A Vineyard Wedding

by Katie Winters

  “And waste this dress? No way,” Susan replied with a wicked grin.

  Scott drove them toward Edgartown, where he parked the truck just south of the Italian restaurant called Cacciapaglia’s. They walked hand-in-hand up the sidewalk, passing by several Edgartown socialites, including Mila, who owned the esthetician salon which Susan had begun to frequent.

  “Looking radiant, Susan Sheridan,” Mila said as she passed.

  “All thanks to you, Mila.”

  “No. This is all thanks to God himself. I just tend to the beautiful garden,” Mila said with a wink.

  Once at the table, Scott couldn’t take his eyes off her. “It’s funny, seeing all the people of the Vineyard look at you the way they do. For years, I knew that I had lost something special when you went away and now that I have you back, I spend most of the time pinching myself. I don’t know what on earth I did right to bring you back. But here you are and I’m totally in love.”

  They held hands across the white tablecloth as they ordered expensive wine, olives, and cheese to start. The conversation between them flowed beautifully, just as it always had; every few minutes, however, Susan felt stabbed with the memory of Kellan and all the confusion that came with him.

  After they ordered their mains — spaghetti and meatballs and lasagna — Susan found herself weaving toward the topic of the wedding, which they had decided long ago would be an outdoor wedding, reserved at the Harbor View Hotel on June 19th.

  “Amanda wants to kill me because I haven’t picked out a dress yet,” she said. “You’ve ordered your tux already, haven’t you?”

  Scott turned his eyes toward the olives. Susan’s heart hammered with apprehension.

  “I’m sorry. I meant to do that on the day I heard from Kellan’s mother. Everything kind of flew out the window after that.”

  “It’s understandable,” Susan said hurriedly.

  “Yeah. I hope so. I mean, I don’t even know how logical any of this is.”

  “Logical?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you mean, exactly?”

  “I mean, Kellan just arrived. He’s already struggling with school. There are a million things up in the air right now and I have to relearn how to be a dad...”

  Susan leaned back in her chair and released her hand from Scott’s. Her lips were downturned.

  Scott ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. “I’m sorry. I really am. I find myself not sleeping well. I’m missing you all the time and I’m terrified that I’ve already messed up my son because I didn’t move to Boston when they did. I feel that I’ve done so many things wrong. And even now, I’m doing more things wrong. I know you’re angry with me. I can feel it. But I don’t know how to fix any of this.”

  Susan’s nostrils flared. She’d never seen Scott like this — so whiny, so resistant.

  “I don’t know what you want me to say. Do you want me to say that we should push back the wedding?”

  Scott’s eyes widened. “No! I didn’t say that.”

  “I mean, you clearly have some reservations about everything. It’s understandable. It’s not like I don’t have reservations, too. This whole thing was just sprung upon me. I hardly know Kellan and this version of him is frankly the polar opposite of last year. Not saying that’s anyone’s fault. Teenagers tend to change in the blink of an eye. I’m just saying. I don’t feel fully equipped to deal with him all the time. And I had no idea that I would just suddenly have to play full-time step-mom. You know?”

  This was difficult territory. Susan wasn’t entirely sure how they’d arrived here. Sure, they’d needed to talk directly since Kellan’s arrival. But this wasn’t the time nor the place. Already, due to her tone, several other diners had glanced their way in annoyance. Nobody liked a public argument.

  “If you need to take a step back from me, from us, then I understand,” Scott said somberly.

  “I didn’t say that. Did I say that?” Susan closed her eyes tight as she swam through her thoughts.

  She loved him. She loved him so deeply.

  But they had never used such dark words with one another. Not since Susan had left Scott and the island and everything she’d ever known. She wished she could remember exactly what that conversation had been like. Probably, there had been just as much vitriol.

  Their main courses arrived. Susan placed her fork into the spaghetti and twirled it round and round and round. Scott ate slowly and quietly. After three bites of her spaghetti, Susan called for the waiter to box up the rest of her meal. She looked at Scott with an icy gaze and said, “I think I’m going to go home.”

  Scott’s shoulders slumped. “Please, don’t.”

  “I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know if you still want to marry me. I don’t know where your head is at. And frankly, I have too much work and too much to deal with, including the Inn and my family, to listen to you waffle from one decision to the next.”

  Susan took the box of spaghetti from the waiter once he returned, then grabbed her light jacket and stepped toward the door. By the time she reached the curb, an Uber driver had appeared before her, ready to drive her back home. Of course, the Uber driver was someone she’d gone to high school with who couldn’t wait to “catch up.” Susan tried her best to dig through the conversation, even as her voice threatened to break.

  It was only when she got out of the car over in Oak Bluffs that she fully burst into tears.

  At that moment, three dark figures appeared at the edge of the woods that stretched around the Sheridan house. Susan peered through the grey light of the late evening. She stepped toward them but teetered slightly as her heels couldn’t take the softness of the spring ground.

  “Mom? Is that you?” Amanda hustled out from the tree line as the others, Grandpa Wes and Audrey, who had a sleeping Max strapped to her chest, stepped lightly behind.

  Susan dropped her chin onto her daughter’s shoulder as she exhaled somberly. She shook against her as Amanda’s hand rubbed her upper back.

  In a moment, Wes appeared beside them — the tall, still-powerful patriarch of the family. He wrapped his arms around them and then drew Audrey in as they joined in a huddle. After a moment of beautiful silence, Susan asked, “What were you four doing out in the woods?”

  “Watching for birds, of course,” Audrey said. “Before Max fell asleep, he saw quite a few spectacular ones. Grandpa Wes is already trying to turn him into a big, bird-watching nerd, like him.”

  “Rude, Audrey,” Wes said with a big smile.

  “Let’s go inside. We’ll make some hot chocolate.” Amanda said. “It suddenly got very chilly out here.”

  “It’s not summer yet. That’s for sure,” Wes affirmed.

  Back inside, Susan slipped into her flannel pajamas and sat on the couch between Audrey and Wes. Max slept peacefully upstairs while Amanda boiled water and stirred them up delicious hot cocoa. The television delivered a sterling set of romantic comedies, including Trainwreck and How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, and Susan dug herself deeper into the couch and listened to the tender laughter of Amanda and Audrey. Wes’s soft snores came only a few minutes into the first movie, and Amanda hustled to grab his hot cocoa mug before he spilled the piping hot liquid over his lap.

  “We take care of each other here,” Amanda said primly as she dotted the mug on the counter. She then gave her mother heavy eye contact as she added, “And we don’t need anyone else.”

  Oh, but Susan knew in her heart of hearts that while she didn’t need Scott, she loved him dearly. They would surely find a way through this horrible fight. She just felt a bit hopeless at the moment. It would pass. Every bad feeling always found a way out.

  Chapter Nine

  The day before the trial of the State Versus Marcie Shean, Susan and Amanda piled into Susan’s car, armed with six very thick stacks of legal notes Susan had gathered for the approaching trial and two whopping cups of black coffee. The sun dimmed over the eastern horizon line and cast the Vineyard
in a strange, green-yellow light. “I haven’t been awake this early in a while,” Amanda breathed. “Hard to believe I used to wake up at five every day to do Pilates just to get ahead of my to-do list.”

  “You’re a monster,” Susan said with a laugh.

  “I’ve gotten better at it and much looser. Audrey says that I’m not as tightly wound as I used to be,” Amanda said. “I always tell her she could do with a few wounds up. But she seems to be taking the whole motherhood thing in stride.”

  “She’s a natural. I know she was terrified these last few months. And it’ll be interesting to see how she handles going back to Penn State in the fall. If someone had told me I had to leave you or Jake after you’d been born, I would have torn them apart.”

  Amanda grimaced. “I still hope she goes. She wants to be a journalist so badly, and there are just things about being on campus you can’t get back after you’ve missed the window. Max won’t remember. And she’ll still be allowed this whole other life.”

  Susan drove the car up the ramp of the ferry and slipped easily into a parking spot within the belly of the boat. Once parked, they slipped out of the car and headed up to the seating area, with its illustrious view of the water. Only three other people were on board, as six in the morning wasn’t exactly a common time for Vineyard departure. They wanted to get a head-start on the day, get their heads in line for the beginning of the trial. Susan sizzled with adrenaline.

  Once they’d sat down, Susan’s phone pinged.

  SCOTT: Hey. The other night was such a mess. If you find the time while you’re away, please call me. I would love to explain more about what I’m thinking.

  Susan darkened the phone instead of answering. She then turned her head as the ferry pulled away from the island. The motor made everything purr and vibrate, including the coffee in her paper cup. Susan’s eyes found Amanda’s.

  “You still haven’t talked to him?” Amanda asked.

  Susan shrugged. “I texted him yesterday to tell him my schedule for the week, but honestly, he needs space to deal with this Kellan situation. Maybe we should push off the wedding. I don’t know.”

  Amanda scrunched her nose. “I hate that all this is happening.”

  Susan patted her heart. “The only thing I want to care about right now is Marcie Shean. We have a job to do in Boston, and we have to reserve our hearts and souls for it. I know you haven’t had a lot of experience out in the field like this, so I hope you take this all in. It will be difficult and emotional and probably very strange. But I know we can handle it.”

  Susan prayed she would soon believe her own words.

  The drive up to Boston was unceremonious. When they spotted the skyline, Susan reached back and grabbed a manila folder, which she placed in Amanda’s lap. “I want to drive by the house where it happened. The address should be on the third page found in this folder. Can you type it into Maps?”

  Amanda did as she was told and then guided her mother toward the dank and divey streets where Marcie and the man she had loved had once lived. Redbrick buildings stretched on either side of the vehicle as Susan slowed. It was just past nine in the morning, and the city bustled with morning action. Pedestrians burst out onto the road, holding Dunkin Donuts coffees, their eyes glowing with a sense of mission and importance.

  “Such a different energy than the island,” Amanda said. “It’s possible I’ve been on the Vineyard too long.”

  “You’ve become an Islander now. All other life feels foreign,” Susan said. “I feel the same way.”

  Amanda flung a hand forward, then, and cried, “Look! That’s their building number. Park here.”

  Susan slotted her car off to the right and turned off the engine. When she stood out on the sidewalk before the house, she tried her best to feel the heinous crime in the air around the place. In truth, though, the house just looked like any old house. The neighbors who passed by looked typical, nondescript. Nothing about the place gave off an air of mystery.

  “Hard to believe it all happened here,” Amanda said, echoing Susan’s thoughts.

  “True.” When Susan turned her head, she found herself peering at the precise place where that now-famous photo of Marcie had been taken. There, on that very piece of sidewalk, the girl had been terrified beyond any earthly understanding — regardless of whether or not she had committed the crime.

  Susan and Amanda set themselves up at the downtown hotel located closest to the courthouse, where the trial was set to begin the following day. They worked primly and properly, both overwhelmingly organized, and soon fell into a rhythm of the last elements they needed to check up on. Amanda passed over the last edits she’d done of Susan’s opening statement, which Susan blinked at ruefully. Was this really her best effort? She had worked on it tirelessly over the previous few days, yet it still seemed to miss some kind of magical element.

  “You’re doubting it,” Amanda said.

  “No. I mean. Kind of.”

  Amanda heaved a sigh. “I knew it. You’re a perfectionist.”

  “But can you see if I should add anything else?”

  “No. I told you. I think it’s really strong,” Amanda replied.

  Around three in the afternoon, Susan’s stomach quaked with hunger. “I think I’d like to go eat at the burger place the boyfriend worked at.”

  Amanda arched an eyebrow. “Gretchen said to check up with those guys, didn’t she?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you’re sure it isn’t dangerous?” Amanda asked.

  Susan shrugged. “It’s in public. We’ll just go in as unsuspecting burger eaters. Nothing more.”

  “It’s been a long time since I had a decent burger,” Amanda admitted.

  Susan parked the car in the back-lot of the burger place. Outside, the air steamed with smells of cooking burgers, sizzling fries. They entered through a side door and found themselves in the midst of a super-hip establishment, with countless framed portraits on the walls of sports teams and celebrities; graffiti covered nearly every surface, and the servers all seemed lazy but cool, the kinds who talked your ear off but usually forgot your order.

  “How ya’ll doing today?” the guy who greeted them had a southern accent, which was strange in Boston.

  “Great, thanks.”

  “Booth? Bar? What works for you ladies today?”

  “Bar, please.” Susan wanted to be in an area where they could potentially see everything and ask questions if needed.

  The host walked them up to the bar, where they sat on two stools and pored over the sticky menus. Both Susan and Amanda ordered ice teas, which the bartender gathered promptly.

  “What can I grab you, ladies, to eat?” the bartender asked as he slid two drink coasters beneath their cold glasses.

  “I’ll have the bacon cheeseburger,” Susan said.

  “And I’ll have the chicken burger,” Amanda returned.

  “Let’s share onion rings?”

  “And fries.”

  “I can mix those up for you,” the bartender said. “Not a problem.”

  Susan and Amanda made heavy eye contact as they clinked their glasses together. There was a whole lot to cheers for and a whole lot to hope for. Susan sizzled with adrenaline, as she always did when she attempted to mold together a legal case. She had a strange itch to call Richard and explain what she was up to since they’d previously done so much of this together. Now, Amanda was her partner. A funny yet beautiful switch.

  The bartender hovered near them after that and flipped through the channels to find another sport. “Mid-day sports are a bit weird,” he explained. “Normally, it’s like, pool or cards or something like that. Just background noise. Maybe we could do the news?”

  This triggered something in the back of Susan’s mind.

  “Yeah! The news sounds great,” Susan said. “Good to stay up-to-date.”

  “I feel the same, but I have to admit, I haven’t been so good about it lately,” the bartender said. He snapped on the local
news, which was in the midst of a local traffic report. “Great. I can’t wait to see the weather woman. I have a crush on her.”

  Susan laughed good-naturedly and settled in. It was surely only a matter of time before the Marcie Shean case would spring to life on the screen. Then, she could dig her teeth in.

  Their French fry-onion ring combo came out before their burgers. Amanda lifted one greasy circle to the light and said, “This is a masterpiece.” The bartender laughed outright and said, “I knew I liked you girls.”

  Susan flashed Amanda a wide grin. This sort of thing just came naturally to Amanda; it seemed like. This pleased her a lot.

  As Susan snuck her teeth over a fry, the news finally changed. The words splayed across the screen: TOMORROW BEGINS MARCIE SHEAN MURDER TRIAL.

  The bartender whistled as his shoulders sagged. The news showed video footage of Marcie being taken out of the very house they had seen that day, in handcuffs and covered in blood.

  “You guys know about this, right?” the bartender said.

  “A little bit,” Susan offered.

  “Actually, I have friends who knew them,” Amanda piped up. “Didn’t the guy work here?”

  The bartender heaved a sigh and stretched a hand behind his head. He nodded ever-so-slightly and then pressed a finger to his lips. “It’s a bit awkward to talk about. The boss doesn’t want us advertising it. But you know, you girls are some of the only people in here, so, anyway. Yeah. The vile devil worked here.”

  Susan’s eyebrows popped up. “So, you didn’t like him so much?”

  The bartender shrugged. “I don’t know. He used to be a good guy, a great guy, even. But something changed over the past few years.” He leaned heavily against the bar and turned his eyes back toward the screen. “He and Marcie were perfect together for a while. I was super jealous of him. Marcie was so beautiful and so sweet, you know? But you could tell there was some serious trouble brewing between them. And you heard stories about some violence between them. But then again, he was into some pretty weird stuff. At least, that’s what I heard.”