Winter Stroll

JENNIFER

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Not me,” Barrett says.

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

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

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

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

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

“There is no Santa,” Barrett says.

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

“Yeah,” Jaime says.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“By all means,” Kevin says.

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

“Success,” he whispers.

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

It’s George.

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

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

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

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

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

Kevin says, “Oh, can’t complain.”

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

Kevin grins. “That she is.”

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

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

“See you then,” Kevin says.

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

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

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

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

“Yeah,” Jennifer says.

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

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

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

“Oh my gosh, Kevin!” she says.

“Oh my gosh, what?” Kevin says.

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

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

“Oh, nothing,” she says.

“What?” Kevin says. “Tell me.”

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

AVA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Ava…” Scott says.

“Don’t tell me,” Ava says. “Do not.”

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

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

“So what you’re telling me is that you’re not getting back tonight,” Ava says.

“Probably not,” Scott says.

“What about tomorrow?” Ava asks. “You’ll be back in time for the baptism, right?” Her voice can now carry as much indignation as she wants. Scott may feel okay canceling on her, but he can’t ditch on baby Genevieve.

“I should be,” he says. “I think I should wait and see how it goes.”

Ava is silent.

“I’m so sorry, Ava. I don’t know how I got myself into this position.”

Ava knows-and it’s why she loves him. He’s a good person. He would never leave Roxanne, or anyone else, to face surgery scared and alone.

“It’s okay,” Ava says.

“It’s not okay,” Scott says. “I hate to let you down. I can assure you I do not want to be sitting here at Mass General when I could be lying in bed with you. And I’m even more upset about missing tonight. When I close my eyes, I can picture how gorgeous you’re going to look in that green dress.”

The green velvet with the slit up one leg, purchased on a weekend that Ava and Scott went to visit Margaret in Manhattan. It is a spectacular dress that she will wear with the diamond circle necklace Margaret bought her last Christmas, and a pair of black silk Louboutin heels, also a gift from Margaret.

Scott is going to miss it!

Briefly, Ava thinks of calling Nathaniel and asking him to go. Then that thought evaporates and is replaced by Ava wondering how she could ever be so wicked.

“It’s okay about tonight,” she says. “I understand.”

“Do you?” he says.

“Just try to get home first thing tomorrow,” she says. “The baptism is important.”

“I’ll do everything in my power, Ava, I promise,” Scott says. “I love you so much.”

“And I love you,” she says.

MARGARET

Drake is different. He is playful and relaxed and wholly focused on her. He hasn’t checked his email once that she’s noticed-but is this possible? Drake prides himself on being available any instant that he’s not actually in the operating room.

She says, “Have you checked in at the hospital?”

He kisses her under the ear and a delicious shiver runs through her. “Nope. Jim Hahn is covering for me.”

“You got Jim to cover for you on a weekend?” Margaret asks. Jim Hahn, the only surgical colleague Drake completely trusts to cover his patients, also happens to be the father of five, and his weekends are sacred.

“I called in a favor,” Drake says. “I wanted to be here.”

“I just…” Margaret doesn’t quite know how to express her feelings. She had thought, when Drake so brusquely turned down her invitation, saying he had too much paperwork of all things, that he simply didn’t want to come. And as disappointed as Margaret was, she understood. Drake led a regimented life: the hospital, his patients, his colleagues. Margaret didn’t blame him for not wanting to dive into the Quinn family stew.

And yet here he is, telling her he wants to be here.

He kisses the tip of her nose. “I love you, Margaret.”

Her eyes widen and she again wishes for unflappable. Dr. Drake Carroll has just said the three words she was certain she would never hear come out of his mouth. She had been so certain that she had stopped hoping.

“You love me?” she says, making sure.

“I love you.”

“You just said it again.”

“Because it’s true. I love you. I got Jim to cover and I came here to surprise you because I love you, Margaret Quinn.”

She rolls onto her back and stares at the ceiling. The last first time a man told her he loved her she was twenty-three years old and it was Kelley Quinn.

Drake clears his throat. “Do you… love me?”

“You know what?” Margaret says. “I believe I do.”

Now, not only is Drake different, Margaret is different. They are different together. They are in love, they’ve said it out loud, acknowledged it, owned it. And Margaret can’t believe it but it feels just as wonderful as it did the first time, with Kelley. Or maybe it feels better because this second time, at age sixty, it’s a gift. When Margaret was twenty-three living in a studio in the East Village and going to grad school at NYU, she had fully expected that love would come to her. She would get married and have children. But now, nearly forty years later, to get a second chance seems miraculous.

Love changes everything. Margaret and Drake lie in bed until almost noon, then Margaret takes a long, hot shower (during which time, she’s sure, Drake checks his email). They get dressed, Margaret puts on a hat and her Tom Ford sunglasses, and they head into town, hand in hand.

“Wow,” Drake says when they reach the top of Main Street. “Mob scene. Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

“I’ll keep my sunglasses on,” she says. “No one will recognize me unless I want them to.”

“Spoken with confidence,” Drake says.

They pop into a number of shops, all of them crowded-Stephanie’s gift shop, Mitchell’s Book Corner, Erica Wilson. All of the shops offer hot cider or cocoa, and some have hors d’oeuvres. At the Dane Gallery, there is a full-blown charcuterie platter laid out, and Drake digs in while Margaret ogles the handblown glass ornaments. She loves one that is a clear globe with a detailed toy soldier suspended inside. She says, “I love these ornaments, but I can never manage to put up a tree.”

“They make wonderful gifts,” the saleslady says.

Margaret turns to Drake. “Do you put up a tree?”

“What do you think?” he asks, popping a piece of prosciutto into his mouth.

“I think you’re lucky if you find time to open the three cards you receive,” she says.

“I get more than three,” Drake says. “Some years.”

“I could buy one for Darcy, but she’s too young to appreciate it. I could get one for Lee Kramer, but he’s Jewish. My kids have too much Christmas paraphernalia in their house as it is… except for Jennifer. And Jennifer has exquisite taste. Yes, I’ll get it for Jennifer.”

“Good idea,” Drake says. He smears a cracker with an obscene amount of pâté, and Margaret worries he’s going to ruin his lunch.

“Although, I’ve gotten a lot of gifts for Jennifer this year,” Margaret says. “I don’t want the other kids to resent her…”

A woman standing just behind Margaret says, “Excuse me, aren’t you Margaret Quinn, from the Today show?”

Margaret hangs the ornament back up where she found it. She has been recognized-sort of. “I’m afraid I’m not familiar with the Today show,” she says with a wink.

The woman, who is tall with a rather long nose, doesn’t get the joke. “It’s on every morning,” she says.

“Wonderful!” Margaret says. She pulls Drake away from the duck-and-apple sausage and leads him toward the door.

Margaret suggests stopping at Murray’s Liquors to get a bottle of champagne to chill and drink before they go out that night.

She says, “I’ll be in full Margaret-Quinn-of-the-Today-show mode this evening, so it’ll be nice to have a little quiet time first.”

Drake picks a couple of cigars out of the store’s humidor. “I’m going to see if Kelley wants to smoke one of these beauties with me later. Engage in some male bonding, celebrate the baptism of his granddaughter, that kind of thing.”

Margaret is starving, but the food tent in the parking lot of the Stop & Shop seems like too much chaos, and so Margaret leads Drake down a narrow cobblestone alley toward the Starlight Theatre & Cafe.

“Is this where we saw that Nantucket slideshow?” Drake asks.

“Good memory,” Margaret says. This past summer, Margaret dragged Drake to a slideshow featuring the photographs of Cary Hazlegrove, in hopes that it would make Drake fall in love with Nantucket. He seems pretty smitten with the island right now. “The café has great chowder and they serve a BLT with too much bacon, which is exactly how I like it,” Margaret says.

They step in and Margaret makes her way past the movie line toward the bar. There are two empty seats on the end-perfect perfection!

But then Margaret stops. Also sitting at the bar is Mitzi, by herself, with a glass of wine in front of her.

Margaret does an about-face.

“Your special friend is here,” Margaret says, poking Drake in the ribs. Margaret understands why Mitzi came to Nantucket this weekend, but she draws the line at including Mitzi in her romantic lunch.

“Come on,” she says to Drake. “Let’s go to the Club Car.”

MITZI

When she wakes up in their room at the Castle, George is gone. Mitzi’s head feels like it’s been bashed in with a brick, and the inside of her mouth is so dry it feels like it’s coated with sand. She reaches for the bottle of water next to the bed, but it’s empty. She will have to stand up.

Then, she remembers the fight.

It was her first full-blown screaming, yelling, and crying fight with George, a fight loud enough to bring the hotel’s night manager to their door to see if everything was okay.

It started when Mitzi stumbled home from the inn, dropped off out front by Kelley, and found George having a Scotch in the bar with the redhead from the Holiday House Tour. Mitzi had gone into the bar to get herself a nightcap that she didn’t need, but she had not expected to find her partner chatting up another woman. Rosemary, or whatever her name was. Mary Rose.

Mitzi managed to hold it together-sort of-in the public space of the bar. George looked extremely flustered when she tapped him on the shoulder, and he was quick to explain the enormous coincidence: Mary Rose was also staying at the hotel, and the two of them had ended up there for dinner.

“Since I didn’t hear from you,” George said.

Mitzi had skipped dinner-but for the past year, this was often how it went.

“How did you get home from the inn?” George asked. “Did you walk?”

“Kelley dropped me,” Mitzi admitted.

George nodded curtly, then called for his check. He made their excuses to Mary Rose and they marched down the hall to their room in silence. Once they were inside, Mitzi lost her temper.

She said, “Sorry to interrupt your little date.”

“It wasn’t a date,” George said. “I told you, we both happened to be having dinner at the bar. It was a coincidence.”

“You have now used the word ‘coincidence’ twice,” Mitzi said. “Which tells me it wasn’t a coincidence. I think a more honest way to describe what happened is that you and Mary Rose had so much fun chatting on the house tour that you decided to go to dinner together afterward.” Mitzi didn’t like how thick her voice sounded; she was slurring her words, which undermined the validity of the point she was trying to make.

“You were at the inn a long time,” George said. “And I didn’t hear from you.”

“Did you call me?” Mitzi asked. “Did you text me?”

“No,” George said. “No, I did not. Because I was trying to give you the time and space to do whatever it was you wanted to do at the inn.”

It was then that Mitzi had spun out of control. She screamed and cried and called George a fat, insensitive bastard. She told him he couldn’t understand her pain because he had never had children; she accused him of going out and seeking a fun time with a stranger because Mitzi wasn’t fun anymore and George was tired of living with someone so miserable.

George had said, “I love you, Mitzi. But it was enjoyable, I admit, to have a regular conversation. Mary Rose was nice to me. Do you know how long it’s been since you were nice to me?”

George might as well have poured lighter fluid on the hot coals of her anger. She screamed-with words, then unintelligible words, then she just made noise for the sake of making noise. Then… well, the truth is, she doesn’t remember anything else except for the knock on the door. The night manager.

George said to the man, “My lovely Mrs. Claus here has a son who is serving our country in Afghanistan, and we’ve had some bad news.”

The night manager said he of course understood and he asked if there was anything he could do. George assured him there was nothing anyone could do, but that they would quiet down. “Please accept our apologies,” George said. “I’m sure we’re disturbing the other guests. They probably think someone is being murdered in here.”

The night manager laughed uncertainly and George closed the door.

He then turned to Mitzi with that look on his face, the same look Kelley sometimes gave her which said: Well, I hope you’re happy. Now the whole world knows you’re crazy.

He’d said, in a voice she found patronizing, “Would you like me to draw you a bath, darling?”

“No,” she’d said tersely. She lay down on the bed. She was tired, too tired to even take off her shoes. “No, I don’t think so.”

Now, Mitzi is undressed-or, at least, stripped to her underwear and T-shirt-and George is gone. Mitzi swings her legs to the floor and hoists herself up. She staggers to the bathroom for water, and then she digs her phone out of her coat pocket. There is nothing from George.

She texts: Where are you?

As she waits for a response, she checks the room for a note. She finds nothing.

Bart Bart Bart Bart Bart.

Her phone dings. The text from George says: I’m at lunch on Main Street with Mary Rose.

Mitzi blinks. Does the text really say that? She can’t be sure; her headache is so bad she might have brain damage. She reads it again. George is at lunch with Mary Rose.

She texts back: Seriously?

He texts back: Yes, seriously. Finishing up. Should be back to room in 20 minutes.

Mitzi is filled with confused emotion. What she needs more than anything right now is a friend to either confirm that her anger is justified or talk her off the ledge. But Mitzi no longer has any friends. Those she had a year ago, she left behind here on Nantucket. She hasn’t made a single woman friend in Lenox. The girls who work at the millinery shop for George don’t speak English and all of the other women George knows in town are friends of his ex-wife, Patti.

Mitzi sits on her bed and brings up her email on her phone. Should she write to Gayle, she wonders, or Yasmin? She has never broached any topic with her pen pals other than their missing sons. But her issues with George are not unrelated. After some contemplation, she chooses Yasmin. Gayle has been happily married for thirty years and she’s a fundamentalist Christian; Mitzi isn’t sure if Gayle would understand that Mitzi left her husband after a twelve-year affair with their Santa Claus. Whereas Yasmin, living in Brooklyn, would have seen everything.

To: mamayasmin@yahoo.com

From: queenie229@gmail.com

Subject: Man trouble

Yasmin, hi-

I know I’ve shared with you that my partner’s name is George and that George is not Bart’s father. The truth is that I was married to Kelley Quinn, Bart’s father, for twenty-one years but for twelve of those years I was conducting a one-weekend-a-year affair at Christmastime with the man who served as our Santa Claus. That man is George. Last year, shortly before Bart deployed, I decided to leave Kelley for George, and I moved with George across the Commonwealth to Lenox, Massachusetts.

I’m beginning to think that I’ve made a monumental mistake. Possibly, the stress of Bart going to war clouded my judgment. I should have forsaken George and clung to Kelley; instead, I did the opposite.

It has been a miserable year for me, not only because of Bart, but because I have been living with a man I do not love.

I do not love George.

Mitzi stares at the screen of her phone. She can’t believe she has just written those words.

The words are true: She doesn’t love George. She doesn’t care that George is having lunch with Mary Rose. She’s relieved that he’s found a friend because this means there is no pressure for Mitzi to be cheerful or play along at enjoying the activities of Stroll weekend.

Yasmin, I am writing to ask for your advice. What should I do? The man I really love is Bart’s father, Kelley-but I have done so much damage to the relationship that I fear it can’t be repaired. Please let me know your thoughts. I know we have never met in person, but right now you are the woman I feel closest to because of our shared sorrow.

God Bless Our Troops,

Mitzi

Mitzi presses Send, then she pulls on her jeans and goes to the bathroom to brush her teeth. Her hair is beyond help; she will have to wear a hat. She applies moisturizer, but no makeup. She hasn’t bothered with makeup in months and months; it’s pointless.

George will be back in the room in twenty minutes but Mitzi won’t be here. She is going out to get a drink.

KELLEY

Saturday is very busy, which is a good thing because it keeps Kelley from thinking too much about Mitzi.

Kelley wakes up at six o’clock and heads to the kitchen to brew coffee and get started on breakfast. He cooks three pounds of bacon on the griddle, some soft, some crispy, and mixes the batter for his famous tri-berry cornmeal pancakes. Mr. Blount, room 7, comes down for coffee at six thirty and a few seconds later, Isabelle appears to do the mise-en-place for her omelette service.

Kelley says, “How did the baby sleep?”

Isabelle waggles her hand. “Comme ci, comme ça. She wakes up twice.”

“You should go back to bed and make Kevin come out here to cook breakfast,” Kelley says.

Isabelle laughs. “Eggshell omelettes.”

Busy, busy, busy-far too busy to think about Mitzi. He fills the cream and milk pitchers, and the sugar bowl. He takes out the trash. The Wiltons from room 4 are early risers and Mrs. Wilton helps herself to over half the bacon. She might weigh ninety pounds soaking wet; possibly, she’s bulimic. Kelley puts more bacon on the griddle as Isabelle takes the Wiltons’ omelette orders. Kelley does dishes.

Jennifer comes down to get breakfast for the boys. The boys love bacon. Kelley puts even more bacon on the griddle. He really prefers sausage mornings.

There’s a rush at nine fifteen-three rooms eating at once. Pancakes, omelettes… and the coffee is gone. Kelley brews more coffee. Kevin pops into the kitchen with the baby.

Kelley says, “The coffee is going to be a minute. Do you want me to hold her?”

“I’ve got her,” Kevin says. “You look busy.”

But Kelley is never too busy for Genevieve. At four months, she has learned to hold up her head, which is covered with the softest blond fuzz. She has round blue eyes the color of sapphires; Kelley is not exaggerating. Sometimes, in the mornings, he will stand over her crib and whisper, “Wake up and show me the jewels.” Genevieve has a tiny rosebud mouth and of course those luscious, satiny-soft baby cheeks. He can’t find anything in nature to compare her to except a perfect ripe raspberry, maybe, or a fluffy cumulus cloud. He is smitten with this baby. Everyone is smitten with this baby. She is, quite possibly, the most beloved baby in all the world.

“Let me take her for a second,” Kelley says. “You flip the pancakes.”

“I’ll mess them up,” Kevin warns, but he hands the baby to Kelley and wields the spatula.

“Hello, sweet bug,” Kelley says to Genevieve as he dances her around the kitchen. “I’m going to take her out to say hi to the guests.”

“I’m going to stay here and screw up the pancakes,” Kevin says.

Kelley shows Genevieve off to the couples who are eating; he is a shamelessly proud grandpa. The women all coo and wave and tug on Genevieve’s tiny socked feet, but then Kelley notices Mr. Rooney clutching his empty coffee mug, and Kelley heads back to the kitchen.

He can pour coffee with one hand; he has learned, again, how to do everything one-handed so as not to set Genevieve down. Was he this enamored with Bart? He wonders. Bart had been colicky. He screamed all the time, six or seven hours a day, which sent Mitzi into a frazzled state. She tried everything: she set the baby seat on the clothes dryer, she bundled Bart in his snowsuit and drove him around the island, she put him in the swing and the vibrating chair-nothing would stop the kid from screaming. Mitzi read that colicky babies were supposed to be very intelligent and high-functioning as adults, that was fine to know, but it hadn’t been particularly helpful in the moment.

Kelley remembers that Mitzi went to the health food store and came home with drops that were supposed to magically cure colic. Mitzi had given Bart the drops-and sure enough, he had instantly stopped crying. Kelley had thought, The holistic approach works! He had squeezed Mitzi in congratulations as Bart kicked contentedly in the middle of their bed.

“Well,” Kelley had said, “I think we’ve finally found the cure.”

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than Bart started screaming again. Mitzi had blamed Kelley; she had said he jinxed them.

When Kelley saw Mitzi the night before, his overwhelming feeling was that he missed her. His anger on the one hand and his renewed friendship with Margaret on the other hand-and, of course, his overwhelming anxiety about Bart-had all served to mask Kelley’s hurt, his pain, and his sense of failure that Mitzi had left him. She is his wife. He loves her. He misses all the things they did as a couple: they used to take a canvas bag to the beach, loaded with towels and Mitzi’s New Age reading, and they would carry it between them, each holding a strap. They bought matching leather sandals that both Kevin and Ava declared were “the ugliest shoes in the world,” and even Kelley had to admit, they were sort of ugly, but their ugliness only accented the beauty of Mitzi’s slender ankles and feet. He misses Mitzi’s voice when she wakes up in the morning. He misses the nicknames they used to call certain guests-“Mr. Busy Bee Atmosphere,” and “High-Maintenance Betty.” He misses doing kind things for her-clearing her windshield of snow, bringing her a hot mug of his homemade shrimp bisque-and seeing her face light up. She has, by anyone’s standards, a glorious smile.

The night before, as they sat on Bart’s bed side by side, Kelley had reached for her hand and both of them had squeezed as though their squeezing alone might bring Bart back safely.

And then, Kelley had offered to drive Mitzi back to the Castle. She was drunk, which wasn’t a state he’d seen her in often, and he couldn’t just let her walk. When he’d pulled up in front, she said, “You know, I’m not as happy with George as I thought I’d be.”

Well, he’d be lying if he said that wasn’t gratifying to hear. He had been tempted to kiss his wife good night, but he’d refrained. She is only here for the weekend, he reminds himself. Another day and a half at the most. All he has to do is survive.

He cleans up everything from breakfast. There’s one room that hasn’t come down, which is room 10, Margaret and Drake, so Kelley saves some coffee. He tries not to feel resentful-a gifted surgeon and his ex-wife lounging in bed above his head.

Jennifer and Kevin announce that they’re heading into town with Jaime and the baby. Jennifer asks Kelley to check on the older two boys-but when Kelley pokes his head into their room, they are completely absorbed in their video game.

Isabelle starts working on the rooms. Kelley goes down to the laundry to push through the sheets and towels. Ava comes down to check on him. She looks rumpled and distressed.

“How was your caroling party?” Kelley asks.

“Oh,” she says. “It was fine.” Her tone of voice indicates that it was anything but.

Kelley starts folding the towels, warm from the dryer. “Just fine?” he says.

“Not really fine,” she says. “This woman named Roxanne who teaches at the high school broke her ankle on the cobblestones and she was Med-Flighted to Boston and Scott went with her. And he’s going to miss the party tonight. So it looks like I’m your date.”

“Great!” Kelley says. There had been one second when he’d actually thought of bringing Mitzi as his date. He would like nothing better than to think of George sitting at the hotel alone while Mitzi got all dolled up to go out with Kelley. But going with Ava is a far superior idea.

He can’t believe he even considered taking Mitzi.

Except that he misses Mitzi.

But… she’s only here for the weekend.

And Ava looks less than thrilled at the prospect of attending the party with her dad.

“Don’t look so down,” Kelley says. “I dry-cleaned my tux.”

“It’s not that,” Ava says. “I’m just disappointed that Scott isn’t coming. This woman isn’t even a particularly close friend of his, but she didn’t have anyone else to go with her and Scott volunteered.”

“Ah,” Kelley says.

“And,” Ava says.

“And?”

Ava gnaws her lower lip. “I bumped into Nathaniel last night.”

“Nathaniel?” Kelley says. “Really? I thought he moved.”

“He’s building a house on the Vineyard,” Ava says. “But he’s back.”

“Oh,” Kelley says. “How was it seeing him?”

“Weird,” Ava says. “It was… I don’t know… a lot harder than I thought it would be.”

Kelley nods. He knows exactly how Ava feels.

The rooms are finished by one thirty. Margaret and Drake have headed into town. Kevin returns from town and the baby goes down for a nap. The inn is quiet except for the piped-in carols: “Away in a Manger,” “I Saw Three Ships.”

Kelley goes in search of his grandsons and finds all three now plopped in front of the TV with controllers in their hands. The stealing of cars has been replaced by something that looks even more nefarious.

“What is this game called?” Kelley asks.

“Assassin’s Creed,” Pierce says. “Wanna play, Grandpa?”

A video game about assassination: It’s the end of society, he thinks. Then he feels like a grandfather. His own grandfather had thought the Beatles were the end of society-and now Paul McCartney is a knight. He’s tempted to run for Coolest Grandpa of the Universe and just sit down and play, but with Patrick in jail what these boys need is a father figure, not a friend to sit down and join them in murder.

“Hey,” he says. “I’ve got some time. What do you say you turn this off and I teach you how to play cribbage?”

“No thanks,” Barrett says.

“Come on, guys. You just can’t waste the day playing video games.”

“We like video games, Grandpa,” Jaime says. “Besides, I’ve already had my non-screen time for the day. I went with Mom into town.”

“Pierce?” Kelley says. “Barrett? You two owe me some non-screen time.”

The older two boys do not respond. They don’t even blink. As Kelley is deciding how much of a hard-ass he wants to be, the phone rings at the inn. Kelley has to run down the hall to pick up the landline. He has a feeling it’s news about Bart.

“Mr. Quinn?” says a young, unfamiliar male voice.

Bart, Kelley thinks.

“Yes?” Kelley says.

“This is D-Day, the bartender at the Starlight? I have Mrs. Quinn here? She’s pretty drunk? I asked if someone could come pick her up and this was the number she gave us.”

“Mrs. Quinn?” Kelley says. “We’re talking about Mitzi, right?”

“Right.”

“And she gave you this number?”

“Actually, she gave me your cell number first, which I tried, but nobody answered. Then this number.”

“My cell phone?” Kelley says.

“Yes.”

Kelley pictures D-Day, the bartender at the Starlight. His real name is Dylan Day; Kelley and Mitzi have known him since he was a kid. Now, of course, he’s grown up; he has a beard, a full sleeve of tattoos, and he wears a fedora. He was a few years ahead of Bart at school, and the last time Kelley grabbed a beer at the movies, D-Day had asked about Bart.

“I’ll be right there,” Kelley says.

“Thanks, Mr. Quinn,” D-Day says, with audible relief.

Mitzi is standing on the curb in front of the Starlight bundled in her coat and scarf when Kelley pulls up. D-Day is standing next to her, even though his presence is probably required inside. Both Mitzi and D-Day are smoking.

Smoking? Kelley thinks. What has happened to his wife?

He rolls down the window of the used Pathfinder they bought after Bart crashed the LR3 a few years earlier.

“Mitzi,” he says.

She throws her cigarette to the ground and squashes it with the heel of her clog, then climbs in the car.

“Thank you, Dylan,” Kelley says.

“No prob,” D-Day says. “Thinking of you guys.”

Kelley bumbles over the cobblestones, takes a right in front of the library, then another right onto Water Street. There are people everywhere, crossing the road indiscriminately, swinging their shopping bags. On Main Street, the Victorian carolers are stationed in front of the Blue Beetle, so there’s a huge crowd. Kelley has to be careful or they’ll soon be singing “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”

When he is safely on the other side of town-he will have to go out of his way-he says, “Mitzi, what’s going on?”

She lets her head fall against the window. “I’m having a hard time.”

“You’ve started smoking?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says. “It helps.”

Kelley has no idea how intentionally filling her lungs with tar can help, but he reserves judgment. He smoked himself back when he worked the futures desk at J.P. Morgan. He smoked a pack a day-only at work, Margaret would not have tolerated him smoking at home-and he remembers how nicotine granted him a few moments of what he now thinks of as fierce focused calm. Maybe it’s the same for Mitzi, or maybe she just likes acting out.

“And what’s with the middle-of-the-day drinking?” Kelley asks. “Drinking so much that Dylan Day had to call me. That’s humiliating, Mitzi, right? We’ve known Dylan since he was in braces. And why did you have him call me? Where’s George?”

“George met a woman last night on the Holiday House Tour,” Mitzi says. “He took her to lunch today.”

“What?” Kelley says, and he laughs. Is George really that much of a player?

“I’m sure it’s perfectly innocent,” Mitzi says. “But the point is, George needs normal interpersonal relations. He’s tired of my anxiety, he’s weary of my sadness. He doesn’t get it. Bart isn’t his son.”

“No,” Kelley says. “He’s not.”

“George barely knew Bart. Who was Bart to George but a pesky kid, the one always getting in trouble until you shipped him off.”

“Mitzi,” Kelley says. It has only taken them three minutes together to get sucked into their same old arguments. “I did not ship Bart off. He wanted to go.”

Mitzi says, “I know, sorry. That wasn’t my point. My point was that George can’t relate to my feelings. He’s out to lunch with another woman because he’s sick of me.”

Kelley says, “So you went out drinking?”

“Drinking helps,” Mitzi says.

“There has to be something else that helps other than poison,” Kelley says.

Mitzi gives him half a smile. “Being with you helps.”

She is only here for the weekend, Kelley tells himself. This isn’t permanent. This isn’t real.

Except she is only too real, sitting in the passenger seat next to him, dabbing at her nose with a tissue. She pulls down the visor to look at herself in the mirror, and she fruitlessly tries to tuck her curls under her hat. This tiny gesture pierces Kelley’s heart. He doesn’t want to love her; he doesn’t want to find her attractive-but he’s helpless. The entire car now smells like her.

He reaches out and puts his hand on her leg, thinking she’ll most definitely rebuff him. But instead, she covers his hand with her hand.

The next thing Kelley knows, he and Mitzi are sneaking in the back door of the inn and hurrying down the hall to Kelley’s bedroom-which, for nineteen years, was their bedroom. Once the door is closed, Kelley and Mitzi start madly kissing, kissing like they haven’t kissed in years and years. Kissing so intensely that they fall back on the bed, and then Mitzi takes off her shirt, and Kelley thinks, Are we really going to do this? It’s not a good idea, not in any respect, it will only confuse them both when things are so confusing anyway, but he can’t seem to tear himself away. He cannot take his hands or his mouth off her.

They make love, fast and furiously, like somehow their lovemaking might be the thing missing, the thing that will save Bart.

Afterward, they both lie on their backs, breathing heavily.

Does he feel better? Physically, yes, definitely! But emotionally? No, not really. He doesn’t want a weekend fling with Mitzi, or Margaret, or anyone else. He wants his wife back.

He reaches over and cups her chin. “Did the alcohol cloud your judgment?”

“I only had a few glasses of wine,” she says. “But it was on an empty stomach and I was upset about George, and then D-Day asked about Bart and I started to cry. Do you remember when D-Day and Bart were in Little League together and D-Day hit Bart with that pitch?”

“I do, actually, now that you mention it,” Kelley says. This is only half a lie. Kelley doesn’t remember D-Day throwing the pitch but he does remember Bart getting hit as a ten-year-old. He remembers Mitzi freaking out and running onto the diamond and shrieking for an ambulance. Not an ice pack, an ambulance. She has always been that kind of mother. Surely George realizes this? How can George reasonably expect Mitzi to accept that her son has been taken hostage by a force as allegedly brutal as the Bely?

Mitzi buttons her blouse and sits up. “I should go,” she says. “I need lunch. I haven’t eaten all day.”

Kelley swings his feet to the floor. The sex has left him light-headed; it’s been a while. “Come to the kitchen,” he says. “I’ll make you lunch.”

“You don’t have to,” she says.

“I want to,” he says.

It’s both comfortable and awkward, having Mitzi back in their kitchen. She leans against the counter with her arms folded across her chest while Kelley makes ham and Swiss sandwiches on Something Natural pumpernickel bread-lettuce and tomato for Kelley, just lettuce for Mitzi, spicy mustard for Kelley, a ludicrous amount of mayo for Mitzi.

He says, “Do you eat potato chips these days?”

“Bring on the potato chips,” she says.

“How about some lemon-ginger tea?”

“I’d love some,” she says.

He still has the box of tea bags, even though a thousand times this year he has looked at it and thought, Throw it out. It’s Mitzi’s tea.

He puts the kettle on.

“There’s something I’ve been wanting to do all day,” he says.

“Oh yeah?” she says. “Something other than what we just did?”

He pulls a pack of cards from the utility drawer. “I’ve been wanting to play cribbage,” he says. “Will you play with me?”

“I’d love to,” she says.

AVA

There’s a knock at the front door of the inn. It’s the delivery man from Flowers on Chestnut with a delectable holiday arrangement: fat red roses, white amaryllis, pine cones, holly berries, and evergreen branches.

“Oh!” Ava says. “Thank you!” She accepts the flowers and checks for a card. Sometimes flowers arrive for guests of the inn, but Ava figures these are probably in honor of Genevieve’s baptism.

The card has Ava’s name on it.

Scott, of course.

Ava carries the flowers to her bedroom. The more generous thing would be to leave the flowers on the coffee table for everyone at the inn to enjoy, but they’re so gorgeous and they have such a deep, rich fir smell that Ava wants them for herself. They’re from her boyfriend, the kindest, most thoughtful man in the world, who wanted Ava to know he was thinking of her, despite being at the bedside of Roxanne Oliveria.

The flowers also help banish any lingering thoughts she has about Nathaniel. In the two years of their dating, Nathaniel never once gave Ava flowers-not on her birthday, not on Valentine’s Day, not on their anniversary.

Once in her room with the door closed and the flowers placed on her dresser where they are reflected in her mirror, Ava opens the card. Her mirror already holds half a dozen flowers cards from Scott-Happy one week of dating, Happy Last Day of School, To the most beautiful music teacher in the world, I love you, Ava.

This card says: I can’t stop thinking about you. Nathaniel.

Ava falls back onto her bed.

“No way,” she says.

MITZI

For an hour or two, she feels like any other living, breathing woman.

It has been so long, nearly a year.

She and Kelley finish their game of cribbage-Kelley wins, as he always does-and Mitzi spins her mug on the table. There’s half an inch of cold tea in the bottom; she doesn’t want to finish it because she doesn’t want the afternoon to end.

“I should go,” she says. “George will be wondering where I am.”

“Will he?” Kelley asks.

Mitzi checks her cell phone. There aren’t any texts from George, no missed calls. Could he still be with that woman? Has Mitzi really been thrown over for a carbon copy of George’s ex-wife?

Maybe she has. She finds she doesn’t care. Being with Kelley has set her free in a way. She is free from carrying the burden of Bart by herself. Kelley shares it with her. Even though they haven’t specifically talked about Mitzi’s recurring nightmares-ISIS, the beheadings, the pilot on fire in the cage, her baby boy, their baby boy being the next victim-she feels lighter with Kelley next to her.

“Truthfully?” she says. “I don’t want to go back.”

Kelley nods slowly. She can see his mind at work, and she knows she’s being unfair. Kelley is a man whose feelings she hurt, whose heart she broke, whose pride she wounded. That she is unhappy with George now only means she has received her just deserts.

He says, “Would you be interested in going to the Festival of Trees party at the Whaling Museum with me tonight? Ava has an extra ticket. Scott got caught off-island.”

“Oh, I couldn’t,” Mitzi says.

“Why not?” Kelley says. “We don’t have to stay long. We can go, take a gander at the trees, enjoy a few appetizers, and then I’ll drop you back off at the hotel.”

“I don’t have anything to wear,” Mitzi says. “I brought a dress for the baptism tomorrow, that’s it. And…” She checks the clock. It’s quarter after four. “It’s too late to go out and get something now.”

At that second, there’s a trill of famous laughter. Margaret and Drake walk into the kitchen, bringing with them the chill and cheer of a good afternoon spent in town. Drake brandishes a bottle of champagne.

“We’ve come in search of flutes,” Margaret says. “The kind one drinks from.” She sees Mitzi and Kelley at the table, and the playing cards scattered about, and her face takes on a composed expression of neutrality. “Hello again, Mitzi.”

“Margaret,” Mitzi says.

“Hello, Mitzi,” Drake says.

Mitzi casts her eyes down. She can’t believe what an incredible ass she made of herself the night before; she practically poured herself into Drake’s lap.

“Margaret!” Kelley says, in that way he has, as if Margaret is the answer to the world’s problems. “I’m going to bring Mitzi to the party at the Whaling Museum tonight as my date. But she’s wardrobe-challenged. Do you have anything she might borrow? You two are about the same size.”

“You know Margaret,” Drake says. “She packs three outfits for every event.”

“That I do,” Margaret says. She smiles at Mitzi. “Are you sure you want to borrow something of mine? I know that, in the past, you haven’t cared for my taste in clothes.”

Mitzi knows she deserves this jab-and worse. For a period of eighteen months or so, Mitzi wrote a blog that criticized each and every one of the outfits Margaret wore on the air. It was, by anyone’s standards, a stupid and cruel pastime. But it was the only way Mitzi could find to exorcise her mighty envy of this woman.

“I’d love to borrow a dress,” Mitzi says. In all honesty, she believes Margaret to have impeccable taste. “And shoes, if you have a spare pair?”

“Ha!” Drake says. “She brought seven pairs of heels.”

Margaret swats Drake. “Come to my room,” she says. “What size shoe?”

“Seven and a half,” Mitzi says.

“Well,” Margaret says to Kelley, “at least you’re consistent.”

Margaret has brought the equivalent of half of Mitzi’s closet in Lenox, only far, far more glamorous. Donna Karan, Diane von Furstenberg, Helmut Lang, Roberto Cavalli-every piece Margaret shows to Mitzi makes her swoon a little more than the last. Room 10 has been transformed from the room that Mitzi dutifully cleaned each day-and, incidentally, the room where she had perennially conducted her Christmas affair with George-to something out of one of Mitzi’s childhood princess dreams.

Drake pops the champagne and hands both Margaret and Mitzi a flute. Mitzi realizes she is a party crasher here. Certainly Drake and Margaret wanted to drink this bottle of Krug (a champagne so fabulous Mitzi has never actually tasted it) themselves as they made love and then showered and dressed for the party. Instead, Margaret puts on some music-the Vienna Boys Choir-and she and Drake sit in matching armchairs with the champagne like judges on America’s Next Top Model while Mitzi takes four dresses into the bathroom.

Before she closes the door, she says to Margaret, “Which one were you planning on wearing?”

“Honestly, it doesn’t matter,” Margaret says. “I’m happy in whatever.”

Happy in whatever: this throwaway phrase is Mitzi’s life goal. Margaret Quinn is happy in whatever because she is filled to the brim with self-confidence and pluck. She has achieved her dreams a hundred times over. She has nothing to prove to anyone. She would look beautiful in a burlap sack because Margaret’s beauty comes from within.

How might Mitzi achieve this? She looks into the bathroom mirror at her pinched, pale face. Crowding the shelf beneath the mirror are Margaret’s cosmetics: face creams and cleansers, eye pencils and shadows, and half a dozen Chanel lipsticks. But none of these products will help Mitzi. She needs only one thing, and that is to know that Bart is safe. If someone can assure her of that, she will never need another thing. She will exude peace and gratitude all the rest of her days.

Bart Bart Bart Bart Bart.

For a moment, Mitzi is in danger of falling into the usual black pit of despair. She wishes the champagne were tequila.

Atrocities. Burned alive in a cage. Beheaded.

But then, she snaps out of it. Margaret and Drake are waiting. Mitzi puts on the first dress, a luscious amethyst silk slip dress with spaghetti straps and an asymmetrical hem. Margaret has given Mitzi corresponding heels-silver crystal Manolos.

Mitzi puts on the dress and straps on the heels and pins her unruly curls to the top of her head using a silver clip of Margaret’s that Mitzi locates among the jars and tubes.

She steps out into the room. Kelley is standing there now, too, with his own glass of the Krug.

He whistles. “Hot damn!” he says.

“That one works,” Drake says.

“Mitzi, you look stunning,” Margaret says. “Absolutely stunning.”

Mitzi feels weepy. But for the first time in a year, they aren’t tears of sadness. They are tears of gratitude.

Mitzi tries on the silver brocade sheath, the gold beaded flapper dress, and the white goddess gown.

“Dealer’s choice,” Kelley says. “You look captivating in all of them.”

“Agreed,” Drake says.

“Margaret?” Mitzi asks. Margaret’s opinion is the only one that matters. Mitzi knows that Margaret lunches with Anna Wintour once a month at the Four Seasons; she has done 60 Minutes segments with Donatella Versace and Stella McCartney. For the past twenty years-at least before Bart went missing-Mitzi’s most toxic emotion was her jealousy of Margaret. But now she understands that jealousy masked her respect of the woman.

“I liked the first one, the purple,” Margaret says. “It’s a dramatic color, makes a statement. Everyone in the place will be looking at you. Plus… it’s Dior.”

“It is?” Mitzi says. She knows that probably means it costs north of five thousand dollars.

“Designed by John Galliano for me for something, I can’t remember what. But I’m thinking it looks far better on you than on me. I’d love to have you wear it.”

Mitzi doesn’t know how the woman finds it in herself to be so gracious. She’s going to strive to emulate Margaret from here on out. She is going to be a better person.

“The purple it is!” Kelley says. He nods toward the hallway. “Why don’t you come change downstairs. That way we can give these two their privacy.”

“I don’t know how to thank you for this,” Mitzi says to Margaret.

“Let’s all have fun tonight,” Margaret says. “You certainly deserve it.”

Mitzi nods. Margaret says, “Why don’t I come down at about quarter to six and I’ll do your makeup. My stylist, Roger, has taught me a few tricks.”

Kelley carries both of their flutes of champagne and leads the way down the back stairs. “Do you need to call George and tell him about your change of plans?”

“George?” she says.

KEVIN

For the first time since Genevieve has been born, they are getting a babysitter.

Isabelle is, quite frankly, a wreck.

She is sitting on the edge of their tightly made bed. Probably the biggest change since Kevin and Isabelle moved in together-other than fatherhood-is how neat and tidy and clean and correct his surroundings now are. Isabelle makes their bed first thing every morning; they use the same sumptuous sheets and feather pillows as guests of the inn. Isabelle launders their Turkish cotton towels every fourth day and keeps a big, fluffy stack in a woven basket in their bathroom. Without asking, Kevin has new razors and fresh bars of French-milled soap in the shower; he never runs out of toilet paper. He has turned into a proper adult.

“I don’t want to leave her,” Isabelle says.

“But you want to go to the party, right?” Kevin says.

Isabelle looks up at him with big eyes. She has just gotten out of the shower and is wrapped in one of the pristinely white towels. Her blond hair is soaking wet, dripping on the duvet.

“Yes?” she says.

“And Ava’s friend Shelby is coming to babysit. She’s a school librarian, which means she takes care of dozens of children each day. And she’s pregnant herself, which means she has a vested interest in doing things by the book. She’s a responsible person, Isabelle. Nothing is going to happen to Genevieve.”

“I know,” Isabelle says, then she says something in French that Kevin doesn’t understand.

“Translate, please?” Kevin says.

“I’m going to miss her.”

“I’m going to miss her, too,” Kevin says. “But we can’t take her with us…”

Isabelle opens her mouth-no doubt, she’s about to suggest that they do bring the baby. Kevin can simply strap the Björn on over his tuxedo. But Kevin stops her. “We aren’t bringing her. It’s not fair to her, and it’s not fair to us. She’ll be far happier at home, sleeping in her own crib.”

Again, Isabelle says something in French. It’s beginning to seem like a passive-aggressive tactic on her part.

“What?” Kevin says.

“I won’t be happier,” Isabelle says.

“Sure you will,” Kevin says. “You need to get out. We need to get out together, as a couple. We agreed on this when we bought the tickets. Right?”

Mumbling, in French.

“Right?” Kevin says.

“Right,” Isabelle says, reluctantly.

“Okay,” Kevin says, kissing her. “Go get dressed.”

AVA

She has waited patiently in her room for her mother to get home, half reading the new young adult novel by Meg Wolitzer that Shelby swears is a five-star experience, and half gazing at her beautiful Christmas flowers. I can’t stop thinking about you.

Now she can’t stop thinking about Nathaniel thinking about her. And thinking about Nathaniel leads to thinking about Scott because of the innate betrayal of thinking of Nathaniel.

She needs her mother.

But when Ava finally hears her mother’s voice, it’s commingled with other voices. Ava slips out into the hallway and peers around the corner in time to glimpse her mother and Drake and Mitzi heading up the main stairs of the inn.

Mitzi??? Something very strange must have transpired. Mitzi is here at the inn. Mitzi is heading upstairs behind Margaret, her sworn enemy.

A few seconds later, Ava sees Kelley follow.

Ava can’t even begin to imagine what might be going on with her parents. Their lives are, possibly, more crisscrossed and convoluted than Ava’s own.

It’s five o’clock-time to shower and get ready. Time to put on the green velvet dress that Scott won’t see her in.

Ava doesn’t like losing her sense of self like this. She doesn’t want to identify herself as Scott’s girlfriend or Nathaniel’s ex-girlfriend. She wants to think of herself as Ava Quinn.

She heads out to the main room, to play the piano.

She would like to delve into some Schubert or Chopin. Chopin is so technically difficult that it leaves no room to think of anything else. But it’s Christmas Stroll and a few guests are enjoying the fire and the holiday decorations. Mr. Wilton is admiring Mitzi’s nutcrackers along the mantel. Ava had encouraged her father to leave Mitzi’s nutcrackers in storage, along with her Byers’ Choice carolers. But her father thought the house would look “naked” without them. Possibly, he knew that Mitzi would be back. Was she back? Back back? Ava figures that Mitzi has come to Nantucket for Genevieve’s baptism. That makes sense, sort of. Ava knows that Kelley and Mitzi still talk on a fairly regular basis-and that no steps have been taken toward a divorce-because Bart is missing. But if there is anything else going on between Mitzi and her father, how will Ava feel?

Well, on the one hand, she’ll feel alarmed. First, Kelley was married to Margaret for nineteen years, then he was married to Mitzi for twenty-one years.

Then, last Christmas, he was with Margaret.

And now, this Christmas, Mitzi?

On the other hand, Ava has never quite believed Mitzi gone for good. When she ran off with George the Santa Claus, it felt like just one more of Mitzi’s phases. Over the years, Mitzi has become consumed with yoga, Pilates, vitamin supplements and juice cleanses, African drumming and healing crystals. The new thing is always the answer to Mitzi’s prayers. But really, the answer to Mitzi’s prayers-as Ava or any of her siblings can tell you-is Kelley. Ava suspected that Mitzi would tire of George and come home. But is that what’s happened? Ava can’t quite tell.

At that very moment, Mitzi is up in Margaret’s room. But why?

Ava is intrigued, but she can’t take on any more drama.

She sits down at the piano and plays “Ding Dong Merrily on High.” Ava adores carols that evoke London streets during a new snowfall, the Yule log, brightly lit windows on a square of stately brick homes. Next, she plays “Here We Come A-wassailing,” and “Deck the Halls.”

She pauses. The Wiltons, and portly Mr. Bernard, who is on the sofa demolishing the bowl of mixed nuts, clap politely.

“How about ‘Jingle Bells’?” Mr. Bernard asks.

Ava smiles sweetly. “That’s the one song I never learned to play,” she says. “So I’ll end with ‘We Three Kings.’” It’s twenty past five; she needs to shower and get dressed. The family is leaving promptly at six. If one doesn’t get to the Festival of Trees in a timely fashion, there’s a long, cold line at the front door, no place to hang one’s coat, and an endless wait at the bar.

She plays “We Three Kings” and tries to sing, though it’s really better suited for a man’s voice.

Before she finishes, there’s a blast of cold air. Ava turns to see the front door to the inn open and someone step in. Ava lifts her hands off the keys. The door slams.

It’s George.

George, Ava thinks. So Mitzi didn’t come to Nantucket alone! So there is nothing romantic going on between Mitzi and Kelley then, right?

“Ava,” George says. “Where’s Mitzi?”

“Hey,” Mr. Bernard says, “I remember you. George, right? You’re the Santa Claus. My wife, Elaine, and I met you a few years ago when we were here at Christmas.”

George nods curtly, then turns his attention back to Ava. “Where’s Mitzi?”

Something must be wrong with George. Ava has never seen him be rude to anyone, and especially not to someone who recognizes him as Santa. George relishes nothing so much as his own celebrity. He must really want to find Mitzi-and then Ava wonders if he has news about Bart.

Ava nearly says, Mitzi’s upstairs in Mom’s room, I think. But since Ava saw Kelley go up as well, she holds her tongue.

“I’m not sure,” Ava says.

“I know she’s here,” George says, although his tone of voice conveys that he does not know if she’s here.

“Honestly, George, I’m not sure.”

“Would you check with your father, please?” George asks.

Ava ignores this request. “Have you tried calling her?”

“No,” George says. “I don’t need to call her because I know she’s here. I’d like to speak with her in person. Now, will you please check with your father?”

Mr. and Mrs. Wilton and Mr. Bernard are silent, but their attention is fixed on George and Ava, like it’s something they’re watching on the stage. Ava doesn’t want a scene, so she scoots her bench back and smiles at George.

“Sure thing,” she says. “I’ll be right back.”

But when Ava heads down the hallway toward the owner’s quarters, George is following right on her heels.

“George,” she says. “Please wait in the living room. I can’t invite you back here.”

“If you think I’m waiting out front, you’re nuts, missy,” George says. “I intend to find out what Mitzi is up to.”

Ava can’t believe this is happening. She turns around to face George. They are smack in the middle of the hallway, right in front of the door to the nursery, which is closed, meaning the baby is asleep. Ava hears the water running in Kevin and Isabelle’s room; one of them is showering. It’s time to get ready. Shelby will be there any minute to get her instructions for babysitting.

Ava huffs in frustration and marches down the hall-past the turnoff for Bart’s room where the light is on-to her father’s room. Ava knocks on the door.

No answer.

“He’s not answering,” Ava says.

George takes it upon himself to knock again; it’s a knock to wake the dead, and Ava winces.

“The baby’s sleeping,” she says.

At that second, she hears her father’s voice. Then Mitzi’s voice. Ava squeezes her eyes shut as though she’s about to witness a car crash.

George clears his throat, loudly.

Ava fires a warning shot. “Daddy?”

But when Kelley and Mitzi reach the bottom of the stairs and see George, they are both wholly unprepared. Mitzi gasps like George is the Grim Reaper. Mitzi is carrying a deep purple gown in one hand, and a pair of crystal stilettos in the other. All of a sudden, Ava understands what was going on upstairs, and how ill-timed George’s visit is.

“Mitzi, let’s go,” George says.

“My plans have changed,” she says. “I’m going to…”

“Your plans have changed?” George booms. His voice, raised to this decibel, is truly terrifying. For an instant, Ava wonders if he’s ever hit Mitzi.

Mitzi merely blinks at him. “Lower your voice, George. The baby is sleeping.”

He changes to an angry whisper. “What do you mean your plans have changed?”

“I’m going to the Festival of Trees party,” she says. She holds up the purple dress. “Margaret lent me this to wear. It was designed by John Galliano.”

“I don’t care if it was designed by John Wilkes Booth,” George says. “You’re coming back to the hotel with me.”

“George,” Kelley says, “we have one extra ticket to the party. We thought it would be good for Mitzi to get out and have some fun.”

“I know what’s good for Mitzi,” George says. “She belongs with me.”

“Where were you all day?” Mitzi asks. “Were you with Mary Rose?”

“I had lunch with Mary Rose, yes,” George says. “Then she went shopping and I went on a wild-goose chase looking for you.”

“You had dinner last night with Mary Rose and then lunch today with Mary Rose,” Mitzi says. “And she looks just like Patti. She and Patti could be identical twins separated at birth. What am I supposed to think?”

“Oh, come on,” George says. “Mary Rose is at least thirty pounds lighter than Patti.”

Ava winces. She can’t believe how badly George is blowing this.

Mitzi says, “Sorry, George. I’m going to the party with Kelley.”

“If you go to the party with Kelley…,” George says.

Here comes the ultimatum, Ava thinks.

“… I’ll pack your things up at the hotel and leave them for you at the front desk. And don’t bother coming back to Lenox.”

“Really?” Mitzi says.

“Yes, really,” George says.

“So you’re allowed to go on a date or two with good old Mary Rose, that’s not a problem. But I can’t enjoy one night of fun with my family.”

“Oh, so now they’re your family?” George says. “You haven’t referred to these people as your ‘family’ all year. You left them without thinking of anyone but yourself.”

George has a point, Mitzi thinks.

“I left them for you, George,” Mitzi says. “Because I had fallen in love with you.”

“Well, then,” George says, “if you’re in love with me, come with me now. Please, Mrs. Claus?”

“I don’t like it when you call me that,” Mitzi says.

“Okay, George,” Kelley says, stepping in. “Why don’t you leave. I’ll take care of Mitzi tonight.”

“I just bet you want to take care of her!” George says. He shakes his head. “Are you just going to let yourself bounce back and forth between us like a Ping-Pong ball, Mitzi? I thought you wanted to be with me.”

“I don’t know what I want,” Mitzi says. She looks between Kelley and George. Ava, for one, feels her turmoil. It is possible to have feelings for two people at once, as she has unfortunately learned.

I can’t stop thinking about you.

Ava feels like the Ping-Pong ball.

It’s absolutely none of her business, but Ava speaks up anyway. She says, “George, I think Mitzi should come with us tonight. She could use a distraction and she’s going to look dynamite in that dress.”

“No,” George says. “No, no, NO!” This is an angry variation on his usual HO-HO-HO!, and his last “NO!” is so loud that, a few rooms away, the baby starts to cry.

Kelley leads Mitzi past George into his bedroom and closes the door, leaving George and Ava in the hallway.

Ava says, “I need to go check on the baby.”

George says, “What do you expect me to do?”

“I expect you to leave,” Ava says.

JENNIFER

She carries a glass of wine to her room, a dressing drink. She takes one Ativan, and then another.

Two Ativan and a glass of wine is like a three-hour vacation on a deserted white sand beach.

She hasn’t been out in so long, she’s forgotten the routine: long shower, special attention to her hair and makeup. She misses Patrick. He once confided that his favorite part of marriage was getting ready to go out together. They would primp in the master bathroom of their Beacon Hill townhouse, which Jennifer had turned into an Asian-inspired sanctuary with jade green marble, teak accents, and a collection of mismatched Buddhas-stone, brass, ceramic. They played Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, music that made them feel like adults in love from another era.

Jennifer and Patrick shared a classic, refined taste. Jennifer had never met a man who was as masculine and sexy as Patrick, yet who appreciated things like the cut crystal vase of hothouse roses that Jennifer liked to keep on her dressing table. Patrick always put on both Jennifer’s perfume-applied by running his forefinger along her collarbone-and her heels. The higher the heels were and the more complicated the straps, the more he loved them.

Enough thinking like that. She still had six months until he would be out, and allowed to touch her.

Megan had joked that this was the perfect time for Jennifer to have an affair.

But Jennifer has zero interest in anyone but Patrick. It’s as though she punched buttons on a man-making machine, including all the qualities and quirks she wanted-and out he popped.

Jail.

Jennifer sips her wine. Her head starts to spin. She sits on the closed lid of the toilet and thinks to herself, I’m addicted to pills. What will she do when the oxy runs out? Fake a back injury? Find a dealer? She is disappointed in herself for succumbing to this predictable crutch. She realizes half the women on Beacon Hill are medicated, but she’d expected more from herself. She should have started yoga, or meditation. She pictures herself on a mat, wearing a cute outfit from lululemon, her body a clean, empty, flexible vessel.

After a few seconds of bemoaning how far she is from that goal, she slips on her new dress, purchased at Erica Wilson that very afternoon. It’s black. When she wore black out with Patrick, it felt sexy. Now, it feels funereal.

She spritzes on her own perfume. Sighs. But there is no time for wallowing; she heads downstairs to feed the boys.

When Barrett sees his mother all dressed up, his face darkens. “You’re going out?” he says. “Again?”

“I was out for less than two hours last night,” Jennifer says. “And that was a favor to your Auntie Ava. You didn’t even notice I was gone.”

“I did notice you were gone,” Barrett says. “Because Grandpa came up and gave us a lecture.”

“He told us to be nice to you,” Pierce says.

“He did?” Jennifer says. She’s touched that Kelley spoke up on her behalf, but then she wonders if it’s obvious to everyone in her husband’s family that the boys are running her off the rails. Do they suspect she’s on drugs?

Barrett snarls. “You’re all dressed up.”

“Yes. Thank you for noticing.”

“You look nice, Mom,” Jaime says, though his eyes are glued to the TV. He shoots; blood spatters all over the screen.

Jennifer says, “I can order you a pizza from Sophie T’s, or I can go downstairs and make you grilled cheese with tomato.”

“We had pizza last night,” Pierce reminds her. “And grilled cheese with tomato is just pizza in another form.”

“How about Thai food?” Jennifer asks.

“How about you’re neglecting us?” Barrett says. “Keeping us shut up in this room all weekend and making us eat crappy takeout…”

Jennifer stares Barrett down. “Neglecting you?” she says. “You want to see me neglect you? I’m half tempted to leave you here without anything for dinner!” She’s screaming now. Control over her emotions floats away like a balloon. “I tried to get you to come to town with me today and you refused! So don’t tell me I’m keeping you shut up in here! I couldn’t drag you out of here with a team of oxen!”

“Mommy,” Jaime says.

“You have no idea how difficult it is!” she says.

“What about us?” Barrett says. “We’re the ones who lost our father!”

Kevin pokes his head in. “Everything okay in here?” he asks. “You do know, guys, that we have an inn-ful of guests.”

“Yes, Uncle Kevin,” Jennifer snaps. “We do know that.”

Kevin says, “It’s getting a little loud. I heard you from all the way down the hall.”

Great, Jennifer thinks. Now her family squabbles have been overheard by everyone in the building. She should just pack up the kids and go back to Beacon Hill where they can make a scene in the privacy of their own home. But she can’t bail on the baptism. She says, “I’m sorry, Kevin. I have to feed these guys something for dinner.”

“Isabelle made fried chicken and a big Caesar salad,” he says. “It’s downstairs in the kitchen. Help yourselves.”

Thank you, Isabelle, Jennifer thinks. She doesn’t need drugs. All she needs is the support of this wonderful family she married into.

“How does fried chicken sound, guys?” Jennifer asks.

The boys don’t respond, but they do set down their controllers and follow Jennifer, their neglectful mother, down to the kitchen.

KELLEY

Since Shelby is holding Genevieve-who seems to be taking to her just fine as long as Isabelle isn’t in her direct line of vision-they ask Mr. Bernard to take the pictures. They hand him Ava’s phone, Kelley’s camera, Kevin’s phone, Jennifer’s phone, and Margaret’s phone.

Mitzi is at Kelley’s side, in the manner of a wife. Drake and Margaret are together, Kevin and Isabelle, Ava and Jennifer.

“I’m a seventh wheel,” Ava says.

“Eighth wheel,” Jennifer says, raising her hand.

The men are all in tuxes. Mitzi is in the purple, Margaret in gold, Jennifer in black, Isabelle in winter white, and Ava in dark green. They are all holding flutes of champagne.

“These are great photos,” Mr. Bernard says. “You have a beautiful family.”

“Thank you,” Kelley says.

“Thank you,” Mitzi says.

“Thank you,” Margaret says.

Kevin says, “It doesn’t feel complete without Patrick and Bart.”

“Next year,” Margaret says in her broadcasting voice, meant to convey calm and optimism in the face of any Armageddon. “They’ll be here with us next year.”

Kelley fears that Mitzi or Jennifer might get welled up with emotion. But when all of the photos are taken and the group relaxes, the only person wiping tears from her eyes is Isabelle.

“Isabelle,” Kelley says, “what’s wrong?”

“She doesn’t want to leave the baby,” Kevin says.

“Oh!” Margaret says. She gives Isabelle a hug. “It’s natural to feel that way. I remember being assigned to a story in Morocco when Patrick was two and this one”-here, she points to Kevin-“was a baby, just about Genevieve’s age. And I had to go for a week. The flight to Casablanca lasted seven hours and I cried the whole way.”

“True story,” Kelley says. “I was there.”

“You were working,” Margaret says. “Your mother was there.”

Drake clears his throat.

Margaret wipes a tear from Isabelle’s cheek. “It’s just a few hours,” she says. “The baby will be fine.”

“That’s what I told her,” Kevin says.

Kelley offers Mitzi an arm. “Shall we go?” he says.

AVA

She’s riding to the party with Kevin, Isabelle, and Jennifer. Ava stares out the window at the colorful Christmas streets. Normally, the lights and the trees would make her giddy with little-kid wonder, but right now she feels dateless and alone. She can’t because Jennifer is even more alone than Ava is-and for longer.

When they all bundle into the car, Ava says, “Does anyone know if Dad and Mitzi are back together?”

“Don’t start,” Kevin says. “It’s none of our business.”

“George had a lunch date with some other woman at the pharmacy,” Jennifer says. “It seemed like a date-date.”

“Don’t start,” Kevin says. “It’s none of our business.”

“Isn’t it?” Ava asks. “He’s our father.”

Isabelle pipes up from the front seat. “I think Kelley and Mitzi just worry together about Bart.”

Kevin says, in a voice that puts an end to the subject, “We all worry about Bart.”

Ava decides to call Scott. She wants to hear his voice, and with George showing up out of the blue, she hasn’t had a chance.

He picks up on the sixth ring. Since he’s left, he has either missed Ava’s calls altogether or picked up on the very last ring before voicemail, which bothers Ava. Why is it taking him so long to answer his phone when he keeps it in his front pocket at all times?

Ava doesn’t care to speculate.

“Hello?” he says.

“Hey,” she says. “We’re in the car headed to the party.” She lets this sink in for a beat or two. “What are you doing?”

“Well,” he says, his voice chipper, “Roxanne is out of surgery, she’s awake, and I’m trying to entice her to eat some of this nice vanilla pudding.”

Ava doesn’t quite know what to do with that sentence. She can only picture Scott positioned at Roxanne’s bedside, feeding her. She finds this vision infuriating.

He should be here with her. Not spooning pudding into Roxanne’s mouth.

“Please give Roxanne my best wishes,” Ava says.

“I will,” Scott says. “How was your day?”

“My day?” Ava asks. The only thing out of the ordinary-other than the drama with Santa and Mrs. Claus-was that Ava received flowers from Nathaniel. Thinking of the flowers from Nathaniel only serves to make Ava even angrier-because the flowers should have been from Scott! But Scott didn’t think to send Ava flowers because he was too busy trying to entice Mz. Ohhhhhh to eat her pudding.

For a second, Ava considers telling Scott that Nathaniel sent her flowers.

Should she?

Should she?

She really needed to have that conversation with her mother today. Maybe she could ask Jennifer? But there isn’t time; they’re almost to the Whaling Museum.

“My day is about to hit its highlight,” Ava says. “We’re pulling up to the Whaling Museum now. Shall I call you after the party? It might be pretty late. Maybe I’ll just see you tomorrow morning?” Ava will have to move the flowers from her room tonight. She’ll put them on the coffee table in the living room. She’ll bury Nathaniel’s card deep in her “Things That Might Have Been” file.

“About tomorrow morning…,” Scott says.

Don’t say it! Ava thinks.

“… I can’t get back tonight. Roxanne is being released tomorrow morning at nine, and she has no way to get back to the island, so I told her I’d drive her back. She’ll be on crutches, obviously, and she’s never used them before, and…” Here, he lowers his voice. “… I just can’t leave her here, Ava. She is completely helpless.”

“You’re going to miss the baptism?” Ava says.

“Yes,” Scott says. “I might make it to part of the lunch, depending on how late it goes.”

It’s on the tip of Ava’s tongue to say, Don’t bother coming to the lunch, and don’t bother calling me ever again! This debacle is entirely Scott’s fault! It was his idea to invite Roxanne Oliveria to the Ugly Sweater Caroling party when he saw her at the pool! The party tonight is one thing; it’s just a party. They can go together next year, and the year after that. But the baptism is a once-in-a-lifetime Quinn family milestone. The first granddaughter. And Ava is the baby’s godmother! They are already short two men with Patrick and Bart gone. Ava can’t believe Scott doesn’t realize how important his presence is.

However, she knows he’s doing the right thing. He can’t leave Roxanne to get home to Nantucket on crutches by herself. He just can’t. Ava would be disappointed in him if he did.

Deep breath. She needs to be supercool here.

“You’re such a hero,” Ava says. “Don’t worry about me. I have my whole family here to support me. You just get Roxanne home to Nantucket, and if you make it to lunch, so much the better.”

She hears Scott breathe a sigh of relief. “What did I do to deserve you?” he asks. “I am missing the whole weekend of fun with you. I know you need me there, and yet you’re being so understanding. I feel so lucky to have you, Ava. All I’ve talked to Roxanne about is how much I love you.”

“Well, good,” Ava says. Scott’s words actually do the trick in setting things right between them. “I love you.”

“I’ll get home as early as I can tomorrow,” Scott says, “and I’ll come right to you.”

“You do that,” Ava says.

Kevin drops Ava, Isabelle, and Jennifer off at the entrance of the Whaling Museum. It’s a perfect winter night-crisp and cold, with just a few fat snowflakes starting to drift down. There’s a line but it’s moving. Everyone is in tuxes and overcoats, gowns and furs. Ava lifts the hem of her green gown, and in a few seconds she’s hanging her wrap in the Discovery Room.

The Whaling Museum is all decked out for the holidays. There are greens and velvet bows and white fairy lights-and eighty-two Christmas trees, each decorated in a theme by island businesses and organizations. The fun in the party is to stroll the museum ogling the trees, hitting the bar, and picking up the bite-size offerings from thirty-five Nantucket restaurants. There will be incessant chatting with fellow year-rounders and the summer residents who come back to Nantucket for Stroll weekend. Everyone who is anyone is at the Whaling Museum tonight. The Festival of Trees party is the ultimate see-and-be-seen scene.

But there isn’t anyone at this party who will be as sought after as Margaret Quinn. She is, of course, a national icon, one of the most recognizable faces in America. Ava knows her mother can handle any crowd with aplomb and that the initial feeding frenzy for Margaret’s attention will die down. Ava decides not to wait for her mother, but when she leaves the Discovery Room after hanging her wrap, she realizes she’s lost Jennifer and Isabelle.

She’ll catch up with everyone later. She knows plenty of people and can make her own way.

She glides over to the bar, minding the hem of her dress. She feels elegant, but that will come to an end if she trips and face-plants.

At the bar, she sees Delta Martin, a woman about ten years older and a hundred million dollars wealthier than Ava.

“Ava,” Delta says, “you look just like a Sargent painting. Those shoulders! That bosom! I would kill for peaches-and-cream skin like yours. And that dress is divine.”

“Thank you,” Ava says. Delta Martin has always gone heavy on the ingratiating comments, but Ava has never quite cottoned to the woman-probably because the year before last, Nathaniel was renovating Delta Martin’s house and she was forever flirting with him.

“You’re not going to believe who I brought tonight as my guest,” Delta says. “An old friend of yours!”

“Hey, Ava,” a voice at her elbow says. “You look exactly like this girl I dreamt about last night.”

Ava turns. Standing behind her, looking way too handsome in a tuxedo with a paisley silk vest, is Nathaniel.

“Me?” she says.

“You,” he says.

KEVIN

If he can keep Isabelle happy and occupied for an hour or ninety minutes, he’ll consider this night a success. It’s going to be challenging, however, because Isabelle isn’t drinking and she doesn’t know many people here. When she meets strangers, her English flies from her head, and she clams up.

However, Kevin has Jennifer to help. Jennifer suggests that she and Isabelle go sample something from every restaurant and rate them best to worst. Isabelle is especially fond of foie gras and Jennifer of Nantucket bay scallops. The two women lock arms and off they go on their culinary quest. They’ll easily be gone an hour. Kevin can get a drink and do some schmoozing. It’s been so long since he’s been out, his schmoozing muscles are flabby.

Some days he really misses working at the bar. He misses his customers, he misses his domain-grungy though it was-he misses camaraderie. There’s nothing like taking care of an infant to isolate a person.

Not that he would change a thing. His phone is in the breast pocket of his tux jacket and he’s ready to show anyone who asks his six zillion photos of Genevieve.

He decides to get a Jameson, neat, then call and check in with Shelby. Once he knows for sure that the baby is fed, burped, changed, dressed in her snuggle pj’s and read to, he can start to party.

“Hey, Shelby,” he says. “How goes it?”

“She’s asleep,” Shelby says.

“She’s asleep,” Scott repeats. BINGO! Two hours, maybe three! “Thanks, Shelby, you are a champion.”

“That I am,” she says.

Kevin takes a swig of his drink, and spins around to see… his… his… worst nightmare standing right in front of him. He makes a noise-something between a bark and a bleat. The nightmare has bare white arms that reach out to straighten his bow tie.

“Don’t,” he says, “touch me.”

“Oh come on, Kevvy,” she says.

Kevvy. Kevin blinks and shakes his head, trying to make the vision before him disappear. It’s Norah Vale, his ex-wife. She is here, somehow, in person, calling him Kevvy, the reprehensible diminutive she has always used, even though she knows he hates it.

He despises Norah. She broke his heart and ruined his life. And yet, for one second, something inside of him stirs. She is here, in front of him, in person.

No! He will not allow himself to fall prey to her. He was in her grip-which he can only describe as a Vulcan mind meld-from the day he met her in tenth grade until the day she took all his money and left for Miami twelve years ago.

He used to believe that the snake tattoo winding its way up Norah’s arm, and over her shoulder to the collarbone where it lashes out with fangs bared, was sexy and wild-but now he just sees it as a visible sign that Norah is disturbed. It’s her calling card, letting the people she meets know she’s nuts.

Nuts.

He needs to get away from her. God forbid Isabelle sees her. Isabelle is French, and therefore nonchalant about most things. C’est la vie. However, before Kevin and Isabelle were in love, back when they were just friends, Kevin confided the whole long sordid Norah Vale story to Isabelle and quite unfortunately, in retrospect, he uttered the sentence, “A part of me will always be stupidly, irrationally in love with Norah.” Isabelle has reminded him at least half a dozen times that he’s said this, even as he retracted the statement. “I didn’t know what love was until I met you.” This was met with Isabelle’s expression of extreme skepticism.

She would not like seeing Kevin talking to Norah Vale-and oh yes, Isabelle will recognize Norah immediately. Kevin willingly showed Isabelle all his pictures of Norah-from their junior prom to a photo of them drunk as skunks at Sloppy Joe’s in Key West, on a trip Kevin had planned as a surprise for Norah when he was desperately trying to save their marriage.

He had caught Isabelle looking through the photos three or four months ago, just after Genevieve was born, when Isabelle was touchy and strange. She had been sitting on their bed, staring at the photographs, quietly weeping. When Kevin saw what she was looking at, he quasi-freaked out. “What are you doing?” he’d asked.

“You love her,” Isabelle said. “I know you still love her.”

“I do not!” Kevin had roared. “She means nothing to me! You mean everything!” He had gently removed the photographs from Isabelle’s hands, collected the rest into a pile, and made a great show of ripping them to pieces and throwing them away.

He tries to imagine how he would feel if Isabelle bumped into her first love, Jean-Baptiste, who is now a big executive with Hachette publishing in Paris. Kevin would be pretty upset, and jealous.

He needs to get away from Norah.

And yet-he can’t keep from asking what she’s doing there.

“What are you doing here?”

When Norah left Nantucket, she swore she would never return, despite the fact that she had grown up on the island and her entire screwed-up family lives here.

She says, “I’ve moved back.”

Kevin closes his eyes and thinks, No.

“I’m living with my mother,” she says. “You heard that Shang died, right?”

“Right,” Kevin says. He had read in the paper a while ago that Norah’s stepfather died, but he had never liked Shang and so the news registered a big fat Who cares? “So that’s why you came back?”

“My mother needs help, and my brothers are useless,” Norah says.

“Right,” Kevin says. He doesn’t want to get sucked in any further, although he could certainly contribute a few thoughts about just how useless Norah’s five brothers are. He would start with Danko, who had talked Norah into the snake tattoo on her eighteenth birthday. “Do you have a job?” He needs to find out, because he can’t be running into Norah unexpectedly.

“I’m doing some bookkeeping for…” Norah’s voice trails off, and Kevin supposes that’s by design. She’s not doing bookkeeping for anyone. “I got my associate’s degree while I was in Florida.”

“You did?” Kevin says. He can’t believe Norah went back to school. She hated school. And for bookkeeping? She especially hated math. “So wait, how long have you been back, exactly?”

“Two weeks,” she says.

Two weeks. Kevin lets this sink in. On the one hand, he can’t believe nobody told him Norah was back. His best friend, Pierre, who owns the Bar, where Kevin used to work, would have called him immediately. Right? Was it possible Norah has been here two weeks and she hasn’t stopped by the Bar? Maybe she’s just staying home, to help her mother. But that doesn’t sound like Norah. Norah and her mother, Lorraine, have a troubled relationship. Two weeks is probably hitting Norah’s limit. Kevin allows himself a deep, cleansing breath. Norah Vale won’t stay on Nantucket, no way. She’ll get fed up and she’ll leave.

“So, how are you?” Norah asks. “I hear you have a girlfriend. And a baby.”

Kevin frowns. “Who told you that?”

Norah shrugs. “Can’t recall.”

Kevin doesn’t want Norah to know anything about his life. She is such an evil person that he can easily imagine her terrorizing Isabelle in the aisles of the Stop & Shop; he can imagine her kidnapping Genevieve in exchange for the millions she has always believed the Quinn family to have.

Norah says, “I saw Jennifer at the liquor store last night. I think I scared her.”

“You saw whom?” he says. “Jennifer?”

“I saw Jennifer,” Norah says. “I heard Paddy is in jail.”

“Stop,” Kevin says. He’s at such a disadvantage here, and every second he stands here, he puts his family harmony in jeopardy. Isabelle can’t see him talking to Norah. He has to get away.

“And Bart,” Norah says. “Poor Bart! I remember when he was a baby.”

“Stop!” Kevin says. His voice is too loud; he feels the people in the immediate vicinity grow quiet. What Norah says bothers him because it’s true. She has known Bart since he was in diapers.

Kevin has an unfortunate memory of him and Norah babysitting Bart when Bart was ten or eleven months old. They were drunk and stoned, and they flipped Bart over in his stroller. Bart wasn’t hurt, thank God, just scared, but now that Kevin has his own baby, he shudders anew. He wonders how he could ever have been so cavalier with his brother’s young life.

“And I heard Mitzi and your dad split,” Norah says. “But I just saw them together a few minutes ago, so maybe that information was bad? I figured I’d ask you.”

Kevin can’t believe Jennifer saw Norah the night before and didn’t tell him! He had been completely blindsided. Some warning would have been very, very helpful.

“No comment,” Kevin says. “Listen, I have to go.”

“Go where?” Norah asks.

“Go find… people,” Kevin says. “My family.”

“Your girlfriend?” Norah says. “I’ll go with you. I’d like to meet her.”

“No,” Kevin says. “That isn’t going to happen.”

“Why not?” Norah says. “Are you ashamed of me?” She links her arm through his. “Let’s go find her.”

Same old Norah, Kevin thinks, eager to stir things up. She had led him astray so many times and he followed like a little lost lamb. He had first seen Norah in the breezeway of the high school. She had been wearing a black broomstick skirt that touched the ground, a white tank top, and a sequined bolero jacket. Norah had been smoking, and Kevin-brand new to the school, freshly wounded by his parents’ divorce-had been hurrying along with his trumpet case, late for class.

“Hey, bugle boy,” Norah had said. “Come on over here and play me some taps.”

He had barely glanced at her. He registered the cigarette and the goth-meets-vintage-clothing-store look and thought, Nope. No way. He didn’t even break stride.

What if he had stayed that course, never succumbing to Norah’s clear green eyes and that tiny gap between her front teeth? She would just have been Norah Vale, some troubled girl he’d graduated from high school with. He would have saved himself years and years of heartache.

After those first words in the breezeway, Norah had stalked him like a hunter. Later, she admitted it was because she’d heard he was from New York City where his mother was some hot-shot broadcaster. Norah had been born and raised on Nantucket; all she’d ever dreamed of was getting away.

Within six weeks of dating Norah, Kevin had both quit the trumpet and started smoking. He’d also shaved his red hair down to the scalp at Norah’s request; she thought it looked too wholesome long, she said. Margaret had cried when Kevin visited her with Norah in tow in New York.

“It’s your hair,” Norah had said. “It’s time to stop caring what your mother thinks.”

Kevin’s grades fell from good to completely mediocre. He got a weekend job at the Bar and as part of his “pay” received a six-pack after his Saturday night shift, which he and Norah would drink on the beach-always one beer for Kevin, and five for Norah. Things were out of whack like that.

He’d barely managed to apply to college, but he was accepted at the University of Michigan only because his mother, an alum, intervened. He married Norah two weeks after their high school graduation and Norah came with him to Ann Arbor. But as much as she claimed she wanted to get off the puny rock that was Nantucket, she didn’t like living in the married dorms in what she called “the piss-ant Midwest.”

He had lasted one year.

“I need you to leave me alone,” Kevin says, extracting her arm from his.

“Leave you alone?” Norah says. “I thought we were friends.”

“I’m not sure what gave you that idea,” Kevin says. “I’ve been quite happy without you in my life, and I intend to stay that way.”

“Well, I haven’t been happy,” Norah says. “Not at all.”

Kevin shrugs as if to say, Not my problem. Naturally, a part of him is gratified that Norah hasn’t been happy, and a part of him would like to hear this unhappiness detailed. Probably her relationships all failed and she got fired from a succession of crappy jobs. Probably her car had a faulty transmission or bad brakes and died in the middle of the Everglades. Probably she has been evicted from whatever squalid place she’s been living. Kevin has wished all the misfortune in the world on Norah Vale; he has stuck mental pins through her imaginary voodoo doll.

Before Kevin knows what is happening, Norah Vale has her hands on either side of his face and she is planting a juicy kiss on his lips. The kiss is so unexpected and so weirdly familiar that Kevin loses himself in it for a split second before he realizes what he’s doing. He puts his hands on Norah’s shoulders in order to get her off him without creating a scene or looking like he’s roughing her up. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches a glimpse of Isabelle and Jennifer approaching and he thinks, No! Please, no! What is this going to look like to Isabelle?

Isabelle gives him a brief look of wide-eyed horror before she turns and disappears into the crowd. Jennifer claps a hand over her mouth.

Kevin says, “Go after her!”

Jennifer either doesn’t hear him or doesn’t understand.

Kevin turns on Norah. “Get away from me. Leave me alone. You ruin everything!”

The people milling around in Kevin and Norah’s vicinity back away. Norah gives Kevin a hideous gap-toothed grin, and then she disappears into the crowd. Jennifer grabs Kevin’s arm.

“That was Norah,” she says.

“I know it was Norah! She said she saw you yesterday! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I… I… honestly, Kev, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure it was her, and I didn’t want to upset you…”

“Upset me?” Kevin says. “How about forewarned is forearmed? She just accosted me out of the blue.”

Jennifer gapes at him and Kevin feels badly for raising his voice, but his far larger problem is Isabelle.

“I’ve got to find Isabelle,” he says. “I’m sure she’s upset. What did it look like from where you were standing?”

“It looked like you and Norah were kissing,” Jennifer says. “It looked really bad.”

“We weren’t kissing!” he says. “She kissed me!”

“Why did you let her?” Jennifer asks.

“I didn’t let her!” Kevin says.

“If I saw Patrick kissing someone like that, he’d be a dead man,” Jennifer says.

The words send Kevin into a tailspin. He sets his drink on a ledge and sweeps the crowd for signs of Isabelle. They have been there for twenty minutes and the night is over.

KELLEY

Mitzi asks him not to leave her side, and so they wend and weave their way through the crowd, much as they have in past years. Some people do a double take at the sight of them together, and some-those who are a year behind on their gossip-don’t react at all.

Mitzi can’t handle any questions about Bart, and so Kelley fields all the inquiries and well-wishes. We don’t have much information, held prisoner somewhere in Afghanistan, thank you for your concern, your prayers are appreciated.

Kelley tries to focus on the reason they came: admiring the trees, enjoying a couple glasses of wine, tasting the foie gras and the crab salad and Nantucket bay scallop seviche offered by the island’s restaurants. There are tiny pulled pork sandwiches on sweet potato rolls at Bartlett’s Farm; Kelley devours three.

Mitzi isn’t eating at all.

“No appetite,” she says.

He can tell this has been a problem for a while. Mitzi has always been slender but now she is dangerously thin. The purple gown leaves Mitzi’s back exposed, and Kelley can see the protruding knobs of her spine. Earlier that afternoon, when they were making love, he worried he would snap her in half.

“How about an oyster?” Kelley asks. “Do you think you can eat an oyster?”

Mitzi nods. “I think I can eat an oyster. Maybe even two.”

Kelley steers her toward the raw bar.

DRAKE

Walking around with Margaret inside the Nantucket Whaling Museum is slow business. Everyone stops to… well, for lack of a better word, Drake is going to say gawk. Women elbow their husbands in the ribs. Look, it’s Margaret Quinn! The men stand up straighter and try not to stare.

Some people feel it’s appropriate to stop Margaret and either profess their loyal fandom, or tell her how much they loved a particular segment she reported, or comment that she is even more beautiful in person than she is on TV! Margaret handles everyone with a smile and kind words of thanks. How does the woman do it? Drake wonders. In New York City, she is rarely approached. New Yorkers are too jaded; celebrities are everywhere. Once, while eating at Pearl & Ash in SoHo, Drake and Margaret saw Derek Jeter at the bar and Drake got so excited he asked Margaret if she could introduce him. Margaret said, “He’s eating, Drake.” Drake had thought, Right, he’s eating. Rude to interrupt. But not ten minutes later, Jeter came up to Margaret to say hello, and Drake had gotten his chance to shake number 2’s hand.

There are a few people Margaret actually knows-a newscaster from the Boston CBS affiliate, the personal assistant to the secretary of state-and she greets these individuals with joy and pulls on Drake’s arm as she introduces him.

“This is my boyfriend,” she says. “Dr. Drake Carroll.”

Boyfriend. The term actually makes Drake grin. He hasn’t been anyone’s boyfriend since he was sixteen years old. No, scratch that-twenty-three years old, his first year of medical school. Stephanie Klein. He had had to break up with Steph because the workload was too intense and Drake was intent on excelling. And therein ended his long-term relationships with women.

But now he is Margaret Quinn’s boyfriend. They are in love.

In love. Margaret shimmers in her gold beaded cocktail dress. She looks like someone from another era-the 1920s perhaps, or the 1950s. She is a Sinatra song, timeless and elegant.

He’s in love!

He gently leads Margaret away from her adoring fans to a quiet alcove where whaling ship logs are displayed in glass cases.

“I know this is insanity,” Margaret says. “I’m sorry.”

Drake takes both of her hands in his. “I don’t want to be your boyfriend,” he says.

She looks stunned. “You don’t?”

“No,” Drake says. “I’m too old.”

Margaret’s cheeks turn pink; it’s the classic Margaret Quinn blush that, she once confided, she went to a hypnotist to eradicate because she thought it would harm her chances of getting a network job. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I guess I thought…”

“Margaret,” he says. “I don’t want to be your boyfriend. I want to be your husband. Will you marry me?”

AVA

She needs Jennifer, but Jennifer is nowhere to be found. Ava glimpses her mother and Drake, but her mother is surrounded by a wall of people three deep and there will be no breaking through.

Nathaniel is here with Delta Martin. Ava wonders if he knew he was coming last night and simply didn’t tell her, or if he called Delta up today and wrangled an invitation so he could surprise Ava. When she saw him, they chatted for two seconds, then Delta seemed eager to whisk Nathaniel away. There was someone she wanted him to meet who had a potential building project in Madequecham.

Nathaniel had grabbed Ava’s arm and quickly whispered in her ear, “Meet me on the widow’s walk in thirty minutes.”

That had been twenty-two minutes ago. Ava knows this because as soon as Delta and Nathaniel walked away, Ava whipped out her phone to send Scott a text: I love you.

Obviously, Ava isn’t going up to the widow’s walk to meet Nathaniel. She would never do that to Scott. And yet, twenty-two minutes later, Scott hasn’t responded to her text. He always responds to her texts. He must be all wrapped up in his duties as nursemaid to Roxanne.

Ava stops at the booth for Le Languedoc, where they are serving escargots swimming in garlic butter. Ava loves escargots, but she forgoes taking one because she doesn’t want her breath to reek of garlic.

Because she is planning on going to the widow’s walk to meet Nathaniel in eight minutes.

She heads to the bar for more wine, and across the room sees Delta Martin by herself eating the foie gras crème brûlée from Dune. If Delta Martin is by herself, Nathaniel must have already gone up.

Wine in hand, Ava enters the elevator. She pushes 3, which takes her to the top floor. When she steps off the elevator, she finds “the door.” Behind “the door” is a half flight of stairs that will take her to the widow’s walk. She takes off her perilously high Christian Louboutin heels and leaves them at the bottom of the stairs. Ava climbs until she reaches a trapdoor in the ceiling. There will be some clambering required-tricky in her gown, while holding her wine. But at that instant, the trapdoor pops open and Ava sees Nathaniel’s face framed by the black velvet sky.

“Hey there!” he says, and he seems as amused as he is happy to see her. “You came!”

Nantucket is renowned for its historic homes that feature “widow’s walks,” although anyone who works at the Nantucket Historical Association will tell you that “widow” is a modern addendum. Back in the days of whaling voyages, these platforms built on the roofs were simply called “walks.” But when Ava sees a “walk,” it always brings to mind nineteenth-century women whose husbands, fathers, brothers, or sons went to sea.

The view from the top of the Whaling Museum is spectacular. Ava can see all the way across town to the Unitarian Church, and there is a sweeping vista of the harbor. Lights twinkle along the shoreline in Monomoy, Shimmo, and Shawkemo. Ava feels like she should be able to see Bart, wherever he is. The thought makes her shiver-plus it’s chilly and she didn’t bring her wrap.

Nathaniel whips off his tux jacket and places it over her shoulders.

He says, “Did you get my flowers?”

“I did. Thank you, they’re beautiful. But Nathaniel-”

“Stop,” he says. “I don’t need any explanations. I know you’re promised to Scott.”

“I’m not promised to Scott,” Ava says. “I’m dating Scott. But I’m my own woman.”

“Good,” Nathaniel says. “Then kiss me.”

For a second, Ava resists. She thinks, No way. I will not do this to Scott. I will not be that person. But the wine and the beauty of the night conspire against her, as does the fact that Scott isn’t here now and won’t be here tomorrow in time for the baptism. He’s with Roxanne. He has not yet responded to her text: I love you, too.

And, it’s Nathaniel.

Ava hadn’t taken the escargot because she knew this moment was coming. She had been able to feel it-in her blood, in her bones.

She kisses him.

MARGARET

Unflappable is definitely an adjective from Margaret’s past.

I want to be your husband. Will you marry me?

She’s at a loss for words. The man is dead serious-that much she can see from the earnest look on his face.

Say yes, she thinks. That’s the answer from her heart. She is so in love with Drake that every time she blinks, she sees chocolate cake. Lifelong happiness-whether that means fifteen years or thirty-seems like a reality for the first time in a long time. And things are so much easier now than they were when she fell in love the first time. Margaret’s career is established. She has five to eight more years before she will be replaced by Norah O’Donnell. Maybe she’ll head into retirement doing a segment here and there for 60 Minutes. She knows Drake is on a similar timetable. They’ll have plenty of money and time to travel.

So-yes!

But then reason kicks in…

She’s sixty years old. Marriage means, most likely, moving in together. She is in no way attached to her soulless apartment-a three-bedroom, two-bath affair with a terrace overlooking Central Park. That apartment has a kitchen she never cooks in, a dining room she never eats in. She likes the gym and the lap pool in the building, and she has learned all of the doormen’s names. Drake’s apartment is much more lived in than Margaret’s, but she has stayed there only half a dozen times. He has a very cool platform bed he keeps sheathed in gray jersey sheets. Margaret finds these sheets soft and comforting; it’s kind of like sleeping on one of Drake’s running T-shirts. He has a quilt on his sofa that his mother made him out of his old neckties. And there are a couple of pieces of good, expensive art picked out for Drake by his friend Nance, a dealer in SoHo, back when Drake decided he should develop an interest in something other than medicine.

Would Margaret move into Drake’s apartment, or would Drake bring his sheets and quilt and art to Margaret’s apartment? Or would they buy a new place, maybe one of the superluxe apartments in the new high-rise on Park Avenue? Neither of them has time to make these decisions, much less execute a move or go through all the trouble that a new place would entail. Margaret remembers back when she and Kelley moved into the brownstone on East Eighty-eighth Street; Margaret was enthusiastic about renovating it. Back then, she cared about things like stripping flooring down to its original hardwood. She hired a contractor to build a window seat in Ava’s bedroom, and Margaret herself had gone to the fabric store to pick out toile for the cushions and matching silk for the pillows.

Now, Margaret doesn’t have time to give attention to even the smallest home improvement project.

And what about their bank accounts? Certainly those would remain separate? How would they decide who pays for things? When they go out now, Drake always pays, even though Margaret makes more money. At least, she thinks she makes more money. But maybe not. Is it odd that she has absolutely no idea how much money Drake makes? She has never thought to ask. It always seemed like Drake’s personal business.

This gets to the heart of Margaret’s fears. She has an established life, a certain way of doing things, a daily routine, a weekly routine, a yearly routine. And so does Drake. Does Margaret really want to go through the unwieldy process of melding the two together? Her conversations with Drake now are erudite and elevated. Does she want to devolve into squabbling with him about who should pick up the dry cleaning or whether they should keep a TV in their bedroom? (Margaret would say yes, Drake no.)

She isn’t sure how to answer. Accepting a marriage proposal would be so romantic! She loves Drake so much, and nothing elates her more than the thought of heading into her golden years with him by her side.

But a part of her likes things the way they are now. Why mess with perfection?

Drake is watching all these thoughts cross her face-yes, no, yes, no-meanwhile, his patience must be wearing thin. But he has to realize that he’s caught her by surprise, right? He has to realize that the answer isn’t necessarily clear cut.

Margaret’s phone rings, which is embarrassing; she’d meant to turn it off before they entered the museum. When she pulls it out of her gold clutch to silence it, she sees the person calling is Darcy, her assistant.

“Oh no,” Margaret says.

“What?” Drake says. As a surgeon, Drake understands how potentially devastating one phone call can be. Among so many other things, Margaret appreciates his gravitas, his depth, his steadfast and calm focus.

“It’s Darcy,” Margaret says.

“You have to answer it,” Drake says.

Yes, Margaret has to answer it. Darcy has been trained never to bother Margaret when she’s away except in case of absolute emergency.

“Hello?” Margaret says.

“Margaret?” Darcy says. Already Margaret can hear the urgency in Darcy’s voice. What is she going to say? The U.S. has declared war against North Korea? George Clooney was killed in a plane crash? Someone is dead, that much she can assume.

“Talk to me,” Margaret says. Drake wisely takes Margaret’s wineglass from her hand.

Darcy says, “You received a voicemail here at the studio from Neville Grey.”

“What did he say?” Margaret asks. “You listened to it, right? Please tell me you listened to it.”

“I listened to it,” Darcy says. “It was cryptic and pretty bare bones, but apparently there’s news about the missing marines. Bart’s platoon?”

“Yes, yes!” Margaret says. “What is it? What’s the news?”

“He didn’t say,” Darcy says. “Or he couldn’t say. He said he wasn’t able to call your cell or send you an email, he said he was hoping to reach you on a secure landline.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” Margaret says. “Can I call him back?”

“No,” Darcy says. “I tried, but the number was blocked. But it sounded like he really wanted to reach you.” She pauses. “I think this might be something real, Margaret.”

“Did you call the DoD directly?” Margaret asks. “The number is in my contacts under-”

“Yes,” Darcy says. “I called but got nowhere. Kingman’s office was quiet on the topic. No change of status, they said. When there is a change of status, the media will be notified, they said.”

“So what Neville gave me was a heads-up,” Margaret says. “Something is coming in on those marines.”

“Yes,” Darcy says. “News is coming. Real news.”

KEVIN

He has to find Isabelle.

Would she leave the party, or would she run to the ladies’ room or a quiet corner to collect herself? Seeing him kissing Norah would have been a shock, but would it have caused Isabelle to go home?

Kevin dispatches Jennifer to check the ladies’ room, and then Kevin goes sifting through the party. Isabelle is wearing white, which means she will stand out. Kevin had never noticed before how many women wear black to events like these. Norah was, of course, wearing black. Norah always wore black.

It looked like you and Norah were kissing.

Yes, Kevin admits to himself. For one split second, they had been kissing.

He has to find Isabelle. He can’t believe Norah Vale torched his night this way. If anything was going to end his evening preemptively it should have been a call from Shelby.

There are couples admiring the trees, there’s a harp player, there’s a line of folks waiting for the tuna tartare with wasabi crème fraîche from the Pearl. Kevin feels a growing sense of panic. He’s not only looking for Isabelle, he’s looking for Norah so he can avoid her.

He sees his father and Mitzi talking to Mrs. Gabler, Bart’s kindergarten teacher. Kevin tries to do an about-face to avoid them, but Kelley catches sight of Kevin and eagerly waves him over.

Kevin says to his father, “I’m kind of on a mission, Dad.”

Kelley doesn’t care. “Say hello to Mrs. Gabler,” he prompts.

“Good evening, Mrs. Gabler,” Kevin says. His father believes in nothing so much as respecting the elderly, and somehow Mrs. Gabler has become the Quinn family favorite. Probably because she put up with Bart’s nonsense-although wasn’t Mrs. Gabler the one who put Bart’s school desk in a refrigerator box so he wouldn’t be quite so “social” with his “neighbors”? Kevin doesn’t have time to make small talk with Mrs. Gabler, but neither can he bring himself to be rude. “How are you?”

“Now who’s this one?” Mrs. Gabler asks. “Is this the one in jail?”

“No, this is Kevin,” Kelley says. “The one who has gone to jail is Patrick.”

If I were the one in jail, Kevin wonders, how could I be attending this party?

Mrs. Gabler tilts her head to indicate she hasn’t heard Kelley.

Kelley shouts, “Patrick is the one in jail! My son Patrick!”

The people standing near Kelley pipe down, possibly hoping they might hear more about the Quinn son who went to jail. The other person who heard that loud announcement of her husband’s guilt is Jennifer, who shoots Kelley a hurt look, then says to Kevin, “She’s not in the ladies’ room.”

“Crap,” Kevin says. Suddenly he knows that she’s left. She wouldn’t want to stay at a party once she saw Norah Vale here. She would go home to Genevieve.

Kevin bows to Mrs. Gabler. “It was lovely to see you, but my fiancée has gone missing and I have to find her.”

Mrs. Gabler turns her attention to Jennifer. “Now who is this one?”

As Kevin walks away, he hears Kelley say, “This is Jennifer Quinn, Patrick’s wife. Patrick, who is in jail.”

Kevin makes his way through the crowd until he’s rounding the corner to the lobby. There, by the ticket desk, are his mother and Drake.

His mother looks pale and shaken. She looks exactly how Kevin feels.

“Kevin,” she says. “Thank God. I need to tell you something.”

“Have you seen Isabelle?” he says. Then he considers Margaret’s demeanor. “Have you seen Norah?” Norah has always been intimidated by Margaret Quinn-most women are-but is it possible that Norah confronted Margaret and gave her the same horrible time she’d given Kevin?

“Norah?” Margaret says. “No, I-”

“Okay,” Kevin says. “I’ve gotta go. I’m going home. I need to find Isabelle.”

With that, he bursts out of the front doors of the Nantucket Whaling Museum into the cold, still night.

When he gets to the inn, he finds Mr. Bernard snoring loudly on the sofa in front of the fire. Kevin hurries past him into the owner’s quarters. The door to the nursery is closed, which Kevin takes as a good sign. He slows his stride and relaxes a little. Genevieve is asleep; Isabelle is probably in their room. Kevin can’t resist the urge to check on his daughter.

Quietly, he cracks open the door. The night-light is on, just as it should be, but something about the room seems off. He checks the crib-no Genevieve. Also, no blanket and no Monsieur Giraffe. Isabelle must have brought Genevieve into their bedroom to nurse. She would have missed Genevieve after being out. But Isabelle doesn’t believe in babies in the bed. She likes to nurse Genevieve here, in the rocker.

Kevin looks around the room. The diaper bag is gone. He opens the top drawer of Genevieve’s dresser where Isabelle keeps the favorite outfits. The drawer has clothes missing.

Kevin races down the hall to his and Isabelle’s room. It’s dark-and empty. His heart sinks. He can’t call Isabelle. She is, officially, the last person on the planet who doesn’t own a cell phone.

Where did she go?

Kevin bombs through the house. The kitchen-empty. Upstairs at the inn, the doors to the rooms are all closed, the hallway unoccupied. He races back downstairs to the laundry room-empty. She’s not here, he thinks. She left and she took the baby. Where did she go?

Then, Kevin has an idea. He heads back upstairs to the owner’s quarters and runs down the hallway toward the light. Bart’s room. All of them in the family have sought sanctuary in Bart’s room at one time or another, and Kevin realizes that this is where Isabelle has taken Genevieve. He fully expects to find Isabelle sitting on the bed, holding their baby, singing a French lullaby.

But the room is empty.

She’s gone.

JENNIFER

She feels responsible for the mess with Kevin and Isabelle. She should have told Kevin that she saw Norah; of course she should have told him! Forewarned is forearmed. Jennifer isn’t quite sure how Kevin allowed himself to get lassoed into a conversation with Norah. She accosted me out of the blue. So, walk away! Jennifer and Isabelle had seen Norah and Kevin kissing. Why on earth had he let Norah kiss him?

Jennifer gets herself another glass of wine. Kevin has gone in search of Isabelle, Kelley is with Mitzi, and Jennifer has no idea where Ava is; she hasn’t seen her all night. Jennifer knows exactly no one else at this party. She should go home and hang out with the boys even if that means watching them play Assassin’s Creed, even if that means dealing with Barrett’s misplaced anger. But Jennifer doesn’t want to go home. She enjoys being out of the house, dressed up, among adults.

She wanders aimlessly, studying the trees people have so cleverly decorated: a tree made from stacked books, a tree made of blond wood stacked like Jenga blocks with clear glass ornaments, an old-fashioned tree strung with popcorn and cranberries, and hung with tiny white lights and gold and burgundy balls.

Suddenly Jennifer feels unbearably sad. She will decorate her clients’ houses for Christmas right after she gets back to Boston-it will mean a week of twelve-hour days-but she’s not going to decorate her own house. Okay, she’ll do a little decorating maybe, but she won’t go whole hog as she has in years past. How can she, with Patrick locked up? People tell her all year long how they anticipate the day her tree goes up; it is, some say, the best tree in all of Beacon Hill. So maybe she’ll decorate the tree after all. It’s good advertising for her interior design business. Plus, the boys will expect a tree. Or will they even notice?

Patrick told her last week that the prison has a sad little artificial tree in the common room with blue and red lights. The tree itself is white. It looks like a Fourth of July tree, Patrick said.

Patrick would want Jennifer to decorate at home and so she will. And then, on December 23rd, she will take it all down before she and the boys fly to San Francisco to spend Christmas in her mother’s showcase Victorian on Nob Hill. Jennifer and Patrick will be three thousand miles apart on Christmas and New Year’s. There aren’t enough pills in all the world to combat this depressing fact.

When Jennifer rounds the corner toward the front of the museum, she sees Margaret and Drake. She loves being with Margaret and Drake, they are the most interesting people in the world, but it looks like they’re in the middle of a very serious, very intimate conversation, and Jennifer decides not to bother them just now. She ducks out the front. She could use some fresh air.

Standing just outside the museum smoking a cigarette by herself is Norah Vale.

Oh come on! Jennifer thinks. Really?

She can’t turn around. Norah has seen her.

“Jennifer,” she says.

“Hey, Norah,” Jennifer says.

“I saw Kevin run after his little girlfriend,” Norah says. “She’s blond? Since when does anyone in the Quinn family date blondes?”

“You need to leave Kevin alone, Norah,” Jennifer says. “He’s happy.”

“Wanna know what I hated more than anything, back in the day?” Norah asks. “It was when you told me what to do. Like when you told me to stop dyeing my hair because it made me look cheap.”

“Did I tell you that?” Jennifer says. “I don’t remember.”

Norah sucks on her cigarette. “I got news for you, sister,” she says in a voice pinched by holding smoke in her lungs. She exhales. “I am cheap.”

“You sound proud of that fact,” Jennifer says.

Norah laughs. “You’re still as stuck-up as ever.”

“Stuck-up?” Jennifer says. “Now there’s a term I haven’t heard since my Molly Ringwald days.”

“The Breakfast Club,” Norah says. “My favorite movie.”

“That’s right. You liked Ally Sheedy.”

“Good memory,” Norah says. “So… how are things with you? Patrick is in the slammer?”

In the slammer. Jennifer wonders how someone as decent and kind as Patrick can be in the slammer while a horror show like Norah Vale walks around free. It doesn’t make sense.

“He is,” Jennifer says. “He made some bad decisions. So for the record, it’s kind of hard to be stuck-up when your husband is in jail.”

“Touché,” Norah says. She holds the cigarette out to Jennifer. “You want?”

Jennifer has a clear flashback to a summer day years and years earlier. Jennifer and Patrick were on Nantucket for the weekend, staying at the inn; they were preparing a beach picnic. Jennifer had been in the kitchen making potato salad while Norah smoked outside on the deck. Jennifer had plucked two black olives from the jar and opened the screen door. She held the olives out to show Norah. See these? Jennifer had said. These are what your lungs look like.

No wonder Norah hated her! She had been stuck-up! In the days before she had children and learned how fallible she was, she had thought she was better than Norah.

“No thanks,” Jennifer says. “I have other vices these days.”

“You?” Norah says.

“Yes, me,” Jennifer says. She stares at Norah and wonders… could it hurt to ask? Jennifer’s desperate, but is she desperate enough to ask Norah Vale, Cautionary Tale, for pills? Jennifer is very low on other options. “You don’t, by any chance, know where I can get some oxycodone?”

Norah’s laugh explodes like a stick of dynamite. Jennifer jumps. “Oxycodone?” Norah says. “Have you got yourself a pill problem?”

Jennifer considers pivoting on her heels and going back inside, but she needs to confess to someone. Why not Norah, who hates her anyway? “I do,” she says.

Norah’s expression softens. “Oh,” she says. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Jennifer shrugs. “Do you know where I can get any?”

Norah nods. “Sure.”

Jennifer jumps again. “You do?”

“Sure,” Norah says. “But it won’t be cheap. Thirty dollars a pill.”

Thirty dollars a pill? Norah is scamming her.

“I can pay ten dollars a pill,” Jennifer says.

“Twenty,” Norah says.

“Fifteen,” Jennifer says. She would pay twenty, she needs them so badly. She wonders if Norah is bluffing, or if she can actually deliver. The latter is too exciting to believe.

“How many do you want?” Norah asks.

“How many can you get?” Jennifer asks.

“Thirty?” Norah says.

Thirty pills. If Jennifer is careful, that might be enough to last her until Patrick gets out.

“Perfect,” Jennifer says. “I’ll give you four hundred and fifty dollars.”

“I can swing by the inn with them tomorrow,” Norah says.

“Not the inn, Norah, come on.”

Norah stomps out her cigarette on the sidewalk with the heel of her beat-up Frye boot. Jennifer has the urge to pick up the butt and throw it away properly. She has the urge to tell Norah that those boots need to be replaced and Norah should take the profit from the pill sale right to Neiman Marcus.

No wonder Norah hates her. Stuck-up. Snobby pop-tart.

“Where do you want me to meet you, then?” Norah asks.

“How about in the Stop & Shop parking lot at ten?” Jennifer says.

“Ten?” Norah says. “That’s early for me. How about eleven?”

Eleven is the time of Genevieve’s baptism, but Jennifer isn’t about to tell Norah Vale this. “I can’t do eleven,” Jennifer says. “How about ten thirty?”

“Ten thirty in the Stop & Shop parking lot,” Norah says. “I’ll see you there.”

Jennifer nods. On the one hand, she can’t believe she is going to do a drug deal with Norah Vale in the Stop & Shop parking lot; on the other hand, her biggest fear is Norah not showing up with the pills.

She’s an addict.

“Do you want my cell phone number?” Jennifer asks. “In case there’s a problem?”

“There won’t be a problem,” Norah says. “I’ll see you in the morning.”