113 Katama Rd

by Katie Winters

  Jonathon’s eyes had cast back down to his lap. Camilla wasn’t sure if she’d said something wrong or struck a nerve. The silence continued on for several moments until her ears filled with a horrible buzzing sound, one that seemed to come from the inner parts of her mind.

  “And you must be feeling that way, too. Right? Moving forward.” She now spoke a little too quickly. Maybe the all-nighter at the hospital had picked this precise moment to catch up with her. Maybe now, she was too tired to care what she said.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “You and your secretary, Jon. I told you already. It’s not a secret. I haven’t told Andrea anything. I wanted to know how serious things were first.”

  Jonathon’s lips fell apart. His eyes echoed his shock.

  Why had she brought this up?

  Still, Camilla burned with curiosity. She had to know.

  “I just don’t want you to be too afraid or something if you have feelings for this person,” Camilla continued tentatively. “We were once a family of three, and we’ll always be a family. But if you want to move forward with your life the way Andrea and I are trying to, I will respect that.”

  Jonathon’s cheeks lost all their coloring. For a terrible moment, Camilla thought maybe he would burst into tears.

  Finally, he stood up. His motion was so quick that the chair nearly fell back behind him.

  “Camilla. I never cheated on you. Not in all the days since we got married.”

  Camilla’s heart dropped into the basement of her gut. Suddenly, her false smile fell flat.

  “And to be honest with you, I wanted to tell you what happened with that secretary because she was trying to ruin me in exchange for money. She was extorting me, Camilla. I wasn’t sure how to get out of it, especially with this mess that I created with our finances. Maybe it was lucky I hurt my hand because it made her take a serious step back.”

  Camilla’s jaw dropped. “Jonathon, what are you talking about?”

  But Jonathon just shook his head. “I’m exhausted, Cam. I need to get back. Thank you for the sandwich.”

  He then traced his path out from the porch and around the side of the house. In a moment, there was the slam of his truck door, then the roar of his engine. Camilla remained at the porch table and gaped into space.

  Obviously, there was a great deal about Jonathon Franklin that she didn’t know, even after twenty years together.

  And in the silence that fell after he’d left, she ached with sorrow and loneliness.

  The man who had just left was the man she loved. There had never been anyone else.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Camilla was surprised to see that Brett Oliphant, MD, had been listed as “on vacation” over the next several shifts. She gaped at the schedule as her heart fluttered into her throat. Freedom. This was what that felt like. She’d never imagined that her workplace would feel like a prison; her career was her passion, her life. But Doctor Oliphant had slithered through the cracks of her psyche and stained everything.

  “Where’s Dr. Oliphant?”

  Camilla glanced up to see a pretty, red-haired intern, around age twenty-eight or twenty-nine. She asked this of the head nurse, who scoffed and said, “He’s probably out on his sailboat somewhere while the rest of us slave away.”

  It was true that nurses knew how to verbally destroy the upper-echelon doctors in incredibly unique ways. Camilla suppressed a giggle as she stepped away. She couldn’t help but note that the intern’s own eyes were downcast. Perhaps this was someone Brett had flirted with, either openly or not, throughout his tenure at the hospital? Perhaps this girl was supposed to make Camilla feel like a fool?

  Ah, but why should she feel foolish? She’d avoided his kisses. She had rebuffed him, over and over again. All they’d done was eat dinner together, which was perfectly harmless. People ate dinner together all the time. Throughout the past few days, her best friends had taken it upon themselves to convince Camilla that the “A-hole doctor” was the scum that lived at the bottom of the sea. “I can’t believe he thinks he deserves to share airspace with you, honestly,” Mila had scoffed. “After what he said? In a work environment? I could get him suspended,” Amelia had spouted.

  When Camilla finished work for the morning, she received several texts from Susan, who was hard at work on the case. Apparently, she had tracked down even more families, all of whom had been affected by the horrific “supposed benefits” of Montlake Investments.

  SUSAN SHERIDAN: You can’t understand how deep this goes yet. It’s really crazy.

  SUSAN SHERIDAN: I just hope you two don’t feel in any way stupid or naive. These guys are master manipulators. They would have duped me, for sure.

  SUSAN SHERIDAN: I can’t wait to put them behind bars.

  Camilla buzzed as she drove back home from the hospital. When she entered the house, she found a fully brewed pot of coffee and Isaac’s backpack, there to the side of the foyer chair. From the back porch came the fluttering sound of Isaac and Andrea’s laughter; always, despite their lack of funds or the whirly-nature of time, Isaac and Andrea found things to laugh about. Camilla and Jonathon had once been like that, too.

  Camilla poured herself a cup of coffee and padded out toward the back porch, where she found Andrea and Isaac bent over a number of glossy wedding magazines. Isaac had his arm wrapped around Andrea’s shoulder, and she leaned into him as she pressed her finger on one of the pictures inside the magazine.

  “Maybe something like that for the guest book?”

  “Hey, you two,” Camilla said from the doorway.

  Andrea and Isaac blinked up and smiled warmly. Andrea gestured at the platter of donuts and said, “Please, have some. Jennifer gave us more than we asked for.”

  “She always does, doesn’t she?” Camilla reached across and grabbed a maple-glazed donut, which she planted squarely on a green napkin. “How’s it going? Have you found anything you like?”

  Andrea bobbed her head around excitedly. “I just looked at Isaac’s sister’s wedding dress — the one she decided not to wear when her fiancé left her at the altar.”

  “It was a bad day for everyone,” Isaac affirmed.

  “Anyway. It’s really beautiful! And she wants it out of her life and said I could have it if I want it,” Andrea said.

  Camilla’s stomach twisted. She wanted to ask Andrea if she thought maybe, that wedding dress was somehow cursed? Oh, but wasn’t that foolish?

  So instead, she said, “That’s wonderful news. Do you have any photos of it?”

  Andrea dug her phone out of her pocket and swiped through several photos of Isaac, as they had apparently taken a walk on the beach earlier that morning. “Here’s one.”

  There, at the center of the photo, stood Andrea in someone else’s wedding dress. The wedding dress was cream-colored and full, like a princess dress. Andrea had once said in a disgusted tone that she detested “princess” dresses, as they went against everything she believed in the fashion world.

  But of course, Andrea had decided that this one had to do because they had to throw the wedding together without two pennies to rub together.

  That is if they didn’t get the money from the lawsuit. Camilla hadn’t yet discussed this with Andrea, as she hadn’t wanted to get her daughter’s hopes up. All of their problems could very soon be a thing of the past. Isaac’s sister’s princess dress could go right back in her closet where it belonged, as they could afford for Andrea to pick out her own dress. Maybe they would go dress shopping in Manhattan.

  Andrea and Isaac continued to outline their very conservative plans for the wedding. They only wanted to invite a few guests, family and very close friends.

  “That’s how your father and I handled this,” Camilla said, although she felt she’d said it a million times. “And it was better that way, for us, at least. More intimate. More memorable.”

  Andrea turned her eyes back toward the table. If Camilla could read her daughter
right, her face echoed resentment.

  Maybe it was just the mention of Jonathon’s name. It was enough to sour everything.

  “It was still a really wonderful wedding,” Camilla muttered under her breath. “Despite everything else.”

  A few minutes later, Camilla excused herself to shower and change. For whatever reason, she didn’t feel tired yet. She headed out into the backyard and stretched herself out beneath the sun. If she craned her ears just right, the rush of the waves in the distance swept forth. There was nothing more beautiful than Martha’s Vineyard in the summertime — even from the safety of her backyard. How grateful she suddenly felt.

  A moment later, there was a “Hello” from the far end of the fence. Camilla’s eyelashes fluttered open as she peered out through the shimmering sun rays to discover Jonathon Franklin himself. In his good hand, he held a gardening pail; his bad hand was wrapped up in what seemed to be a fresh bandage. His cheeks seemed to have more color to them and they bounced up as he smiled.

  “Hey, there.” He paused over the top of her and cast a shadow over her eyes. “Did you forget to get a chair?”

  Camilla giggled. “I just wanted to feel all of the sun at once. What do you have there?”

  Jonathon’s eyes turned toward the large plot of dirt, which was their garden. For the first time, Camilla noticed that it had recently been plowed. She sat upright and blinked at it.

  “When did you do that?”

  “I came by last night.”

  “You mean, while I was at work?”

  Jonathon shrugged. “It’s not that weird. I mean, I’m still the partial owner of the house. I can till the garden if I want to.”

  At that, he winked at her and stepped again toward the plot of soil. He bent down and felt the softness of the dirt. “Mmm. This is going to produce some of the best pumpkins Martha’s Vineyard has ever seen.”

  There was the flash of the door, then the slam of it. Andrea bucked out from the porch. She very nearly took the same tumble she had all those years ago when her lip had split open.

  “Dad?” She stood in the grass, barefoot, like a child. “What are you doing here?”

  Isaac came out after her and stood beside her as though he needed to somehow protect her from her parents.

  “I just came by to plant some stuff in the garden.” Jonathon lifted the pail as though that was enough of an explanation.

  “Andrea and Isaac were planning the wedding from the porch,” Camilla said.

  “Is that right?”

  Andrea glowered at him. Camilla took the smallest of steps toward her and tried out a smile. “Maybe we could all plant the garden? I’ve been slacking all year. It’s pathetic, really.”

  “All of us?” Andrea asked tentatively.

  Before Camilla knew it, she had dropped down on her knees and begun to make little pockets in the soil, where she added fertilizer and seeds. Andrea followed her lead and watered each area while Isaac and Jonathon worked on the other side. At first, there was silence; but as the sun-drenched them with sweat, they soon began to tease and laugh with one another.

  Andrea leaned back mid-way through their line of seeds, swept the sweat from her forehead, and said, “Phew. I can’t believe you do this for fun, Dad.”

  Jonathon beamed at her. “You find yourself doing a whole lot of weird stuff after you first get married. Remember that first year, Cam?”

  “Your father became obsessed with home improvement projects. Every room needed so much fixing. Every closet needed more shelves. Every surface needed a fresh coat of paint.”

  “You know it was all because of, well...” Jonathon shrugged.

  “What?” Andrea asked.

  “We were about to have a baby. I wanted to make everything perfect.”

  Andrea’s cheeks brightened to magenta. She turned her eyes to Isaac’s, and the two of them held that gaze for a long moment. Camilla felt they had some kind of secret language.

  After they’d planted the seeds, the four of them gathered out on the back porch for lemonade and snacks. Camilla suggested that maybe, they order a pizza and crack open some beers. Everything she said seemed taken from a script called “family life,” and she could have read from that script for the rest of her life. God, she’d missed having them all together.

  “Dad, you would have died for this little sandwich shop I lived down the road from in Brooklyn,” Andrea said excitedly. “Isaac, you remember the one I took you to? And I said, wouldn’t my dad love this?”

  Isaac nodded as he crunched on a chip. “She really said that,” he affirmed playfully.

  “I know exactly what sandwich you would have ordered. Every single time. That’s always what you do, right? You find one thing on the menu and you order it every single time for the rest of your life,” Andrea stated.

  Jonathon laughed. “I guess so. That’s me to a T. What’s the sandwich I would have gotten?”

  “Duh, Dad. You would have gotten the roast beef. That’s a no-brainer.”

  Jonathon laughed uproariously. “You sound like you did at age fourteen. Remember? That was a hard year for you.”

  “I had acne and braces at the same time. I wasn’t going to be easy to live with.”

  Camilla stepped into the kitchen to grab more lemonade. Even from the silent shadows of the kitchen, she could hear Andrea and Jonathon in the midst of their clever banter and uproarious laughter. Her heart swelled so much that she thought it might explode.

  “Please. Just let it stay just like this. Forever,” she breathed, even as she knew, beyond anything, that the one thing she could never have was the concept of “forever.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  OLIVIA: You can’t imagine how stressed I am.

  The text buzzed in as Camilla smeared the last of her mascara over her lashes. She glanced down at the words, immediately at their answer in the group chat.

  MILA: Chill, dude. You know it’s just us, right?

  JENNIFER: I’m so excited! New boutique on the island and we’re the first to test it out!

  AMELIA: Sisters of Edgartown forever!

  AMELIA: And don’t worry, Olivia. I’ll make sure everything’s up to code for the city.

  OLIVIA: Omg, Amelia. Can you just not work for five minutes?

  Camilla chuckled as she walked out of the bathroom and fell back on the bed.

  CAMILLA: I’m about to leave. You sure you don’t want me to bring anything?

  OLIVIA: I told you! It’s the complete boutique hotel experience. All food and drink included!

  After months of hard labor and sleepless nights (for reasons that involved Anthony and didn’t, of course), Olivia had decided to host her best friends for an all-night at the boutique hotel, which she’d named, The Hesson House in honor of her great aunt. A grand opening was scheduled for the mid-July and was fast approaching. So far, she had set up the website, which helped book up the place from mid-July and onward. Olivia was overwhelmed with this, as well. She’d hired various hotel staff members, many of whom had a dynamic history in the hotel industry. Still, this was Olivia’s first dip into the water. She was bound to be in the red, at least for the first few months. Or maybe years.

  But all they could do now was help her push forward, which they did with excitement, and with joy, and with multiple glasses of expensive Italian wine.

  Camilla waved goodbye to Andrea, who had plopped herself in front of the television with another round of wedding magazines. “My feet are swollen,” she said as Camilla eased toward the door. “All these stupid boat tours are destroying me.”

  Camilla buzzed her lips. “Well, think of it this way. All those tourists think you’re brilliant and educated and beautiful?”

  “What a relief,” Andrea said sarcastically.

  Camilla hadn’t made it out to the old-world mansion in many months. She was surprised to see that Olivia and Anthony had completely restructured the original gate out front so that now, you could drive directly through the center and do
wn the beautiful driveway, which was lined with boisterously green trees. Camilla slid her car between Amelia’s and Jennifer’s, then cut the engine. Even as she stepped toward the door, she heard bright laughter.

  She opened the door to the foyer, which resulted in a “WELCOME TO THE HESSON HOUSE!” from Olivia. Olivia was dressed in a beautiful ocher dress. Her lips were a cinnamon color and even her nails were done. She waved the manicure out and said, “Anthony and I spent the past few months destroying our fingers. I thought it was time I treated them.”

  The other girls were dressed just as immaculately. They hugged Camilla close and freaked out about Camilla’s low-cut black dress.

  “You look like a teenager,” Amelia said as she slid her hand over her ever-growing bump.

  “And you’re literally glowing, Amelia! How is Mandy these days?” Camilla asked.

  Amelia sighed. “We’re both just uncomfortable and getting fatter every day. Oh, but to be honest, it’s been remarkable to have a partner in all this. She comes over. We eat snacks. We go for walks. She’s started to include the baby daddy in things, bit by bit, although she doesn’t fully trust him.”

  “Isn’t he off to Yale in the fall?” Camilla asked.

  “Yes. And to be honest, I think he’s a piece of work. But it makes her happy when he texts her to ask for pictures of the ultrasound and all that. We all know how complicated it is to be eighteen. You couldn’t pay me to go back,” Amelia said.

  Olivia clapped her hands and announced that it was now time for a grand tour. The girls followed after her as she led them toward the grand main room, with its beautiful fireplace, its grand piano, and its floor-to-ceiling windows, which showed a beautiful, tree-lined view of the water just beyond. This main room led to a sophisticated dining room that had long tables, which had already been set elaborately, with white table cloths and china. “Great Aunt Marcia, of course, set aside all the china that she wanted me to use for the place,” Olivia said proudly. “The woman had insane taste.”