Return to Me

by Katie Winters

  “Good morning!” Janine said brightly. “I haven’t seen you in a while. What have you been up to?”

  Elsa grimaced slightly. Probably, she didn’t trust Janine any longer, as she was clearly “in cahoots” with the sister she didn’t get along with.

  “Here and there, busy with the kids,” Elsa said.

  “Thanks again for letting me borrow the car the other day.” Janine made heavy eye contact. She wanted to keep Elsa close. There was still so much she didn’t know about the woman. She worried Elsa would never let her in.

  “Not a problem.” Elsa’s tone made Janine feel like a stranger. She stepped toward the coffee pot and poured herself a mug, then turned her eyes toward the window.

  “I’m worried about my mom.” Janine’s words were somber. “She spends all her days in that room.”

  “I see her,” Elsa insisted. “I’m making sure she’s okay.”

  Janine’s heart dropped the slightest bit. “That’s good to hear. Thank you.”

  They held the silence for a moment. Janine hesitated. She so wanted to apologize, but she wasn’t entirely sure for what.

  “I read about this Solstice Festival in Oak Bluffs,” she said then.

  Elsa nodded. “We have it every year.”

  “My daughters mentioned maybe coming to the island for it,” Janine continued. “I want to tell Nancy that. That maybe she’ll have a chance to meet her granddaughters properly. Do you think she’d be up for something like that?”

  Elsa’s eyes flashed with uncertainty. Again, she turned her eyes toward Janine’s. “I’ll talk to her.”

  Janine nodded. “Elsa, I know she mentioned maybe leaving the island, maybe leaving the lodge. But I don’t think that’s really the best thing for her. Do you?”

  “I don’t know. Nancy has to do what’s right for her.” Elsa’s voice wavered, proof that she knew this line of thought, and it pained her. “I just want to offer her as much love and support as I can. I know what it’s like to lose a husband. Some days, crawling out of bed is like climbing a mountain.”

  JANINE WAS GENUINELY surprised that Maggie and Alyssa had agreed to meet her on Martha’s Vineyard. On the morning of their arrival, she borrowed Elsa’s car again and snaked over to Oak Bluffs to pick them up from the ferry. She stood out in the splendor of the summertime sun and watched as first, the long-legged Maggie, dressed in a perfect white dress, and then, Alyssa, dressed in a light pink frock, swept off the ferry and waved their slender arms. They were picture-perfect.

  “Mom!” Maggie cried as she threw her arms around her, in the style of a much younger Maggie — a girl who didn’t care about paparazzi or what people thought. “Look at you. You’re so tan and fit.”

  Janine blushed as she turned to hug Alyssa next. “I’m just keeping myself busy. Not much else to do.”

  “Look at this place,” Alyssa breathed as they collected the suitcases and headed toward where Janine had parked the car. “It’s so quaint. Like a painting.”

  “It’s kind of like living in a fictional universe,” Janine admitted as she helped the girls assemble the suitcases in the back.

  “Whose car is this, Mom?” Maggie asked.

  “This is your step-aunt Elsa’s car.”

  “Huh. Elsa. And you said there’s another step-aunt, right?” Alyssa asked.

  “Carmella. Although she keeps her distance.”

  “Why’s that?” Alyssa asked.

  “I’m not entirely sure yet. It seems like there were some problems in the past. A lot of bad blood,” Janine offered.

  They drove out toward Nancy’s home, which Janine saw with fresh eyes, now that she had her daughters with her. She was conscious that her heart had ballooned four times its size, maybe, and that it took only a little comment like, “Wow, look at that water!” or, “Looks like good hiking trails back there,” for her to grin widely. She found herself really wanting her girls to like the Vineyard, despite this being one of the strangest eras of her life.

  “Grandma lives here?” Maggie asked, surprised as Janine drew the car to a halt at the top of the driveway.

  Janine reasoned that this mansion along the waterfront was a far cry from her descriptions of her and Nancy’s life in Brooklyn. Probably it was all nonsensical to her daughters. It was for her, too.

  “Neal was very prosperous with his lodge,” Janine explained.

  “Grandma married good!” Alyssa hopped out of the car as her hair flew with the wind.

  As the girls assembled their suitcases outside the car, Nancy appeared on the porch. She wore a hat to shield her eyes, which were assuredly not so used to the sun after a week or so indoors, and she’d donned a white cardigan and a pair of slacks. She looked smaller and more skeletal than she had the week before. But when she lifted her hand in greeting and said, “Are those my beautiful granddaughters?” Janine’s heart leaped into her throat with excitement.

  This was a moment she would remember forever.

  Alyssa and Maggie hustled up the steps and shrieked with joy. Nancy wrapped her arms around both of them and closed her eyes. “My girls! Look at you. Your both the spitting image of your mother when she was your age. All of you, such beauties!”

  “I wonder where we get those genes, Grandma,” Alyssa said brightly.

  Nancy’s eyes found Janine’s, all the way down in the driveway. There was gratefulness behind her smile, along with surprise. Probably, she hadn’t expected the girls to call her “grandma” so readily since Janine normally went with “Nancy.”

  But the joy that beamed out from Nancy’s face told Janine to wean herself off of that. This was her mother. It was time to give power to the word “mom.”

  Janine, Alyssa, Maggie, and Nancy gathered together on the back porch. Nancy poured them freshly-squeezed lemonade and spoke excitedly, asking her granddaughters what they’d been up to over the previous few weeks of early summer.

  “Maggie, your mom, showed me photos of you and your fiancé,” Nancy said conspiratorially. “I have to say; he’s one of the most handsome men I’ve seen in my life!”

  Maggie giggled. “He’s not only handsome. He’s actually genuinely kind.”

  “A rare breed, then,” Nancy offered knowingly.

  Maggie tilted her head and grinned wider. “You have to come to the wedding, Grandma. Really.”

  Nancy’s lips formed a round O, as though she’d never imagined such an invitation. Her eyes found Janine’s as Janine nodded firmly.

  “It would be a complete honor to be there,” Nancy whispered as her eyes glowed.

  “It will be the most exciting celebration,” Alyssa interjected playfully. “Princess Maggie wants everything perfect.”

  Maggie laughed. “I’m not a bridezilla, Alyssa.”

  “You already changed your mind about the invitations four times, and you refuse to buy a wedding dress, even though we’ve looked at so many,” Alyssa pointed out.

  Maggie arched an eyebrow toward Janine. “I told you. I want to wait till Mom gets back to the city.”

  Suddenly, Nancy clapped her hands together and said, “One of my dear friends on the Vineyard is a wedding dress designer! Perhaps we can meet her while you girls are here.”

  Maggie looked doubtful, even as her voice rang out to say, “Oh, maybe...”

  But before the doubt could ring too true, Nancy grabbed her phone and began to show Maggie the gowns her friend, Greta, had created for a number of celebrities, daughters of diplomats and politicians, and other rich folk from both on and off the Vineyard.

  Maggie was captivated. She gripped Nancy’s phone as her eyes widened. “That detail! It’s insane that she makes this with her own two hands.”

  “She’s a magician,” Nancy affirmed.

  Maggie flipped through to more designs and then gasped. “I didn’t know she was the designer for Thelma Tipperton! I went to that wedding, and I almost went crazy for her dress.”

  “She really did,” Alyssa said. “She wouldn’t shut up ab
out it.”

  Nancy’s eyes found Janine’s, as she gave a little, playful shrug and said, “I guess I’d better give Greta a call?”

  “Please do, Grandma!” Maggie cried, with her hands steepled beneath her chin, like she was praying.

  Within the next ten minutes, Nancy had arranged a brief stop-over with her long-time friend, Greta, who’d apparently said, “If your granddaughter wants a dress, I will go out of my way to make her one, Nancy.”

  At this news, Maggie clasped her hands over her mouth and gasped. “I can’t believe it. Grandma, this is crazy. Mom, you didn’t tell me Grandma was so connected.”

  Janine eyed her mother knowingly as Nancy blushed. “You’re a woman of infinite secrets, Mom,” Janine commented. “Who knows what you’ll reveal to us next?”

  Nancy beamed.

  It was decided that they would meet with Greta, the wedding dress designer, the following afternoon. In the meantime, they prepared for the Solstice Festival in Oak Bluffs. Maggie and Alyssa decided to change into alternate dresses for the night, leaving Janine and Nancy downstairs alone. Silence filled the space between them, but it was a comfortable silence, a time that didn’t make Janine twitch with fear.

  “Your girls are something special,” Nancy said softly as they continued to hear Alyssa and Maggie’s voices ring out from the guest room.

  “They really are. They’re the best of me,” Janine breathed.

  “You kept them grounded, despite the world they grew up in,” Nancy said knowingly. “You can feel it in everything they say. They’re grateful and kind and intelligent.”

  Janine’s voice broke. “It means so much to hear you say that. Really. I—”

  But before she could answer, Alyssa and Maggie appeared at the base of the stairs, ready to hit the road. Nancy just nodded. There was more light and color to her cheeks than there’d been in the previous week.

  Maybe there really was something to this “family needs to stick together” stuff.

  The Solstice Festival was located along the waterline, in full view of numerous, ever-tilting sailboats, the ferry dock, and the old-world carousel, which was a historic landmark that had been moved from New York City to Martha’s Vineyard back in the 1880s.

  “That carousel is similar to both of you, Mom and Grandma,” Alyssa said brightly. “It moved here from the city to get away from it all.”

  Janine and Nancy held one another’s gaze for a moment and then laughed. Maybe this was the right way.

  Nancy flourished in this environment, just as she had a few weeks before. Janine watched, captivated, as Nancy introduced her Vineyard friends to her beautiful granddaughters. She bragged endlessly about Maggie’s engagement and Alyssa’s recent graduation from Yale.

  “They look just like you and Janine,” several people said as they donned large smiles. “You girls have strong genes.”

  Alyssa, Maggie, Janine, and Nancy walked through the festival, then ended up near the water, seated beneath a tent where they served wine and light snacks. From where they were, they could feast on the light pinks and oranges of the sunset as it glossed across the waters. They were also close enough to the live music to enjoy it while still hearing one another. Janine shivered, not because she was chilly, but because she felt totally safe and happy. When silence fell, Maggie reached across the table, gripped Janine’s hand, and said, “I just can’t get over how great this place is. It’s got this whole community feel that I’ve never experienced in the city.”

  “Stay as long as you like!” Nancy cried.

  The Grimson-Remington-Potter women sipped their glasses of wine and fell into gossip. Janine’s heart surged with love for them. Alyssa told a story of a recent date she’d gone on with a Wall Street executive. “He was the most boring man I’ve ever met, maybe,” she said, as Nancy burst into laughter. Maggie then spoke about her fiancé, about his insistence that they always buy cheap burritos from the burrito truck down the road. “We used to go to five-star restaurants all the time, and now, all he wants is a cheesy burrito from the corner to be eaten on the couch while we watch TV,” Maggie said as she rolled her eyes.

  “Men are the same everywhere,” Nancy said with a laugh. “They just want to eat and laze around.”

  “I can’t fault them for that. I feel exactly the same,” Alyssa added as she lifted her glass of wine. “Hope I find my eating soul mate soon!”

  Nancy giggled. “Neal knew how to snack with the best of them. A few months before he died, he came to bed with all these crackers and fancy cheeses, and we had a little feast while we watched reruns. I sometimes felt like we were much younger when we were together.”

  “It should be like that,” Maggie said as her eyes widened. “It should always feel like you’re discovering new things together. Right? Even new ways of snacking.”

  “I always thought so,” Nancy said. Her eyes glistened with tears, but she seemed to manage to hold them back. “I wish you girls could have met him. He was a remarkable human. Really. He changed my life. Before that — I don’t know. Maybe your mother told you. Probably she has. I wasn’t such a good person.”

  Silence fell over the four of them for a moment — three generations of women, all living out a very different storyline. Suddenly, Janine reached across the table and gripped her mother’s hand. How could she possibly translate how much she wanted to move forward? How much she needed happiness in her life? How much she needed her mother for the first time in decades?

  Chapter Twenty

  That night, Janine slipped beneath the sheets of her bed and fell back against the pillows. Her head spun with a kaleidoscope of stories, all from the remarkable lips of her daughters and her mother, and her heart swelled with love for all of them. Even toward the end of the night, when they’d again sat around the porch table at the house, Elsa had arrived home and joined them, grateful for a glass of wine and a bit of laughter. Alyssa and Maggie had brought light and joy to the house, a house that had been shrouded in so much darkness and for the first time since Janine had met her, Elsa had cracked several jokes. She found ways to bring out her personality, maybe even the personality she’d lost in the wake of her husband and father’s deaths.

  That moment, there was a slight rap to the door. Janine furrowed her brow, dropped her foot to the side of the bed, and then walked through the darkness. When she opened the door, she discovered her mother, there with two mugs of steaming hot chocolate and a soft smile on her lips.

  “Mom,” Janine breathed.

  Nancy lifted the mugs and said, “Do you mind if I come in for a second? I want to talk about something.”

  Janine turned on the lamp and led her mother back toward the bed. They sat together and turned their eyes toward the blanket between them. Without Alyssa and Maggie, their buffers, it seemed they were doomed for awkwardness.

  “I remember when you used to make hot cocoa for me when I was little,” Janine said suddenly. “When I couldn’t sleep.”

  “When we lived next to those noisy neighbors,” Nancy whispered. “I remember that. They fought all through the night.”

  Janine’s heart dropped at the memory. There, so close to the waves, surrounded by these thick walls, in the softness of her mother’s love, such darkness and pain seemed so far away.

  “I can’t tell you how much it meant to me today, spending time with those girls,” Nancy whispered. “I know I don’t deserve to have a relationship with them. Or you.”

  Janine swallowed a lump in her throat.

  “I put you through more pain and torment than any child should have ever gone through,” Nancy continued. “And then, when I thought maybe you could handle yourself, I left without even a thought about how you might manage on your own. I figured you could take care of yourself much better than I could at that point. I think I was even right about that, since I was such a mess. Always with the wrong man. Always drinking a little too much. Never having enough money. I was a walking hurricane.”

  Janine was on
the verge of tears. This was the first her mother had said of any of this since her arrival. It felt strangely good to hear it all; finally, it was an acknowledgment that they’d spent all that time together at all, that they’d gone through so much pain.

  “I thought you were okay for so long, you know?” Nancy breathed. “I would check up on you over the years. See you in various tabloids or fashion magazines. Always hear how you were this humble girl with this princess life. I was so proud of you.”

  “And now? Now that he’s left me?” Janine exhaled as her voice cracked.

  Nancy shook her head somberly. “I don’t think about him at all. I see only a beautiful, profound human being before me. Someone who carries herself well, despite everything she’s endured. Someone who raised remarkable daughters and someone who left when it was time to leave. Here you are. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me.”

  Janine’s heart broke in two. She could feel the tears run down her cheeks when she finally looked up at her mother and murmured, “I already have, Mom.”

  “Oh, honey.” Nancy closed her eyes tightly and heaved a sigh as she pulled her daughter in for a hug. They both relished the warmth of being in each other’s arms for a moment before finally letting go.

  Nancy looked at Janine. “I need to ask you if you would still be willing to help me re-open the lodge. I know I wasn’t so keen on it the other day. But you’re right. The act of helping all these women heal has always helped to heal me, too. I think it’s the only thing we can do. We have to keep going. We have to guide each other back to the light.”

  Janine shivered. “Do you think Elsa will be okay with it?”

  “I’ll talk to her tomorrow,” Nancy returned. “Ultimately, Neal left the lodge to me. And God knows, Elsa needs something to live for right now. When I look her in the eye, I see so much sadness. You should have known her before her husband died. Goodness, we were thick as thieves, the two of us. She always knew that I missed you— that I wanted my daughter back. And she was always sensitive to that. But she helped me through. I owe her so much.”