Winter Stroll

MITZI

She sneaks out behind the hotel and lights a cigarette. George knows she smokes, but he has drawn the line at watching her do it-so she has to be stealthy and quick. If she’s gone for more than ten minutes he sends out a search party, which is usually comprised of himself and his Jack Russell terrier, Rudy, but also sometimes one or more of the women who work in the shop making hats. George thinks Mitzi is going to hurt herself. Or, possibly, run off and have an affair on him, the way she did on her husband, Kelley.

An affair is unthinkable in Mitzi’s condition. Hurting herself seems redundant; she is already suffering from the maximum amount of pain a person can experience.

Bart Bart Bart Bart Bart.

George says he understands, but he’s never had a child, so how could he possibly?

Nicotine is poison. And yet, since Bart has gone missing, cigarettes are one of two things that make Mitzi feel better. The other is alcohol. Mitzi has become partial to a sipping tequila called Casa Dragones that is packaged in a slender, elegant turquoise box and costs eighty-five dollars a bottle at the one high-end liquor store in Lenox that sells it.

She wonders if any of the liquor stores on Nantucket sell Casa Dragones. Murray’s, perhaps? She would like a few shots of it now, just enough to take the edge off.

When Bart enlisted in the Marines eighteen months earlier, Mitzi had naively believed the so-called War Against Terror to be over. Osama bin Laden had been killed and buried at sea. Mitzi had pictured Bart going to Afghanistan to help a war-torn people get back on their feet. She had thought he would be digging wells and rebuilding schools. She had envisioned him working with children-giving them pencils and gum, teaching them inappropriate phrases in English. Baby got back! But Bart had been in country less than twenty-four hours when his convoy of forty-five troops was captured.

They have been missing for nearly a year now.

The Department of Defense believes that the extremist group responsible for the kidnapping is called the Bely, pronounced “belle-aye.” It means “yes” in the Afghan language. No one has ever heard of the Bely; all that is known about them is that they are young-most of them only teenagers-and they are vicious. One official reportedly said, “These kids make ISIS and the Taliban look like Up with People.” The Bely are also, apparently, magicians-because even after sending three reconnaissance missions into Sangin and the surrounding province, the U.S. military has yet to discover where the marines are being held.

Mitzi can’t watch TV anymore, nor read the newspaper; she can barely log on to her computer. When there is definitive news about what has happened to Bart’s convoy, the DoD will contact Kelley and Mitzi directly.

George’s advice is: Try not to think about it. This is apparently how they deal with misfortune at the North Pole. They ignore it.

Mitzi finishes her cigarette, stubs it out on the sole of her clog, and pops a breath mint-for what reason, she’s not quite sure. George doesn’t kiss her anymore, and they rarely have sex. George is older and requires the help of a pill to be intimate, and Mitzi can’t lose herself for even half an hour. She is a prisoner as well-to her worry, her fear, her anxiety, and her bad habits.

She pulls out her cell phone and calls Kelley.

“Hello?” he says. His voice sounds robust, nearly happy; in the background, Mitzi can hear Christmas music, “Carol of the Bells.” Mitzi has many issues with Kelley, but chief among them is how, at times, he doesn’t even seem to remember that their son is missing. He has handled Bart’s disappearance with an equanimity Mitzi finds baffling. Case in point: right now, he seems to be listening to carols! And he’s probably getting ready to make champagne cocktails for the guests. It’s Christmas Stroll weekend-which, on Nantucket, is even more Christmassy than Christmas itself. The town has an intoxicating smell of evergreen, salt air, and woodsmoke. When the ferry rounded Brant Point earlier that afternoon and Mitzi saw the giant lit wreath hanging on the lighthouse, she remembered, for an instant, just how much she loved the holidays on this island.

But then, reality descended like a dark hood.

“Kelley,” Mitzi says. “I’m here.”

“Here?” Kelley says.

“On Nantucket,” she says. “For the weekend. We’re staying at the Castle.”

“For the love of all Harry, Mitzi,” Kelley says. “Why?”

Why? Why? Why? She and Kelley had agreed that it would be best for everyone if Mitzi stayed with George in Lenox through the holidays.

“You made your decision,” Kelley had said, on the other occasions when Mitzi had mentioned returning to Nantucket for a visit. “You chose George.”

I chose George, Mitzi thought. For twelve years running, Mitzi and George had conducted a love affair during the Christmas holidays, when George brought his antique fire engine to the island and dressed up as the Winter Street Inn Santa Claus. Last year, things had come to a head, and Mitzi had decided to leave Kelley for George. Bart had just deployed and Mitzi’s judgment had been wobbly. More than anything, she had wanted to escape her circumstances; she had wanted to hide in a fantasy life of sleigh bells and elves.

It had been a big fat mistake. Now that Mitzi is with George day in, day out, the allure has worn thin. Who wants to be with Santa Claus on St. Patrick’s Day, or the Fourth of July? Nobody. Santa’s sex appeal is specific to the month of December. On good days, Mitzi feels a brotherly affection for George; on bad days, she is filled with bitter regret.

“I had to come,” Mitzi says. “I missed the island so much, and I know Kevin and Isabelle are having the baby baptized on Sunday.”

“How?” Kelley says. “How did you know that?”

Mitzi crunches her breath mint. She doesn’t want to give away her source.

“Ava certainly didn’t tell you,” Kelley says. “And it wasn’t Kevin or Isabelle. And Patrick is in jail.”

Another second and he’ll figure it out, Mitzi thinks.

“Jennifer!” Kelley says. “Jennifer told you. I can’t believe she still speaks to you. She actually is the nicest person alive, just as we always suspected.”

“Jennifer and I are simpatico,” Mitzi says. “She lost her husband, and I lost my son.”

“She did not lose her husband,” Kelley says. “Patrick is in jail, he’s not dead. And”-here, Kelley clears his throat-“Bart isn’t dead, either, Mitzi.”

Mitzi squeezes her eyes shut. She can’t explain how badly she needs to hear Kelley say that. Bart isn’t dead. Which means, Bart is alive. He’s somewhere. The Bely are a new enemy, but the one thing that is known about them is their tender age. The only way Mitzi gets through some nights is to imagine Bart and the other marines playing soccer or gin rummy with their counterparts in the Bely.

When Mitzi shared this vision with George, he gave her an encouraging pat and said, “That’s the ticket, Mrs. Claus.”

Mitzi has become pen pals with the mothers of two of the other missing marines through a service provided by the Department of Defense, and although they are from vastly different backgrounds-one woman is a fundamentalist Christian in Tallahassee, Florida, and one woman lives on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, both women are black-the emails sustain Mitzi and provide her with a sense of community. There are at least two other people in the world who understand exactly what Mitzi is feeling.

“Can I come to the baptism?” Mitzi asks. “Please?”

There is a great big huff from Kelley. “I really want to tell you ‘no,’” he says. “You left me, you cheated on me, you betrayed me, you broke my heart, Mitzi.”

“I know,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

“If it was just the one time, I might have understood,” Kelley says. “But twelve years? It was a willful, planned, long-standing deceit, Mitzi.”

“I know,” Mitzi says. They have been over this same ground dozens and dozens of times in the past year, and Mitzi finds the best strategy is to agree with Kelley rather than try to defend herself.

“‘Peace on earth, good will toward men,’ Luke chapter 2, the Annunciation to the shepherds,” Kelley says. “Because that is my Christmas mantra this year, I’m going to concede. You can come to the baptism. It’s at eleven o’clock on Sunday. I’ll save two seats in our pew for you and George.”

“Thank you,” Mitzi says. She would have gone to the baptism even without Kelley’s permission, but it feels better to have asked. And two seats in the family pew is more than she dreamed of.

“You’re welcome,” Kelley says. “Forget what I said about Jennifer. I’m the nicest person alive.”

Mitzi hangs up the phone just as George steps out the back door of the hotel.

“I’ve been looking all over for you,” he says. He waves two tickets in the air. “Are you ready for the Holiday House Tour?”

Bart Bart Bart Bart Bart. Mitzi always says his name five times in her mind, like a prayer.

One of Mitzi’s pen pals, Gayle from Tallahassee, draws on God’s strength in order to go about her normal day. Gayle works in a pediatrician’s office and dealing with sick children and their parents helps keep her from dwelling on her son, KJ. Mitzi’s other pen pal, Yasmin of Flatbush Avenue, stays in bed most days. She admits that she just can’t return to business as usual. She quit her job as a security guard at the Barclays Center. She has a hard time doing anything but watch Dance Moms on TV.

Mitzi falls somewhere in between these two women. When she hears George say, Holiday House Tour, a part of her thinks, Ooooooh, how Christmassy! She had always wanted to go on the Holiday House Tour, but she’d never been able to get away from the inn on the Friday of Christmas Stroll weekend. Now that she has no inn and no guests, she can finally go. But then, the other part of her thinks, Holiday House Tour? How can she admire other people’s festively decorated homes-the greenery, the candlelight, the precious family heirlooms-when Bart is missing?

Peace on earth, good will toward men. She will go on the Holiday House Tour. But first, for the love of all Harry, she will make George find that tequila.

AVA

Scott Skyler has done it! He has found the ugliest Christmas sweater in all the world.

He shows it to Ava in his office, after all the children and most of the staff have left school for the day. He makes her close her eyes as he puts it on. And then, she can tell, he turns off the lights in his office. Scott and Ava have been hot and heavy all year, but one thing they have not dared to do is have sex in the school. They kissed on the bench of Ava’s piano back in the spring, which almost led to… but they stopped themselves. They climbed up to the school roof together in the middle of summer to gaze at the stars, and they almost… but they stopped themselves.

“Okay,” Scott says. “You can open them.”

Ava screams-half in horror, half in delight. It’s a red wool sweater with a poufy white tulle Christmas tree on the front, decorated with actual lights that blink and flash. Ava starts to cackle. The sweater is only made better by Scott’s deadpan expression; it requires someone as big and authoritative as Scott to properly pull it off.

Nathaniel would have looked ridiculous in that sweater, Ava thinks. And furthermore, he wouldn’t have been a good enough sport to wear it.

It’s a year later, and she still thinks about Nathaniel. He moved to Martha’s Vineyard in the spring to build a house on Chappaquiddick for some spectacularly rich folks, and on clear days Ava squints at the horizon and wonders what he’s doing over there-if he likes it better than he likes Nantucket, if he’s met the Martha’s Vineyard equivalent of Ava Quinn, and if he’s ever coming back.

She kisses Scott. He is simply the best, truest, most excellent guy for agreeing to help her plan the Ugly Christmas Sweater Caroling party for that evening. Ava’s sweater is yellow, with an embroidered picture of Jesus on the front. Jesus’s hands are raised over his head. The front of his white tunic says BIRTHDAY BOY. Ava was proud of her sweater… until she saw Scott’s sweater.

At seven o’clock on Friday night, Ava and Scott and their fellow caroling comrades gather out in front of Our Island Home, Nantucket’s assisted living facility for elders. Ava’s best friend Shelby, the school librarian-who is now roundly pregnant with her first child-is there, as is one of the high school English teachers named Roxanne Oliveria.

Roxanne has either forgotten or ignored the fact that this is an Ugly Christmas Sweater Caroling party, because she is wearing a rather fetching red mohair wrap sweater that shows off her fake breasts. Hmmmmm, Roxanne, Ava thinks. Roxanne Oliveria, called “Mz. O” by her students-the O salaciously drawn out to indicate “orgasm”-is of Italian descent with gorgeous thick dark hair, olive skin, and a Sophia Loren beauty mark.

Despite working two schools over, Ava has heard her fair share of gossip about Mz. Ohhhhhh. Mz. Ohhhhhh suffered through two broken engagements and as such has ended up unmarried at forty years old. She’s known as a “cougar” among the kids; she prefers younger men. She dated the athletic director at the Nantucket Boys & Girls Club who was only twenty-seven at the time, and she is vaguely inappropriate with the seniors on the football team.

Ava pulls Scott aside. “How did Roxanne get invited to this?”

“I asked her,” Scott says. He takes note of Ava’s expression and quickly starts explaining. “I bumped into her in the hall outside the pool, and it just sort of popped out of me before I realized what I was saying.”

“Does she swim laps, too?” Ava asks.

“Um… yes?” Scott says.

Swimming laps is Scott’s preferred method for staying in shape. He was a backstroker at the University of Indiana, and still holds two relay titles there, a little-known fact that Ava loves about him. But now she imagines Scott swimming laps one lane over from Roxanne “Mz. Ohhhhhh” Oliveria. Does Scott admire her stroke, or her flip turns, or her fake breasts in her tank suit?

Ava takes a deep breath and thinks, Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la. As she discovered in her relationship with Nathaniel, Ava has jealousy issues. But she will not succumb to jealousy now and ruin their fun party. She will not.

She smiles brightly at Roxanne and hands her a songbook. “Here you go!”

“Oh, I won’t be needing that,” Roxanne says. “I don’t sing. Scott just invited me along to be the eye candy.”

The eye candy? Ava thinks. She snatches back her songbook, eighteen of which she painstakingly printed out on the school computer, and then stapled to red construction paper covers and decorated with gold glitter lettering.

She goes back to Scott and pokes him in the middle of his tulle Christmas tree. It looks like he swallowed a tiny ballerina. “Roxanne tells me you invited her along to be the eye candy!”

Scott laughs nervously. “Your brother is here,” he says.

Saved by the bell. But Ava will not forget. She will be watching Roxanne.

“Hey, sis,” Kevin says. He gives Ava a squeeze. “I’m ready to get down and carol.” Brilliantly, Kevin has shown up in one of Mitzi’s old sweaters, salvaged from a box in the attic. It’s so old, Mitzi didn’t even bother taking it with her when she left with George the Santa Claus. The sweater features embroidered dancing reindeer with candy-cane-striped top hats. It barely fits over Kevin’s chest, it ends mid-abdomen and at his elbows.

Kevin is followed by their sister-in-law, Jennifer, who is wearing a blue mohair sweater with an elf on the front. It says: Take me Gnome Tonight. Jennifer is on Nantucket for the weekend with her and Patrick’s three boys, who are presently at home playing age-inappropriate video games. Jennifer was a good sport to come, considering Patrick is serving jail time for insider trading at a minimum-security facility in Shirley, and he won’t be released until June. But Jennifer is all about family, and there is no way she would miss the baptism. Some women, Ava realizes, would crumple in a pile and feel sorry for themselves, but not Jennifer. Jennifer puts on her gnome sweater.

Ava grabs Jennifer. “Public enemy number one tonight is Roxanne, with the boobs.”

“Roger,” Jennifer says.

Jennifer is the best kind of sister-in-law. She is a competitor, and when it comes down to woman-against-woman warfare, she is always in Ava’s foxhole with a grenade, ready to pull the pin.

“Point her out,” Jennifer says. “Nope, never mind. I see her.”

They are joined by other teachers and aides from the school until they are nineteen people in all. Ava is short one caroling book, and so she decides to share with Scott.

Ava, being the music teacher, hums the key for each song.

God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.

The Holly and the Ivy.

Chestnuts Roasting.

The Ugly Sweater carolers wander the corridors of Our Island Home, singing, smiling, and waving at the infirm and the bedridden until they reach the common room where a small group of residents has gathered. Some of these elders clap and sing along, and one particularly spry couple, Bessie and Phil Clay, get up to dance. Then, suddenly, Roxanne Oliveria cuts in on the dance. Ava is scandalized at first, but she can soon tell that Phil loves it, and so does Bessie, who collapses in her wheelchair while Phil takes Roxanne for a few spins.

Sleigh Ride.

O Come, All Ye Faithful.

And then-sigh-“Jingle Bells.” Ava likes it even less this year than she did last year, but a Christmas without “Jingle Bells” is like a Halloween without jack-o’-lanterns, Valentine’s Day without roses-and so on. Ava has even provided each caroler with a cluster of tiny bells to shake at the appropriate times. “Jingle Bells” is the one song Roxanne belts out, albeit off-key. The residents are eating it up, singing along themselves. No matter how old one gets, one never forgets the words to “Jingle Bells.”

The residents of Our Island Home clap wildly for the carolers, and Ava leads everyone in a bow. Scott shakes hands with a few of their favorite residents. He volunteers here at Our Island Home every week, and now Ava plays the piano while he serves dinner on Friday nights. Ava has grown to love coming in; she even bought a Cole Porter songbook. Many of these older people feel sad, lonely, or neglected-and music, nearly more than anything else, reinvigorates them.

Roxanne was kind to dance with Phil Clay, Ava realizes. Roxanne is in the holiday spirit.

They climb into cars to head into town. Ava makes darn sure Roxanne isn’t riding with them. Instead, Roxanne goes with Shelby and her husband, Zack, and Zack’s friend Elliott, who plays the saxophone in a Bruce Springsteen cover band. Elliott would be a good match for Roxanne-what woman wouldn’t love an incarnation of Clarence Clemons?-but he’s too old. He’s nearly fifty.

Ava and Scott are riding with Kevin, who “isn’t drinking” so that he can be put on midnight duty with the baby, Genevieve. But then, he passes Ava a flask, and she takes a slug: Jameson. Of course.

Her family!

Ava says, “Are you excited about the baptism?”

He says, “Well, I wish Patrick and Bart could be here, obviously. It’s a little weird being the only man left standing.”

“Dad,” Ava says.

“Yeah, but Dad doesn’t look good lately. Have you noticed?”

“He’s had a crappy year,” Ava says. “His wife left him, and he nearly lost the inn. There was no way it felt good to have Mom roll in and save it.”

“She really did save it, though,” Kevin says. “We’ve been full all year. With a wait list!” Kevin has taken over the day-to-day operations of the inn, and Isabelle manages the housekeeping and cooking, and because they’re both under the same roof, they can split time with Genevieve. “And it wasn’t just the money.”

“I know,” Ava says. “But the money didn’t hurt.”

Margaret Quinn injected a million dollars into the inn, like adrenaline into a failing heart. But she also books a room for herself at the inn the first weekend of every month. During those weekends, she makes herself available to the guests. She hangs out in the kitchen, she helps Isabelle make the Reuben eggs Benedict, she pours coffee and draws routes in black Sharpie on the bike maps. And occasionally she holds forth on Kofi Annan, Pope Francis, Raúl Castro. The hotel guests never want to leave. They Facebook their pictures and Tweet and Instagram about the Winter Street Inn.

Margaret Quinn drew on my map! #familyheirloom #nantucket #winterstreetinn

Kelley was grateful for Margaret’s help, he was very vocal about that, but neither Ava nor Kevin could figure out exactly what was going on with their parents. Margaret had her own room-room 10, George’s old room, reserved especially for her-but Ava and Kevin knew that something had gone on between their parents the Christmas before. Over the course of the past year, there have been moments when they’ve seemed to be more than just friends. In July, they went for a long bike ride and came home completely drenched because they’d ended up at the beach and decided to swim in their clothes.

But some weekends, Dr. Drake Carroll, the pediatric brain surgeon, comes to stay with Margaret. Drake has been a handful of times, and he stays in room 10 with Margaret and they act like a couple in love. One rainy October day, they didn’t emerge from their room even once. And how does Kelley feel about that?

Ava asked her father, “Does it bother you when Drake shows up?”

Kelley shrugged. “Drake is a great guy. And he’s sending a lot of guests our way-his patients, other doctors. I can’t complain about Drake.”

Ava gave him a skeptical look and Kelley said, “It’s a situation that requires a lot of maturity. Thankfully, your mother and I know how to act like adults.”

Scott parks on Main Street and Shelby’s husband, Zack, pulls up alongside him. Nantucket is all decked out for the holidays. Along either side of the cobblestone street are brightly lit trees, each decorated by a class at the elementary school. And at the top of Main Street stands the big tree, dressed in nearly two thousand white lights. The lighting of the trees takes place the Friday after Thanksgiving, when the entire island, it seems, gathers on the cobblestones, waiting for the instant when all of the trees light up at once, a real ahhhhh moment that captures the wonder of the season. This year, Ava and Scott took the baby, Genevieve, to the tree lighting. Scott carried Genevieve in the BabyBjörn, and he and Ava held hands and people who didn’t know them thought the baby was theirs, which had given Ava unexpected pleasure. Later that night, when they had returned Genevieve to the waiting arms of her parents, Ava had said to Scott, “Can you see us having a family?”

Scott had said, “I dream of it every day.”

The shopwindows are all lit up, and decorated with snowmen and candy canes, antique toys and working train sets. Ava inhales a big breath of cool air and gets a whiff of evergreen. She loves nothing more than Christmas on Nantucket. She believes in the magic.

“Scott!” Roxanne yells. She teeters over the cobblestones in her high-heeled white leather boots topped with snowy white fur. “I can’t walk in these shoes. You’re going to have to help me.”

Ava rolls her eyes. She can’t believe Roxanne is so obviously pursuing Scott’s attention when she knows Ava and Scott are a couple. But Scott, ever the gentleman and constitutionally unable to turn down anyone in need, no matter how ludicrous that need may be, offers Roxanne one arm, and Ava his other arm, and the three of them pick their way over the cobblestones to the brick sidewalk.

Ava is relieved to reach the bar at the Boarding House, which is warm, cozy, and filled with convivial chatter. Ava is very ready for a drink, but they have all agreed that they will sing two songs before they order.

Ava scours her songbook for short carols. But Barry, the groundskeeper of the high school fields, who has an impressive baritone, suggests “Rudolph.”

Ugh! Ava thinks. She is a classicist and considers “Rudolph” a complete abomination. However, she can’t deny that it’s a crowd pleaser. While they’re doing songs Ava truly loathes, she figures they might as well segue into “Winter Wonderland.”

The assembled crowd applauds, and there is a sharp wolf whistle that comes from the far right corner. The hair on the back of Ava’s neck stands up. She knows that whistle.

She looks over. Nathaniel is sitting alone at the bar with a bottle of Whales Tale ale in front of him. He waves.

KELLEY

Kelley has heard from thousands of people offering their positive thoughts, prayers, and healing energy in regard to Bart. He has received emails from his old friends in Perrysburg, Ohio, from guests of the Winter Street Inn whom he hasn’t seen in over a decade, and from guys who worked on the commodities desk with him at J.P. Morgan in New York a lifetime earlier.

What can we do to help?

The answer: Nothing.

Pray.

Don’t use Bart’s disappearance as a springboard to air your personal views about Al Qaeda, the Taliban, or ISIS, or to disparage either the Bush administration or the Obama administration.

Don’t generalize about Arab countries or Muslims.

Pray.

Nothing.

Nothing isn’t quite accurate in Margaret’s case. She, alone among the people Kelley knows, has offered practical action. As the anchor of the CBS Evening News, she is one of the most influential people in America, and has a direct line to everyone-including the president of the United States. The Oval Office assured Margaret that “every possible step” was being taken to find the missing soldiers. Margaret also has a press contact in Afghanistan named Neville Grey, who first turned up the information about the Bely, whom no one in America had ever heard of.

When Margaret asked Neville for his gut feeling on the missing convoy, Neville responded: Most likely Bely. They’re an unknown quantity. All anyone here knows is that they’re kids who have been ripped from their families and trained in a culture of extreme brutality. The DoD has sent three recon missions into the surrounding region that turned up nothing. It’s like these kids vanished off the face of the earth. The vehicle was unharmed, the fuel siphoned, all rucksacks and supplies taken. This kind of kidnapping is highly unusual-why not just blow them sky-high with an IED? My gut is that the troops are alive, and being held somewhere to be used as bargaining chips later. The Pentagon will get to the bottom of this. You just don’t lose forty-five marines.

Margaret shared this with Kelley. But not knowing for sure is like living in purgatory-it’s hell but not quite as bad as actual hell because there is still hope.

Hope.

In response to everyone’s queries, Kelley decides, on the Friday afternoon of Stroll weekend, to compose a letter he will send out in lieu of the usual Winter Street Inn Christmas card. The card-which in years past has featured a collage of happy inn-related photos taken over the course of the year-would be inappropriate. A letter is a better idea. Kelley’s mother, Frances Quinn, used to write a letter and include it with the cards she sent each Christmas-a practice that, quite frankly, Kelley found mortifying. In present-day terms, Frances Quinn might have been described as having no filter. In her own words, she was an Irish-American matriarch “telling it like it is,” and “speaking from the heart.” Frances had her predilections and prejudices and made them known in this letter, the most glaring of which was her favoritism of Kelley’s brother, Avery. Every year in the Christmas letter, Avery got the first paragraph (even though he was younger than Kelley by eighteen months) and he received longer, more glowing praise. Avery is a straight-A student. Avery is a starting guard on the freshman basketball team. Avery is president of the National Honor Society, bestowing pride on the family name.

Kelley’s paragraph always tended toward the negative. For example, one year, Frances wrote: Kelley got a B-minus in biology this past term. It has been a challenge for Richard and me to see someone so talented not living up to his full potential. Kelley is often sullen and has become quite proficient at stomping up stairs and slamming bedroom doors. At least once a week, Richard and I consider putting him up for adoption, or encouraging him to become an exchange student in Timbuktu.

Kelley can remember being outraged by this. Adoption? He’d said. Timbuktu?

Don’t be sensitive, Frances said. I was only kidding.

Frances would never make such a joke about Avery, however. She was so proud of him when he announced he was gay during his senior year at Oberlin, and when he decided to move in with his boyfriend, Marcus, after graduating. Avery and Marcus are cohabitating in a gorgeous brownstone on West Fourth Street in Greenwich Village, and they enjoy socializing on the weekends. Richard and I don’t judge; we simply want Avery to be happy-although I do worry about the hours he keeps!

Kelley and Avery had joked about Frances’s annual Christmas letter even as Avery lay dying of AIDS in his gorgeous brownstone on West Fourth Street. It was the last thing they had laughed about together.

Mom loved me more, Avery said.

No question, Kelley said.

The Christmas letter, Avery said.

The Christmas letter, Kelley concurred. I couldn’t even get top billing when I got accepted to Columbia Business School because that was the same year you were nominated for a Tony.

Tough luck, Avery said.

Kelley vows he will give all four of his children equal billing and he will go in order of age, which puts Bart last.

Dear Family and Friends,

Happy Holidays 2015! [Kelley spends a few minutes pondering the exclamation point. It feels too celebratory considering Quinn Family Circumstances, but using a period makes the sentence seem flat and pointless. Happy Holidays 2015. He decides to leave the exclamation point, for now.]

It has been a rough year for the Quinns, but I would like to start by saying thank you for all of the well-wishes and positive missives sent our way. Hearing from so many of you during this difficult time means more than you know.

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.

MITZI

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.

At which point, Kelley stepped in. Over Mitzi’s very loud protests, Bart joined the Marines.

Mitzi drinks from the flask.

Number 5 Lily Street has a Christmas tree decorated entirely with teddy bear ornaments, and it smells of gingerbread-scented candles. Normally, both of these things would send Mitzi into paroxysms of delight, but this year it all seems so pointless. George is enjoying himself, though, so Mitzi tries to drum up some holiday spirit.

George points at the mantel. “Look, honey, Byers’ Choice carolers, just like yours!”

Mitzi blinks. She did have quite an impressive collection of Byers’ Choice carolers, but the Mitzi who used to take half a day to unpack and arrange the figurines on the sideboard of the inn is dead and gone. Mitzi left the carolers at the inn. Maybe Kelley put them out, maybe he didn’t. She doesn’t care.

The woman in front of George turns around. She’s a pretty, freckled redhead who looks a little bit like George’s ex-wife, Patti. “I love Byers’ Choice carolers!” she says. “I have all four display Santas at home: the traditional Santa, the Winter Wonderland Santa, the Deck the Halls Santa, and the Jingle Bells Santa.”

“Well,” George says, and Mitzi knows what’s coming. “I dress up as a pretty convincing Santa myself.”

The redhead squeals with delight. She sounds like a thirteen-year-old girl at a One Direction concert. “You do?”

“I was Santa for twelve years at the Winter Street Inn, here on the island,” George says. “And back in Lenox, I do half a dozen holiday events for the Lions Club, District 33Y. Maybe you’ve heard of the Lions? We hold an annual tree and wreath sale and host three pancake breakfasts, with all proceeds going to help the blind.”

“Good for you!” the redhead says. “Sounds like you’ve found a calling.”

George pats his prodigious midsection. “I guess you could say I’m built for it. But being Santa is just an avocation. My real career is as a milliner. I make fine hats for women.”

“No kidding!” the redhead says. “Just this afternoon I was thinking how much I’d like a new hat! I was dreaming of something in fur. So many of the women I saw in town were wearing fur coats.”

“I make the very hat you’re fantasizing about,” George says. “It’s fashioned from quality rabbit and chinchilla. It’s like something Lara in Doctor Zhivago might have worn.”

“Yes!” the redhead exclaims. Mitzi gazes at the birch logs stacked artfully in the fireplace and rolls her eyes. “That’s exactly what I’m after.”

“Here, take my card,” George says. “My hats are all available for purchase online. Now, I’m warning you, they’re something of an investment, but each one is crafted by hand. It’s something you’ll treasure for the rest of your life.”

The redhead beams as though George were handing her a winning lottery ticket. George asks the redhead where she’s from, and at that point, Mitzi tunes out. George loves nothing more than to chat with complete strangers, and as an innkeeper Mitzi used to be skilled at the art of small talk, but it’s another thing she now finds pointless. How can she possibly converse with anyone without telling him that her only child is missing-in-action somewhere in the Helmand province of Afghanistan? And yet, that’s a conversation killer, as Mitzi has learned; when she says Helmand, people tend to hear Hellmann’s, and think about mayonnaise. The nice cashier at the grocery store in Lenox always asks about Bart (“Any word from your boy?”), but the mean cashier once told Mitzi that he thought the war in Afghanistan was over a long time ago. When Mitzi went home and complained to George about the mean cashier, George suggested that she go out and “make some friends.” He suggested she volunteer at the women’s shelter, or join a gym.

He said, “What about yoga? You used to love yoga.”

Mitzi used to love a lot of things-yoga, gardening, reading poetry in the bath, scrapbooking, collecting shells and driftwood on the beach-and anything that had to do with Christmas. She used to spend hours making her own wrapping paper, perfecting her mulled cider recipe, and hiking through the state forest to cut greens, holly branches, and bittersweet.

But not anymore.

Mitzi maneuvers herself past George and the redhead and slips into the next room, where there is an elaborate crèche set that has been hand-carved out of some yellow waxy substance.

Mitzi stands before it, temporarily awed.

“Soap,” the docent says to her. “It’s all carved from soap.”

Mitzi looks at the kneeling camels and the shepherds and wise men and thinks: desert, Afghanistan.

Bart Bart Bart Bart Bart.

She heads out the back door, then through the side yard to the front of the house where she waits for George. From down the street, she hears “The Little Drummer Boy.” She closes her eyes and sings quietly along, pretending that-wherever he is-Bart can hear her. I played my best for him, ba-rumpa-bum-bum.

George emerges from the house with the redhead a few moments later, laughing like Santa HO-HO-HO! When he sees Mitzi, he sobers up.

“Hello there, Mrs. Claus,” he says. “I was wondering what became of you.”

The redhead peels off, heading for the next house down the street. “Nice chatting with you, George,” she says. “I’ll give you a call about that hat.”

“You do that, Mary Rose,” George says. “Happy Stroll.”

Mitzi drinks from the flask. Normally, drinking takes the edge off her anxiety and sadness. It makes her feel like she’s floating above the earth and that nothing is quite real. But tonight, on Nantucket, her old, strange home, everything feels jagged and in-her-face painful.

“Why is she going to call you about the hat?” Mitzi asks. “She can just order it online.”

“She was a nice woman,” George says.

Mitzi shrugs. She nearly mentions the resemblance between George’s new friend Mary Rose and his ex-wife, Patti, but she doesn’t want a fight. She takes a deep breath of cold night air. “I know you’re not going to like this,” she says, “but I’m going to walk over to the inn.”

“Mitzi,” George says. He’s agreed to come to Nantucket only as long as Mitzi behaved herself, which means no harassing Kelley or the kids at the inn.

“I need to,” she says.

George has been kind and indulgent with Mitzi to a fault, she knows. But now, he shakes his head in disgust. “If you go to the inn, you’re going alone,” he says.

She nods once.

“Fine,” he says. “I’m going to continue on the tour, maybe try to catch up with Mary Rose.”

Possibly, he’s trying to make Mitzi jealous, but it’s one of a thousand emotions that are beyond her.

“Okay,” she says. “Have fun.”

AVA

Things at the Ugly Christmas Sweater Caroling party get awkward quickly.

Nathaniel Oscar is here, at the Boarding House. Ava is the only one who has seen him… so far. She’s so stunned, she can’t even bring herself to wave back at him.

She taps Scott on the shoulder. “We need to leave,” she says.

“Leave?” he says. “We just got here.” He accepts a glass of red wine from Jason, the bartender. Ava assumes it’s for her-she needs a drink, pronto-but then Scott hands the glass off to Roxanne, who is perched on a barstool on Scott’s other side.

“You got Roxanne a drink?” Ava says.

“Yours is coming,” Scott says. “Calm down.”

She isn’t going to be petty. It doesn’t matter who gets a drink first. Ava needs to talk to Jennifer, but Jennifer is several people away, deep in conversation with Shelby and Zack.

Ava feels a tap on her shoulder. Nathaniel. But when she turns, she sees it’s Kevin.

“Sis, I’m heading out. The inn is full and Isabelle has the baby. Plus, Mom is coming in tonight.”

Ava nods. Margaret was sorry to miss the Ugly Christmas Sweater Caroling party, but she broadcasts on Fridays and generally doesn’t make it to the island until late Friday evening or first thing Saturday morning, depending on whether she’s flying commercial or private. It’s private tonight, with her friends Alison and Zimm, furriers-to-the-stars, who are sponsoring the black-tie event tomorrow night at the Whaling Museum.

“Thanks for coming,” Ava says to Kevin. “I appreciate it.”

He gives her a hug. “No prob. I can’t wait to take this sweater off.”

“Yeah,” Ava says. “Me either.” If she had thought strategically, she would have worn a cute, sparkly top underneath.

Kevin’s eyes wander over Ava’s head. “Um… Ava? I hate to be the bearer of questionable news? But Nathaniel is sitting over there in the corner.”

“Yes,” she says. “I’m aware.”

Kevin grins and claps her on the shoulder. “Good luck with that,” he says.

Ava still has no drink. Scott is at the bar, but he’s listening with rapt attention to whatever Roxanne is saying, his foot propped on the bottom rung of Roxanne’s stool.

Fine, she thinks.

She heads to the other side of the bar. If Scott notices her leaving, he’ll think she’s headed to the ladies’ room. When Ava looks up, Nathaniel’s eyes are locked on hers. Her sweater starts to itch. She tells herself to turn around, take Scott’s hand, plant a juicy kiss on his lips, whatever it will take for Roxanne to buzz off and Nathaniel to get up and leave.

But instead, she heads straight for Nathaniel. Nothing good can come of this.

He breaks into a big smile. “Looking good, Billy Ray,” he says.

It’s their old joke, and she can’t help herself, she smiles. “Feeling good, Louis.” Then she says, “You’re back.”

“That I am,” he says. He stands up to give her a-well, it should have been just a friendly hug, but it turns into a squeeze. Ava has always loved the way Nathaniel smells. Like wood shavings and apples.

Ava pulls away. Nathaniel sits back down and offers Ava the stool next to his, which is conveniently empty.

She says, “I can’t stay. I’m with… people.” She turns around to check on Scott-he’s still talking to Roxanne and hasn’t noticed Ava missing.

“You’re with Scott,” Nathaniel says. “You’re still dating him.”

“Yes,” she says.

“But you’re not engaged?” Nathaniel takes hold of Ava’s ringless left hand. “I thought you were so desperate to be engaged.”

“Not desperate,” Ava says.

“I see Shelby is pregnant,” Nathaniel says.

“Yes,” Ava says.

“Are you jealous?” Nathaniel asks.

“Jealous?” Ava says. “Shelby is my best friend. I’m thrilled for her.” Ava had felt a tiny pinch of something when Shelby announced she was pregnant. It wasn’t jealousy so much as fear that Ava would be left behind. She desperately wanted a husband and children.

“But you’re happy with Scott, right?” Nathaniel says. “Happier than you were with me?”

“It was never a contest,” Ava says.

“It felt that way,” Nathaniel says. “He won, I lost.”

You bought me rubber boots for Christmas, Ava thought. Although the boots weren’t the problem. The problem was that Nathaniel had always taken Ava for granted. He never made her feel special. He never treasured her the way Scott does.

Ava glances back at Scott. Still enthralled with Roxanne. What could Mz. Ohhhhhh be saying that’s so interesting? Ava doesn’t feel like Scott’s treasure presently.

Ava says, “So, how was the Vineyard?”

“It was lonely,” Nathaniel says. “The house I’m building is way out on the beach on Chappy. Beautiful spot, just not a lot of people. My apartment was in Edgartown. I would eat downstairs at this place called Atria most nights. The bartenders tolerated me. I got into a lot of heated discussions about which island is better.”

“Which island is better?” Ava asks.

“Nantucket,” Nathaniel says. “Because you’re here.”

Ava doesn’t want to react to this, although she’s pretty sure her heart just flipped over. But no-her heart isn’t in play. She’s in love with Scott.

Right?

Nathaniel says, “Can I buy you a drink?”

“God no,” Ava says. “I have to get back.”

“Your singing was amazing,” Nathaniel says. “I could hear your voice soaring over everyone else’s. You know what I really miss? I miss the way you used to sing in the truck.”

“Nathaniel,” Ava says. “Stop.”

“Can you come over tonight?” Nathaniel asks.

“No!” Ava says.

“Please?”

“No. I’m dating Scott. You know that.”

“But you’re not engaged?”

“No,” Ava says.

“So why don’t you stop by when you’re finished here?” Nathaniel asks. “We can have a glass of wine, I’ll put some wood in the stove and we can catch up. All very innocent.” He lowers his voice. “Have you heard anything about Bart?”

He knows just where’s she’s vulnerable. Bart. Her little brother, missing. Nathaniel and Bart had been great friends, whereas Scott barely knew Bart.

For a split second, Ava is tempted. Nathaniel’s cottage is cozy and charming. He has a lusciously soft blanket on his leather sofa that they used to refer to as “her” blanket. Nathaniel feeds specially treated kindling into his woodstove that glows blue and purple through the grate. He has a great collection of wine and even better jazz records. Ava can vent all the anxieties and concerns about Bart that she’s been bottling up inside-because Scott, she’s certain, is tired of hearing them.

Ava holds on to her wits. “Thank you for asking,” she says. “But no.”

“What about tomorrow?” Nathaniel says.

Ava thinks about the next day. It’s Stroll weekend, they have a full inn, and tomorrow night the entire family is going to the black-tie gala at the Whaling Museum to celebrate the Festival of Trees. Sunday is Genevieve’s baptism, followed by a lunch.

“I don’t have time,” Ava says.

Nathaniel gives her a skeptical look.

“I’m sorry,” Ava says, trying to ignore how great it feels to be turning him down. “It was nice to see you, though, Nathaniel. Happy Stroll.” Ava weaves her way back to the caroling party and taps Scott on the shoulder. He turns away from Roxanne and puts his arms around her.

“Finally, you saved me,” he whispers in her ear. “Roxanne is tedious.”

Ava rests her head against the scratchy tulle of the Christmas tree on Scott’s sweater. She closes her eyes and thinks, Nathaniel can’t do anything to win me back. But then she has a memory of riding in Nathaniel’s pickup truck out to Coatue on a hot August afternoon. They were both drinking cold cans of Whale’s Tale Ale, bouncing over the dunes on the beach with the windows open and the radio blaring “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen. Ava sang along, hitting all the high notes, and Nathaniel said, “Yeah! Go get it, sister!”

Ava remembers never wanting the song, or the moment, to end.

“Can we please get out of here?” Ava says to Scott. “Go to the next place?”

“You haven’t even had a drink yet,” Scott says.

Whose fault is that? Ava nearly asks him.

“Please?” she says. “I really want to sing ‘Joy to the World.’ Let’s go to Ventuno.”

“Is everyone else ready?” Scott asks. But it’s clear the only person he cares about is Roxanne. “Are you ready to go to Ventuno?”

Roxanne finishes her glass of red wine and sets it on the bar and beams. “I’m ready for anything!”

She is exquisitely beautiful, Ava thinks. And she’s fun. On Ava’s best day she isn’t half as beautiful or as fun-loving as Roxanne Oliveria. No wonder Scott is so captivated.

Scott says, “Okay, let’s go then.” He uses his assistant principal voice to get everyone’s attention. “We’re headed across the street to Ventuno!”

The group gives a cheer and puts on coats, hats, and gloves. Ava checks to make sure no one has left behind his or her songbook.

Jennifer approaches. She says, “I think this is where I peel off. The boys are probably driving Kelley batty.”

“Daddy’s fine,” Ava says. “He loves hanging out with the kids. He told me he was going to teach them to play cribbage.”

“Yeah, but it’s three against one. They’re probably teaching him to play Assassin’s Creed. I should save him.”

“I want you to stay,” Ava says. She needs to tell Jennifer about Nathaniel.

Jennifer runs a hand through her short, dark hair, and gives Ava a weary smile. “I’m beat, Ava.”

Ava hugs her sister-in-law. Jennifer puts up such a strong, implacable front that it nearly masks the fact that Patrick is in jail and Jennifer has been left to handle everything in his absence. She has, essentially, become a disaster specialist and a triage nurse. She dealt with the state’s attorney office and the local media blitz; she stood by Patrick publicly and privately. She has kept life as normal as possible for the boys, and she’s managed to proceed with two massive interior design projects.

“Go home and get some sleep,” Ava says.

“I’m stopping at Murray’s for a couple bottles of chardonnay on the way home,” Jennifer says. “Your mom will probably want a glass when she gets here.”

“Good idea,” Ava says. Kevin is normally in charge of making sure there’s alcohol in stock at the inn, but since the baby was born, he has, understandably, lapsed in his duties.

Jennifer leaves the bar and Ava waits for Shelby and Zack and Scott-and Roxanne. She can’t help herself from turning around one more time to look at Nathaniel.

Come over, he mouths, pointing to his watch. Later.

Ava smiles and shakes her head.

Ventuno is so close to the Boarding House that Ava can throw a softball at it. And yet, the second they embark on the journey, there is drama.

Roxanne falls down in the cobblestone street. She starts screaming.

Ava and Scott rush over to where Roxanne is huddled in a heap, clutching her ankle. Ava sucks in her breath. The ankle is twisted at a gruesomely unnatural angle. Broken.

Scott whips out his phone and dials 911.

Elliott the saxophonist says, “We need to get her out of the street.” He looks to Zack. “Should we carry her over to that bench?”

“You’re not supposed to move her,” Barry the groundskeeper says. “Leave her be until the ambulance gets here.”

“I think that’s only the case with head trauma,” Shelby says. “I think we should get her out of the road.”

Roxanne is howling with pain and Ava’s skin prickles beneath her scratchy sweater. Scott is kneeling next to Roxanne, holding both of her hands in his, murmuring words of comfort. Ava shuts her eyes. That ankle does not look right; just thinking about how the doctor will have to set it makes Ava cringe. Roxanne will most likely have to have surgery, which means she will be taking the Med Flight to Boston.

The ambulance arrives with sirens blaring and lights flashing antagonistically amongst all the holiday lights. The Ugly Sweater carolers are gathered in a loose knot around Roxanne but when the paramedics hop out, they disperse.

Shelby squeezes Ava’s arm. “I hope the heels were worth it.”

It was, by anyone’s standards, a poor choice of footwear, but Ava can’t even blame Roxanne for her vanity. Roxanne shrieks as the paramedics lift her onto the stretcher. There is no way she is exaggerating for Scott or anyone else’s benefit. The woman is in serious pain, and Ava thinks, Oh please, please let her be okay.

The paramedics load Roxanne into the back of the ambulance-and away they go to Nantucket Cottage Hospital.

Scott finds Ava in the crowd. “Bummer,” he says.

“Huge,” she says. The Ugly Sweater Caroling party has come to a crashing halt. There will be no Ventuno, no Town, no Dune, no last call at Lola, and no “Joy to the World.”

Ava says, “Should we go to the hospital?”

Scott says, “I’ll go and make sure she gets admitted. You don’t have to come.”

“I feel responsible,” Ava says. “This was my party. If I hadn’t organized it, Roxanne wouldn’t have broken her ankle.”

“I feel responsible,” Scott says. “I’m the one who invited her. And I was going to offer to help her cross the street, but I thought you’d get angry.”

“So that makes it doubly my fault,” Ava says.

“It was Roxanne’s fault for wearing those silly heels,” Scott says. “She couldn’t walk in them sober, never mind with a glass of wine and a shot of Jameson in her.”

“Shot of Jameson?” Ava says.

“Kevin offered her the flask,” Scott says. “While you were in the bathroom.”

While Ava was in the bathroom.

“I’ll come with you to the hospital,” Ava says.

“You don’t have to,” Scott says. “Really. You have a big weekend and your mom is coming tonight. You should go home. I’ll text you and let you know what the doctors say.”

“But-”

“Ava,” he says. He holds her chin in that way he has, and he kisses her. “I’ll text you.” He swats her butt before he starts walking down the street toward his car. Ava realizes then that he doesn’t want her to come, not even to keep him company. He wants to be the hero for Roxanne alone. Or, possibly, because he’s an administrator and Roxanne is a teacher he feels he must go and serve as a lieutenant to one of his troops. Or, he is really, truly thinking of Ava. Does she want to spend the next three hours sitting in the emergency room? No.

However, Scott has left her without a ride home. Has he even considered this? True, Winter Street is only at the top of Main, but it’s pretty cold out for that kind of walk. Ava will have to get a ride from Shelby and Zack, but when she looks around, they’re gone.

Ava pops back into the Boarding House to see if they’ve gone inside to warm up but Ava doesn’t see them. Shelby gets tired easily, and she’s not drinking; Ava bets they’ve headed home.

Ava’s eyes dart to the corner of the bar. Nathaniel’s seat is empty.

He left.

Ava’s heart drops an inch. It might have been nice to have talked with him without Scott right there. She could have told him what little she knows about Bart.

Ava considers having a drink by herself, a hot toddy, something to combat the frigidness of her impending walk home, but she’s the elementary school music teacher and thus has a certain image to uphold, plus she doesn’t want to grow reflective about Nathaniel, or maudlin about Bart.

She bundles up and heads back outside. She makes it as far as the corner of India and Main Street when a truck pulls up alongside of her.

Nathaniel’s truck. The passenger window goes down and Nathaniel says, “Need a ride?”

Actually,” Ava says, “I do.” And without giving it another thought, she hops in.

KELLEY

He knows Jennifer has been having a hard time with Barrett, the oldest of the Quinn grandchildren, who is the spitting image of Patrick and in many ways, the spitting image of Kelley himself. Part of what Jennifer is dealing with is regular eleven-year-old-boy sullenness, but on top of that, the kid’s father is in jail. Barrett is angry, he’s embarrassed, humiliated, ashamed, and he wants to know why he has to follow the rules if his father didn’t.

Once Jennifer leaves for the caroling party, Kelley decides to have a man-to-man chat with Barrett, and Pierce could probably stand a little grandfather lecture as well.

Kelley has to be quick with the remote-which he is-and firm. TV off.

“Grandpa!” Pierce says.

“I need to talk to you and you,” he says, pointing to the two elders.

“What about me?” Jaime says.

Jaime is seven which is a little young for the things Kelley wants to say. “You should go down to the kitchen and ask Isabelle if there are cookies.”

“Okay,” Jaime says.

“Bring me some,” Pierce says.

“Can’t this wait?” Barrett asks Kelley.

“It cannot,” Kelley says.

The boys reluctantly drop their controllers and sink back into the sofa. If Kelley had been thinking, he would have brought up a bribe-root beer floats, or Starbursts. Or are Barrett and Pierce too old to be placated with sweets? Kelley’s own grandfather had a farm with horses and a pond stocked with trout. Pops was a top-notch grandfather; Kelley can only hope to measure up.

“You two have to take it easy on your mother,” Kelley says.

“I do take it easy on her,” Pierce says.

Barrett is quiet.

“She’s under a lot of stress,” Kelley says.

“She picks wallpaper, and upholstery fabric,” Barrett says. “You can’t tell me that’s stressful?”

“She’s running a business,” Kelley says.

“She yells at us to get our homework done, but she doesn’t help us with it anymore. She makes us unload the dishwasher and take out the trash but half the time she forgets to give us our allowance. She tells us to pick up the slack, but what she doesn’t seem to get is that we lost our father.”

Kelley tents his fingers the way he remembers his own grandfather doing; it feels like a gesture of wisdom. “Your father made a mistake. It’s unfortunate, but you have to remember that he isn’t gone forever. He’ll be back this summer, and you want him to be proud of how you acted in his absence.”

“Why should we care if he’s proud of us?” Barrett says. “We aren’t proud of him. He’s supposed to lead by example.”

“What you’ll find in life,” Kelley says, “is that everyone is fallible. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone messes up. Even dads.”

“I have a D in Spanish,” Pierce says. He hangs his dark head. Barrett and Jaime are as redheaded and freckled as leprechauns, but Pierce has inherited his mother’s black Irish beauty. “My teacher speaks only in Spanish and I can’t understand her, and then I get in trouble for not following instructions.”

“Idiot,” Barrett says.

“Barrett,” Kelley says, “I want you to stop with the name-calling and with the ill will toward your parents. They’re human beings.”

“They used to be cool,” Barrett says. “Everything was fine. Then Dad messed up and Mom… honestly, she makes everything worse.”

“She dropped a pot of spaghetti on the floor,” Pierce says. “Then she tried to clean it up with the vacuum cleaner, then the vacuum exploded and she cried.”

“Really?” Kelley says. He has a hard time picturing Jennifer in that particular scenario. Mitzi, yes; Jennifer, no.

“She’s turned into a complete psycho,” Barrett says.

“Barrett,” Kelley says. “Enough.”

Kelley tries to remember if Patrick and Kevin were ever this disrespectful. They must have been! When they were younger, and Kelley and Margaret and the kids all lived in the brownstone on East Eighty-eighth Street, there was a lot of squabbling, but Kelley let Margaret deal with the discipline while he spent fourteen-hour days worrying about the overseas markets. Once Kelley left Wall Street behind and moved to Nantucket to run the inn, he used to wake Patrick and Kevin up at the crack of dawn to do DIY projects, and then, as a reward, he would take them to the Brotherhood of Thieves for burgers. They watched college basketball together, and they had a dirty joke contest running for a while. Kelley had never crossed the line of being friends with his sons, but they had had good moments.

“Seriously, Grandpa, there’s something else going on with Mom,” Barrett says. “She’s either all wound up, or else she’s so mellow, it’s like she’s sleepwalking.”

Is she drinking too much? Kelley wonders. And if so, can he blame her? Is she smoking dope? The mere thought of straitlaced Jennifer smoking a joint makes Kelley smile.

“Just remember, your mom is suffering, too. She misses your dad.”

“Do you miss our dad?” Pierce asks.

“Yes,” Kelley says. “Yes, I do.”

“But you miss Uncle Bart more, right?” Pierce says.

“The situations are different,” Kelley says. “Your dad is in Shirley, and I go visit him once a month and I know when he’s coming back. Your Uncle Bart is a prisoner of war. I don’t know if he’s safe and I don’t know when he’s coming back. So I guess you might say I’m more concerned for Bart. But I miss them both a great deal.”

“I like Uncle Bart,” Pierce says. “I want to be in the Marines.”

“They’ll never take you,” Barrett says. “You’re too annoying.”

Okay, Kelley thinks. He’s done here. He tried. He switches on the TV just as Jaime walks into the room eating a chocolate chip cookie.

“Where’s mine?” Barrett says.

“It was the last one,” Jaime says.

Before Barrett can reach out to punch his brother, Kelley turns back to the TV.

“Go back to stealing cars,” he says. “I’ll make some more cookies.”

The boys grab their controllers. Kelley stands in the doorway to the den for a second, watching them. He’s pretty sure that his words of wisdom have had zero effect.

Pierce glances up and smiles. “Thanks, Grandpa,” he says. “Good talk.”

JENNIFER

The woman in front of Jennifer at Murray’s Liquors looks familiar, even from the back. It’s something about the angular cut of her hair, and the severe red and black dye job. Jennifer can’t quite figure out who it is… not someone from Beacon Hill, she doesn’t think… possibly someone from here? But how many people does Jennifer know on Nantucket? Not many.

Then the woman spins around clutching a bottle of Smirnoff vodka and a bottle of Kahlúa by the neck and Jennifer sees the snake tattoo jumping off the woman’s neck. It’s not a tattoo that anyone forgets. Jennifer gasps.

“Norah!” Jennifer says. “Hi!”

The woman sniffs at Jennifer and marches out of the store with her purchases.

Jennifer sets her two bottles of cold chardonnay on the counter and tries to collect her wits.

Did that just happen?

Norah Vale, Kevin’s ex-wife? Here, on Nantucket? On the weekend of Genevieve’s baptism? Norah Vale, Jennifer thinks. Cautionary Tale. The way Norah was holding the bottles made it seem like she was heading home to make some Black Russians. Was she living here? Norah Vale grew up on Nantucket. Possibly she was just home visiting her family. The family situation is a hot mess, if Jennifer remembers correctly. The mother has six children by three men, but Norah, the youngest, shares a father with the oldest brother-because, as Norah once phrased it, her mother saw nothing wrong with making the same mistake twice. The father isn’t in the picture anymore, but Norah used to be close with her older brother, Danko, the tattoo artist. Danko was the genius who had talked Norah into the trompe l’oeil python that looks like it’s striking from off Norah’s neck.

Jennifer pays for the wine, takes the bag, and hurries up Main Street with half an idea that Norah Vale is lurking behind a tree somewhere, intending to jump out and harm Jennifer.

For six years, they were sisters-in-law, married to brothers, a delicate relationship to manage under the best of circumstances, but Norah and Jennifer had really hated each other. Which is more accurately to say that Norah had hated Jennifer while Jennifer tried to be as kind and patient and accommodating with Norah as possible, but Norah found Jennifer’s attention-even the most innocuous comments-patronizing. Jennifer was, in Norah’s words, a “snobby pop-tart,” whatever that meant. Norah resented that Jennifer had grown up on Nob Hill in San Francisco, that she had graduated from Stanford, that she wore Ray-Ban aviators and carried Coach handbags, that she and Patrick devoted so much time and energy to “being perfect.”

When Jennifer assured Norah that she was far from perfect, Norah had responded with some choice expletives.

Jennifer desperately needs to talk to Patrick. She feels the urge to call him seventy or eighty times a day, but she can’t-nor can she email or text. He’s only allowed one half-hour phone call per week, which is always scheduled for Sunday afternoons at four.

But by Sunday afternoon at four, the baptism will be over, and Jennifer needs him now. He’s been in jail for almost an entire year, and yet it still feels surreal. Every morning for nearly a year, Jennifer has woken up-often Jaime, her youngest, has climbed in with her, an egregious habit she allows because she knows how much he misses his father-and she has thought, My husband is in jail.

Jail.

It has such a stigma, it’s so beneath a person of Patrick’s caliber, it indicates such nefarious behavior and bad judgment that even now, eleven months later, Jennifer can’t believe it.

She didn’t think she would be able to face any of her friends or any of her and Patrick’s Beacon Hill neighbors, or any of the other parents at the kids’ schools. But Jennifer’s best friend Megan stood stalwartly by her. Megan is a breast cancer survivor-she went through a double mastectomy, chemo, radiation, the whole bag of tricks-and because of this she is revered, and widely considered a hero. When Megan supported Jennifer, everyone else who mattered followed suit, and Jennifer enjoyed a kind of reverse celebrity. Rather than judging her or hating her, people seemed to pity her. Or maybe they didn’t pity her, maybe they just understood that Patrick had made a mistake and crossed a line in his tightly regulated business. Insider trading. Many people referenced Martha Stewart, who had served her time for the same crime, and then bounced right back to making buttercream icing and mulching the peonies.

Megan had also given Jennifer a stash of pills: oxycodone for during the day (“It’s jet fuel,” Megan said) and Ativan to help her sleep. At first, Jennifer turned down the offer of the pills, but Megan insisted. (“Just take them in case you need them, Jen. I’m not suggesting you become an addict, but suffering through a crisis like this without a little pharmaceutical help is unnecessary martyrdom.”) Jennifer took the pills and buried them deep in her purse. Just in case.

As it turned out, not everyone was interested in letting Jennifer off the hook. A mother of twins in Pierce’s grade named Wendy Landis lobbied fiercely to have Jennifer removed from the parents association, citing the Quinn family’s “poor choices and lack of integrity.” Jennifer had taken this very hard. Wendy Landis was a member of Jennifer’s church and she lived only six houses away on Beacon Street. Jennifer had always idolized Wendy Landis for having a career-she was a named partner at one of the best law firms in the city-and somehow also being one of those everything moms.

Jennifer took her first oxycodone before she went into a meeting with the headmaster of Pierce’s school to combat Wendy Landis’s slur campaign against her. Megan had been right: the oxy made everything better. It gave Jennifer wings and cast a golden glow of optimism over the entire situation. Jennifer explained to the headmaster that she had not committed a crime; in fact, she had earned an A in her Introduction to Ethics class at Stanford, and as for Patrick, he had fully admitted his wrongdoing and was now paying his debt to society.

The headmaster had sided with Jennifer; she would remain on the executive board of the parents association. Jennifer felt so vindicated when she walked out of the school that she took another oxy in celebration. Unfortunately, she felt herself slipping down the back side of that pill at the same time that the boys arrived home from school with their attendant clamor and chaos, and so she took a third pill. The third pill kept her revved-up, but with a bit of a manic edge; she engaged Barrett in yet another embittered confrontation about his bad attitude. By the time the effects of the third pill wore off, it was time for Jennifer to pour herself a glass of wine, but the wine didn’t settle her like it normally did, and so Jennifer also popped an Ativan.

The combination of the wine and the Ativan was magnificent! Suddenly Jennifer could see how manageable everything was, despite Patrick’s absence. She floated around the kitchen making pumpkin risotto and a kale Caesar salad, and at the end of the meal she asked the boys to clean up while she retreated to her room and fell promptly asleep.

The next morning, she woke up dry-mouthed and sluggish-and so she decided to take an oxy, just to get her day kick-started.

Does she need to explain how easy it was to fall prey to the magic power of pills? It was easy. Megan had given her forty oxycodone-forty!-and thirty Ativan. At the time, it had seemed like enough to last the rest of Jennifer’s life, but her supply steadily dwindled. Jennifer was able to have the Ativan prescribed by her own doctor “for anxiety,” but Jennifer had to go back to Megan and ask for more oxycodone. Megan gave her twelve more pills without any words of judgment, but Jennifer can’t go back to her friend again, and she only has seven pills left.

When they’re gone, she tells herself, they’re gone, and she’ll have to do without.

Her pharmaceutical addiction presently tops her list of concerns. She’s doing okay financially. Despite the cost of lawyers and Patrick losing his job at Everlast, there is still plenty of money in the bank to live on, for a while at least, and Jennifer’s two design projects will bring in a nice six-figure salary.

Jennifer’s other problem is that she’s lonely. She misses Patrick’s physical presence, his weight and warmth in bed at night, his keen intellect, his fire and enthusiasm, his smile, his voice, his every-second-of-every-day friendship. She misses not being free to call him or text him; it’s as if she is in prison as well.

Right now, Jennifer would like to call Patrick to ask if he thinks Norah Vale has been back on Nantucket for a while, or if he thinks she just arrived. Maybe Norah got here days or weeks ago and Kevin already knows and has dealt with it. Maybe Kevin and Norah have had a détente; maybe they’re friends.

But Jennifer doesn’t think so. The withering look Norah gave her, and the sniff, suggested warfare.

If Kevin knew Norah was back on Nantucket, he would have told Ava and Ava would have told Jennifer. Unless they didn’t want to bother Jennifer with it. Since Patrick has gone to jail, the Quinns have tried to shield Jennifer from bad news. She was the last one to hear about the terrorist group they think has captured Bart.

Jennifer calls Ava’s cell phone. No answer. Ava is probably still out caroling, and Jennifer is not going to ruin her fun time by bringing up the poisonous topic of Norah Vale. Jennifer doesn’t want Ava to worry when she sees a missed call, however, so she leaves a message.

“Hey, it’s Jen. Nothing major, just wanted to ask you about something, but it can wait until morning. The caroling was fun. Thanks for including me!”

Jennifer pockets her phone and hurries up the street toward the inn with the wine. She thinks of how nice it will be to relax with a cold glass of chardonnay. And then, she will take an Ativan and go to sleep.

DRAKE

He’s never done anything like this in his life. He has many admirable qualities, but spontaneity isn’t one of them.

The only person who knows he’s decided to come to Nantucket this weekend is Kelley, and Kelley has been more agreeable about Drake showing up than Drake expected. Drake hopes this is because Kelley has finally realized that he and Margaret do not have a romantic future. Margaret admits that she was torn for a while; she told Drake about what happened between her and Kelley last Christmas.

But it won’t happen ever again, she told Drake. I don’t love him the right way and we don’t want the same things.

Drake was relieved to hear this. It took him a while to drum up the courage, but he finally said to Margaret over a romantic dinner at Eleven Madison Park: You know what? I think we want the same things.

Margaret had given him a skeptical look. She said, “Yes. We want to work eighteen hours a day, sleep for five and a half, take a twenty-minute shower, and have sex in the remaining ten.”

Am I that bad? he wondered. He knew she was kidding, but some of her assessment felt true. For a long time, Drake had considered himself too busy for love. He was a pediatric brain surgeon at Sloan Kettering, which meant that day in, day out, he removed tumors and inserted shunts and clipped aneurysms in patients aged three months to sixteen years. He performed up to twelve surgeries a week and saw patients for consultations or follow-ups an additional twenty-five to thirty hours a week, then there was endless paperwork, his team of three residents to oversee, and he presented papers at conferences twice a year. He was also a runner-ten miles every Saturday and Sunday, and three miles on Wednesday evenings when he could squeeze it in.

He’d never been married and never had any children of his own. He loved kids; nine times out of ten, he would rather deal with a sick child than a sick child’s parents. It was because of the parents that Drake had never wanted children himself. He’d been witness to way too much heartbreaking emotional pain. When he was doing his surgical residency at CHOP in Philadelphia, he’d attended on an eight-year-old patient named Christopher Rapp who had a malignant growth in the thalamus that most surgeons wouldn’t have bothered trying to resect. It was too deep, and the danger of dying on the table too great, but the alternative was to let the tumor metastasize and watch near-immediate debilitation-the kid would be blind in two months and unable to eat or speak in four. The child’s father, a man named Jack Rapp, had pushed for the surgery, despite the risks. Jack Rapp was a single parent-the mother hadn’t been heard from since Christopher was an infant-and Christopher was an only child. Jack Rapp was as tough a man as Drake had ever encountered. He’d been a marine in Vietnam, stationed in Da Nang for thirty-nine months, and he now owned asphalt plants that provided material for half the highways in Pennsylvania-but he was destroyed by Christopher’s illness.

You’ve got to save him, man, Jack Rapp said. He’s all I’ve got.

Christopher had died on the table, and Drake, pulling the short straw, had been the one to inform Jack Rapp. The man had crumpled. That was the only word for it. And then, four hours later, Jack Rapp was found dead himself in his car in the parking garage. Gunshot to the head.

Drake knows that love of one’s child is the most powerful love there is, and he’s always been terrified of it. Ditto romantic love, which always seemed to result in a lack of control that has no place in his life.

Until now. He recently forced himself to face the startling fact that he is in love with Margaret Quinn-and not the Margaret Quinn everyone in America watches on TV each night, with her bright smile and her soothing, melodious voice. (Time magazine once said that Margaret could deliver news of genocide or an assassination and make it sound like a bedtime story.) Drake is in love with the Margaret Quinn who snorts when she laughs, and who knows all her doormen by first and last name. Drake is in love with the Margaret who douses her oysters with Tabasco, then lets out a “Whoo!” after she sucks one down. He is in love with the Margaret of the soft, pale skin with freckles on the backs of her knees who reads The Economist to put herself to sleep. That she has reported from sixty-two countries and has dined with the last four presidents does impress him, but it’s not why he loves her. Drake loves Margaret because she is smart-possibly even smarter than the incredibly brilliant female surgeons and medical oncologists Drake works with-and she is fun, irreverent, and incredibly kind. She adores her children and her grandchildren, and her greatest wish is that she might be cloned so that she can always be in two places at once.

It is only in this past year that she’s gone to Lee Kramer, the studio president, for time off so she could come to Nantucket to help Kevin and Isabelle with the baby, and lend her star power to lure more paying guests to Kelley’s inn.

Margaret invited Drake to join her a handful of times, but twice in a row he had conflicts, and he feared she would stop asking.

Margaret had invited him this weekend, which is significant not only because it’s Christmas Stroll weekend but also because the baby, Genevieve, is being baptized on Sunday. Initially, however, Drake declined. He had surgery scheduled late Friday afternoon and early Monday morning, a backlog of paperwork rivaling that of most state governments, and quite frankly, the thought of dealing with all of Margaret’s family intimidated him.

Margaret accepted his excuses with her usual grace, but he could tell she was disappointed, and in the days following, he didn’t hear from her at all. His calls went straight to her voicemail. Drake took it in stride the first few times, then he grew miffed. Was she freezing him out? She always said she realized that he had a big job and was very, very busy. Then, after four days, he started to worry. Had he just blown it with Margaret Quinn?

He gave his Friday surgery to his most trusted colleague and postponed Monday’s surgery; he crammed paperwork into his briefcase, he packed his tuxedo for the black-tie event Margaret had mentioned, and a pink tie for the baptism. He arrived at the Winter Street Inn at seven o’clock, and Isabelle, Kevin’s lovely French fiancée, showed him to room 10.

She said, “Kelley is playing shooting games with the boys and Kevin is singing in town with Ava. You will be fine, yes or no?”

“Yes,” Drake said, but he felt nervous. For one second, he wondered if Margaret had invited someone else to be her guest for the baptism weekend. A few years ago, she had dated Jack Nicholson. What if Margaret shows up with Jack?

Something about the inn relaxes him. It’s all decked out for Christmas-with a fresh garland tied off with burgundy velvet bows, a huge glittering tree, a mantel crowded with nutcrackers. There is classical Christmas music playing, which Drake prefers over Bing Crosby. “The First Noel.” The hospital had just been putting up their trees when Drake left that afternoon, but no matter how much money the Sloan Kettering fund-raising committee provides to decorate at Christmas, the hospital always feels melancholy.

Drake brings his paperwork down to the large leather sofa in the living room and, as there are no other guests around, he spreads out. He loosens his tie and kicks off his chocolate suede Gucci loafers. There’s a fire crackling in the fireplace and almost immediately Isabelle brings him a double Grey Goose and tonic with lime, which is his preferred cocktail, and a plate of cheese puffs, warm from the oven.

“Merci!” Drake says. And then, because he’s really been trying to get his head out of his work and improve his interpersonal skills, he asks, “How’s the baby? L’enfant? Genevieve?”

“Beautiful,” Isabelle says, and she winks. “Sleeping.”

He’s not sure what time Margaret is supposed to arrive. She’s flying in on her friend Alison’s private plane sometime after her broadcast, which ends at seven.

She could be here as early as eight thirty, he supposes. Or far later.

Please let her be alone, he thinks. And let her be happy to see me.

He’s halfway through his second drink and has devoured the plate of cheese puffs plus the entire dish of mixed nuts, which is meant for all the inn’s guests, when the front door to the inn swings open.

Margaret! he thinks. And he stands up.

But the woman who wanders in isn’t Margaret. It’s a frightfully skinny woman with curly hair buttoned snugly into a forest green wool coat, with a scarf that looks like a long Christmas stocking wound around her neck.

The woman has a look in her eye that Drake recognizes only too well. It’s a look he sees every day, in the eyes of mothers whose children have been diagnosed as terminal. It’s a particular kind of naked, desperate pain.

“Good evening?” Drake says.

The woman gives him a genuinely quizzical look, as if he had just intruded on her quiet work space, and not the other way around. “Who are you?”

He laughs. “I’m Dr. Carroll. Who are you?”

She takes a flask from her pocket and upends it into her mouth. “Are you a guest of the inn, then?”

He nods. “Are you?”

“I’m looking for Kelley,” she says. “Is he around?”

“Last I heard, he was playing shooting games,” Drake says, then he chuckles at how that sounds. “With his grandsons, I assume, I’m not sure. I haven’t seen him. I can get the manager for you. Isabelle.”

“No, no,” the woman says. She collapses on the sofa. “I’m not supposed to be here.”

Drake regards the woman, whose eyes are now scanning his patient notes, which are, of course, extremely confidential. He gathers them up, keeping one eye on the woman, wondering if she is an itinerant off the street.

“So you’re not a guest of the inn?” he says. “Are you a friend of Kelley’s?”

The woman starts to cry. Drake can’t help himself; he goes right into doctor mode. He has worked all these many years to uphold his professional shield, but the truth is, he’s compassionate to a fault. He settles down on the sofa next to the woman and takes her hand. She squeezes with all her might, crushing his fingers. Drake has experienced this too many times to count with the mothers of his patients.

He says, “Ma’am…”

The woman sobs. She says, “You have absolutely no idea what it’s like.”

Drake hands her the damp cocktail napkin from under his drink. He thinks, The road to hell is paved with good intentions. He should have waited for Margaret up in room 10.

The woman blows her nose on the napkin, then rests her head against the sofa cushion and unbuttons her coat. “It looks really nice in here. I’ve forgotten how cozy it is by the fire.”

“So you’ve been here before?” Drake asks.

She closes her eyes. “I’m pretty drunk,” she says. “Alcohol is the only thing that helps.”

The woman looks overly comfortable, like she might fall asleep. Drake should either head upstairs to the room or venture out to find some dinner. Sitting here next to a drunk stranger isn’t a good idea.

The woman murmurs something he doesn’t understand.

“I’m sorry?” he says.

“The nutcrackers,” she says. “Which is your favorite? Mine is the astronaut.”

“Oh,” Drake says, grateful for a relatively safe topic of conversation. “The doctor, I think.” The doctor nutcracker is old-fashioned, like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. He’s wearing a headband mirror and a stethoscope and carrying an inoculation syringe. Drake blinks and imagines himself as a nutcracker, brandishing his cranial saw and his ultrasound probes. The two vodkas are taking effect; even on a regular weekend at home, he never allows himself two double cocktails like this. He wonders if it’s narcissistic to answer “the doctor” when he is a doctor, so he tries again.

“And I like the Oktoberfest nutcracker. I’ve always meant to go to Oktoberfest, but I’ve never had time. I guess you could say it’s on my bucket list.” Now he knows he’s getting drunk. Never in his life has he used the term “bucket list.” It has always seemed silly; in his daily life, his “bucket list” is to save as many children’s lives as possible. However, now that he’s nearly sixty with retirement a mere five years away, and now that his feelings for Margaret have escalated in such a dramatic fashion, he’s starting to think of the things he’d like to do with her-sooner rather than later. The Great Barrier Reef. Cinque Terre. The Great Wall.

The woman bursts into fresh tears. “My son… back from Munich!” she says.

Drake doesn’t quite catch that. What he thinks she said is that her son just got back from Munich? “Oh,” he says. “Was he doing business there? Or traveling? There used to be a thing called a Eurail pass. I wonder if that still exists?”

The woman is crying too hard to answer, and Drake finally admits to himself that he has gotten in over his head in this conversation, and he needs help. The inn is filled with guests, but there isn’t a soul around; everyone must be out enjoying the charms of Christmas Stroll. Drake needs to somehow summon Isabelle, or even Kelley, but he’s afraid that if he calls out, he’ll wake the baby. The woman is listing precariously toward him; she’s threatening, perhaps, to rest her head on his shoulder.

Drake says, “I’m sorry. I wish there was something I could do to help.”

“My son!” she wails. “There is absolutely no way you could know how this feels.”

Drake moves on his hunch. “Is he sick?” he asks.

“Is he sick?” the woman says, her tears clearing up a bit. She sniffles and mops her face with the soggy cocktail napkin. “I have no way of knowing if he’s sick or well-that’s the thing. I know nothing, and when a mother knows nothing, her mind goes to the darkest places.”

Against his better judgment, Drake tosses back the last inch of his drink. Somewhere in the house, a clock chimes the half hour, and Drake discreetly checks his watch. Eight thirty already! He might as well sit tight until Margaret arrives and they can go to dinner together. Their favorite spot, 56 Union, is serving a special holiday menu until ten.

Drake places a hand lightly on the woman’s arm. “Listen,” he says. “I deal with a lot of unlucky mothers. I deal with mothers who have just discovered their five-year-old daughter has stage four brain cancer. I deal with mothers whose three-month-old infant son needs a shunt implanted to relieve the pressure in his skull, or he will die. Can you imagine how hard it is to entrust your three-month-old baby to a surgical team? Or your five-year-old little girl?”

The woman has stopped crying.

“Do you know what I tell those mothers? I tell them to have faith in the good forces of this world. I tell them to hope. I tell them to pray to whatever higher being they believe in. I tell them to trust the medical marvels of our day and age and the natural talent and excellent training of their surgeons.” Drake takes off his glasses and sets them on the table so that he can better look this woman in the eye. “But mostly, I tell them to remain positive. To visualize a positive outcome.”

The woman nods slowly and then-then, there’s a trace of a smile. “Thank you,” she says. “Thank you for listening. Thank you for being nice to a complete stranger. My boyfriend and my estranged husband and so many other people treat me like I’m an inmate at the asylum. There isn’t any way to make me feel better, and I understand that’s frustrating for the people who love me. But instead of accepting my grief as real and legitimate, they write me off as crazy.”

Well, the woman is a little crazy as far as Drake can tell. He needs to gently excuse himself and go up to his room. But he feels a small sense of accomplishment because he’s managed to get her calmed down.

She looks at his paperwork as he gathers it up. “You’re a doctor?” she says. “Can you write me a prescription?”

Crazy, he thinks. “Only if you’re a patient,” he says.

“Maybe I’ll become a patient,” she says. “What’s your name?”

“Dr. Carroll,” he says. “But you can call me Drake. What’s yours?”

“Mitzi Quinn,” she says, and without warning, she reaches over to embrace him.

Drake tries to back away but she’s too quick-and surprisingly strong. He is caught in her hug as he processes the name Mitzi Quinn. His brain is swimming in vodka but he knows there’s something alarming about that name-and then it clicks. This is Mitzi.

At that second, the front door swings open and Margaret bursts in wearing her cream-colored cashmere poncho over an ivory turtleneck dress and a very high pair of nude heels. Her red hair is windblown and her cheeks are bright pink. She is the most ravishing creature Drake has ever seen. He disentangles himself from Mitzi’s arms and gets clumsily to his feet, knocking his shin against the coffee table.

He watches Margaret take in the scene: the leather sofa, the fire, Drake, Mitzi.

“Drake?” she says.

“Surprise,” he says weakly. He hears footsteps on the stairs behind him, then he hears Kelley’s voice.

“Margaret!” Kelley says. “Happy Stroll!” Then Kelley sees Mitzi and he does a double take. “Mitzi?”

In the two and a half years they’ve been seeing each other, Drake has never once witnessed Margaret Quinn lose her composure-but she comes close now. She shuts the front door with a little more force than is needed, and takes an extra moment turning around to face everyone. The source of her consternation seems to be Drake. Or Mitzi. Or what she perceives to have been happening between Drake and Mitzi.

“What exactly is going on here?” she asks.

Drake opens his mouth to explain, but no sound comes out.

Mitzi starts to cry.

AVA

It starts out as just a ride home. Nathaniel takes his time driving up Main Street so they can both appreciate the lights on the trees and the shop windows-and then he heads to the right of Pacific National Bank onto Liberty Street. His radio plays classical Christmas music, “What Child Is This?” Ava nearly sings along, but she stops herself. Then she does sing, because singing is easier than talking. They’ll be home in thirty seconds.

Nathaniel slows down as they approach Winter Street and says, “What if we drive to the end of Hinckley Lane and talk? It’s still early. It’s not even nine.”

“Nathaniel,” Ava says.

“What? I promise not to put the moves on you. I just want to talk to you, Ava.”

She sighs. “Okay.”

Nathaniel drives out Cliff Road, then takes a right onto Hinckley Lane-a dirt road that is very, very private, but at this time of year the police won’t be out on the point checking for parkers. And even though it’s Stroll weekend, most of the summer homes are dark and shuttered up.

Nathaniel pulls out to the edge of the bluff. Before them is Nantucket Sound, shining under a crescent moon. The crescent moon has always been Ava’s favorite.

Nathaniel cuts the engine. It’s quiet, and cold. “Do you want my jacket?” he asks.

“I’m fine,” Ava says. “Jesus is keeping me warm.”

“What?” Nathaniel says.

“My sweater,” Ava says. She unzips her ski coat to reveal the Birthday Boy. Nathaniel throws his head back and laughs.

“That is classic!”

“I was wearing it at the bar,” Ava says.

“I didn’t notice what you were wearing at the bar,” Nathaniel says. “I was blinded by your smile.”

“Yeah, right,” Ava says.

“I’m serious,” Nathaniel says. He fiddles with the keys in the ignition for a second, then relaxes against his seat. “I miss you so much, Ava. I’m not going to lie-when I got to the Vineyard, I thought, Okay, new place, fresh start. I’ll go out a couple of times, meet some women, start dating.”

Ava feels a wave of unreasonable jealousy. “So,” she asks, “did you date?”

“I did,” he says. “Girl named Yvette, girl named Kendall.”

“Yvette,” Ava says. “Kendall.”

“Nice girls, pretty girls, both unattached, both the right age. Yvette works as a bartender at Atria where I used to eat every night, and Kendall is the sales manager at Nell, this high-end women’s clothing boutique in Edgartown. Kendall went to college with Kirsten Cabot, actually, so I knew of her before I got there…”

“Great,” Ava says. She despises no one on the face of the planet more than Nathaniel’s ex-girlfriend, Kirsten Cabot. Any friend of Kirsten’s is an automatic enemy. “Why do I have to hear about this, Nathaniel?”

“Because they’re great girls, not a thing wrong with them, and yet I only went out with them a couple times apiece before I lost interest. And as I told you earlier, I was working out in Chappy, which gave me more than enough time for self-reflection.”

“And what did you conclude?” Ava asks.

“I concluded…” Here, Nathaniel swallows. He seems overcome. “I thought a lot about… love and what love is and what it would be like to be married, to spend a lifetime with someone. I mean, I know a lot of it is luck like my parents had, but some of it is also who you choose. My grandmother had this saying, ‘Lust is great in the bedroom, but Like is better at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.’” His brow creases. “Or something like that.”

“I get your point,” Ava says.

“I like you, Ava. I enjoy being with you. And also you’re pretty and you’re sexy and I feel insane stupid mindless desire for you, but what I can’t seem to find in anyone else is the friendship part, the breakfast, lunch, and dinner part. You’re the coolest person I know. You’re the person who gets me, you’re the person who fits with me.”

Ava is so taken aback by his words that she feels tears building. “We were great friends and we did get along and I do understand you. But I’m not sure you understand me. I’m not sure you know what I need. I need to feel like the only girl in the world. I need to feel like your sun and your moon. I need to be the woman who crowds your thoughts and makes you crazy. I am that person for Scott.”

“Were you not listening?” he says. “You are that person for me, too. There’s no way you can tell me all your feelings for me have died. There’s no way Scott Skyler came in and replaced me in every way.”

“Not in every way,” Ava says. There are things she misses about Nathaniel-like the way he whistles Mozart when he sands wood, and his clear green eyes, and his irreverent sense of humor. Ava’s relationship with Scott is solid and good and proper. They talk about school; they volunteer together; every day it feels like they’re building something that’s going to last. Ava feels safe with Scott. With Nathaniel, it always felt like she was dangling by her ankles outside a ten-story window. Did Nathaniel love her, did he not love her? The not-knowing, the never-being-sure was agony. It made Ava jealous and needy. It turned her into a person even she didn’t like to hang out with.

“I want you to give me another chance,” Nathaniel says. “I know you think people don’t change…”

“People don’t change,” Ava says. “We are who we are, and then we keep becoming more and more ourselves.”

“I know you think that,” Nathaniel says. “I do listen when you talk. But I’m telling you, these last nine months on the Vineyard changed me. Or, okay, let’s say they didn’t change me-but I figured some shit out. And the number one thing I realized is that I want to be with you.” He reached over and gently removed Ava’s mitten until he was holding her small, cold hand. “I want to marry you, Ava.”

Tears drop down her cheeks. She can’t believe this is happening. And then, before she can figure out what to say, her phone starts to buzz. Scott: of course it’s Scott, calling from the hospital. She should answer, but she absolutely cannot talk to Scott while she’s sitting in Nathaniel’s truck at the end of Hinckley Lane. She lets the call go.

She reclaims her hand and puts her mitten back on. These mittens were hand-knit for her by Mildred, one of the residents at Our Island Home. The best thing about the past year has been the joy she’s found in playing for the elders, listening to them sing Bobby Darin and Cole Porter-and all the Rodgers and Hammerstein show tunes. Mildred’s favorite is “Whatever Lola Wants,” from Damn Yankees; she requests it every week. Ava loves that she and Scott volunteer together. Scott is vocal about his devotion. Ava never has to wonder.

She isn’t going to trade that in. There are things about Nathaniel that she misses… okay, let’s be painfully honest, there is some essential part of Nathaniel that she will always be hopelessly in love with.

“I’m confused,” she admits. “I need you to take me home.”

He nods, then turns the key and starts the engine. She’s surprised that he’s giving up so easily. She thought he might try to kiss her. She wants him to try to kiss her, she realizes-and how awful is that?

She wonders briefly if Roxanne is okay. She meant to listen for the sound of the Med Flight chopper, but being with Nathaniel distracted her. She doesn’t think Scott left a message, which is unusual. She wonders if maybe he’s angry with her. She worries that he somehow knows she’s with Nathaniel right now. Is that possible? If he does know she’s with Nathaniel, he will not be happy, but Ava will tell him Nathaniel needed some closure-and Scott will be understanding.

He is that good of a guy.

Nathaniel pulls up to the back of the Winter Street Inn and puts the truck in park. “I’d like to see you tomorrow night,” he says.

“I’m busy tomorrow night,” she says. “Black-tie thingy at the Whaling Museum.”

“You’re going with Scott?” he asks.

She nods.

He stares out the windshield at the lit window of Bart’s bedroom. The door to Bart’s bedroom is always kept open and the light always on-Kelley insists on this, as some kind of symbol-and there have been plenty of times when Ava has gone in and sat on Bart’s bed and tried to feel from the energy in the room whether Bart is alive or dead. She always gets the sense that he is alive-but this might just be wishful thinking. She wants to share this with Nathaniel, except it would open a whole other can of worms.

He says, “I’d really like to kiss you good night. Can I kiss you good night?”

Every atom of her body is saying yes, and she even leans toward him a little, but then she thinks of Scott-who is, no doubt, still wearing the poufy tulle light-up Christmas tree sweater that he bought solely to please her.

“I have to go,” she says, and she hops out of the truck, then hurries through the back door into the house.

She has never felt so torn in all her life. She needs to talk to her mother.

MARGARET

Many years earlier, at a CBS network retreat held at a farm in Millbrook, New York-back when Margaret had time for things like team-building and brainstorming-the facilitator asked everyone to pick two words to describe themselves.

Margaret chose unflappable and busy.

Busy certainly still applies.

Unflappable, not so much. And especially not tonight when she walks into the Winter Street Inn with one goal on her mind-to hold her precious granddaughter-and finds Drake and Mitzi together on the leather sofa.

Exactly how together, she can’t quite tell.

She thinks: Drake? He told her he couldn’t make it up this weekend. He had surgery scheduled and a mountain of paperwork. He was going to let paperwork trump the christening of Margaret’s granddaughter. Drake has no children, essentially has no understanding of family, his father died in front of him at a Yankees game, heart attack. A man in the crowd, a doctor, performed CPR for half an hour trying to save him. Drake decided then and there he wanted to go into medicine. But he has no sense of family. How would Drake know how much it meant to Margaret to have him there? He’s not in love with her. Love is too messy for Dr. Drake Carroll.

And yet-here he is. On the sofa with Mitzi. Margaret realizes that Mitzi must be on Nantucket for the baptism. Did Kelley invite her? No, he looks almost as surprised as Margaret to find Drake and Mitzi sitting together on the sofa in front of the fire.

Margaret shuts the front door, trying to summon the consummate professional who has broadcast the results of six presidential elections. If she can handle announcing the name of the future leader of the free world, then she can handle this.

“What exactly is going on here?” she asks. She sounds like a schoolmarm.

Drake is at a loss for words and Mitzi starts bawling.

Kelley says, “Mitzi, what are you doing here? I thought we agreed…”

“I know!” she says. “I couldn’t help myself. I just miss him so much.”

Margaret softens. Poor Mitzi. If Patrick or Kevin had been taken prisoner in Afghanistan, how would Margaret function? Would she be able to face the nation every night and deliver the news? Certainly not. She’d take a leave of absence. She would, like Mitzi, be a basket case.

Drake holds his perfect surgeon’s hands in the air in a gesture of innocence. He looks at Margaret beseechingly. Drake is here. He put whatever was on his plate aside to show up to surprise me. She softens further.

Kelley says, “Mitzi, can I see you in the dining room, please?”

Mitzi stands. “Thank you again,” she says to Drake.

“My pleasure,” Drake says.

Mitzi follows Kelley into the dining room-where, apparently, the lashings are to be administered.

Drake collects Margaret in his arms. He whispers in her ear, “I didn’t know who that was. I was working, and she walked right in, plopped down next to me on the sofa, and started crying.”

“It’s okay,” Margaret says. “I understand. She’s like that.”

Drake then lays a kiss on Margaret that makes her wobble in her heels. Wow, the man can kiss! He slices through to the center of her with… well, with surgical precision.

She’s in the middle of some kind of ecstasy when she hears Kevin’s voice. “Hey, Mom!”

She and Drake separate-reluctantly.

“Darling,” she says. She kisses her son on the cheek; it’s been a few days since he’s shaved. “How is everything going?” Isabelle appears behind him. She looks exhausted.

“Margaret,” she says, and they kiss on both cheeks. “Can I bring you some gougères?”

Drake says, “I’m taking Margaret to dinner at 56 Union.”

Yes, Margaret thinks. She’ll ask Wendy to stick them in a dark corner where no one will recognize her, and she’ll devour a big bowl of the curried mussels and a big glass of chardonnay. She’s starving.

The front door opens and Jennifer strolls in, holding a paper bag. She looks dazed.

“Jennifer!” Margaret says. “My lovely girl.” Margaret and Jennifer have always had a good relationship, and Margaret has been extra solicitous since Patrick has gone to jail. Margaret sends Jennifer flowers every month, she arranged for the boys to attend a Red Sox game and sit in the owner’s box, and for Christmas, Margaret is flying Jennifer to Canyon Ranch in Arizona for three days while Jennifer’s mother keeps the boys in San Francisco.

Jennifer gives Margaret a squeeze. She says, “I have wine. Would you like a glass?”

“Sure,” Margaret says.

Drake says, “I’m taking Margaret out to dinner.”

“That’s right,” Margaret says. She checks her Cartier tank watch. This is the very same watch that sent Mitzi into an apoplectic fit the Christmas before-because it was a gift to Margaret from Kelley when Ava was born, and Margaret still chooses to wear it on the air. “We should go.”

“Don’t you want to see the baby first, Mom?” Kevin asks.

“Is she awake?” Margaret asks.

“She’s in her crib, kicking around,” Kevin says.

Well, Margaret isn’t going to miss an opportunity to hold her granddaughter. She turns to Jennifer, “Are the boys here?”

“Upstairs, playing PS4 with Grandpa, I’m pretty sure,” Jennifer says. “You can see them in the morning.”

“Grandpa is in the dining room with Mitzi,” Margaret says.

“Mitzi?” Isabelle says.

Margaret smiles diplomatically. “I’m going to give Genevieve one kiss,” she says. “And then we’ll go.”

“I’ll come with you,” Drake says. “I’d like to see Genevieve.”

“Really?” Margaret says. Drake has never shown anything beyond polite interest in Genevieve before. But he dutifully follows Margaret into the back of the inn toward the baby’s nursery.

The nursery is lit by only one scallop shell night-light, which casts a buttery glow over the giraffe-and-umbrella-themed nursery. Isabelle grew up with a special fondness for les girafes et les parapluies. Although Margaret initially found the combination a little random, the nursery has turned out to be quite charming.

She can hear Genevieve cooing, and when Margaret peers into the crib, the baby is smiling up at her.

“Hello, beautiful doll,” Margaret whispers. She reaches in and scoops her up.

Baby baby baby. There is nothing Margaret has experienced in this life that compares to holding her grandchildren, and especially this little girl, who is just a little lighter and a little sweeter than the boys were. She smells like lavender, and as Margaret nuzzles her cheek and her tiny perfect ear, she marvels at how soft her skin is. She kisses and kisses her. She can’t ever remember feeling this enamored with her own kids. With Patrick, she was overwhelmed, the twenty-four-hour-a-day nursing sucked away all her energy, and then she got mastitis in her left breast. Kelley’s mother, Frances, had still been alive and she had come to stay with Kelley and Margaret in their railroad apartment on 121st Street, and offered unsolicited advice on the hour.

Suffice it to say, Margaret’s memories of Patrick were not as delicious as this.

Kevin had been easier because at least with him, Margaret had known what she was doing. But Kevin had suffered from reflux-everything she fed him came back up and the whole apartment smelled like sour milk-plus, she’d had a two-year-old to take care of.

And when Ava was born, Margaret had been working full-time at WCBS in New York and every day at home with Ava was a day that Margaret feared she was going to be replaced.

It is so much better to be a grandparent. Margaret can’t believe how much better it is.

“I want to eat her,” Margaret says to Drake. “I want to gobble her up.”

“May I?” Drake says, and he holds his hands out.

Margaret is surprised; he’s never asked to hold the baby before. But of course he operates on babies this age and younger all the time. He takes the baby and cradles her expertly in his arms, just like he does it every day of his life.

“Does it feel different?” she asks. “Holding a healthy baby?”

Drake smiles down at Genevieve. “No,” he says. “All babies are equally miraculous.”

Margaret loves this answer so much she feels tears prick her eyes. So much for unflappable.

She says, “Let’s give her back to her parents so we can go to dinner.” The most miraculous thing of all about grandchildren: They can be handed back to their parents at any time!

“Okay,” Drake says. Margaret follows him, as he gently bounces Genevieve in his arms, out into the hallway.

“Mommy?”

Margaret turns around. She may be a grandmother, but the sound of her children’s voices calling her Mommy is indelibly printed in her mind. Ava is waiting at the back door. She, too, looks dazed.

“Darling,” Margaret says, and she goes to give her daughter a hug. “How are you?”

Ava looks at Margaret with big eyes-then she notices Drake, and she regains some composure. “Hey, Drake.”

“Hey there, Ava,” Drake says. “Happy holidays.”

“Is everything okay, darling?” Margaret asks. “How was the caroling party?”

“Oh,” Ava says, “long story. Do you have time to talk right now? Or… would you rather wait until morning?”

“Let’s wait until morning,” Margaret says, though she can tell Ava is carrying something she’d like to unload right now. But Margaret is starving and Drake has been patient enough. “Tomorrow morning will be perfect.”

KELLEY

Peace on earth, good will toward men. He has repeated the words so often, he’s starting to feel like Linus van Pelt.

This was an easier tenet to live by before Mitzi showed up unannounced and, in typical Mitzi fashion, tried to throw herself at Dr. Drake Carroll!

When Kelley gets Mitzi into the dining room alone, he says, “What is wrong with you?”

She says, “I had to come. I had to be back in the house where we raised him.”

Kelley wants to yell; he wants to fight. Only now, a year later, can Kelley fully acknowledge how Mitzi broke his heart, how she blindsided him. He had been incredulous at first: An affair with George the Santa Claus for twelve years? It was so absurd that Kelley had a hard time comprehending it; plus, there had been the immediate distraction of Margaret. For a few days, Kelley had thought the world had resynchronized so that he and Margaret could get back together.

But that idea evaporated with the new year. Margaret Quinn was Margaret Quinn-too important, too busy, too citified. She had grown beyond Kelley; she had no interest in running an inn on Nantucket. She had been incredibly kind to float him a seven-figure “loan” he would never have to repay, and to come to the inn so often, bringing sixteen rooms of guests in her wake. Drake is a much better match for Margaret, even if she refuses to acknowledge it.

Most of the reason Kelley is so upset Mitzi is here is because it hurts to see her.

It hurts.

At least she didn’t bring George.

“You can’t just show up here unannounced,” Kelley says.

“I want to see his room,” she says. “I want to look at his things.”

Kelley sighs. “Okay,” he says. “Five minutes, then you have to go.”

Mitzi follows Kelley into the back of the inn-ahead of them, Margaret and Drake are headed to the nursery-but Kelley takes a left down the short hallway that leads to Bart’s room.

Kelley says, “I keep the door open and the light on day and night so it’s ready for him when he gets back.”

“You do?” Mitzi says. She seems touched by this. Her eyes fill with tears. “Because he is coming back, right?”

“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.

AVA

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.