Elin Hilderbrand - Winter Stroll

For those of you who haven’t heard, Mitzi and I have split after twenty-one years of marriage. [Kelley wonders if it will seem self-centered that he’s starting with his own news. But it’s basic information that “family and friends” need to know. Most of the emails and Facebook messages he’s received are addressed to Kelley-and-Mitzi as a couple, and he feels compelled to end the misconception. They’ve been separated for nearly a year!] Mitzi has moved to Lenox, Massachusetts, with a man named George Umbrau, whom some of you will remember as our Winter Street Inn Santa Claus. [Kelley pauses and rereads. He’ll let friends and family draw their own conclusions.] The silver lining to Mitzi’s departure has been the return of Margaret Quinn to my life (yes, the Margaret Quinn: CBS Evening News anchor, my first wife, mother of my three older children). Margaret has been a frequent visitor to the Winter Street Inn this past year, and she has offered much-needed emotional and financial support. [He strikes “and financial.” He feels shades of Frances Quinn creeping in; nobody needs to know about the million dollars.] Margaret is the face and voice of our nation, but she is also a loving mother and my treasured friend.

Patrick was indicted in January of this year on charges of insider trading in his capacity as vice president of private equity for Everlast Investments. He’s serving eighteen months at a minimum-security facility in Shirley, Mass., and is scheduled to be released in June. His lovely wife, Jennifer, continues to hold down the fort in his absence, running a successful interior design business and raising their three boys, Barrett, Pierce, and Jaime, ages eleven, nine, and seven, all of whom play lacrosse. Their other obsessions include their PS4 and Fantasy Football, a phenomenon I still do not understand.

Kevin became a father this year! He and his girlfriend, Isabelle, gave birth to a daughter, Genevieve Helene Quinn, on August 27th, an event that made Margaret and me very happy. Our first granddaughter! [Kelley wonders if he should delete that last bit. It was exciting to have a granddaughter after three grandsons, but he certainly doesn’t want to offend Jennifer. After all, Kelley adores the boys and is thrilled at the continuity of the Quinn name. Neither does he want to offend Kevin. Kelley and Margaret would have been just as happy with a fourth grandson. But then again, a girl is exciting, especially for Margaret, who talks about things like taking Genevieve to see The Nutcracker and to the café on the seventh floor of Bergdorf Goodman for hot chocolate when she is older. He decides to leave it, for now.] Kevin and Isabelle have been instrumental in helping me run the inn now that Mitzi has sought greener pastures with George, our former Santa Claus. [Oh, how he would love to keep that line in, but he’s too nice of a guy. He strikes it.] Genevieve Helene Quinn will be baptized this Sunday at Our Lady of the Island. Both Margaret and I are looking forward to this joyous occasion. [Kelley wonders if this line makes it sound like he and Margaret are a couple. He considers adding a line informing friends and family that Dr. Drake Carroll, Margaret’s boyfriend, will also be attending the baptism. But that seems like extraneous information and Drake’s presence is a Christmas surprise for Margaret anyway, so Kelley just leaves the line be. People can think what they want.]

Ava continues to teach music at the Nantucket Elementary School. She has a new beau, Scott Skyler, who is the assistant principal of the school. Both Margaret and I think very highly of Scott, and hope he will become a permanent part of our family. [Kelley deletes. Ava will kill him.] This year, Ava has volunteered weekly at Our Island Home, playing piano for the residents. Scott also volunteers there, serving meals to the elderly-so, as you can see, he has been a good influence on Ava! [Kelley deletes. He will revisit Ava’s paragraph later.]

PFC Bartholomew James Quinn, 1st Battalion, 9th Division, deployed to Sangin, Afghanistan, on 19 December 2014. His convoy-transporting forty-five troops to base-was announced missing by the DoD on 25 December 2014. We have little additional information, despite appeals to the nation’s top brass, including our commander in chief. [Kelley deletes this. Reaching out to the Oval Office was done discreetly.] Please keep our family, and especially Bart, in your prayers.

On behalf of the Quinn family and the Winter Street Inn, I wish you a safe and joyful holiday season. Peace on earth, good will toward men.

Kelley Quinn

Kelley reads the letter through again, and considers deleting the whole thing. Divorce, jail, MIA/POW: it reads like the CliffsNotes of a Dostoevsky novel.

His phone rings.

It’s Mitzi. She’s on Nantucket. She wants to come to the baby’s baptism.

Really? Kelley thinks. He nearly says, You are no longer a part of this family, Mitzi. Buzz off. But then he reads the last line of his letter. Peace on earth, good will toward men.

He tells her she can come to the baptism. She sounds grateful, although Kelley knows she would have showed up with or without his permission. Mitzi always does what she wants.

Kelley hangs up the phone and faces his computer. He presses Send. No regrets. In the spirit of Frances Quinn’s letters, this one tells it like it is. Good, bad, or indifferent, he has spoken from the heart.

This year, the Holiday House Tour is on Lily Street, Mitzi’s favorite street on the entire island. There are five houses on the tour, each marked by luminarias placed out front. Thanks to the glowing lights and the quaintness of the shingled houses, it looks like a street in a fairy tale.

Mitzi brings George’s monogrammed flask to her lips. He wasn’t able to find the Casa Dragones-although he valiantly called all five liquor stores-and so she’s drinking Patron Anejo.

George says, “Here’s the first house. Number five.”

They wait in line for nearly fifteen minutes. Where have all these people come from? Where are they staying? They aren’t Nantucketers; Mitzi doesn’t recognize a soul, which is a relief. She doesn’t want her presence here to be a big deal; she hasn’t even called her best friend, Kai, out in Wauwinet. It’s a bizarre feeling, coming back to a place where she lived for so many years, but no longer lives and no longer belongs. And yet, how many times did she push Bart in his stroller down this very street? Two hundred? Five hundred? It was their preferred route into town-down to number 11 and then up Snake Alley, which brought them to Academy Hill. From there, it was a short, straight shot down Quince Street to Centre Street.

Another memory intrudes… Bart was once caught smoking weed on the steps at the top of Snake Alley with his friend Michael Bello. They were fifteen years old. Kelley had wanted to send Bart to Outward Bound that summer to get him “straightened out,” but Mitzi had objected. She would never have survived an entire summer with Bart away in Wyoming or Colorado.

What are you going to do when he goes to college? Kelley asked. By that point, Kelley had already raised three children with relative success, but Mitzi felt that the upbringing of the older three had been too traditional-Patrick was an overachiever, Kevin a slacker, and Ava, the youngest and only girl, the caretaker. Mitzi wanted to do things her way with Bart. There had been many, many heated discussions with Kelley about this, which had usually ended with Mitzi winning.

Until, of course, the end. Bart had barely graduated from high school, despite being incredibly gifted, and he had no interest in any more school. He refused to even apply to college. He spent the year after graduating living at home with Mitzi, Kelley, Kevin, and Ava. He smoked a lot of dope, crashed three cars, and according to Kevin, made all of his extra cash by stealing it.