Elin Hilderbrand - Winter Stroll

Genevieve starts to cry. Kevin says, “Let’s walk.”

Jennifer says, “I promised Jaime a cocoa from the pharmacy.”

“By all means,” Kevin says.

The Nantucket Pharmacy has an old-fashioned lunch counter and the best cocoa on the island. It’s served in a thick ceramic mug with a mountain of whipped cream and a candy cane garnish. Jaime perches on a stool and Jennifer snaps a photo of him before he demolishes his drink. The only thing she has excelled at since Patrick has gone to prison is documenting every little moment. Kevin wanders the aisles, gently bouncing Genevieve until she falls asleep against his chest.

“Success,” he whispers.

The door to the pharmacy jingles and suddenly Jennifer feels a hand on her shoulder. In addition to everything else, the oxy makes her paranoid; she whips around.

It’s George.

“George!” Jennifer says. “Hi!” She gives him a hug, then looks behind him for Mitzi, but he appears to be alone.

“She’s back at the hotel,” George says. “Sleeping it off.”

Jennifer composes what she hopes is a sympathetic expression. “I’m a bit hungover myself,” she admits. But she knows that she was nowhere close to as drunk as Mitzi last night. Mitzi was a train wreck. Jennifer wonders briefly if she also takes pills.

George turns to Kevin. “Kevin, how are you?”

Kevin nods. Jennifer isn’t sure what kind of relationship Kevin has with George, if any. Mitzi reached out to Jennifer right after Patrick was sentenced, and Jennifer wasn’t in a position to rebuff her. However, somehow, over the course of the past year, Jennifer has found herself becoming the conduit between Mitzi and the rest of the Quinns. Mitzi asks for updates on how the family is faring and Jennifer, unwilling and really unable to lie, provides them.

Kevin says, “Oh, can’t complain.”

George takes a peek inside the Björn. “Here’s the angel, then? What a beauty.”

Kevin grins. “That she is.”

The door to the pharmacy jingles again and a redheaded woman wanders in. “Hey, George!” she calls out.

George checks his watch. “Right on time, Mary Rose,” he says. He winks at Jennifer and Kevin. “I agreed to buy this young lady some lunch. I’ll see you kids tomorrow morning at the church.”

“See you then,” Kevin says.

George steers the redhead, Mary Rose, to a stool at the end of the counter.

Jaime slurps the last of his cocoa. Jennifer urges him up-and out.

When they’re on the street, she turns to Kevin. “I have to apologize. It’s my fault Mitzi and George showed up here this weekend. Mitzi asked a month or so ago when you were baptizing the baby, and I told her.”

“Jen, it’s okay,” Kevin says. “I mean, Mitzi was my stepmother for more than twenty years. I would have invited her myself, but Dad…”

“Yeah,” Jennifer says.

“I didn’t feel like I could invite Mitzi back into his sphere,” Kevin says. “But I’m glad she’s coming. Especially with Bart missing… it feels like we should all be together.”

“Okay, good,” Jennifer says. She knows that Kevin and Ava and Bart all think of her like a sister, but she’s aware that she wasn’t born a Quinn. She would never want to overstep her bounds as an in-law.

They proceed down the street, dodging and weaving among the fur coats. Jennifer wonders briefly about the redhead George is taking to lunch while Mitzi is “sleeping it off,” when suddenly she sees the sign for Murray’s Liquors, and she gasps.

“Oh my gosh, Kevin!” she says.

“Oh my gosh, what?” Kevin says.

Jennifer stops dead in her tracks, nearly causing a ten-person pileup behind her. Kevin moves her a few steps out of the way. “What’s wrong?” he says.

She can’t decide what to tell him. The fact is, Jennifer forgot about seeing Norah Vale. Or didn’t forget so much as lost the fact; that often happened when she took Ativan. She had thought of it briefly that morning as Kelley was making breakfast, although obviously it wasn’t anything Jennifer would ever mention in front of Isabelle. She wonders now if it was even real, or if she’d imagined it. She wonders if the woman she saw was Norah Vale, or only a woman who greatly resembled Norah. After all, the woman hadn’t acknowledged Jennifer or shown any flicker of recognition. She had sniffed at Jennifer-maybe in disgust at being mistakenly called Norah. Jennifer can’t bring herself to alarm Kevin for no reason. Their family has too much going on as it is.

“Oh, nothing,” she says.

“What?” Kevin says. “Tell me.”

“It’s nothing,” Jennifer says. “I just remembered that I need to shop for a dress.”

Ava sleeps late, a bad habit she only indulges in when it’s a weekend and she’s not staying over at Scott’s; he insists on rising with the dawn and running six miles, regardless of the weather.

She rolls over to check the clock. It’s five of eleven. That’s pretty pathetic, even for her. She needs to get her butt out of bed, find coffee, eat whatever her father has left over, and then start helping Kevin and Isabelle with the rooms.

But first, she looks at her phone. Against her will, she finds herself hoping for a text from Nathaniel. But instead, there’s another missed call-no message-and a text from Scott that says: I’m headed to MGH with Roxanne.

Ava sits bolt upright in bed. “What?” she shouts.

She calls Scott immediately. He answers on the sixth ring. “Hello?” He sounds exhausted, but Ava doesn’t care.

“You’re in Boston? ” she says. “With Roxanne? What for, Scott? I’m… flummoxed here! Why did you go to Boston with Roxanne?”

“She got Med-Flighted early this morning, and I took the first ferry, then rented a car,” he says. “The ankle is badly broken, she needs surgery. She’s scared, Ava, like crying-scared, little-girl-scared, and she doesn’t have anyone else. Her mother is in California, her brother’s in Denver, and she says she doesn’t have any close girlfriends to ask for help.”

Ava bites her tongue. Roxanne doesn’t have any close girlfriends because she isn’t the type of woman another woman trusts. Crying-scared, little-girl-scared? This is, possibly, the most absurd phrase Ava has ever heard come out of Scott’s mouth, but she can picture exactly the way Roxanne tugged on Scott’s heartstrings. She acted like a fourth grader with a skinned knee and Scott was unable to resist. Of course he took the first ferry, of course he rented a car! Ava has to take a moment to center herself. Roxanne broke her ankle; she can’t walk. She has no family on Nantucket, no close friends. If Ava had broken her ankle, her father and brother would have been there; Shelby would have been there. Scott would have been there.

“When are you coming home?” Ava asks. “You’ll be home by six, right?” At six o’clock, the entire Quinn family is going to the Festival of Trees party, thrown by the Nantucket Historical Association at the Whaling Museum. It is the premier event of Christmas Stroll weekend.

“Ava…” Scott says.

“Don’t tell me,” Ava says. “Do not.”

“She’s scheduled to go into surgery between three and four this afternoon,” Scott says. “They don’t know how long that will take, but I need to be here when she wakes up. That’s Roxanne’s main concern. She doesn’t want to come out of the anesthesia and be alone.”

Ava’s main concern is losing her date to the Festival of Trees-which isn’t quite in the same category. And yet, her overriding feeling is that Scott is her boyfriend, not Roxanne’s, and hence Scott’s rightful place tonight is by Ava’s side.