Elin Hilderbrand - Winter Stroll

But before she can figure out how to phrase her parting words, George says, “Isabelle and the baby are here at the Castle.”

Mitzi gasps. “They are? ”

“They are,” George says. “She was pretty upset, but I talked some sense into her.”

“You did?” Mitzi says. “You?”

“Yes, me,” George says. He clears his throat. “Seeing as how I located the baby and the mother, I hope I’ll still be welcome at the baptism.”

“Oh,” Mitzi says. “Well…”

“As a friend,” George says. “A friend of the family.”

Mitzi floods with relief. “Of course,” she says.

She wakes up at nine thirty. She only has one hour to get the boys showered and dressed and fed, and make herself presentable. She needs to think of an excuse so she can step out right as everyone else is leaving for the church, so that she can go meet Norah at the Stop & Shop. What could she possibly need from the store that couldn’t just as easily be purchased from the pharmacy downtown?

Batteries, maybe, for the boys’ video game controllers? But she’s pretty sure Kelley has a closet filled with batteries, lightbulbs, string, Scotch tape, Kleenex, extension cords-anything one might need for practical purposes at an inn.

Some kind of fruit, perhaps? Clementines because the boys like to eat them at the holidays? Or avocados because she’s starting a new diet today? Some kind of cleanse?

She decides to tell Ava she has to run a “personal errand,” and she’ll ask Ava to shepherd the boys from the inn to the church and save Jennifer a seat. Jennifer should make it just before eleven.

She knocks on Ava’s bedroom door. Ava doesn’t answer.

Kelley and Kevin come busting through the back door. Kevin says, “Is she here? Is she here?”

“In the kitchen!” Mitzi calls out.

Kelley and Kevin disappear. No one notices Jennifer at all.

Jennifer runs upstairs and pops an oxy. There’s no way she’ll be able to make it through the morning without it. Four left.

She stares at herself in the mirror. The oxy puts an automatic smile on her face.

The second Patrick gets out of jail, Jennifer will be sent to rehab.

She should not meet Norah. She should be tough in mind, body, and spirit and give up the pills. She’ll indulge in an Ativan holiday every once in a while, when things with Barrett get unbearable. I wish you were the one who had gone to prison.

“Boys!” she says, in her Mean Mom voice. All three of them are lumps in the den, where, no doubt, they played Assassin’s Creed until two in the morning. Jaime slept on the floor, Pierce in the recliner, Barrett on the sofa. There are three plates of chicken bones on the coffee table. “Get up!”

Barrett moans. Here it comes, Jennifer thinks.

“I don’t want to go to church,” he says. “I don’t want to wear a tie. And I don’t want to go to stupid lunch. I hate seafood. The smell of it makes me want to puke.”

“You like lobster pie,” Jaime says.

“Shut up,” Barrett says. With Jennifer, he presents the argument for his defense. “Mom, you told me all I had to do was get confirmed… which I did … and then all decisions about religion would be up to me.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t apply here. This is a family baptism. This is your cousin. You will be coming to church and you will come to lunch. I already checked the menu at the Sea Grille. They have a steak sandwich and they have a burger. You’ll be fine.”

“You said all decisions about religion would be up to me,” Barrett says. “I do not want any religion today.”

The oxy makes Jennifer invincible. That, perhaps, is its finest quality. For the time that it’s running through her blood, she can make the world do her bidding. “You will take showers in order of age and you will get dressed-khakis, shirts, ties, blazers. You will comb your hair. You will smile and shake hands. You will behave like gentlemen. You will do these things in honor of your baby cousin. You will do these things to make your father proud of you. He would do anything to be here himself.”

The boys, even Barrett, are somber. Had she gotten through?

“Barrett,” she says. “Shower.”

“I’m hungry,” he says.

“I’ll go get your breakfast now and bring it up,” she says. She stares him down. “You’re welcome.”

“Thank you,” he says.

The kitchen is mayhem! Isabelle and the baby are both crying, Kevin is crying and apologizing, Mitzi is cleaning up breakfast and Kelley and George are sitting on stools with cups of coffee.

George? Jennifer thinks. Why is George here? Somehow Jennifer thought…? Well, she doesn’t know what to think about Mitzi and Kelley and George. Jennifer’s mother has been a widow for twenty years. She never dates; her life is both full and peaceful without a man. Jennifer appreciates her mother, especially at moments like this.

Kelley says, “Norah Vale was bad news. Beginning, middle, and end.”

Jennifer realizes she has walked into the Norah Vale aftermath.

Kevin says to Isabelle, “I thought you were gone forever.”

Isabelle wipes her eyes and bounces the baby.

Gone forever? Jennifer thinks. Norah Vale isn’t worthy of Isabelle’s jealousy, though Jennifer certainly understands it. Seeing Norah Vale out last night was just one of the bumps in the road that most relationships face. It feels bad in the moment, but you talk through it and you are stronger afterward. Jennifer and Patrick have faced several issues like this. The biggest, of course, was Patrick’s indictment.

Jennifer feels wise for a moment. She pats Isabelle discreetly on the back.

“Is there anything I can feed the boys?” Jennifer asks.

“Three orders of banana French toast,” Mitzi says, “coming right up.”

“Make that four orders,” George says. “Please.”

“Don’t you think Norah Vale was bad news?” Kelley asks Jennifer.

“Dad,” Kevin says, “please stop saying her name.”

Jennifer shrugs; she’s not going to judge. Norah is bad news, yes, but all of them, in their own way, are bad news. She, Jennifer Barrett Quinn, is bad news.

She carries the plates of French toast up to the boys and then she hurries out the door, to meet Norah Vale.

Norah is waiting in the parking lot in one of her parents’ old taxicabs.

“Get in,” Norah says.

“I’m in a tremendous hurry,” Jennifer says, but she climbs into the passenger seat nonetheless. The taxi smells like old smoke, newer smoke, and vomit. Norah’s mother, Lorraine, was famous for driving drunk kids home from the Chicken Box.

“Here are your pills,” Norah says, holding out an actual prescription bottle. “Thirty, I counted them twice.”

Jennifer opens her purse. She pulls out four hundred and fifty dollars in cash. “Here you go. Thank you.”

“Thank you, ” Norah says. She lights a cigarette, then flashes Jennifer a genuine, gap-toothed smile. “I’m psyched about the money, don’t get me wrong, but the real payoff is learning that you’re not perfect after all.”

He does not feel well. He needs to make an appointment with Dr. Field first thing tomorrow, which will most likely result in a physical of the invasive kind, not to mention a slew of overly personal questions.

But for today, Kelley is grateful that things are moving ahead. George, of all people, found Isabelle at the Castle and somehow he talked sense into her.

Both Mitzi and Kelley are eager to find out what George had said to her.

“Basically,” George says, “I told her that jealousy is an emotion that attends very strong feelings of love.” George clears his throat. “I also pointed out that she didn’t want to end up like us.”