It was enough to make her skin crawl.
Jennifer ordered dinner for all of them. She sat with her mother as they waited for the familiar “ding” of the doorbell. Throughout the wait, her mother seemed listless. Jennifer knew that a stroke was much more than an attack on the body; assuredly, Ariane was going through her own versions of heartache, as she’d lost so much of her life, her ability to move resulting in her inability to be herself.
“The girls stopped by today,” Ariane said suddenly.
“Oh?”
“All of them were over here and it drove your dad nuts.”
“They were so chatty,” John called from the living room.
“But it was so good to see them,” Ariane said. She sniffed as her eyes seemed to gaze out at something nobody else could see. “We sat here and told stories all afternoon. My nurse, Mary, took a nap during all of it — although I don’t think I was supposed to tell you that.”
Jennifer chuckled. “I guess that’s okay. I won’t get her in trouble. As long as the girls had your back.”
“You know they always do,” Ariane said. “Carol and Diana and Kim and Anita. Those women, they’re my backbone. I don’t know what I would have done without them after Michelle.”
On cue, the bell rang with the pizza. Nick headed to the door, paid the delivery guy and returned to the kitchen with two large pizzas— Meat Lover and Hawaiian. His eyes scanned from his mother to his grandmother, but his smile remained. Jennifer was so grateful for him. He knew how to massage any situation and make it brighter again.
“Who’s hungry?” he asked, holding out the pizza.
When they’d eaten their fair share, Ariane seemed again unable to communicate. Her worries remained with the bakery. John cracked yet another beer, and Jennifer’s heart fell into her stomach. All the while, Nick and Stacy cast one another worried glances. It felt as though they stood in the middle of a sinking ship.
Jennifer helped her mother get ready for bed after that. Ariane was listless as Jennifer helped her into her nightgown. After a long moment, she said, “I used to help you and Michelle get ready for bed. Now, look at me. It’s strange, isn’t it? How the cycle of life comes all the way back around.”
It was really all Jennifer could think about. She tried saying something to make her mother’s mind calm down. “You know we have so much time left together, Mom.” But the words sounded so flat.
“Just get the bakery back, Jen,” her mother said as Jennifer clipped the door closed behind her. “It was my mother’s treasure. I couldn’t live with myself if it closed.”
Both Nick and Stacy awaited Jen in the kitchen. Stacy shifted strangely on her heels.
“We were thinking about heading out,” Nick said. “If that’s okay?”
Jennifer nodded. She felt as though the concept of a smile was the furthest thing from her mind. “Do you want to come back to my place for a nightcap?”
Stacy gave Nick a look that reminded Jennifer just how little say she had in her son’s life any longer. Nick palmed the back of his neck and said, “Maybe next time, Mom. We’ve had a long night ourselves.”
“Of course,” Jennifer said as she kissed them both good night. “I’m exhausted, anyway. You too enjoy the rest of your night.”
After Jennifer watched Nick and Stacy leave, she marched past her father’s chair to collect more beer bottles. She didn’t do it for him; she just couldn’t bear the idea that her mother would have to see them in the morning after Mary helped her prepare for the day ahead. Jennifer longed to tell her father just how much she resented him right then; she longed to explain just how much damage he’d done and would ultimately do if he kept on drinking this way.
But she kept her words to herself.
When she finally arrived back home, she sat in her pajamas at the edge of her couch. She’d poured herself a glass of wine, but it seemed against everything that had happened that evening to even take a sip. Her phone had died the previous hour, and she felt strange without it, yet oddly unable to charge it. She felt dead to the world.
Of course, it was always in these states of mind that one of the girls caught up with her.
The knock rang out through the house and startled her. Jennifer stood, rubbed her temple, and walked to the door. In the window along the edge of the road, she spotted the familiar face of Amelia—that non-stop workaholic.
“Amy!” she cried as she flung the door open.
It was remarkable just how much she’d needed to see a friend.
Amelia and Jennifer hugged like their life depended on it. Amelia shook off the snow as she entered and said, “It’s like it’ll never stop snowing this winter, huh? God’s determined to give us a white Christmas, which I appreciate, but I almost think he’s going overboard.”
Jennifer chuckled as Amelia analyzed her face. “What?” Jen demanded.
Amelia shrugged. “You look a little sad. That’s all.”
“Don’t tell Mila that. She’s just given me all this face cream to save my skin.”
“I don’t think that stuff does anything for your emotions, sadly,” Amelia said as she pushed out a lower lip.
“Shoot.”
They sat together on the couch. Jennifer poured Amelia a glass of wine, while Amelia said, “I had to come find you because you weren’t picking up your phone.”
“I know. It went dead. I’m sorry about that. I guess I shouldn’t have disconnected the landline.”
“We all did,” Amelia said as she swirled the liquid in her glass. “But you know we need to get ahold of each other. No matter what.”
Jennifer pressed her lips together and then breathed, “No matter what. I know.” She regretted it. She knew that she would have been out of her mind if she couldn’t contact one of her sisters.
Suddenly, Amelia flashed an envelope forward. She placed it on Jennifer’s knee and arched her brow. “I received this in the mail at my office today.”
Jennifer turned it over to see the handwritten words: To The Frosted Delights Bakery.
“Huh,” Jennifer said, arching an eyebrow. She was clearly confused.
“I guess whoever you hand-delivered that document to wanted to write back but only had the address on my stationary,” Amelia said with a shrug.
Jennifer’s heart pounded as she slipped her finger beneath the white paper and tore it open. Within the envelope, she found only a single page of white paper, on which the same handwriting had scribed:
Let’s have dinner and talk about it.
Chapter Thirteen
“It’s disgusting, is what it is,” Jennifer said several days later. She stood over the counter in her kitchen. Her arms stretched on either side of her as her heart sped away in that ribcage of hers.
Nick bit into an apple and gave a soft shrug of his shoulders. After he chewed, he said, “Why don’t you just see what he has to say? Maybe he’s had a change of heart.”
“I don’t know what kind of guy could be so flippant as to think he can just buy me dinner after planning what he’s planned,” Jennifer spat. “I mean, you really should have seen this guy, Nick. He’s all money. He doesn’t care at all about the Vineyard or history or about any of us...”
“And you know that from a conversation that lasted how long, exactly?” Nick asked, arching a brow.
Jennifer scrunched her nose. “Come on. You know I’ve been around his type a lot. I know he won’t let anyone get in his way. He just wants to play the good-guy card right now.”
“And maybe, just maybe, he likes you,” Nick said, teasing her.
Jennifer’s cheeks warmed. Annoyed, she turned toward the corner of the kitchen and poured herself a second glass of wine. Beside the bottle sat two round birthday cakes, decorated beautifully with icing flowers, each with a different name.
The first read: Jennifer. The second? Michelle.
It was something of a tradition to keep celebrating Michelle’s birthday into infinity. Even today, on what should have been Michel
le’s forty-first birthday.
“You should give him a chance to say what he wants to say, Mom,” Nick said, again trying to reason with his mother. “Why not? If he tears down the bakery, he tears down the bakery. But doesn’t something inside you want to know what he’s up to, sending you a letter like this?”
When Jennifer turned around, she found her son with a small present sitting on the palm of his hand. It was wrapped in a glowing blue wrapping paper and tied with a white bow.
“Nicholas. What did you do?”
Nick shrugged sheepishly. “It’s not like I wouldn’t get a present for my mother on her birthday.”
“I always forget that you’re an adult these days. You can actually do stuff like that. Without your father,” Jennifer beamed at him.
“Dad said he wanted to swing by to say hello, but that he got tied up at work,” Nick said. “But he said he’d call.”
Jennifer’s heart felt tugged in a thousand different directions. Naturally, she wanted to hear from Joel on her birthday; she’d spent nearly every other birthday of her life alongside him. Even still, it had been confirmed in recent weeks that Joel Porter was, indeed, dating someone new. She was almost certain that he had plans with her that evening.
She was happy for him, though. At least, she wanted to be happy for him. It was something she would have to work on.
Jennifer opened Nick’s present slowly. Her brow furrowed as she lifted the top to discover a beautiful necklace with inlaid green jewels.
“They match your eyes,” Nick said. “I mean, Stacy said they matched your eyes. That’s the thing about fiancés, isn’t it? They do all the heavy-lifting in terms of gifts...”
Jennifer cackled. “You didn’t have to give yourself away like that.”
“Come on. You know I don’t have a flair for jewelry,” Nick admitted. “But I did agree that it would look awesome on you. Dare I say—you should wear it when you meet this developer guy?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jennifer looked at him like he was crazy. “I’m never going to see that guy again.”
Camilla appeared in the kitchen seconds later. She’d been in Jennifer’s bedroom, napping briefly after a long stint at the hospital. She’d been the one to bring the cakes over. She stretched her arms over her head as she yawned into a smile.
“There he is. Nicholas, my boy. You’re looking—old.”
“Thanks, Aunt Camilla,” Nick grinned with a roll of his eyes. “I know better than to think that’s any kind of compliment.”
“Good. Because it isn’t,” Camilla replied as she swatted him playfully. “You know it’s about time for the others to arrive, don’t you?”
“Of course. Of course. I would never get in the way of tradition,” Nicholas said as he stretched his palms out. “I know what you ladies are like.”
“Let the witching hour begin!” Camilla said with a laugh.
Nick hugged his mother a final time and said, “Thanks for letting me spend the day with you. I loved it.”
Jennifer had loved it so much, too. There was something strange about watching Nick grow into a young man. Before her eyes, he’d transformed into more of a friend than her offspring. He was now much older than she’d been when she’d given birth to him. Beyond that, he’d been wiser than she at a much younger age. She wasn’t sure how she’d gotten so lucky with him. She supposed it had something to do with Michelle — and the fact that Michelle had known about him, even without Jennifer saying a word about the pregnancy.
It still haunted her. It always would.
Over the next twenty minutes, the rest of the girls arrived at Jennifer’s house. They carried presents, showered her with kisses and hugs, and gathered in the kitchen for glasses of wine and wild conversation. There was always something about December 15 — something that broadened their smiles and made them especially in love with one another. The memory of Michelle rejuvenated them. It made them grateful for everything they had.
As per tradition, Jennifer had cooked all of Michelle’s favorite foods for their birthday celebration: cheesy lasagna, mozzarella sticks, baked potatoes with tiny pieces of bacon, garlic bread with still more cheese, and homemade sweet potato fries.
“It’s always such a shock to see it all out together like this,” Mila said with a laugh. “I can’t believe these were her favorite foods.”
“They were our favorite foods, too,” Amelia affirmed. “And to be honest with you, I can’t wait to have second helpings of everything. Plus cake.”
They sat at the dining room table. Jennifer put some of their favorite high school tracks on the speaker system. They’d graduated twenty-two years before, which had planted them directly in the middle of some of the biggest ‘90s jams.
“Remember driving around in Joel’s car singing this one?” Amelia said with a sigh as “Don’t Look Back in Anger” by Oasis came on the speaker. “I swear, we screamed it so loud that he threatened to drop us off near Chilmark and make us walk back.”
Jennifer cackled at the memory, even though it felt like her heart would break in two. Joel was a part of her past, as was Michelle, as was, very soon, the Frosted Delights Bakery. How many things would she have to say goodbye to?
When the cakes were placed in the center of the table, Mila rose to snap a lighter over the candles. Amelia dimmed the lights as the five of them began to sing. Jennifer’s eyes brimmed with tears and her heart swelled with the love she had for these women around her. Every single year, no matter how many decades went past, she still ached, wanting so much for her sister to sit beside her. They’d had only seventeen birthdays together. They should have had at least forty-one.
When the final words were sung, all of the Sisters of Edgartown blew the candles out simultaneously and then they blinked into the darkness.
Then, as was their custom, Jennifer began to speak.
“To my sister, Michelle,” she said into the darkness. Smoke billowed around them from the candles. “It’s been a pretty crazy year. I guess I say that every year, but this one had something a bit extra about it, I’d say. I guess you already know about the divorce, but this was the first year I fully fell into singledom. I haven’t been single since my early teen years, as you know, so that was a pretty wild journey. Also, Mom had a stroke. She’s okay now, I think, but it’s put us all in a strange place. And beyond that, some developer wants to come in and tear the Frosted Delights Bakery down to make way for some new venture. You’d hate it, Michelle. You’d do much better than I did at standing up to him. I wish I had more of your strength. I wish I had more of your bravery. Know that in everything we do, we think of you, we love you, and we honor your life. Happy birthday to my beautiful sister up in heaven.”
One by one, they all said their own speech to Michelle about what they’d been up to the previous year. Camilla spoke about her long hours at the hospital and about her daughter, Andrea, and about her struggles with her husband, Jonathon. “I love him. It’s complicated, getting older and learning how love changes,” she breathed.
Then, Mila explained the heartache she’d endured as she had struggled forward without her husband, Peter.
Amelia spoke about her hardships at work. She also added, “Every year that passes, I know that I’ve missed out on something enormous. I never found love the way so many of our sisters did. I can’t understand why I didn’t allow it for myself. It worries me. I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished, of course. I just hope that I don’t lay back on my deathbed and wonder what I could have done to make myself not feel so alone.”
Jennifer clenched her knees tightly. This confirmed her deepest worries. She’d always admired Amelia for her brave face in the midst of single-hood. She’d hoped that Amelia hadn’t fallen victim to these feelings.
But of course, how could she avoid them?
Olivia spoke last. She discussed the chaos between her and her teenage daughter, Chelsea. She spoke about the ache in her heart over losing her husband. She spoke about the teenagers s
he taught every day up at the high school and how she loved filling their heads with what they called “useless knowledge.”
“But I love them to pieces. I have to admit,” Olivia said. “When their eyes light up about a book we’ve read together, I feel like I’ve given them a kind of magic. I know it’s the kind of thing they’ll never be able to shake. I’ve never lost love for any of the books I read at that age. Michelle, I remember in particular that you loved To Kill A Mockingbird. You cried for ages when Boo died. We were maybe thirteen or fourteen, and I comforted you and was so grateful to have a friend who felt so much for fictional characters. You loved reading the way I did. I’ll never forget it.”
Finally, Mila stood to turn back on the lights. All five of the remaining women blinked at one another and slowly smiled. Amelia rushed to slice both cakes. It was a tradition for them each to have a small slice from Jennifer’s and a small slice from Michelle’s. True to form, they’d always kept Michelle’s cake a strawberry one, which had been her favorite back in high school.
“It still tastes like the color pink,” Jennifer said with a laugh as she dug into more of it.
“I know. It’s perfect. So pink and delicious,” Mila said.
After a long moment of silence, Olivia turned toward Jennifer. Her eyes held some concern for a brief moment.
“You know what, Jen? I can’t help but think about that bakery of yours, about your family—about all you’re fighting for and how much it’s worth it.”
Jennifer chuckled. “Don’t remind me of all I have to do tomorrow. It’s a lot.”
“That’s what I mean. If today is a day meant to honor Michelle, then I feel like I need to say this. Michelle wouldn’t want you to keep fighting for everyone else around you and forget about your own needs. You’ve lost a lot this year. But you still have so much to gain in this life. Why not ask yourself what you want, instead of what everyone else wants? That’s what Michelle needs from you. I can feel it.”
Jennifer looked at Olivia and then studied the rest of them with wide eyes. Each of their faces reflected the same opinion and some of them nodded in agreement. They loved her so completely and wanted the absolute best for her.
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