A Vineyard Morning

by Jean Stone

  Once they, too, reached Edgartown, Annie braced herself as Taylor gunned the engine; they caught up with the ambulance before reaching the Triangle. Luckily, it wasn’t summer yet so the traffic was manageable. But the thought of tourist season began to bear down on Annie: what it might or might not bring. And, most of all, what would happen to Donna.

  “Did your mother relapse?” Taylor said, and once again it took a few seconds for Annie to realize that “mother” meant Donna and not Ellen Sutton who’d been dead for years and whom Taylor hadn’t known, anyway.

  “I don’t know.” She didn’t tell her Kevin’s suspicion.

  “Kevin must be taking it hard.”

  “He will if something’s gone wrong.”

  Taylor nodded. She did not pry further, which caused Annie to feel more nervous about Donna’s condition. Annie knew practically nothing about any kind of cancer except the leukemia that her mother Ellen had had, and, of course, Murphy’s multiple myeloma. But ovarian cancer was a mystery to her. Except she now knew that Donna had lost her hair.

  She hoped the EMTs hadn’t removed Donna’s wig while Kevin was there.

  “I always believed that mothers and sons had a special bond,” Taylor continued as they chased the ambulance across Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road, past the numbered streets from Twenty-First to First on the north side, some of which had names instead of numbers, though Annie did not know why.

  “Kevin and Donna do have a special bond,” Annie replied.

  “I wanted one with Jonas. But it didn’t work out that way.”

  Annie tried to think of something kind to say, instead of asking Taylor to please be quiet so she could concentrate on what might be going on in the back of the vehicle ahead. Would Kevin text her if anything else happened?

  She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, Taylor. But have you heard from Jonas? Is he settled in . . . somewhere?”

  “If he’s settled anywhere, it would be at his grandparents’ place in New York. He has no money of his own. But no, I haven’t heard a word.”

  “I’m sorry, Taylor. I wish I could have helped.”

  The ambulance turned right, down County Road; Taylor steered the pickup behind it. “You could start by finding out who that bone belongs to. I think Jonas became obsessed with thinking it’s his father. For some reason, he still thinks I might have killed the only man I ever loved. So, yeah. The sooner you find that out, the better. Though I don’t expect that if it’s him, they’ll be able to tell from half a skull that I didn’t push him.”

  Annie didn’t respond. She certainly didn’t want to tell Taylor what Lucy had said about the email Jonas had received from the woman up in Boston. Taylor had enough reasons to be angry at the world right then.

  They passed Farm Neck Golf Club where former President Obama was known to play, then they slipped through the intersection where Barnes Road cut across to Wing Road toward the center of Oak Bluffs. Just as Annie knew the emergency protocol on Chappy, she also knew the route to the hospital.

  Though it seemed like more than an hour, only minutes had elapsed when they pulled into the ER entrance at the hospital, where the EMTs were already rolling the gurney from the ambulance. Annie sucked in her breath and got out of Taylor’s truck.

  * * *

  “No change?” Annie questioned Kevin once they were inside and Donna had been whisked down the hall to a private room. They’d been asked to take a seat in the waiting room until the doctor examined her.

  They sat, pitched halfway off the chairs, ready to leap when they were told they could go in.

  Kevin shook his head, then rubbed his hands together. “She came to—twice—in the ambulance, but went out again. Now I know she’s sicker than we thought.”

  Sicker than she led us to believe, Annie wanted to say, but did not. She patted Kevin’s hand. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. For all we know, this is routine after chemo.”

  He nodded, but did not look convinced. After another minute he said, “She’s wearing a wig. I didn’t know that.”

  Annie bit her lip. “I’m not surprised. Hair loss is common, Kevin. The chemo. You know?”

  “Well, she didn’t tell me. I wonder what other secrets she is keeping.”

  Annie didn’t answer because she did not know, either.

  Taylor came into the waiting room after parking the truck. “Do you want me to go out back and find out what they’re doing?” As an EMT, she must have had access.

  “Yes,” Kevin answered before Annie could say, “No, thanks.” As badly as she’d tried to like Taylor, the claims from the email that Lucy had recalled came back to Annie’s mind: “Taylor only got pregnant so she could get the Flanagans’ money.... And then she killed him.”

  Taylor disappeared, and they sat some more, Kevin rubbing his hands, Annie’s gaze fixated on the walls.

  “Things had been going pretty well, hadn’t they?” Kevin asked after a time.

  “They had,” Annie replied.

  “I really think I should get her back to Boston now. If she’s this sick . . .”

  “That’s up to the two of you. But let’s see what the doctor says.”

  “You’d be okay if we pulled out? If I bailed on the Inn? Would you come, too, or would you stay?”

  Annie sighed. “I don’t know, Kevin. Let’s wait and see.”

  He nodded, but she knew that wasn’t the answer he’d wanted.

  They waited.

  And waited.

  Every few minutes, Kevin stood. And paced.

  After about an hour, John was there. He held Annie for a couple of minutes and told her everything would be all right. Though she was not convinced, it was nice to hear him say it. Then he said he had to work until midnight, and that the next day he had to be on the Cape at a regional meeting at the courthouse in Barnstable. He asked her if she wanted him to cancel it.

  Though she wanted to say yes, Annie said no. After all, Kevin was there. And Taylor. And Earl and Claire were just a phone call away.

  So John went back to work. And Annie went to the lobby a few times for water.

  “I thought Taylor would be back by now,” Kevin said when she returned.

  They went back to waiting.

  Then Annie said, “It can’t be much longer.” In her mind, she feared that the delay couldn’t result in anything good.

  And, still, they waited.

  Two hours and forty-five minutes from when they’d walked into the ER, Taylor reappeared. “Come on back. They’ve finished the tests.” She guided them into a small, pale yellow room that had two straight-back chairs, a stool, and a computer desk.

  A nondescript doctor introduced himself; Annie immediately forgot his name. Taylor backed out of the room and closed the door behind her.

  “Your mother is slightly anemic,” the doctor explained in a low voice. “But that wasn’t reason enough for her to keep losing consciousness. She does, however, have fluid around her lungs. We’re draining it so her breathing will be somewhat better, but we don’t know how long it will be effective. We’ve spoken with her doctor in Boston and reviewed the results of her treatments. At this point there’s nothing left to do except to keep her comfortable. I’m sorry. But, as she has probably told you, the cancer has metastasized to her liver.”

  After two, five, ten seconds, Annie put her hand on Kevin’s back, hoping to keep him steady. She hadn’t expected that she’d be the one to wobble, the one to get light-headed. She backed away and sat on one of the chairs.

  The doctor resumed talking. He said they would keep Donna for a couple of nights and give her a transfusion to try to build up her red blood cells.

  “Can we see her?” Annie asked.

  “I think it would be best to let her rest. Perhaps wait until morning?”

  Annie glanced at her watch: it was only five-thirty, though the day seemed to have gone on forever.

  Then the doctor added, “I understand that Georgia Nelson has met with her? That’s good. Georgia is e
xcellent.”

  Kevin turned to Annie, who said, “She was planning to start coming by on Monday.” So Kevin had been right. The plan had been for Georgia to do much more than “keep the cottage tidy” and do Donna’s laundry.

  “Many patients find that hospice workers are merciful angels.”

  Merciful angels. The description rolled around in Annie’s mind, crisscrossing with Donna’s words: “A bout with cancer,” “I only want to recuperate,” and then, “I might not last until the summer.” Clearly, she had not wanted to tell them the rest. Perhaps she hadn’t known how. “How long does she have?” Annie felt Kevin’s eyes bore into her. She didn’t dare look at him.

  “Hard to say. If she’d been my patient all along, I’d have a better idea. Still, everyone is different, so we’re never certain. Based on my conversation with the good folks in Boston, I’d guess a few months. Maybe less. She’s staying in your home?”

  “Yes.” Annie still did not look at her brother.

  The rest of the conversation was a blur. She asked a few questions that were probably unimportant, but she wasn’t ready to get up, to walk out, to have to face the world. The doctor answered each query and apologized that his answers were vague. “There’s no way to know for sure,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  Kevin said nothing the whole time, a robot devoid of feeling. But after they’d squeezed into Taylor’s truck—together, yet alone in their solitary pain—they rode back to Edgartown and onto the On Time, and Kevin silently cried. Which, of course, made Annie cry, too. She held his hand, rested her head on his shoulder, and stayed that way until they reached the Inn and Taylor dropped them off.

  She really wished that John was there. And that she’d asked him not to go to Barnstable tomorrow.

  * * *

  “What are we going to do?” Kevin finally spoke once he and Annie were in the cottage and she’d put on the kettle.

  “Exactly what the doctor told us,” Annie said. “We’re going to make sure she’s comfortable. And we’re going to let Georgia Nelson be in charge, because the doctor was right; they are merciful angels.” She remembered the hospice volunteers who had brought Murphy comfortably through her last days. Propping her elbows on the table and cupping her chin with her hands, Annie said, “We’ll do this together, Kevin. Like Donna wanted. I really think it’s why she came here.”

  He went to her refrigerator and popped a beer. “Tell me about your parents again. How they died. If you don’t mind.”

  It occurred to her then that Kevin had not witnessed death. The closest he’d come had been with Meghan, whose tragedy would linger as long as she was technically alive. So Annie took a deep breath and began. First, she told him about Brian. Then about Murphy. “I might have more experience at this than you, but, it’s not the same. My dad and my husband died suddenly. My mother was in the hospital for six weeks and died there in her sleep. Murphy had her family, and by the time she passed away I was down here on the Vineyard. So I’ve never taken care of anyone. Not like this.”

  He chugged his beer. “And now you have to do it for a woman you barely know. That sucks.”

  Annie got up and fixed her tea, a bundle of emotions twisting inside her. “She’s my mother, Kevin.”

  “Right,” he replied, peeling the label from the bottle with his thumb. “And your father was the guy you know nothing about.”

  Annie leaned against the counter next to him. “That’s not important anymore.”

  He nodded several times. “So we’ll do this together? You. Me. And Georgia whatever-her-name-is?”

  With a small laugh, Annie said, “Nelson. Georgia Nelson. And yes. I’m game if you are. But please . . . don’t take Mom back to Boston.”

  He nodded again, this time with purpose, as if strength had returned to his heart. “I won’t. That’s a promise.”

  Annie hoped it was the right decision for them all.

  Chapter 26

  Earl stopped by with food for their dinner: chowder, green salad, and apple turnovers fresh out of Claire’s oven—which was really nice, because by then it was nearly seven, and Annie hadn’t yet thought about what they might eat. Earl said he was sorry he didn’t make it to the hospital, but Claire had made it clear that Donna needed Annie and Kevin, not him, and she’d insisted he stay home. When Annie told him about Donna’s prognosis, Earl rubbed his forehead and uttered a heartfelt grunt. When Annie added that Donna would be in the hospital until Saturday, he said he had to go to the hardware store in the morning, so he’d stop in and see her. “And I’ll be sure to tell her that her crate has arrived.”

  Though it nearly dominated the room, Annie had forgotten about the wood-slatted delivery.

  As soon as Earl left, Kevin gestured toward it. “Give me a dollar, and I’ll tell you what’s in it.”

  “I only know it weighs a ton.”

  Without further comment, he pulled out his key ring—a Swiss Army knife dangled from it. But after quick examination, he scratched his chin the way Earl often did. “I definitely need something stronger. Got a crowbar I can use to pry this thing apart?”

  “Not in the kitchen drawer,” she said.

  He rolled his eyes, then went outside. In half a minute, he returned, a tire iron in one hand. “Good thing I know my way around tools.” He proceeded to jimmy the slats, each cracking, splintering, then giving way. In a matter of seconds, the interior was visible, though a thick layer of packing was wrapped around whatever was inside. He tore off a corner of the padded paper. “Yup,” he said, “exactly as I thought. The Louis Vuitton.”

  Annie had become exasperated with his cloak-and-dagger game when other things were much more pressing, like the need to discuss how they were going to manage Donna’s care in conjunction with hospice. She might even have preferred to talk about the fact that Donna was dying. But at least the distraction of the crate had stopped Kevin from crying.

  Slow down, Murphy interjected just then. There is time.

  So Annie closed her eyes. And breathed.

  “You know about this?” Kevin asked.

  “No.”

  He went back to prying—first one side, then the other. Then he said, “Okay, let’s hope it comes out right side up.” He overturned the crate, removed the final slats and peeled off all the packing. “Ta da!” he said.

  Sitting in the middle of the room was a rectangular trunk in shades of brown and gold, about the size of a small coffee table. What appeared to be a canvas covering featured rows of decorative symbols interspersed with LV logos; narrow strips of wood on the top and sides decorated the trunk; leather straps, brass corners and studs, brass handles and a brass lock finished it . . . perfectly.

  “Wow,” Annie said. “It’s gorgeous.”

  “Antique. Authentic, of course. Vintage early twentieth century,” Kevin said. “You might not know it, but good old Louis started his business in 1854, in Paris, of course, on the Rue Something-or-other. He made a fortune off his trunks that had flat tops like this because they were lightweight and could easily be stacked. Not like those round-topped steamer ones.”

  “Wow,” Annie repeated. “I did not know any of that.”

  “If Mom was willing to sell it—which I highly doubt—it could be yours for about thirty grand, give or take a few thousand. I’m not sure what the market is now.”

  Annie took a step back. “Thirty thousand dollars? It’s a trunk! Are there gold bricks inside?”

  “That’s what it’s worth empty. It’s handcrafted, you know? But don’t ask me what’s inside. I have no idea. I only know I’ve never been allowed to touch it. Mom kept it in her bedroom, in a ‘special place,’ as she called it. She got it right after she opened the shop on Newbury Street.”

  “And you really have no idea what’s in it?”

  “Nope. I’ve never even seen it open. Of course, the more I was told NEVER to open it—‘under ANY circumstances’—the more I wanted to. There’s nothing like temptation to drive a kid nuts. For years, I sea
rched for the key. Never found it. Somewhere around age twenty-five, I gave up on the damn thing.”

  “But the trunk is full?”

  “I guess. ‘Cuz I don’t think it weighs this much by itself.”

  “And Donna wanted it here.”

  “Looks like.”

  “Maybe she’ll let you look inside now?”

  He scratched his chin again. “Ha,” he said. “I wouldn’t dare ask.” He stared at the trunk a few more seconds then said, “We might as well slide it into the bedroom. My bet is she’ll want it there.” But his eyes had grown misty again, and he didn’t move.

  Annie put her hand up on his back. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll help. We can do this together.” She hoped he knew she wasn’t only talking about moving the trunk.

  * * *

  They ate a little dinner, then Kevin said he wanted to get back to work because manual labor helped calm his nerves; he said he had plenty of LED lanterns to provide enough light. As soon as he left, Annie put a call in to Georgia Nelson, which went straight to voice mail. While waiting for a response, she surveyed the bedroom, hoping it would be big enough if they needed a hospital bed for Donna. Annie knew so little about caring for a sick person. When Claire had had her stroke, Annie had helped out around their house and had done a few personal things for her when she came home from rehab. This time, however, things were different: Donna would not be rehabbing. Instead, she’d be waiting for her body to do what it was going to do. And when.

  Looking at the trunk again, Annie was pleased that it fit nicely between the window and the bureau. She hoped its presence would bring Donna comfort. No matter what was in it. Annie smoothed her hand across the top, but when she reached the brass lock, her fingers stopped. If the trunk held secrets, they were not her secrets to investigate. Donna’s life, after all, was not a book, and Donna wasn’t one of Annie’s characters.

  Knowing it would be impossible to accomplish any work, Annie wondered if, though it was late, she should go back to the hospital and sit with Donna whether or not she was still sleeping. As long as a patient or visitor did not have a communicable disease, the hospital had no restrictions about visiting hours. But before Annie had a chance to opt for going or staying put, Georgia called. Annie brought her up to date; she also said that she and Kevin now knew that Georgia was with hospice.