kelley is too embarrassed to express how he feels about this. He feels irrelevant; he feels like he’s being replaced as patriarch. For years and years, Kelley has wished for Kevin to find his way. But now that he has-Quinns’ on the Beach is an enormous success-well, he feels jealous. He’s not ready to pass the baton yet and certainly not where Thanksgiving is concerned. If they eat at Kevin’s house, Kevin will want to carve the turkey. The notion is outrageous!

Kelley expects Mitzi to side with him. She will say no way to eating at Kevin and Isabelle’s. Mitzi loves Thanksgiving. She loves getting one of the sought-after fresh turkeys from Ray Owen’s farm and making her famous stuffing with the challah bread, sausage, pine nuts, and dried cherries. Kelley can’t imagine Mitzi allowing Isabelle to make the stuffing. What do the French know about stuffing? Nothing, that’s what.

But when Kelley tells Mitzi about Kevin’s invitation, she says, “What a lovely idea!”

She sounds genuine. Kelley blinks. Mitzi spent last Thanksgiving in Lenox with George. It was the nadir of her depression and she couldn’t bring herself to boil a potato or end a bean and so they ended up going out to the Olde Heritage Tavern, where Mitzi cried into her cranberry relish. She definitely wants to make up for what was, essentially, a lost Thanksgiving last year, and besides, she has to keep busy. That’s how she survives. She has the inn to run, but any additional distraction is welcome-Margaret’s wedding in August, and Kevin and Isabelle’s impending nuptials. Thanksgiving too-or so he’d thought.

“You want to go to Kevin’s?” Kelley asks.

“Sure,” Mitzi says. “It’ll be fun.”

“Fun?” Kelley says.

“Something new and different,” Mitzi says. “They’re getting married; they moved into the new house. It’s only natural they would want to host us.”

Natural? Kelley thinks. Fun? These aren’t words Mitzi should be using. Their son, Bart, their baby, is missing. Kelley has counted on Mitzi to be the more emotionally vigilant of the two of them; she worries all the time at the maximum level so that Kelley doesn’t have to. But now, instead of being thrown into a tailspin by the holiday, she’s relaxed. It’s almost as if she’s forgotten about Bart or is, somehow, getting used to the agony of their circumstances. Kelley remembers when his brother, Avery, died of AIDS. His parents had been destroyed; his mother, Frances, especially. But the day had come, hadn’t it, when Kelley had called his parents’ house in Perrysburg, Ohio, and Frances had been hosting her bridge group.

Bridge group? Kelley had said. What about Avery?

Frances said, Avery is with the Lord now. There’s nothing I can do about that. So I might as well host bridge group.

The next thing Mitzi says really knocks Kelley’s socks off.

“If we go to Kevin’s, I’ll be able to do the Turkey Plunge.”

“The Turkey Plunge!” Kelley says. “Since when have you been interested in doing the Turkey Plunge?”

“Since forever,” Mitzi says. “It’s a Nantucket tradition! But I’ve always been too busy cooking. This is my year. I’m doing it.”

Kelley is speechless.

“Do you want to do it with me?” she asks.

“No,” Kelley says. The Turkey Plunge is a fund-raiser for the Nantucket Atheneum in which scores of crazy people put on bathing suits and run into the water at Children’s Beach. Nothing sounds less appealing to Kelley. That has always been true, but this year Kelley feels like a husk. He has no energy and lately has been plagued with a headache that never seems to go away. Just discussing the Turkey Plunge exhausts him so much that he wants to lie down in a dark room.

Mitzi harrumphs. She calls Isabelle to accept the invitation for Thanksgiving, then signs herself up for the Turkey Plunge.

Ten o’clock on the day of Thanksgiving finds Kelley bundled up in jeans, duck boots, an Irish fisherman’s sweater over a turtleneck, his navy Barbour jacket over his sweater, a hat, and leather gloves standing down on the green at Children’s Beach along with every other person on Nantucket, locals and visitors alike. One of the visitors is Vice President Joe Biden. Kelley has heard that Biden comes to Nantucket every Thanksgiving but he’s never seen him in person until today. Kelley would love to bend the vice president’s ear about Bart and the other missing Marines but the man is surrounded by a crowd ten people deep. He seems to be more popular than ever now that he’s about to be replaced. If Margaret were here, Kelley would have her make the introduction, but she’s not-and besides, it’s Mitzi’s big moment. She is out and about, chatting and schmoozing with people and reminding them all about the Christmas Eve party at the inn, which will also serve as Kevin and Isabelle’s wedding reception.

“We’re moving all of the furniture out of the living room,” Mitzi says, “and getting a band.”

The spirit of the Turkey Plunge is convivial and festive, the weather freezing cold but sunny. Kelley sees people he has known for so long they feel like family.

Mitzi pulls off her Lululemon yoga pants and her jacket and gives them to Kelley to hold. She’s in an orange one-piece that Kelley has never seen before.

“That’s a great suit,” he says.

“Bought it just for today,” she says. She kisses him on the lips and runs to line up with all the other hardy souls on the beach.

The gunshot sounds and the swimmers charge into the water, laughing and shrieking. Mitzi is easy to pick out in her pumpkin-colored suit. Her curly hair flies out behind her as she runs, then high-steps through the water, then submerges. Kelley winces, imagining the shock and burn of water that cold. He gets Mitzi’s towel ready.

When she approaches, dripping and shivering, he wraps her up and gives her a squeeze. “You are a very brave woman,” he says. “Now I see where our son gets it.”

Mitzi asked Kelley which of her Thanksgiving dishes he can’t live without and his answer was “All of them.” He loves the stuffing, the sour cream mashed potatoes, the corn pudding, the creamed onions, the butternut squash, the fiesta cranberry sauce, the snowflake rolls. But if he has to pick one, he’ll pick the corn pudding, made with Bartlett’s Farm corn that Mitzi bought and froze this past summer and topped with buttery Ritz crackers. To Kelley it’s the ideal blend of island-grown produce and the midwestern-housewife fare that he and Avery were raised on.

And he’ll also pick the fiesta cranberry sauce. Mitzi completely reinvents the dish, adding orange peel, cilantro, and jalapeño peppers. It’s so addictive, Kelley craves it all year long.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll make both.”

When they get home from the Turkey Plunge, Mitzi goes to work in the kitchen. The TV has been left on, and the huge balloon floats of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade roll past on the screen.

Margaret is there, as she is every year. And today, so is Ava. Kelley feels a sharp pain at the back of his skull. He misses Ava. He has taken her for granted all these years and now she’s leaving, possibly for good. Mitzi has also accepted this with equanimity.

Ava’s breaking up with Scott and Nathaniel is the best thing she ever did, Mitzi says now. “Ava needed to find Ava, and the Ava she found wants to move to the city. I lived in the city when I was young, and so did you. The good news is… she’s teaching. I’m sure she’ll come home every summer.”

Summer isn’t enough! Kelley thinks. He knows how unreasonable he sounds, how rigid. His head is splitting. He tells Mitzi he needs to go take a nap.