A Vineyard Lullaby (The Vineyard Sunset Series Book 7)

by Katie Winters

  6. Repeat

  Now that Max had been around for nearly two months, in good health and growing like a bean, Audrey had the strength to return her pen to the pages of her diary. She sat out on the porch swing, a blanket wrapped around her, with Max, all bundled up, in his carrier on the porch. Audrey had just checked on Grandpa Wes; he’d gone down for a nap and hadn’t stirred in a few hours. There was something so peaceful about this sunny day. She imagined him lying on his bed and watching the sun play out through the lacey drapes.

  Dear Diary,

  It’s now April 20.

  Where the hell should I even begin?

  Since Christine’s reunion with Zach, she’d split her time between the Sheridan house and her place with Zach. It was decided that until Audrey returned to school, she’d keep the nursery things at the Sheridan house. Christine would spend some nights there to make sure that once the transition from Audrey to Christine and Zach happened, Max would be really accustomed to seeing Christine’s face in the night. Christine liked the arrangement just fine. “It’s like I get the best of both worlds,” she’d said.

  A spring breeze shifted beneath the porch swing. It creaked to-and-fro beneath her. She turned her eyes back toward Max, whose little fingers curled over the top of the blanket so tenderly, it made her heart break open.

  Just past two in the afternoon, Audrey heard the back doorbell ring. She lifted the carrier with baby Max inside, slipped through the kitchen, and opened the screen door to find her expected visitors. Willa and Cassie had decided to come down for the day to meet baby Max and tell her all the news of Penn State’s spring semester.

  Willa and Cassie shrieked when they saw Audrey. Audrey placed a finger on her lips and said, “Shh! He’s asleep!”

  “Shoot,” Cassie said as she clapped her hand over her mouth. “I kind of forgot. I’m sorry.”

  They looked beautiful, alive, and healthy. Audrey poured them each glasses of wine from her aunt’s stash, and they sat out on the porch overlooking the water. Willa and Cassie both said all the right things as they doted on Max.

  “He looks just like you,” Cassie said.

  “I think he looks like my grandfather,” Audrey told her.

  “But he’s just so sweet! Don’t you want to eat him?”

  Audrey chuckled. “Sometimes.”

  The conversation turned to other things. Audrey was terribly curious about what had happened since she’d last seen them, and the girls had nothing but gossip to fill her in on. Willa had had a tumultuous affair with a grad student about five years her senior, and Cassie had done her very best to sleep with a professor but had ultimately failed.

  “I really wanted that dramatic story,” Cassie moaned.

  “I know. But we have more semesters,” Audrey said with a laugh. “I’m sure you’ll find a professor to destroy his life for you.”

  “Thank you for saying that. Willa hasn’t been as supportive as you in all this,” Cassie said.

  “I just think there are a ton of perfectly good-looking guys, who are actually students, is all,” Willa said.

  Audrey fed them croissants, which they smeared with butter and ate heartily while complaining about carbs. This made Audrey giggle inwardly.

  “It’s going to be just like this, isn’t it?” Willa asked. “The three of us, in our next place? Sure, we won’t have the ocean. But we’ll have all the gossip.”

  Audrey’s heart felt squeezed when she considered it. How could she possibly leave Max?

  But then again, it had been a part of the plan since the very beginning.

  “Ah! Didn’t you say you could sign up for your classes this afternoon?” Cassie asked suddenly.

  Like other semesters, Audrey had been given a “time window” during which she was meant to get online and sign up for classes. She nodded, her eyes widening. “Do you want to help me?”

  Somehow, she needed her girlfriends there with her to help her make the next step. Otherwise, she might get caught in the cycle of Martha’s Vineyard, of motherhood, and allow this world that she’d grown to love to swallow her whole. She didn’t want to regret not going to college, though. It wasn’t even all for Max and how he saw her. In actuality, it was also for her. She needed to do it to prove something to herself.

  Together, Audrey, Cassie, and Willa peered at the computer screen while Audrey selected a number of classes for her second year of college at Penn State. A number of them were journalism-related, while others were literature or creative writing. Unfortunately, she had to take a math class, but Willa said she’d taken the same one and had saved her notes. “You won’t even have to go to class or anything,” she said. “I kept everything.”

  Amanda walked in as they finished up the class-scheduling. She dropped her earphones from her ears and beamed at them, there at the kitchen table.

  “I didn’t know you had guests!” she said.

  “Sure do,” Audrey said. “But where have you been all day?”

  “Oh, I just helped Sam out with something at the inn,” Amanda said.

  Audrey arched an eyebrow. “Uh-huh.” She then turned to Willa and whispered, “Amanda really likes to help Sam. A lot.”

  “Hush!” Amanda said, cackling as she sat with them and poured herself a glass of wine. “Sam’s a good guy. And he’s still pretty new to the island. I can’t just let him float away.”

  “I see you want to have one of these for yourself,” Audrey teased, gesturing toward Max, who continued to sleep, thankfully.

  Amanda blushed. “Come on. Not yet. Plus, you know me. I just got out of a crazy long relationship. I just have to see what’s out there.”

  “Yeah, girl. Go out there and see what you find!” Cassie said.

  “I know you, Amanda Sheridan. You love more than you love lists,” Audrey added.

  “Come on. As if people haven’t seen you and Noah out for your little walks along the dock,” Amanda said, taking a sip of her wine.

  “Oh my, God!” Willa cried. She snapped her head around to glare at Audrey. “Who. Is. Noah?”

  Audrey gave Amanda a funny smile. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Amanda smirked, playfully.

  “Come on, Aud. Who is Noah?” Willa whined. “It’s so like you to have a boyfriend the minute you give birth. All the boys were obsessed with you freshman year.”

  “And they were even more obsessed this year because they noticed you weren’t with us!” Cassie cried. “It was so annoying. We’d roll up to a party, and the first thing we hear? Where’s Audrey?”

  Amanda crossed her arms over her chest. A small smile played at the edges of her mouth.

  “You’re really pleased with yourself, aren’t you, Amanda?” Audrey asked. “But I’ll have you know, me and Noah are just friends. He’s trying to decide what to do after this. He might go to college, too.”

  “Wow. I wonder what school he’s considering,” Amanda said. “Has he maybe heard of ... Penn State?”

  “Oh my, God!” Willa and Cassie cried in unison.

  Audrey rolled her eyes. Just then, her mother walked in through the back door, leading Aunt Susan, who carried two grocery bags. Lola had been out on the sailboat with Tommy all day, and her cheeks were sun-tinged.

  “Girls! Hi!” Lola beamed. She dropped down to kiss both Willa and Cassie on the cheeks. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  “We just learned that Audrey is in love,” Willa said.

  Lola arched her brow. “We’re all in love. As Sheridan women, if we’re not in love, then we’re doing something wrong.”

  “Maybe we should get that embroidered on a pillow,” Susan said from the kitchen.

  Cassie and Willa stayed long into the night. Audrey loved watching them take turns with baby Max. They talked about what would happen later on when Christine and Max visited campus. “We have to show him everything!” Cassie cooed. “And we’ll have to get him a school jersey.”

  “Definitely,” Willa agreed.

  It
was a beautiful thing, watching Audrey’s two worlds come together. She was so grateful her dearest friends from far away had decided to include themselves in this fresh decision. It told her something about their character. It told her she should cling to them for as long as she could.

  They set Cassie and Willa up in one of the bedrooms upstairs, while Audrey stayed up with Max, who wouldn’t stop crying. At various points through the night, she felt a pang of strange guilt about having arranged classes for herself for the following semester; at other points, she brimmed over with excitement.

  As the baby calmed across her chest, Amanda appeared in the doorway in her pajamas.

  “Hey you,” Audrey said.

  Amanda sat cross-legged across from her on the floor. “I’m sorry for giving you and Noah away.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Audrey laughed softly. “Nothing has happened yet. Maybe it never will.”

  “I feel the same way about Sam,” Amanda returned.

  “But you know if you went for it, he would say yes, right?” Audrey said.

  Amanda shrugged and splayed her hands across her cheeks. “I don’t actually know that for sure.”

  “Well. You know what’s coming, don’t you?” Audrey offered.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Summer, Amanda. Summer’s coming. On Martha’s Vineyard, only magical things happen in the summer,” Audrey said. “The island is about to come alive. And if there’s any time for you and Sam to fall in real, serious, undying love — it’s then.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  April 24.

  Christine checked the calendar in the bistro kitchen as she scrubbed her hands. It was just past four in the morning, and she had about five loaves of bread to bake, three-dozen cookies, several pies, and countless croissants. She flicked on the radio and shuffled across the tile floor, yanking various bowls and spoons and mixers from their compartments. Here, she was in her element, but as of late, she’d really felt in her element everywhere. When she had cradled Max the previous night at the Sheridan house, he’d fallen asleep almost instantly. When she had spoken to Zach about something he did that bothered her a week before, he’d made immediate alterations. It was like everywhere she went, as long as she went there with confidence and love, the universe responded kindly.

  It was definitely a weird feeling. Christine just wanted to appreciate it for all it was.

  But as she turned the mixer over the flour, eggs, sugar, baking soda and vanilla mixture, something in her stomach shifted. She placed a hand over her mouth and sped off to the bathroom just off of the kitchen. She flung over the toilet and spewed, as though she was drunk out of her mind at a club in Manhattan, and not bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, at work on Martha’s Vineyard.

  What the hell?

  Christine cleaned herself. Probably, she’d just eaten something off.

  But when it happened the following day, and then the next, she began to worry. She didn’t explain the situation to anyone, not yet, but she did go everywhere a bit slower, with a bit more apprehension. Susan had only just recovered from cancer; it was possible that there was something seriously wrong with Christine, too. She was now forty-three, after all. It wasn’t outside the bounds of reason to say that her body might begin to break down on her.

  Around April 27, Christine noticed that her breasts swelled and ached. The pain actually kept her up through the night. Zach rolled over around three, noticed she was still awake, and asked, “Are you okay? You’re just frowning toward the ceiling.”

  Christine shifted beneath the blankets. “My boobs hurt.”

  Zach rubbed at his forehead. “What? That’s weird, right?”

  “Yeah. It’s weird.”

  “Has it ever happened before?”

  “Nope.”

  Christine knew as a darkness descended over her that Zach was thinking exactly what she was — that maybe she was sick the way Susan had been sick. Maybe, they had a whole other mountain to crawl up together.

  “You should go to the doctor,” Zach said. “If it’s really bothering you.”

  Christine sniffed. “I don’t think so.”

  There was silence for a long time. Finally, Zach said, “You aren’t just going to get better by ignoring the problem.”

  “Maybe I will,” she replied.

  “It’s never happened before,” Zach said. “Not in the long history of modern medicine.”

  Still, over the next few days, as Christine went to work, baked bread, sat with her sisters, and watched Max, she felt a number of things and none of them were entirely good. She was frequently dizzy; her breasts ached; her mouth was dry, and she threw up almost every other day. She didn’t mention any of it to her sisters, although once, Susan had asked if she was okay.

  “You look a little pale. Are you eating enough?” she’d asked.

  “I’m fine. It’s just been a lot of stress, now that Zach’s back at the bistro. We have such a packed schedule.”

  AS IT ROLLED INTO APRIL 30th, Christine sat out on the back porch with Audrey, Susan, Lola, and Amanda. Max slept in his carrier toward the far end of the porch, with a beautiful view of the water. All the women had agreed that they wanted him to see as much of the Vineyard Sound as possible.

  “I can see it. He already wants to get out there,” Audrey said softly.

  “Tommy can teach him the ropes,” Lola declared.

  Susan flipped through another wedding magazine as she explained to them what she’d already arranged for the upcoming June 19 ceremony, to be held at the Sunrise Cove.

  “Charlotte has been exceptional in planning everything,” Susan said.

  “It’s almost like she’s one of the most famous wedding planners on the planet,” Audrey said with a mischievous smile.

  “Ha. True,” Susan agreed.

  “We just don’t have a dress yet,” Amanda said with a sigh.

  “Next week, maybe,” Susan said. “And the shoes.”

  “The shoes! Arguably the most important part of the whole ceremony,” Lola said knowingly.

  “Is Dad going to walk you down the aisle?” Christine asked.

  Susan nodded. Her eyes grew misty. “He didn’t get to do it the first time. It makes me so happy that he can do it, now.”

  Christine and Lola made heavy eye contact after that. Both of their thoughts were lost on her last words. Maybe, just maybe, they’d both have the chance to have Wes walk them down the aisle, too. But they knew, with dementia, life was a ticking time bomb—always.

  Suddenly, Christine jumped to her feet. She placed her hand over her mouth, then rushed through the door and hustled to the downstairs bathroom. Again, she retched into the toilet as shame overtook her. She hadn’t wanted to show her sisters anything about this weird illness. Like Zach had said, she just wanted to hide from it all.

  She hustled upstairs afterward, brushed her teeth, splashed water over her face, and gazed at herself for a long time. Whatever this was, she could handle it.

  But before she could return downstairs, she spun around to find Audrey in the doorway of the upstairs bathroom. She blinked at her with big, wide eyes — without a single layer of sarcasm and said, “Do you think you’re pregnant?”

  Christine had not thought of this. Not even once. She furrowed her brow and scoffed.

  “Um, no. I only have one ovary, remember?”

  Audrey shrugged. “I don’t think it’s impossible.”

  “It’s basically impossible. Trust me. I’ve read every single stat and the doctor told me it would be one in a million.”

  “I’ve watched you run to the bathroom to throw up like three times this week,” Audrey said.

  Christine had no idea Audrey was paying such close attention. Her cheeks warmed with embarrassment.

  “What does Zach think?” Audrey asked.

  “About what?”

  “About you being so sick?”

  Christine was quiet for a moment. “He wants me to go to the doctor. He’
s worried.”

  Audrey chewed on her lower lip. “Do your boobs hurt?”

  Christine’s heart nearly stopped beating. “I mean, yes.”

  “Just promise me you’ll take a pregnancy test before you rule it out, okay?” Audrey said.

  “I told you. It’s impossible.”

  “Just like it was impossible for you to forgive Zach?”

  “This is quite a bit different. This is biology, not romance,” Christine insisted.

  BUT AUDREY HAD GOTTEN into her head. This was just like Audrey, to dig into the back alleys of her mind, claw her way in until Christine was forced to take notice. That night, as she drove back toward the house she shared with Zach, Christine stopped by the convenience store. After a deep breath, she forced herself inside.

  Christine wandered the aisles for a long time before she made her way to the pregnancy tests. She analyzed almost every top-story in various trash magazines, and she contemplated buying several different kinds of chocolate, which she’d started to crave with reckless abandon lately. She also thought about changing cleaning supplies for the house since whatever she now used had a smell that had just started to bother her.

  Now that she considered it, from many angles, Audrey had a very valid point.

  There was something very particular about this illness.

  But she didn’t dare hope.

  She couldn’t hope.

  At the register, Christine placed four pregnancy tests on the counter. The girl who checked her out was maybe twenty years old. Christine wondered if the girl thought she was too old to be a mother.

  But probably, the girl barely thought of her at all.

  Back at home, Zach stood at the stovetop. He had the night off from the bistro, and he wore a pair of joggers that sat just above his hips and a black V-neck t-shirt. He looked chipper and happy, his eyes aglow, as he greeted Christine with a kiss.

  “I’m making tacos for us. Homemade tortillas, obviously,” he said.

  “Obviously,” Christine repeated. She tried to smile, but it fell off her face almost immediately.

  She was so nervous. She could hardly stand up.