Elin Hilderbrand - Winter Stroll

“Yes, Mitzi,” Kelley says, “he’s coming back.” He gently touches Mitzi’s back, ushering her into the room.

She sits on Bart’s bed. She stops crying; something about the room calms her. Mitzi’s lips are moving. It takes Kelley a second, but then he realizes she’s saying their son’s name, over and over.

Bart Bart Bart Bart Bart.

He sits down on the bed next to her and takes her hand.

Scott didn’t leave a voicemail, and when Ava calls him back-once she’s safely ensconced in her bedroom-he doesn’t answer.

It’s nearly midnight before he sends her a text: Still at hospital.

She thinks, Still at hospital?

She should go be with him. He’s been there nearly three hours. What could be taking so long?

Hmmmmm, Roxanne, she thinks. Then she falls asleep.

She wakes up hungover, the result of drinking an entire bottle of chardonnay by herself, and then chasing that with not one, not two, but three Ativan.

She feels so rotten that she has no choice but to take an oxy. Six left. She heads down to the kitchen.

“Coffee?” she says to Kelley. She ekes out half a smile. The oxy takes exactly twelve minutes to kick in, and she will hit her absolute high in an hour.

Kelley pours her a cup and reaches for the bottle of Bailey’s, looking first to her for approval. She says, “Why not?”

Kelley winks and hands her the magic elixir. He’s making the guests of the inn blueberry cornmeal pancakes and applewood smoked bacon while Isabelle whips up made-to-order omelettes. Jennifer loads three plates with pancakes for the boys and then lures them away from the PS4 long enough to eat them at the kitchen counter.

She says, “We’re going into town in fifteen minutes.”

“Not me,” Barrett says.

“Me either,” Pierce says, syrup dripping down his chin.

Jennifer takes a sustaining sip of her coffee, and regards her sons. The one who is taking Patrick’s absence the hardest is Barrett, the oldest. His strategy for coping is to vent on the only parent left… Jennifer. Barrett has told Jennifer that he hates her; he has said, “I wish you were the one who had gone to prison.” It’s awful, soul-crushing stuff, and Jennifer steels herself every time she’s in the same room with him. He’s angry, and humiliated, and he misses his dad. When Jennifer says, “Listen, I know you’re angry and humiliated, and that you miss your dad,” Barrett says, “I don’t care about Dad. It’s you. I hate you .”

Pierce is wrapped in a bubble of narcissism. He only cares about how Patrick’s absence affects him. For example, he’s pissed that Patrick missed a season of coaching lacrosse, and blames Patrick for his team not making the playoffs, when in past years, with Patrick at the helm, they won three championships in a row. Jaime, the youngest, is the only one, other than Jennifer, who acknowledges a sad, gaping hole. Jennifer wakes up three nights out of four with him clinging to her, like a barnacle on her boat.

“I’ll go into town with you, Mom,” Jaime says.

“I’ll get you cocoa at the pharmacy,” she says. “And Santa is coming in on the noon boat.”

“There is no Santa,” Barrett says.

“Hey,” Jennifer says with a warning look. “Those who don’t believe, don’t receive. No Santa means no Madden 16 and no surfboard.”

“Yeah,” Jaime says.

The oxy tends to make Jennifer combative and impatient, but even so, she doesn’t feel like forcing the older two boys to come to town. The last thing she wants is two truculent kids to drag through the crowds. For Stroll, Main Street is closed to traffic and it becomes one giant party. Ostensibly, shopping is the main activity, although there are carolers singing and a buzzing anticipation of Santa’s arrival by Coast Guard boat. All of the restaurants serve holiday cocktails. One year, Jennifer and Patrick secured window seats at Arno’s and they proceeded to get quite cheerful drinking Christmas martinis.

Jennifer decides she would like some adult company, someone to keep an eye on Jaime while she shops. She needs a new dress for the black-tie event that evening. She’s lost fourteen pounds since Patrick went to jail; she is now a size 00, and all of her clothes hang on her. She hasn’t been out anywhere in almost a year. Tonight, therefore, is kind of a big deal, and she would like something new. But there is no sign of Margaret or Drake, and Ava’s door is shut tight. Kevin is… on baby duty. Jennifer finds him in the nursery, giving Genevieve a bottle.

“Hey, I’m taking Jaime into town,” she says. “Would you and Genevieve like to join us?”

He blinks at her. He looks exhausted, or maybe he’s just feeling the effects of the Jameson. “Sure,” he says. “That’s a great idea. I’ll take Genevieve on an outing, give Isabelle time to finish up with breakfast and start on the rooms. Then when I get back, I’ll take over the rooms and she and Genevieve can nap.”

It’s a full hour before Kevin and Genevieve are ready to go, by which time Jennifer is panting like a rabid dog. She takes another oxy. Five left. Certainly that will be enough to get through the rest of the weekend. She’ll have to call Megan on Monday for more. Either that or be done.

Be done, she decides. She will be done with the oxy on Monday.

She doesn’t like to consider how many times she has decided to be done.

What had taken Kevin so long? Well, Isabelle declared that she wanted Genevieve to have a bath before she went into town, and giving a bath to a squirming three-month-old is a process, as Jennifer well recalls. She actually volunteered to help Kevin, but Kevin is one of those parents who prefer to do everything himself, including clean between each toe and the outer rims of Genevieve’s delicate ears, and once Genevieve is dry, naked on the towel, he digs at her navel with a Q-tip, which actually makes Jennifer release a sigh of impatience.

“You can go, Jen,” Kevin said. “We’ll meet up with you.”

“No, no,” Jennifer said. “I’d like to go together.”

After the baby was dried and lotioned and powdered, there was the bundling of layers. And then, when Genevieve was completely swaddled, she made a scrunched-up, determined-looking face and Kevin said, “Uh-oh, oh no! ” And Genevieve pooped loudly, necessitating the removal of all the layers, a serious diaper change, and then relayering. Jennifer forgot how long it takes to get anything done with an infant-and how much paraphernalia one needs. When Kevin is finally ready, his shoulder bag is packed up with diapers, wipes, an extra outfit, pacifiers, two bottles of expressed milk, a rattle, a plush toy, and a blanket.

The second oxy has given the whole world a surreal shimmer. It’s terrible how much Jennifer enjoys not being in her right mind. She can tell, however, that Jaime is antsy and that staying behind to play video games with his brothers is probably looking pretty enticing, but he hangs tight with Mom, exerting only the subtlest arm tugs and exhalations of exasperation.

Finally, Kevin has the baby secured in the Björn and the bag ready to go.

“Christmas Stroll, here we come,” he says.

Town is packed. Jennifer can’t believe how packed it is. There are thousands of people milling about. The weather is overcast with very light snow flurries. It’s perfect Stroll weather. All of the lights on the trees are lit and the shop windows glow. There is a group of Victorian carolers singing “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” on the street in front of Murray’s Toggery. Jennifer stops to listen. She yearns for Patrick. It’s eleven o’clock in the morning, which means he’s finishing up at the gym, and it’s Saturday, which means he works lunch shift in the cafeteria, a job that pays three dollars an hour. (As Patrick says, at his other job, he made three dollars in the time it took him to blow his nose.)