by Jean Stone
Francine smiled. “Everything’s ready for you. All you need are your jammies and whatever you’ll want for the morning.”
Annie could have kissed her. So she did, right on her forehead. “I have those, thanks to the bag you brought to the hospital for me. But I’d like to get clothes for tomorrow. Maybe I’ll run down to the workshop now; we’ll be leaving for the hospital early in the morning. Meghan, help yourself. And if you don’t mind, I’ll have what you’re having. Maybe with a little pasta salad on the side. And a cookie. Francine? Can you stay? Will you join us for food and wine?”
“Absolutely.”
And Annie was reminded that no matter what was going on, life was best when love was shared.
With an unexpected surge of happiness, she rushed from the Inn and headed toward the workshop. On her way, she glanced over at the cottage where the light still glowed; it would be a decent human gesture if she updated Simon on Kevin’s condition. After all, chances were the guy was still upset from having shot someone. They could talk about Andrew Simmons tomorrow. Or the day after that. Or never, if he didn’t want to.
Her resolve now in place, she stepped onto the porch. The main door was open, but thanks to the light of the lamps, Annie had a clear view through the screen: Simon was on his hands and knees in the bedroom, scrubbing Kevin’s blood up off the floor.
Chapter 29
Annie’s first instinct was to run. Far from the cottage, from Chappy, from Martha’s Vineyard. But she couldn’t very well run with her feet glued to the ground.
She must have cried out. Or gasped. Or shrieked. Whatever the sound she’d made, it alerted Simon. Before she knew it, he was at the screen door, looking at her. Shamefaced. Sheepish.
“How is he?” he asked.
Her heart was beating faster than it should. She took a breath before she spoke. “He came through surgery okay. But they’re not going to wake him up until tomorrow morning.” She was amazed that she sounded so coherent.
He closed his eyes. “I am so sorry, Annie. I thought he was going to shoot me.”
The feeling began to come back into her feet, her legs, the rest of her. “I know, Simon. I know.”
He opened the screen door; she backed up a step but stopped before nearly falling off the porch.
“He’s going to be okay, isn’t he?”
“He’ll only need another surgery if more bone fragments break loose.” Her words were medical, scientific, logical. They did not reveal that, basically, she was still scared to death for her brother.
Simon stepped outside onto the porch. “You want to come in? Have a glass of wine or something?”
She shook her head more insistently than necessary. She gestured back to the Inn. “I’m having dinner with Francine and one of our guests.”
“It’s clean,” he suddenly said. “The floor.”
Annie’s toes and fingers wriggled as if she were trying to stave off a seizure. “We would have called a cleaning service . . .”
“Bill did it. By the time I got back from the police station, he’d . . .” His gaze drifted toward the meadow, toward the Inn, toward the ground. “. . . he’d taken care of... it.” Simon was visibly struggling for words; Annie wondered if his toes and fingers were wriggling, too.
“I saw you on the floor . . . I thought you were scrubbing. . .” They were tough words. For a tough situation.
“I was touching it up. To be sure . . . well, you know.”
She knew, so she nodded. “I need to go now.”
“I’d like to talk with you, Annie. I need to clear a few things up.” He couldn’t seem to look at her; perhaps he was vying for time, attempting to summon his own form of courage. “Maybe tomorrow evening?”
“Here?” she asked.
“How about somewhere neutral? Like a restaurant in town?”
Of course, a restaurant was out of the question. Annie didn’t need for John to see her out with Simon. Or for anyone to see her with him. Especially if “anyone” had a camera with a flash and a zoom lens. Though Annie had no idea where, if anywhere, her relationship with John was or wasn’t going now, she didn’t want to intentionally derail it.
“It’s probably not a great idea to be seen in public together.”
He nodded. “Right. Here, then?”
“Let’s meet on the beach. Around six o’clock?”
“Six is good.”
“As long as Kevin is awake and he’s okay.”
“Fair enough.”
She started off toward the workshop.
“Annie?” Simon said.
She stopped. She turned around.
“Thanks for not calling me Andrew.”
Under other circumstances, his admission might have been confounding. But basically he’d validated Annie’s discovery, and she couldn’t resist giving him a tiny smile. Then she gestured thumbs-up and continued on her mission to get clothes, and he perhaps went back to “touching up” the floor.
* * *
The Jacuzzi was incredible. After a glass of wine, a little dinner, and a lot of girl talk, Francine shooed Annie and Meghan upstairs to their rooms so she could tidy the kitchen. It was only ten o’clock, but morning would come soon enough—early morning, in order to catch the “custom-scheduled” ferry, as Earl called it when he’d phoned to say it was arranged.
However, with the night ahead of her, Annie wasn’t yet ready to try and sleep. Instead, she luxuriated in the churning water that slowly massaged her aching muscles. She added a few dashes of lavender oil that Winnie once told her was the best antidote to a difficult day.
Closing her eyes, allowing the bubbling jets and the scent to soothe her, Annie thought about how much she’d missed not having been able to gather herbs and wildflowers that summer; not having been able to craft her soaps: beach roses and cream, buttercup balm, fox grape and sunflower oil, and more. Her favorites were violets and honey, and her newest creation, snowdrops, both of which were unique discoveries that she’d blended with a good dose of imagination. She missed wrapping each bar in the collection in pastel netting, tying it with coordinating ribbon, and adding a label that read, Soaps by Sutton. Each time a customer purchased one (more often they bought three or four), Annie felt as proud as if she’d sold one of her books. The most important aspect of her life now was to do things that brought joy to others, whether through calming, sudsy scents or giving her readers permission to curl up with what she hoped they’d feel was an engaging mystery.
Until she’d moved to the island, though, she had no idea that real, not made-up, mysteries would permeate her days.
When Kevin had learned that his big sister was an author, he wondered if writing could be genetic, and if so, he thought he should try his hand at it because he said that sitting around all day, making stuff up, must be a lot easier than building buildings.
It hadn’t been long, however, before he decided not to try writing a book after all. He said he had enough trouble putting together an intelligent email.
As time went on, he’d finally shared the details about Meghan, about how “ripped up” he’d been about the accident, and about his guilt.
“The weather had been lousy all month, and we’d lost a lot of time,” he’d explained. “That day, the forecast was for more snow; I asked her to stay home.” But he said that, in addition to being great builder, she had a “fierce head” for the bottom line; she was determined to finish before Christmas in order to meet the deadline and ensure final payment by the end of the year. “She also heard that the client was planning another mall on the South Shore,” he’d continued. “She wanted us to get the job. So even though I begged her not to, even though I told her the last thing we needed was another job that size, she wouldn’t listen. That’s why she was on that damn scaffolding when the wind kicked up and the whole damn thing collapsed. I never should have allowed her to be up there.”
He’d also said it had taken him a while to believe the doctor’s prediction that she wouldn’t recov
er.
He’d never mentioned whether or not he’d learned she’d been pregnant. Or if his guilt had turned to anger because she’d taken such a risk. Perhaps the doctors hadn’t told him about the baby. Maybe Donna had told them not to.
The irony, however, was that now the situation had been reversed: Meghan was the one waiting for Kevin to recover.
A gruesome twist of fate. A dreadful coincidence.
As Annie smoothed the lavender water over her arms and legs, the word coincidence lingered a breath too long, swinging her thoughts back to Simon. She now was fairly certain it had not been a coincidence that Simon had come to the Vineyard, to the Inn. The only piece still missing was why.
Tomorrow evening would be interesting. Perhaps he only wanted to apologize for dissing her years before, for upsetting the young widow more than she already was. As if there could have been any chance of that.
Suddenly, the comforting bath lost its dreamy allure; the water had gone cold.
She turned off the jets, opened the drain, and got out of the tub, knowing that if Kevin woke up in the morning without complications, she would be happy beyond measure. And that any mea culpa Simon might later impart would almost not matter; it would not be able to rattle her joy.
But if anything bad happened to Kevin . . .
She grabbed the thick terry towel and held it to her face, trying to snuff out any tears before they dared to start. Then she slipped into her nightgown and went straight to bed.
That night she dreamed she heard Donna calling out to her.
* * *
Sunrise in the third week of August came early to Chappaquiddick: it officially occurred at the same time Annie’s Jeep rolled onto the On Time. She’d packed a Thermos of coffee, two slices of Lucy’s fresh sourdough bread, and a small container of strawberry jam made from this summer’s crop. It wouldn’t be much of a breakfast—not compared with the ones Francine was growing famous for—but Annie figured that she and Meghan at least would have coffee to help them stay alert.
Meghan looked pretty in a pale aqua linen sundress and white, skinny-strap sandals. When Annie complimented her, she said the outfit belonged to Francine, who’d let her borrow it so she’d look extra special for her husband. Annie nodded and agreed that Francine was thoughtful.
It was the last bit of conversation they had for a while; there would be plenty of time for talking later.
The channel in the harbor was choppier than usual, which Annie supposed might be due to the early hour. As she recalled, Captain Fred had a wife and a grown daughter; she made a mental note to drop off a few of her soaps and perhaps her latest book at Fred’s house. Though Annie was certain Earl had given him a decent tip, it never hurt to do something personal.
She knew her mind had drifted from the purpose of their mission because it was less scary than thinking about where they were going and what was going—or not going—to happen. Whatever was playing out in Meghan’s mind she was keeping to herself as she sat, her head turned toward the window, either transfixed by the sunrise or frozen with fear, as Annie was—not only from the odds of what might happen when Kevin awoke, but also about how he’d react when he saw his wife. Ex-wife, Annie corrected herself.
The more she hashed through innumerable possibilities on their short journey across the water, by the time they landed in Edgartown, she was tempted to ask Captain Fred if he would ferry them back.
But they kept going, because Annie once heard that sometimes the best way to face anything is simply to plow through it. She’d forgotten if she’d heard it from her dad, Murphy, Earl, or Winnie—the attentive sages in her life.
It was quiet in the hospital when, mere minutes later, they walked silently into the entrance. They moved past the receptionist’s desk where no one was on duty yet, then past the grand piano and down the hallway that was lined with museum-quality art pieces: island paintings of quiet rowboats and up-island landscapes of stone walls and sheep. Across from the paintings were poster-sized, iconic photographs of celebrities, including one of Barack and Michelle Obama that had been taken when they might have been in their thirties, long before they could have guessed the responsibilities that lay ahead for them. Even then, Annie thought now, they’d looked like leaders.
As for Annie and Meghan, Annie was just grateful that they were still upright and moving forward. Until they got into the elevator. That’s when Annie’s legs grew weak and Meghan started to cry.
“What if . . .” she began to say.
“Shsssh,” Annie whispered as if someone were listening. “Let’s only think positive thoughts, okay?”
She nodded meekly. But as they stepped out onto the second floor where the ICU was, Annie noticed that Meghan’s eyes were clouded.
Of course they are, Murphy reassured her.
Now that she knew Murphy was there, Annie was able to get her bearings, square her shoulders, and advance directly to the nurses’ station.
“We’re here,” she told Lorna, who was on duty again.
“The doctor isn’t in yet,” Lorna said. “Would you like to sit in the waiting room? I’d offer you coffee but it looks like you’ve come prepared.” She nodded toward the Thermos.
“Yes. Thanks. We’ll be in the waiting room.” Then Annie’s nerves began to quibble again. She took Meghan by the elbow and escorted her to the small room next to the stairs as if Meghan didn’t already know where they were to wait, as if she hadn’t spent far too many hours there already.
Twelve minutes later—Annie knew that because she’d kept checking her watch—Doctor Mike appeared. Three others in lab coats were with him. Annie realized that they, too, were early. Maybe they wanted to get this over with as badly as Annie and Meghan did.
Doctor Mike explained that they needed a few minutes to remove the breathing tube and “other things” that would “no longer be necessary.” He said one of the nurses would be back to get them once Kevin was awake.
“He’s been out of surgery less than thirty-six hours, and he’s been sleeping the whole time. He won’t be completely cognitive right away,” he added. “So bear with him, okay?” He smiled and set off for Kevin’s room, the other lab coats trailing behind him.
Annie was tempted to sneak furtively to the end of the line, to stay out of sight but listen. But even if she could manage to remain undetected, she knew it wouldn’t be wise. If Kevin cried out in pain, or worse, if something went wrong and chaos erupted, resulting in the doctor having to fire off orders and the nurses to scurry around, she knew her heart would explode into thousands of pieces, scattering its shards all over the polished floor.
So Annie sat next to Meghan and both of them remained perfectly still. And waited.
* * *
They looked like a miniature gang of voyeurs, clustered around Kevin’s bed: the doctor, his three lab-coated ducklings, two nurses, Annie, Meghan.
Kevin’s eyes had opened several times, but he’d looked directly at Doctor Mike, who gently said, “Kevin? Time to wake up now.” Then Kevin closed his eyes again. Mike repeated the exercise over and over; each time Kevin’s eyes opened, they stayed that way a half a second longer; he made soft, guttural sounds, like the kind a dog made when he was dreaming. Still, it seemed hopeful.
Minutes elapsed; Annie felt as if she’d been standing in motionless limbo for hours. She didn’t know how much longer she could pretend that her brother’s occasional blinking and mutterings were “good signs,” though the doctor kept insisting that they were.
Meghan stood beside her as stalwart as Annie, though no doubt she was as unsteady. While they’d been in the waiting room, she’d confided to Annie that she didn’t remember much about waking up from her coma except that, in a random instant, for no reason she’d either known or later learned, she’d sat up, looked around, and cried out, “Hello? Does anyone have any ice cream?” She said her voice had been raspy, and she’d had a sore throat. Otherwise, she was fine. A nurse flew into her room and gasped, “Meghan?” Then the
nurse laughed, raced out into the hall, and cried, “She’s awake! Meghan’s awake!”
According to her memory, it had been that simple. It had not been like this.
Suddenly, however, Kevin’s eyes opened without prompting. He stared at the doctor. His gaze then traveled to the other lab coats, to the nurses, to Annie, and, finally, to Meghan.
His brow furrowed.
His face contorted.
He cowered.
An emergency alert screeched from one of the machines still tethered to him: a red light started flashing incessantly like an angry lighthouse beacon. And Kevin let out the howl of a freshly wounded animal.
He used to tell people he’d hired her because he thought it was so cool that Meghan’s grandfather had worked on the John Hancock Tower. The real reason was because from the moment she’d walked into his office for an interview, Kevin was in love. Sure, he’d had his share (maybe more) of girls, but nothing, no one, had come close to causing that rush of heat that went from his eyes straight to his heart.
Sure, she’d been young and drop-dead gorgeous, but it was those eyes—those hypnotic blue eyes—that drilled into him like a jackhammer and left him unable to move.
He’d been stuck to his chair the whole time he’d interviewed her, the whole time she’d answered his questions, not that he remembered what she’d said.
Until now, he never thought he’d see her again. Unless they both were no longer breathing. He’d hoped that one day they’d meet up in heaven, and he could ask her why she’d done what she had done.
Was that why she was here?
Was he already dead?
Chapter 30
One of the nurses rushed Annie and Meghan from the room, saying over and over that Kevin was fine, that what happened was nothing to be afraid of.
Reassurances aside, Annie knew that the sound Kevin had let loose with would be forever rooted in her mind.
“Perhaps come back later?” the nurse suggested. “Give him a few hours to adjust to his surroundings. He wasn’t aware that he was shot, was he?”