Elin Hilderbrand - Winter Storms

She swallows, takes a deep breath, and replays Darcy’s exact words in her mind. Then she dials the number of the inn.

Jennifer comes by her type A personality honestly: She is exactly like her mother. When Jennifer and her mother, Beverly, occupy the same space, there is always a showdown and Jennifer usually loses.

Not this year, however.

Beverly likes to dine out on holidays-Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas. More specifically, she likes to go to the Park Tavern. Jennifer has gently but firmly shot down that idea. This year, Jennifer will cook.

“Why put yourself through so much trouble?” Beverly asks. “You’ve had such a tough year.”

“Because it’s Thanksgiving, Mother,” Jennifer says. She leaves no room for argument, and Beverly backs down.

By ten o’clock, Beverly’s townhouse on Nob Hill smells like home cooking. Jennifer should be humming contentedly along-the meal will be to her specifications and the quality of ingredients one can find in California is far superior to what’s available at home. But Jennifer is bothered by something that happened earlier that morning. She went into her mother’s bathroom to borrow dental floss and in the medicine cabinet she found a brown prescription bottle filled with Vicodin. Twenty-five pills. Jennifer held the bottle in her palm and read the label: Beverly Barrett, for pain as needed. What bothered Jennifer wasn’t that her mother had the pills-Beverly had suffered from chronic back pain for years-but how badly Jennifer wanted to sneak a few out of the bottle for herself. She could take five or six and they would probably never be noticed missing. Right?

Jennifer had set the bottle back where she found it, but she practically hyperventilated with the effort.

And now, she can’t stop thinking about the pills or about how nice it would be to get high and float through the remainder of this holiday.

Jennifer went crazy at the wine store. She bought three bottles of Round Pond sauvignon blanc, three bottles of Stags’ Leap chardonnay, three bottles of Cakebread cabernet, and three bottles of Schramsberg sparkling. That gives them four bottles of wine per adult, she thinks. She also went to Cowgirl Creamery in the Ferry Building and bought an assortment of cheeses, sausages, mustard, quince paste, Marcona almonds, crackers, crisps, bread sticks, olives, pickles, and chutney. She arranges all this on a platter and brings it, along with a chilled bottle of the Schramsberg, to Patrick in the den.

She sinks down next to Patrick on the leather sofa in front of the crackling fire and the enormous TV. The games are already on.

“Whoa,” Patrick says as he digs into the spread. “And you expect me to eat dinner after this?”

She doesn’t need the pills. She sees Sable’s kind face and hears Sable’s soothing voice saying that Jennifer does not need the pills.

She hands Patrick the champagne. “Let’s open this.”

“Why not?” Patrick says. “It’s a holiday.”

He uncorks it and pours, and they raise their glasses in a toast. “I’m thankful for you,” Patrick says.

“I’m thankful for us,” Jennifer says. They clink glasses and drink. Ahhh. There is nothing like the first sip of really cold champagne to make one believe everything is going to be fine.

Jennifer’s phone bleeps. She sets the glass down and checks her display. She coughs. It’s Norah. The text reads: Happy turkey. I need to talk to you about something. Call me please.

Just like that, Thanksgiving is ruined.

Jennifer fakes a smile toward her husband. “It’s Sable,” she says. “Wishing me a happy Thanksgiving.”

“Nice of her,” Patrick says, but his attention is back on the game. The Patriots are playing and nothing comes between Paddy and the Pats-except maybe a Raincoast crisp smeared with Camembert and apple chutney.

Jennifer stands up. “I should get back to the kitchen,” she says. She is going right upstairs to her mother’s bathroom. Three pills, she decides. Only three.

But at that moment, Patrick’s phone rings.

“Hey, Kev,” Patrick says. Jennifer can hear the buzz of Kevin’s voice but no actual words.

“Tell him I said happy Thanksgiving,” Jennifer says. She can’t get out of the room fast enough.

When she is halfway up the stairs, she hears Patrick screaming, “Jennifer! Jen!”

She races back down to the den. She sees the look on Patrick’s face. Thanksgiving is ruined for sure.

Mitzi is speaking quickly but clearly: Kelley collapsed, Mitzi has called 911, she will meet Kevin at the hospital.

“And,” she says, “there has been news about Bart.”

“What?” Kevin says. “What is it?”

“I’ll explain at the hospital,” Mitzi says.

Kevin tells Isabelle to stay put-there’s a turkey in the oven and Genevieve is napping-he’ll call once he figures out what is going on.

Mitzi is standing outside the emergency room, smoking a cigarette. Kevin does a double take. Mitzi doesn’t smoke. But that’s Mitzi and she’s smoking. She says, “Left over from my days with George. You want a drag?”

“Actually, yes,” Kevin says. He takes the cigarette from Mitzi and thinks how much better growing up would have been if he and Mitzi had been able to commune with each other like this every once in a while. “What are they saying?”

“He’s in with the doctor.”

“He just fell over?”

“Fell over,” Mitzi says. “Unconscious. I couldn’t wake him, though the paramedics did.”

“And what’s the news about Bart?”

A nurse pokes her head out the doors. “Mrs. Quinn?”

Kelley is being flown to Boston in the MedFlight helicopter. The local on-call doctor-who is probably the low man on the totem pole, working on Thanksgiving-didn’t like what he saw and thought Kelley would be best served at Mass. General. Dr. Cherith will be there waiting for him.

“Dr. Cherith?” Kevin says. “His oncologist? They don’t think this has anything to do with the cancer, do they?”

No one in Kevin’s vicinity is able-or willing-to answer that.

Mitzi says, “I have to go too. Can you take me to the airport?”

“Yes,” Kevin says. “Of course.”

On the way to the airport, Mitzi tells Kevin about the phone call from Margaret. Another soldier from the missing platoon escaped. It wasn’t Bart. But this young man is coherent. He has valuable intelligence about where the rest of the soldiers are being held.

“He said-” Mitzi pauses and stares out the window. “Half the soldiers are alive and half are dead.”

Kevin pulls into the airport parking lot. He can see Air Force 2 out on the tarmac. The vice president is on island.

“Wait a minute. What did you say?”

“This soldier told the officers who found him that half of the other soldiers are alive and half are dead.”

“Half are dead?” Kevin says. His eyes are suddenly swimming with tears. Thirty minutes ago, he was hunting for the potato masher in the utensil drawer of his rental house, and now his father is being flown in an emergency helicopter to Boston and there’s a 50 percent chance his younger brother is dead.

“Half are alive,” Mitzi says. Kevin pulls up to the front of the terminal to let Mitzi out. “Don’t you get it, Kevin? Bart is alive.”

“Is that confirmed?” Kevin asks. “Did the soldier give any names?”

“No,” Mitzi says. “No names, nothing confirmed.” She steps out onto the curb and smiles at Kevin. “But I’m his mother. I know.”

Charitably, Dr. Cherith waits until Friday morning to deliver the news.

Brain cancer. Or, more correctly, prostate cancer that has metastasized to the brain. Kelley has a tumor blooming in the back of his occipital lobe, creating pressure against his skull, which was probably what caused his fall.