Elin Hilderbrand - Winter Street

She charges like a bull into the bathroom, where she starts coughing and gagging. “What is that?”

“Mitzi’s roller disco outfit,” he says. “Her headband and her…”

Ava turns on the water in the tub, and the whole mess smokes and hisses like a wet, angry dragon with golden scales.

“… wristbands,” Kelley says weakly.

“I saw your Facebook post,” she says. “Really, was that necessary?”

“Uh…?” Kelley says. He feels a crushing sense of shame. He is a sixty-two-year-old man who just sought revenge on his wife via social media.

“We are having the party tonight,” Ava says. She eyeballs the pack of Camels and the bottle of Wild Turkey like a mother superior. “So, please, pull yourself together.”

He knows what he has to do. It is only a matter of courage.

And, also, of money. He has socked away twenty-nine thousand dollars in the years since Norah sold their house, took the profit in lieu of alimony payments, and left Nantucket for points south. Twenty-nine grand doesn’t sound like a lot, compared with the millions that Patrick makes, but Kevin is pretty proud of himself, considering he gets paid in cash, which could have easily flowed through his hands like water. It takes extreme willpower for him to make it to the bank with a deposit, and yet he does it every week. Before he met Isabelle, he was focused on getting out from under his father’s roof-he’s thirty-six, and living at the inn has done a number on his self-esteem-but now that he’s fallen in love with Isabelle, getting his own place is even more important.

He wants to buy a cottage where he can take Isabelle, so the two of them can stop sneaking around. He wants to somehow turn into a man who wears a watch instead of a sailor’s bracelet, who owns a nice pair of suede loafers instead of bar clogs, a man who rises at six a.m. to work, rather than at noon.

Is it a winning strategy to spend two or three or five thousand dollars on an engagement ring?

His stomach squelches with nerves.

No more women . It was a vow he made to himself.

It’s not just Isabelle, though. There is a baby. He is going to be a father. It’s time for actual self-improvement, which will start with bravery, and an abandonment of his bitterness. He can’t let his actions now be dictated by what happened with Norah; if he does, then he is still letting her control him.

He will spend five thousand dollars on an engagement ring.

But.

Kevin is in bed, his cell phone resting on the pillow next to him, which is where Isabelle’s head should be. She is in the house somewhere. She and Ava are probably running around trying to get ready for the party tonight without Mitzi. If Kevin sets foot out in the hallway, he will be enlisted to help. Never mind that he brought home cases of beer, wine, liquor, and mixers from the Bar last night. He will be asked to carry things, hang things, move things, and possibly chop and stir things.

He closes his eyes. If he’s going to do this, then he has to get into town sooner rather than later. The red-ticket drawing is at three o’clock, and Main Street will be mobbed by one thirty. After the drawing, the Catholics will go to Mass, and everyone else will go drinking until the time comes to descend on the Winter Street Inn, for the biggest open-invitation party on the island.

He’s running out of time.

He does what he always does when he feels scared, unsure, adrift: he calls his mother.

“Sweetie?” she says, answering on the first ring. “How are things there?”

“Um…?” Kevin says.

“I know Mitzi left,” Margaret says. “I wonder how your dad is doing.”

“I haven’t seen him since it happened,” Kevin says. “I was at work.”

“I can’t imagine he’s taking it well,” Margaret says. “He’s not good with rejection. And Bart just deployed, and we’ve lost sixteen soldiers over there in the past forty-eight hours. It must feel like Armageddon there.”

“Um… yes? Kind of?” Kevin says. “And Patrick isn’t coming home, I guess.”

Margaret gasps. “What? Why not? ”

“I’m not really sure?” Kevin says. Margaret, being a television journalist, asks question after question after question, but Kevin isn’t good at disseminating family gossip. That’s his sister’s department. “You’ll have to check with him? Or Ava?”

“I’ll do that,” Margaret says. He hears her typing on her computer. “And how are you, sweetie? What’s going on in your world?”

“Well,” he says, “I have something to tell you.”

“Whatever it is, honey, whatever you need, I’m here for you,” Margaret says. “You know that, right?”

She’s assuming it’s bad news-because when, in his adult life, has Kevin ever called with good news?

He blurts it all out in one long stream. It sounds something like, Imetsomeoneshe’sFrenchsheworksattheinnIreallyloveherMomI’mgoingtoaskhertomarrymeIthinkandguesswhatshe’spregnant.

Margaret screams. With joy, he thinks. She says to her driver, “Raoul! Raoul! I’m going to be a grandmother again! Oh, honey, I’m so thrilled for you! Now, who is it? Is it Isabelle?”

Kevin is confused. His mother does tend to know everything, but how does she know about Isabelle?

“Yes?” he says.

“I met her, briefly, this summer when I was on Nantucket. She answered the door when I stopped by the inn. She is exquisite! She had those long blond braids and that skin, like a milkmaid’s, and then I heard her accent and I thought she was from Switzerland-Lausanne, maybe-but she said Montpellier, where I actually did a segment for 60 Minutes, once upon a time. There was a demonstration against Sarkozy. Montpellier has a large population of North Africans, and there is a fair amount of unrest.”

“So, anyway,” Kevin says. He wants to get Margaret off the tangent about the sociopolitical climate in Montpellier and back on topic, which is his own very real fear. “I think I’m going to propose.”

“Kevin,” Margaret says, “I hear doubt in your voice.”

“Once bitten, twice shy,” he says.

“I understand, darling,” Margaret says. “But you’re in love?”

He swallows. “Yes.”

“You’re really, really in love, where you feel like a fool in a good way?”

“Yes.”

“Love is always a gamble, honey. Norah Vale got the best of you, but you were incredibly young. I always blamed myself for that. Your father and I had just split, and you moved to a new place. You had to attach to something and make it a permanent part of yourself, and you chose Norah.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Kevin says. “It was my fault. You and Dad warned me, but I didn’t listen.”

“You’re stronger now. I trust your instincts, and I’m not lying when I tell you that I felt something when I met Isabelle. I mean, how many people do I meet in a given week? Fifty? A hundred? And I met Isabelle briefly four months ago… and something about her stuck with me.”

“I’m going to buy a ring this afternoon,” Kevin says.

“Yes,” Margaret says. “If you’re going to propose, it’s good to have a ring. Now… would it be undermining your manhood if I offered you an early Christmas present in the form of cash to help you pay for it?”

Kevin laughs and fills with an unexpected relief. It’s not just the money, although that certainly helps, and it’s a surprise, because Margaret doesn’t like to give handouts. I’m your mother, not an ATM . Kevin is strengthened by Margaret’s confidence in him, and her appreciation of Isabelle.

“My manhood can handle it,” Kevin says. “Thank you.” He exhales the remainder of his anxiety. “I’m going to be a father.”